What have I done?
Chapter 10
The evening hadn’t gone as planned.
Lady Chloe Edgerton was to have been sleeping peacefully in her bed and… well, the whole shock and terror of waking up to find Leo there had certainly been inevitable. But Leo at least anticipated there would have been the delayed effects of her heavy slumber.
Said lady squirmed in his arms, and he adjusted his hold on her. With every thrash and twist of her body, she risked further injury to her ankle.
No, the evening hadn’t gone as Leo had expected. It had, however, proven vastly more interesting.
“Why in the blazes are you even on your ankle?” he whispered.
She stilled in his arms. The question startled him as much as the quieted miss. And then her fire roared to life once more. “My ankle, Tennyson?” she hissed. “You enter my home… my rooms uninvited—”
“I am delighted to know I only needed to wait for an invite,” he purred.
The lady went silent and then a barrage of black, inventive curses exploded from her lips.
Immediately shifting his palm over her mouth, he glanced to the door. “Hush, or you’ll have Waverly upon us again.” And next time, the protective, but deplorable at it, brother wouldn’t be content until he’d verified with his eyes that his sister was well.
Lady Chloe sank her teeth into the thick leather of his gloves, the fine Italian material making her efforts futile. Appreciation snaked unexpectedly through him. “The kitten bites,” he marveled.
In response, she bit down all the harder. As a rule, he despised the articles, but his career with the Brethren had proven the benefits, and he gave thanks for the barrier between his palm and the hellcat.
“Mmhm—gnah.” His hand muffled the words, which, by the fire flashing from her eyes, were really more an order than anything. She renewed her struggles.
“Have a care, love, or you’re going to do lasting harm to your ankle.” The dire warning managed to quiet the lady’s efforts.
Sweeping her up, he did an inventory of the chambers he’d entered a short while ago. He located her cane and then paused, the scrap of wood conjuring another similar one, used by a different woman. He swallowed hard. Silently cursing the maudlin sentiments, he swiped up Chloe’s cane and stuffed it into her palm.
Her fingers curled around it, and the scrap dangled awkwardly over his shoulder. Mayhap these recent remembrances were the sins of his past at last catching him. “Will you set me down?” Chloe urged, thankfully forcing him back to the present.
Leo started over to the four-poster bed with its nauseatingly innocent white coverlet. “White,” he muttered, coming up short. Ivory. What a dull, colorless existence this one lived.
The lady tugged at his sleeve. “White is a perfectly splendid color. It is associated with purity and light and goodness.” They were all fallacies believed by naïve misses touched by evil—like this one. “Why, there is a reason Homer uses the color in his works.”
“Yes, there was,” he muttered, carefully setting her down. He grabbed a nearby pillow and arranged it under her foot. “Because the bloody sod couldn’t see color properly.”
She opened and closed her mouth several times, giving her the look of a whiskered barbel he’d fished out of Spanish waters. “How would you know that?” she blurted.
Bloody hell. Cursing that carelessness, Leo snorted. “You’d provide me with a versed lecture on the color?” he taunted.
“I take it you, the black-hearted, sulking rake, despise all things white and innocent?” she shot back, neatly steered away from her previous query.
“Sulking?” Indignation crept into his voice. “I certainly do not sulk.” He was indolent and carefree and menacing to the ton, but he was assuredly not one of those brooding gents.
“Sulking,” she confirmed with a brusque nod. She arranged her skirts about her, smoothing her palms over her lap. “And sneering at anything white?” Lady Chloe peeled her lip back in a derisive sneer and, when she spoke again, dropped her voice to a low contralto. “Cliché, love. Very cliché.”
He frowned as she tossed back the accusation he’d hurled at her in Waterson’s corridors. “Are you… mocking me, madam?” People in Polite Society, as a rule, despised Leo. They spoke poorly of him and wished him to hell on a good day. And the rest avoided him. They did not, however, make light of him.
