If only she’d kept her eyes closed.
The contempt in his eyes was warring with pity, and she didn’t know which was worse.
Vander reached out and tilted her chin up. “You can’t force a man to love you, Mia.” The words were rough but there was softness there too, pity for the old maid who had no way to get a husband except by blackmailing him. And he used her personal name, as if he were her big brother offering counsel.
Mia drew in a breath of air that scorched her lungs, as if it burned from the inside out. Could this be any more humiliating? Once they married, she would take Charlie and go live in Scotland.
“I know it’s a difficult lesson. You simply have to trust that in time you’ll love someone else,” Vander added, looking sorry.
Sorry for her.
Scotland wasn’t far enough.
Bavaria. She and Charlie would go to Bavaria, where no one knew them. Charlie could return to England at age eighteen and reclaim the Carrington estate from Vander.
At least she knew that he would have an estate to inherit, if Vander was in charge. Sir Richard would waste it all in frivolous lawsuits, with no regard for Charlie’s patrimony.
Mr. Plummer could help Vander petition the House of Lords for a divorce in her absence; he would take care of everything. She herself need never return to England.
Vander’s eyes were intent on hers. “Tell me to destroy the letter, Mia. Keep your dignity and your self-respect. Don’t make me hate you.”
He had no idea how much she wanted to keep her self-respect. Her dignity was gone . . . but her decency? She shuddered, knowing what she would think of a woman who had acted as she had. Villainesses in her books always came to a bad end.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But I can’t.”
Mia looked regretful . . . but Vander could tell that she didn’t have the faintest intention of freeing him. She was determined to tie him to her apron strings. Or perhaps bedpost was more accurate.
She couldn’t have the faintest idea what a man needed, what a man would demand of his wife. To put it bluntly, she was an old maid without the faintest understanding of what really went on between men and women: the sweaty, grunting, pleasurable truth of it. Anger filled him again, like water coming to a boil.
“You think you’re getting my moonbeam, Mia? Whatever you want to call it, I can assure you that it will not perform under these circumstances. Not when you’ve commanded the act. We men are odd that way. We like to choose our bed partners. And if you’ll forgive my bluntness, I would not choose you.”
Her cheeks flooded with color again. “My poem had nothing to do with that—with, with intimate matters!”
“I disagree.” Vander tore off his coat and tossed it behind him.
“What are you doing?”
He started on his waistcoat, her eyes going wide as he tossed that aside too. This time he heard a tinkle of broken glass.
She gasped. “You just—”
“Don’t you think you should see what blackmailing a man does to his cock? Excuse me: to his moon-beam?”
His hands moved to his waistband and undid the first button. At the same moment, the combination of Mia’s wide eyes, luscious bosom, and that kiss wrapped around him. He felt his body grow hard.
In fact, his cock was about as stiff as it had ever been.
“Hell,” he muttered. That ruined his initial plan. Never mind: he could shock her into realizing that marriage wasn’t poetic, but sweaty and real.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
Vander ran a hand slowly down the front of his breeches and sure enough, her eyes followed the movement. Mia likely believed that wedding vows had some sort of romantic power to them. Hell, she had spun a fairy tale around the dissolute relationship their parents had shared.
She had probably read too many of those novels, the ones full of tripe about gentlemen who behaved as no man ever would, falling on their knees from one moment to the next. Begging for a woman the way a spaniel would a bone.
“What I’m doing is showing you every inch of what you wrote about in that damned poem,” he said, baring his teeth in an approximation of a smile. He undid another button, his breeches straining in front.
He expected her to squeak like a mouse and dash from the room. Ladies did that sort of thing to avoid reality.
But Mia surprised him. Again. “Is there something I am supposed to be noticing?” she inquired.
For a moment he almost admired her. He wasn’t boastful, but he knew he was large—all over. Seasoned courtesans had looked shocked at the size of his rod.
Not her.
For someone who was going to all the trouble of threatening his dukedom in order to climb into his bed, Mia seemed astonishingly nonchalant.
Button number three.
“You stop what you’re doing this instant!” she said, finally looking a bit unnerved. Her voice had taken on a husky lisp that only made him harder.
“Do you mean that you don’t want to assess the merchandise? Really, Mia, you must learn to conduct yourself in the marketplace. Vendors always want to display their wares.”
At that, her back stiffened. “There’s a reason gentlemen keep such details to themselves,” she flashed. “You, for example, seem to have delusions of . . . of adequacy!”
“Actually, I have a conviction,” he drawled. “Of grandeur.” With every button he undid, with every sign of her determination, he felt anger swelling in his throat, threatening to strangle him, making him behave more and more outrageously.
He courted danger, not women. He had sometimes talked vaguely about a wife but now he realized with abrupt clarity that he didn’t want one.
Every ounce of his being resisted the idea, screaming at him to fight in the only way he could fathom in this insane circumstance. He undid the final button and his tool sprang free, shielded from her eyes only by the thin silk of his smalls.
“So, Miss Carrington, does the moonbeam live up to expectations?”
