Duke of Thorns (Heiress Games 1) (22 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Callie had felt like a lady when Mrs. Jennings dressed her in Portia’s navy gown before dinner. Her maid had asked one of the laundresses to lengthen the hem slightly, and the woman had done it perfectly — no one could guess that the dress hadn’t been made for her. And Serena had sent her own maid to help with Callie’s hair, with admirable results — curled in perfect ringlets and caught up with a pretty silver ribbon, her hair was better than it had ever looked.

But were ladies always so…bored?

She drummed her fingers on the dining table. On her left, Sir Percival Pickett continued his monologue. “Of course Byron’s cantos would get acclaim,” he said, his voice dripping with disdain. “Our modern age doesn’t appreciate the sublime beauty of the older poets. For my money, I’d rather be a Spencer than a Byron.”

The man on her right, some baron whose name she still didn’t remember despite days of repetition, shoved his peas onto his knife and then into his mouth. “With your money, you can keep trying to be a poet,” he muttered.

It was a cruel jibe, made more boorish by the fact that he shouldn’t have talked over Callie to the man on her other side — and he certainly shouldn’t have talked with a mouthful of peas. Callie wasn’t surprised at her seating arrangement. Lucretia would never put her next to anyone who might be a worthy match. She had been forced to endure Sir Percival at dinner twice already. But for all that she found him annoying, she also found him harmless. If he wished to spend his money printing poems no one would buy, it harmed no one but him.

Still, she couldn’t give her other companion a withering setdown without attracting attention to herself. So she drummed her fingers on the table and thought dark thoughts.

The courses continued. Maidenstone Abbey’s grand dining room was the same as it had been in her father’s time. While most of the entertainments were hosted in the light, airy drawing rooms of the newest wing of the house, the main dining room was still situated in the Palladian wing. It could hold sixty diners with ease, or a hundred with additional tables set in the adjoining anterooms.

Tiberius must have endured any number of dinners here. He’d said that his father insisted on formal dinners even when it was just the family in residence. Callie thought she understood, now, why they all hated each other. If she’d spent years walled up under that chandelier, cloistered in by fake columns and arches, she might have taken a knife to a sibling just to ease her boredom.

The fish course was served lukewarm, like all the others. The journey from the kitchens to the dining room was too long to keep anything hot. When Callie inherited Maidenstone Abbey, she would raze the entire bloody thing and build a house where she could get a single blasted dish served at the right temperature.

“I say, Miss Briarley, are you feeling well?” Sir Percival asked.

Callie looked up. “Perfectly well, Sir Percival.”

He looked entirely skeptical. And then he gestured at her hand.

She had dug her knife into the table without realizing it.

“Marrying a madwoman for Maidenstone would still be worth it,” the baron said, to no one in particular. “Enough attics to lock her in.”

She released her grip on the knife before she put it in his throat. “My apologies, Sir Percival,” she said, ignoring her other dining companion. “I’m sure your poetic discourse set me dreaming.”

He beamed at her, forgetting that he’d eyed her like a dangerous criminal moments earlier.

Then he resumed his monologue. And Callie resumed her finger drumming.

She could grow accustomed to parties like this. She could grow accustomed to wasting her mind on inane conversation rather than intellectual pursuits. To wishing other people would leave, rather than wishing for company.

She could grow accustomed to having roots. To feeling like those roots held her in place like a prison rather than giving her a foundation.

She could.

She had to.

*     *     *

Two hours later, Callie decided her boorish dinner companion was more intelligent than she had given him credit for. She should lock herself away in one of Maidenstone’s attics forthwith. She
couldn’t
grow accustomed to this.

Solitude was surely preferable to yet another evening trapped in a drawing room with these people.

A summer storm had swept over the house, forcing them to shut the windows. The conjoined drawing rooms were bigger than the entire main floor of her house in Baltimore. They were also still half empty as the men lingered over brandy in the dining room. But the space closed in on her. How could such beautiful rooms feel like the jaws of a bear trap?

