“A canary,” she supplied helpfully.
“Of course,” he said instantly, swiftly turning the page. He made to turn the next, when she shot a hand out and retrieved her folio from his grasp.
“Well.” The high-pitched quality of that one word utterance hinted at her unease. “I should return to my sister.”
Christian followed her gaze to her sister, happily chatting off a weary-looking Maxwell’s ear. He looked again to Prudence and inclined his head. “Shall we?”
The young lady stared at his elbow a moment and then placed her fingertips upon his sleeve. Christian slid his gaze to her hand and stilled. He locked his eyes on those long, graceful, gloved fingers curled about his bicep. What bliss would it be to know that hand curled about his length. His mouth went dry with the need.
“Is something the matter?”
That hesitant question yanked him back. Heat burned his neck. “Not at all.” What madness had she wrought upon him?
They moved along the same path they’d walked a short while ago. One thing was certain, whatever image had been contained upon the next page of Prudence Tidemore’s sketchpad had been something very important to the lady. His interest redoubled and he felt a wave of disappointment when they reached her maid’s side.
The servant’s shoulders sagged in apparent relief. Ah, the young woman had sense enough to know that her mistress had no place with his roguish self. Ignoring the maid’s stern countenance, Christian captured Prudence’s spare fingers and raised her gloved hand to his lips. If the lady were wise, she’d draw her hand back from his roguish grip. Instead, her eyes formed wide moons and she allowed him to continue clasping her fingers. “It was a pleasure again seeing you.” How many previous times had he uttered those very words to other women, words that had been nothing more than the polite, expected response? This admission to Prudence, however, was born only of truth.
She smiled softly. “It seems you are always there to save me. The soppy water. The waltz. Now, Poppy.”
“I certainly did not require saving,” the youngest Tidemore sister groused from where she stood beside Maxwell.
Prudence glared at her sister and then cleared her throat. “Regardless, I thank you for coming to my rescue. Again.” The young lady lingered with hesitancy in her expressive eyes but then with another quick curtsy, hurried off.
He stared after her a long moment. The wind tugged at the lady’s cloak and he squinted in the distance, hoping for another glimpse of her trim ankles. As though feeling his gaze upon her, she stole a glance over her shoulder and he’d have to be blind to fail to see the wide smile on her full lips.
“You should marry her,” Maxwell said at his side, pulling him back to the moment. Humor laced his words. “I’ll remind you again the lady is purported to possess a fat dowry. With the scandal surrounding her family, she can hardly be particular where her marital prospects are concerned.”
“Why, thank you for that generous endorsement.” He feigned a nonchalance into his response. Yet, he fisted his hands at his sides detesting his friend’s blunt, if accurately spoken, opinion on the lady’s circumstances. “Alas, I am in the market for a specific wife.” In a manner he hoped was dismissing, he turned and strode off in pursuit of his mount who was now chewing at a patch of grass under a barren elm tree.
“Ah, yes,” Maxwell said, effortlessly matching his stride. “An experienced, wealthy widow perhaps? A woman who will not mind your philandering ways and roguish reputation.”
He frowned at having his thoughts these past months tossed back at him. Uttered in that coolly mocking way, there was, well…something wrong with that particular marital goal. That something which moved beyond the whole loathsome, fortune hunting business. Regardless—“The lady does not fit into my marital schemes,” he said, collecting Valiant’s reins. Christian was too jaded for the Lady Prudence Tidemores of the world. She, with her talk of hope and romance, could never fit into his skeptical, broken existence. He climbed astride and then guided his mount around, back toward the riding path.
“Ah, that is unfortunate then, my friend.” Maxwell hooked his foot within the stirrup of his horse and swung his leg over the powerful creature’s back. “A lady looking at you with that adoration would be easier to pluck than a piece of low-hanging fruit.”
