“She is innocent,” he put in. The lady did not fit with the grasping future bride he’d hoped to bind himself to.
Maxwell rolled his shoulders. “Are any women truly innocent?”
No, the French sympathizer Lynette had proven as much. He braced for the familiar sting of bitter resentment that came with the mere thought of the dark-haired traitor. And yet, it did not come. He blinked slowly. For, in knowing Prudence Tidemore with her wide, honest smile and her lack of artifice on the dance floor and discourse, she’d proven there was such a thing as a good woman. It was all the more reason to avoid her. What right did he have to such goodness? Why, when so many others had lost because of his follies?
“Shall I continue?”
Pulled back to the present, Christian looked to Maxwell. “I suspect you will continue regardless of whether or not I protest.”
His friend’s grin confirmed that supposition. “The lady has a scandal attached to her family and, as such, has been relegated to the role of wallflower. You would be doing her a great service in wedding her when most others likely will not so much as dance with her.”
When you are disdained by Society and given the cut direct by gentlemen and ladies alike, you come to find heroism in the actions of one who is undaunted by the dictates of gossips…
He took a swig of brandy and then set the partially filled glass down. “The lady has had but her first London Season and one that has only begun no less.” No, there would be some young gentleman to feed the dream in her heart for happily-ever-afters and words of love. Christian could not be that man she longed for. He clenched his glass so tight, the blood drained from his knuckles. God, how he despised that nameless man with every fiber of his worthless being.
Maxwell steepled his fingers and drummed the tips together. “Then why do I not speak with a frankness that might penetrate your blasted obstinacy? There is Lucinda.” His gut clenched. “And your mother,” his friend continued mercilessly. Every man had a weakness and he had known Christian so well, he could place the arrows directly in the spots where he was most vulnerable. “There is Mac and Martin and every other servant who relies on your generosity.”
“It is not generosity that resulted in their employment,” he replied instantly. How many of those men in his employ had been disdained for their disfigurements, when through their role on the battlefields of Europe had proven themselves far more worthy than Christian, or any other member of the ton?
“Regardless,” Maxwell continued drumming his fingertips in that grating rhythm. “Do you think most peers will be willing to hire the limbless, blind, and deaf former soldiers the way you have?”
Goddamn Maxwell for being correct and goddamn himself for needing a fortune to save everyone. He dragged his hands back and forth over his face. Some men were destined for heroics. They were those lauded figures who stories were told of like the Marquess of Drake’s battlefield bravery. Christian had never been that man. He’d always scrapped his way through life; reaching for more, but always finding himself just short. Never had that mattered so much as it did now when faced with the people now depending upon him. The people he would fail in two weeks’ time if he did not make that necessary match. He stared blankly across the table at Maxwell.
The other man must have seen the bleakness in his soul reflected in his eyes. For Maxwell planted his elbows on the table and closed the gap between them. “Do you know what I believe?”
Christian gave his head a slight shake.
“I believe you’ve decided you don’t deserve any good in life. You’ve driven yourself to take men onto your staff as some form of penance.” His stomach roiled at how very close to the mark Maxwell was. His friend held his gaze. “You made a mistake. It does not make you a monster; it makes you a mere man.”
Unable to hold the other man’s penetrating stare, Christian looked beyond his shoulder to the boisterous dandies in their colorful, satin garments. At one time, he’d been carefree and exuberant, filled with the energy that simply came from being alive. Yet, life had changed him. War had changed him. Just as it had forever altered Derek and so many others. Those men had not passed over the safety and security into the hands of the French the way Christian had. “I cannot wed her.” He spoke so quietly Maxwell leaned closer to hear those words. The truth he could not bring himself to admit to Maxwell, who was asking for and giving absolute honesty, was that it would forever shame him to know he’d bound a good woman to his worthless self. “There has to be another.”
“There are.” Maxwell waggled his eyebrows. “If you fail to remember, I volunteered all number of ladies.”
