“Oh, yes.” She dropped her gaze to his stark, white cravat. “Though I expect one such as you would know nothing of that frigidity.”
Christian opened his mouth, but no words were forthcoming. He didn’t bother with false protestations, for which she was grateful. As the sought-after, roguish Marquess of St. Cyr, the world in which they moved found a small, select few lords and ladies in its favor. The unfortunate others were just one misstep away from Societal disdain. She and he moved within those two very distinctly different spheres.
Suddenly disquieted by the solemnity in his eyes as he passed his gaze over her face, she turned out and gave her attention to the desolate grounds below. The wind slapped her skirts. She instinctively folded her arms at her chest and rubbed her forearms.
Tension thrummed between them, as this man, more stranger than anything else moved nearer. His knees brushed the back of her skirts. “It is a certainty I’m far more deserving of their frigidity than you could or would ever be,” he whispered against ear and shivers radiated from her neck, all the way to her belly, and down to her toes. He must have attributed the slight tremor of her body to the cold of night for he lowered his gloved palms to her shoulders. Then slowly, ever so slowly, he ran his palms down her forearms and then up again in a rhythmic motion that sucked at her senses.
No scandal…no scandal…
“You are merely being magnanimous,” she managed, priding herself on the evenness of those words. His touch wrought havoc upon her ability to formulate clear thoughts. “You needn’t disparage yourself on my account.”
Christian paused, halting that seductive movement that had rubbed warmth back into her limbs and she wanted to cry out in protest. “Mine are not merely gentlemanly protestations. I assure you, my lady.”
My lady. Not Prudence. And yet, his shocking touch shattered propriety like an icicle hitting the cobblestones.
Christian angled her slightly back around, so that she faced him. “Society sees what they wish to see. They take a person and their circumstances and make order of them in whatever way they can. And do you know what I’ve come to find, Prudence?” Her name once more. Happiness lightened her chest so that she had to tell her brain to tell her head to nod.
He brushed back that tight curl hanging over her eye. “I’ve found that Society is more often than not wrong in the order they make a person’s life.”
For a moment, his usually smiling eyes filled with such darkness, she again shivered. A hungering to know what accounted for that somberness gripped her. But more, a cowardice to not know the secrets hidden in his eyes kept her silent.
Something cold and wet touched her nose. She blinked several times and then, with alacrity, shot her gaze up to the night sky. White flecks fluttered and danced an uneven pattern down to the earth. “Snow,” she breathed. Prudence looked to him, her heart lifting. “It is snowing.”
Chapter 10
Lesson Ten
One should be able to speak freely with a gentleman
The lady had been listening at his office door. Terry had directed Christian in her direction. The truth of what she’d likely overheard would be bandied about by gossips and shake his family with an unneeded scandal. Not that any scandals were needed, but particularly not any further given Christian’s current state. Yet, something gave him pause. He took in the wide-eyed wonder etched in the heart-shaped planes of the lady’s face.
“Why are you staring at me?” Prudence whispered, her breath clouded in the cold air.
He momentarily closed his eyes to blot out the innocent lure she’d cast, wanting to breathe in her unjaded goodness so he might be restored to the person he’d been before the hell of his own making. This woman fit not at all into the plans forced upon him as marquess and yet she drew him like a Siren hopelessly battering him at sea. All thoughts, plans, and efforts for those title graspers fled when presented with her unadulterated honesty. Ah, God help him. Such unsullied innocence was an aphrodisiac that, with his bloodied hands and ugly past, he’d long ago learned the perils of. “I cannot look away.”
She opened her mouth and he kissed the question from her. Christian took her lips under his, first with a gentle meeting. He explored the bow-shaped contour of the plump flesh. The hesitancy with which she met that caress heightened the reminder of her innocence. There had been another. Young. Innocent. But underneath had been a jaded, treacherous heart. He stiffened, hardening that deadened organ to the seductive pull this woman held over him.
Prudence pressed her palms to his chest. Her small, delicate gloved hands drew him further into whatever web she wove. With a groan, Christian deepened the kiss. He slanted his lips over hers, again and again until a breathless moan escaped her. He swallowed the sound of her desire and wrapped his arms about her waist, drawing her close.
“Christian,” she cried out softly, tangling her fingers in his hair, urging him closer still.
Fueled by her unrestrained hungering, he dragged his mouth down her cheek, and lower, searching out the long column of her neck where her pulse pounded. He nipped at the flesh, lightly marking her, but then from some distant recess of his mind where propriety still lived, and reason still existed, he recalled she would have to return to the ballroom.
“I-I have n-never,” she said huskily, her words ending on a gasp as he cupped her buttocks and dragged her where his shaft pressed hard at the front of his breeches. Prudence arched her neck. “I have n-never felt anything like this.” Then with an innocence that blended with an innate knowing surely Eve had given all women, she pushed her hips against him.
“Ah, you are a Siren,” he rasped and claimed her lips once more. This time gentleness melted away as she opened her mouth to accept him. He found her tongue with his and she met his kiss in a blend of innocence and boldness that was not the practiced exchange of the courtesans and skilled mistresses he’d taken.
