An Indiscreet Debutante

by Lorelie Brown

  Her papa only nodded. “I had a bit of business to attend to. Then Lord Cameron couldn’t come to town until today.”

  “Mama needed you.” She had needed him through all these years, all these times. Her hands knotted into fists. Pure fury turned her guts into flame.

  “It was an inevitable delay. But look!” He put out a hand toward Lord Cameron. “Surely it’s worth it when we’ve such illustrious company.”

  Lord Cameron nodded. “I can speak for no one else, but I count myself lucky to be in your company.”

  “As we all are,” Ian supplied.

  Her father gave Ian a dubious look. How dare he? It wasn’t as if he’d been around to pass judgment on her acquaintances. “Besides, I’m sure you’ve had plenty to keep yourself occupied.” He nodded at Lord Cameron, his head bobbing along like an apple on a string. “She has many productive hobbies. Would you guess, Lottie here runs a lovely little charity devoted to the betterment of factory girls and other less fortunate souls.”

  “How righteous of her,” he agreed. His curls fluttered in an errant breeze, which made no sense because Lottie felt smothered. Like all the air in the room was being sucked away.

  Maybe she looked as ill as she felt, because Ian put his hand low on her back in a move that was both reassuring and nearly inappropriate. “Miss Vale, I believe I see your friends waving from across the room. Perhaps you’d like me to accompany you there?”

  How kind of him to lie. Really, it was likely unfortunate, because all he’d done was give her a terrible idea. A horrible, awful, incredibly brilliant idea grew and grew in her mind.

  She smiled. Her bones were brittle and her cries held back by pure will. Her smile grew into a grin. She ignored Ian’s attempt at escape and looked at her father. “You’re right, of course. Mama didn’t need you and I certainly didn’t. After all, I was fully occupied. Making torrid, steamy love with Sir Ian every night has kept me...fulfilled.”

  For a long, heart-stopping moment, Ian thought he’d heard her wrong. She couldn’t possibly have said that. Lottie was wild and she was somewhat reckless, but he’d believed that a matter of self-protection. She was showy in order to deflect.

  Not in order to set silence rippling away from their tiny knot of people, like the circles that waved outward from a pebble dropped in a pond. Lord Vale’s mouth dropped open before he gave a tiny shake of his head as if trying to rid himself of what he’d heard.

  Lord Cameron was amused. His eyebrows lifted, and his entire body canted slightly toward Lottie. “Pardon?”

  Then she apparently decided to throw a boulder in the pond.

  “Intercourse. Sexual congress.” She smiled, looking around at the silent crowd doing their utmost to pretend they weren’t actually listening while straining their ears toward every word. Not that Lottie was making it particularly challenging. She spoke in a voice as clear as a bell and as bright as when she’d been addressing a dozen of her girls. “A handful of times. I should have liked to experience more, but such matters are surprisingly difficult to schedule.”

  Ian’s first instinct was to roar and fight. His blood raged in his ears. Extra emotion zinged down his limbs and fisted his hands. There was nowhere for that force to go. Certainly not toward Lottie, though she was the orchestrator of this sudden and unfortunate turn of events. “Lottie...”

  She smiled at him. “I’m sorry, I did know you wished these things to be quiet. You understand, Father has a recent desire that I marry. And you do know my views on the subject.”

  “Pardon?” Lottie’s father said in a rather befuddled tone. “You can’t possibly mean... You and this man...”

  She shrugged, then lifted her champagne glass toward the chandelier and peered at it. Maybe she wished for more. Maybe, if she had a scrap of the sense that the Lord had given her, she was wishing she hadn’t had quite so many glasses. “I’m sorry. It’s a bit gauche of me, isn’t it? Probably on par with refusing to come home when your wife is in a time of need. When she’s ill.”

  Lord Vale heard those words, that much was clear. His face flushed red enough that his cheeks were scarlet apples. “Your mother is perfectly well cared for.”

