She could not tell his secret to Auntie Phil now. She owed him a measure of protection after what he’d done tonight. Didn’t she?
“I shall accompany you to the gardens tomorrow,” Auntie Phil said now. “Clearly I should have been accompanying you all along, although it appears Lord Taggart has done an admirable job of protecting his interests. No doubt any number of admirers will have decided to join the marquis tomorrow, and we cannot expect him to fend them all off on his own.”
“But—”
“And thus tomorrow we shall begin turning this ship around, so to speak.”
She needed to tell, force the words out quickly while the time was ripe. Auntie Phil would certainly write the news to Father, and then this sham of an engagement would quickly be over, and then there would be no ship in need of turning, and she would never need to associate with Nicholas again.
A small ache opened up behind her ribs.
“Now sleep well, dearest, and pleasant dreams.” Auntie Phil came forward and pressed a kiss to India’s forehead.
With Auntie Phil gone, India sat alone, hugging her knees in the light from a single candle flickering on the nightstand. Why hadn’t she told?
She was such a ninny. It wasn’t as if Nicholas cared even one whit for her feelings. There was no reason she should care about his. He was merely following her around Paris to protect his investment while he arranged a wedding that would succeed where his other attempts had not.
Perhaps arranging a clandestine wedding was more difficult than she imagined, even in Paris. Perhaps it really was taking this long, and he wasn’t toying with her because he wanted to but because he had to.
While she...
She couldn’t seem to stop wanting him, no matter how much she didn’t want to want him. The feeling was so much stronger now than it had been a week ago when the carriage had whisked them through the countryside and she’d spent too many hours watching him, indulging in the memory of his touch even when she knew she shouldn’t.
But now...
Now he was more than an indulgence. It was as if everything had changed in those moments in that church when she’d glimpsed the shame and horror she knew he hadn’t meant for her to see, and suddenly he’d seemed so much more...human.
Fallible.
Susceptible to shame. Weakness. Burdens.
Oh, she knew all about shame and weakness and burdens. And she knew all about a father’s rejection and scorn.
And she was so, so tired of defiance.
She dropped her head to her knees and dragged in a breath through her mouth. Her chest ached so badly it hurt to inflate her lungs.
There was a horrible part of her that didn’t even care how Nicholas really felt about her. That just wanted to give in and accept the marriage so that he might hold her and she might feel that sensation again of being wanted, being protected, even if he only gave his attention because of the money and his lust.
And it made her feel so, so ashamed.
She should want to run away like she’d done before. Like she’d always planned. It was possible—anything was possible, if she was willing to endure the hardships that would be required if they ever hoped to locate William and the Possession.
The Mediterranean seemed so far away now. Everything that mattered seemed far away. Unreachable.
If only she could go back in time to that gazebo in the woods at Auntie Phil’s country house and curl up on that bench seat in the dappled sunshine and never leave.
But strong, brave people didn’t want to hide in wooded gazebos. They wanted to sail the seas and shoot cannons and swill grog in taverns and take Egyptian lovers.
The only lover she wanted to take—and oh, God, she longed for his embrace so fiercely—was Nicholas.
* * *
MILLIE TRIED TO concentrate on a book she’d found in Philomena’s library about a French physician and his experiments, but it was impossible to think of anything but how she might confront Lord Taggart about their agreement.
She glanced at the shrinking candle. Before long, nighttime reading would once again become a luxury.
From the floor above came the rumble of male laughter from Philomena’s dressing room, and Millie closed her book. Philomena toyed with men because she could—she did not need them for anything.
If this plan did not work, Millie would be in a very different position.
Her stomach turned, and she squeezed her legs together inside her voluminous nightgown. There was nothing—nothing—she wouldn’t do to prevent that. But time certainly was running short—certainly Lord Taggart did not intend to wait much longer before carrying his plans through.
She had to speak with him before that. Once he and India were married, he would have no reason to pay her what he’d agreed. Every day that passed, it seemed less likely that he planned to keep his end of the bargain. He might be waiting for the marriage to actually take place—which was not their agreement—and she couldn’t let him do that.
She imagined confronting him. You’ve been of little use to me, he might say. I owe you nothing.
What would she do then? She had nothing to hold over him. No way to force the money from him. All she had to rely on—all there’d been from the beginning—was his honor.
A man’s honor meant very little.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. Millie glanced at the mantel clock: ten minutes past one. What was India doing awake so late?
She went to answer, and admitted an India who looked decidedly strained.
“What’s happened?” Millie asked, hoping—please, God—the answer wasn’t a wedding. Not yet.
“We have to do something,” India said. “This can’t go on. I can’t let him take my dignity—I won’t.” No, definitely not a wedding.
Millie shut the door. “What are you talking about? What has he done?”
But India was in one of her not-listening tizzies. “I can’t let him make me feel like this,” she raged. “I’m not vulnerable—not anymore. We may not have succeeded, be we captained that ship all the way to Malta, Millie. And perhaps we had some trouble, but we did it, and we could do it again. He’s the one who’s vulnerable. Only think what will become of him without Father’s money. He should be begging me to marry him.”