For a second, he could have sworn her green eyes darkened, but in the next, she folded her arms over her chest. “As I recall, when you were merely fifteen, your closest friends were already expressing some concern about your size.”
Surprise ripped through him, and he gave a bark of laughter.
“What I see, Your Grace, is a man who has the good sense to celebrate what Nature gave him, overlooking Her stinginess!”
Vander grinned, the surprising thought that few people were capable of verbally sparring with him flashing through his brain. He was about to respond, but he realized that Mia was feeling behind her for the latch. Instantly he dragged her to him, bucking his hips against her body. Then he slid his hands down her back and splayed his fingers over her bottom, holding her tight against him.
She didn’t say anything, but a sound escaped her lips, a little puff of air that sent an answering shudder through his body.
He had made another mistake. He had just played into her hands. What was he thinking? This woman had been writing sensual poems at fifteen. She wanted him for bedding and probably didn’t give a damn about his title.
She was her father’s daughter, after all.
Before he could speak, Mia shoved at his chest and he let her go. Color was burning in her cheeks; she didn’t meet his eyes, staring somewhere to the left of one shoulder. “I shall—I shall leave you now,” she said, her voice huskier than it had been. “Please let me know your response to my requirements.”
Vander was so dumbfounded that he didn’t stop her.
He stood there, staring at the closed door, the flap of his breeches hanging open, cock throbbing.
What the hell was he going to do now?
Chapter Four
NOTES ON PLOT
First chapter opens with Flora walking to . . . work as a lace-maker. (Add humble background, orphan, etc.)
A respectable, elderly gentleman, Mr. Mortimer, glimpses her crossing the street in her clean and p
atched gown. A girl this lovely, gentle, and deserving cannot be left Impoverished, at the mercy of the Cruel World. (I like this!)
He dies the very night after he changes his will to leave her one hundred thousand pounds (too much?), with a single proviso: that she not spend even a ha’penny on someone other than herself. If, e.g., she buys her aged nanny a cottage—or a lettuce leaf—she loses the entire estate.
Interesting. Large dowry on marriage.
So why would Frederic jilt her?
Who gets the money afterward?
Angry relatives!
Vander stared at the fire, a half-empty bottle of brandy on the side table next to him. It was one of the few times in his life that he cursed his ability to hold liquor.
He wanted to be drunk.
After Mia had left, he had had a grim conversation with his solicitor, who made it clear that he had no choice. Whatever it was Mia was demanding in that bloody letter—which he hadn’t yet opened—he would have to comply.
Or lose his dukedom.
When Thorn walked into the room, Vander didn’t even look up, though he could feel his closest friend’s eyes on him. “What the hell’s going on?” Thorn reached over and took the bottle of brandy from the table, dropping into a chair. “Did you lose a race?”
Vander was silent for a moment. “Do you remember when I told you that I planned to marry for love? One of my more idiotic ideas, I might add.” What the hell had he been thinking? It wasn’t for men, all this passion.
“I don’t consider myself idiotic,” Thorn said, holding up the bottle. “You’re drinking brandy that was laid down in ’78. This calls for a glass.” He got up and returned a moment later with a glass cut with the Duke of Pindar’s coat of arms.
“Your marriage is not the topic at hand,” Vander said, taking a healthy swig of the brandy. “Mine is. You’re here in time to congratulate me.”
Thorn put down his glass without drinking from it. “What the hell? What’s happened?”
“My father was mad,” Vander said, observing how the golden liquid made little streams on the side of the glass as he tilted it. “But it turns out he was also treasonous. Not just ordinary treason, either: My father offered—in writing—to kill the king, thereby enabling Bonnie Prince Charlie to sit on the throne.”
“What?”
Vander was still following his own train of thought. “He was a lunatic. And a cuckold. But I’ll be damned if I let him be blasted as a traitor as well.”
“What does that have to do with marriage?” Thorn asked, looking confused.
“The treasonous letter is in the hands of a woman. And she is demanding marriage.”
“Bloody hell.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
“How can they take away your dukedom? You didn’t commit treason.”
Vander shrugged. “My solicitor is confident that the dukedom would be confiscated. Apparently, dukedoms to hand out to favorites are in short supply, and I’ve never been a toady to the Crown.” He wasn’t the type who had bothered to ingratiate himself with George and his court. Or with society in general, for that matter.
Witness the fact that his only friend was a bastard, albeit a duke’s bastard.
“Hell,” Thorn muttered again. “Who is the woman?”
“You’ve met her.”
“I have? What’s her name?”
“The poet.”
Thorn frowned. “Poet? I don’t remember any . . . not Carrington’s daughter!”
“That’s the one.” Vander poured more brandy into his glass.
“The daughter of your mother’s lover is forcing you into marriage?” Thorn sounded genuinely shocked, which was amusing. After growing up on the streets, he was rarely surprised by evidence of criminality.
“That’s an accurate title for her,” Vander agreed. “You could also call her the Lyricist. Or Imminent Duchess of Pindar. If I wasn’t furious, I’d be impressed at her ingenuity. Not to mention tenacity.”
