To Charm a Naughty Countess

by Theresa Romain

  “Nonsense. You sent the invitations.”

  Caroline wondered if this was the way Michael felt during social occasions: as though people were using the same words to speak two different languages. “And? Did I send one to you? I did not. There’s no place for you here, Stratton.”

  Rather impressive that the smile remained affixed to his face. “I shall make a place.”

  The solid thump of boots across the marble floor distracted Caroline from what would undoubtedly be another futile attempt to hold Stratton at a distance.

  Michael.

  He smiled when he saw Caroline; then his head seesawed to take in the earl at her side. “Lord Stratton?”

  They stood still as chess pieces on the black and white squares of the floor, all frozen in surprise. Caroline was the first to find her words again. “The earl has come to call, Michael. This must be quite a surprise to you, as it was to me.”

  Thus she hoped to communicate that: one, she hadn’t invited Stratton; two, she did not consider it a pleasant surprise; and three, she did not do him the intimacy of calling him by his first name.

  Unfortunately, Michael was oblivious to social niceties, while Stratton was determined not to comprehend Caroline’s displeasure. So he only beamed at Caroline as though she’d thrown herself around his neck, while Michael narrowed his eyes in an expression of suspicion.

  She would much have preferred the expressions reversed.

  “Good to see you again, Wyverne,” Stratton said. “Nice little home you have.”

  Michael stared at him, then turned his gaze to Caroline. “You did not invite him to attend?”

  She shook her head.

  He looked down his nose at Stratton. “Then you should not be here. Will you depart of your own volition, or must I have you removed by force?”

  A puff of laughter escaped Caroline’s lips. He sounded so calm.

  Stratton began to perspire; she could see the dew break out at his temples. “Surely there’s no reason for such talk between frien—”

  “You decline to leave on your own? Very well.” Michael marched toward Stratton. “I shall assist you to the door. Caro, never let it be said I have no manners.”

  “See here!” Stratton scuttled back a square. Distantly, a door opened and voices spilled forth.

  Michael’s jaw tightened. “See what? That you have displeased the lady, and therefore myself?” He rolled up the cuff of his right sleeve, an ominous gesture.

  “Your Grace!” Caroline blurted. “He has indeed displeased me, but I should not like to alarm the other guests by drawing attention to his presence.”

  Both men froze. Caroline could hardly tell which was more surprised by her outburst.

  “I—” She fumbled for words. Never before had someone risen so swiftly to her defense. Never before had she imagined Stratton would traverse the country uninvited.

  With a shake of her head, she rattled her thoughts into order. “Here is my suggestion. The party intends to walk to Preston this afternoon—Stratton, that’s a town about a mile and a half from here. You may join us at that time. I’m sure you can find adequate lodging there until you can arrange for your journey back to London.”

  The two noblemen continued to stare from their squares like frozen chess pieces.

  “Is that acceptable, Your Grace?” she prodded.

  Michael cast Stratton a freezing look, then returned his gaze to Caroline. “If it is acceptable to you?”

  Warmth spread all the way into her cold fingers, making them tingle. “Yes. It will do.”

  “Then until the outing”—Michael nodded toward Stratton—“you are free to wait in the drawing room.” He bowed to Caroline. “I shall have a footman escort him. You need not trouble yourself further.”

  “It’s… fine.” She still reeled a bit from the conversation. “Thank you, Your Grace. We’ll be all right.”

  He hesitated, only withdrawing after she gave him an extra nod, a smile that felt tremulous. She watched him cross the floor in swift strides, then pound up the wide flight of stairs and disappear from sight.

  Oddly, she felt a bit more at ease with Michael gone. Their conversation had ended in stalemate, neither offering terms the other could accept. If a third party were to broker their relationship, it would certainly not be Lord Stratton.

  Damn her stupid relative by marriage. Damn his complete breach of manners.

  Caroline turned back to face Stratton. “You heard your extremely temporary host. A footman will come to keep an eye on you. Until then, you might as well wait here.”

  Something sparked in Stratton’s blue eyes, and he caught her arm as she tried to turn away. “Making awfully free with the duke’s house, aren’t you, Caro?”

  She shook her arm from his grasp. “I am not required to justify my actions to you, Stratton. I am fulfilling the role with which His Grace has tasked me; that is, to serve as hostess of this party.”

  “So you do as Wyverne asks?” Stratton looked interested. “I wonder why. I wonder that he permits you such a free hand. Or is it you who has permitted liberties?”

  A prickle of apprehension chased down Caroline’s neck. “Indeed not. But I do as I like.” So she had recently told Michael. The impulse sounded childish now—or foolhardy.

  “You always have, haven’t you?” A tight smile played on his lips; too close, he stood. “I remember what you were like before you married the last earl. You couldn’t get—”

  “Enough.” Caroline fixed him with her chilliest look. “I take pleasure in helping friends.”

  “Yet you won’t help me?” He blinked at her, all innocence, yet his hand brushed her breast. “I know you enjoy giving men this sort of help.”

  She would not step back; instead, she jabbed him in the chest with a forefinger. “If by help you mean marry, no, I won’t. I shall not marry simply to convenience someone who seeks my purse. If you require any other sort of help, you may ask for it. Just as I may refuse to give it.”