The lady did a dead-on impression of his leer. And then, holding his gaze, she gave him the same exaggeratedly slow wink he’d mastered long ago.
He narrowed his eyes. He’d far grander reasons for being here than debating her opinion of him, or her hideous preference for white. Leo would be damned, however, if the saucy minx wore that triumphant ghost of a smile. “There is, madam, one area where you are wrong,” he murmured in silken tones. Resting his right knee on her mattress, he edged closer.
The lady swallowed loudly as her earlier bravado flagged. “Indeed?” she squeaked.
“Indeed,” he repeated, wrapping those two syllables in velvet. “Very wrong.”
“I assure you, I very rarely am.” She edged her chin up a notch. “Wrong, that is.”
The minx. Despite himself, Leo felt a smile pulling on his lips, which he swiftly concealed behind his usual mask of coldness.
With her palms as leverage, she propelled herself backward until she knocked into the headboard. “In fact, I’d wager that after just one meeting, I have mastered that which has surely taken you a decade to perfect.”
He paused in his pursuit.
How incredibly close she danced to the truth. Unease stirred in his belly. She’d smartly identified the façade he’d crafted—the mask that had eventually become real.
Warning bells went off. Leave. She’s too clever to ever be your wife. One such as Chloe would never be complacent. She would never be content until she’d unearthed the dangerous secrets he kept—from all outside the Brethren.
She waggled her thin, perfectly arched golden eyebrows.
And yet… it had to be her.
For she was the woman with whom he’d been caught.
Leo continued coming, crawling toward her like a panther. “Your words, uttered in those sultry tones, are ones that tempt, entice, and seduce,” he whispered, stopping before her. He framed his palms on each side of her, effectively trapping her against the headboard. Leo hooded his lashes and then lowered his mouth close to hers. “No, you can never be confused for a bounder such as me.”
The lady’s throat moved frantically. He detected a brief flash of desire, melded with confusion, and then—
She brought her right, uninjured leg up. He easily caught it, preventing the strike.
“U-unhand m-me,” she said, her voice breathless. She made no further move to fight him.
“Do you promise not to try and unman me again?” he countered, lightly stroking her through the thin fabric of her modest night shift.
She clamped her lips into a tense line that drained the blood from the corners of her mouth.
He would hand it to the lady. Leo had encountered all sorts of women in his work for the Brethren. Some vipers as ruthless as he was, who’d think nothing of gutting a man… or a woman in the name of country, all of whom had never gone toe-to-toe with him. With her show of spirit and resolve, this spitfire put all those adversaries to shame.
Lowering the delicate limb slowly back to the mattress, he set her free.
Chloe immediately shoved herself to the corner of the bed. “What do you want?” she demanded in hushed tones.
“To speak to you.”
“This,” she waved a frantic hand between them, “is hardly the manner in which a respectable gentleman goes about speaking to a lady.”
He flashed an indolent grin. “I’ve never been accused of being a gentleman.”
They locked gazes in a silent battle.
In countless missions, Leo had relied on the nuances of a person’s body to determine how to go about handling the individu
al. The rise and fall of a person’s chest, the emotions revealed in their eyes, the tension in their bodies—all of it dictated his next move.
Lady Chloe stared back at him warily.
She was afraid.
Palpable terror rolled from the lady’s slender frame. However, when any other respectable miss would have been reduced to tears and wilted like a flower, Lady Chloe Edgerton cloaked herself in pride and courage.
“You said you wanted to speak to me,” she gritted.
An unexpected admiration for the lady stirred.
Leo retreated to the opposite end of the bed. If she felt cornered, she wouldn’t hear a single word he uttered, and his efforts would be in vain.
Some of the tension eased from her narrow shoulders, but remained rich in her gaze.
“As I said before, Chloe—”
The lady wrinkled her nose. “I’ve most certainly not given you permission to use my Christian name.”
