by Candace Camp
“Oh, no. I don’t want any of this getting out.”
“But I could find no one who seemed to have a fierce enough grievance against Lord Dure to do this. There are those who have had disputes with him, of course, and some who believe the way he has lived indicates a weak moral tone. His manner is not always conducive to, uh, friendship. But no one seemed incensed or filled with hatred. Nor were there any rumors of such. That is why my mind turned toward your suitors, for I am sure there must be many men who, having met you, wished that they had had the chance to offer for your hand.”
Charity smiled. “You are very flattering Mr. Reed, but I feel sure that—” She stopped abruptly, and her eyes brightened. “Why, that could be it!”
“You’ve thought of a suitor?”
“No. Not that. But what you said made me think—Perhaps it is someone in love with Simon—I mean, Lord Dure. No one was pursuing me before the engagement, but I am certain there were lots of women who were pursuing Dure. Hopeful debutantes, and their mothers. There are bound to have been, with a man like Dure.”
Reed gazed at her blankly. “Uh, I don’t really…”
“I know it isn’t something I should be talking about. But this is no time for polite convention. I must find out where those notes are coming from.” She paused, chewing on her lower lip in thought. “You know, the more I think about it, the more inclined I am to think that it is a woman. Such dislike smacks of a lover scorned. I am so glad you suggested it.”
“Actually, I didn’t. You leaped to—”
“Yes, yes, I know, but it was you who gave me the idea.” She smiled at him. “I feel much better now. If it is only another woman, hurt and grudging, that is something I can deal with. And I can investigate it myself.”
“Miss Emerson!” Reed look alarmed. “No, you must not. You don’t know what kind of danger you could be in.”
“Nonsense. From a jealous woman?” Charity smiled benignly at him, thinking that men were foolishly protective. “I can hold my own with that sort. It will be easy for me to ask around. Everyone is always eager to carry tales to a future wife.”
Reed still looked doubtful. “I do not believe that Lord Dure will be pleased at having his fiancée asking questions about his past—especially his romantic past.”
“Don’t be silly. For one thing, I doubt that he will know. I suspect that not too many people dare run to Lord Dure with tales of anything. Anyway, as His Lordship knows, I am my own woman and go my own way. It is the way we both prefer it.”
“Indeed?” A speculative look entered his eyes. “You are an independent woman, then?”
“Certainly,” Charity said briskly. The thought flickered through her mind that Lord Dure had not seemed to prefer her going her own way when it meant talking to Faraday Reed, but she shoved the idea away.
“There are other things I can do to find this note-sender,” she went on. “Tomorrow I am going to talk to the maids. At first, when I found that note among my flowers, I assumed that the sender had actually crept into my bedroom and placed it among the blooms, but, of course, that would not have been the case. It would have been too easy for him to be caught. He—or she—must have bribed one of Aunt Ermintrude’s servants. So I will question them.”
“They aren’t likely to admit to anything.”
“Oh, I will worm it out of them somehow,” Charity replied confidently. “’Tis quite possible that they did not even realize that there was any harm. They might have thought it was a missive from an admirer, or some such.” She smiled warmly at Reed and reached out to squeeze his arm. “You have been so helpful. I feel much better. And I thank you for your discretion. You have been a gentleman and a good friend. I only wish Simon realized how wrong he is about you.”
“I doubt that that will ever come about,” Reed said dryly. “’Tis just as well that you don’t try to convince him.”
“But it’s wrong,” Charity protested, “when you have been doing all this to help me…and him.”
“I have done it for you, Miss Emerson,” Reed assured her, covering her hand with his and looking soulfully into her eyes.
