by Claudia Dain
“You heard about my mother,” she said.
“You don’t have to be at White’s to hear about your mother,” he said, smiling.
Caro didn’t smile back. She felt queasy, her stomach in rebellion from being yanked about so often. Always Sophia, never Caroline. Her mother had grown children and she was still the most talked about, the most desirable woman in London.
“I suppose not,” she said softly, keeping her eyes down. She had a smear of dirt on her skirt exactly two inches long. That seemed important, somehow.
“My mother,” Ash said. “I think she loved him once. I don’t know why, but sometimes she’d speak as if she did or had or remembered something about him no one else saw. He drove it out of her. By meanness, by coldness, by isolation. He left her alone too much and wouldn’t let her come to Town, except once. Once she came to Town, and it broke her completely. I don’t know what happened, what he did, but she was never the same.”
Whatever it was, it had probably involved Sophia. Why else the war between them all these years?
“That’s when he began talking to me,” Ash said. “About her. Always about her.”
No need to ask who her was. Ash was caressing her foot, his index finger tracing the arch, the ankle, the instep. She tried not to shiver and failed.
“He’s a hard man,” Ash said. “Driven in his need for revenge. It seemed noble to me as a boy, but now I’d call it an obsession. Once I met Sophia, I understood.”
Caro pulled her foot out of his hand and tucked it back under the shelter of her skirts.
Ash looked at her and she steeled herself against the anguish in his blue eyes. She’d done quite enough damage to herself because of those blue eyes.
“You may not realize it, having been with her all your life, but she’s an unusual woman.”
“You don’t say?” Caro said coldly.
“She’s strong,” Ash said, reaching out to trace her two-inch smear of dirt.
It just so happened that the stain was directly over her curled knee. It also just so happened that no matter how put off she was by Ashdon’s words, she had yet to be put off by his touch. It was crushingly illogical. It was a good thing she had given up on logic. Raw emotion was going to be her guiding force now.
It was also, by pure coincidence, a good thing she found his touch emotionally pleasurable or she would have kicked him in the face.
“It’s what so infuriates my father, I think,” Ash said. “I wasn’t worried, not for her. It was when I met you that I started to worry.”
“I beg your pardon?” Caro said, shifting her weight, moving the dirt smear. It was now positioned over her upper thigh. Fancy that.
“I didn’t think you were like her,” he said. “I mean, why should I? She’s the one everyone talks of and she’s the one who arranged for your marriage without consulting you. I thought that you were just another proper girl who had been subjected to a proper education and would submit properly to the proper husband. And then I met you,” he said, looking up at her. “And then I knew.”
“Knew what?” she whispered. He sounded . . . almost besotted.
“That I had to protect you from him, from Westlin, what else? I couldn’t ruin you, which was his plan from start to finish, and I couldn’t marry you, couldn’t bring you into my life and into his. He hates Sophia. He wants to destroy you just to punish her.”
“Destroyed? I hardly think so,” she said, leaning her head back against the chair.
“Yes, I came to that conclusion as well,” he said, letting his other hand slip under her tattered hem and slide along her foot to her ankle to her calf. “You’re just like her, just as strong, just as compelling.”
“You certainly didn’t seem very happy about it,” she said, pretending to ignore the fact that both of his hands were under her skirt and that he was slipping her garters down her legs. Her stockings soon followed. She was past caring if her feet were clean.
“Because I wasn’t,” he said bluntly. Her eyes, which had been drooping, snapped open. “I saw what he did to my mother, what he tried to do to Sophia. I’m his son, trained to be his heir in all things. His tool, Caro,” he whispered hoarsely. “Do you think I wanted that for you?”
Caro’s head lifted from the cushion and she studied Ash’s face in the candlelight.
“You were afraid that you would bully me as he bullied your mother? You were afraid of what you would do to me? Afraid of what you would become?”
“Yes,” he said, lowering his head, avoiding her eyes. “I want to protect you from that. From me.”
Her heart broke into a thousand points of pain. He’d been trying to protect her. He’d run from her, pushed against her, avoided her, pointlessly, because he was afraid he’d hurt her.
“You would never do that to me,” she whispered, inching forward on the chair and wrapping her arms around him. He was hot to the touch, smooth and firm.
“I appreciate your confidence,” he said, kissing her neck, tugging at her bodice.
“But that’s not what’s important, is it?” she asked. “It was something else that convinced you.”
“It was you who convinced me,” he said, lifting her skirts to her hips, wrapping her legs around his hips. “It was you.”
“What did I do?” she said, kissing his shoulder, the line of bone, the soft skin of his throat. “I’ll do it again.”
“I like the sound of that,” he whispered as he kissed her. She opened her mouth beneath his, swallowing his passion and his need for her, devouring him, savoring him. He was delicious.
“Tell me. What did I do?” she said, pulling her mouth from his. He was not going to get out of declaring himself that easily. Not again.