  “And me?” Lottie slashed out with her husky voice. A new rigidity took over her normally relaxed posture. She looked like she could break if given the slightest nudge. “Am I well cared for?”

  “Obviously not, if you’ve let yourself turn into a whore.”

  “Maybe you should have been here. Then it would be you letting me turn into a whore. Raising myself has certain drawbacks, after all.”

  That was it. The freeze that had held Ian still cracked away into a thousand splinters. “Go. Now.”

  He didn’t give Lottie a choice. He hauled her away by the wrist. She went along, but he couldn’t tell if it was willingly. It didn’t matter. He didn’t care. Not like he was giving her much of an option—exactly as she’d stripped away most of his options.

  They waded through the partygoers. A wade it was, as well, because everyone looked. Watched. Their eyes judgmental, their mouths set in displeased frowns and open gasps—except for those taking perverse pleasure in the scene evinced before them. Heads tilted together behind fans.

  The whispering was beginning.

  On their exodus, Ian spotted Etta. Lottie’s friends Sera and Victoria flanked her. Though her features were drawn and ghost pale, she waved him on. Go, she mouthed. Victoria put a hand on her shoulder and nodded toward Ian.

  At least Lottie’s friends were sensible, though she’d lost every scrap of rational thought she’d ever possessed.

  The heavens smiled down on him in small ways. His carriage waited outside. He shoved her in, not looking at her face. He couldn’t. If she appeared the littlest bit amused by her ridiculous stunt, he’d lose his temper unbearably. He snapped directions at the footman and slammed the door shut. It rattled in the frame with less-than-satisfactory solidity.

  Lottie squeezed herself into the far corner. “I won’t apologize. I won’t. I said nothing that wasn’t true.”

  “You jeopardized everything. Everything.”

  Her face was drawn. In the darkness that swept past the carriage window, she was a ghost who didn’t look like herself. Her wide mouth disappeared into the shadows. Her eyes gleamed though, lush and dark. She kept her chin forward as she crossed her arms over her chest. “There’s no reason to be so dramatic. Not nearly.”

  He wanted to shake her. Grab her by the upper arms and shake back and forth until her head lolled and her neck bent. “You’re mad.”

  She jerked her gaze toward him. Her hands dropped to her lap. “I told you never to call me that.”

  “Don’t act like it.”

  Her gloved hand knotted into a fist. “How dare you? I never knew you had such a cruel streak.”

  “No.” He settled back into the padded leather squabs of the seat. His bones suddenly felt weary and yet charged with nearly supernatural energy. He’d never expected this. Of all the outcomes he could have dreamt, some of which would be unpleasant, he’d never even considered this. Not finding Patricia and always having the threat of his sister’s marriage over his head, that had been up there at the top of the list. Having Lottie lose her goddamned mind in the middle of a ball was not one of them. “It’s not cruelty. It’s the truth. You’ve done no one any favors. Not yourself or me, or your mother. Or Henrietta. Quite the remarkable coming out you’ve given her.”

  “Henrietta will be fine.” Her jaw set to a mulish angle. “If anything, you’d haul down the stars from the sky for her. You’d chew her damned food if you could. Not everyone is so well adored.”

  “You could have been,” he muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  He could have repeated himself. He could have said it louder, or told her that he’d been wondering if he really needed children or if it would be enough to have his days filled with the bright excitement she brought. None of that had taken into account her apparent self-destructi
ve streak. This need to destroy was new. He couldn’t help but think it was an unpleasant part of her personality that he hadn’t known before. That he hadn’t wanted to know about.

  “You’ll never be able to heal your reputation.” He sighed. “I probably didn’t make it any better by hauling you away.”

  “Don’t you dare say we should marry. Don’t say it. I won’t be held responsible for my response.”

  “I wouldn’t fucking dream of it.”

  They were poisonous together. Anger lived in the space between them. He didn’t know exactly where this would end, but no matter what it couldn’t be pleasant. Wouldn’t be pleasant. No such thing when he was so consumed by fury that his hands tingled and his palms were vortexes of sensation. He wanted to grab and break something. Maybe someone.

