The Bartered Bridegroom

by Teresa DesJardien

  For the next three years she had fought to find a way that she might return to the races—but Papa and her brothers had never wavered, not even when she was clearly now a young woman capable of a measure of comportment. Other girls went to view the races, but not Katherine—it was judged too much a temptation.

  When Jeremy returned from his military service to nurse a leg crushed under his fallen horse, she thought he might take pity on her and at last hold some sway over Papa’s determination to keep his daughter away from the racing world—but Jeremy had gone on to the races with only his brothers at his side.

  She could have gone on her own—but that would only have resulted in her coachman being punished, and she would not transfer her chastisement to an innocent party.

  That was when Katherine first started to dream of living apart from her family—perhaps with a new family of her own choosing. Marriage. The right man would understand her interests. He would be as eager to see the races as she was. They would attend the races together. Or, as a married woman, Katherine could attend the races by herself, so long as she stayed in her carriage. And, who knew, perhaps the right man would not mind, too much, taking his wife on his arm that they might occasionally wander among the racers or speak with the trainers....

  The problem, however, was finding such a man.

  When Katherine was nineteen, the neighbors began to query why she was not more in Society. Sir Albert had reluctantly admitted he must deal with his daughter’s marriageability. He had—with obvious reluctance—hired one Miss Irving to replace the clergyman who had tutored Katherine until now. While Vicar Harntuttle had taught Katherine all the basics of mathematics and history, not to mention healthy portions of Latin, Greek, and French, he had not, of course, been able to teach her a single thing about being feminine. Miss Irving had been acquired—and Katherine’s feminine imprisonment had only deepened.

  Miss Irving meant well, and indeed did her duty as she had been hired to do it. Katherine was grateful to learn most of the things a mother would have taught her, such as pouring out tea, playing the pianoforte, dancing, and arranging a dining event for the precedence of those in attendance . . . but Katherine could not help but pine for the lad’s life she’d once led.

  Fate seemed cruel toward females—but Katherine was a calculator of horse racing and so not a believer in fate. Odds yes, fate no. She would make her own future, would set up a household with a man who took her as she was. Or no man at all, if that’s how it was to be. It only required that she bide her time, for at the age of one-and-twenty she stood to inherit a tattered cottage on some land that she was assured could probably be made viable. It would not be much, but it would be all the world to Katherine, for in her own home she could do just as she pleased. In her own home, she would not be denied—most especially not denied the singular thrill of attending any and all horse races she desired to attend.

  But first she had to reach the age of her majority.

  She’d gone about in the small circles that made up local society, determining she would decline any offers of marriage should they be offered, no matter how advantageous, unless the man were the very fellow she hoped she might one day find. She would have no one but the one special man who would tolerate the life she wished to lead. She feared her tiny community was unlikely to host such a man, for he must understand, must embrace, her love of racing and all things equine, and must not ask that she change as she’d been forced to change before.

  Now, here she was, twenty years old—in a month she would be twenty-one, the age of her majority. One month stood between her and the freedom she sought. She was soon to be mistress of her own fate—which was even more important than finding that one special man who would let her continue on the way she meant to go on.

  But life enjoyed ironies, Katherine reflected with a small laugh and a shake of her head—for just as she teetered on the cusp of achieving her independence, that certain someone, that special man, had appeared.

  That special man—he would look at her with deep amusement could he see her in these boy’s clothes. He would not stare harshly at her as Lord Benjamin did now. It was ironic then, that for her gentleman’s sake as much as her own, Katherine did not choose to push Lord Benjamin aside and flee. She had to make sure he did nothing to rob her of the freedom, the happiness, so close at hand.

  She licked her lips and shook her head, denying Lord Benjamin’s offer to take her home. She put on her most humble expression, the one that usually pacified Papa when he was in a temper.

  “Lord Benjamin,” she said, “I am afraid I must ask a boon of you—a promise.”

  Unlike Papa, Lord Benjamin immediately looked suspicious. So he was not only a pleasant-looking man, he was also at least a little clever.

  Katherine put her hands together into a pleading gesture, as heroines often did in novels. She hoped it appeared appealing, as it seemed to with the heroes of such works. “Please, Lord Benjamin,” she said, hoping she looked pitiable. “I know I have behaved curiously—even shamefully—by dressing as I have. The only excuse I can offer—” Her voice broke as real emotion threatened, but then she managed to swallow it down. “I... I love Fallen Angel. My father asked me to sell her, because she is not tame enough in his opinion for a woman. She has such fire in her—but Papa is correct. I could not keep her while not being allowed to ride her. She is a horse that must be ridden. She loves to run, so I had to give her up so that someone else can grant her what she needs.

  “But I had to see her one last time before I let her go,” Katherine said. “I hope you can understand that. Even if you cannot, I must ask, nay, beg that you say nothing to anyone about my masquerade today. Most especially not to my papa.”

  His upper lip actually curled. “I liked it better when you were curt and rude,” he said. He flicked his forefinger at her, a dismissive or disgusted gesture. “This ‘poor me’ act is hardly swaying.”