“Shove off,” he mumbled and then nudged Valiant forward. The early morning ride taken by him and Maxwell each day since they’d returned from war, and when they found themselves in London was an effort on both their parts, he suspected to clear the horrors that were made all the more vivid in the nighttime hours. Oh, they never spoke on it, but Christian had little doubt. They’d lived the same hell. Fought it. Side by side. Their morning customs generally had the effect of clearing those dark thoughts. Yet, this time it had not been a frantic ride within the empty grounds of Hyde Park to drive back the demons, but rather drive away the white skirt-wearing young lady with her rather deplorable sketches and her candid thoughts.
Chapter 7
Lesson Seven
Whatever you do around your family and friends, do not give any indication you are secretly thinking about a roguish gentleman…
Prudence shoved her fork around her plate. The noisy chatter of her siblings, mother, and sister-in-law echoed off the walls of the breakfast room. With such a chaotic gathering of family, it was deuced impossible to get a word in edgewise. The sometimes benefit, is that one could sit and mull one’s thoughts. Or, as best as one was able with the din of the bickering Poppy and Penelope. Her family’s preoccupation with anything but her allowed her to contemplate the Marquess of St. Cyr.
Christian.
…If we are to speak on intimate matters, at the very least you can refer to me by my Christian name.
An odd fluttering sensation filled her belly. The moment he had defied the whispers and gossip about her and her family to partner her in the most intimate of dances, she’d been hopelessly captivated. Then there was his bold, blatant dismissal of the gossip when she’d scandalously mentioned it to him earlier that morning. In a world where Prudence had long grown accustomed to cut directs and the uncertainty of honorable intentions from worthy gentlemen, Christian had demonstrated first in his actions in Lady Drake’s ballroom, then in his words at Hyde Park, that he was a man very different than the others.
She propped her chin on her hands and stared at the uneaten contents upon her plate of eggs and buttered bread. The rub of it was, Christian did not believe in love. Or romance. Or even hope.
This was dreadful, indeed. A gentleman who’d defied the whispers and gossip, and yet was so hopelessly unromantic.
Why, what manner of rogue was he? She wrinkled her nose. Not that she wanted him to be a rogue, per se. She rather detested the idea of him flirting with and smiling that half-grin which made her heart flutter on some other young woman. Or old matron. Anyone, really that was not her. But still, the scandal sheets indicated he was one of those sought-after gentlemen who was so at odds with the serious gentleman who spoke in such bleak terms.
“Why are you so quiet, Pru?”
Her brother’s booming question brought her head up. And of course, the heads of every other member of the Tidemore clan present. Her family fell silent and stared at Prudence.
Alas, she could always rely upon Poppy for a necessary distraction. “Bah, Prudence is never quiet.”
Her brother glowered and opened his mouth to say something.
“Jonathan,” his wife said quietly. Juliet shifted the two-year-old babe on her lap and, over the tiny girl’s red curls, gave him a long look.
The tense frown on Sin’s lips lifted as he turned a gentle smile on his wife and daughter. And sitting there, with his whispered words to Juliet and Rose lost to the length of the table, a potent longing slammed into her to know the joy and beauty of her own family. Sin looked to the nursemaid, who hopped to her feet. The young woman rushed over and collected Rose in her arms. Prudence curled her toes into the soles of her sl
ippers. Well, drat, this indicated trouble indeed. Waiting until the child and nursemaid were gone, she hastily lowered her arm to her lap. “I was merely thinking.” She shifted under the scrutiny of the remaining Tidemores.
That should indeed silence her brother. He always said the last thing he cared to know about was what wickedly troublesome thoughts were turning through his sisters’ heads. Except Sin picked up his white napkin and brushed it over his lips. “Thinking,” he repeated as he set it down.
Oh, blast. He’d choose this moment to be the inquiring older brother? Prudence feigned her winningest smile. “Indeed, thinking.”
Her sister-in-law caught her eye. The fiery-haired woman blinked slowly and then she must have seen something revealing in Prudence’s smile for she placed a hand on her husband’s. “I daresay it is hardly your responsibility to be the keeper of your sister’s thoughts.”
Ah, God love Juliet for never having been afraid to go toe-to-toe with the obstinate Sin.
“You have an odd look about you.” And damn her brother for being in one of his uncharacteristically stodgy, bothersome moods.