  “Good.” She lifted her chin and looked out the window. “Marriage is expressly what I was trying to avoid.”

  “I’m not offering,” he said with special emphasis. “I doubt it would fix the situation anyhow. My sister’s reputation would forever be suspect. I’ve been trying to bring up my family. Not seal it forever to a notorious woman.”

  “Don’t talk about my mother like that!”

  “This has nothing to do with your mother,” he roared. “You. You’re the notorious one. You did this. You told five hundred people about our relationship.”

  “What relationship? You’re fucking me.” Her eyes were wide, her features twisted over a snarl. “And don’t lie. I know in part that has only to do with my mother and her madness. It colors everything. It shades over my whole life.”

  “If it does so, it’s only because you let it. Because your fears turn you into someone unfortunate.” The carriage drew to a stop, and he put a hand to the door, but he didn’t open it. “I have no idea how you could possibly fix all this.”

  “I have no intention of turning myself inside out to please that man. He’s never here. Hell, when he is, he drinks in his study and talks to me like I’m a crony of his. Not his daughter. How the hell can he expect to storm in and marry me away?”

  “That’s no reason to poison the waters of all Society.” He shook his head. “How can you not see what you’ve done?”

  “Because I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong. Damn them all. I’d rather burn their entire world to the ground than endure one more moment.”

  “You don’t hate them. You hate yourself.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Oh, how that hurt. Lottie’s eyes filled immediately with tears, but she had years and years of practice in beating them away. How wrong this was all turning. She had done this. Brought it on herself.

  She pressed her fingertips to her brow, trying to order her thoughts. They swirled along with her emotions and her temper. The skin along the back of her neck prickled. Beneath she was one hard rock of fear and clenching anger. She didn’t know her own mind.

  In a way, he was right. She’d turned into everything she’d feared being.

  “Where are we?” she whispered. There had been no such thing as tracking the turns of the carriage or watching the streets go by. She’d hardly been able to follow the bounce of her own thoughts.

  The only positive thing she could cling to was that Mama had been home and not privy to that awful scene. Though part of Lottie wondered if she’d have done it had her mother been there. Maybe. Maybe she’d been bound to crack anyway. That was what this felt like. Cracking open like she’d always feared she would. Like she’d known.

  He pushed open the small carriage door and stepped out. At least he still provided his hand to help her down. Some small gestures were more than courtesies, they were reassurances. So she told herself.

  “You know where we are.” He stepped to the side. How severe he looked. His mouth thinned and his jaw was as sharp as a blade. He held his shoulders steady and straight.

  The school. He’d brought her to her rented townhouse. The windows were dark under the bare light of the moon. No one had been expected, so not a scrap of welcome in any way had been left out.

  She still wanted to grab on to Ian, bury her face in the front of his jacket. Emotion zipped back and forth between them. But she had no words for it and no way to grasp what had been. The moments in her room had been safe. Quiet and exciting.

  Maybe she needed to touch him and hold him all over again. Then the awful whispers in her head might go away and she could stop feeling like she’d lost track of herself in the wake of all her fears.

  He likely had different ideas, however. She licked her lips as she looked up at the building that had once been so safe. She’d always been able to come here and run away from her home troubles, to feel welcome and wanted and useful. In the dark of night, the building’s stones looked different. “Why are we here?”

  “I couldn’t exactly take you to my home, now could I?” He sneered a little. “Unless you wished to face my mother and explain to her why you ruined Henrietta’s big night? Or maybe you should go home and let your father beat you?”

  She felt truculent. Petty. Her mouth set into a distinct downward curve as she fished her key out of her ribbon-adorned reticule and unlocked the door. “Father wouldn’t beat me.”

  “No?” He prowled along behind her through the dark corridors. “Because I’m considering doing so myself.”

