A Wicked Pursuit

by Isabella Bradford

  I called you a coward.

  She raised her chin, striving to be aloof. “I am an English lady, Lord Geoffrey. You should not address me in Hindi.”

  “Yet you understood me, Miss Carew,” he said easily. “And you are being something of a coward.”

  She blushed again and frowned. “Come with me, Lord Geoffrey,” she said, turning away with a rustle of silk. “We must speak, alone, where no one else will hear.”

  She didn’t look back to see if he followed, assuming he would. He did, of course. Hadn’t he been the one who’d suggested they step outside in the first place?

  He followed her from the ballroom, through the tall, arched door, and onto the stone terrace above the garden. There were a few lanterns here to light the steps down to the paths below, but most of the terrace was cast in welcoming darkness beneath the trees. Several couples lingered in the deeper shadows to take advantage of the privacy, the women’s silk gowns faintly luminous and their little sighs of pleasure clear.

  Steadfastly Miss Carew walked past them, not looking as she led Geoffrey to the farthest end of the terrace. At last she turned and faced him, her arms folded over her breasts with discouraging determination. Moonlight spilled over her face and throat like a caress, and emphasized the dusky cleft between her breasts. Clearly she’d no idea of how delectable she looked, her eyes golden and her skin velvety pale. Geoffrey certainly did, and with the memory of her sensuous dancing still fresh in his mind, it was requiring all his willpower not to take her immediately into his arms.

  “Now, Lord Geoffrey,” she said, her voice both low and fierce. “Tell me why you addressed me in that—that ridiculous manner.”

  “It was hardly ridiculous, Miss Carew.” He wasn’t accustomed to wasting perfectly good moonlight in mere conversation, but if that was what it would take to win her, then he’d oblige. “You were in fact being quite cowardly.”

  She sighed impatiently. “I didn’t mean what you said. It was how you said it, in—in a foreign language. Why did you speak so?”

  “To amuse you,” he said easily, shifting closer to her. “I knew you were from India, and I thought you would find it entertaining.”

  “What could you know of India, Lord Geoffrey?” she demanded, much more warmly than he’d expected.

  “Not nearly as much as I wish to,” he said. Even when she was trying to be stern, her voice enchanted him, husky and mellifluous with a hint of an exotic accent. “When I visited India, I found it the most fascinating and beautiful place on earth.”

  She nodded, quick little jerks of her chin. “So that is it. You are but one more younger son turned nabob.”

  “Like your father?” he asked, unable to resist.

  “No,” she said firmly. “My father was a gentleman of honor, an officer in the East India Company. He was no rapacious English nabob, rushing across the sea to grasp at opportunity and make his fortune however he could.”

  “But I didn’t go to make my fortune, either, Miss Carew,” Geoffrey said. “I went for pleasure.”

  She raised her brows in disbelief. “I’m not a fool, Lord Geoffrey. No English gentleman goes out to India for pleasure.”

  “I assure you I did,” he said. “When I was done with school, my father wished me to travel across the Continent to complete my education in Paris and Rome. I refused, and insisted on India instead. I’ve always been fascinated by the east, you see.”

  With her mouth set, she searched his face, clearly deciding whether to accept his answer or not. She should have; it was the truth, every word.

  “Do you truly speak Hindi,” she said quickly, shifting to that language once again, “or did you recite those few words by rote like a trained parrot?”

  He laughed, as much at her bravado as at the words themselves, and answered her back in Hindi as proof. “I speak it well enough to know how gravely you have insulted me.”

  She drew in her breath sharply, surprised by his response.

  “Then we shall consider it even between us,” she said in English. “My father was the bravest European in the Company’s Territories—as brave as any lion!—and he would not have taken kindly to hearing his daughter called a coward.”

  “Then please forgive me, Miss Carew,” he said, bowing. “You’ve already proven your bravery by joining me here. I’ll admit I made a sorry jest, but I intended it without malice.”

