The lady’s throat moved.
She abruptly stepped back, stumbling a bit, and then she righted herself. “I’m not looking for a lover.”
The soft flush on her skin made a lie of that pronouncement.
She knew it. He knew it.
As such, he offered a half-grin. “A compromise, then?”
Chloe thinned her eyebrows. “I am listening,” she said gruffly.
“I’ll not put my hands upon you,” he said as he caressed his gaze over her slender frame before returning his stare to hers. “Unless you wish it,” he enticed.
She snorted. “I wouldn’t.”
Not I won’t. But rather, I wouldn’t. Which spoke to her eventual capitulation. Triumph was nearly his.
And, with it, shackles. Instead of the earlier horror that had turned his gut and caused a cold sweat, there was an eager anticipation.
Leo dipped his head. “If,” when, “you want to know pleasure in my arms, Chloe, your term number eight is dissolved.” He’d not debate that point with her now. Soon. After they were married, he’d have her in his bed, begging for him.
The lady drew in a shaky breath and nodded. “Very well. But I’m inflexible on my terms for item nine.”
He jerked erect. “No.”
“That is not an emphatic ‘no.’”
“This one is.” What she asked was impossible. “You’d ask for my f-f-f—”
“Fi-de-li-ty.” She stretched out the syllables, sounding the words out the way a tutor might deliver a language lesson to a slow-to-learn student.
“And…” He strangled on the word.
A mischievous twinkle lit her gaze. She snapped her page out and waved it under his eyes. “I expect your faithfulness.”
Leo ripped the page from her hands and gave it a shake of his own. “Why should it matter to you whom I bed?” Particularly when she’d requested a marriage of convenience.
“I’m incapable of,” he curled his lip, “sexual purity.”
The lady gave a flounce of her golden curls. “Then you, my lord, are incapable of marriage to me.”
He opened his mouth to debate the inherent foolishness of her contradictory requests—a marriage of convenience with an imposed celibacy—and abruptly stopped. He snapped his lips closed and contemplated her requests.
Why… why…
She believed he’d deny her requests. It was the reason for the eccentric items scrawled in her neat, swooping letters.
Releasing some of the tension in his frame, he rolled his shoulders. “Very well,” he conceded.
She choked. “Wh-what?”
He reached out and thumped her between the shoulder blades. “I’ll agree to your terms.”
Suspicion turned her sky-blue eyes dark. “It can’t be that easy,” she said slowly, backing away from him.
“Don’t trust me, love?” He waggled his eyebrows.
Chloe laughed, a clear, bell-like quality that echoed around the room. “I’d be mad to.” Her amusement immediately faded. “As such,” she went on, no-nonsense once more, “prior to our wedding, the formal arrangement will be carefully laid out in a contract.”
The farce continued. “A contract?” he parroted. “You want me to put into writing—”
“All items we’ve agreed upon?” She nodded emphatically.
Actually, he’d been about to mention their conjugal relationship once wedded.
As he studied her, his wariness grew. A lady who’d dictate his movements and actions, and who was far too clever by half, was one he’d be best running in the opposite direction from. And yet, there was no choice.
He took a step closer. “I’d also have certain promises from you.”
“Oh?” she asked cautiously.
“In addition to your helping me attain respectability,” or at least helping him craft that thin veneer, “I do not want any personal questions about me or my past or my present or future. Nothing.”
She wrinkled her nose. “That hardly establishes a companionable match.”
“Because it is not companionable,” he reminded. “By your own terms, it is a business arrangement.”
“But you also wish to bed me?” she returned.
The lady was still an innocent. She believed the two could not be mutually exclusive. She expected that with sex came intimacy. She’d learn—in time.
“What is your answer, madam?”
“Very well. I’ll not ask you any questions. What else, then, my lord?”
Did he imagine the hint of disappointment in her tone? Regardless, they were strangers. He’d marry her, but ultimately wanted her to remain a stranger. Any emotional entanglements were dangerous ones. They prevented a man from fully devoting himself to a case.
“My office is off-limits. If you desire offices of your own, madam, I’ll have the servants prepare one. I’m not to be disturbed when I’m in there, and you are not to enter, whether I’m in there or not. Is that clear?”
She scowled. “I’m not a child.”
With her nipped waist, flared hips, and breasts made to fit his palms, no, no, she certainly wasn’t. “Do you agree?”
“Very well.” Chloe nudged her chin. “What is your next requirement?”
“You are not to fall in love with me,” he said gravely. It had been the folly only one other woman had committed before. He was unworthy and unwanting of those sentiments.
A fulsome laugh exploded from Chloe’s lips. Her mirth shook her frame until tears streamed down her cheeks.
Another would have been offended. Leo’s shoulders sagged with relief.
The lady dusted off the remnants of her amusement. “I can offer an emphatic ‘yes’ on that term, my lord.”
“Then it is settled,” he said, starting across the room. There was much to see to, and quickly—before the lady’s brother returned, or before she came to her senses and changed her mind.
“That is all?” she called out.
Leo didn’t even break stride. “Would you prefer I ask you for more?”
She wisely fell silent.
“I’ll have the contract drawn up and—”
“No.”