  “You wouldn’t either.” She led the way toward her study because she didn’t know where else to go. The tiny parlor where she and her friends retired to exclusive company didn’t seem right. She was entirely too wound up to be in such comfortable surrounds. The messy comfort of her desk seemed more appropriate. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  He didn’t sit. Crossing his arms, he took up position in the middle of the room as if establishing himself as the palace guard. Suddenly he loomed as big and solid as a castle. Implacable. Unshakable. Enraged. “Don’t try me.”

  She pulled her mouth into a smile and tilted her chin up, as high as she could go without having to look away from him. There was something magnetizing about his eyes when he was furious with her. Particularly when he was so very furious with her.

  At least he saw her. He knew it was Lottie at the core. “You’re wrong. I don’t hate myself.”

  “No?”

  He came closer. Either he saw the way she was looking at him or he couldn’t stay away from her any more than she could stay away from him. He wrapped a few locks of her hair around his fingers. She didn’t know when they had fallen. His touch skimmed down her neck and across her collarbones.

  “I hate the rest of them. I wish they’d all wither and die.”

  His mouth tweaked. “You don’t believe that. You don’t want that.”

  She shook her hair back, out of his grasp. She wanted to be chased. She wanted to be wanted and have him follow her to the ends of the world and beyond. “What do you know?”

  “I know you’re so goddamned frightened you can hardly see what’s in front of your nose. I know you’ve done something that you’ll regret. Desperately. I know you haven’t realized how far you’ve gone or what the repercussions will be.”

  She snorted, but her chest was clenching tight. “What repercussions? Father won’t marry me off. End of story.” She made a show of brushing off her hands. “I’ve money in trust through Mama’s family. They knew it was likely that whatever man I ended up with would tire of me. It’s the way of things.”

  “I’m not tired of you,” he said on a growl. “I’m so angry that I might break you.”

  “I dare you to try.” She spit the words. “I don’t want to break. I only want to get under you.”

  “So bloody crass,” he growled. The rumbling gutter tones of his voice made her nipples pebble and her belly flip. Especially when he spun Lottie around, pushing her up against the desk. The sharp edge barely pushed through her layers of skirts and petticoats. “That mouth has gotten you in more trouble than you know.”

  Smiling was easy, though her blood burned hot and her breathing was ragged and harsh. �
�So teach me a lesson.”

  She thought she’d be in for another of his searing kisses. The ones that spun her inside out and left her panting for more. The whole reason she’d journeyed down this path. His mouth on hers, more of those kisses and then more from there in the set pattern men always followed. Mouth to breasts to the main act.

  She loved underestimating a man.

  He spun her around again so the desktop dug into her belly. Her hips jerked back under his hard grip. Air flowed over her skin when he scooped her skirts up. She gasped. Her hands flinched and spasmed on the felt blotter. Her elbow twitched into a jar of ink, sending it spinning off the edge.

  It clattered and crashed across the floor.

  He pulled her bloomers down, and she bit her lip against the squeak that wanted to escape her.

  Her sex was wet and blooming, begging for his first touch.

  She hadn’t known what to hope for. He grabbed her ass in firm hands, his grip unrelenting. Tingles echoed from where he held her apart. She rose up on her toes, and she wasn’t sure if she was trying to release that pressure or trying to get closer to him.

  “Like this?” His voice descended to such a deep buzz it became difficult to make out words. “Is this what you wanted me to do? Lay you out like a whore or a strumpet?”

  She tried to swallow down her apprehension. She was still in control of this situation. After all, he was the one driven to such extreme measures, while she simply waited.

  Angling her head, she looked at him. His every feature seemed deeper carved, his jaw too sharp to be believed. “Depends,” she said. “Will you make me feel good?”

  He’d apparently lost his grip on all words, because what came out of his mouth were pure guttural groans. Then he sank to his knees.

  She buried her face against the meat of her upper arm. Silk ruffles caressed her chin, but she barely felt it. Not over the wet, liquid bliss he swirled through her.