An Indecent Proposition (32 page)

“Besides, when a potential bride turns a certain shade of green every time she tries on her wedding gown, something is markedly wrong.”

“I know.”

“I am just glad you came to this realization before the wedding and not the day after.”

“Thanks to Lady Wynn.” Annabel could recall clearly the firm conviction in the young widow’s voice as she spoke of the trap of a loveless marriage. It might be a romantic view, especially in the upper class, where arranged unions were commonplace, but the lady seemed to speak from bitter experience.

“Lady Wynn? An odd mentor. I was unaware you were friends.”

If she weren’t so off-balance from her hesitancy in settling into a firm decision to sever her engagement, Annabel would never have blurted it out, but she said, “We weren’t particularly, not before the other day. She is a friend of Derek’s.”

They rocked along, Margaret’s expression reflecting skepticism. “I would normally not discuss such a subject with you, but I doubt that’s true. I haven’t heard a whisper.”

“Not his mistress.” Annabel was well past worrying about whether the subject matter was considered appropriate for her ears. She’d aged a decade in the past few weeks. “She stated quite frankly he’d never approached her in an amorous way.”

“Good heavens,” Margaret muttered. “What an interesting conversation that must have been. I am puzzled at her motivations but not ungrateful. I have been worried about you. Thomas is concerned as well.”

Her hands clenched in her lap, Annabel stared at the floor. “You are, as always, too good to me.”

“Nonsense. In every sense of the word except for your actual birth, you are our child.” Then Margaret added in a tentative tone, “We are equally as fond of Derek. It is always a trial to judge how much one should meddle in the lives of others. I have been trying to let you two figure this out for yourselves. It was not easy to do so, I have to tell you.”

So . . . they knew. Of her infatuation, of his supposed feelings—and it seemed logical to assume they were aware of the disillusionment she felt as well.

They knew of her shattered heart. How did she think she’d been able to hide it?

“How does one trust a man with his reputation?” Annabel asked with a horrible tremor in her voice. “And I pray at this moment you do not give me a reformed-rakes speech, for I cannot answer for a ladylike response. This is the same man who recently made an outrageous gamble based on his . . . well . . .”

She blushed. Even though she might have had a few—well, an embarrassing amount of—fantasies about what it would be like to be held in his arms, it was another thing to talk about it.

Margaret seemed to understand. “Young men—or for that matter all men—are not always the most prudent of creatures.”

“An understatement,” Annabel grumbled.

Her companion gave her a pointed look. “Rather like rash young ladies who agree to marry someone they have less-than-deep feelings for just to prove an absurd point?”

“It is hardly the same.”

“Tell me how.”

Given her behavior at the dressmaker’s, how could she argue? Annabel whispered, “What do I do now?”

Margaret leaned forward and patted her hands, still tightly wound together in her lap. “Love is a miraculous thing, my dear child. Do not underestimate it.”

A
long fingernail trailed down his bare chest, making him pry open his eyes. Nicholas blinked, started to sit up, then groaned and fell back. “Good God, what time is it?”

“Eleven, darling.”

“Damnation, is it really?”

Elaine Fields laughed in a low musical sound. “Yes, really. Tell me, how much do you remember about last night?”

He looked at the woman sitting on the edge of the bed—her bed, for God’s sake. The room was resplendently pink. Pink curtains, pink hangings, pink wallpaper, it even smelled pink if such a thing were possible. The day must be sunny, because hot blocks of light lay across the rug. His head hurt and his mouth felt dry and unpleasant. After a moment, he admitted, “Not too much.”

Elaine arched one delicate, finely plucked brow. She was a luscious redhead with opulent curves, a decade his senior, and though they’d had a brief, very casual affair years ago, they had managed to stay friends. When her elderly husband died and left her in a financial battle with creditors, he’d used his influence to help her stave off their high-handed, greedy tactics. Being the Duke of Rothay had its compensations now and again.

There were downfalls also, if you considered how Caroline wouldn’t even be seen speaking to him.