“Jonathan,” their mother and Juliet spoke in chiding unison.
“Do hush.” Juliet turned her gaze to Prudence and then held her stare. “I am certain if Prudence had something she wished to say, or something she wished to speak about, she would know she could confide in us, in the absolute strictest of confidence.” She gave her a meaningful look; the knowing kind that indicated she’d noted her silence and likely suspected her woolgathering had to do with a gentleman.
Prudence swallowed hard. She really wished, now more than ever, that she’d been a better charge to that woman who’d had the unenviable task of governess to her once-miserable, now hopefully improved, self.
“It is likely the scare we had this morning in Hyde Park,” Poppy intoned. She popped a piece of sausage into her mouth and chewed, as though not every member of the Tidemore clan now stared attentively at her.
“What scare?” their mother squawked. She looked to Sin, clearly expecting an earlish answer from the son who’d not even been present. “What scare?” she repeated when Poppy and Prudence said nothing.
“What scare?” Oh, bloody wonderful. Now Sin was parroting back their mother. These were dark days, indeed, if Sin was echoing the propriety-bound older woman.
“It is nothing,” Prudence said calmly to her mother. She gave a shudder praying that when she finally found love and had a family of her own that she’d not be the stodgy, overprotective sort.
“It is nothing? Or it was nothing?” Penelope piped in. “Because they are entirely different things. One suggests that particular something might still be happening. The other indicates it was in the—” At the glowers trained on her, her words trailed off. “What?” she asked defensively. “I’m merely pointing out that if something happened—”
“What happened?” their mother cried. Horror wreathed the unwrinkled planes of her face.
“I was nearly trampled by a horse.” Poppy happily buttered a piece of toast. She spoke with the same casualness of one remarking upon the weather.
Sin propped his elbows on the edge of the table. “Trampled by a horse?” Concern laced those four words.
She released a slow, relieved breath. That had always been the manner of brother he was; exasperated with his sisters’ scrapes and schemes, but ultimately he’d lay down his own life for their happiness. Poppy had the good sense to realize as much and it appeared her sister had sense enough to not mention—
“But Lord St. Cyr is rather impressive upon his mount and stopped just before I was trampled.”
A whole stream of frustrated curses ran through Prudence’s head at her garrulous sister’s generous sharing of information.
Their mother sank back in her chair, flummoxed. “Lord St. Cyr.”
Prudence wished to know just what those three particular repeated words indicated. Displeasure? Approval? By the panic lighting their mother’s eyes, she’d wager it was not the latter.
“And Lord Maxwell saved Sir Faithful.” Poppy edged forward in her seat and directed her question across the table at Sin. “Do you know him well? The earl has three dogs and I do very much prefer gentlemen who have dogs. You can tell a good deal about a man who keeps a dog.” From the foot of her chair, Sir Faithful yapped twice, in apparent canine agreement.
Their befuddled brother gave his head a slow shake. “Prefer gentlemen who have dogs?” He scrubbed his furrowed brow. “You are not to prefer any gentlemen,” he bit out. “Dogs or not.”
For a sliver of a moment, Prudence hung on to the hope that Sin would be content to direct his ire at his youngest sister. Alas, Sin had always been too savvy. “And you,” he snapped, swiveling his focus back to her. “What is this of Lord St. Cyr?”
Her mind raced in search of a pacifying response. Prudence feigned a smile and then dabbed her lips with her white napkin. “What of him?” It mattered not that she’d been so fixed on thoughts of Christian she’d not touched a bite of her food. And more importantly…what did her brother know about Christian? “Just how do you know him?” she asked with a deliberately infused boredom in her tone.
“His mother is hosting a ball later this week. We are to attend,” Juliet supplied for her husband. “Beyond that and his reputation as a war hero, I do not know much about the gentleman.”
Prudence’s heart thumped madly and she swung her attention over to her sister-in-law’s gently knowing gaze. They were to attend a ball hosted by his mother? Suddenly, she who’d despised any and every single invite issued that Season, found herself energized with excitement. Schooling her features, she looked to her brother. “So you know him well, then?” she asked with a flounce of her curls.