Her legs weakened, and he caught her, guiding her against the edge of the balustrade. There, with only the small snowflakes and the clouds overhead as their witness, he learned the taste and texture of her mouth. She was honey and peppermint; the perfect blend of innocence for the woman she was.
“I am going to hell,” he said gruffly as he trailed kisses along the column of her throat to her modest décolletage. Innocent English ladies did not fit into the scheme of his plannings.
“Su-surely not for this?”
Surely for a host of sins and crimes. That staggering reminder jerked him to the moment. Christian stumbled away from her with such alacrity she faltered. He immediately shot his hands out to steady her from the perch he’d guided her moments ago. His breath came hard and fast, in time to the quick rise and fall of her chest. With her rapid blinking, she had the look of a night owl caught in the morning sun. He raked shaky fingers through his hair. Christ. What manner of madness had possessed him touching her as he had?
“What is wrong?” Her soft whisper reached his ears.
Likely the same manner of madness that still gripped him, for he ached to take her in his arms once more. A harsh laugh rumbled up from his chest, and unable to bear the sight of her uncertain and questioning expression, he dragged a hand over his face. “There is everything wrong.” He let his hand fall to his side. He had no place meeting this woman out here alone, who dreamed of more and who clearly deserved more, and certainly even less place kissing her like she was a common street whore he’d plow against the balustrade on a winter’s night.
Prudence trailed her tongue along the seam of her lips. He stilled as a wave of lust slammed into him to reclaim her mouth under his and swallow the desperate moans of her desire. “Oh.” She scuffed the stone patio with the tip of her slipper. Her cheeks flushed red from the cold and the taste of passion they’d shared, she dropped her gaze to the ground. “I see.”
He studied that distracted movement. By the heightened color on her cheeks, that endearing shade of red, and the hesitancy in those terse utterances, she was not the practiced, experienced
women who desired nothing more than a place in his bed.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
She shocked him once more with her directness. Prudence raised her head and tipped her chin back in bold defiance. Something stirred within him. He blamed it on the cold, sucking the breath from his lungs, or the flakes landing on his cheeks, but in this moment, he wanted to draw her into his arms and forever lose himself in the purity of her soul. The assurance that he’d intended to give, the words affirming that despite her uncertainty, she’d moved him in ways that no other woman had ever impacted him, died on his lips. “You should not be here,” he said, his voice deliberately devoid of emotion.
She cocked her head.
Prudence no more belonged here than he, a notorious rogue with a black reputation belonged in the hallowed halls of Almack’s. “If you were discovered, you would be ruined.” Or perhaps that was the lady’s game? She’d spoken of her remarkable lack of prospects. But surely even with that, she knew she could easily find a man more deserving than Christian.
As though she’d followed the cynical direction his thoughts had wandered, her slender frame went taut. She cast a glance past his shoulder toward the door that represented safety and security. And then, she glanced at him once more. “I am already ruined.” Spoken in that sad, almost wistful quality, the lady took those words as fact.
His fingers ached with the need to stroke the satin smoothness of her cheek. “You clearly believe that,” he said quietly. “But that is not true.”
She folded her arms against her chest and he hungered with the need to take her in his arms and drive back the winter chill. “But it is.”
He scoffed. “Why, because of your sister?”
At that, Prudence squared her shoulders. A dark frown he’d not believed her capable of settled on her well-kissed mouth. “You know my circumstances.” There was a faintly accusatory edge to her words which were more statement than anything else.
“I know what you have told me.” He also knew the brief pieces imparted by Maxwell; those pieces he’d sworn he’d not wanted for one reason, only now knowing he’d wished he’d never heard them because in hearing them he was no worse than those gossips. “Do you know what I believe?”
She shook her head once. “What is that, Christian?”
“I believe you deserve more than the shoddy treatment you’ve been given by the damned dandies who are too fool enough to see who is before them. I believe you deserve to dance every bloody set until your feet ache.” Christian took another step toward her, closing the space between them again. He spoke in hushed tones. “And do you know what else I believe?”
In a bid to hold his gaze, Prudence tilted her chin. “What is that?”
“I believe it is a crime you are out here, hiding on my balcony when you should be surrounded by suitors.”
The wind howled around them so that her skirts danced in the air. The moments ticked by and as time lengthened the silence, a hot flush heated his neck at his revealing words. He felt exposed before her, this woman who’d slipped into his world several months ago and then disappeared, only to reemerge in this horrible world of Polite Society.
“I don’t want to be surrounded by suitors,” she said softly.
She did not want suitors? He scoffed. “All ladies desire those attentions.” Except, his throwaway statement roused an image of her with a sea of undeserving swains before her and he fisted his hands at his side. Even in his imagined scenario, he wanted to bloody every last one of those undeserving bastards.
“Some ladies, yes,” Prudence conceded. She held up a long finger, encased in its white glove.
Christian stared transfixed at that single digit.
“But I am not most ladies. I do not want a swarm of gentleman. I just want a single, honorable, good man.”