“Is that what you want? Him to beg you?” Because if that was all it would take—
“Of course not.”
“You’re not going to convince him to change his mind. Surely you’ve realized that much.”
“I’m not completely dim-witted.”
“Then the sooner you accept there’s nothing you can do about it—”
“But there is something I can do about it.”
“India, posing half-nude for a room full of men was never going to work, and neither will whatever you’ve thought of now.”
“It isn’t something I’ve thought of.” Millie knew India well enough to know when India had latched on to a silly scheme and when she was considering something very serious. The look on India’s face said this was no silly scheme.
Millie stilled. “Then what is it?”
“You must promise you won’t breathe a word to anyone. Ever.”
God in heaven. If it wasn’t something India had thought of, it had to be something she’d done. “Of course.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
“I never imagined...” India started, then stopped. “I just never would have thought.”
Dear God. Millie imagined India in a room somewhere with a stranger—
Millie couldn’t help it. She threw her arms around India. “Just put it from your mind. It will be all right.... Nobody needs to find out. Some women do not bleed the first time, so Lord Taggart need never know, even if there are no stains on the marriage bed—”
“What are you talking about?” India pulled away.
“Did you not part with your virtue?”
“No! For heaven’s—no. And with him following me everywhe
re, I would hardly be able to even if I wished it. Which I don’t, not anymore, because— Never mind why. Millie...Nicholas Warre is not what he seems.”
Millie waited.
“That day we followed him into the church, I overheard something that could change everything if I told Auntie Phil. It could stop all of this. Father would never approve—not ever. I know he wouldn’t. But if I tell...it would ruin Nicholas Warre forever.”
And India proceeded to divulge information that would ensure Millie would not have to rely on Lord Taggart’s honor to get what she’d been promised.
Millie sat down. “I see.” The news was...unbelievable. Suddenly it was impossible to look India in the eye.
“Father would never want our family connected with Nicholas Warre if he knew,” India said now. She sat down, too, and hugged herself, rubbing her arms a little. “I could go to Auntie Phil right now. Well, not right this minute, but tomorrow morning. Then we would see who had the upper hand.” But India’s tone had lost its fervor, and it was obvious that India wasn’t sure she could ruin Lord Taggart, not even if it meant she would end up married to him.
Millie said, a bit hesitantly, “No wonder he is so desperate to save his estate. If what you say is true, without it he would be little more than a misbegotten good-for-naught.” She glanced at a scratch on her finger. Looked up, smiled a little. “You would certainly have your revenge by exposing him. Only think how it would destroy him.”
Already India was shaking her head. “I can’t, Millie. I’ve got to find another way to stop the marriage, because I simply couldn’t do that to him. To anyone.”
And Millie felt about as honorable as a maggot, because if Lord Taggart refused to pay her, she would not have the same qualms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BY THE NEXT day, despite being somewhat comforted by Millie before finally returning to bed, India was in no mood for a stroll in the gardens with Auntie Phil and a bevy of admirers.
Auntie Phil made flirting look like such fun. But it wasn’t, not anymore. India was so tired of this. She didn’t want the marquis’ attentions, didn’t want these other Parisian gallants flocking around her the way they gathered around Auntie Phil—the way they were doing now, while Auntie Phil laughed with them as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
All of India’s flirtations weren’t even having an effect on Nicholas. Perhaps because everything she told him was a lie. She didn’t plan to have an affair. She only wanted him to think she planned to.
But if her strategy at the painter’s studio hadn’t affected Nicholas...what possibly would? How outrageously would she have to behave in order to crack his mask of indifference?
The sun filtered through high, hazy clouds as they stood in an opening where several paths converged. Auntie Phil entertained the men with lighthearted nothings, fluttering her fan and touching it occasionally to her décolletage. India didn’t have the heart to follow suit.
Perhaps she could feign a terrible illness and be finished with all this nonsense. Nicholas could hardly force a marriage if she were confined to her bed, sick with a possibly contagious disease. It could last for days. Weeks, even. And by the time she was well enough to accept visitors, Nicholas would—
“Lord Taggart,” Auntie Phil said, and now India heard the crunch of footsteps behind her. “What a relief to see you. I daresay my niece has been pining over that pond these past fifteen minutes—” she pointed across the clearing with her fan “—and you are just the man to escort her. Do take India to see the ducks, will you?”
No—
“A pleasure.”
Nicholas offered India his arm, and there didn’t seem a way to refuse—because you don’t really want to refuse—and moments later they were walking together toward a pool where a group of ducks paddled peacefully, poking in the water for food.
She reached deep for the will to continue the game. “The number of times we’ve been thrown together by chance since arriving in Paris is positively uncanny, Mr. Warre,” she told him.
“I was just thinking the same thing.” He smiled a little. “Uncanny.”
“Imagine, you deciding to take some air in the gardens at the exact same moment my aunt and I planned to meet the marquis. If one did not know better, one might almost think you wanted to interfere in our fledgling amour.”
