White Lace and Promises (2 page)

“I expected to see you at the Exchange.”

Grey’s scowl deepened. “There’s no Exchange on Sundays.”

Watson rolled his eyes. “It’s Monday, Sexton.”

“The devil you say!”

But if it was Monday he’d missed an appointment with Mr Post, a merchant banker who had expressed an interest in investing in his privateering voyages. Impossible. Grey would never have allowed himself to miss such an important meeting.

Wait. His valet, Will, had mentioned the meeting that morning, asking him if he wanted his diamond cravat pin. Grey reached up and felt the pin’s distinctive shape at his throat. He glanced down and saw his second best cutaway coat and pantaloons, the new, pale grey satin waistcoat and his best hessian boots. By damn, he did seem to be dressed for an important meeting.

Christ, it
was
Monday.

Watson fixed his gold-brown eyes on him. “What is the matter with you, Sexton? It is not like you to miss the Exchange or be forgetful.”

“I must be getting the fever that is going around.”

Watson frowned. “I have heard nothing about a fever.”

“Sure about that? I tell you I am turning sick with something.” It seemed as plausible an excuse as any for his lapse in personal discipline. Anything but the truth.

“Will you join Jenna and myself for supper tonight?” Thomas asked. ”We’re staying with my great aunt and you know how well her cook prepares duck.”

“No, I can’t.” Grey swept his hand over the papers and ledgers strewn over his desk. “I am so behind on all of these audits.”

 
He’d never neglected business like this before—a glaring sign of how much he’d allowed his control to slip.

Watson glanced at the desktop. “Audits, huh? I don’t know why you bother with employing clerks or office managers at all. You don’t trust them to do their jobs without constant supervision. Well, Jenna will be disappointed.”

“I am sorry, but business takes priority.”

“I shall leave you to it, then.” Watson turned away.

As Grey watched him walk to the door, his gut twisted. He should tell his oldest and dearest friend he’d become engaged to marry Beth. But he didn’t want to deal with Watson’s disappointment right at that moment. Watson wanted Grey to marry Jenna, his nineteen-year-old daughter, and took every opportunity to push her at him.

Until recently, Grey had had no intention of ever marrying again. Moreover, he had nothing in common with Jenna. The girl was pretty enough and biddable, a model of deportment and grace. She’d make a man in his position an excellent wife. Yet she cared for nothing but clothes shopping and society gossip. Besides, for Christ’s sake, he’d once held her leading strings.

Watson paused at the door and turned. “Shall I see you tomorrow at the Exchange?”

“You may count on it.” Grey forced his lips into a semblance of a smile.

As the door closed, Grey returned to his desk and collapsed into his chair. That meeting with the investment banker had been an important matter. It’d be the ultimate humiliation if any of his business associates should guess how he was losing control.

And, God—Beth’s silver-blonde beauty was so extraordinary, wouldn’t it just be apparent to everyone, once his engagement was announced, exactly what had happened? That he’d been compelled to ask for her hand just to get her into his bed.

Except that wasn’t how it had happened at all.

She’d thrown herself into his path and allowed him—correction, she’d all but begged him—to bed her. Actually, they hadn’t even made it to a bed. He’d thoroughly fucked her in his carriage, almost before he knew her name—the kind of experience an adolescent boy dreamt of in his virgin bed but that never, ever happened in reality. However, it
had
happened, and no man with any fire in his blood could have resisted her. However, for Grey it had been more complex than that. He’d looked into her sad, sky-blue eyes and been blindsided by a tidal wave of sexual possessiveness tempered only by a tender sympathy he’d had no ability to defend himself against.

Then she’d run away from him, repeatedly, until he’d been driven near insane with the need to claim her for his own. But she’d thrown his
carte blanche
back in his face and made it clear she would accept nothing less than marriage. It’d been a damned uncomfortable position, as if she’d held his feet over a fire.

He’d returned to a well-ordered life in New York City that had meant nothing without her. What else could he have done?

He’d pledged himself.

And now she was his but he hadn’t found any peace. She dominated his waking thoughts and pulled his mind away from business matters. A prickling sensation arose at the base of his skull, an uncanny feeling that his father was watching him. Perhaps, even now, old Asahel Prosperity Sexton was seeing his oft-voiced prophecy coming true—a prophecy that his daydreaming son did not possess the strength and focus needed to hold on to the family business.

Well, Grey would be damned before he’d give his father the satisfaction. Anything related to his business must take first priority in his life. It always had before. It had been the very focal point of his life.

He rubbed the back of his neck. Christ, he needed to take control of the situation. But what were the first steps?

Mr Post was going back to Baltimore tonight. Grey would go and ask for a second chance to see him there and beg his pardon for the missed meeting today. A week away from Beth would clear his head, and set his priorities where they needed to be.

He picked up his quill and hastily penned a note to her.

Chapter One

“You’re going to have to behave.”

His cool tone, with its undercurrent of tolerant amusement, made her bristle. She forced herself to relax and smile at him. Seductively. Dazzlingly.

Grey Sexton remained unmoved, his silver eyes distant, the skin over his angular cheekbones taut, his strong jaw jutting with as much arrogance as ever. Tension poured off him, making her own neck muscles tighten. She’d known him in many moods but never so completely unresponsive.

Silence fell between them. As the carriage clattered towards Third Street along the pebble stones, her stomach fluttered. What had happened to the uncontrollable passion that had always flared between them? For weeks he’d been so warm, so attentive, so affectionate, the way she’d only suspected he could be. That warm affection had melted the very last of her defences and made her fall utterly in love with him.

Now, his handsome, hard-boned features remained closed, controlled.

