Charlotte had tried for nearly a week to see Denbigh’s point of view, as she had promised Olivia, and met with frustration at every turn. He was to be her escort to the theater that evening and had already dictated how she was to dress—in white; when she was to appear downstairs—precisely at eight; how she was to act upon their arrival at Covent Garden—demure, modest, reserved, and retiring; and what she was to say to Braddock—nothing at all, if she could manage it.
“He’s given me a half-dozen orders, at least,” she said as she paced Olivia’s room. “And he expects all of them to be obeyed to the letter. He’s high-handed, arrogant, arbitrary, overbearing, domineering, and … and … arrogant.”
“You already said that.”
“It bears repeating,” Charlotte retorted.
“Why do you persist in seeing the worst in Lion?” Olivia asked.
“Wear the jonquil gown, Livy,” Charlotte said, ignoring her question. “It picks up the gold in your eyes. The green is too … green.”
“Do you not think the gown you have on this evening is too … thin?” Olivia asked.
Charlotte ran her fingers over the fragile gauze skirt of the gown she had commissioned from a modiste who catered mostly to the demimonde. It was virginal white, as Denbigh had ordered. There, she was sure, all resemblance to what he had in mind ended. The nearly transparent dress clung to the shape of her body, and the bodice was cut so low it had given even her second thoughts. It was fit only for a Cyprian, a woman of easy virtue.
But she was proving another point to Denbigh.
“Of course it is too revealing,” Charlotte conceded. “How else am I to make it plain to your brother that I will make my own decisions about what to wear?” Charlotte tugged at the bodice, but it covered no more skin than before.
“I thought you were going to try to get along with Lion,” Olivia said.
Charlotte snorted. “We’ve given the appearance of getting along so well that, if I’m not careful, your grandparents will have me married off to your brother before the season is over.”
“They like you, Charlie. It’s only natural they want you to become a part of the family as soon as possible.”
“I’d love having you for a sister, Livy. It’s your brother I can do without.” When Olivia shot her an exasperated look, Charlotte changed the subject. “Are you nervous about tonight? You look so calm. You haven’t seen the duke all week. Aren’t you the least bit anxious about seeing him again?”
Olivia gave a tremulous laugh. “I’m terrified. Why do you think I’m not dressed yet? When I am, I’ll have to go downstairs and face him. What if he has changed his mind? What if he no longer wishes to court me?”
“How could he not want to court you? I’ve told you over and over what a rare catch you are, Livy.” Charlotte reached for the jonquil silk and held it ready for her. “Here. Let me be your maid. It’s half past eight. The sooner you’re dressed, the sooner we can go. I’m dying to see a play with real actors. Aren’t you? I’m sure I won’t be able to take my eyes off the stage.”
“No one else in the theater will be able to take their eyes off of you in that scandalous gown,” Olivia said.
“Do you think some of the gentlemen might show an interest in me?”
Olivia laughed. “Count on it. During the interval, they will come to the duke’s box to present themselves. All you have to do is sit and wait.”
“Even though I’m engaged?”
“There are many satisfied to be a cicisbeo, a man who keeps company with an engaged lady. And there are others, rakes, who will want to see if they can steal a kiss, now that you are engaged.
“And there are the curious, and Lion’s friends, who will want to meet you. From them all, you may find one you like.”
“That sounds easy enough,” Charlotte said. “I think we should already be downstairs when the duke arrives, don’t you, Livy? That way we can keep our escorts from getting into an argument over nothing and throwing gloves in one another’s faces.”
“You’re right, of course. My brother and the duke won’t need an excuse to fight. They have reason enough already.”
Once Olivia had the right incentive, it didn’t take any time at all for her to finish her toilette.
“Wait, Livy,” Charlotte said before Olivia rose from in front of her mirror. “My new maid, Sally, gave me some things she said would aid your appearance.” Charlotte used a hare’s foot to dust sandalwood rouge over Olivia’s cheeks. Then she dampened a colored paper and dabbed the resulting red stain across Olivia’s lips with her finger.