Alas, his friend was more tenacious than Lady Jersey with a morsel of gossip. “The lady is lovely and she wants to marry you.” A wry grin curved the other man’s lips. “And there can be far worse things than that.”
Yes, there were no truer words spoken.
Then Maxwell’s droll humor slipped. “She is not Lynette.” His friend spoke with a quiet adamancy.
It was the first time they’d spoken her name. The beautiful and deceitful woman, who’d lured the planned movements of Christian’s regiment from a very foolish and a very much in love young man’s lips, had remained a phantom ghost whose name was never uttered. He braced for the familiar flood of old hurts…that did not come. Oh, he would always despise himself for so naively trusting the Belgian woman whom he’d first lain with. But the agony of her deception had lifted, replaced by the joy he knew with the cheerful, sunny, unaffected Lady Prudence Tidemore.
A lightness filled his chest. He wanted to wed her.
His friend looked at him questioningly.
“I know she is not Lynette.” He swiped his glass from the table and swallowed the remaining contents. It was a crime he’d ever put her into the category of that treacherous snake.
“You are remarkably short on options,” his friend said. “The lady represents the ability to save your staff and care for your family.”
He smiled and came to his feet, with his friend’s probing gaze on him. “You are indeed correct, I’ve little choice but the one presented me by the lady.”
A flare of surprise flashed in Maxwell’s eyes. “Now comes the matter of convincing the brother,” he said, unhelpfully.
The powerful earl’s furious ire from Christian’s waltzing with Prudence flashed to his mind’s eye, as well as his warning him away from the young lady in question. “Bloody Sinclair,” he declared.
Yes, a man who’d wanted to slice off his hands for daring to go near her would hardly be welcomed into the familial fold anytime soon. Though in the earl’s defense, Christian would separate the limbs from any rake or rogue who came near his own sister. He tightened his jaw. And yet, knowing his low worth as he did, he wanted her for selfish reasons; reasons that moved beyond her dowry and to the tantalizing promise of her in his bed, in his arms, under him.
With a resolute determination, he turned on his heel. No, there really was no option but marriage to the lady and, yet, suddenly the option teased him with the promise of them…
“I recommend flowers,” Maxwell called after him.
After his callous rejection earlier that morning, it would likely take a good deal more than flowers to bring Prudence ’round to the prospect of marriage to him.
But flowers were, at the very least, a start.
Prudence stared morosely down at the sketchpad. The almost an elm tree she’d attempted to draw these past hours mocked her for the failed attempts. With a growl, she yanked out the sheet and crumpled it into ball. She tossed it to the floor where it sailed atop the ever-growing heap at her feet.
“You are destroying a perfectly good sketchbook, just because you are in one of your tempers.” Those words better reserved for a mama than one’s younger sister filled the room.
Prudence looked up at Penelope who stood framed in the entrance with her hands atop her hips; a serious set to her lips. She sighed and snapped her book close. “I am not in a temper,” sh
e muttered under her breath. Nor was she welcoming company at this particular moment.
Which of course meant her sisters had nowhere else to be, just then. She sailed into the room with Poppy trailing close behind.
“Who is in a temper?” Poppy piped in. Sir Faithful bounded into the room and yapped noisily.
“No one is in a temper.”
“Prudence is,” Penelope called over her.
The boisterous dog raced over to Prudence’s discarded pile. The little scamp picked a rolled scrap between his teeth and shook his head viciously back and forth as he shredded that sheet.
There were some instances when she adored the company to be had in her loquacious siblings. This was not one of those moments. Prudence pressed her fingertips against her temple. No, when a lady was so humiliatingly rejected by a man who willingly admitted to require a fortune, just one that was not her own, the misery of one’s own company was far preferable.
“I am not in a temper,” she insisted as her sisters claimed the ivory sofa opposite her. With a humorous solidarity, they sank into the folds and looked pointedly at her. She shifted in her seat. “What?” As unnerved as she was by their knowing stares, there was solace to be had in the fact that they knew nothing of Christian—nothing beyond his rescue of Poppy in the park.