“Spoiling your plans for an intimate rendezvous was the furthest thing from my mind, I assure you,” Nicholas said. He glanced over his shoulder. “Although it would seem your plans were already spoiled.”
Being this close to him was madness. It took all her concentration not to simply stare up at him. Every sense seemed focused on the point where her fingers touched his arm, on the solid flex of muscle beneath her hand.
“The more the merrier, I always think.”
“Indeed,” he murmured, “you’ve demonstrated that opinion quite successfully.” His tone left no doubt that he was thinking of her portrait sitting. Remembering.
Her body’s secret places stirred.
“I only wonder that you did not seem as enthusiastic last night as you did earlier in the day,” he added. “Perhaps studying modern philosophers is not a favorite pastime?”
Just that quickly, her secret places were forgotten. Too late she realized she’d tensed her fingers around his arm. Deliberately she relaxed them. “Mr. Warre, based on your knowledge of me—” she laughed “—would you expect me to be interested in philosophy?”
“I might have expected you to prepare for the evening, as your aunt did.”
And now Nicholas was looking at her more intently than he had before, as if perhaps he knew there were things India wasn’t telling him—personal things she would never tell him.
She waved his notion away and looked at the ducks. “After my grueling afternoon yesterday, I was hardly in any condition to study.” She looked up at him brazenly. He couldn’t possibly have figured out her failure from that single incident. Could he? “Sitting for a portrait is more tiring than one might expect.”
“Mmm.” His eyes were so green, so full of temptation. “I can certainly confirm that watching someone sit for a portrait is tiring.”
She raised her chin. “You needn’t have stayed.”
His gaze touched her cheeks, her lips. “I daresay we both know I did need to.”
A keen yearning curled inside her, tight and warm and wanting. If they were married, if she simply let this happen, the fight would be over. And there would be nothing to stop her from reaching out to him. Touching his face. Tracing the line of his jaw or the curve of his lip. Nothing to stop her from simply staring at him for as long as she wished.
As she watched, the calculation in his eyes softened.
“India,” he started—in a new tone, a quiet and serious tone she’d never heard him use— “I want you to know that, as your husband, I shall never do anything to hurt you.”
She stared at him. The look in his eyes—the tone, those words, they wrapped around her. Tempting. Making her heart beat faster.
“Don’t...don’t be ridiculous.” Certainly his idea of hurt was different than hers. Obviously it was. “Only look at all you’ve done already, and without the benefit of that title. Need I remind you about the ribbons? And in any case, we both know you’ve changed your mind about...that agreement.”
Would he finally confess—here, now—that he hadn’t changed his mind?
If they married, and there would be no more India. There would only be Lord and Lady Taggart.
Which was why she needed to turn around, have him walk her back toward Auntie Phil and the men, and resume showing him exactly what kind of Lady Taggart she might become.
Nicholas’s lips tightened. “India—”
“Taggart,” a familiar voice called, and his gaze shot behind her, to the speaker, whose voice she recognized easily. She glanced over her shoulder at the Duke of Winston, ambling toward them. Relief tangled with frustration—what had Nicholas been about to say?
&n
bsp; “Good afternoon,” the duke said, joining them at the pond’s edge.
“What a pleasure to see you, Your Grace,” India said, and the two men began a conversation about the merits of the day’s light cloud cover.
Whatever Nicholas had been going to say, she did not want to hear. And the duke— Yes, she realized now that the duke presented the perfect opportunity to turn the conversation in a new direction.
She waited until a few more pleasantries had been exchanged, and then she asked, “Have you been enjoying your evenings at Madame Gravelle’s?” Her heart raced a little faster.
The duke’s brows edged upward. He looked at Nicholas, then back at India, and amusement touched the corners of his mouth. “Evenings in the plural may be taking things a bit far,” he said. “I doubt even I could survive such entertainments on a nightly basis.”
Good. Excellent. Madam Gravelle’s, she’d learned, was a house of ill repute. That made it the perfect subject to show Nicholas she wasn’t interested in his declarations.
That you’re afraid of them.
Oh, fie. “What a fascinating thing to imagine. I’ve been thinking of attending myself, despite my aunt’s opinion, and now I am all the more intrigued.”
She felt Nicholas looking at her but refused to turn her eyes in his direction.
What if he’s sincere?
It wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t change anything. It couldn’t.
“Far be it from me to dissuade you, Lady India,” the duke said, humor dancing in his dark eyes. “But I fear you might not find it to your liking. It appeals to women with an entirely different sort of...shall we say...education.”
Finally she looked at Nicholas, making herself smile up at him—but she could hardly breathe, and now her entire mind seemed filled with what he’d actually said to her a few minutes ago and how he’d said it. “I’m quite certain Lord Taggart would wish me to be well educated,” she said as saucily as she could manage.
“Absolutely,” Nicholas said. His lips curved. “I’ve always viewed education as most valuable.”
And now they were back to pretending, and she would never know what he’d been about to say.
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