Lords of Honor-The Collection

by Christi Caldwell

  “Hello, sweet,” Maxwell greeted with his patent half-grin.

  Alas, his sister, who hovered between child and woman, hesitated and then cleared her throat. “It is splendid to see you, my lord.” She followed her polite greeting with a deep curtsy.

  Both Christian and Maxwell snorted, earning a disapproving frown. “Should a lady not practice fine manners?”

  His friend gave Lucinda a long, slow wink. “I cannot speak from any real experience, Miss Villiers. I do not make it a habit of keeping company with ladies who practice fine manners.”

  A startled giggle burst from Lucinda’s lips and she swatted Maxwell on the shoulder. “Oh, you are insufferable. Isn’t he insufferable, Christian?”

  He took in the sight of his sister’s fingertips upon his friend’s sleeve and a slight frown pulled his lips down in the corner. Close familial connection or not, she really had no place touching the other man.

  His friend, however, appeared wholly unaware of Christian’s disapproval, for he casually strolled over to the sideboard and made himself a plate of breakfast. “We never did sort out who was going to Bedlam.” He claimed the seat on the opposite side of Christian.

  “No one is going to Bedlam,” he gritted out between clenched teeth. Though in truth, between his sister’s maddening teasing and Maxwell attempting to needle details about him, he really was just one cart away from a bumpy ride to Bedlam.

  “Christian is going to Bedlam.” Lucinda’s loud whisper was clearly meant to be a secret to no one.

  His friend studied him a moment. He captured his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I daresay you are in a foul mood.”

  Which happened to be because he was in a foul mood and had been since that damned meeting with Lord Sinclair. Nay, that wasn’t altogether true. He’d been in a rotten temper since he’d discovered he’d inherited an empty title and nothing else to care for his family.

  “It is because he has to marry,” his sister said with entirely too much cheer, when Christian still failed to respond.

  “Ah, yes, of course,” Maxwell drawled. He leaned back in his seat and rested his hands upon the arms of his chair. His friend proceeded to drum his fingertips along the smooth, polished wood. There was an uncharacteristic solemnity to the man now, all earlier amusement gone.

  They had shared an innate connection that came from years of fighting alongside one another and the need for silence on the eve of battle. It was how he knew Maxwell’s was no mere social visit. “Will you excuse us, Luce?” Christian asked quietly.

  His sister pouted. “Why do I…?” Lucinda too must have seen something in their expressions, for she looked between them and the protest died on her lips. With a sigh, she pushed back her chair. “Very well,” she drew out that last word. “If you are discussing your future marchioness without me, I will be very cross. I, at the very least, should know who intends to claim the role of my sister-in-law.”

  His lips pulled up in one corner. “I assure you, the lady will surely meet with your approval.” As soon as the words left his mouth, his grin died. For he couldn’t truly promise her that. The woman he’d wed would be interested in the title of marchioness and not much more. Not for the first time since he’d settled on the requirements for his bride, reservations crept in.

  “Goodbye, Tristan.”

  The earl inclined his head. “Good day, Luce.” His sister walked with deliberate slowness to the exit and when she reached for the door handle, Christian called out, “I don’t expect you’d do anything as improper as listening at the keyhole.” She swung back around, a guilty blush on her cheeks. “The whole French lessons business,” he said with a wink.

  Lucinda wrinkled her nose in clear displeasure. “Oh, very well. You are not at all fun. You used to be until you started looking for a bride,” she complained. Snapping her skirts once, she swept from the room, head held high with a regality to rival a queen. The effect was wholly lost when she slammed the door closed behind her, shaking the foundations of the heavy, wood panel.

  “You are going to have your hands full with that one,” Maxwell said wryly. He continued to tap his fingertips in that infuriating manner.

  “Indeed.” There were no truer words spoken. At his friend’s amused expression, he pointed out, “It could always be a good deal worse. I could have three sisters to worry after like you.”

  Maxwell scowled and he braced for the other man’s sparring rejoinder. Instead, he continued to tap his fingertips.

  Christian took in that distracted movement, the serious set to his friend’s face. Unease stirred. Even with the hell he’d suffered through, the Earl of Maxwell had maintained his carefree, relaxed demeanor. Oh, Christian knew from his own hellish time fighting Boney’s forces and the nightmares that still frequently came, that Maxwell’s was merely a carefully crafted façade. Nonetheless, he was unaccustomed to this distracted, serious figure before him now. “What is it?” he asked quietly, mindful that despite his warning, Lucinda could very well be listening at the keyhole.

  Maxwell stopped his incessant drumming. “I received a missive earlier this morning.”

