Fate had thrown him in her way. A gift. All she had to do was hold onto him.
Don’t panic, she counseled herself. You know exactly what to do. You spent twelve years learning it.
“I know all the arts of pleasing a man,” she went on. “I can sing and dance and compose poetry. I learn quickly and will learn how to behave correctly in…in good society…if you will help me, or find me teachers.”
She was not calm enough. Her English was faltering as a consequence, but she plunged on. “I know widows are worthless, but I was never a wife of the body. I remain a virgin, and a virgin is valuable. Too, I have jewels, enough to make as great a dowry as a maiden would have. I shall be a loving mother to your children. All the children of the harem were fond of me. In truth, it made me sad to leave them, and I shall be happy to have children of my own.” She paused and glanced at her sisters. “But not too many.”
“Not too many,” he repeated. He drank some more.
“I know how to arrange a household,” she said. “I know how to manage servants, even eunuchs—and they can be impossible. Their moods are more changeable than a woman’s.”
“Eunuchs. I see.”
“I know how to manage them,” she said. “I was the only one in all the household who could.”
The other two sisters put their heads in their hands. Mama covered her face with her handkerchief.
Marchmont emptied his glass and set it down. His slitted green gaze came back to Zoe. She couldn’t truly see it, so secret he was in the way he used his eyes, but she certainly felt it. His slow, assessing look traveled from the top of her head to her toes, which curled in reaction. All of her body seemed to curl under that gaze, as though she were a serpent stirring, lured out of the darkness into the warmth of the sun. She felt the stirring and curling inside, too, low in her belly.
“That is a most tempting offer,” he said.
The room fell oppressively silent, and it seemed to Marchmont that his voice echoed in it. “To be able to manage eunuchs is a rare accomplishment, indeed.”
The four harridans made no sound. Their youngest sister had succeeded in doing the impossible: She’d rendered them speechless.
“Well?” she said into the lengthening silence.
He poured himself more wine. The effort not to laugh was sure to do him a permanent injury.
He was sure he’d never, in all his life, heard anything so hilarious as Zoe-not Zoe’s marriage proposal or her sisters’ reaction to it.
That alone was worth the thousand pounds he’d lost in the wager. Hell, it was probably worth the price of marriage. He’d be laughing about it for years to come, he didn’t doubt.
But years to come was a very long time, and marrying now would be inconvenient. For appearances’ sake he would be obliged to give up his mistress for a time, and Lady Tarling hadn’t yet begun to bore him.
“It devastates me to decline,” he said, “but it would be grossly unfair to take advantage of you in that way.”
“Does that mean no?” said Zoe. Her soft mouth turned down.
Marchmont eyed her grown-up, delectably curving body. “It is no,” he said, “with the greatest regret. Were I to consent, I should be marrying you under false pretenses. I can accomplish what you require without your having to shackle yourself to me permanently.”
He knew that without him she had virtually no hope of a welcome in Society. He was the one man in London who could do what she needed done for her—and he owed it to Lexham to do it. Marchmont had not the smallest doubt in his mind about this. No amount of wine could wash that great debt away.
Her frown eased and her expression sharpened. “You can?”
“Nothing could be simpler,” he said.
She let out a little whoosh of air.
Relief?
He was, for an instant, taken aback.
He was, he knew, a matrimonial prize. Unwed women would sell their souls for the chance to become the Duchess of Marchmont. Some of the wed ones, given the least encouragement, would happily do away with their husbands.
But the Duke of Marchmont had never taken himself seriously, and even his vanity was of the detached variety, far from tender. If her tiny sigh of relief wounded his feelings, the blow was merely a glancing one.
She had every reason to be relieved, he told himself. She would not have gone to the extreme of proposing to him if her appalling sisters had not, in their usual way, exaggerated the difficulties of her situation.
“Nothing simpler?” one of them cried. “How drunk are you, Marchmont?”
He ignored her and kept his attention on Zoe-not Zoe. “For reasons which elude me, I am fashionable,” he said. “For reasons which elude nobody, I am highly eligible. The combination makes me welcome everywhere.”
Zoe glanced at her sisters for confirmation.
“I grieve to say it is true,” said Gertrude.
“It is very tiresome, and I find the responsibility onerous, but it can’t be helped,” he said. “My presence determines the success of a gathering.”
“Like Mr. Brummell,” said Zoe. “That is what they said. The man must be like Mr. Brummell.”
“Not altogether like him, I hope,” he said. “If you ever hear of my bathing in milk or discarding a neckcloth because every fold and dent is not precisely where it ought to be, I hope you will be so good as to shoot me.”
She smiled then, a slow upward curve of her lips.
Visions of this exotic, grown-up version of Zoe dancing in veils crept into his mind, along with the first part of her qualifications: I know all the arts of pleasing a man.
Perhaps, after all, he should have said yes.
No, absolutely not. Though he wasn’t altogether sober, he was well aware that the little brain between his legs was trying to take charge of the situation. He told himself not to be an idiot. He shoved the visions into the mental cupboard.
