A Wedding by Dawn (16 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY

H
E
’
D
BEEN
SO
bloody sure she wouldn’t do it.

That evening Nick lounged carelessly in an armchair while Madame Someone-or-Other kept up a lively debate about whether the work of a certain young Genovese poet merited the regard of a rational thinker.

After staring at India’s barely contained breasts for the better part of the afternoon, Nick didn’t imagine he would ever think rationally again.

Across the room, the Comte d’Anterry was likely having the same reaction. The man had spent nearly the entire evening staring at India, who was seated in a chair next to Lady Pennington, who shared a small settee with a young man who seemed slightly less enthusiastic about poetry than he was about Lady Pennington’s figure.

He would have laid
money
India wouldn’t do it.

But she’d done it.

And now there were three other men in this room alone who knew exactly, precisely how that swathe of thin blue fabric had molded to the perfect roundness of India’s curves—and clung to their peaked crests. And it was his own bloody fault. He could have stopped the entire thing.

But he’d been so sure
she
would stop it.

And when she hadn’t, a morbid fascination had gripped him because she was so completely unlike any young woman he’d ever met. So utterly dogged in her purpose. So...
herself.

And because even after what she’d surely overhead yesterday, he still recognized the smoldering desire in her eyes—for
him.

He’d be a fool to read more into that than it merited. But one thing seemed clear: she hadn’t told her aunt what she’d heard in the church. If she were going to tell, certainly she would have done it by now. Wouldn’t she? Rather than go through all that scheming at the painter’s studio, trying to convince him that marriage to her would be an endless festival of cuckoldry?

It was an effort that continued even now, as she paid not one whit of attention to the discussion, but a bloody lot of attention to a Monsieur LeGrand, who crossed his legs carelessly and toyed with his signet ring while he contributed the occasional offhand remark to the conversation. LeGrand was one of those self-styled intellectuals whose arrogance would get him killed outside the safety of a salon.

India cast occasional glances in Nick’s direction, apparently to be sure he wasn’t missing any of her flirtations.

Meanwhile, she had contributed nothing to the conversation. Not a consumer of poetry, apparently. It was a good guess neither was Lady Pennington, and Nick would lay a large sum on the prospect that Lady Pennington had skimmed just enough of the poet-of-the-evening as she prepared her toilette to be able to contribute the kinds of vague yet acceptably relevant comments she did now.

Monsieur LeGrand expressed an uncharacteristically long opinion about a particular opening stanza, and Nick studied India’s carefully averted gaze and oddly rigid posture. The moment LeGrand finished speaking and the debate flared up on the other side of the room, she relaxed.

Interesting. Why had she not done as her aunt clearly had and read a little of the poet’s work so as to chime in?

He watched LeGrand bestow a moment of attention on her, and he followed the direction of the man’s gaze directly to the swell of India’s breasts above her stays.

Nick’s jaw tightened. He could end this game they were playing tomorrow if he chose. Everything was all arranged with Père Valentine, who stood at the ready to perform the ceremony at a moment’s notice. Winston and Vernier had agreed to be available as witnesses under the same terms.

There was no reason to wait.

Except that the possibility of his seducing her into compliance seemed more promising than ever. And the idea of her coming to him willingly—even if only driven by desires of the flesh—appealed in a way that caught him down deep, and that he’d do well not to examine too closely.

He leveled his eyes at her, met her gaze the next time she looked his way.
I’ll gladly show you where all these flirtations can lead, India.

Her cheeks pinkened, and her eyes darted away, and now he wanted nothing more than to take her away from here, find the nearest secluded spot—perhaps an enclosed carriage—and—

“Mademoiselle India, surely you agree that this poem on the whole has a romantic, and not a rational, theme,” their hostess said.

India’s attention snapped to the group, and for a moment she stared like a rabbit flushed into the open. Nick sat up a little in his chair.

“I would agree with that,” India said. “Yes.”