She thought of retiring to her room, but it was scarcely eight o’clock. She wouldn’t want to sleep for hours. And if she wished to inherit Maidenstone Abbey — if she wished to move in the circles that would give her security — she had to practice patience.

She stood near one of the windows, flicking open the drapes to watch lightning flash in jagged waves. The steady drum of rain against the glass was undercut by deeper timpani rolls of thunder. It was a symphony made up entirely of percussion — like horses’ hooves or cannon fire — and Callie would rather listen to the beat than whatever melody Lady Portia was playing on the pianoforte in the next room.

The spectacle outside was far more interesting than the party within the walls. But no one else seemed to hear or care. Occasionally, some ninnyhammer would shriek when the thunder was particularly loud. Otherwise, the guests pursued their varied — and invariably dull — entertainments.

If she were in Baltimore, she might have gone out into the storm. Callie loved warm rain scouring over her face. She’d sought it out often enough, after Mrs. Jennings had given up trying to keep her in the house. She could tilt her face up, let the storm do its worst, and take some thrill in the knowledge that she’d still be standing in the morning even after the storm had faded to nothing.

She traced her finger over the glass, following a rivulet of water down the pane. She couldn’t go outside. She would ruin her dress.

But if she didn’t go outside, she might scream.

“Don’t you look a picture,” Thorington murmured beside her.

Callie’s smile came unbidden as a fierce jolt of joy lit up from the vicinity of her heart. She shouldn’t have smiled. She shouldn’t have let her traitorous Briarley heart view Thorington as anything other than a dangerous, temporary partner.

But the sound of his voice — the compliment sounding true despite his habitual sarcasm — was enough to ease the metal teeth that had sunk into her heart. If the room was a bear trap, Thorington was the only one strong enough to pry it open and set her free.

It wasn’t lost on her that he had sought her out immediately upon arriving with the men.

She turned to face him. The chaos of the storm was nothing compared to him. He stood before her, languid, bored — the devil couldn’t appear to care. But the intensity of his eyes gave him away.

She couldn’t appear to care, either. “If I look a picture, the credit goes to your sisters,” she said. “I might have worn breeches and left my hair undone if it weren’t for their intervention.”

“Thank the gods you didn’t. A lady of my family won’t wear breeches in public.”

“Trust a hidebound aristocrat to lean too much on propriety,” she said. “I’m accustomed to more freedom than that.”

She was teasing, of course. She wouldn’t have worn breeches to a party in Baltimore, either. He smiled. “Have your freedom in private, if you dare to cross me. But be glad you didn’t wear them in public. All the men would ogle you. Then I would have to kill them. And I am not dressed for butchering.”

Though the words were pure Thorington — outrageous and entirely too domineering, driven by a need to protect his belongings — his voice and the light in his green eyes were fueled by something more. By the same thing that had fueled their kiss the night before. That voice, and that light, belonged to Gavin.

And Gavin belonged to
her
.

The thought shook her, even as another rumble of thunder cut between them. Thorington would never let himself belong to anyone. Any woman who tried to take him was a fool. She may not die in the attempt, but she would be crushed underfoot as surely as any other enemy.

Callie didn’t feel like an enemy, though. Not when she looked into those green eyes and saw her own hunger reflected back to her. For a moment, there was nothing and no one else. She only heard the little hitch of her own breath. She smelled only him, clean with just the barest hint of spice. Her fingers itched to touch him, the way she had the night before, skimming over his coat to find out whether his heart beat as quickly as her own.

Her fingers itched to touch a lot more than his heart, if she were being honest.

He seemed to know what she wanted. His hand took hers. He raised it to his lips, grazing a kiss over her knuckles, never breaking their locked gazes.

He could have asked anything in that moment and she would have done it.

Her head knew this was a horrible idea. Thorington would break her if she let him. And she would never win Maidenstone with him at her side.

