The Charmer (18 page)

“And all those artists to teach her.”

Attila coughed nervously. “Our hearts went out to her to have to suffer such clumsiness, and we could not leave our sweet Sophia in such a situation, since it had so distressed her.”

She wanted to die. She would grab Adrian's sword and fall on it and that would be that.

He looked down at her. “Well, my dear, I stand admonished. I can see that I will have to endeavor to do better in the future.”

“See, Sophia, he is contrite. I suggested this morning that you speak honestly to him, did I not?”

“Gentlemen, the duchess will not be staying on this ship tonight. I will see that she is back by sailing time. There is a second carriage that will take you two back to Dincaster House if you choose, or you can stay here. You can all sail to France in the morning, if you like. In fact, you can sail to hell, for all I care.”

“We will accompany Sophia back to Dincaster House,” Jacques said.

“She will be coming in another carriage with me.”

“I will not leave this ship,” Sophia said. “You have no authority here, and no right to interfere. Collect that rabble down there and be on your way.”

“Foolish of me to think that you would obey so that we could do this with some dignity.” He stepped up to her. “Time to go, Duchess.”

With a quick move he bent and embraced her legs. The world flipped and she was facing his back, slung over his shoulder as she had been in Paris. He strode down the gangway, and Colin and the others went wild.

“I will have you drawn and quartered,” she said, thumping his back.

The young men made the most of it by hooting and cheering. The Royal Guardsmen stood smartly as they passed.

Adrian toted her to the first carriage and set her down at its open door. Burning with mortification, she considered refusing to enter. One look at the dark eyes glaring at her said that he would bodily throw her in, if necessary.

She surveyed the little mob with her best ducal stare. That quelled them a little. Turning away with what poise she could muster, she entered the carriage with her head high, determined to give Adrian a piece of her mind.

“That was inexcusable,” she snapped as he stepped in behind her.

“You left me no choice.”

“Do not act as if some mandate from God required you to interfere. Coming after me was
presumptuous.
” She emphasized the hated word.

“Probably, but I am in one hell of a presumptuous mood. Who knows where it could lead if you do not behave.”

They headed away from the wharf with the second carriage close behind. Adrian sat across from her, his dark mood filling the compartment. She decided it might be wise to wait a few minutes before continuing to upbraid him.

His silence became a thick cloud that the night breeze could not penetrate. She got the sense that she was the one being scolded, and he wasn't even speaking.

He was probably brooding about Jacques and Attila's little misunderstanding.

It might be best to explain her innocence.

“I want you to know that Jacques completely mistook what I said to him this morning. About you. I never . . . that is, I couldn't criticize . . . after all, we haven't . . .”

He didn't respond.

“I may have mentioned something about your managing me and manhandling me, which, of course, you have just done again, but it had nothing to do with . . . well, that.”

He just watched her.

“I want to make that clear, since we took this carriage in order to discuss matters that require privacy, and that is definitely one of them.”

“It certainly is, but we will not discuss that or the other matters here.”

“We are unlikely to find more privacy at Dincaster House.”

“I never said that I was taking you to Dincaster House.”

As if to emphasize that, the sounds of the second carriage peeled away.

“Are you abducting me?” She laughed nervously.

“I am collecting on your debt.”

Of course he would not want to risk losing the great prize. She should have thought of that. “There was no need for tonight's dramatics. You have removed me from my ship for no reason. As I promised last night, I have directed my votes the way that you want. I left letters with Jenny that give my M.P.'s the word.”

“Very honorable. Only that was not the payment that I referred to last night.”

“It certainly was.”

“You offered anything in your power to bestow. You assumed it would be the votes, but I never agreed to that payment.”

“You did not disagree either.”

“I was preoccupied.”

Their isolation on the silent streets suddenly pressed on her. “Where are you taking me?”

“To my home.”

“Exactly what payment did you have in mind, Mister Burchard?”

No reply.

“You are a scoundrel.”

“Considering the insults that I endured from your Ensemble, I am barely resisting the temptation to be one. Right now. In the quick, crushing style preferred by clumsy Englishmen. Provoke me and I may lose the battle.”

His tone suggested the threat was real, but her outrage knew no prudence. “You intend to take advantage of something I said while facing the jaws of death, while dangling thirty feet above a street?”

“You offered me whatever I wanted, after I had specifically told you on two occasions what that was. Your assumption that I would claim those damn votes instead of you is charming. Maybe you really convinced yourself that I only wanted you in order to get the votes.”

“Do you really intend to hold me to this debt? Do you think that I will agree to make love with you under such a condition?”

“If I require it, you are bound by honor to do so. The devil of it is, I cannot convince myself to be enough of a scoundrel to press my advantage that far. So I only demand an hour of your company for some conversation, and one kiss.”

“Some conversation, and one kiss?”

“That is all.”

“After this conversation and kiss, you will allow me to return to the ship and leave England?”

“I will even arrange that your Ensemble, your servants, and your animals join you.”

That seemed awfully fair. Suspiciously so. Still, if he promised, he would abide by it. She would be off to the Continent as she had planned, with only this brief diversion.

Some conversation with him was probably in order too. It had saddened her to leave without saying good-bye.

The only snag was the kiss. She remembered his kisses too well. The dangerous but compelling intimacy they offered. The potential they embodied. It would tear her heart to experience that again, only this time in final parting.

It might be best to manage that part of the debt her own way.

Clutching the door, she pulled herself up and bent over him. She quickly pecked him on the lips and then plopped back into her seat. “Now we have only to deal with the conversation.”

He leaned forward and took her chin in his warm hand. “The kiss is mine to collect, when I want, how I want. I will choose the time and place.” His fingers caressed her jaw and chin before releasing her, leaving her tingling from the contact. He might have embraced her whole body, so thorough was her reaction.