A gentleman across the room laughed. “Preposterous! Tell us a single verse that is not brimming with rationalism.”

India hesitated, and then, “I believe that what is romantic is also rational.”

That was the wrong, wrong thing to say.

“Pass her the book,” the gentleman suggested. “Read the third and fourth stanzas aloud, mademoiselle, and let us see whether that might be true.”

India paled, and now Nick sat fully upright in his chair. “Certainly there is something of the rational in the romantic,” he said casually, “else mankind as a species would die out.”

Their hostess arched a brow at him. “Would it, indeed?”

He couldn’t imagine why India did not want to read, except that perhaps she worried she would be subjected to further questions along the same vein. But if India didn’t want to read aloud to the present company—and he could hardly blame her for that—then by God, these self-important intellectuals were not going to force her.

“Without romance, the required act would be rather...perfunctory, would it not?” he asked. “Which might be satisfactory for the male of the species, but would hardly be acceptable to the female—but forgive me, perhaps you would disagree on that point.”

Laughter went up, and now the attention was fully off India. The hostess gave a witty retort, and the gentleman fired a new line of questioning at Nick, and while he answered, he glanced at India.

And the expression on her face caught him straight in the gut.

Thank you.

She couldn’t have said it more clearly if she’d stood atop Notre-Dame Cathedral and screamed. Inside him something shifted. Surged. And if he never saw anything else in his life, he wanted to see her look at him like that again.

He wanted to be her protector.

The one she ran to when she was afraid.

And God help him, because he wasn’t anyone’s savior. He was barely managing to save himself, and only thanks to this distasteful agreement with her father.

She bloody well wasn’t going to thank him for that.

* * *

“Y
OU
DIDN
’
T
TELL
me you’d invited guests to your portrait sitting,” Auntie Phil said later, standing in the doorway of India’s bedchamber. A small edge in her voice warned of displeasure.

India sat in bed, dressed for the night but not tired at all, and wished there were even one soul in all the world she could talk to about what Nicholas had done tonight. About how she felt. But nobody except Father knew she couldn’t read—not even the many servants she’d cajoled into reading notes and letters aloud to her over the years after she’d pleaded a headache or eye strain.

“Spectators are all the mode, are they not?” she said, arranging the covers over her lap.

“Not for young virgins. And now I hear you’ve arranged to meet the Marquis de Bravard tomorrow at the Tuileries.”

She certainly couldn’t tell Auntie Phil how she’d felt. It was becoming more and more apparent that Auntie Phil might actually approve of a match between India and Nicholas. Inviting him to that soirée—there
hadn’t
been a need for that, no matter what Auntie Phil said—allowing Nicholas to escort India alone to the painter’s studio...and tonight, more than once, calling India’s attention to Nicholas in not-so-subtle ways, trying to get them to strike up a conversation.

It was time to tell Auntie Phil the truth about Nicholas.

“Never fear,” India said a little testily, “I made sure Lord Taggart overheard every word of my plans, and I’m certain we can count on him to make a very coincidental appearance.”

“No doubt we can. But what I’d like to know is what you imagine will come of this little game you’ve been playing with him. A man will only stand to be toyed with for so long, India. There comes a point where he will either leave or make his move. And under the circumstances, I daresay Lord Taggart will not simply leave—which means he will make a move, and it may be one you won’t like.”

India yanked the covers a little higher. “He can’t possibly imagine I will roll over like a dog at the threat of his intentions.”

“Good heavens.” Auntie Phil laughed, toying with a ribbon at the neckline of her dressing gown. “That would never do. But given the inevitability of the situation—”

“It
isn’t
inevitable.”

“—what you
can
do is turn things around and gain the illusion of control, so that when the inevitable happens—”

“It
can’t.
”

“—it happens precisely the way
you
want it to happen, and not the way
he
wants it to happen.”

