“You refer to yourself in the third person?” Vander asked.
At the same moment, Chuffy seized one of her hands and cried, “You are a treasure! A national treasure! Your books mean the earth to me, and I never thought to meet you.”
“I’m very glad that you enjoy my novels,” she said sincerely.
“Enjoy them? They have saved my sanity, such as it is. Truly, my dear, in the darkness of the last year, when I lost my beloved sister-in-law and my brother shortly thereafter, your books became my refuge.”
“Oh,” Mia said, startled by the fervor in his eyes. Readers did tend to confide that sort of thing in their letters, but insofar as she’d always had to conceal her real identity, she’d never before met one.
“My refuge,” Chuffy was saying, “and my joy. Where, my dear lady, is An Angel’s Form and a Devil’s Heart? I’ve already ordered it in the matching binding. I’ve been waiting for months!”
Mia withdrew her hand. “I’m afraid the book is yet unfinished,” she told Chuffy, turning to Vander. “You must see how impossible it is that I continue as Duchess of Pindar.”
“As long as you don’t take to publishing odes to members of my household, I can’t see that it matters.”
“‘Matters?’” Mia echoed. “Certainly it matters! I don’t write solemn epic poems or—or historical dramas or great literature. Do you know what Grapple’s Ladies’ Magazine said of my last novel?”
“It doesn’t matter what they said,” Chuffy said instantly. “Your work is genius, my dear, pure genius.”
“They said that it was a mystery that any human being could try to read the book without committing suicide, that’s what they said. They called it a ‘compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors.’”
“Now that’s just unkind,” Chuffy said. “I’m quite certain that the reviewer had a depraved home life herself. That’s why she couldn’t recognize the true goodness of a Lucibella heroine!”
“My books are depraved,” Mia told her husband, who still did not seem to be registering the import of what she was saying.
“I haven’t read many novels,” Vander said, pouring some brandy into her empty glass and handing it to her, “but I might start. They sound quite informative. Even inspiring.”
“You’ve never read a single novel,” Chuffy corrected.
“That’s unfair,” his nephew replied, unperturbed. “One could make an argument that The Sporting Magazine is akin to a novel: luridly untrue, and fond of recounting unnatural horrors.”
“I shall sully the Pindar name,” Mia insisted. The brandy was quite good, though she had the vague sense that it was supposed to be drunk only after a meal. Her father had never allowed her to drink spirits, on the grounds she was a lady. She took a hearty swallow, in his honor.
“Vander couldn’t divorce you, even if he wanted to,” Chuffy said. “It’s impossible to get rid of a wife. There’s many a British peer who has tried, believe me.”
“I’ll have to read your so-called depravity to judge for myself,” Vander said. “Perhaps I can help you act out scenes for future books.”
She glared at him.
“Just so that you can better visualize them,” he added.
“There’s no escaping marriage, my dear,” Chuffy said, ignoring Vander’s nonsense. “Your bed is made, so lie in it!”
Vander’s eyes had taken on that wicked glint again, and a shock of heat went through Mia. He was just so—beautiful: raw and masculine and proud, even though she’d supposedly defeated him with her blackmailing letter.
No one could defeat Vander.
He cocked an eyebrow, as if he could read her mind.
“Never mind this foolish talk of divorce,” Chuffy said, topping up his glass. “I want to know what’s happened to your new book.”
“I haven’t written it yet,” Mia confessed. “That is, I’ve written bits and scraps of dialogue, but I have a few plot points to resolve.”
“Tell me everything!” Chuffy cried. “I’ll be your muse, your guardian, your mentor, Jonson to your Shakespeare!”
Mia managed a weak smile. “I would rather not discuss it just yet. I have some delicate aspects left to work out.” She managed to stop herself from adding, “around three hundred pages’ worth.”
“At least tell us what happens to the heroine.” Chuffy turned to Vander. “A Lucibella heroine is always in peril. I shiver in terror from the first pages, knowing what’s in store for her. Just give me one hint about the plot,” he implored.
“Her name is Flora, and she is jilted at the altar,” Mia stated.
At that, surprise crossed Vander’s face. “As you were yourself?”
“The circumstances are entirely different.”
“A Lucibella heroine is nothing like our Mia,” Chuffy chimed in.
Mia winced. If she had ever managed to think well of her figure—not that she had—having near and dear relatives like Vander and Chuffy would clearly knock her down to size. So to speak.
“That is true,” she admitted.
“In what way?” Vander asked.
“Oh, my heroines are invariably and incomparably beautiful,” she explained. “Slender, blue-eyed, all the usual. The genre demands it.”
“You are beautiful,” Vander said flatly. Mia blinked at her husband, but he didn’t appear to be mocking her.
“I generally don’t pay much attention to those parts of the book,” Chuffy said, “but now I think of it, Lucibella heroines aren’t precisely beautiful. They’re always emaciated owing to their poverty. Sometimes when I finish a book I take a moment to imagine how happy they will be to have all the food they want.”
“My heroines aren’t emaciated!”
“Starving,” Chuffy said. “Why, one of the heroines floated downstream simply because of all the air in her ribs.”