  Katherine dropped her hands, blinking rapidly as if that would tamp down the rising anger that filled her. “Then what would be swaying, my lord?” she said, mouth tight.

  “A kiss,” he said, and for a moment a flicker of surprise crossed his face, as if he had shocked himself as well as her.

  Chapter 2

  “If I give you a kiss, you will have proof I am as coarse or A vulgar as you already think me to be,” Katherine said with a scowl.

  “Then where’s the harm, if I already think you vulgar?” Now he grinned, and it was not a very pleasant little grin.

  “I am not vulgar.”

  “The point is, do / find you to be?”

  Color flushed throughout Katherine’s face, but more from anger than embarrassment. “That is not the point at all. The point is, will you say nothing to my papa or anyone else about finding me here dressed like this today?”

  “I will not say one word—but for a price. You must give me the kiss I asked for.” She stared at him. “Come, Miss Oakes, all boons come with a price.”

  “They do not,” she stammered. “Not among friends.”

  “We are not friends.”

  “No,” she said, the word drawing out as she experienced a sinking sensation, as if her anger sank into uncertainty. She probably could not win an argument with this man, not here and now. She was the one in the wrong; she wore the improper clothes, she stood in men’s breeches and in a place she had been forbidden to venture.

  She sighed deeply, the sound shuddering down her length, and then she closed her eyes. She leaned forward a little, and offered Lord Benjamin her pursed mouth.

  “Ugh! No. Not like that,” he complained.

  Her eyes flew open, and she glared at him. “You said a kiss. You did not say how it must be administered.”

  “Administered? Like medicine? Come, Miss Oakes, you wound me. No man likes to think his kiss is as disagreeable as medicine.”

  “It is to me,” she flustered, and the fluster boiled upward, like a pot suddenly heated too much to contain its boiling content
s. “Oh, this is foolishness!” she cried, straightening her shoulders. “Never mind! Say what you will, to whom you will.” She put a hand to the side of his sleeve, meaning to shove him out of her way.

  He had not let go of her sleeve, however, and his hand tightened on her arm. Of a sudden she was thrust backward a step, and then she was pulled up against Lord Benjamin’s chest, his arms quickly encompassing her. He lowered his mouth to hers at once, as a scold was forming on her lips. The scold was lost to the pressure of his mouth on hers.

  Katherine had been kissed before, a number of times. She liked kissing. Over the past few years a handful of young men had wished to kiss her, and when she wished to kiss them back, she had. Some kisses had been tingling good fun, and some had been as repulsive as pressing one’s lips to a dead fish. Most importantly, though, her certain someone special had pleasant kisses—and it was to him that she now found herself comparing Lord Benjamin’s kiss.

  Although, truth be told, the two kisses did not compare at all. Katherine could not be sure why, but Lord Benjamin’s mouth on hers caused more than a little tingling, making her toes itch and a shock race up her spine. He had to feel the ripple that coursed up through her, and he certainly had to hear the rather strangely hungry sound that involuntarily formed in her throat.

  His response was to press her length to his more fully, and Katherine suddenly was no longer thinking, or comparing, or trying to find him loathsome, but clinging to him as if for her very sustenance.

  He lifted his head just as she began to tremble, and Katherine almost wished he had not stopped ... and then she gasped at herself for having had that thought.

  “You have been kissed before,” he said. For once the amusement was missing from his gaze as well as his voice.

  She shoved against him, using both hands against his chest, but gaining only an inch of space between them for all her trouble. “What if I have?” she cried. How had he known? Did one

  begin to kiss differently if one had .. . well, more practice at it than her papa would approve of? “Ugh!” she cried now, her mouth turning down. She lifted a hand long enough to wipe her mouth against her wrist.

  “Don’t you dare spit as if you did not like it,” Lord Benjamin said. For a moment Katherine thought he was angry, but then she saw a dancing devil in the depths of his light-blue eyes.

  “You ... you rogue!”

  “Rogue. Yes, that is as good a word for me as any.”

  Her anger flared. “I could say worse—!”

  “I have no doubt you could. No, do not bother. I have been called a hundred insults, and all to my face. But this is a tender moment I’d rather not have ruined by allowing you to cast unladylike words at me.”

  Katherine pushed away from him for real this time, putting space between them and forcing him to release her.

  They had shared warmth where their bodies had touched, and it annoyed her considerably that she was instantly aware of the loss. “You, sir, are no gentleman,” she said.

  “Alas, I am. That is my problem.”

  Katherine scowled at him, wondering what he meant. His birth? He was the second son of a marquess, a lofty birth indeed . . . but even a high birth could not necessarily make a cad into a gentleman. Society’s whispers said the man was found wanting, despite his superior position in life. His rank ought to have made him a much sought-after caller, but despite his presence now in London the haute ton did not have his name on their lists. Whatever sin or crime he had committed, it had been foul enough for the ton to treat him with the barest modicum of respect, and certainly not with a warm welcome.

  He must have seen something damning in her gaze, because for just a moment the dancing light in his eyes died back, replaced by something that looked suspiciously like a lament. What a curious word!—but “lament” was the one that suited.