  “It no longer matters, Lord Geoffrey.” She dropped her arms to her sides, as if the brief exchange had knocked the fight from her. “You startled me, that was all. It was the first time I’d heard Hindi spoken in years.”

  He lowered his voice, liking the idea of a confidential secret language they could share. “Mairh khuśī sē, yaha āpa kē sātha bāta karēngē.”

  I’d happily speak it with you.

  “No, Lord Geoffrey,” she said in English, the words turning brittle and sharp. “I am an English lady, and I intend to speak like one. I must be more . . . more careful.”

  “Careful, Miss Carew?” he asked, puzzled. “Careful of what? Surely not of me?”

  But she only shook her head, raising her small chin with fresh resolve. “If you were so enamored of India, why did you leave? You are a gentleman of rank and wealth. You may do as you please with your life. Why are you not there still?”

  “Because I was called back on account of my older brother,” he said. “I had no choice.”

  “No choice, Lord Geoffrey?” she asked curiously. “Your brother holds such sway over you?”

  “Not in the way you imply,” he said. He did not like telling this story, for it brought back a time of dread and uneasiness; he had never felt so helpless as he had on that long, bleak voyage back to England. “I received a letter—a letter many months old—that informed me that my brother had suffered a grievous accident, and was not expected to live. Even though I feared I would most certainly be too late, I sailed for home at once.”

  “Oh, no,” she said softly, resting her hand on his sleeve. “Such a loss! I am so sorry, Lord Geoffrey.”

  “You needn’t be.” He smiled crookedly, liking her touch on his arm. “Harry survived, the devil, and recovered to greet me on my return, and with a new wife as well. So while all my cynical acquaintances were ready to congratulate me on taking my brother’s place, the story had a far happier ending, and a good thing it was.”

  Her eyes widened with shock. “But—but how could you ever replace your brother?”

  “Only as my father’s heir,” he said quickly, wanting to reassure her. “That’s all that’s required of second sons, you know, to be another male in constant readiness. I could never replace Harry in any other way, nor would I wish to become Duke of Breconridge at such a price.”

  He knew he’d said too much. He couldn’t help it. He always did when he spoke of Harry’s accident, and though he’d come to realize it was only his way of dealing with such a near-tragedy, it still made him feel a bit foolish.

  “I didn’t intend to rattle on like that, Miss Carew,” he said, “but if you had a brother or sister, then you would understand.”

  “But I do understand.” The melancholy that he’d first glimpsed in her eyes was now there in her voice. “Such a loss would have been intolerable for you to bear. Indeed, how fortunate for you both that the story had a happier ending.”

  Of course she’d understand loss. She was an orphan, the only survivor of her family in India. Instinctively he slipped his hand over hers, linking their fingers together.

  “Again I find I must apologize to you,” he said gently. “I’d no intention of raising old sorrows.”

  She glanced down at their joined hands, and slowly curled her fingers into his.

  “Why should you be so kind to me?” she asked wistfully. “I’ve done nothing that would make me deserve that from you.”

  “But you did,” he insisted. “I spoke without thought, and I was wrong.”

  She looked up, her smile small and bittersweet. “And I say you are bein
g kind to me, and generous as well. You are not what I expected, Lord Geoffrey, not at all.”

  “Nor are you, Miss Carew.” He used their linked hands to pull her close, gambling that she wouldn’t reject him. “The gossips do you great injustice.”

  “I’d rather not imagine what they say of me.” She came to him effortlessly, as if she belonged in his arms. “But I must be careful in all things, you see, and especially cautious in whom I trust.”

  “I’m eminently trustworthy,” he said, though as soon as he’d spoken he realized how hollow his words must sound, given that he’d just slipped his arm around her waist.

  She knew it, too. But while her smile turned wry, she still didn’t pull away. “You did not come here into the moonlight to make empty declarations like that one, Lord Geoffrey. I would rather guess that your intention was to seduce me.”

  “Ahh,” he said gruffly, chagrined. Of course that had been exactly what he’d intended, more or less, but he hadn’t expected her to acknowledge it quite so bluntly, and especially not after such a somber conversation. “You are very direct, Miss Carew.”