Oh, bloody hell. She’d already changed her mind. Or, more likely, she was as greedy as every last lady in London. “What now?” he snapped.
“I want my family’s solicitor to draft the document and be present for the… the…” Wedding.
He shook his head. “The moment your brother discovers your intentions, our arrangement will be at an end, madam.” Leo stole a glance at the clock. As it was, with dawn rapidly approaching, the gentleman would soon discover her gone. Impatience snaked through him.
“My brother is gone to retrieve my mother,” she supplied, neatly following his thoughts. “He left this morn and will likely return within two days. I’ll not elope. As such, a proper betrothal is our only option.”
Stalking over to the sofa, Leo retrieved his jacket and found the officious document tucked away. “I’ve already secured the special license.”
The lady’s startled gaze went to the document allowing them to wed and then back to his. “You secured a special license from the archbishop?”
“That is generally the way one goes about it, as long as one desires a legal union.”
Accepting the document he held out, Chloe skimmed the sealed pages.
Yet, with his notorious reputation and black heart, she’d sufficient reason to doubt how one such as he had earned that fellow’s approval. His work for the Brethren, however, would remain the eternal secret between him and his almost bride. Given her list of requirements for their marriage, it should be a secret easy enough to keep from her.
Striding over to the bellpull, he gave the slim string a tug. “I’ll have you shown to your rooms.”
“My rooms? Surely you jest. I c-cannot s-stay here,” she sputtered.
“Provide me the name of your family’s solicitor, and I’ll have him summoned. We’ll be married as soon as the documents are drafted
.”
A knock sounded at the door. “Enter,” he boomed.
Chloe whipped her gaze toward the door. The alacrity of that movement dislodged several curls and set them to bouncing above her eye. “But—but…”
“Tomlinson,” he instructed. “If you’ll show the lady to the rooms next to mine?”
The lady blushed a crimson hue that could have set her afire.
“As you wish, my lord.” To Tomlinson’s credit, that revelation earned not even the slightest crack in the older man’s composure. Or mayhap it was more a mark to Leo’s wickedness these years that the servant wouldn’t so much as flinch at a young lady invading Leo’s home and being assigned the room beside his. “My lady?” his butler urged, motioning to the doorway.
Chloe remained rooted to the floor, immobile. Her quickly rising chest provided the only movement to her still form.
As time ticked by and she remained unmoving, Leo expected her to renege and bolt as fast as her “marginally better” ankle would allow. That all this had been a brave show on her part, but when push came to proverbial shove, she recognized the folly in both trusting him and wedding him.
Chloe exhaled slowly through her compressed lips. With a slight nod in Leo’s direction, she turned on her heel and ambled off.
He stared at the empty doorway long after she’d gone.
It would seem this was, indeed, the day pigs had flown over the Thames.
And despite the fact that Leo was just a short while from abandoning his bachelor state, he smiled.
Chapter 13
With Leo’s uncle, the Duke of Aubrey, and the Edgerton man of affairs as witnesses, Chloe and Leo were married one hour and eighteen minutes later.
For all the impossibilities of the terms she’d put to Leo and the unlikeliness of the timing to secure a license, witnesses, and a vicar, he’d managed to secure all… and in that short time.
It was another incongruity that didn’t fit with the rake barred from more than most of Polite Society’s functions.
It was far easier to focus on those puzzles and make sense of them than the fact of what she’d just done.
I’m married.
Her pen skidded, leaving a squiggly line of ink upon the marriage documents she now signed.
“My lady?” Clarke, the gray-haired, heavily wrinkled solicitor, asked in pained tones. “Are you all right?”
Blinking slowly, Chloe looked up at the loyal Edgerton servant. Leo had located the solicitor, dragged the man to his residence, and set Clarke to work on a contract.
“Fine. I am fine,” she managed.
Clarke winced.
Yes, fine was hardly the attitude a bride should have on her wedding day. One was expected to be joyful and blushing and beaming… just as her friend, Imogen, had been and sister, Philippa, had been with her latest marriage.
“His lordship is going to have my head,” he whispered, his jowls moving with his spasmodic swallowing.
That he’d assisted Chloe, without regard for whether he’d earn his employer’s wrath, spoke volumes about the man’s character.
She patted his hand. “He’ll not.” Chloe wouldn’t let Gabriel have his pound of flesh from a man who’d merely sought to help her. “I’m happy,” she said belatedly. “I wanted to marry the marquess.” At least that much was true. In a sense. Marriage to Leo represented freedom and control of her future.
Clarke perked up. “Y-you’re certain?” he asked. Hope tinged his words.
She wasn’t certain of anything anymore. Which way was up, down, sideways, or in between. “I am.” For, at least this decision belonged to her.
A marriage of convenience to a gentleman wholly uninterested in her.
Mr. Clarke’s attention was called back by the vicar. As they conversed, their discourse was lost to the words now reverberating around her mind.
I’ll show you all the pleasures you’ve not yet explored. I’ll open your body to a passion that will sear your soul and leave you hungry and craving the rhapsody to be found in my arms…
Her heart galloped, and a warmth settled low in her belly. No, those were not the promises of a man who wanted nothing to do with her.