Her younger sisters exchanged a look, and when Poppy made to speak, Penelope held up a palm that said “I-am-the-older-sister-I-shall-handle-this”. Then, in a manner befitting of the seven governesses and four nursemaids they’d had through the years, she made a show of smoothing her skirts.
“Will you get on with it?” Poppy pointed her eyes to the ceiling, earning an agitated glare from the sister stuck in the middle of the Tidemores.
“I am trying to find the proper words,” she said in a loud voice.
Both girls looked to Prudence and she blinked, momentarily distracted from her musings. “What?”
Penelope folded her hands primly on her lap, cleared her throat, and opened her mouth to speak.
This time, Poppy shot a palm up. “It is the marquess.”
Oh, blast and double blast. Heat rushed to her cheeks. They knew! How could they know? Then, hadn’t she learned that a Tidemore was capable of unearthing all manner of scandalous bits of information? Oh, why had she shared those necessary, if now dangerous, skills with her youngest siblings? “Which marquess? Weston?” her voice emerged on a high squeak that earned disappointed stares.
Poppy fell back in her seat. “Come, surely you don’t think we’ve come to discuss our brother-in-law.”
No, but she had hoped.
Sir Faithful growled loudly, as though concurring with his young mistress’ sentiments. Prudence turned a frown on the dog, but he was as unimpressed as her sisters. He flopped onto his side and burrowed a spot into the stack of discarded sheets.
Penelope thrust a bent finger, broken years earlier when she’d been riding down the stairway bannister, at her. “You have the same look worn by…by…Patrina when she’d gone all starry-eyed over Marshville.”
Oh, dear. She did. On a groan, Prudence buried her face into her hands. She’d gone and become the person she’d sworn to never be—a lady who’d become so helplessly besotted by a gentleman and his kiss that she’d risk scandal or, in this case, her pride.
“There, there.” Poppy patted her head awkwardly.
“Do not coddle her,” Penelope chided.
“I am not coddling her. I am comforting her.” There was a defensiveness to the girl’s words. “Furthermore, I like the marquess.”
That rang a startled gasp from Penelope and brought Prudence’s head up. “You do?”
Their younger sister shifted back and forth, wrinkling her nose at the attention now fixed on her. “Well, I like that he’s friends with Lord Maxwell. His love of dogs and all.”
Penelope gave her a look as if to say “you-see-this-is-the-kind-of-support-you’d-seek”. Then, after months of Society’s palpable disdain, she’d not be so very particular with the encouragement thrown her way.
“Sin says he is seeking a fortune,” Penelope said.
Yes, that much was true, but apparently even a man in desperate need of a large sum of money could not be enticed by her. Embarrassment, regret, and the sharp stab of hurt all blended for what made a vicious maelstrom in her belly. She hugged her arms about her to dull the sentiments; her efforts proving futile.
“He is?” Poppy had the sound of one who’d just had her pup kicked by a cruel lord. Alas, she, too, clung to the shred of hope that more awaited the scandalous Tidemore lot.
Fury burned in her stomach. She’d not have any of her siblings disparage a man who’d fought Boney’s forces and now fought for his own financial survival and his family’s security. “It matters not. The marquess will not wed me. He was quite clear.” She curled her fingers into tight balls welcoming the sting as her nails bit into the soft flesh of her palms.
“Very good.” At Penelope’s pleased nod, she gritted her teeth. At least one of them would be pleased. Two if one counted Sin. Three if one continued counting and added Mama as the next.
Except, her younger sister froze mid-nod and tipped her head at an odd angle. “How do you know that?” That suspicion could only come from years of scrapes before she’d been transformed into this lady attempting biddable, proper miss. “How do you know that?” Penelope repeated, her voice climbing.
She silently cursed her inadvertent slip. “Er…” Her mind raced.
Penelope slapped her palms over her face. “Oh, dear. You did not.”