Charity felt an inappropriate desire to giggle. He was looking at her in a moonstruck way that was, she thought, ridiculous. But she could not laugh, not after he had been so understanding and helpful about the wicked notes. She wondered if this sick-calf look was Reed’s manner of flirting. It seemed strange to her for a married man to flirt in any way, especially with a woman who was about to be married herself. However, she had seen in the few weeks that she had been out that flirting was rampant throughout society, no matter what one’s marital status, and her mother said that it was perfectly acceptable, that it didn’t mean anything. Charity wondered why it was done, if it didn’t mean anything. But she did not question her mother; she would only say that Charity was being frivolous or, worse, impertinent.
“Yes, I know,” she replied matter-of-factly to Reed’s emotion-tinged words, and discreetly tried to withdraw her hand from his. But his hand still clasped hers firmly. “And I appreciate it, I promise you.”
It was at that moment that she became aware that all conversation around her had ceased. She raised her head curiously and saw that everyone else in the room was staring at the door. She turned and looked.
Simon was standing just inside the door, looking directly, chillingly, at her.
Her heart sank. It occurred to her then how her earnest discussion with Mr. Reed must look—the two of them, their voices soft, their heads close together, locked in a private conversation that excluded everyone else in the room. It was not the way a young woman of good breeding talked to a man who was not her fiancé. Her mother would have noticed and pulled her back into the general conversation, but Serena hadn’t the skill to do it, and Aunt Ermintrude hadn’t even noticed.
“Oh, dear,” Charity murmured as Simon started across the floor toward her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SIMON NODDED POLITELY to Aunt Ermintrude and Serena and the two young men conversing with them. Then he turned toward Charity and Reed, and his eyes swept coldly over them.
“Good afternoon, Lord Dure,” Charity began boldly, determined not to let him intimidate her. After all, she had been doing nothing wrong.
“My dear. I trust Mr. Reed has been keeping you entertained.”
Reed shifted uneasily in his seat at Dure’s icy tone, but Charity simply gazed back evenly and replied, “Yes, he has.”
“Mr. Reed has always had a good deal of charm.” He smiled in a chilling way as he looked at Reed. “Perhaps more than is wise for him.”
Charity’s eyebrows went up coolly at his words. She hoped that Dure wasn’t about to cause a scene. She could see that Aunt Ermintrude and the others were watching them interestedly, their own conversations abandoned in favor of the more entertaining possibilities offered by Lord Dure’s obvious antagonism.
“But now that I am here,” Dure went on, speaking to Reed, “I can relieve you of the burden of entertaining my fiancée.”
“It was no burden at all,” Reed assured him blandly. “Miss Emerson is a sparkling conversationalist.”
“Of course, but I am sure that you have other obligations you need to meet.” Dure’s eyes bored into him, and finally, flushing, Reed rose to his feet.
“It has been a pleasure, Miss Emerson,” he said, turning to her and ignoring Dure.
“Thank you.” Charity smiled at him warmly to counteract the sting of Dure’s glowering disapproval.
Reed bowed to the others and made his departure. Dure stonily watched him go. He turned back to Charity and said stiffly, “Perhaps you would like to take a stroll around the garden, Miss Emerson.”
Charity thought about telling Simon that she was fine where she was, just to thwart him, since he was acting so overbearing, but she had the suspicion that if she did not go outside with him, he would give her a lecture right here in front of the others. It would be better to receive a dressing-down in private, at le
ast.
“Of course, my lord.” She turned toward her great-aunt for permission.
Looking rather disappointed that she was going to miss the fireworks, Aunt Ermintrude nodded. “You young people run along.”
Dure offered Charity his arm, and they walked silently out of the room and down the hall, then out the door to the formal garden behind Aunt Ermintrude’s house. Charity cast a brief sideways glance at Simon’s profile. His face might have been carved of stone. She suppressed a sigh. Why was it that Dure had to be so obdurate on this issue? It seemed rather unfair of him to order her not to talk to a man simply because he had once been a rival of his. Reed had proven himself her friend in this matter of the notes, which Charity found generous of him, considering the obvious dislike her fiancé held for him.