  She turned toward the sweep of stairs Michael had just ascended. “Excuse me now, Stratton. I have guests to attend to. Stand here until someone comes to show you to the drawing room. I suppose you might have tea and a fire.”

  And with that, she left, floating up the stairs with a grace entirely at odds with the tumult inside.

  How vulgar, how exhausting, to be subjected to men such as Stratton. She could understand why Michael kept himself away from the boil of society, where one never knew what might bob to the surface. One must be always vigilant, ready to skim off the undesirable scum.

  She had been such an undesirable once, thanks to Michael. He had won her; she had lost him. And she had almost lost her good name too.

  It had not quite come to that, thank the Lord; specifically, the late Lord Stratton. He had been willing to marry her, dingy reputation and all.

  Now it was up to Caroline to safeguard that reputation herself. It was, as she had once told Michael, what she had made it over long and deliberate years.

  Caroline felt very tired standing alone. But if she wanted to do as she liked, she must draw back her shoulders and keep climbing the stairs.

  I shall not marry simply to convenience someone who seeks my purse.

  She could almost wish that Michael had overheard, or that she had thought to announce the same to her roomful of puppy-like suitors in London.

  She was wanted by everyone, Emily had said? No, she was truly wanted by no one. Wealth made it impossible for her to tell the false from the true—to know who cared only for her fortune and who would be satisfied with the comparative poverty of her heart.

  ***

  The Londoners seemed pleased by the prospect of a jaunt into the nearby village. Michael tried to communicate the small size of Preston compared to London, hoping to keep his guests from being disappointed, but he became mired in
an explanation of the cloth-making achievements that had originated nearby. Too late, he saw that everyone had drifted away from him, then been herded out the front door by Caroline. Only Miss Cartwright remained at Michael’s side.

  “I apologize, Miss Cartwright.” He followed Caroline with his gaze. “I was carried away by my own interest in the subject, though Preston’s most notable achievements might not appeal to many others.”

  “Perhaps not,” said the lady at his side, “though I myself share your interest in mechanical innovation, Your Grace. I was raised amidst coils of wire; I learned the workings of a spinning jenny at the age many children would instead learn to ride a horse.”

  Michael turned back to her, surprised, and her gray eyes met his. “Not the most fashionable upbringing, I know. But I am the daughter of a tradesman, not a gentleman.”

  He absorbed these glass-clear words. “I thank you for your honesty, Miss Cartwright. I welcome the chance to discuss mechanical innovation with you.”

  Color rose in her porcelain cheeks. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

  “Wyverne,” he said, feeling as though he were extending a hand of friendship.

  “Wyverne, then,” she said with a nod of her pointed chin. “Ought we to join the others?”

  Was her tone regretful? He couldn’t tell. He didn’t precisely feel regretful himself. When he took her arm, her gloved hand stirred him not at all.

  This was good, though, a necessary step in assembling the machinery of a marriage of convenience. Best that his future wife’s touch not unsettle him, surely.

  Caroline had chosen well. Miss Cartwright seemed perfect for him: a fellow tinkerer, as logical as he might wish for a wife who was to improve his dukedom.

  But would a life with a wife so chosen be like the chugging of pistons, inevitable and endlessly similar? Who would make human a marriage between two such contraptions as he and Miss Cartwright?

  It was in his nature to turn over unanswered questions, nag at uncertainties, sift through every contingency. But there were too many unanswered questions in his mind right now; he could never sift through them all. They were beginning to knock against the sides of his head, distracting him as he walked toward the rest of the party with Miss Cartwright. If he could only make a list, quantifying his confusion and thus controlling it.

  But his guests were scattered over the lawn in front of his house, dressed in bright cottons and wools, chattery and spangled as a flock of starlings. And on his arm, requiring his solicitous attention, was the solution to his financial troubles.

  “Please proceed down the road before you,” Michael said to his guests. “You’ll reach Preston in approximately one and one-half miles. The road should be in fair condition for a walk.”

  Uncertainty flickered over the faces of his guests, and Michael realized he had sounded too brusque. Of all the Londoners, only three did not show signs of confusion. Miss Cartwright, still at Michael’s side, nodded her understanding. Lord Stratton beamed in a sickeningly triumphant manner.

  Caroline, however, smiled at Michael as if he’d just said something delightful. Which was ridiculous, but it silenced his thumping headache anyway. The ache bled out of his head, swirling downward, twisting hungrily in his gut. He must have looked his hunger at her, because in the flicker before he looked away, her smile slipped and changed.

  The headache returned with a dull thud. Michael twisted his arm within his coat sleeve, ensuring that Miss Cartwright’s fingertips touched only the insensible bone of his forearm.

  And they all began to march down the road to Preston.

  For the second time that day, Lord Stratton intruded himself on Michael’s notice. “Such a quaint part of England, isn’t it?” The earl swung his amber-headed cane in conspicuous arcs. “This is England, isn’t it?”

  He swept a hand at the landscape, and Michael saw it through the eyes of a City dweller: deserted, quiet, rocky, barren.

