Not Quite a Lady

by Loretta Chase

  “If I had rules, I should not bother you with it,” he said. “But furnishings are not my area of expertise. I’d better leave it to your judgment.” He paused very briefly, then added, “If any of it will fetch money, I should like to know.”

  “Ah,” she said, unsurprised. Restoring an estate of this size was a costly business. She’d guessed his finances were not limitless, and she was sure he’d hate asking his father for money.

  What surprised her was his embarrassment. He was always so completely self-assured. Yet it was unmistakable, the darkening of the bronzed skin at the top of his cheekbones.

  She ought not to let that sign of vulnerability affect her; she ought not to let him touch her heart so easily, but it was too late to protect herself. He was kind to children and dogs and to her and he fretted about his father, as any son might do. He was not always cocksure, not always coolly rational. He was human, a man she could talk to easily.

  A human who happened to be a rake. But what could she do? She was human, too.

  “My father expects me to make Beechwood produce income within a year,” he said. “I am making progress on the agricultural side but the repairs to the house…” He trailed off, shrugging.

  Incredulous, she stared at him. “A year?”

  “He wants me to be able to support myself,” he said.

  “That is not at all unusual,” she said. “Younger sons can be a severe financial drain. But only a year—”

  “The alternative is marriage,” he said. “To live off a wife’s dowry.”

  “And you are averse to marriage,” she said.

  “Not averse, precisely,” he said.

  “Not ready, then.”

  He did not answer right away. He moved to the window where she’d sat the other day, trying to calm down. She remembered how he’d sat beside her, waiting, watching…concerned.

  He gazed at the sunlit landscape beyond. Then he turned around and looked at her. “I fully understand the purpose of marriage,” he said. “It is one of society’s more reasonable constructs. It is grounded in natural law, and it is of both economic and social value. It theoretically provides protection to the female who bears and cares for progeny. It offers a means of securing property and ensuring its passing to the male’s descendants. Even in nature, among animals, males employ methods—some quite ruthless—to ensure the continuation of their seed.”

  “Too, since monogamy is not required among human males,” she said, “being married need not be so very different from being single.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “In other words, matrimony, in itself, is not to me an intolerable idea.”

  “Yet you chose to accept an impossible challenge instead,” she said.

  “It isn’t impossible,” he said.

  “Perhaps not impossible, but the very next thing,” she said. “You’ll have the devil’s own time.”

  “I didn’t expect it to be easy,” he said. “If it were easy, my father wouldn’t have proposed it.”

  It would be far more difficult than finding a wealthy bride, she thought. He’d have no trouble at all sweeping any girl off her feet, and his connections would allay parental concerns. Did not her own father consider Mr. Carsington matrimonial material? Her cousins, when they came, would swoon if he paid them the slightest attention.

  Even she, who understood men far better than any of them ever would, couldn’t help wishing her past were only a bad dream, and she might try to win his heart, truly.

  If, if, if.

  She turned her mind to calculating. “You have excellent timber, and the home farm is already functioning,” she said briskly. “The dairy will bring in a good sum. I should not advise you to sell the silver or auction off the paintings, except as a last resort. However, there is no reason to keep all the furniture. Some of the heavy pieces especially will sell for a high price to the ironmongers and such who are building those absurd medieval castles and devising their own coats of arms.” She looked about her. “You might manage it, though I suspect it will be a very near thing.”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said.

  “I doubt it,” she said.

  “You’re thinking it would be easier to wed an heiress,” he said. “But that’s the trouble, don’t you see? Marriage would be the easy way out. Whether or not my father has high expectations of me, I should be a disappointment to him and to myself if I fail in this.”

  What argument could she give him, she who understood, acutely, painfully, the wish to live up to what was expected, to not disappoint?

  “I quite understand,” she said. “I shall proceed with this lot of possessions according to economic rather than aesthetic or sentimental principles.”

  His posture relaxed. “Except for Grandmother,” he said, coming away from the window. “Nothing remotely practical for her. Beautiful. Unique.”

  “Yes, Mr. Carsington, I understand,” she said.

  She understood too much. Her heart would be so much safer now if she hadn’t let herself get so close. The more she knew, the more she was drawn to him and the more she wanted to confide in him, as he confided in her.

  Oh, she must be desperate indeed to come to this. Desperate, confused, and lonely.

  The house party…the boy…this man.

  She wished she could escape her life, if only for a short time, to clear her head and sort everything out and put things in their proper places.

  She couldn’t. She’d have to make do with sorting furniture. She made herself give an impatient wave of dismissal. “Leave it to me,” she said. “Go on about your business.”

  Charlotte could have tackled the furniture first, but the trunk, with its souvenirs of a bygone era, called to her. His grandmother and Lady Margaret must have been contemporaries. Furthermore, Mr. Carsington’s grandmother still showed a partiality for the fashions and manners of her youth. She often entertained guests in her boudoir, wearing her dressing gown, as ladies did in the time of King George II.

