Captivated by a Lady's Charm

by Christi Caldwell

  Chapter 17

  Lesson Seventeen

  With their shelving and immense rows, bookshops prove quite useful places to arrange a clandestine meeting…

  Prudence marched down the cobbled London streets at a brisk clip that would have had all number of past governesses lamenting their failed efforts to turn their charge into a proper lady. She kept her gaze forward with a single-minded purpose that had dogged her since yesterday afternoon. She skirted past the occasional passersby, drawing her cloak close as a meager protection from the cool, winter chill.

  In all of Mother’s worrying about scandals, rushed marriages or elopements, Prudence wondered where this latest scheme would fall into her mother’s horrified fears.

  Then, that was assuming her mother learned about said meeting. She set her jaw. Which she could not. Nay would not, discover. To do so would likely result in a hasty carriage ride for Prudence back to the country. Then, if her efforts did not go as planned, the alternative of being packed up and sent off was, at the very least, a slightly better alternative than being forced to endure a long, lonely London Season.

  A niggling of guilt crept in. Prudence stole a glance over her shoulder at the millinery where she’d left her unsuspecting maid. The poor woman had little hope where her mistress was concerned. Why, over the years, none of the strictest servants or sternest governesses had been a match for any of the Tidemore ladies. Surely neither her mother nor her maid could truly believe Prudence wanted another dress, kerchief, or shawl made of that blasted white fabric. Thrusting aside all remorse, she continued on.

  As she hurried down the empty walkway, she pulled her bonnet lower, attempting to obscure her face. Her breath came quick, in time to her rapid heartbeat, stirring puffs of white, winter air. With each step that carried her away from her maid and onward to her destination, a giddy lightness filled her chest. There was something so very invigorating in having freedom from the constraints of a maid or bothersome sisters or an overprotective brother. In a world where women were expected to make proper matches with proper gentleman, deemed suitable by those males who ruled their glittering world, Prudence had taken control of her own fate and the power of that was heady stuff, indeed.

  She stepped around a vendor’s wooden cart, and pressed on with a single-minded focus.

  The corner establishment with the hanging wooden sign called her attention. Quickening her step lest her maid discovered her gone too quickly, she hurried across the street to that shop. She reached for the handle and then froze. The wind whipped about her, stirring her blue velvet cloak. For the first time since she’d concocted her plan and dashed off that hastily written note, logic reared its head. If her actions were invariably discovered, she would have ruined her unwed sisters in the way they’d all suffered because of Patrina’s rash decision.

  Prudence captured her lower lip between her teeth and worried the flesh. And yet, Christian was nothing like Albert Marshville. There had been nothing honorable or good in Marshville, a man so twisted and destroyed by his thirst for revenge against Prudence’s brother. No, such a man would not have selflessly risked his life upon a battlefield, and returned, resisting fanfare and the praise bestowed on him as hero.

  Thrusting aside the lingering reservation, Prudence pressed the handle and entered the shop. She took in the small but crowded establishment. Her nose twitched under the stench of dust and aged, leather books. She closed the door with a soft click and did a quick search of the establishment. But for the floor length shelves, packed to overflowing with books, and an old man seated upon a stool at the front counter, the shop was empty. Prudence walked deeper into the dusty bookshop. She opened her mouth to call a greeting to the wizened man with his bushy, white brows and stark, white hair, but then a small snore escaped him.

  A slight smile played on her lips. Well, perhaps the fates were smiling on her this day in agreement with her plan. An empty shop, and one ill-attended by an ancient, now slumbering, older man. Prudence tiptoed along the scratched and scraped hardwood floors. She held her breath as the rustling of her cloak sounded like a shot in the still of the shop. She cast another glance back at the older vendor, but he slumbered on and she resumed her search of the dark, cluttered room. With each step she took, she became immersed deeper and deeper into a plan that many would view as foolhardy and likely only she viewed as serendipitous.

  Prudence strode down one aisle, skimming her gaze over title after title. A periodic snorting gasp escaped the shopkeeper, punctuating the soft tread of her footsteps. She ran her fingertips along the spines, searching out that one specific title.

