Captivated by a Lady's Charm

by Christi Caldwell

  Unless, it was all as the gossips claimed. Could it be nothing more than a ruse, a ploy to ensnare an heiress that she’d neatly stepped into? Prudence gave her head a shake. “Impossible.” Christian was not that man.

  “Not impossible,” Penelope said with a firmness to her tone.

  Another set of footsteps sounded in the hall and the trio looked to the door.

  Sin’s tall frame filled the entrance. He took in his sisters and then settled his stare on Prudence. “Poppy and Penelope,” he said quietly. And perhaps there was hope for biddable Tidemores after all, for her two younger sisters filed from the room.

  Her brother pushed the door closed behind them with a soft click.

  Of its own volition, her gaze went to the also heavily wrinkled paper in his hands.

  A pit settled in her stomach.

  “Pru,” he began.

  “It is a mistake,” she blurted.

  Pity glinted in his eyes. She averted her stare from that detestable sentiment. Her throat worked. Why could he not be the angry and bothersome older brother now? “He would not do that.”

  Sin set his jaw. “He did.” And by the furious glimmer in his eyes, he’d take Christian apart with his bare hands for the shame he’d visited upon Prudence.

  She thrust aside the thought. “No, he did not.” Christian was not that man. He’d been only honest with her from the moment he’d plucked her out of the way of a shopkeeper’s dirty water all those months ago.

  Prudence gave her head an emphatic shake. “He could not h-have.” Her voice quavered and then another blasted sheen of tears misted her vision.

  With an unexpected show of temper, Sin let fly a black curse that raised the heat on her cheeks. “Why did you select him, Pru?” There was a faint entreaty there from a brother who’d been so unable to protect yet another sister.

  Prudence gave him a sad smile. “Oh, Jonathan.” She crossed over to him. “You so desperately want to protect all of us from scandal and ruin and hurt, but just as you made your decision with Juliet, so did I make this choice.”

  And it was a choice that could not be undone. By the solemn set to his face, he knew, as much as she did, that even if Christian was guilty as charged of that despicable wager, Prudence had no option except marriage. Another pressure weighted her chest. She could not have been so wrong about him.

  With a grunt, Sin pulled her into his arms the way he’d done when she’d been a small child and ruffled the top of her hair. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said, with his actions and stern tone more the father he’d always been to four fatherless-too-early girls.

  “Like what?” His shirtfront muffled her words.

  He grunted and set her away. “As though when we get to Hyde Park and he confirms it that I’ll force you to wed St. Cyr. I don’t give a jot about a scandal.” Yes, what was another when presented with the two before it? Except they both lied. It mattered still to Penelope and Poppy.

  Sin held his arm out. “Under the circumstances, I’ve asked Mother to remain behind.”

  For this was to be no happy joining of two families. Her mother and sisters would not be present this day. She managed a nod, even as hurt lanced her heart. As she allowed him to lead her to Christian and their wedding, fear churned through her. What if he’d made that wager?

  Christian rubbed his hands together to ward off the winter’s chill. Not for the first time since he’d arrived in Hyde Park that morning, he tugged out his watch fob and consulted his timepiece. Thirty minutes past nine.

  Perhaps in the three days since he’d seen Prudence, she’d put proper thought in to the folly of her decision to forever bind herself to a worthless bounder who offered her nothing. Three days was a good deal of time for her disapproving brother to talk reason into her, and yet… He glanced up at the hideous elm, the one captured upon her pages…and yet, Prudence was not a woman who would ever do as she was bidden. His heart lightened. That undaunted strength and originality set her apart from all other women before. And that tree that so often drew him back to his days of war now contained altogether different memories; those different from death and dying and Lynette’s betrayal. Now, the thoughts were of her.

  At his side, Maxwell, chuckled. “A lady so determined to wed you does not strike me as one to jilt you at the altar.” He glanced about. “Or in this case, a tree.”