  And so, after Mr. Carsington left, Charlotte once more threw a cushion on the floor. Once more she emptied the trunk, sorting its contents as she went along. This time, though, when she reached the bottom, her finger snagged on something. Peering down, she saw a loop made of ribbon. Gently, she tugged at the loop.

  The bottom of the trunk came up. The false bottom.

  Underneath lay packets of letters tied in faded ribbon. A little book. And a miniature of a handsome man in uniform.

  She opened the book.

  She began to read.

  She read on, turning page after page. Then she started to cry.

  Darius was at his desk, staring glumly at a ledger, when a sound made him look up. The boy Pip stood in the doorway, looking worried. The bulldog stood beside him, looking up worriedly at the boy. Or maybe that part was Darius’s imagination.

  “What’s wrong?” Darius said. “Has someone fallen off a ladder again and blamed you?”

  “No, sir. I only came in the house because Daisy chased a cat inside, and I was afraid someone would trip over her or the cat or they’d knock something over. May I come in, sir?”

  Darius impatiently waved him in. Them in. Because the dog seemed to believe she was leashed to Pip’s ankles.

  The boy closed the door behind him and crept toward the desk. “Sir,” he said softly. “It’s the lady. The younger lady.”

  Darius’s heart raced. “Has she fallen off a ladder?”

  “No, sir. She’s crying.”

  “Crying,” Darius repeated blankly. She had seemed cheerful enough when he left her. They’d had a strange conversation, true, a conversation far more deeply personal than he could recall ever having before, with anybody.

  Yet he doubted she was weeping over his finances or his typically male need to prove something to his father or his views on marriage. “They do that, you know, Pip,” he said. “Ladies. They can be sentimental.”

  “Oh,” said Pip. “I wasn’t sure. I had to chase Daisy up to the
first floor. The cat got out a window, but Daisy stayed there, waiting. Then her head went up, like she heard something, and off she went the other way. She stopped at that room—the one where the lady tripped over the bucket. You remember?”

  Darius nodded. He had no trouble remembering how ill she’d been, and how frightened he’d been.

  This was very bad, he thought. Fretting over her. Panicking over her. Confiding in her.

  He was in trouble.

  “I heard a sound and thought maybe what Daisy heard was a rat,” Pip said.

  At the word rat, Daisy came to attention.

  “But Daisy didn’t go in,” the boy continued. “She only sat there, looking at me “The door was almost closed, but I opened it a little bit and saw her—the younger lady, I mean. She was sitting on the floor, crying. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to tell the other lady and upset her if it wasn’t important. But I didn’t want to do nothing if I was supposed to do something. I knew you’d know what to do.”

  “I’d better look into it,” Darius said. “It could be simply…ahem.” Though Pip seemed to understand the basics of mating, he probably had no notion of various related matters. Now was not the time to enlighten him. “Ladies have moods at certain times,” he said. “I’ll get to the bottom of it. Thank you for telling me. You were right not to upset the other women. Crying is contagious among females. They catch it from one another, and the result can be dreadful. You have discretion beyond your years, young Pip.”

  He rose, patted Pip on the shoulder, and, squaring his own, set off to deal with the fearsome phenomenon of a weeping female.

  Now it’s too late, I see what a fool I was. We might have run away. What could Papa do? He had no money to chase after us, no power to destroy us. We might have run away and wed. I could have given myself to Richard. Then Papa would have had no choice. We would have to wed. There’s always a choice, as Richard said. I should have chosen. I should not have let others choose for me.

  Now I am off Papa’s hands. He has his money, which he will surely gamble away, as he did all the money he had before, and no one cares about me.

  No one knows or cares that I had a chance for happiness.

  Now it is gone, forever.

  Richard is dead.

  I wish I had the courage to join him, but I ever was a coward. The same coward I was then, when I had a choice and a chance, and let them browbeat me and tell me what my duty was.

  Richard is dead, and I am chained for life to a man I cannot love. I never gave myself to the man I loved, and now I must give myself again and again to one for whom I feel nothing and never will. I came chaste to my marriage bed, like a good girl, and my reward is dust and ashes.

  How shall I bear it?

  I shall go mad, I know it.

  Charlotte could scarcely see the words through her tears. She sat reading the passage over and over while the words blurred before her, while tears fell, and her chest heaved.

  The mad old woman.

  She had been a girl once, a beautiful, innocent girl in love with a young man who adored her: the handsome young officer in the miniature, who’d written her the most beautiful, loving, heartbreaking letters.

  “I am not afraid of weeping,” came a deep voice from somewhere in the watery blur.

  She looked toward the sound.

  “My brother Rupert is not afraid of snakes, scorpions, or crocodiles, but he is afraid of weeping women,” Mr. Carsington said as he entered the room and gently closed the door behind him. “It is a terrifying sight, calculated to unman the stoutest-hearted fellow. Yet I am not afraid. I come armed.” He drew out a handkerchief.

  She sobbed, helplessly.

  He crossed the room to her. “Come, come,” he said. “It cannot be so bad as all that.” He reached down and lifted her up, as easily as if she’d been a rag doll.

  She fell upon his shoulder and wept.

  He put his arms around her.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she sobbed.