“What?” Poppy demanded. She reached for Prudence’s palm and gave a tug. “What is she on about?”
“It matters not,” she said quickly, pulling her hand free. As much as she loved her sisters and did not doubt they’d lay down their lives for her or any one of the other Tidemores’ happiness, she could still not lay forth the full extent of her shame.
“She offered for him.” Alas, Penelope was in one of her tempers.
“Will you hush?” Prudence glared at her and looked to the open door to avoid Poppy’s wide-eyed gaze. She could only imagine the scandal that would follow if word was discovered that a Tidemore girl had asked the charming Lord St. Cyr for his hand—and been so quickly turned down.
Several lines creased Poppy’s forehead and she scratched her brow. “Offered him what?”
Giving Penelope a look that commanded silence proved futile. “She offered him marriage.”
Poppy’s mouth fell agape. “Ladies do not offer for men.”
“Whyever not?” Prudence challenged. To give her hands something to do, she patted her leg once, urging Sir Faithful over. As truculent as always, Sir Faithful merely yapped at her, instead. With a sigh, she forced herself to meet the matching furious stares trained on her. “Can you not imagine how much easier this whole husband-hunting business would be if ladies were permitted to take control of their own marital destiny?”
Poppy sprang to her feet. “That is not the way it is done. A gentleman who is honorable should court you and bring you flowers and be public in his intentions.” That lesson learned by her was a credit to the vile Albert Marshville. “There is nothing romantic in a lady asking a gentleman for his hand.”
She looked to the rational, independent Penelope who merely gave a shrug, silently echoing their youngest sister’s sentiments.
No, perhaps there was nothing romantic in the audacious proposal she’d put to Christian, and yet her lips still tingled from where he’d caressed her, and then the way he’d palmed her cheek. Her heart tripped a beat. A man who kissed her so, and whose eyes had glinted with hungry desire, must feel…something for her. Why could he not see the benefits for both of them in wedding?
Filled with restiveness, she jumped up and strode over to the window. Sir Faithful chose this moment to attach himself to her side. He bounded across the room and settled at her feet. “Now you’d be my friend,” she sighed.
He yapped in agreement.
Men, they were contrary creatures—all of them. Distractedly, she patted him on his mangy, black head. “It matters not whether there was anything magical or romantic in my exchange with the marquess.” Prudence dropped her forehead to the crystal windowpane and stared into the busy streets below. Her breath marred the glass with a soft white blurring the passing carriage below. “He said no.” And she would endure Season after Season…Except that is not truly what your hope was in wedding him. You wished for more than freedom from Society. You wished for him. The pressure squeezing about her lungs made it difficult to draw breath. She wanted him. God help her, she wanted to know those secrets he kept to himself. She wanted to make him smile and show him the world was not broken, even if he himself believed it shattered. She wanted to know his favorite color and his deepest secret and darkest dream.
“It is not that simple,” Penelope snapped. Her angry visage appeared in the crystal pane, just beyond Prudence’s shoulder. “You asked for his hand and the gentleman may very well bandy about that shocking piece to other lords and ladies who in turn will speak even more poorly about the Tidemores.” Her sister spoke in such a way that she’d removed herself from the familial equation. Perhaps that had become a careful ploy to protect herself from hurts.
Poppy wrung her hands together. “As you know, I do not like to agree with Penelope.” The sister in question shot her a frown. “But there is the risk—”
“He would not.” The denial burst from her lips. Prudence continued to present her back to her sisters. All the while, rage ran through her being. She told herself they did not know Christian. They did not know that even though he was pockets to let, he still would not allow himself to wed a woman who’d spoken of love for herself.
“But how do you know?” Poppy pleaded.
Prudence raked her frantic gaze over the streets. “I just…” A conveyance pulled up to the front of her brother’s townhouse. “I just…” She squinted at the unfamiliar crest emblazoned upon the door of the black barouche. “Who is that?” she spoke more to herself.
Captivated by a Lady's Charm Page 22