“Given our intertwined circumstances, I felt we might dispense with formalities,” he said dryly. When was the last time a lady he’d kept company with adhered to such dictates? Another face flashed behind his mind’s eye. Haunted eyes, hurt by him, at his hand.
Unnerved by the unwelcome intrusion of the past, Leo went on in the same gentling tones he’d used with angry husbands who’d rightly called him out for his transgressions with their wives. “It was my hope in coming earlier today that we might converse. Your brother, however, forbade it.” A proud woman such as she would forever chafe at Waverly, or any man, dictating any terms of her life. As such, he wielded that admission with the same skill as a master swordsman.
“And what did you intend to say at this… meeting?” The gruff query came as though pulled from her.
He spread his palms. “Why, it was my intention to make an offer for your hand and do right by you.”
She blinked like an owl startled from its perch. “You do right by me?”
The slightly derisive emphasis was wholly deserved.
Leo nodded once. “Marry,” he clarified. “I’m offering you marriage.”
He waited.
And waited.
And more than forty ticks of the clock later, he was still waiting, while Lady Chloe stared at him like he was a scientific oddity.
“No,” she said succinctly.
When nothing more than that single syllable left her mouth, with no further explanations or details, he frowned.
Well, that was certainly… decided.
He’d spent the whole of his adult life avoiding the marital trap, clinging desperately to his bachelor state, only to now be filled with a restiveness at the lady’s rejection. It was a singularly odd state for a rake of his black ilk.
With an air of finality, she edged closer and made a grab for her cane.
Leo handed it over. She eyed his fingers the way that fabled Red Riding Hood had looked upon her wolflike grandmother. “That is it, then? Just ‘no’?”
“No, thank you?” she supplied. Her words, a question more than anything, startled a laugh from him. “Now you really need to get yourself gone.”
This was going to be vastly more difficult than he’d anticipated. Leo dusted a hand over his jaw. Chloe Edgerton was not one of those desperate ladies who’d had too many Seasons and remained unwed, still. He measured his words. “Given our unconventional meeting, I trust this… my appearance in your chambers and my proposal provide you with a good deal to consider. However, you haven’t even heard me out.”
Lady Chloe shot an eyebrow up. “What is there to consider? You are a rake. You’re in dun territory.”
He shuttered his expression. By way of gossip, his financial matters were common fodder, and yet, to have her toss those transgressions in his face needled. “You’re in want of a fortune to sustain your gaming and whoring. Have I missed anything?”
A better man, even the rakes with a modicum of respectability left, would have, at the very least, flushed at having those sins hurled at him the way Lady Chloe did now.
He scoffed. “Though accurate by Society’s standards, that perfunctory, if uninventive, list includes all the reasons you should not marry me.”
The spitfire folded her arms at her chest, plumping the small mounds of flesh, drawing his appreciative gaze downward. A soft light cast by the hearth bathed her in a soft glow, and a bolt of lust went through him as he strained to make out the shade of her nipples. A dusky brown. Or mayhap a pink. Or—
Lady Chloe gasped and squeezed her arms all the closer to her chest, merely plumping the flesh all the more. “And you believe there are reasons I should wish to marry you?” she hissed.
Reluctantly lifting his gaze from the great mystery that was the lady’s breasts, he favored her with an innocent expression. “Do you mean other than salvaging your reputation?”
She flinched.
So she was not totally immune to the ramifications of having her name sullied with scandal. Interesting. Until now, the lady had shown remarkably little concern for what anyone might say about being discovered with him.
Leo stood. “I’ll not make myself out to be anything other than what I am,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’m the ruthless rake and black-hearted scoundrel Society takes me for. Marriage to me, however, would come with certain benefits.”
She nudged her chin, silently urging him on.
He proceeded with a methodical accounting, ticking each one off on a gloved fingertip. “I’m not one of those stodgy, oppressive sorts who’d seek to control your movements and demand you answer to me. I’m not looking to transform you into a biddable bride.” What he desired was an invisible wife.
Chloe drew her shoulders back ever so slightly. “Continue.”