The carriage stopped on a street of large houses on the edge of Mayfair. Adrian escorted her up the four stone steps to the door of one of them. Her stomach did a strange lurch as they passed the threshold and climbed the long marble staircase to the second level.

Every instinct told her to balk. He appeared as relaxed and coolly elegant as ever, but his eyes held an expression that was sharper and deeper than normal. He looked as if he had accepted something as inevitable. Her departure and the failure of his mission?

Just one kiss. She wasn't a complete fool where he was concerned. She could handle that.

He ushered her into a sitting room. It struck her as deliciously comfortable. Good chairs for reading and a large hearth for fires. Dark patterns and dark wood everywhere. A polished desk in one corner. A shelf of exotic oddities.

“So this is where you bring your women.”

“This is where I live. I bring my women elsewhere.”

“This conversation will probably be our last. I think that we should be honest, or there is little point to it. I know that you bring Celine here. Gerald told me.”

“It appears that Stidolph gives no quarter and takes no prisoners. That is good to know.” He came up behind her and lifted her shawl from her shoulders. “I did not bring Celine here. She came on her own.”

“Well, goodness, that makes all the difference.”

“I threw her out.”

“You expect me to believe that you rejected one of the most beautiful women in England?”

“Celine's celebrated beauty is a superficial thing. Unlike you, she possesses very few layers, and they barely conceal her selfish vanity.”

A manservant appeared and Adrian sent him for some wine.

They sat in chairs across from each other.

Seeing him in his home created an unexpected intimacy. It occurred to her that she had never ventured into a man's private spaces before. Her Ensemble were always the guests and intruders, not her.

“Your hour is ticking away,” she said.

“If I choose to spend it only looking at you, that is my prerogative.”

An hour of being looked at by those dark eyes would be more than she could bear.

She was grateful when the wine came. She was more than happy to have someone else in the room for a few minutes. But the little ritual of pouring and presenting ended quickly, and then they were alone again.

“Why are you running away?” Adrian asked.

“I am not running away. I am returning to my life.”

“You are returning to the place where you hid for eight years.”

“I did not hide. Everyone knew where I was.”

“You hid from yourself there.”

The comment dismayed her. Its insight pierced her like a shaft of light. She retreated from its illumination.

“If I am running away, I think that I can be excused. Someone did try to kill me yesterday.”

“Someone tried to frighten you yesterday. If the goal had been your murder, there were more efficient ways to affect it. Captain Brutus counted on that fire being discovered before you came to harm. You are of no use to him dead.” He glanced at her over the rim of his glass. “Did you enter into a secret marriage with him?”

“No.”

“Were you his lover?”

“Our intimacy did not go that far.”

“Has your affection survived all these years, or been rekindled with his return?”

“You ask because I did not show anyone those letters?”

“I ask because I want to know if he owns your heart.”

“It was not his reminders of our affection that touched me. It was the rest.”

“His threats? Surely you know that I would have seen to your protection if I had known.”

“Not the threats. It was his reminders of my sympathy for his cause. When I was younger, I believed and cared about such things. I confess that those letters, coming from him, called forth the idealistic girl.”

“Which only made your situation here more difficult. So you are running away from having to make a real decision about reform. Leaving those letters to your M.P.'s, but only in payment of a debt, absolved you of that responsibility.”

“You make it sound as if I slyly construct excuses for myself. I am not that clever.”

“You are very clever. I had not realized until now just how clever you have been in finding ways to run and hide.”

His frankness made her uncomfortable. “I cannot decide if I have just been complimented or insulted.”

“What else are you running from? Stidolph?”

“I do not choose to talk about Gerald. Spend your hour elsewhere, what is left of it.”

“He has been intimidating you, hasn't he?”

“I can manage Gerald's calls to duty and responsibility.”

He studied her as though he sought to read her soul. “My mention now of his name disturbed you, and simple calls to duty would not affect you like that. He has been using the past to get to you, hasn't he? Brandon and the rest.”

When she had suggested that they be honest tonight, she had not expected it to go this far. His perception astonished her. The mention of Gerald had indeed disturbed her, and summoned again the horrible confusion she had experienced during that conversation this morning.

“He says there will be no peace until I rectify what happened by fulfilling my father's wishes about Everdon's future. That peace would be a delicious thing to know. It may be worth any price, I think sometimes.”

“So you ran away from the temptation to pay the price, because you know that you would only exchange one hell for another.”

She resented the way he kept peeling away, exposing her heart. “You seem to know my mind better than I do. If I ran from that, it was a sensible course. I am not very strong. Not like you.”

“I think that you are one of the strongest women I have ever met.”

“Then your knowledge of women is pitiful. Those memories leave me weak. You have seen it yourself. Gerald came and threw my guilt at me this morning and within moments I had no will. Yes, damn you, I am running away. From him and the ghosts and Everdon and Captain Brutus.”

He set down his glass. “Aren't you forgetting something?”

“I think that you have forced me to thoroughly admit my cowardice. What more is there?”

“You are also running away from me.”

She struggled to phrase an offhanded denial, but the truth of his comment flowed like a thick current between them. The air was full of him suddenly, as if he physically reached across to her.

Trembling, she shot to her feet and paced to a window to break the effect. It didn't help much. He rose, too, relaxed and confident. She could feel him watching her, calmly waiting for a response.

“I trust that you do not intend to force a discussion of that now too,” she said.

“I had, but I have changed my mind.”

“That is generous of you, and probably very wise.”

“Not generous or wise. It is selfish and calculating. We will talk about it later.”

She turned in surprise. “Not much later. Your hour is almost passed.”