  “It’s the truth, isn’t it?” Her sapphire earrings bobbed against her cheeks as she rested her open palm lightly on his chest. “That is the reason all gentlemen—no, all men—pursue women. It is no great secret. I may be a lady, Lord Geoffrey, but I am not a fool.”

  “I never thought you were, sweet,” he said softly, grazing the back of his fingers over her cheek. If she were going to be so deuced frank, then he saw no reason not to show her that he, too, knew what was supposed to happen in the moonlight. “You strike me as being remarkably clever.”

  “Oh, I am, Lord Geoffrey,” she said. “You’ve no notion of how clever I can be.”

  “Then you must educate me,” he murmured, no longer really paying much attention to what she was saying. She fit neatly against him, her waist charmingly small. He liked how she was gazing up at him, how her amber eyes were filled with warmth, and he liked her scent, an exotic mix of sandalwood and roses. “I’ll enjoy that.”

  “So shall I.” She hesitated for a long moment before continuing, tracing her fingers absently over the silk embroidered scrolls along the front of his coat. “Have you heard of kismet, Lord Geoffrey? It is a Persian word, not Hindi, but it was much used in India. Do you know its meaning?”

  His Persian was nonexistent, but that was one word he knew, just as he knew the trouble it could bring him.

  “One moment now, Miss Carew,” he said, his well-practiced bachelor instincts instantly turning wary. “I don’t believe in love at first sight, no matter the language.”

  “Love?” she repeated, astonished. “I said nothing of love, Lord Geoffrey. I spoke of kismet. Of fate, or destiny, or fortune. Of how our lives are pre-ordained, and we are helpless to make them otherwise. I spoke nothing of love.”

  He frowned and drew back from her a fraction. “But what other destiny is there for a beautiful lady than love?”

  “Not for me,” she said softly, sadly. “Never for me.”

  He was accustomed to arch beauties who pretended to scorn the men around them as unworthy of their love, but never a lady who described herself in this way. The sorrowful conviction in her voice made no sense, even as it touched him.

  “Don’t say such grim things, Miss Carew,” he said, striving to cheer her as once again he drew her into his arms. “You simply haven’t found the proper man, that is all.”

  She shook her head, watching her hand settle over the front of his coat, over his heart.

  “When first I took notice of you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper, “I believed you were no better than any of the other foolish young gentlemen my aunt has presented to me. Yet as soon as you spoke, I sensed you were not like the others. How, or why, or in what fashion, I cannot yet tell, but you are. You were sent to me for a purpose. That was what I meant by kismet. And though I wish with all my heart that it were not so, I feel the pull of kismet, and of you.”

  Kismet. He realized with dismay that there was absolutely no way that he could kiss her now. She was still as beautiful, still eminently desirable, but she’d changed everything with her belief in fate, in destiny, in kismet.

  Because in some devilish way he couldn’t begin to understand, he believed it, too.

  “I must go,” she said, suddenly slipping free of his embrace with the same sinuous grace that she’d shown while dancing. “This is wrong. I can’t be alone with you any longer.”

  He reached out, determined to capture her, but her blue silk gown was already disappearing into the shadows.

  “A moment, Miss Carew,” he called, following swiftly after her. “Don’t go just yet. What of fate, of kismet?”

  She paused, her head bent, before finally glancing back at him over one pale shoulder. “Each day I ride in Hyde Park at half-past two.”

  Then she fled, nearly running, her slippered feet silent on the stone.

  Geoffrey stopped, staring after her as he raked his fingers back through his hair. She could run as fast as she pleased, but she couldn’t escape, not from him, and not from herself, either. He’d played this game before. He knew how it would end. No matter how deuced mysterious she tried to be, he’d solve her puzzle in the end. He nodded, reassuring himself. Of course he’d win. He always did where ladies were concerned.

  Yet even as he sauntered back into the brightly-lit ballroom, he could not put Serena Carew from his thoughts, or that single word she’d whispered to him.

  Kismet.

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