Her words sliced through him with the same vicious intensity of the bayonet cutting into his person. For with her admission, she’d merely served to remind him of all the reasons he had no place being around someone who’d not been jaded and destroyed by life. He retreated several steps and then sketched a deep bow. “Then, I suggest you return to the ballroom so you might find that man.”
Her shocked gasp was drowned out by another blast of wind. She shrugged out of his jacket and handed it over to him. “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, her voice garbled. Prudence dipped a curtsy and then walked the length of the stone patio with a grace to rival the queen herself. As she reached the door, she hesitated, and he expected her to look at him once more.
Christian braced for the moment, knowing he’d be lost, taking her in his unworthy arms once again. But then, wordlessly, she opened the door and slipped inside, leaving him—alone.
Chapter 11
Lesson Eleven
Madcap schemes can be either dangerous or beneficial…and sometimes both…
Throughout the course of Prudence’s eighteen years, she and her sisters had demonstrated an enormous originality where madcap schemes were concerned. There had been the time she, Poppy, and Penelope—in protest of being left alone with a horrid nursemaid, who’d been quick to rap their knuckles—had removed the stitches from all the hems of their mother’s evening gowns to prevent the countess from abandoning them with the harridan for that particular evening. Or another when they’d diligently collected crickets from the Kent countryside and unleashed them in that same nursemaid’s room.
Her mother had despaired of Prudence, or any of her sisters, becoming anything more than troublesome hoydens. Their brother had been, and still clearly was, of like opinion. Through her foibles and scheming, however, both her mother and Sin had demonstrated a remarkable patience for the unconventional Tidemore girls.
The following morning, perched on the edge of an ivory upholstered sofa in the Marchioness of Drake’s townhouse, Prudence admitted to at least herself that this latest scheme would never be met with any manner of patience or despairing acceptance. Not when it so violated the mantra her mother likely muttered in her sleep.
No scandals. No elopements or rushed marriages. You are to be everything and all things proper. All the time…
Somewhere between listening at Christian’s keyhole and reflecting on their exchange upon the balcony, it had come to her. They were each other’s solution to their own, very different, problems. She nibbled her lip. Yet, what had seemed like a very good idea the evening prior now bore the hint of scandal. Unease turned in Prudence’s belly as she looked to the marchioness’ ormolu clock. As with each grating ticking of that blasted timepiece, her anxiety doubled. She brushed her damp palms over the front of her skirts.
The woman was a friend of their family. She’d not betray her confidence. Certainly not to Society, but surely not to Prudence’s own family, either. Prudence drew in a slow, steadying breath and sought for resolve. After all, what choice did she have? The little pieces of the marchioness’ past she’d revealed in her ballroom had been testament to the fact that, at least in this regard, she was more like the marchioness than unlike.
Footsteps sounded in the hall and she jumped to her feet just as the ever-smiling, brown-haired marchioness stepped into the room. “Prudence,” she greeted, not breaking a stride as she rushed over in a flurry of pale blue skirts.
“Lady Drake.” She held her hands out as the other woman reached for them and gave them a squeeze. The perpetual grin worn by the other woman and her freckled nose somehow made her more than a distinguished title. It made her human. “Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me.”
The marchioness waved at the seat Prudence previously occupied. “Oh, come, surely with the friendship between our families you’ll not stand on ceremony. It is Emmaline,” she corrected.
“Emmaline,” Prudence repeated and gratefully reclaimed her seat.
“I will have refreshments called—”
“No!” The denial burst from Prudence. “There is no need,” she said quickly when the other woman angled her head and studied her curiously. “U
nless, you yourself would care for them.” Her mother’s head would be spinning with mortified shame at the bumbling mess she was making of an already scandalous meeting between her daughter and the marchioness. “But I do not need anything,” she finished lamely.
Emmaline’s smile widened and she sat back in her chair.
Except, now that the lady who’d given her hope was here and staring patiently at her, all the carefully crafted words she’d intended fled her mind. Prudence nervously plucked at the fabric of her white dress. Her gaze was drawn to Emmaline’s delicate, blue satin gown with a sheer lace overlay. She stopped playing with her muslin skirts. “Your gown is splendid,” she blurted. “If I were to wear gowns of something other than white,” she mumbled under her breath. “They would be tasteful and delicately beautiful like yours.”
“Why, thank you.”
Prudence drummed her fingers on the edge of her seat. A gentleman such as Christian would never be so enticed by a lady in frilly, silly lace. No, a man of his roguish sophistication would admire those ladies who wore cleverly constructed creations of colors other than white as the marchioness. She started as Emmaline reached over and touched her knee.
“I suspect that whatever has brought you here today does not have to do with my gown.” The woman spoke with such gentleness and encouragement she could sneak the secrets out of the Home Office with her tone and smile alone.
Prudence shook her head. “No, no it does not.” And then finding the resolve that had followed her first kiss, that magical moment shared with Christian, and then her determination that morning, she opened her mouth. And then promptly closed it. She looked to the front of the room. “May we close the door, my lady?” After all, if a loose-lipped servant overheard this particular meeting, it would be the ultimate ruin of her; not just the ruin that had come from her connection to Patrina or Sin.
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