They walked in silence for a time. Charity could hear the audible grinding of the Earl’s teeth, and she guessed that he was struggling to bring his anger under control. She remembered the other time, at Lady Rotterham’s ball, when his anger had not been under control, and the way he had kissed her, his mouth so hot and hungry that she’d thought he might almost consume her. She flushed, thinking that she might prefer it if he lost his composure again.
But he did not. He seated her on the stone bench at the far end of the garden, then stood in front of her, his arms crossed over his chest like a stern schoolmaster. In an icy tone, he said, “Miss Emerson, do you seek out ways to defy me? Or are you merely foolish enough to think that I do not mean what I say?”
Charity gazed back at him, pride in every line of her face and body. “Defy you, my lord? Indeed, I have only gone about my own way, as you have gone about yours. It is, I believe, what we agreed our marriage would be like.”
“We are not married yet.”
“Then I would say that only makes it worse that you expect me to live under your thumb.”
Dure’s nostrils flared, and a fierce light flamed to life in his dark eyes. “I do not expect you to live under my thumb! I am not some brute who wants a cowed creature for his wife!”
“Indeed?” Charity returned coolly. “Then why do you seat me here and loom over me thus, as if I were some disobedient child and you my parent?”
“Damnation! I was attempting to be polite. Stand, then, if that’s what you want!” He reached down and grasped her by the arms, jerking her to her feet. He stood for a moment only inches away from her, his fingers digging into her flesh and his eyes blazing down at her.
Then, with an oath, he dropped her arms and stepped back, half turning away from her. “God help me, I have never met a woman who could make me so—so damned uncivilized.”
Charity let out a shaky little laugh. For a moment she had been uncertain whether he was going to shake her or kiss her breathless, as he had before. “Am I that annoying, my lord?”
“Yes, you are very much that annoying—and that enticing. You make me feel as if I were going to explode,” he answered roughly, his gaze sweeping over her. “When I saw that cad Reed so close to you, and you smiling at him, touching his arm, it was all I could do not to floor him right there in your aunt’s drawing room!”
“You were jealous?” Charity’s brows vaulted upward. She had not considered this motive for Dure’s forbidding her to see Reed; she had thought he simply disliked the man and expected his wife to form her friendships in accordance with his likes and dislikes. Given Dure’s manner of marrying, she would not have thought that any emotions such as jealousy might stir him. She found the idea rather warming.
“You are to be my wife,” he snapped, glaring at her. “I cannot allow any taint to attach itself to your name.”
“Taint!” So it was his pride and family name that he was jealously protective of, not her! Charity drew herself up to her full height and glared right back at him.
“Yes, and worse than that, if you continue to associate with scum like Farady Reed.”
“Mr. Reed is well accepted,” Charity retorted.
“Society would accept a snake, if it spoke well enough and danced attendance upon all the old harridans who rule it.”
“But you know better than they do?”
“Yes, I do. I know that Faraday Reed is a wicked man, and that he will ruin your virtue if given the slightest opportunity.”
“You think that I have so little morals that I would permit any man who came along to seduce me?” Charity snapped, incensed.
“You do not have to be seduced to have your name ruined,” Simon shot back. “Reed can make it appear that a woman’s virtue has been compromised. Nor is he above forcing you, if that is the only way to do it.”
Charity stared, shocked out of her anger for the moment. “Simon! No! You must be mistaken. He would not do such a thing. Why, he has been most kind to me. He even helped—” She broke off, remembering that she had not told Simon about the notes.
She was torn. If she told Simon how sympathetic and helpful Mr. Reed had been, despite the antipathy between him and Dure, then Simon would realize that he was being unfair to Reed. However, she wanted to protect Simon from the knowledge of those awful notes. It would be bound to bring back painful memories of his wife’s death—and that of his child. It would be petty and unkind for her to expose him to those notes now, just so that she could make a point in an argument.
“He has helped what?” Simon asked, his brows drawing together suspiciously.
“He has helped me…fit in, you know, telling me who people are and how they are related. That sort of thing. He has helped me steer clear of some of the hidden rocks.”
