The Bachelor's Bargain

by Catherine Palmer

  She glanced away, but only for an instant. “As I told you, I am fatigued. If you have something to tell me, say it quickly and be gone.”

  Determined to stay until he was satisfied, Ruel walked across the room to a window, drew back the heavy drapes, and peered outside. He had resolved to discover Anne’s true feelings toward him—and to see that she acknowledged aloud her growing passion. Equally important, he wanted to determine what it was about this former housemaid that so intrigued him. Was it those brown-gold eyes and that tiny waist of hers? Was it her saucy conversation that amused and challenged him so? Or was it the bright spark of her obvious intelligence that drew him?

  “You have a charming prospect of Cranleigh Crescent from this room,” he remarked, setting one foot on the window seat and resting his arm on his thigh. “Did you know I used to sleep in this room when I was a boy? These quarters were the nursery in those days. I would sit in this window for hours watching carriages come and go, studying the ladies and gentlemen out for their promenades, spying on housemaids as they flirted with fishmongers and vegetable boys. What do you think of town, Anne?”

  When he looked at her again, he noted with dismay that she had managed to pin up her hair and exchange her pink silk shawl for one of thick white wool. Gone was his temptress. She looked chaste. Ethereal. Angelic.

  Blast.

  He had come into the room intending to make her his conquest. Now she looked like a creature from heaven. A minister’s daughter. How could he seduce that?

  She glided slowly across the carpeted floor and joined him at the window. Peeking between the drapes, she studied the lamplit street.

  “I prefer the wilds of the Midlands,” she said in a soft voice. “Through my curtains in our little rectory in Nottingham I watched butterflies dance above yellow primroses and saw hedgehogs scurry through the fern. I memorized the songs of the blue tit, the wood pigeon, and the wren. Bumblebees in the knapweed and ladybirds on the dandelions fascinated and charmed me.”

  “Bumblebees and ladybirds?”

  “I see lace in the commonest things,” she said, turning her brown eyes on him. “In the spiral of a cobweb . . . in the white blossom of a hawthorn shrub . . . in the curls of a small green moss on a gray stone. Sometimes I think I am quite mad.”

  He could not hold back a smile. “You have a gift.”

  “Not a very useful one . . . except perhaps to a marquess with grand dreams.”

  “Which I am.” He pulled his cravat from his neck. “Do you believe I want only to make use of you, Anne? You implied as much tonight with my brother.”

  “Have you any other purpose, sir?”

  He focused on the window again, remembering his plan to make a conquest of her. More and more often, he was finding it easy to scheme while alone in his chamber—and impossible to carry out his plans in the presence of this woman. She was too good. Too gentle. Too moral.

  “No,” he said, standing suddenly. “I have no purpose other than the plan we made. Yes, I am using you in my commercial venture, but no more than you have used me to accomplish the release of your father.”

  “My father,” she said, suddenly anxious. “Have you had any report of him?”

  “A note from the barrister I engaged. Nothing new.”

  “I see.” She sank down onto the window seat.

  Annoyed with himself and with her, he raked a hand through his hair. “Anne, I must apologize for my brother’s behavior tonight in the garden. Alex can be quite revolting.”

  She had tucked her knees beneath her chin and was staring out the window. Her gown draped in a puddle of pink silk on the floor. “It must be very hard for you to be so unloved.”

  “Unloved? My dear lady, I have been loved a great deal more ardently than you, I should think. I believe my reputation in that regard preceded my own person into the kitchen on the day we met.”

  Her focus never left the window. “I do not speak of physical passion. I believe true love has little to do with the body and far more to do with the spirit. The soul is the repository of love, and without love the soul withers and dies.”

  Religious gibberish. Romantic nonsense. Frowning, Ruel had the sudden urge to take his little zealot straight into his arms and teach her how very much the body did have to do with it. She sat there so smugly virtuous. What did she know about the world?

  “I never think about anyone’s affections or disaffections toward me,” he said, taking a step toward the door.