Elaine murmured, “I’m not surprised. Rarely have I seen you truly foxed, Nicky. I should have realized it when you arrived, and forgone offering you more brandy. I suspect you’ll feel the consequences all day.”

He had the ominous feeling she was right. What the hell had happened the night before? How had he ended up with his former lover? He’d gone to a small gathering, heard some dreadful chit desecrate Bach on the pianoforte, and then . . . was it Manderville who suggested they haunt one of their favorite gambling hells? It might have been him—he just couldn’t recall.

Didn’t he know better than to overindulge with Derek, of all people?

“I can only pray you’re wrong,” he said in cynical resignation. “Please tell me I wasn’t too boorish.”

“Not at all. I’ve never had such an interesting conversation in my life.”

“Conversation?” As he said it, he realized two things. The first was though he was bare-chested, he still wore his breeches. Someone thoughtful had removed his boots, thank God, since he doubted he’d been sensible enough to take them off himself. The second was that she’d brought tea and Nicholas had never been so grateful to see anything in his life as the tray and steaming pot.

She noticed the direction of his attention and moved with a small smile to pour him a cup. “You were very philosophical, darling.”

With effort he levered himself up to a half-sitting position and accepted her offering with gratitude. After a blissful sip, he muttered, “All right, go ahead, what did I say?”

Dressed in bronze-colored silk with fine white lace at the bodice and cuffs, with just a slight smattering of freckles across her nose, Elaine sat back a little and regarded him in open amusement that sparked a glimmer of alarm. “You wanted to have a deep, meaningful discussion about a subject I didn’t think you ever contemplated.”

Love.

She didn’t even have to say it.

“I was drunk.” His excuse sounded like the protest of a petulant child.

“Yes, indeed, you were. You must have been, because you told me her name. I admit I had a hard time believing it at first.”

Devil take it, he’d broken his word to Caroline. His head ached worse than ever, though he knew he could trust Elaine to be discreet.

She went on with a serene laugh. “You needn’t look so stricken. I won’t say anything about your unusual involvement with Lady Wynn.”

He was an ass. A drunken ass who betrayed confidences. It did not improve his mood to realize it.

“Thank you. And I suppose I should also thank you for putting up with my liquor-induced ramblings as well. My apologies.”

“No need. And were they?” Elaine patted his knee.

“What?” He drank more tea, feeling a little less queasy.

“Just the ramblings of a man who had overindulged? You seemed shockingly sincere.”

“Sincere in what way?” His question was cautious. Who knew what he’d said? How he’d ended up in the pink hell of her bedroom was even a mystery.

“That you think you’ve fallen in love with the beautiful cool widow of the late Lord Wynn.”

He really
had
been drunk. “I said that?”

Elaine nodded, a slight smile hovering on her mouth. “More than that, you meant it.”

“Brandy is a catalyst for stupidity.”

“Yes, indeed, but it is also a truth serum.” She sat back a little and gazed at him with open speculation. “Are you really going to allow her to go off with Manderville for a week if you are so opposed to the idea? Why don’t you simply tell her the truth?”

So, the perfidy was complete. He’d not only revealed the truth about their time together in Essex; he’d confessed about the wager itself and Caroline’s part in it.
Bloody fucking hell.

Even though it was scalding hot, he took an overlarge mouthful of tea. It burned all the way down until it hit his unsettled stomach. “If I could figure out the truth, maybe I would.”

“The truth? That’s your problem, darling Nicky. You
have
figured it out.”

Former mistresses turned confidants turned philosophers were not easy to handle when one’s head felt like a ball of lead. He sipped more of the steaming liquid in his cup and struggled to repair whatever damage he’d already done. “Please, Elaine, I’m out of my depth. She’s different, I admit it. She captured my attention, not to mention we seemed to have a certain communion in bed. However, she doesn’t want to be openly associated with me and destroy her respectability, and who can blame her? Unless I offer marriage, it’s over.”