“It’s who you are,” he said, his mouth nuzzling the swell of her breasts. She was never going to wear a fichu again. “You fought me at every turn, demanding your due, fighting for what you wanted. If I tried to do to you what Westlin did to my mother, you’d kill me for it.”
“I’m not at all clear on what Westlin did to your mother, but I can state truthfully that I have a list of things which I will kill for,” she said with a crooked smile, a tear fighting for release from her right eye.
She was not going to ruin this moment with tears. She was going to revel in it, remembering it for all her life. Remembering every shadow of emotion that flitted across Ash’s lovely face. Remembering the exact moment when Ash declared his overwhelming, undying, illogical love for her.
He loved her. Her. Not Sophia’s daughter. Not the means of a little revenge. Not a way to fill his purse.
“You have a list?” he asked.
“I’m very organized and highly logical. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed.”
“I’ve been too busy noticing other things.”
He’d got her bodice loose, not such a feat considering the general condition of her dress. His teeth brushed against a nipple and she gasped softly. Very softly. She had not forgotten that Anne was in the very next room, most likely talking to either her mother or Lord Staverton. Possibly both.
“You’re completely besotted, aren’t you?” she said.
“Completely,” he said, ripping her skirt with both hands so that she lay naked to the waist.
“You can’t live without me, can you?”
“Can’t and won’t,” he said, thumbing the core of her desire and making her groan and arch under his hand.
“You do know that I’m still angry that you wagered on me. Very presumptuous. Highly irregular,” she said, pressing against his hand, clenching her teeth against her moans.
“I made five thousand pounds, Caro. Aren’t you happy that I finally won?”
“Five,” she gasped as his finger entered her, stroking, “thousand? Are you still in debt?”
“Only by eight hundred pounds,” he said, licking his way across her breasts, his finger plunging into her, his thumb doing wicked circles within her folds.
“Eight hundred,” she gasped, her h
ead thrown back against the upholstery. “That’s a lot of money. How will you earn it? You’ve married as many women as you’re allowed.”
“True,” he said, “and also true that I married the only woman that I want.”
“But when did you make the bet, Ash? After the pearls or before? Did you make a bet that you could and would ruin me?”
“Cal made the bet. After the pearls. After the carriage and the vicious and premeditated attack of your breasts on my resolve. When I knew I couldn’t live without you. That’s when,” he whispered.
And with that, he plunged into her, holding her legs around his waist as she balanced on the edge of the chair. It was molten, a fire of longing met and married. He held her against him, pressing her to the edge of reason and then pushing her over into the abyss of passion. She fell freely. She had already decided that reason was vastly overrated.
“Are we ever going to make love in a bed, Lord Ashdon?” she said, panting against his neck, feeling the damp curls of hair on his nape, breathing in the scent of him.
“Eventually.”
“Am I ever going to be able to toss off a really good scream? I feel quite certain I could deliver a good one if there weren’t so many witnesses always about.”
“Definitely.”
“And are you ever going to be able to make a wager that will match that eight-hundred-pound debt?”
“I could,” he said, ripping through the rest of her dress so that she lay naked amid the ruins of her gown on her brother’s bedroom chair, “make a wager that you will deliver a child nine months from now.”
“To the day, Lord Ashdon? ” she said, sprawled before him.
“To the hour, Lady Wife.”
She pulled him to her by the growing-before-her-very-eyes sign of his affection and regard. Some things were just too obvious to be argued against.
“Ashdon? Make the bet.”
Epilogue
DINNER had been a late affair, due completely to the fact that Caro and Ash simply could not resist having at each other on any available surface. Charming, to be sure, but one did like to eat at regular intervals. It would all be so much easier when they were ensconsed in number nineteen Curzon Street. They could ruin their own furniture to their heart’s content.
What had happened to Markham’s bedroom chair was simply beyond repair.
Sophia, sitting in the white salon and sipping a solitary cup of tea, smiled in satisfaction. Things were going quite well there, as she had known they would. Caroline quite had the gentleman in the palm of her hand, and there was no better nor happier place for dear Ashdon to be. Such a lovely boy. He had turned out quite well considering the depth and vigor of Westlin’s rather annoying influence.
Markham had, as predicted, announced his determination to go to America with John and the boys at the first opportunity. First opportunities could be arranged or disarranged with comforting precision. She hadn’t quite decided when his first opportunity should arise.
Sophia, to meet his expectations of her on the occasion of his declarataion, had protested and expressed the sorts of doubts that were common to mothers. In the face of her objections, he had been more determined than ever to go. Naturally. She hadn’t yet decided if they should leave before the Season was over or not. She wasn’t at all sure what John’s reaction would be to having his sons in town for a London Season. And she wasn’t at all sure she cared what John’s reaction would be. It might, after all, do his sons some good to meet and mingle with the aristocracy of England.
It might do England some good as well.