  “Do you not?” She laid her cheek on her arm and watched him. “Then I fear you are more empty inside than Mr. Walker.”

  “Empty? What gives you that idea?”

  “Prudence and I were discussing it.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Miss Watson hardly knows me. And how on earth do you deduce that Walker’s life is empty?”

  “Prudence spoke with him at length in Slocombe. And they were together during our rest stops on the journey to London.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Tell me, sir, do you observe nothing?”

  “I see important things.”

  “Aye, your great financial schemes and adventures. What about the people around you?”

  “I avoid people when I can. Unfortunately I have been surrounded by them all my life. I endure their mincing and gossiping and preening until I am nearly ill from it. Only in America was I ever able to escape such posturing—and then but briefly. In general, people annoy me, Lady Blackthorne. Especially those who labor on and on in conversation of little consequence.”

  As though she had not heard him, she continued in her soft, magnetic voice. “There are those around you whose character runs deep. Some of them love you. Others despise you. You would do well to find out which are which.”

  “Your character runs rather deep, I should think. Tell me, do you love me or despise me?” When she made no answer, he smiled. “Well, Lady Blackthorne, which is it?”

  “If by this time you do not know my feelings for you, then you are far more blind than I thought.” She stood and faced him, her soft gown swirling at her feet. Lifting that delicate chin, she narrowed her eyes at him. “I pity you. You are friendless and loveless, and your soul is blacker than the night outside this window. I find you self-centered, disagreeable, and immoral. I dislike you very much.”

  He rested one hand on the back of a chair and studied her. Why could she not be like the other women he knew—moldable and silly, eager for baubles, and as visionary as clams?

  “Then you despise me,” he said.

  “I dislike you . . . but I cannot despise you.”

  “If you cannot despise me, then you must love me. In your speech moments ago, you left no other option.” As he spoke, Ruel walked toward her. The light in her eyes changed from defiance to uncertainty to distress. All her bold words to the contrary, she was afraid of him. Afraid of the emotion he evoked in her. And her fear gave him power.

  “In fact, I believe you do love me, Anne,” he went on. “You find me intriguing and intelligent. In spite of yourself, you are curious about me. You admire my brashness and my disrespect for Society. You are attracted to my bold tongue, my sense of foresight, and my enterprising nature. It is you who would wish to save me from myself. It is your love that you would have fill my empty, black soul.”

  He stopped a breath away and stared down at her upturned face. “Am I right?”

  “No.”

  But her eyes said yes. He searched them, awed by the intensity he saw in their depths. This was not a woman he could toy with and then cast easily aside. Her love really might fill his soul . . . fill it up . . . and overflow it . . . and possess him.

  “You frighten me, Anne Webster,” he whispered. “You frighten me as much as I frighten you.”

  “Go away, Ruel. Please.” Her voice held a note of pleading that transfixed him. “Go now, and leave me in peace.”

  She took his shoulders and pushed him through the door. When she had shut it, he stared at the blank wood until he heard her singing softly
in the next room. It was a hymn.

  After reading her Bible and saying her prayers, Anne lay in her bed for nearly an hour watching the moon rise through the open curtains. London. Cranleigh Crescent. A marchioness. What had become of her?

  She had not worked at lace in weeks. She had not seen the inside of a kitchen or scrubbed a floor or brushed crumbs from a tablecloth in ever so long. She had traded the chatter of the servants’ quarters for the sniping and backstabbing of the upper class. She had exchanged bowls of hot oatmeal and hearty roast beef for hare soup and ragout of duck. She had given up the silly flirtations of vegetable boys and fishmongers for a man whose desire simmered openly in his eyes.

  And what of Prudence? If only Anne could relinquish this enormous, overstuffed bed for her narrow cot in an upstairs room with her friend. How cozy that had been, the two young women chatting after dark and giggling over this and that. Happy hours of making lace by the window . . . lighting candles in the corridors . . . arranging bouquets of fresh flowers in the drawing rooms.