  The Bride of Lammermoor. The title tumbled around in her mind; an unexpected selection for a gentleman purported to be a rogue, and one whose curt words at their last meeting in Hyde Park had revealed a jaded soul. Prudence turned down the next aisle and continued her search, looking back and forth between the shelving units. For focusing on that lone volume was far easier than running through the carefully selected words she’d rehearsed since last evening.

  She jumped when a sputtering snore from the old shopkeeper split the quiet. Prudence pressed a hand to her pounding heart. She frowned. What if he did not come? She’d not allowed herself to consider the possibility that Lord Maxwell would ignore her summons. Rather, she’d based her expectations for this meeting on Lady Drake’s inclusion of Sin in her grand plan to bring the Marquess of Drake up to scratch. But Prudence didn’t really know Lord Maxwell. She didn’t know him at all, if she were being truly precise.

  “It is a bit late for precise on that particular score,” she muttered under her breath. Now she needed to trust he’d meet her as requested, and aid her, and help bring his roguish, bachelor friend who might or might not be in the need of a fortune, up to scratch. With an agitated sigh, Prudence loosened her bonnet strings. Perhaps this was not altogether one of her best plans, after all. Particularly when laid out in that concise manner.

  She wetted her lips and for a brief, infinitesimal moment contemplated escaping the shop and retuning to the milliner where her poor maid, no doubt, had already discovered her gone. I cannot do this. Not in this manner…Prudence strode toward the end of the shelf when from the corner of her eye a black leather volume with gold lettering etched down the spine snagged her notice.

  Her heart paused and drawn slowly to that book, she inched closer, closer, and then stopped. The Bride of Lammermoor. Prudence swallowed hard. She trailed her fingertips along the title and then tugged the book free.

  With unsteady fingers she pulled the heavy volume close to her chest, finding some inexplicable, comforting solace in its weight. Or perhaps, more what it symbolized.

  A faint click of the door opening echoed around the quiet shop and she shot her head up. Her heart thundered loud and hard as the door closed. With the old shopkeeper snoring away at the front of the establishment, Prudence skittered her gaze about.

  No scandals. No elopements or rushed marriages…

  The quiet was punctuated by the snoring shopkeeper and footsteps as someone strode through the shop. The stranger moved with a methodical precision in a manner similar to her own search a short while ago.

  Then the person stopped just at the end of the tall shelf. For another moment, she considered fleeing. Society has dictates they expect us to follow, but it is important to sometimes take control of your happiness… With the marchioness’ words echoing around her mind, Prudence drew in a fortifying breath and squared her shoulders. Control of her fate belonged to her. She’d not turn the care of her happiness over to Sin, Mother, or anyone else.

  Lord Maxwell stepped into her aisle.

  “Lord…” Her words trailed off and she angled her head, staring unblinkingly at the man who was decidedly not Lord Maxwell. A tall, ruggedly sculpted, not at all unfamiliar gentleman who tugged off his stark, white gloves, and studied her through hooded lashes—Christian. The book tumbled from her fingers and landed with a soft thump. “What are you doing here?” she blurted
, that precious tome forgotten.

  He stuffed his gloves inside the front of his cloak and leaned against the bookshelf, effectively blocking any forward retreat that she might make. “Were you expecting another, sweet?” Christian stretched out that last endearment on a smooth, practiced whisper. He momentarily dropped his gaze to the book that lay forlornly on the floor between them and then shifted his penetrating stare to her.

  He thought to block the way? No, she’d much rather make a hasty retreat away from the usually grinning gentleman who stared at her with an uncharacteristically harsh gleam in his chocolate brown eyes. She shot a panicked look over her shoulder.

  The floorboards creaked and she swiveled her attention back to Christian. He’d silently closed the distance between them. “Well?” he said on a slow whisper that contained a hint of teasing and a hint of hardness that, together, thoroughly confounded her senses.