So many things to be considered, and she had the luxury of time to consider them. The house was quiet. Mark, John, and the boys were riding in Hyde Park; Caro and Ash had departed for Chaldon Hall, the impressive home of the second Earl of Ashdon begun during Elizabeth’s reign and quite nicely maintained and improved upon since, but also and not less important, the favored residence of Westlin. She anticipated that Westlin would be remaining in Town for the near future. How delicious. Caro and Ash would have such fun ruining his furniture for a change.
Caro married to a man she adored and with a home of her own on Curzon Street to be decorated to her tastes, Markham out of the trouble simmering in Paris and soon off to New York to learn that there were more reliable ways of measuring a man than by the stiffness of his cravat or his capacity for brandy, Anne and Staverton to be married in a few short weeks . . . life was going to be singularly lacking in adventure or even entertainment.
She could acquire a man, but it was a rare man who could entertain, let alone provide any sort of adventure.
She was becoming rather jaded, and she wasn’t sure she liked it. Freddy brought in a pot of chocolate as she sat contemplating the quiet order of her imminently boring life.
“You’ll change this room? No more need for white now, is there?” Freddy asked as he set the chocolate pot down on a butler’s tray near the fire. She liked tea well enough, but there was nothing like a nice dose of chocolate on a drizzly late afternoon.
Westlin had taken his precious blanc de Chine cup home with him last night. The entire point of the white salon had been removed with the cup.
“Yes, I was thinking rose damask for the walls, in honor of Caro’s spectacular victory in the Hyde House rose damask dressing room. Such a night should be celebrated and memorialized, don’t you think?”
“Rose? That’s a sort of pink?”
“Between pink and red,” Sophia said, inviting Freddy to sit. They were alone on this floor of the house at this particular hour of the afternoon and as no one would witness the familiarity they enjoyed, no harm could be done to either of their reputations. “I could reupholster. I saw a lovely blush silk damask last week.”
“What else? Without the white cup . . .” Freddy shrugged.
“I could buy a collection of French porcelain,” she suggested. “French porcelain goes well with rose.”
“You could buy? Why should you buy?”
Sophia smiled. “It is more fun when someone else does the buying.”
“Well, figure out what you’d like, so’s you’re prepared when asked.”
“You have a lot of confidence in me, Freddy.”
“Just experience, Countess. Oh, there’s the door. Excuse me, back to butlering.”
A minute or two passed before Freddy opened the door and, without asking if she was in or not, ushered in, of all people, Lady Louisa Kirkland. For once, she was without her cousin, Lady Amelia Caversham and her chaperone, Lady Jordan. That spoke volumes. Sophia couldn’t help but be the slightest bit intrigued.
“Lady Louisa Kirkland to see you, Lady Dalby,” Freddy announced, winking gleefully.
The old sot. He probably thought he was doing her a favor by keeping her busy with a spoiled and sullen young woman who was reliably shy on the proper manner of conversing with a woman of her stature and experience, most particularly her experience.
Sophia could feel herself rising to the occasion almost immediately, her spine stiffening, her chin lifting, and her sense of adventure waking up. Freddy, on his better days and her worse ones, knew her better than she knew herself. Thankfully, she very seldom had worse days.
Sophia rose to her feet to greet her young guest, her recent conversation with Anne perhaps making her too aware of Louisa’s vibrant ginger hair, and then motioned Louisa into a seat.
It was to the girl’s credit that she came straight to the point.
“Lady Dalby, thank you for seeing me.”
“Not at all. Can I offer you a cup of chocolate?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Upon which Freddy made a quiet exit to give the ladies privacy while he waited for a footman to fetch another cup. With the room to themselves, Louisa wasted no time. Sophia found herself more intrigued by the moment.
“I find myself in a bit of a dilemma, Lady Dalby. I don’t quite know how to go about . . . fixing it.”
Sophia merely raised her eyebrows in pleasan
t curiosity and kept stirring her chocolate.
“I,” Louisa said, a faint blush staining her cheeks. She was a stunningly beautiful woman, which was likely the chief source of her troubles. Beautiful women were wont to stumble about, expecting their beauty to save them from all sorts of misadventures. Unfortunately, the opposite was more likely to be true, though certain misadventures could have rather pleasant results, at least to judge by her decidedly vast experience. “I . . . am certain that I don’t have to tell you about . . . well, about my pearls. About the entire pearl evening that took place at Hyde House two nights ago.”
“No,” Sophia said in quiet amusement. Really, the girl was most entertaining, “you don’t have to tell me.”
“I don’t know how it happened exactly, that is, I don’t know all the details,” she said, gaining speed and confidence as she progressed. Charming, really. The one thing that could be reliably said about Louisa Kirkland was that she consistently displayed a certain boldness of character. It was the one character trait Sophia admired above all others. Definitely in the girl’s favor. “But I was given a rather lovely strand of pearls by my grandmother, and somehow Lord Dutton got them from my father, Lord Melverley, and attempted to give them to your daughter.”