Like ice.

Like a stranger.

Maybe the attentive lover had been a façade on his part, designed to gain her trust and secure her commitment? Or maybe it was a dream she had conjured from her own imagination.

Maybe the man she had fallen in love with had disappeared forever. No, she couldn’t accept that. She simply had to try to break through his icy exterior to the warmth beneath. Warmth she needed. She put her hand on his leg, whence he had so recently removed it, and traced her fingers over the fine, soft wool of his pantaloons. His powerful thigh muscles tensed. She glanced up.

His gaze was fixed on her moving hand, his pupils dilated and the skin taut over his cheekbones. How well she knew
that
expression. She smiled and laughed softly. What a ninny she was to worry. Nothing had changed. He would not be able to resist twice.

She reached the growing swell at his groin. Dear God, he was so huge and hard—as he was always. Heat flooded her veins and a tingling ache spread into her loins. She pressed her thighs tightly together.

His hand swept down and clamped hers. She caught her breath and a shiver raced through her, making her nipples pebble and her breasts swell. His hands were so large and strong, his skin so deeply tanned against hers. She couldn’t glance at his hands without recalling how they felt, so sure and skilled on her body. Wetness flowed from her core. She crossed her legs more tightly, turned and leaned closer to him.

He lifted her hand away, not gently as just a moment earlier but with determination. At the terse gesture, her heart leapt into her throat. She glanced up at him.
“Why?”

He kept his hand wrapped around her wrist, holding her hand to her thigh. “You’re not listening to me.”

Her spine stiffened. “Well, this is a chilly reception after a week’s separation. A whole week without—”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I sent you a message, explaining why.”

Her stomach began aching like the first indication that something she’d eaten had begun to sour. “Yes, and I am certain you put more warmth into your bank drafts.”

He tapped his fingers on her hand. “Beth, I was preoccupied. I shall often be engaged with business matters. You shall have to accustom yourself.”

A hot retort rushed to her tongue. She gritted her teeth to stop it. Yes, he was a man of business. He had important things to do, places to go and people to see. But surely he could have spared her an hour or two somewhere in those seven days to pen a decent lover’s letter. She had ached for his company—she hated to admit how much. She ached right now for his hard body, pressing hers down on the plush velvet seat cushions. She ached even more for the reassurance of his lips on hers, his soft words in her ear.

Why must he deny them? What had changed? He’d said he was over the issue with the money. He’d said it that night before he’d left the shop. And now again this evening.

All right, he was no longer angry over their quarrel. He was over it. Then so was she.

Only, he didn’t truly seem to be over it.

With her free hand, she cracked open her fan and drew it in front of her face. Then she threw him a deadly gaze over the painted yellow silk. “I don’t see why you must enforce this hypocritical chastity upon us.”

He laughed, low and sensual, the first real warmth he’d shown since he’d come for her at her brother’s Southwark cobbler shop that evening. “You will not arrive at the house of your former benefactress—at the ball where we shall announce our engagement to society—smelling like a brothel.”

The mention of the ball cooled her blood—considerably. She was dreading tonight, when they would announce their engagement. Yes, others certainly suspected, but she feared the grudging tolerance with which society had accepted her into its midst would suddenly evaporate when those suspicions were confirmed. She sighed and fanned her face. “I don’t see why we must make such a huge fuss over our engagement.”

“You wanted a proper courtship and marriage.”

She couldn’t deny that. At first he’d wanted her for a mistress, but she’d refused his
carte blanche
. Vexed he couldn’t gain her commitment, he’d cast their attachment aside. Thrown her over. But he’d returned within a matter of weeks and asked her brother’s permission to court her.

In the weeks of their courtship he’d been unbelievably generous with his time and money—and his body. Oh, definitely generous with his body. But maybe now the formality of becoming engaged had chilled their
affaire
. Changed it from something rooted in the most heated passion to something proper.

Proper.

The word echoed in her mind, a mocking refrain. She feared she could no more transform herself into a proper lady than she could reinstate her virginity.

If he wanted a
proper
wife, then she had nothing to offer him. The thought made her blood freeze.

He took her left hand and lifted it. On her ring finger, a sizable sapphire on a gold band, along with its attendant circle of smaller diamonds, glittered in a shaft of light entering through a crack between the curtains. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it lingeringly. A flare of fire melted the ice in her veins. Then he met her eyes and the severity in his piercing, silver gaze froze her anew. “You didn’t want to be my mistress. You wanted to be my wife. You must accept the responsibility that comes with your new status.”

His harsh tone cut into her. Why was he behaving like this? To hide her dismay, she curled her lip. “I am surprised you haven’t insisted on a chaperone for us.”

“There’s no need to ape a European’s ostentatious manners. It is just that I have an important place in the world. A reputation to protect. A certain level of conduct is expected of me. You shall have to adapt and adhere to it.” He dropped her hand back into her lap and the ache in her stomach increased.

Adapt. Adhere. Behave. Hurry.

He’d done nothing this evening but lecture her. She’d feared all along that letting him slip that expensive ring on her finger would bring out the tyrant in him.

“Where are your gloves?”

His deep voice held a slightly vexed note.

“What?”

“Your gloves, you must have them,” he said with the same implacable authority she could imagine him using when one of his clerks misplaced a decimal point that might cost him thousands.

“Oh, yes…” She hated wearing evening gloves, hated the way they rode up high on her arms, the tight silk stifling her skin. She’d jammed them in her reticule right before leaving her brother’s cobbler shop… But where was her reticule now? Heart racing, she darted her gaze all about the carriage seat. No sign of it.