  The lean, tall, ancient minister who’d agreed to the rather unconventional ceremony, however, looked a good deal less confident than Maxwell. With a beleaguered sigh that stirred a puff of winter air, the man flipped through his pages. “Perhaps she is not coming?”

  “Oh, dear. Oh, dear.” His mother’s panicked tone cut across his own fears. “Never say that.”

  He cast a glance at the two cloaked figures of his mother and sister. And then fixed a glare on Maxwell for worrying Christian’s always cheerful mother. His friend mouthed a silent apology.

  “Do you think she’ll not come?” Lucinda looked about the park. “That would be quite despicable of her.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “I did not take her for a lady without honor.” Concern underscored her words.

  “She will be here,” Christian claimed. Though he wasn’t sure whether he sought to reassure the vicar who wanted to be here not at all, his mother and sister, or himself. He checked his timepiece once more.

  “But what if she does not come?” Lucinda pressed with a temerity that made him grit his teeth. “Will you gallantly fight for her love? Will you set out after her?”

  “It has only been another three minutes,” Maxwell supplied. “Perhaps she does not know the particular tree to meet at?” That momentarily silenced the fretting Villiers women.

  At his friend’s suggestion, a frown turned Christian’s lips. Granted, the desolate barrenness of Hyde Park was filled with a vast number of leafless trees. He looked up at the oddly shaped branches extending out like angry limbs. A strong gust of wind shook them overhead and a lone brown leaf fluttered down, dancing a twisted, sideways path to the frozen earth. The elm upon her page. “She knows,” he said at last. The greater likelihood was she’d either come to her senses or had been locked away by a determined to protect her at all costs brother. Christian stooped down and picked up one of those crisp, brown leaves. He trailed the tip of his finger along the veins.

  His mother worried her hands together. “Most women do not dream of getting married in the dead of winter beside a dead oak tree.” She gave him a reproachful look that said she expected more of her son.

  …You see, some of the magnificent tree might be aged and even dying, but it still lives and should be celebrated for that…

  Christian shoved himself to his feet. “Elm.”

  His mother cocked her head.

  “It is an elm tree and the lady will be here.” Had they awaited any other young lady, his friend would indeed have proven correct, and yet Prudence was unlike any other woman he’d ever known. She craved more than the material world sought after by title-grasping ladies of the ton.

  “Whatever is Terry doing here?”

  At his sister’s puzzling tone, they all followed her stare.

  Maxwell scratched at his brow. “Deuced odd for a man’s footman to attend his employer’s wedding ceremony.”

  What in blazes…? His hulking servant moved with the steps of a military man, even with his crutches. Only his pronounced limp that was eased with the use of the crutches spoke of the scars he’d carried from that battlefield experience. Without a hint of regard for courtesies, Terry forwent bows and greetings and held a paper out to Christian. “You need to see this, Your Lordship.” He skittered his gaze about the people present and then returned his attention to Christian.

  “What is it?” A frantic edge underscored his mother’s query.

  Christian’s stomach dipped, as for one horrifying, too-long moment the niggling possibility slipped in.

  She changed her mind.

  “What is it?” This time his mother’s wo
rds emerged as a demand, more than anything else.

  Panic licked at the corners of his mind; a numbing haze that had nothing to do with losing Prudence’s dowry and everything to do with the possibility of losing her. His servant spoke. He knew for the man’s lips moved as he waved a copy of The Times about. But by all the saints in heaven, Christian could focus on nothing beyond the staggering truth.

  I love her.

  He loved her smile and her spirit. He loved that she was rubbish at dancing and sketching and that she did so with such abandon. For years he’d resolved to never trust his heart again, and yet Prudence was a woman worth turning that organ over to.

  “St. Cyr,” Maxwell said sternly, slapping him on the back and pulling him from the fog of his muddled thoughts.

  “Hmm?” Christian alternated his stare between the guests present.