“In short,” he said, “you need me, but contrary to your sisters’ hysterical assumptions, you don’t need to marry me. You don’t need to marry anybody until you’re quite ready.”
Another little whoosh of air. “Oh,” she said. “Thank you. You are very handsome and desirable, and I was so glad of that—but I was married from the time I was twelve years old, and it seemed a very long time, and I would rather not be married again straightaway.”
“You may leave everything to me,” he said.
“That is one of the most horrifying sentences I have ever heard,” said Augusta.
“Everything?” said Zoe. She gazed at him expectantly, her eyes like two dark seas, deep enough to drown a man.
He set down his glass. If his mind was sliding into metaphor, he’d had quite enough to drink. “Everything,” he said firmly. “Come with me.”
“Go with him?” cried a sister.
“Go where?”
“What can he be thinking?”
“Thinking? When does he ever think?”
While the harridans recommenced playing the Greek tragic chorus, Marchmont took Zoe’s arm and led her out of the room.
The long-fingered hand wrapped about Zoe’s arm was very warm. The heat spread out from there and raced up and down, from one side of her body to the other.
Zoe looked down at his hand and wondered how he did it.
But as soon as they were out of the drawing room, he let go of her. He folded his hands behind his back and walked on. His legs were long, but he did not hurry. She had no trouble keeping up with him.
Aware of servants watching while they pretended not to, she would not let herself stare at him. This wasn’t easy. For one thing, the provoking boy she’d known so long ago had turned into someone else: a tall, strong, hauntingly beautiful stranger. That took some getting used to.
For another, this stranger had effortlessly awakened in her feelings she’d heard talked of endlessly but had never experienced. She was still reeling from that discovery.
Still, he was a stranger, and she was relieved not to have to
marry him. He seemed to be very conceited. He was nothing like the boy she’d known so long ago.
All the same, she couldn’t help wondering what he looked like naked.
She couldn’t help wondering what it would feel like if he put those big, warm hands on her womanly parts.
She shivered.
“It is unseasonably cold,” he said. “We’re in for a filthy night, I don’t doubt. The sky was overcast as I left White’s and continues to darken. Do you know what White’s is?”
She towed her mind back to the moment. “I heard my sisters say you had friends there,” she said.
“It is a gentleman’s club in St. James’s Street,” he said. He told her the names of various members, describing his friends in detail, quoting Beau Brummell, and explaining the latest set of wagers in the betting book.
It was interesting, and he spoke in an amusing way. Yet Zoe was aware that he was…not drunk exactly, but in a haze.
She was familiar with the haze of intoxicants. In the harem, opium helped bored and frustrated women pass the time. She could not understand why so sought-after and powerful a man, who was free to go where he pleased and do as he pleased, chose to pass his day in a haze.
It was not her concern, she told herself. Yet she couldn’t help wondering whether the hazy state dulled his carnal urges or made his membrum virile soft.
She doubted it.
He paused at the door to the library.
She glanced behind her. The small drawing room was not very far away. Still, the library was private, at least for the moment. If he wished to touch her she would let him, she decided. Purely for educational purposes. She knew a great deal about men and what they liked and what to do for and to them, but she had not learned what she liked. Karim’s touch had never stirred her, nor hers him.
This man would be different. That much was obvious.
“After you, madam,” he said.
She walked into the library, her heart picking up speed.
He followed her in, then walked straight to the central window. He flung open the curtains.
A roar went up from the crowd.
Zoe stood stock-still, staring at the back of his head, at the familiar pale blond hair. Yes, he’d always been the boldest of them all, though everyone used to say it was Gerard who was the reckless one. But bold and reckless were not the same thing.
She was aware of footsteps in the corridor behind her, and her sisters’ voices becoming more audible. In another moment her brothers would hear the noise outside, and they’d emerge from their lair and…
And it would make no difference at all. They would do the same as they’d always done. In childhood none of the others had ever been able to stand up to him. Now he’d been a duke for almost half his life, accustomed to do as he pleased, accustomed to being deferred to.
The library had tall windows, like doors, giving out onto a narrow balcony. Marchmont threw open a pair of windows.
Her sisters let out a collective gasp.
“Good grief!” one cried.
“He’s mad!”
“Drunk, is more like it.”
“Where is Papa?”
“Why does he do nothing?”
Zoe glanced back. They huddled in the doorway, complaining and objecting, but they came no farther and made no attempt to stop Marchmont.
No, that hadn’t changed, in any event. For all their noise, for all the complaining and criticizing, they kept their distance.
He walked out onto the little balcony.
He held up his hand.
The crowd quieted.
“Yes, yes, I know,” he said. “Everyone wants to see Miss Lexham.”
He did not shout. He scarcely raised his deep voice. But he made it stronger in some way, and it seemed to her that people on the other side of the square must hear him clearly.