  “Lady Charlotte,” he said.

  “They’re coming in a few days,” she said. “What shall I do? I can’t bear it. How did she bear it? All those years. I shall go mad, and turn into a mad old woman and make a hundred wills.”

  “No, you won’t,” he said. He stroked her hair.

  “You don’t understand,” she said.

  “No, I don’t,” he said. “I truly don’t.”

  I can’t live this life.

  I must have some happiness, even if it lasts for only a moment.

  She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked at him, into those strange golden eyes, puzzled now and so gentle.

  She put her hand up and touched the place between his brows, where a faint frown line had formed. She drew her finger along the arch of his brow, then down along the chiseled line of his jaw. She smiled and touched his nose.

  He smiled, too, and the puzzlement left his eyes. What she saw there seemed so very much like affection.

  She brushed her finger over his lips.

  I had a chance for happiness.

  She had this chance, this moment.

  She didn’t reach for him this time. She only curved her hand, so lightly, against the side of his face. Then she stood on her toes and kissed him with all the sweetness she knew how to give.

  His hand came up and covered hers, and he gave the sweetness back, in a kiss as gentle and true as a young lover’s.

  The past was nothing, then, no more than a bad dream from which she’d awakened.

  This was real and true, the sweetness and fondness and kindness of young love.

  No one else and nothing else mattered, only they two, only this moment of happiness.

  She wrapped her arms about his neck.

  And yes, her heart said. Yes, this.

  Chapter 11

  It should have been so easy to move away.

  The feathery touch of her finger on his face, the gentle caress of her hand along his jaw, the light pressure of her mouth on his. So easy to escape.

  He had only to turn his head, to take a step back.

  Should have done it.

  Couldn’t.

  He saw the last tears glistening on her long lashes when she lifted her head, the surprisingly fond smile curving her lips as she traced his features with her finger—the caress so like the way he’d kissed her the other day, trying to win her over.

  He could have stood there forever, drinking her in: the ethereally beautiful face; the small, fond smile; the soft, caressing hand.

  He could have been content with this, and with the kiss, almost painfully sweet. It was a girl’s kiss, without artifice or cynicism or any trace of self protection.

  Even when she wrapped her arms about his neck he had only to remind himself that she was a maiden. He had only to lift those slender arms gently and step away and simply let it end thus: the touch, the caress, the kiss, all adding up to thanks.

  She’d wanted comforting; he’d comforted. She was grateful and said it in a caress and a kiss, and that was enough.

  He did lift his mouth from hers. He did lift her hands from his neck. But he kissed them, first the backs, then each knuckle. Then he set them over his heart, beating so hard but steady, still steady, and held them there.

  Her scent wafted up to him, and his head filled with it, clean and light, like the scent of flowers after a rain. He bent his head and nuzzled her hair, the curls like silk against his face.

  She leaned into him, her hands still upon his heart, beating harder now.

  One hand still clasped over hers, he brought his arm round the back of her neck and cradled her in the crook of his elbow. She looked up at him, and he could have stood forever thus, gazing into those clear blue depths.

  They didn’t have forever. They had only this private moment, this quiet place amid the chaos of his crumbling house with its hordes of servants and quarreling workmen.

  He bent and touched his lips to hers. He felt her mouth tremble at t
hat light touch. His allegedly small, cold heart should have felt nothing.

  Yet he felt something there, a stab of feeling, and he stopped the trembling with a kiss, firm and reassuring.

  That should have been enough. Time to put an end to this.

  Yet he wanted to make this kiss last a little longer. How could he hurry to end it when this was so perfect: she so warm and light in his arms, her mouth so soft, her scent everywhere, and he, dizzy, drinking it in?

  She slid her hands from his chest and brought them round him. She held him tightly, as though she’d fall otherwise. He tightened his hold, gathering her close.

  Her lips parted on a sigh, and he should have overlooked that as well. He couldn’t. She invited, and he couldn’t say no. He had to steal inside, to taste her and tease and play with her as lovers did, and discover her again, because every time he found her—in his arms or across a room or looking out of a window—he found something new.

  Now he found the taste of her innocent and not innocent. He found sweetness and laughter tinged with a note of sorrow, the last vestiges of the tears she’d shed. The mixture was never the same and always full of contradictions. This time she offered a hundred mysteries in a kiss that deepened and deepened, because he was falling into dangerous waters and couldn’t stop.

  He brought his hands down, shaping them to her, as he discovered and rediscovered every perfect curve: the graceful arch of her neck and the slender shoulders, the full curve of her breasts, whose warmth he felt though the thin layers of her summer dress.

  The warmth was inside him, too, heat snaking swiftly down. It melted his thoughts, orderly and disorderly, along with all the mysteries he wanted to solve and couldn’t hope to, not all at once in this stolen moment.

  What remained was only a man’s simple longing for a woman.

  He said, his voice rough, “We need to stop.”

  “I know,” she said.

  In a minute, then.

  He trailed his fingers over the light fabric of her dress, over her belly and hips. He let his palms graze her bottom.

  “We have to stop,” he said.

  “I know,” she said.