And she didn’t know what to do with that realized-too-late consideration. She’d always had more than a distant curiosity of those forbidden acts that so many women explored. But she’d not given thought to experiencing any of those feelings herself.
Until now.
From where he stood conversing with the Duke of Aubrey, Leo paused mid-discourse. She braced for the lascivious grin or leer he’d donned during their first chance encounter at Lord Waterson’s.
Instead, a question filled his eyes.
Had he sensed her nervousness? And more, why should a professed heartless rake even care?
Disquieted by the unexpected response, Chloe swiftly dedicated all her attention to the next page requiring her signature. The marquess’ sensual grin would have been safer. Indolent lords weren’t supposed to note the squeak of a pen or the unease raging in the breast of a mere stranger. And she’d wager it was unlike him to concede to the very points she’d put to him, plus agree to the use of her family’s man of affairs.
“Ahem.” The kindly, fleshy-cheeked vicar smiled. “If you would place your mark here, my lady.” He motioned to the requisite space on the forms.
While she continued signing, Chloe peeked out the corner of her eye at Leo—her husband—and his uncle, the powerful Duke of Aubrey. That had been the benevolent uncle whose favor he needed to curry in order to have assistance with his debt and creditors.
And yet, as they spoke, they carried on easily with a familiarity and almost warmth that was neither strained nor for show. Oh, there was the perpetual bend of cynicism to Leo’s lips, but there was an ease in his shoulders and entire frame as they spoke.
Riveted by the unexpectedly companionable exchange between uncle and nephew, she boldly watched. She cocked her head. Theirs was hardly the stilted tension and simmering fury she had expected of Leo and the uncle who’d threatened to not pay his creditors.
Just then, the duke caught Leo’s upper arm and gave it a slight, affectionate squeeze.
A dull flush stained the younger man’s rugged cheeks, giving the marquess an almost boylike quality. And for the first time since he’d stumbled upon her in the corridors, she saw beyond the rake he was. Who had he been before he was Society’s most scandalous scoundrel? People were not born hardened, but rather they were shaped by life and all its hardships—just as she had been. What had made Leo Dunlop, the Marquess of Tennyson, into the man he was now?
I do not want any personal questions about me or my past or my present or future. Nothing…
As she turned his demand over and over in her mind, her intrigue doubled.
Both gentlemen looked in her direction.
Oh, bloody hell. Her cheeks fired hot.
“My lord?” The vicar called Leo over, and she gave thanks for the timely rescue.
Leo joined her, standing so close their legs brushed.
Chloe fiddled with her skirts. Aside from her brothers, she’d never stood so close to another gentleman. In fact, as a rule, she’d made it her mission to avoid those unpredictable sorts—whenever she could.
As such, she didn’t know what to do with her body’s reaction to this man. The intimate press of his thigh and the sandalwood cologne that clung to his person did odd things inside her belly.
And she, who’d never given thought to being in a man’s arms, wondered. Wondered what it would be like to be with this particular gentleman.
While the marquess quickly and methodically slashed his bold letters upon the page, she inched away and knocked into a solid wall.
Gasping, Chloe wheeled around, steadying herself with her cane.
“My apologies,” the duke murmured.
She pressed a hand to her racing heart. Was it a familial trait to move with such stealth? “No apologies required. I’m afraid I was woolgathering,
Your Grace.”
He held out an elbow. “Accompany me on a walk about the room, Lady Chloe.”
There could be no taking that as anything less than a ducal command.
Leo paused. “The lady suffered an injured ankle,” he said tightly.
The duke widened his grin. “Then I’ll escort the lady to a seat.”
Uncle and nephew were locked in battle… that ultimately the duke won.
Chloe placed her spare palm onto the duke’s sleeve and allowed him to escort her to the same sofa on which she’d worked out the terms of her arrangement with Leo.
I am married…
All the oldest fears she’d carried for the whole of her life resurfaced. They slammed into her, freezing the air in her lungs until a deep pressure built there.
She’d been so fixed on her hopes for the future and freedom and Mrs. Munroe’s that she’d not allowed herself to linger on the price.
The duke took up the King Louis XIV chair closest to hers. He steepled his fingers and rested them upon his flat stomach. “You are the young woman who’s managed to bring my nephew ’round to marriage.”
She didn’t delude herself into believing that a man of his power and prestige wouldn’t have heard the details surrounding their hasty union. “We were discovered in a compromising position, Your Grace,” she said carefully, studying his deadpan expression. She couldn’t make out a hint of what he was thinking.
They sat, gazes trained forward on Leo, his back presented to them while he continued to sign the marriage documents. “When Leo was ten, his father purchased him his first horse,” His Grace said quietly, unexpectedly.
Chloe blinked slowly and glanced to the older, but handsome, duke. “Your Grace?” she ventured. Her husband had forbidden her to ask for any information—from him. Therefore, every piece offered by his uncle was an unlikely glimpse.
The duke stared off at his nephew. “My brother-in-law was insistent that Leo learn to, at last, ride. Leo declined the offering. He was quite content with his books and studies, and little else interested him.”
The Lady Who Loved Him Page 15