It
being their marriage. Hers and Nicholas’s. She saw him in her mind—felt the way he’d looked at her, the way she’d fought herself to keep from looking at him in return.

Felt that overwhelming relief and gratitude when he’d intervened and kept her from having to confess to the entire party—including him—that she couldn’t read aloud, not even if they mocked her and laughed at her. Not even if they withheld her suppers and banished her to her rooms.

She could not tell his secret to Auntie Phil now. She owed him a measure of protection after what he’d done tonight. Didn’t she?

“I shall accompany you to the gardens tomorrow,” Auntie Phil said now. “Clearly I should have been accompanying you all along, although it appears Lord Taggart has done an admirable job of protecting his interests. No doubt any number of admirers will have decided to join the marquis tomorrow, and we cannot expect him to fend them all off on his own.”

“But—”

“And thus tomorrow we shall begin turning this ship around, so to speak.”

She needed to tell, force the words out quickly while the time was ripe. Auntie Phil would certainly write the news to Father, and then this sham of an engagement would quickly be over, and then there would be no ship in need of turning, and she would never need to associate with Nicholas again.

A small ache opened up behind her ribs.

“Now sleep well, dearest, and pleasant dreams.” Auntie Phil came forward and pressed a kiss to India’s forehead.

With Auntie Phil gone, India sat alone, hugging her knees in the light from a single candle flickering on the nightstand. Why hadn’t she
told?

She was such a ninny. It wasn’t as if Nicholas cared even one whit for
her
feelings. There was no reason she should care about his. He was merely following her around Paris to protect his investment while he arranged a wedding that would succeed where his other attempts had not.

Perhaps arranging a clandestine wedding was more difficult than she imagined, even in Paris. Perhaps it really was taking this long, and he wasn’t toying with her because he wanted to but because he had to.

While she...

She couldn’t seem to stop wanting him, no matter how much she didn’t
want
to want him. The feeling was so much stronger now than it had been a week ago when the carriage had whisked them through the countryside and she’d spent too many hours watching him, indulging in the memory of his touch even when she knew she shouldn’t.

But now...

Now he was more than an indulgence. It was as if everything had changed in those moments in that church when she’d glimpsed the shame and horror she knew he hadn’t meant for her to see, and suddenly he’d seemed so much more...human.

Fallible.

Susceptible to shame. Weakness. Burdens.

Oh, she knew all about shame and weakness and burdens. And she knew
all
about a father’s rejection and scorn.

And she was so,
so
tired of defiance.

She dropped her head to her knees and dragged in a breath through her mouth. Her chest ached so badly it hurt to inflate her lungs.

There was a horrible part of her that didn’t even care how Nicholas really felt about her. That just wanted to give in and accept the marriage so that he might hold her and she might feel that sensation again of being wanted, being protected, even if he only gave his attention because of the money and his lust.

And it made her feel so, so ashamed.

She should want to run away like she’d done before. Like she’d always planned. It was possible—
anything
was possible, if she was willing to endure the hardships that would be required if they ever hoped to locate William and the
Possession.

The Mediterranean seemed so far away now. Everything that mattered seemed far away. Unreachable.

If only she could go back in time to that gazebo in the woods at Auntie Phil’s country house and curl up on that bench seat in the dappled sunshine and never leave.

But strong, brave people didn’t want to hide in wooded gazebos. They wanted to sail the seas and shoot cannons and swill grog in taverns and take Egyptian lovers.

The only lover she wanted to take—and oh, God, she longed for his embrace so fiercely—was Nicholas.

* * *

M
ILLIE
TRIED
TO
concentrate on a book she’d found in Philomena’s library about a French physician and his experiments, but it was impossible to think of anything but how she might confront Lord Taggart about their agreement.

She glanced at the shrinking candle. Before long, nighttime reading would once again become a luxury.

From the floor above came the rumble of male laughter from Philomena’s dressing room, and Millie closed her book. Philomena toyed with men because she could—she did not need them for anything.