“You don’t need his help. If you want to know something, ask your mother—or Venetia. But not Faraday Reed. I insist that you avoid him.”
“My mother likes him and allows him to call. How can I avoid him?”
Simon grimaced. “Tell her what I told you, and I assure you that she will not permit him inside the house again. I expected you to do so when I first warned you about him. Obviously, you did not.”
“You were being unreasonable. You still are. You make these vague accusations about Mr. Reed, but you won’t tell me why you think he’s wicked. What has he done to make you dislike him so? Why do you think he would try to ruin my reputation?”
“He would do so to get back at me. Believe me, he dislikes me as cordially as I dislike him. Perhaps even more so, as I won.”
A bitter tongue of anger snaked through Charity. He was obviously referring to the woman of easy virtue that the two of them had pursued, and it bothered her that Simon would even think of her in Charity’s presence.
In a tight voice, she asked, “Won what?”
Simon shook his head. “I cannot tell you.”
“Of course. You issue orders and expect me to blindly obey you. And you say you don’t want to force me to live under your thumb.”
“The story is not mine to tell,” Dure replied stiffly. “It involves a lady and her honor.”
Charity was incensed. Reed had made it clear that the woman involved was a member of the demimonde, not a lady. How dare Dure pretend that the matter involved a lady’s honor?
“Ha!” She let out a derisive laugh. “That’s always the last resort when a man doesn’t want to tell you something. It’s too ‘indelicate’ for your poor female sensibilities, or it involves a ‘lady’s honor,’ or it’s something you ‘wouldn’t understand.’”
Dure’s jaw jutted out. “It happens to be the truth. I don’t indulge in polite nonsense. It does involve a lady, and I would be a poor excuse for a gentleman if I spread the story around.”
“I’m not asking you to ‘spread it around.’ I am asking you to give me a reason why I should avoid Faraday Reed.”
“Damnation, woman! Isn’t the fact that I request it reason enough?”
“You did not request it! You ordered it. There is a world of difference. I am your fiancée, not your servant, and I will not be ordered about. If what you want is someone you can command, then I suggest that you find another woman to be you
r wife!”
He gazed at her for a long moment, his head high and proud, and Charity was afraid that he would tell her that their engagement was at an end.
But then he gave her a stiff bow and said, “All right, Miss Emerson. I am not ordering you. I am asking you, as my future wife, to do this as a favor to me.” His voice was rigidly controlled, and he did not look at Charity until the end. But then he looked straight into her eyes. “More than that, I would like for you to believe me, to take my word for it, even though I cannot tell you how I know, that Reed is an evil man. I am asking that you trust me.”
When he’d first begun to speak, Charity had felt a thrill of triumph. She had, in a sense, tamed the wild, proud Lord Dure, brought him to request it of her as an equal, not order her as a child. But when he asked her to trust and believe him, his voice dark and laced with emotion, Charity had realized that he was asking far more of her than that she do as he requested. He wanted something deeper, a commitment of mind and belief. He was a man who had been hurt by rumors, a man about whom others whispered, a man known as “Devil Dure.” Charity had had a glimpse of how much those rumors had pierced him, despite his cool exterior, and she knew that the trust of his wife was something he longed for, though his pride would not normally have let him ask for it. She knew, too, how much it had cost him to ask.
Charity reached out and took his hand in hers. “All right,” she said quietly, gazing back into his eyes. “I believe you. And I will avoid Mr. Reed in the future.”
Simon’s hand tightened convulsively around hers. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. He turned her hand over and pressed a kiss into her palm, then cradled her hand against his cheek.
“Thank you.” His voice was husky. “I should not have ordered you. I didn’t think. When I saw him with you, I was so angry, so scared of what he might do to you, that I didn’t think about how it would make you feel. Forgive me.”
“Of course.” Charity took a step closer to him, drawn by the emotion of his voice. She went up on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his cheek.
