Rules of Engagement (14 page)

"You are wrong again," he said.

Stung by his derision, she asked "Why? Because he is quiet and shy, and not given to chicanery or debauchery?"

"Unlike me, you mean?" Placing the mug on the table, he leaned his hands on his knees and glared. "Miss Lockhart, you are a simpleton."

"You hired me." She lifted her hand when he would have retorted. "A slanging match will avail us nothing, my lord. We must agree to disagree about your cousin, my intelligence and a whole host of other matters."

"You're a governess. You do not recognize a mature man."

"Lord Kerrich, I
am
a governess. I recognize that most males do not mature, they simply grow taller." Unwise, of course, to retort so wittily, and she waited, interested to see if he would behave like a typical roue and pout or threaten.

He surprised her; he nodded soberly. "Yes. When you look at what some women marry, you realize how much they must hate to work for their living. However, when it comes to my cousin, try not to put too much stock in your own infallibility. You don't like listening to 'I told you so.' "

A sincere Kerrich was even more dangerous than a charming Kerrich, and she changed her mug from hand to hand and surreptitiously wiped her damp palms on her skirt. "I'll try to remember that."

"My concern tonight is how our move to the country will influence our plans to complete my apparent reformation. While we're at Brookford, we'll have parties, host hunts, whatever it takes to keep Beth and me in the center of attention."

"I'll do everything in my power to make a success of this, my lord." She made her vow solemnly, in homage to their current accord.

"Of course you will. You're getting paid for it."

She had again raised her cup, and now she stared at him over the rim. "Your mother?"

Damn! He shouldn't have mentioned his mother, but Moulton's tale of Lewis and his liaison had inevitably brought her to mind.

Was it possible Miss Lockhart hadn't heard? The story was common knowledge. Only
he
never spoke of it, for to do so might betray how vulnerable he had been when he was little. Crying to see his youthful ideals destroyed. Crushed by a betrayal he had never imagined.

Now he was older. He knew how to protect himself, and anyway, this woman wasn't like all the others. She could keep a confidence. Weighing his words, Kerrich explained, "My parents married at their parents' behest. My mother was the daughter of the bank's former president, an incompetent man. My father was the son of the man whose abilities had taken it from him."

"That is Lord Reynard?"

"Yes, my grandfather." Again he poured his cup full and took a drink. "My parents were wed in the hopes that their union would cement the association and that they might find love together."

"And did they?"

"Yes. My father loved my mother and my mother loved herself."

"Oh." Miss Lockhart pleated her skirt. "How unpleasant for you."

"Nonsense. Until he died when I was ten, we seemed a happy family." He couldn't believe he was confessing so much, and eloquently, too. Surely he had never even thought this before. "After his death, she couldn't wait to throw off her mourning."

"I'm sorry." She really seemed to be. Her eyes were sad, her chin tilted down.

He hastened to reassure her. "Don't be. I'm glad it happened. It opened my eyes, prepared me for a life without illusions. No one takes advantage of me."

She nodded. "Yes. I understand that it is advantageous to be inured to hurt, but the process is painful and regardless of what you say, I am sorry for the boy you were." She began again to speak, but stirred as if her thoughts made her sore and raw. "Your mother. Is she—"

"In Italy with her current lover." It seemed important that he assure Miss Lockhart of his insensitivity. "And that, my dear, is where I am happy to have her."

"You hate her."

"Of course not!" He ran his finger around the rim of his mug. "She isn't worth my hatred."

"I don't know if that makes you a better person than me, or not."

She spoke so quietly he barely heard her, and abruptly he remembered the tale Grandpapa had told of her situation. "Your father left."

"You've… you've heard the gossip?" Her voice squeaked at the end.
"All
the gossip?"

Obviously, he had made her uneasy with the mere mention, although he would have thought the passage of time would have eased her distress. Although it hadn't eased his. Ah, he understood Miss Lockhart better than he wished.

Taking care to appear interested, but aloof, he said, "My grandfather told me the tale. A difficult and unhappy development for you, especially in your youth."

"For me?" She glanced at him, glanced again, and the clenched fists in her lap relaxed. "Yes, for me, but"—she looked at him once more as if to reassure herself—"it was my mother who truly suffered." Reaching into the pocket of her skirt, she drew forth the silver watch he'd observed before. "This is my father's, the only thing I have left of him."