He’d found the hook. He invariably did. It was why he’d survived countless missions and triumphed over lesser adversaries. Encouraged, Leo went on. “Why, I don’t even require an heir.”
She was shaking her head before the words had left his mouth. “Every nobleman wishes for an heir.”
That was the case for most bloody toffs. “No,” he amended. “Most do.” He pointed to his chest. “I do not.” His was the ultimate triumph over the bloody rotter who’d given Leo a name and legitimacy. He’d gladly kick up his heels and watch the title pass on to some distant, distant relative tucked in the corners of Northumberland.
Suspicion sparkled in the lady’s pretty blue eyes.
“I would, however, require a short period of,” he shuddered, “monogamy.” It was too much. “At least discretion,” he corrected.
She scratched at her brow. “You require me to pretend at a love match.”
He shook his head. “No.” Not even that. “I need you to make me respectable.”
“Make you…” The lady laughed until tears streamed from her eyes… and then stopped. “You’re serious,” she remarked, dusting back the evidence of her hilarity.
“Afterwards,” after Society believed the farce of a whirlwind love affair he’d perpetuated with the lady, “you’ll be free to carry on with whomever you wish, whenever you wish, as often as you wish.” And should her affairs become a matter of discussion, he could by that point craft a new image—that of broken-hearted husband—and from there, resurrect his reputation as a rake. All would be right with the world, and he’d be free to conduct himself as he always had for the Brethren. He grinned. “Well?”
Her expression instantly darkened.
Blast and damn.
He’d lost the very hook he’d dangled.
Propelling herself closer, she moved toward his spot at the side of her bed. “If the greatest gift you can grant is turning a cheek to my faithlessness, then I must… decline.”
Bloody hell. Every woman he’d carried on with over the years would have leaped at that offering.
Lady Chloe pointed her cane toward the doorway. “I’ve heard what you had to say, and I’d ask you for a final time to please leave.” She swiftly lowered her arm. “Wait,” she called out quietly, and
hope stirred, and then was promptly dashed. “How did you manage to sneak inside my family’s residence? A disloyal servant?” she pressed.
That assumption would spare him from her further probing and allow him to maintain the image of sloppy rake. “Every man and woman can be bought.” He supplied that truth instead.
“Not those in my family, nor our household,” she shot back. She again motioned to the door.
“Then you prove yourself to be entirely too trusting, my lady.”
“Get out,” she said again.
An unfamiliar sentiment simmered within, threatening to consume him—desperation.
This woman and marriage to her were all that stood between him and his position with the Brethren. Who am I without my work? His late father’s memory slipped in.
…You are nothing Leopold Aldwyn Bromley Dunlop… and nothing is all you’ll ever be…My only son died, when it should have been you…
Chloe scowled.
And God help him, the charm he’d perfected and used only to wheedle desired information eluded him with this one. “You are clever, my lady,” he said quickly, too quickly.
Suspicion deepened in her eyes. “You’ve known me but a day. That is hardly enough time to make any kind of determination about a person.”
Actually, one could gather the most meaningful aspects about a person’s character, strength, and skills from but the first handful of moments in an exchange. Witty, fearless, and courageous, she was not a woman who’d be pacified or won with empty platitudes.
“I know you aren’t an empty-headed, simpering miss.” In this, he didn’t hand her lies. Leo gave her nothing but the truth born of their two exchanges. “What I propose is a business transaction,” he continued, appealing to her logic. “I’m not a romantic, Chloe,” he murmured, drifting around the bed.
She followed his every movement with a world wariness better suited to an aged matron than a young woman. “Are you a rake?”
He abruptly stopped, carefully considering her question. No value could come in lying to her. Not her. “I am.”
“Is there merit to the stories said about you?”
Her direct, no-nonsense questioning could have earned her a place within the ranks of the Brethren. Leo flashed a half-grin. “Undoubtedly.”
The Lady Who Loved Him Page 11