“Let me make sure I have it right: you are being blackmailed with the threat of a charge of treason and loss of your dukedom into marrying the daughter of your mother’s paramour.”
“It sounds like Greek drama when you put it that way.”
“The hell with that,” Thorn said flatly, his voice ringing with distaste. “She wrote that excruciatingly bad poem about you. Her father was a debauched philanderer. Your marriage will be a subject of gossip for your entire life. It’s not worth it. Let the dukedom go.”
“I thought about it.”
“Well?”
“My father’s madness tarnished the name—but it’s still my name. One of my ancestors lost his head defending King Charles against the Puritans. Another fought a battle for King Henry II. A castle—my family’s castle—stood here three hundred years before this house was built. I would just let them go, the history of my family go, because a woman wants me so badly that she’d resort to blackmail?”
“Let me put it this way: Your mother married a madman, and you’re about to marry a madwoman.”
Thorn’s voice was troubled, and Vander paused for a moment. But he knew madness. He had been around it his entire life. He had only to come within earshot of a person with a touch of mania and his scalp began to prickle.
He didn’t feel that from Mia. “She’s not mad,” he said finally. “I’ll be damned if I know how to describe her, but she’s not mad. Obsessed, maybe.”
“We’ll put the best solicitors in the country on the case,” Thorn said. “They’ll discredit her. Mad or not, we’ll have her put in Bedlam. Or—we’ll steal the letter! Give me her direction and I’ll put a lad on it immediately.”
“No need for that,” Vander said, smiling faintly. “She gave it to me.”
“Burn it,” Thorn snapped.
“Can’t,” Vander said. “Code of a gentleman and all that.”
“That’s utter rot. In any case, I’m no gentleman. Hand it over.”
“No.”
“It was a stroke of brilliance to hand you the letter,” Thorn acknowledged. “She must have known you’d find yourself constrained by your own standards. I would have had her house tossed or just burned down the whole place and have done with it.”
“It’s a question of name and lineage,” Vander explained. “It’s bigger than I am. The whole mess has made me think about what I really want. My mother was desperately in love with Carrington, willing to risk everything to be with him. Even though the man was an empty-headed, light-fingered fool.”
“No argument there.”
Vander looked over at Thorn, knowing his face was rueful. “I used to talk vaguely about falling in love—because it was an excellent excuse for avoiding society events where I might find a bride. Frankly, I would be horrified if I was trapped by that sort of passion.”
“I used to think that as well,” Thorn observed.
“What’s more, I would loathe it if my name became a byword because my wife took lovers. I might well go mad,” Vander said dispassionately.
“Well, there is that. Given the persistence of her adoration, Miss Carrington likely won’t ever think of another man.”
Vander’s smile was probably a bit feral. “There you have it. Perfect marriage for me.”
“You’ll have to get an heir on her—which means you’ll have to bed her. I couldn’t perform, not with a woman who was blackmailing me. Unless she only wants your name?”
“Don’t you remember that poem? If I’m not mistaken, my title is coming in a distant second to my moonbeam.”
Thorn swore again. “That’s intolerable.”
“Not necessarily. I’ve often thought it would be hell to have a frigid wife. I seem to have the opposite. But I do mean to set some restrictions in that regard.”
“Such as?”
“I’m allotting her four nights.”
“Per month or per week?”
“Neither,” Vander said, enjoying himself. “Four days per year.”
He looked up to find Thorn’s face alive with laughter.
“I might give her an extra night now and then,” he added. “On her birthday.”
Thorn rarely laughed; it just wasn’t in his nature. But he guffawed now.
“Four nights should be enough to produce an heir,” Vander noted. It wasn’t the end of the world to have an adoring wife. Particularly because the terms of their arrangement meant that he need not dance attendance on her.
“India will hate her no matter what.” Thorn got up from his chair. “She had plans for you.”
“That girl you pushed off on me the last time we went to the theater bleated at me like a goat all night. And her face was beaky.”
“Those are cheekbones, you ass.”
“I didn’t like them.” The girl had been all angular bones and hard edges. He preferred . . .
He preferred a woman who fit under his arm like a sheltering bird. Even Thorn’s gorgeous wife, India, was too tall for him, if the truth be told.
Thorn stared down at him. “Just tell me this: Does Miss Carrington agree with your limit of four nights?”
“I haven’t told her yet, but she will. She’s mad with love, if I recall the phrasing correctly from that poem. She’ll take any scraps I throw in her direction. I think she repeated her proposal three or four times. To be succinct: she begged me.”
“Damn it,” his friend said, obviously disgusted. “This marriage is going to give you a wildly inflated idea of your own importance.”
Vander grinned at him.
Chapter Five
NOTES ON FLORA & LONDON
~ Mr. Mortimer’s solicitor buys her jewelry, coach, servants . . . what else?
~ Modiste ecstatic to provide wardrobe for young lady so exquisite. Slender, coltish legs, doelike eyes (watch for too many animal metaphors)
~ in wks, all London at Flora’s feet.
~ Virtuous, farmer impoverished squire, Mr. Wolfington. “My heart is the only gold I offer!”