“All done,” she said.
Olivia looked in the mirror and frowned. “You don’t think it is too much?”
“I don’t know,” Charlotte answered honestly. “At least now your whole face isn’t as white as a ghost.”
Olivia groaned and urged Charlotte out of her bedroom and down the stairs.
Charlotte got the anticipated response from Denbigh when she appeared in the drawing room arm in arm with Olivia.
“You’re late,” he said from his chair by the fire when he heard the door open. He angled his head to look at her and roared, “Charlotte!”
She had figured out long ago why his nickname was Lion.
He leapt to his feet, ogling her with disbelief. “What in heaven’s name are you wearing?”
“A white gown, as you requested.”
“You know I had nothing like … like that … that wisp of muslin in mind,” he stuttered out.
Charlotte left Olivia’s side and crossed to where he stood, his legs widespread, his hands militantly perched on his hips. She noticed he didn’t take his eyes off her indecent décolletage until she was standing directly in front of him. The tips of his ears were red when his eyes finally met hers.
“That dress is—”
“Beautiful on her,” Olivia interrupted. “Don’t you think so, Lion?”
Charlotte dutifully twirled in a circle. The dress did little to conceal her assets. Denbigh’s color was high when she faced him again. “Do you want me to change into something else?” she asked.
He tugged at the snow-white cravat that Theobald had tied in a precise Mathematical. “Knowing you, whatever you replaced it with would not be an improvement.” He reached out to gather up a bit of thin muslin from her sleeve and rubbed it between his fingertips.
His silvery eyes locked with her green ones, and Charlotte shivered as though it was her flesh he was caressing.
“Do you want to marry me, Lion?” she asked in a voice too quiet to be overheard by Olivia.
“You know I do not,” he said stiffly.
“Then I must find another husband,” she said. “I think this dress might help.”
“With net this flimsy,” he said, letting the gauze fall against her skin, “you’re liable to attract exactly the sort of loose fish you don’t want.”
His eyes were on hers again, but the disapproval she saw was not nearly so strong as the desire.
“A dress like this one …” he began.
He licked his lips, and her mouth went dry.
“Does it make me look beautiful, Lion?”
“It makes you look bed-able,” he corrected.
“Both will do to catch a husband, I think.”
“I don’t think—”
The Duke of Trent’s butler, an elderly gentleman named Stiles, for whom Charlotte had procured a better-fitting set of false teeth, announced, “His Grace, the Duke of Braddock,” without his wooden top teeth even once falling out and having to be pushed back into place. Charlotte gave him a broad smile, and he beamed back.
She held her breath as Braddock entered the drawing room, not sure what sort of fireworks might erupt when the duke finally entered the home of the man who had killed his brother.
The two men, both pinks of the ton, were a formidable sight when viewed together. Braddock was turned out in dark Spanish blue. Denbigh wore black. It was hard to admire them when they immediately faced off against each other like two stiff-legged barnyard dogs fighting over the same bitch.
“Denbigh,” the duke said.
“Braddock,” the earl answered.
They sounded perfectly civil.
Then Charlotte saw the tic in Braddock’s jaw, and the pulse pounding in Denbigh’s temple. Tension simmered under the surface and threatened to boil over.
“Shall we go?” Charlotte said, slipping her arm through Denbigh’s. “Stiles has my wrap by the door.”
Olivia quickly followed her lead, slipping her arm through Braddock’s. “Yes. Shall we?”
“My carriage is waiting,” Braddock said.
“So is mine,” Denbigh countered.
The two men stopped in their tracks, pulling both women to a stop beside them.
“My sister rides with me,” Denbigh said.
“I’ll be glad to take your ward with me in my carriage,” Braddock said, his lip curling cynically.
Even Charlotte recognized the folly in that.