  Lord Benjamin blinked, and the gleam returned to his eyes, hiding anything else they might have betrayed. Still, for just a moment Katherine had seen beneath the facade, had glimpsed the man himself. She would swear it. The usual gleam in his eyes was a trick, a ruse to keep the world at bay.

  She softened toward him, just a little, for Katherine knew what it was like to have to present a false front to the world. Whether in boy’s clothing or woman’s, there was ever a side to her that must be kept hidden.

  “You’ve had your kiss, so now I get your word,” she said. “You will not speak of this encounter to anyone.”

  Lord Benjamin gripped his hands together behind his back, and tilted his head a little to one side. “You are too eager. Why is that?”

  Katherine twined her hands together, not to be beseeching but to keep from striking the man in his broad chest now accentuated by the backward pull of his sleeves. So much for softness, so much for empathy. She grit her teeth, working to bank this latest flare of her temper. “If you must know, I am betrothed. It is important to me that my fiancй not hear of this .. . little event.”

  “Ah! A fiancй!” he said with that annoyingly sly grin of his.

  “Your word?” she prompted. “That you will not tell?”

  “In exchange for a future favor, I will do you this one,” he said with a nod.

  Her mouth fell open. “But I gave you the kiss!”

  “I took the kiss, it was not given. You owe me yet.”

  “I do not!”

  “You do. Come, Miss Oakes, put your wrath away. It cannot possibly move me, nor would your tears because I simply cannot believe you would be the manner of woman who gives in to sobbing. So if tears are out, I would just as soon not have to quell a display of ire with my own—which I assure you is of late prodigious. Let us have a rogue’s agreement between us.”

  A clatter at the far end of the line of horse stalls made Katherine jump. Another horse must have been sold and was being stabled until its owner came to claim it—the place might soon be awash in lads and trainers and owners. Time and an opportunity to flee grew short.

  “I feel I am bargaining with Old Hickory,” Katherine said. “And a bargain with the devil always ends badly for the bargainer.”

  “I am not evil, ma’am, just a mere rogue. I will not take your soul—only a promise.” He did not laugh, but he might as well have, for his grin was ripe with laughter.

  “What pleasure does this give you, my lord?” Katherine said, keeping her voice low.

  “Entertainment, Miss Oakes. I have had far too little of it of late. I have, sad to say, been the victim myself of all the bon mots now circulating the morning parlors. I find I far more enjoy being the dispenser than the receiver. But cease stalling, my dear Miss Oakes. Just say yes, and then we shall have our agreement. Then your fiancй will never know from my lips what folly I think it that he means to marry someone like you.”

  She glared at him for the lack of gallantry, but she also chided herself for being so silly as to have expected any. Another rattle came from farther down the row of stalls, and one lad called to another, making Katherine squirm where she stood. “I will not do anything illegal or immoral,” she cautioned, licking her lips and hating hearing the almost-agreement poised there.

  “Nor would I ask it of you. I will want only a small favor, I assure you. An introduction, perhaps. Or that you would find me a dance partner to rescue me from some aging ape-leader.”

  “Oh,” Katherine said with some relief. “I could do something like that.”

  “That is all I ask, Miss Oakes.”

  “Agreed,” she said at once, before he could put forth any additional codicils.

  He uncrossed his hands from behind his back. “A kiss to seal our pledge?” he suggested, and she longed to slap that practiced sparkle out of his eyes.

  “The next time I let you kiss me, sirrah,” she said, her jaw tight, “will be when my body lies cold and dead and in a casket.”

  He grimaced, but then his mouth quirked upward. “Am I correct in thinking you do not like me. Miss Oakes?”

  She could not answer. It was not that she
had nothing to say, but ladies did not say such things as the words that rose to her lips. Instead she lifted both hands, shoved him to one side, and swept around him out of the stall, her head held high in disdain under its boy’s cap.

  Disdain, however, does not work as well when the disdained party laughs aloud as you stalk away.

  Katherine clenched her teeth, recalled that she had sworn to

  grant him a favor, and now swore she would “grant” him yet another: Someday, at just the right moment, she would return the favor of laughing at his humiliated back as he retreated red-faced and shamed.

  Perhaps I could have avoided all this if I had followed Papa's dictates and never come here today dressed as a boy, one comer of her conscience noted.

  “Be silent!” she growled aloud, making another stable lad stare after her, perplexed at the scolding he thought he’d just been handed.

  Lord Benjamin Whitbury stared at the retreating back— donned in boy’s clothing—of Miss Katherine Oakes, and wondered what had come over him. He was not normally given over to banter, and certainly not to taunting kisses out of young ladies. He’d been an officer in His Majesty’s Royal Navy, for heaven’s sake, and an officer had to maintain a certain code. Never mind that he’d had to leave his position—his only choices being to resign or be thrown out. Never mind that the world thought him as guilty as the Admiralty had—Benjamin knew better. And part of knowing better, of having a code of honor, was not inappropriately plaguing young ladies—even young ladies in breeches.