  Anne sat up in bed and threw her combing gown over her shoulders. Prudence would understand. She had to. Prudence had always listened, and she had far more experience with men than Anne. Maybe she would know what to do about the marquess and his magical kisses.

  Aware that the full moon would cast enough light in the corridors for her to see her way to her friend’s room, Anne elected not to light a candle. She stepped into a pair of soft slippers, pushed her loose hair over her shoulders, and peeked through the doorway. The corridor was deserted. Shutting the heavy door behind her, she crept down the hall past the marquess’s chambers, edged around a corner, and finally tiptoed up a short flight of stairs and through a green baize curtain.

  “I came when I found your note in my room.”

  The male voice was only paces away, and Anne froze in surprise. A chill washed down her skin. The hour was much too late for anyone to be about.

  “Thank you for coming. I felt I had to speak with you.”

  Prudence! Or was it? Anne backed through the curtain and stood breathless on the other side, certain her heartbeat could be heard a mile away. Was this a tryst? Who was the man?

  “It is not wise to meet in secret,” he said. “You are an unmarried woman, and I—”

  “I know. I am sorry. But I had to see you alone.”

  Anne leaned against the wall and shut her eyes. It was Mr. Walker. Oh, this was dreadful.

  “Are you well?” Prudence’s words were soft and fearful.

  “Well enough. You?”

  “I am all right. It pleases me to see my sisters again.”

  “Yes. They were kind to me this evening.”

  “Neither of them would do anything to hurt you. Nor would I. Please understand that. I simply . . . I wanted to talk to you.”

  “I do understand.”

  Knowing she should go, Anne found she could do nothing but stay, her back pressed against the wall and her breath shallow. It was wrong for these two to meet in such a way. It was secret and shameful and a terrible sin.

  Yet she could hear the longing in the voices of the two, and for some unexplainable reason she responded to their pain.

  “I think of you every day,” Mr. Walker said in his graveled voice.

  The woman sniffled. “And I, you.”

  “I saw him speaking with you. He gave you his attentions in the carriage. And tonight at dinner, you were speaking to him.”

  “He is nothing to me. I swear it!” Prudence was audibly weeping now. “Oh, what shall we do?”

  “You have my love. But we are too far apart. You are young. English. Wealthy.”

  “None of these things matter to me!” Prudence whispered through her tears. “I must tell my sisters. They will give me their blessing. I know they will! My eldest sister gave up her title to marry the man she loved.”

  Mr. Walker let out a low groan of smothered anguish, and Anne collapsed against the wall. How terrible. How wonderful. How hopeless.

  She knew she would never have a love like that, such depth of passion. To think that poor Prudence had given her heart to the blacksmith!

  What if Ruel were in love with some woman in such a way? Impossible. He had made it clear he was annoyed by the society of others. Perhaps he was incapable of true love and uninterested in even the pretense of affection. Ruel had felt no serious qualms about marrying—and later divorcing— an impoverished housemaid with no family ranking and no dowry. Anne meant nothing more to him than a means to gain wealth.

  “I never think about anyone’s affections or disaffections toward me,” he had told her. Of course not. Every flirtation was a sham, every sweet word a lie.

  “I must go.” Mr. Walker pushed back the curtain and stepped into the corridor as Anne pressed against the shadows. He ran through the hall to the stairs. Never looking back, he vanished down the narrow passageway. In a moment, she heard a door shut somewhere below.

  Eyes closed, Anne leaned back against the wall and sighed. Poor Prudence had sobbed softly behind the curtain for some time, but Anne dared not step into her presence and reveal what she had overheard. At last, Prudence had sighed, sniffled one last time, and closed her door.

  Anne’s legs felt stiff and cold when she finally moved. Her impulse to fling herself into Prudence’s arms and pour out her heart to her friend had faded. Clearly her friend had problems of her own, and this was not the time to burden her with Anne’s dismal lot in life.