"You keep it to remember him by?" he guessed.

Flipping open the ornately designed cover, she looked at the face as if she could see her father's features within. "No. I keep it so I will remember the pain a superficial, unfaithful man can cause. My mother loved my father very much. She died of loving him—and missing him." She smiled without humor. "I imagine you approve of that kind of devotion. Most men do."

"I see it as further proof that love is an ambush. It lures you in with a pretty decoy and catches you like a trap catches a poacher, and you're stuck there until you bleed to death." He looked down at the brew, wondering how such a little bit of ale could have loosened his tongue so thoroughly.

She blinked, and he realized why she looked different this evening. This was the first time he'd seen her without her tinted spectacles. Her bare face was softened without the metal and glass cage that protected her eyes. And her eyes were large, blue, and in this light, the skin around them was surprisingly unlined. She must have been a pretty women in her youth, and her youth was definitely not as long ago as he had thought. In fact, she could be his age. He was on the verge of asking her, which proved how far gone he was with drink, for no woman would answer that question truthfully.

But she saved him the trouble and her the lie by saying, "So, to avoid marriage, you took in a foundling. The question is, why would the queen think
you
would be better off married?"

"You don't understand Victoria—that is, Queen Victoria. She likes me."

"But… why?"

"Why does she like me?" He was amused. "Because I always treated her well."

Miss Lockhart raised her eyebrows.

"Normally. I treated her normally." He took a drink of ale, savoring the keen flavor. "When we were young."

"What is normally?"

"I didn't fawn over her because she was going to be the queen, I treated her as if she were just a girl."

"A girl you liked?"

"Just an annoying girl. A tagalong girl. She is nine years younger than I am. A silly girl. Nothing more." He remembered the child Victoria had been, and remembered, too, his heedless affection. "She was lonely. Her mother kept her apart, guarded her every moment, so when I teased her, she liked me."

"I still don't understand why she wants you married."

"She's young, but she's royal. She believes her way is best." He saw when Miss Lockhart comprehended his meaning. "She married, she's ecstatic, she's settled down, and her way is the only way. She's going to save me from myself."

"I suppose someone needs to. Forgive me, my lord, but I confess to an unquenchable curiosity. How is Her Majesty blackmailing you?"

If you only knew.
But no. He'd kept his secret for too many years. This easy conversation with a thoughtful woman would not bring forth that confession. Yet he felt no qualms in telling her part of the reason. "Many years ago, my grandfather convinced King William to put an amount aside for the crown princess Victoria in Grandpapa's bank. The original sum provided a solid base for the bank, and my grandfather invested it wisely. I have continued the tradition, and the resultant sum is considerable. A boon for Victoria, and a boon for us."

"So she has threatened to remove the principal and the bank will fail."

Offended, he snapped, "Of course not. I am a good manager. The bank is on solid financial ground. But you have to see that I object to being threatened because of my reputation. The queen demands I find respectability, and she defines respectability as a wife and the prospect of family. I think I can convince her respectability is responsibility."

"You consider marriage the sure route to misery."

"Not really." He stroked his chin, a gesture he had adopted from his grandfather. "The trick to marriage is not letting expectations get in the way. A man needs to understand why women get married, that's all."

Her mouth drew down in typical Miss Lockhart censure. "Why, pray tell, do women get married?"

"For money, usually." He could tell she was offended again, but with Miss Lockhart, he didn't have to worry overly much about offense. After all, she didn't. Besides, he thought his assessment quite fair. "I don't blame them. The world is not fair to a spinster. She has no recourse but to work or starve. So if she's asked, she marries."

Obviously, Miss Lockhart did not consider his assessment fair. She slapped her mug on the table so hard the crockery rattled. "Do you have any idea how insulting you are? To think a woman is single because she has never been asked, or if she is married, she has done so for monetary security?"

He found himself entertained and very, very interested. "Ah, I've touched a nerve. Are you telling me there is a man alive who dared to propose to you?"

"I am not telling you anything." But swept along by her passion, she did. "A man can convey financial security, but whither thou goest, I shall go, and all that rot. A woman has to live where her husband wishes, let him waste her money, watch as he humiliates her with other women, and never say a word."