  “You need to see this, Your Lordship,” Terry repeated.

  Christian cocked his head. “The Times?” A wave of relief slammed into him with a dizzying force. “You came to bring me a copy of The—?” His gaze snagged upon the damning words about the page and his words trailed off. The Wager that Led to an Heiress. “Oh, God,” he whispered. With nausea churning in his belly, he read. He read every ugly, partially true, mostly distorted word about him and Prudence. As with a writer’s pen, everything from their first dance to this very moment, their wedding day, was cast in a black, ugly light, forever tainted with half-truths. His eyes slid closed.

  “What is it?” Lucinda demanded, tugging at his sleeve. She leaned around his arm and he quickly shifted the page from her focus.

  Christian gave his mother a look. “I need you to return home and take the carriage to the countryside with Lucinda as we’d discussed.”

  Only those plans had been that of a new bridegroom, sending off his family so he might be alone with his new wife. Now, he sought to hurry them away from the gossip.

  “Christian,” his mother cried. “What of the wedding?”

  A spasm wracked his heart. What of the wedding? “The wedding will continue,” he said with a conviction he did not feel.

  “Then why do we have to leave?” Lucinda demanded, stamping her foot on the snow-packed ground.

  He braced for his mother’s histrionics. But then with the same remarkable poise she’d shown after her husband’s passing, she took Lucinda by the arm. “Come along. Don’t you know by now you should trust your brother?”

  Guilt slashed at his conscience as with those undeserved words, his mother proved her loyalty once more.

  “Go, Lucy,” he urged gently.

  Hurt seeped from his sister’s eyes. “Very well.” She gave a flounce of her curls and then followed their mother and Terry back to the carriage.

  When they’d disappeared on the horizon, a black curse exploded from Christian’s lungs. The vicar shot his eyebrows to his hairline.

  “You just need to explain to her,” Maxwell said matter-of-factly at his side.

  He stared unblinkingly at the earl. How could his friend speak with that same blasted insouciance about…this?

  Maxwell glanced beyond his shoulder and Christian froze as a sense of knowing filled him. He glanced up to where Prudence walked alongside her scowling brother. But it was not the earl who commanded his notice, but rather the lady with her ravaged eyes. His heart dipped to his stomach. Oh, God. She knew. Of course, she knew.

  His friend hastily collected the damning newspaper from him and stepped aside.

  Christ. Perhaps she did not know. Then where is her smile, you bloody fool? Agony knifed through him as he took in her parted lips. A flash of shocked hurt glinted in her cornflower eyes, killing any such hope. “Prudence,” he said, his tone gruff.

  “St. Cyr, Maxwell.” The Earl of Sinclair stretched out their names in a slow, threatening whisper. At his side, Prudence stood stock-still and Christian damned the handful of witnesses present who prevented him from speaking to her and… What? Telling her that Maxwell had been correct and that he’d first waltzed with her on a wager.

  Prudence took several hesitant steps toward him. Faltering when she never moved through life with anything but limitless abandon. “Prudence,” he began, his tone hoarse. His gaze shifted to that familiar paper clutched in her gloved fingertips.

  She held it out between them. “Is it true?”

  Her whispered words were so faint he strained to hear them. And for a moment borne of cowardice, he yearned to pretend he’d not heard them.

  But he’d been a coward too long.

  He rubbed his hand over his mouth and then lowered his shaking palm to his side. “Only part of it.”

  She went stock-still. And even as the words left his mouth, he knew how empty and weak they were. Tell her you love her. Sort out the lies from the truths. Except the words would not come. To utter those words now would ring hollow and she deserved more.

  Of all the women he’d been with through the years, Prudence had been the only one of them who’d been completely lacking in any and all artifice. It was why, with her brother and the minister standing silently on, he knew as her gaze slid away from his, that with the uttered truth, he’d managed to rob her of that unadulterated belief in life, in happiness, in him. For the jubilant sparkle that lit her eyes and filled him with light in his dark world, was extinguished. Panic unfurled within him, sucking at his breath, and taking with it his thoughts.