  Anne brushed her fingertips over her cheek as she crept down the stairs to her quarters. What a great muddle she had made of her life. What an equally great fool she was. How could she have thought Ruel’s kiss in the garden held any real ardor? Worse, how idiotic to have responded to that false passion with feeling of her own.

  She had melted into his arms and shivered at his touch. For longer than an eternity she had drifted in rapture. She had actually been deceived by her own charade! How silly!

  Not only had Sir Alexander believed his brother was in love with Anne . . . not only had all the company gathered in the drawing room believed it . . . not only had Prudence believed it . . . but Anne had believed it, too! What a buffoon she was.

  She stepped into the drawing room of her suite and shut the door behind her. The air felt stuffy and humid, so cloying she thought she might be sick. Stepping out of her slippers, she walked to the window and opened it. As she gazed down onto the green, crescent-shaped park, she thought of Ruel’s words to her not long before—the way he had recalled looking down on the grand comings and goings of this great city. He had seemed gentle then, almost like the little boy he had described. But all the while he had been thinking about another woman.

  “Sleepless?”

  Anne sucked in a breath and whirled around. The man himself reclined on a settee near the fireplace, his great gray eyes luminous in the moonlight.

  “Lord Blackthorne! But you . . . I thought you were—”

  “Awaiting your return? I was.” He cocked his arms behind his head. “Perhaps you might share with me your whereabouts for the past half hour.”

  “I . . . I went to see Prudence.”

  “Miss Watson—whatever for?”

  “I wanted someone to talk to.” She met his bold stare.

  Despite her recent conclusion that he must have some woman languishing for him, Ruel was not behaving the least bit lovelorn. In fact, he seemed his usual cocksure self.

  She sat down on the window seat. “And you, sir? Where were you this past half hour?”

  “Here, of course, wondering what my wife was up to,” he replied. “I remembered something I had forgotten to tell you. As you know, in less than a fortnight, the Season will be well under way. Everyone will be in town, and we shall have hardly a moment for private conversation. Anyone of significance in the military, most of the peerage, and usually the regent himself spend the evenings attending one or more balls. The most influential gentlemen in England go to these ridiculous dances, and our own presence i
s crucial. So is our performance.”

  “Performance?”

  “It will be our labor to convince all of Society of our undying love,” he said, coming to his feet. “We must be as one. Husband and wife.”

  Anne held her breath as he walked toward her. Still dressed in his white shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow and collar loose, he loomed huge and dark in the dimly lit room. His curly black hair spilled over his brow and onto his neck. His eyes never left her face.

  “There are things you should know about me,” he said.

  She nodded. “I understand you have many secrets,” she said in an effort to portray sympathy. “Tell me everything.”

  “Tongue. I loathe it.”

  “What?”

  “Pickled, boiled, garnished with brussels sprouts—no matter how it is prepared, I refuse to eat tongue. Cannot bear the stuff. You should know that about me. Turnips. I never touch them. Head cheese. I find it revolting.”

  “Head cheese? But . . .”

  “Despite what that blasted Miss Pickworth has written about me, I never touch strong drink.” He began to pace. “I am partial to gingerbread nuts with my tea—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Me, of course. If we are to convince everyone of our love, we must know about one another. Turkish delight and treacle are particular favorites, and I am fond of trifle. I like my coffee black, my tea the color of caramel, and my toast piping hot. You?”

  Anne swallowed. This was not at all what she had expected. All she could think of was Prudence and Mr. Walker in the corridor. The tears . . . the anguish . . . their forbidden love. Anne had convinced herself that Ruel must have some beautiful woman stashed away waiting for him. And now he was speaking of tongue and brussels sprouts!

  Worse, he had stopped his pacing and begun walking toward her. His black hair gleamed silver in the moonlight. His gray eyes drank hers. “Anne,” he said, “what do you like?”

  “Everything,” she said quickly.

  “Everything? That is unusual.”

  She gulped down a bubble of air. “Except eels. I despise eels.”

  “Do you sugar your tea?”