  He is here. Why is he here? She took several steps away, but in her hastily executed retreat, backed herself against the shelf. “Er…” Her mind spun and he arched a golden eyebrow. Prudence cocked her head, momentarily distracted by that slight movement. As a girl, she’d practiced before a mirror that slightly mocking movement. Poppy and Penelope had perfected the gesture, while she had been left looking like a perplexed mess. How very much alike that moment was to this.

  He leaned forward, shrinking the space between them. “Nothing to say?”

  “I was,” she said quickly, layering her palms against the leather volumes at her back. Their surface proved cool and reassuring and she borrowed artificial strength from the dusty books.

  He stilled.

  She cleared her throat. “That is to say, I was not expecting you.”

  “But rather another?”

  The steely edge to that question gave her pause. By the volatile emotion simmering beneath the coolly composed façade, her answer mattered to him. Surely that mattered for reasons she needed it to, wanted it to. She made to nod. Then it occurred to her. She widened her eyes. Of course. Of all the rotted luck. Prudence slipped past him and rushed over to the forgotten copy. She sank to her knees and rescued the black leather book. “Here you are, Christian.”

  His eyebrows dipped.

  She waved the book before him. “I gather this is why you are here.” Now, if he’d only take it and go, there was the possibility he’d be gone before Lord Maxwell arrived and discovered the real reason for her visit.

  “You think I’ve come for Sir Walter Scott’s work?” He took a step closer.

  “H-have you not?” Was it too much to hope that it was Sir Walter Scott’s work that brought him here?

  “I have not.” Drat. He took another step and another; a lethal predator stalking its unsuspecting prey, and her fingertips quivered as with his steady, powerful hand, he relieved her of the tome.

  “P-perhaps a copy of some other work?” she stammered, praying there was, in fact, some other grand piece of literature that had driven him to this empty establishment with its slumbering shopkeeper.

  “I have not come to fill my library, Prudence,” he said quietly, killing that fledgling hope. Then he shot out his other hand.

  She eyed it a moment and then looked to him. A challenge reflected in his eyes. He expected her to reject that show of help as though his presence here had so intimidated her and shocked her that he’d send her fleeing. The marquess would discover she was no coward on any matter. Prudence placed her gloved fingertips in his and allowed him to help her to her feet. Tired of his toying with her like a canary captured by the cat, she tipped her chin up. “Then it begs the question of what you are doing in a bookshop if not looking for a book.” For it if wasn’t a book that brought him here, then there could be only one other reason. Dratted Lord Maxwell. Wasn’t there some code in terms of honor and silence? But perhaps the code of friendship between stubborn-headed males was all the more powerful. She wetted her lips and his sharp gaze fell to that slight movement, narrowing all the further.

  A wry smile tugged at his lips. “Why, I am meeting you.” He turned the book back over to her care.

  Her heart thumped and a giddy elation caused that familiar fluttering in her belly.

  Prudence accepted the copy of Sir Walter Scott’s famous work and pulled it protectively to her chest. “But why…?” The words died on her lips and she studied his movements as he reached into his cloak, fished around the front of his jacket, and then withdrew a folded piece of parchment. A very familiar piece of parchment. She ceased to blink and then resumed a rapid eye movement. If she were Juliet, she’d have all manner of tart, dismissive, and triumphant replies for the gentleman whose expression demanded answers. Alas, she’d never been one to prevaricate. “Oh, that.” Blasted Lord Maxwell.

  “Yes, this.” He winged another golden brow upward. “Would you care to read it?”

  Prudence gave her head such a dizzying shake, her bonnet was knocked askew. “Why would I care to read it?” After all, she knew very well the contents of that missive.

  “You do not deny writing it?”

  For a brief moment she considered that cowardly route. But then, what was the point of that? She clearly knew that he clearly knew those words belonged to her. “I do not.” Prudence snatched it from his fingertips and he started with surprise at the alacrity of her movement. Or perhaps it was her bold commandeering of the note? Either way, an unsettled Christian was vastly preferable to her own uneasy self. “You, however, do not have leave to read another man’s correspondence.”