  How had he hoped to catch himself a wife here? What were the chances that any wealthy woman would love this place as he did?

  “As you weren’t married over a blacksmith’s anvil during the course of your travels,” Caroline said from a few feet away, “then you must be aware you haven’t crossed into Scotland.”

  “I’m not interested in being married by a blacksmith.” Stratton tried to draw Caroline’s arm into his, and Michael felt a sudden urge to trip him with that glossy cane he kept dandling about.

  “Drat. Pebble in my boot.” Caroline crouched down and began fussing with the offending footwear. “Do go on without me, Stratton.”

  Stratton’s brows knit, then he turned back to Michael. “Do the peasants hereabouts speak a local dialect? It might be amusing to observe them in their primitive circumstances.”

  Michael studied the shorter man’s face. Was he mean-spirited or merely arrogant?

  Neither was a commendation, and Michael was not pleased by the persistence of this uninvited guest. “They might recommend that you go to ecky, Stratton.” An imp of delight danced down his spine.

  “Would they? And where is Ecky? Some godforsaken place hereabouts?”

  Michael wouldn’t have thought he would enjoy insulting another man to his face quite so much; it seemed unworthy of him. But then, this was Stratton, and Stratton was unworthy of Caroline. “Not at all. It’s a very popular place among the beau monde,” he replied. “Quite far south of here. Much warmer. I think it would suit you very well.”

  “It sounds pleasant,” Stratton agreed before turning back to Caroline again.

  The saturnine form of Josiah Everett drew forward from the flock. He matched Michael’s stride and cut his dark eyes sideways. “Teaching the earl a little of the local dialect, Wyverne?”

  “Merely trying to be an accommodating host.”

  “My mother lived in Lancashire for a time. Had a rather salty tongue, she did.”

  “Ah.”

  “I think,” Everett said, “that you’ve recommended an excellent location for your unexpected guest.” And with a smile, he drew a thumb across his forehead in a mock salute.

  So, at least one other person here knew that Michael had told a peer of the realm to go to hell. And that person approved.

  Michael wished he had the knack for easy conversation, for this was the type of moment in which friendships were cemented. Instead, he returned the mock salute with a bob of his head that felt awkward and over-stiff, and when Everett turned to answer a young lady’s question, Michael lengthened his stride to pull away. He was thankful for the distraction of movement. Working his body, tiring it out, always lessened his tension.

  He was full enough of it now—needing a wife, wanting a woman who wouldn’t marry him.

  Caroline seemed happy here, didn’t she? But he had said too much when he told her she looked as though she belonged. She wouldn’t marry him; twice, she had said so. And so he couldn’t talk to her with their former ease. He couldn’t show her his deepest self again.

  Damnation, she was so beautiful. It was a mistake having her here, for he would never shake his want of her as long as she was around. Even with Miss Cartwright nearby, he only wanted to follow Caroline. He wanted to unravel her pride, unwrap her from her pelisse, unbind her hair, unveil her body.

  He wanted to understand her. How could she share her body with him, then act as though nothing had changed? As though he had never touched her at all?

  He shivered, chilly spasms that had nothing to do with the temperature. In fact, his head felt as hot and sandy as though he had a fever. Still his feet moved down the road, his head nodded in response to the words he heard only dimly. Every speck of his attention went to pushing himself down the road.

  Eventually he would reach journey’s end, a place where everything felt like home again. Eventually.

  Twenty

  They reached Preston without much more co
nversation, and Michael turned the party loose on Fishergate Street. One of the city’s main thoroughfares, it was well paved and bustling, with rows of stocky, neatly painted shops crammed together like tea sandwiches on a tray. For a city of middling size, it had more than its share of prosperous citizens, and pride twinged through Michael to see even Lord Stratton’s eyes widen at the stretching street of ceaseless traffic.

  The ladies of the party took their leave in pairs and trios, searching for milliners and drapers, while the gentlemen hunted booksellers and gunsmiths. Preston was, it seemed, the ideal size for Londoners: large enough that they could amuse themselves without boredom, yet small enough that they could remain confident in their own city’s superiority.

  Best of all, for this brief window of time, the guests were not Michael’s responsibility. He could relax, catch his breath for the first time since Caroline had happened upon him that morning.

  Well. Maybe. Just then, Caroline headed down Fishergate with her friend, Lady Tallant, leaving Michael with a parting nod of significance that he could not interpret. Don’t botch this, perhaps.

  In another second, he understood why, for a voice sounded at his side. “It is noticeably warmer here than at your home, Wyverne.”

  He turned to see Miss Cartwright standing next to him. They were in an oasis of calm at one end of roiling Fishergate, standing at the edge of cobbled Winckley Street. The gardens of the city’s wealthiest residents formed a lush, manicured boundary behind them.

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “We are closer to water here, and that moderates the chill, I believe.”

  She fixed her cool eyes on him and nodded her understanding. Quickly as that, the subject of the weather was disposed of.

  As she seemed content simply to watch him, waiting for further explanation, Michael began to feel distinctly twitchy. He settled his feet, but within his boots, his toes tapped out their desire to begin pacing. “Ah… do you not care to shop, Miss Cartwright?”