“The air in her ribs?” Vander repeated, seemingly quite struck.
“I don’t mean ribs. In her stomach, of course! Why, the poor lady had nothing but air in her so she popped to the surface like a bubble. Until a duke towed her to shore, of course.”
“Naturally,” Vander said, taking another swallow of brandy. “I would hope that any man of my rank would do as much.”
“He risked his own life,” Chuffy said. “The adventuresome bits are my favorites. When the duke saw his beloved bobbing downstream like a cork, he dove straight into the river. The icy water closed over his head more than once, but he got her to shore.”
“I would do the same,” Vander said, grinning widely. “Trained for it from the cradle.”
“My novels have nothing to do with real life,” Mia insisted. “The fact my heroine is jilted is purely coincidental.”
“There’s nothing wrong with spinning your novels from real life,” Chuffy said. “Your life is easily as interesting as those of your heroines.”
“Only in the last few weeks, I assure you,” Mia said.
“Are all your heroes dukes?” Vander inquired in a way that suggested she may have modeled her heroes on him.
Which she had.
“No!” Mia exclaimed. “Of course not. My current hero is a count. At any rate, a title is merely a way of conveying a man of worth and substance.”
“Mia’s love scenes are famous,” Chuffy said. “I expect that’s why that perishing magazine got a little tetchy. Her characters go on and on about how much they adore each other.”
“Would you say they are lyrical?” Vander asked, oh so innocently.
Mia felt helpless, as if she were one of her own heroines, bobbing in a river that was carrying her somewhere beyond her control. Vander was eyeing her in a way that suggested he knew that she had spun him into the heroes of six novels. The only words coming to her mind were profane.
“You must have really loved that fiancé of yours,” Chuffy said. “Here, have some more brandy. I hope you don’t begin writing tragedies now that you’ve been disappointed in love. He was unworthy of you, my dear. You’re better
off with Vander, for all he smells of the stables.”
Mia grabbed onto that lifeline as if it had descended from heaven itself. “That’s why I’ve been unable to finish my current book. A broken heart . . .” She let her voice trail off.
Vander stopped laughing and his eyes went steely. Good. She had suffered all the insults that she could take for one day. Although he did say she was beautiful. She stored that compliment away to think about later.
He set down his glass with a sharp click. “Have you any idea as to your former fiancé’s whereabouts?”
“No,” she said wearily. “He wrote that he planned to travel to India.”
“I certainly hope your heroine—Flora, isn’t it?—won’t return to her jilter, any more than you did the blackguard who treated you so rudely,” Chuffy cried.
“Actually, she will,” Mia said. “She loves the count so much that she forgives him.”
“I think you’re damned lucky that Mia was between fiancés when she thought of you,” Chuffy said, turning to Vander. “You never would have found a woman on your own. You’re too wrapped up in those horses of yours, and last time I checked, there ain’t any ladies out in the stables. Damnation, that’s more good brandy I’ve spilled on my coat. I’d better change.”
He moved remarkably fast for someone in his cups; he was gone from the room in a moment. Mia was forming the distinct impression that Chuffy was sometimes less inebriated than his consumption implied he should be.
“Your Charlie informed me that I replaced an earl’s son,” Vander said, taking a swallow of his brandy. “May I assume that your father did not wave a letter in the man’s direction to inspire a proposal?”
Mia set down her glass so abruptly that liquor spilled over the rim. “I know that our marriage isn’t what you wish, but I would ask that you not mock me because I was jilted.” She paused and added, “Mr. Reeve and I were very much in love, and had been betrothed for months before we were due to wed. I can assure you that he wanted to marry me.”
“Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but his marital intentions are strongly in doubt, considering his absence at the altar.” Vander’s face had taken on that expressionless look again, a trick she suspected he used to mask strong emotion of one kind or another.
“That’s true,” Mia admitted. She was still coming to terms with the fact that Edward was not the man she had believed him to be. She seemed unable to find gentlemen as decent and honorable as those she invented; perhaps they existed only in the world of fiction.
Her readers often complained of the same lack in their letters.
“It wasn’t that he didn’t care about me,” she added, coming belatedly to her own defense. “Edward could not face the responsibility of raising Charlie.”
Vander’s mouth was tight with disgust. It was a pity because she really liked his mouth. Very few men had that deep lower lip. He would hate the idea, but she thought it softened his face and gave him a deep sensuality.
Unbelievable.
She realized it too late. She’d fallen into the same trap again.
Vander tapped on her nose and she looked up to meet his eyes. “You escaped that marriage by the skin of your teeth. You see that now, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said.
Vander stared down at his wife, wondering why he felt such a blistering sense of relief at the unmistakable ring of honesty in Mia’s voice. Why would he care if she was still yearning for a man who wouldn’t have her?
She was his wife.
A novelist? Who would have thought? He knew she was intelligent, but he wouldn’t have dreamt that she had the talent to become a successful novelist. Frankly, that dreadful juvenile poem made it seem especially unlikely.
Contrary to what she thought, he didn’t give a damn if she was writing depraved novels. Though he would like to read them.