“What would make you believe I know him?” Sin rejoined. “Could it have been the pointed warning I gave you after Drake’s ball last evening to steer clear of the man?”
“Yes.” After all, a pointed warning, as he referred to it, really didn’t tell a woman much about a gentleman and instead only intrigued her all the more. At the low growl rumbling in Sin’s chest, Prudence frowned. “You were being sarcastic.”
“I was,” he snapped.
Then, she’d always been dreadful at sorting through that sarcasm. More so now that it pertained to her marquess.
“Sarcasm is not at all becoming of anyone,” Penelope pointed out, as she buttered a roll. “Isn’t that correct, Juliet?”
“Indeed, it is.” Their sister-in-law favored her husband with another frown.
Prudence scrambled forward in her chair, hopelessly ruining all earlier attempts at indifference. “You failed to mention last evening just what you know of the marquess.” How could her brother, all these years, not have made mention of the gentleman who’d been the first to brave the gossips to partner her in a set? Or who’d looked upon her artwork and done so without a hint of judgment.
Mother and Sin replied in unison. “He is a rogue.”
“So are you,” Poppy pointed out and this time Prudence could have kissed her for that very accurate, very reproachful charge. Her youngest sister looked to their pinch-mouthed mama. “Not you, Mother. You are not a rogue. I was referring to Sin. Sin is a rogue. Er…” she glanced over at Juliet who wore a wry smile. “That is, he was a rogue. He has not been since he fell so hopelessly in love with you, Juliet.”
With attention on Poppy, Prudence used the well-orchestrated diversion to quietly push back her chair and rise slowly to her feet. The last place she cared to discuss the man who’d set her heart aflutter was before the entire Tidemore family.
“Why, thank you for that reassurance, Poppy,” Juliet murmured.
“Will everybody stop talking about me and focus on the person who should be focused on?”
Five pairs of eyes swung to Prudence. She gave a sheepish grin and glanced about. “Me?”
“Yes.” Her brother sat back in his chair and folded his arms at his chest. “You.”
She lifted her shoulders. “There is really nothing to discuss. Chris—Lord St. Cyr,” she swiftly amended when her brother’s black eyebrows shot to his hairline. “Rescued Poppy at the park.” Rescued her in the most heroic manner, just as he’d done for Prudence on two previous occasions. She gave a toss of her curls. “Perhaps it is Poppy you should look to for questions.”
“Does he have a dog?” Poppy called out. “I am not interested in a gentleman who does not have a dog.”
Penelope dissolved into a fit of laughter, which earned several reproachful stares that immediately silenced the only Tidemore sister who, at least on most occasions, made an effort at appeasing their mother.
“There is much to say,” Sin said tersely.
Annoyance unfurled through her at his highhanded treatment before a room of nosy family, no less. It mattered not that these were her family members, but rather that he’d still treat her like a child, who didn’t know her mind, and shouldn’t have an opinion. She placed her hands on the top of her chair and leaned forward, dipping her voice to a hushed whisper. “I will not discuss my affairs in the midst of the breakfast room—”
“Your affairs?” their mother cried. She looked to Sin. “What manner of affairs does she have with the Marquess of St. Cyr?”
“You are, correct, Prudence,” Sin said, ignoring their mother’s panicked question.
She blinked several times. She was? She was never correct. Not where he, Mother, and the occasional sister were concerned. “I am?”
“She is?” her mother said, shock underscoring her terse question.
“Indeed.” He shoved back his chair. “We will discuss this in my office.”
Oh, blast. However—She pursed her lips. When presented with this very public discussion of the marquess before her family, and the infuriating summons to his office, she opted for the latter. “Very well,” she said with a toss of her head. With that, Prudence turned on her heel, head held high and marched from the room. She did not break her stride, aware of him trailing behind her at a safe distance. “No doubt composing whatever it is he’ll say,” she muttered under her breath.
Lords of Honor-The Collection Page 25