But her traitorous Briarley heart wanted what it wanted, consequences be damned.

Mine
.

She curtsied. He still held her hand, becoming her anchor as she dipped low, then lower still. When she returned to vertical, the jolt of surprise in his eyes was her prize.

“Willful wench,” he said. His smile was softer than she’d seen it before. “Your curtsey is days overdue.”

She shrugged. “I would ask my governess to teach me how to be biddable, but I fear it’s a task beyond his skill.”

“Have a care with your wishes, my dear. Your governess might relish the attempt,” he said.

Could it always be like this? To always feel this delicious need, fueled by the way his voice promised any number of delights? He was both a storm and a haven — all the chaos was there in his eyes, but the way his hand held hers became her shelter.

If she were a sailor, his voice was the siren luring her to her doom. And her heart would rather see her dashed upon the rocks than let him go.

Callie retrieved her hand. “I thank you for the warning.”

He paused. There was a quality to his silence that told her he was weighing something — no doubt tallying the advantages of one plan over another, as though every step of his life was governed by arithmetic rather than desire.

And she knew when the arithmetic was settled. He offered her his arm. His smile, when it came again, wasn’t soft — it twisted, mockingly, as though he would rather do anything but escort her somewhere.

“Let us go find my brother. Unless you’d care for a lesson in propriety instead?”

She was tempted to choose the lesson. But he was Thorington now, not Gavin, and she knew the lesson wouldn’t please her.

She wanted to run out into the storm, dress and reputation be damned. The mention of Anthony, when she wanted Gavin, turned her mood sour. But she was trying to win Maidenstone, not give it away. So she placed her hand on his arm and let him take her across the drawing room.

Lord Anthony’s location didn’t surprise her. He had taken up a place in the court forming around Lucretia and Lady Maidenstone. He seemed more interested in exchanging jests with his friends, but Anthony occasionally looked at Lady Maidenstone like she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.

Callie didn’t begrudge Lady Maidenstone her suitors. The girl couldn’t have enjoyed herself with the old earl. She was sweet enough to deserve some happiness.

But Anthony had watched Lady Maidenstone for days. And he never once looked at Callie like that.

No one at the party looked at Callie like that.

Except, of course, Thorington. Thorington looked at her like he planned to snatch her up and steal her away, plans and inheritances be damned.

She wished he would.

She looked up at him out of the corner of her eyes, trying not to let her head turn in his direction.

And she caught him watching her with just as much intensity as she’d recognized before.

She returned to staring straight ahead. It was safer that way. Safer to look for stability within the crowd of suitors, if Anthony failed to come up to scratch. Safer to seek out someone who couldn’t hurt her.

Thunder cracked again. Someone shrieked. Callie smiled but smothered it in the name of propriety.

“Are you frightened, Miss Briarley?” Thorington said in her ear.

“Petrified,” she murmured.

He laughed. And his laugh reminded her of Gavin — the way he had been the night before, not the way he was tonight.

She ordered herself to be calm, to ignore his effect on her. Thorington was a devil. Callie knew she might always want a thunderstorm. But she
needed
a hearthstone. Needed someone safe and biddable, who would let her go her own way.

But maybe — just maybe — she could give herself to the storm before she sought safety.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Thorington was a blithering idiot. And it had nothing to do with lost luck or broken curses.

Callista’s hand still rested on his arm as they stood on the edge of the circle around Lucretia and Lady Maidenstone. Her fingers, the ones he’d kissed a few minutes earlier, were tucked into the crook of his elbow as though they belonged there.

He was finding it increasingly hard to remember that they
didn’t
belong there.

He looked down at the top of her head. She’d met his gaze before, in a moment of haunting connection. Now her gaze was directed toward the conversation, but he sensed that her attention was somewhere else. Outside, perhaps, with the storm beating against Maidenstone’s walls.

Or inside, perhaps — perhaps at the sensitive point where her fingers met his arm.