There was just one aspect of her novels that he had to clarify, though. He moved closer. His hands itched to touch her, but he kept them to himself. “You’ll have to teach me something about your work. I’ll read one all the way through. And the depraved bits of the rest.”
“I can’t imagine why you would do so. My father and brother made no attempt to read them. And despite your uncle’s enthusiasm, I am certain that most of my readers are females.”
“I shall read one, or even more,” Vander promised. “But I do have to tell you, Duchess, that you must give up the romantic dreams you have about marriage. I’ll never do any of those other things you envision.”
She put on a mock shocked face. “Your Grace, are you informing me that you will permit me to go bobbing down an icy river?”
Vander let out a crack of laughter. “I promise to throw you a rope.”
“No need,” she said, looking away. “I’d sink like a stone anyway.”
The image of Mia floundering in an icy river was surprisingly unpleasant, so Vander barreled on. “I was referring to romantic gestures like the dukes in your novels probably make. Bringing you posies, writing poetry, showering you with jewels. Your father was constantly giving my mother litters of glass animals. I will never do anything of that nature.”
“All right,” she said readily.
“We won’t have that marriage.” He caught her eyes, because this was truly important. “We can have much more, Duchess. That romantic claptrap is for novels, not for life. For dreamers, like Chuffy. Like my mother, for that matter. She satisfied herself with glass steeds, when there were flesh-and-blood horses in the stables.”
Mia gave a tight little nod.
Satisfied, he recognized that they had reached the point in a negotiation at which his opponent understood that there was no logical reason to continue arguing: Vander was going to win.
On all points.
She would capitulate now, and agree to live with him as his wife.
But she surprised him, raising that firm little chin in the air. “To be perfectly honest, even though you are forcing me to remain your wife, I do not intend to beg you for those four nights. Ever.”
That was a facer, not merely because his body was pulsing with desire to possess his bride, but because he did need an heir at some point. He let some of that desire show in his eyes. “What if I begged you?”
Her expression did not change an iota. “I will say no. This afternoon I came to understand that I cannot fight the fact you are using Charles Wallace to ensure that I acquiesce to our marriage. I made myself vulnerable through my own actions. But you placed yourself at my mercy when you wrote that contract specifying that we would be together only on the nights I implored you to join me.”
A reluctant grin touched Vander’s lips. He had just come face to face with a negotiator who had adroitly circled around behind his defenses.
And bested him.
If he was honest with himself, in some twisted way he had been looking forward to the four nights with Mia.
Of course, that was when he had believed she adored him. When he believed that he would be doing her a favor. He had felt an errant pride that a woman—any woman—had loved him to the point at which she would go against her own moral code in order to bed him.
He hadn’t been dreading the marriage bed. No, he had pictured himself looming over Mia, her curls spread across the pillow, eyes soft with desire and love, rounded body his and only his. She would be ecstatic because she was finally his.
Wrong.
This woman’s mouth was set in a firm line and her eyes were fierce.
Very wrong.
“All I ask is that we revisit the issue in a year or so,” he said. “At some point I must produce an heir. There is no particular urgency.”
Mia frowned. “I suppose we could consider it once we are better acquainted. But Your Grace, I beg you to rethink your decision about this marriage.”
Why the hell was she so reluctant? It must be the fiancé. Maybe he was one of those pretty men. Vander knew perfectly well that there was a brutal shape to his chin, and an energy
about him that women either loved or loathed.
“You are my wife,” he stated, “and you shall remain my wife. We should have a conversation about Sir Richard’s litigious intentions, as well as about management of the Carrington estate.” He saw exhaustion in her face, so he added, “but that can wait until tomorrow.”
Her eyelashes flickered. “Will I be part of management of the estate?”
“Of course. Unless you’d rather not.”
“My father did not believe that a woman could have a head for business.”
“Given what I’ve paid for Chuffy’s novels, I would venture a guess that your career is quite profitable.”
A smile lit her eyes. “My father told me that I could keep my pennies.”
“I always thought he was an ass.”
“I would not say that. But we often did not agree about business matters.”
“Are you really one of the most popular novelists in England?”
Pink came up in her cheeks. “Yes.”
“Brava,” he said sincerely. Suddenly his body was more aflame than he could remember being; something about Mia’s combination of sensuality and intelligence was wildly arousing. Bedding her would be the key to turning their marriage into the comfortable arrangement he had envisioned. Only it would be even better than he had thought, because he now respected her reasons for forcing him to marry.
After spending the afternoon with Charlie, he knew already that he’d blackmail the king himself to ensure his new ward’s safety.
Once he managed to seduce Mia, he would dispense with the four days proviso and give her access to his bed whenever she wanted.
Hell, maybe he would even let her sleep with him. He had never slept with a woman, but he was warming to the idea of reaching for Mia in the middle of the night.
Rolling over and sliding his hands between—
“If you’ll excuse me, I will retire and have a light supper in my chamber,” Mia said. “The brandy went to my head and besides, I have a letter to write.”
“Of course,” Vander said, thinking that perhaps they could eat together in his bedchamber. It would be a prelude to eating in bed.