  He furrowed his brow. “And—?”

  “And,” the earl interrupted, fishing around the front of his jacket. “I thought you would be curious as to its content.”

  Perplexed, Christian stared at the folded ivory velum. “How does your note—?”

  His friend shook the paper. “Go on, read it.”

  The other man had always had a flare for the dramatic. Giving his head a wry shake, he reached for his spectacles atop the forgotten copy of The Times. Placing them on, he unfolded the note and stared at the delicate, if messy, scrawl that hinted at a lady’s hand. Black ink marred the page as though the writer of those words had either been in a deuced hurry or had a dreaded hand. He picked his gaze up. “I daresay I’ve got enough in terms of the theatrics from my sister and mother where I do not also need the unnecessary addition of—”

  “Read it,” his friend repeated with a trace of humor underscoring that order. He jabbed his finger in Christian’s direction.

  Returning his attention to the page, he quickly scanned the words.

  Lord Maxwell,

  Though it is highly improper and certainly scandalous for a young, unwed lady to contact you, there is a matter of some import I wish to discuss with you. I require your absolute discretion…

  A sharp bark of laughter escaped him. “You are receiving scandalous letters from…from…” His words trailed off and all hilarity died. A thick haze of confusion blended with rage momentarily blurred his vision as just who, in fact, his friend was receiving scandalous notes from registered.

  “I thought you might care to know the identity of the lady writing me.” His friend’s droll words came as though from down a long, empty hall. Christian glanced at the end of the missive.

  Your Servant,

  Lady Prudence Tidemore

  His fingers tightened reflexively upon the edges of the page and he swung a furious gaze to Maxwell. “Why in blazes are you exchanging missives with the lady?” Some sharp, ugly emotion that felt very nearly like jealously slithered around his belly, filling him until the metallic taste of rage burned within.

  “Should it matter if I am exchanging missives, as you’ve said, with the lady?” the other man returned, shifting his large frame in the shell-back chair.

  Goddamn Maxwell and his sardonic half-grin. Christian fought to regain control of his volatile thoughts and inexplicable emotions. “No,” he forced out between clenched teeth. For ultimately, what business was it of his whether Lady Prudence was meeting or arranging to meet Maxwell or any other blasted lord? And yet…

  “I do not believe you.”

  And Christian didn’t believe himself. How could he when his fingers twitched with the need to drag the other man across the table and shake an answer out of him? He carefully folded the note, hating the faint shake to his hands as he turned the ivory sheet back over to Maxwell.<
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  His friend held his palms up rejecting the missive. “For what it is worth, I have never spoken to the lady beyond our exchange in Hyde Park.”

  “What in blazes does she wish to speak with you on?” He unfolded the page once more and quickly skimmed his gaze over the contents. By her heavy hand with the pen, she wrote with the same zeal and passion she moved through most aspects of life. Unrestrained. Bold. Audacious.

  And now…writing to an unwed gentleman—scandalous.

  “I have little idea what the lady requires.” Maxwell rolled his shoulders. He caught Christian’s gaze. “Which is why I thought, given your relationship with the lady, you’d care to see it.”

  With that potent flare of jealousy now receded, he tried to put order to the significance of that note. The lady asked to meet with Maxwell at the Old Corner Bookshop. He continued skimming the note and then quickly yanked his attention back to that previously twice read meeting location.

  …If you would be so gracious as to grant me a meeting, I can be found at Old Corner Bookshop at ten o’clock. In the morning. The evening is entirely too late for a clandestine meeting…

  Christian’s lips twitched with the first real humor since receiving that damning note from his friend’s hands. Why, the lady rambled even in her notes. There was something so very endearing about that.

  Maxwell planted his elbows on the table and leaned toward him. “Why are you smiling in that manner?” Suspicion laced his inquiry.

  Christian quickly smoothed his features into an unreadable mask. “I have no idea what you are talking about.” Just as he had no idea what it was that Prudence wished to discuss with Maxwell. He captured his chin between his thumb and forefinger and rubbed. Though having now re-read that same line twice, the faintest doubt worked its way around his mind. For the lady wished to meet the other man at the Old Corner Bookshop, where he might find a copy of Sir Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor.

  “Well, what do you make of the lady’s note?” Maxwell prodded.

  By that slight, evidential detail, there was only one specific matter the lady surely intended to discuss with Maxwell.

  It is me.

  Christian folded the slip of paper and then tucked it inside his jacket. He withdrew his watch fob and consulted the timepiece. “If you’ll excuse me?” Deliberately ignoring the question, he shoved back his chair. “I have a meeting to see to at the Old Corner Bookshop.”

  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.