  “Even if said other man saw fit to share the missive with me.”

  A curl tumbled over her eye and she blew it back. Blasted Lord Maxwell. The recalcitrant strand promptly fell over her eye once more. “That was not well done of him,” she imparted. Nor had that particularly deceitful action fit into her entire plan of how this day would go. “You were not supposed to learn of that,” she said at last, hating the faint, breathless quality of her voice.

  Christian captured the bothersome lock and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. How could that slight movement rob her of thought? “That, as in your note to Maxwell?”

  She managed a nod. Her body thrummed with an awareness of his hard, powerful form nearly flush against hers. He placed his lips close to her ear. “Why the letter, Prudence?” The hint of coffee tickled her senses. How could that bitter, aromatic scent be this potent aphrodisiac?

  She closed her eyes. “Y-you were not—”

  “Supposed to discover it, yes, you said as much.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why?” Had that demand come out as a sharp, authoritative command, it would have been easy to deny. Yet, his husky baritone wrapped about that one syllable so that she could deny him nothing.

  She drew in a slow breath and raised her eyes to his. “I wanted to discuss…” He compelled her with his powerful gaze to finish that thought. “I wanted to discuss you,” she finished.

  Then he briefly touched his lips to the sensitive shell of her ear. Oh, God. She’d carefully planned every aspect of her meeting this day. In all her planning, however, Christian and the seductive pull of his caress had never fit into her scheming. As such, he filled her senses, killing all the carefully thought out words and her hopes of a future for her and him. Her knees knocked together and she gave thanks for the shelf at her back that prevented her from collapsing in a muddled heap at his feet.

  In meeting Prudence in Maxwell’s stead, Christian had resolved to discover what it was she’d summoned the other man for. Cool, systematic logic had driven him here. Yet all the while, he’d suspected by the title of the book she’d instructed his friend to search for there was one reason prompting that clandestine meeting. Still hearing her say it, hearing her acknowledge it was Christian who’d driven her here this day, braving scandal, filled him with a sense of male satisfaction. The alternative—she’d sought out Maxwell for reasons that did not include him—had dug at his insides with a vicious envy that had gnawed at all reason and sense.

 
; Christian trailed his kiss to her cheek. “What was it you wanted to discuss?” He forgot his earlier plan to avoid the honorable, good Prudence Tidemore and shifted his lips to the corner of her mouth.

  Her body sagged against the bookcase and he quickly anchored her with his frame. He effortlessly disentangled the book from her fingers and set it upon the shelf behind her. “D-discuss?” she breathed, angling her face, presenting her lips in a way that begged him for more.

  He touched his mouth to hers in a fleeting kiss meant to entice. The air filled with the rapid intake of her breath. Or was that his? He no longer knew whether the pounding heartbeat was hers, his, or both merging as one. “The note,” he whispered against her mouth. The reason for his being here. And yet, it had only been about her. The need to see her, share in her goodness; a goodness he had no right to. But then, he’d always been a selfish bastard.

  She forced her eyes open. “A-are you attempting to seduce secrets out of me, my lord?” The husky contralto of her voice wrapped around those intoxicating words.

  A wave of hot, powerful desire slammed into him and he brushed his mouth over hers once more. “Is it working, my lady?”

  “A-a bit.” Prudence’s lashes fluttered wildly and she leaned into him.

  “Just a bit?” He swallowed her reply with his kiss, slanting his mouth over hers again and again until the soft whimpers of her desire filled his mouth. Their tongues clashed in a hungry meeting and the note fell from her fingers as he passed his hands searchingly over her body. Christian ran his palms down the curve of her hip, around the gentle swell of her buttocks, and then dragged her into the vee of his legs where his shaft pressed the front of his breeches. He wanted to know all of her, in every way a man could know a woman. Wanted to kiss the swollen tips of her breasts and know the color of that pebbled flesh. He dragged his mouth down her neck and damned the fabric of the cloak between them.

  “Ch-Christian,” she moaned as he shoved the garment wide and caressed her modest décolletage with his mouth.