“Very well,” he said. He turned to her and made a small gesture, signaling her to join him. She looked down at the long fingers, slightly curled, bidding her come. She looked up at his handsome face. A shock of pale hair, the color of early morning sunlight, fell over one eyebrow. He wore a faint smile. She could not tell what sort of smile it was, and this made her uneasy.
She reminded herself that she’d known nothing about Karim or the world in which he lived, yet she’d soon learned to navigate its treacherous pathways. She’d learned how to amuse and please him. As a result, she’d won his affection and a great fortune in jewels.
This would be easier, she told herself. All she needed to do was find a way into the world to which she properly belonged.
She had come home quietly, Lord Winterton so determined to avert the uproar, which, in the end, could not be averted. They’d kept her hidden in her father’s house for two days, behind closed windows and curtains. She’d felt as though she’d never left the harem.
She stepped through the window and onto the balcony.
The crowd fell silent.
So did her sisters.
Hundreds of faces turned upward. Every pair of eyes focused on her.
She went cold, then hot. She felt dizzy. But it was a wonderful dizziness, the joy of release.
Now at last she stood in the open.
Here I am, she thought. Home at last, at last. Yes, look at me. Look your fill. I’m not invisible anymore.
She felt his big, warm hand clasp hers. The warmth rushed into her heart and made it hurry. She was aware of her pulse jumping against her throat and against her wrist, so close to his. The heat spread into her belly and down, to melt her knees.
I’m going to faint, she thought. But she couldn’t let herself swoon merely because a man had touched her. Not now, at any rate. Not here. She made herself look up at him.
He wore the faintest smile—of mockery or amusement she couldn’t tell. Behind his shuttered eyes she sensed rather than saw a shadow.
She remembered the brief glimpse she’d had, of pain, when she’d mentioned his brother. It had vanished in an instant, but she’d seen it in his first, surprised reaction: the darkness there, bleak and empty and unforgettable.
She gazed longer than she should have into his eyes, those sleepy green eyes that watched her so intently yet shut her out. And at last he let out a short laugh, and raised her hand to his mouth and brushed his lips against her knuckles.
Had they been in the harem, she would have sunk onto the pillows and thrown her head back, inviting him.
But they were not in the harem and he’d declined to make her his wife.
And she was not a man, to let her lust rule her brain.
This man was not a good candidate for a spouse.
There had been a bond between them once. Not a friendship, really. In childhood, the few years between them had been a chasm, as the difference in their genders had been. Still, he’d been fond of her once, she thought, in his own fashion.
But that was before.
Now he was everything every woman could want, and he knew it.
She desired him the way every other woman desired him.
It didn’t really mean anything. It certainly wouldn’t mean anything to him.
Still, at least she felt desire, finally, she told herself. If she could feel it with him, she’d feel it with someone else, someone who wanted her, who’d give his heart to her.
For now, she was grateful to be free. She was grateful to stand on this balcony and look out upon the hundreds of people below.
She squeezed his hand in thanks and let her mouth form a slow, genuine smile, of gratitude and happiness, though she couldn’t help glancing once up at him from under her lashes, to seek his reaction.
She glimpsed the heat flickering in the guarded green gaze.
Ah, he felt it, too: the powerful physical awareness crackling between them.
He released her hand. “We’ve entertained the mob for long enough,” he said. “Go inside.”
She turned away. The crowd began to stir and people were talking again, but more quietly. They’d
become a murmuring sea rather than a roaring one.
“You’ve seen her,” he said, and his deep voice easily carried over the sea. “You shall see her again from time to time. Now go away.”
After a moment, they began to turn away, and by degrees they drifted out of the square.
Three
Marchmont had done nothing more than brush his lips over her knuckles.
It was more than enough.
He’d caught the scent of her skin and felt its softness, and the sensations lingered long after he let go and turned away.
Perhaps, after all, he should have said yes. Visions of Zoe dancing in veils swarmed into his brain again.
He pushed them away. He was not about to disrupt his life to marry a complete stranger, even for Lexham’s sake.
He turned his attention to the square. It was emptying, as he’d known it would. The mob’s excitement abated once they saw that the Harem Girl looked like any other attractive English lady. This was only the first and easiest part of the task he’d undertaken.
Part Two was the newspapers. Unlike the mob, they wouldn’t let go of a sensational story so easily. The stragglers in the square were mainly newspaper men. They wanted a story, and they’d make one up if necessary.
He reentered the library, where Zoe waited, her blue eyes brimming with an admiration and gratitude that even he, who couldn’t be bothered to read expressions, could comprehend. He didn’t know whether or not he believed what he saw in her face. A dozen years ago, he would have known what to believe. But a dozen years ago, Zoe would never have worn such a melting expression.
This wasn’t the Zoe he’d known all those years ago, he reminded himself. In any event, he didn’t need to know what was in her heart, any more than she needed to know what was in his. He’d promised to bring her into fashion, and that was all he needed to do.
He turned his attention elsewhere.
Her sisters hovered in the doorway, one black figure standing at each side of the frame and two with enormous bellies pacing in the corridor beyond.