  “Shall we begin?” the minister whined, slapping his book in a most unholy way against the side of his leg.

  Prudence fiddled with the fabric of her cloak, twining and untwining her fingers in the blue muslin. The Earl of Sinclair gently took her by the arm and escorted her several steps away. He leaned down and whispered something close to her ear. She alternated between periodically nodding and shaking her head.

  Maxwell returned to Christian’s side. “I am so sorry,” he whispered.

  Christian gave his head a distracted shake. This was not Maxwell’s fault. This belonged to Christian.

  Time seemed to stretch to eternity and his entire body went tense with the rapidly spreading panic that she would leave, that she would turn on her heel and march away from their elm, past her sister’s boulder, and on to a man who’d always been more worthy than Christian Villiers and his debt-ridden marquisate. A panic that had nothing to do with her dowry and his own finances gripped him. Yet he’d always put his own self before others, for as her brother very clearly spoke to her and attempted to sway her from this act of permanency, he didn’t think of his mother or sister or Mac or Martin or any other man in his employ. He thought of her.

  The Earl of Sinclair ceased talking and then trained a lethal glare on Christian. If looks could kill, he would have been dead before them, with the minister officiating over his funeral and not his wedding. Though in this moment, it was remarkably hard to tell the difference between the two.

  “Shall we begin?” the minister asked once more.

  Then it began to snow.

  Chapter 21

  Lesson Twenty-one

  Never allow a man to try and send you off like a recalcitrant child

  Everything had been perfect.

  Though she’d not had the approval of her mother or sisters or brother on her wedding day, Prudence had not needed anyone but him.

  For in all the dreams she could have imagined for her wedding day, those thoughts had never once included a small country church or grand cathedral. Nor had it been the parlor where her brother had wed his wife. Rather, she’d imagined precisely a spot beside her elm. And Christian had known that. And she’d loved that he knew that. In a world where people thought they knew Prudence Tidemore and found her to be remarkably untalented in all ladylike endeavors and one to seek and find trouble, she was more than that. And Christian had been the only person to look within and know precisely what her heart had dreamed based on one passing conversation some days past alongside the very tree.

  It had become their elm and staring at him framed under the age
d overhanging branches, the other part of her heart that had not belonged to him, was lost. A silly sheen of tears blurred her vision. Until everything had become so very un-perfect.

  Lies. All of it.

  From her position upon his carriage bench, she discreetly brushed the tear back and shifted so that her shoulder was presented all the more to Christian who sat across from her. Her lips twisted with a bitter smile. Or some of it had been a lie, according to Christian. Nay, her husband. She was, after all, married now. To a man who’d danced with her on nothing more than a wager. Another tear slid down her cheek, followed by another, and another.

  Even as her brother had insisted she leave him at the proverbial altar of what had, for a too-brief moment, been their elm, she could not do that. To have walked away from Christian and the rushed nuptials would have only further cloaked the Tidemore family in gossip, and she could never, would never jilt a gentleman and subject her sisters and his to the same miserable time she’d had of it.

  “I wanted to dance with you,” he said quietly. “That much was true.”

  Must he know her silent thoughts and unspoken wishes so? She stilled as his quiet baritone rumbled from within his chest and filled the small space of his carriage. She grasped on to the hope that she’d merely misheard those casual words tossed out by Lord Maxwell. “Did you dance with me on a wager?” How was that question so steady when her world had been shaken with the truth that the dance which had meant so much to her had been nothing more than a game to him? At his silence, she swung about to face him.

  He landed his gaze on her tear-dampened cheeks and recoiled as though he’d been struck. And surely any man who could be so sincere in his regret could never have hurt her in this way, could not have started their relationship—their marriage—on a wager. “I did.”