"Men are not the only ones who break their vows."

"So fidelity is a vow
you
intend to keep?"

Of course he had no intention of keeping that vow, when he was forced to make it, and falling into that trap which had so neatly snared his father. "I've supported more women than Madame Beauchard's best corset-maker. If I let marriage stop me, think of the poor actresses who would be without a patron."

She wasn't amused. "So nothing about your wife would be sacrosanct, not even her body. Your wife will cherish dreams that you never know about, and even if you did they would be less than a puff of wind to you."

Women had dreams? About
what?
A new pair of shoes? Seeing a rival fail? Dancing with a foreign prince? But Miss Lockhart wasn't speaking of the trivial, and he found himself asking, "What are your dreams?"

"You don't care. Until I spoke, it never occurred to you that a woman could have her dreams."

"That's true, but you are a teacher, and already you have taught me otherwise." Leaning back in his chair, he gazed at her and with absolute sincerity said the most powerful words in the universe. "Tell me what you want. I want to know about you."

She had no defense to withstand him. She leaned back, too, and closed her eyes as if she could see her fantasy before her. "I want a house in the country. Just a cottage, with a fence and cat to sit in my lap and a dog to sleep at my feet. A spot of earth for a garden with flowers as well as vegetables, food on the table, and a little leisure time in which to read the books I've not had time to read or just sit… in the sunshine."

The candles softened the stark contrast between her white complexion and that hideous rouge. Light and shadow delineated her pale lips, showing them in their fullness. Her thick lashes formed a ruffled half-circle on her skin. When she was talking like this, imagining her perfect life, she looked almost… pretty. "That's all?"

"Oh, yes."

"That's simple enough."

"Yes, very simple. And mine."

Careful not to break into her reverie, he quietly placed his mug next to hers. "Why do you want that?"

"That's what I had before—"

She stopped speaking so suddenly he knew what she had been about to say. Moving to the side of her chair, he knelt on the carpet. "Before your father left?"

At the sound of his voice, her eyes flew open and she stared at him in dismay. She
had
been dreaming, he realized, seeing that cottage, those pets, that garden, and imagining a time when she could sit in the sunshine. Her countenance was open and vulnerable, and his instincts were strong. As gently as a whisper, he placed his fingertips on her cheek. "There's one dream you didn't mention, and I can make it come true." Slowly, giving her time to turn if she wished, he leaned forward… and kissed her.

And he would have sworn that, at the last moment, she tilted her head to receive him.

Certainly she closed her eyes. He closed his, too, savoring her lips, soft and full, warm and giving, separating for him with such sweet ease he experienced a surge of tenderness. Her breath matched his in rhythm and flavor. He could almost taste her… and then he did taste her. He half-expected Miss Lockhart to withdraw at the first touch of his tongue, but whatever ice he had thought encased her melted. Gradually he increased the pressure, further opening her lips. He moved his fingertips into her hair, cupping her head, rubbing her in the slow, sensual movement pretty women liked.

Miss Lockhart liked it, too. She leaned into his hand, a slow shift that indicated gratification and begged for more. Her hands had been resting in her lap; now they fluttered up and around like bewildered birds unsure where to perch. Capturing them, he moved them up and placed one on each shoulder. Each fluttered again, then settled warily.

At first her hands were only a spot of warmth along his muscles. Then, as if shyness gave way to curiosity, they crept down to the joint of his arm, and there they smoothed the cloth across his skin. Her fingers sought out his bones, exploring the thrust of them with little, circular movements.

She pleasured him so well with her timid, unsure movements that the compulsion seized him to pleasure her yet more. Rising from his crouched position on the floor, he put one knee on the seat beside her skirt and lifted himself above her, tilting her head upward, baring her neck…dominating her. He slid his mouth away from hers, along her jaw and to the place behind her ear. The taste and scent of her face powder filled his head as he kissed her there, and heard her inhale and felt her fingers clench.

Now her hands crept back up, massaging and probing, making him want to purr like a giant cat in thrall with its mate.

Taking her earlobe in his mouth, he bit gently, and when she cried out in surprise, he licked it as if in apology.