Silence.

Elaine simply looked at him.

Had he really just said
marriage
?

Yes, he had.

His mouth tightened. “She isn’t
interested
in getting married again. She made it quite clear.”

“The woman in question is young and sheltered. Your ramblings about her husband tell me she had a horrific experience, but her agreement to go with you to Essex in the first place shows she isn’t resigned to forever avoiding males. From the sound of things, you changed her mind in a way only you can, darling. Didn’t the two of you get along . . . famously?”

“It will be infamously if anyone finds out.” His temple throbbed and he rubbed it. “And who knows? Maybe she’ll like Derek just as well.”

It was torture to picture them together and he could feel his face tighten into an involuntary scowl.

Elaine didn’t miss it. She asked gently, “Would you like to hear the advice I gave you last night now that you are in a condition to remember it?”

His smile was rueful and heartfelt. “Since I had the discourtesy to barge in on you uninvited, drank myself into a stupor, and slept in your bed, I suppose it would be churlish to refuse.”

“You need to put Helena behind you once and for all.”

The smile vanished.

Now,
that
name was hardly something he wanted to hear while his head was pounding like a snare drum at the front of a French column. “You,” he said with what he hoped sounded like calm dismissal, “place entirely too much emphasis on something I’ve all but forgotten.”

“Somehow I doubt it. I watched it happen, remember? It’s why you ended up in my bed, short-lived as that was. After it was over, you suddenly became the Devilish Duke, casual seduction taking the place of what I know from memory was a much more open and less cynical approach to life.”

“I was stupid then and apparently haven’t improved all that much.” He drained his tea and considered one of the scones on the tray but decided against it. Just the mention of Helena’s name had that effect on him. The queasy feeling in his stomach wasn’t entirely due to the excess of the night before.

“She betrayed you.”

Yes, indeed that was the truth. Helena had captured his youthful passion and then shattered his faith in love. She was also a widow—a very attractive one—and she’d lured him with both sexual provocation and the pathos of her supposed plight as a defenseless woman all alone.

Only she hadn’t been lonely. He’d found that out in a way that shook his world.

It was a valuable lesson. Vulnerable beautiful ladies were likely to bring you nothing but grief. So . . . enter another tempting widow with an untapped potential for passion and wounded trust, and there he was again, acting like a green boy despite his experience.

No.
Caroline was nothing like Helena. He was sure of it.

Almost.

“We needn’t discuss this.” Nicholas levered himself up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Where the devil are my boots?”

“Maybe
we
needn’t discuss it, but maybe you should talk to
her
about it.”

“I haven’t even known her a month.”

A ghost of a smile touched Elaine’s mouth. She moved to retrieve items he sought with her usual languid grace, plucking the discarded boots from the floor. “I think it is a good sign it took so little time to have your feelings so engaged. She sounds perfect for you, if you wish my opinion.”

“I don’t,” he grunted, and accepted a boot.

Good God, his head hurt.

“You did last night.”

He glanced up in the act of tugging his boot over his foot. “When I marry, it will be strictly because of duty. I can hardly choose a woman who not only has made it clear she has no interest in a second such arrangement but who also by all appearances is infertile. I have a small lustful obsession that will pass. It always does.”

Elaine looked at him with troubled eyes, her expression solemn. She said softly, “I fear very much you are letting Helena make a fool of you for the second time.”

 

This had better work.

Caroline alighted from the carriage and self-consciously glanced around, seeing nothing but a long, quiet street and thatched roofs, the tame setting incongruous with the nature of the rendezvous. It might not be the most notorious tryst in all the history of England, but it was the current talk of society to be sure.

The inn itself was small and unassuming, with a plain front and a somewhat lopsided sign, faded from sunlight and weather. It hardly looked like the place where one of society’s most renowned lovers would plan a seduction.

Huw, as usual, said nothing but merely escorted her into the establishment, his demeanor as reserved as ever. When he turned to leave, however, he halted and swung back around. “My lady?”