“Why don’t we all go together in one carriage?” Olivia suggested.
“Mine will hold four comfortably,” Denbigh said.
“So will mine,” Braddock countered.
“Would you like to draw straws to see who wins?” Charlotte asked with a shake of her head at their ridiculous competition.
Neither man ceded the point. They glared at each other, shirt points high, shoulders back, neck hairs hackled.
“I think I feel a headache coming on,” Olivia said. “Perhaps I had better stay at home tonight.”
Braddock stood mute, but he was clearly disappointed. It was not the gentleman’s place to tell a lady she was lying to spare them all an uncomfortable situation.
Charlotte knew no such bounds. “Well, I don’t have a headache, and I’ve been looking forward to the theater all week. If you don’t go, Livy, I shall have to stay home, too. Is there any possibility a little hartshorn might help?”
“Perhaps you would be more comfortable in your brother’s carriage,” Braddock said. He turned to Denbigh and continued in a dry voice, “If it is agreeable, Lady Olivia and I will be happy to join you and your ward for the ride to Covent Garden.”
Denbigh nodded. “It is.”
“Thank goodness that’s settled,” Charlotte said with a bright smile. “Shall we go?”
“Some hartshorn for Lady Olivia?” Braddock reminded Charlotte.
“Oh, yes,” Charlotte said, realizing the play must be acted to the finish before they could leave for the theater.
A footman was sent to find Lady Olivia’s maid, who located the hartshorn in her bedroom and gave it to the footman, who brought it down to Lady Olivia in the drawing room.
No one said a word while they waited.
All four heaved a silent sigh of relief once they were all seated in Denbigh’s carriage.
Sometime during the first act of She Stoops to Conquer, Olivia realized she really did have a headache. There was no way she could ask to leave; they had all come in one carriage. Even if she could have persuaded her brother to take her home without creating another scene, she didn’t want to spoil Charlotte’s obvious enjoyment of the performance. So she suffered in silence.
She and Braddock were sitting in the two seats behind Denbigh and Charlotte in Braddock’s box, only because Charlotte had raced to the balcony rail the instant they arrived, enthralled by the glittering sights, and remained until the curtain came up.
It was clear Lion would rather Olivia and Braddock had been sitting in front, so he could keep an eye on them. Several anxious glances over his shoulder had so far sufficed to convince him that Braddock had no designs on her person.
“Is your headache worse?” the duke whispered in her ear.
“I only made it up,” she said.
“I have seen you twice wince when the crowd roared with laughter. If you did not have a headache before, I suspect you have one now. Am I right?”
What was the use of lying? She nodded.
“Come,” he said.
“But—”
He didn’t give her a choice. He took her firmly by the hand and led her from the box. To her surprise, Lion didn’t even look back. He was too busy trying to keep an exuberant Charlotte from leaning over the balcony rail to ogle those in the pit.
The duke laid her hand on his forearm and walked slowly down the hall, where it was surprisingly quiet, and where the dim light was more soothing to her eyes.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you,” she said. “Perhaps it was all the noise and the smell of oranges from the pit.” Oranges were a popular refreshment at the theater, and the immense numbers of peeled fruit, combined with the smell of the unwashed masses, gave off a pungent aroma.
Braddock ignored that excuse and supplied the truth. “Perhaps it was the tension between myself and your brother.”
Olivia halted and looked up into the duke’s eyes. No one could really have eyes that blue. Braddock did. They crinkled at the corners in a marvelous spray of joy as he smiled.
“Have I grown two heads?” he asked.
Appalled that she had been caught staring, she lowered her gaze and said, “Your frankness surprised me.”
“It would be foolish to deny what any gudgeon could see. There’s no love lost between Denbigh and me. He killed my brother. If it were not for you …”
“You would kill mine?”
He pressed his lips flat, refusing to answer.
“I am glad, Your Grace,” she said, “if I am a reason to curtail your revenge. But …”
Olivia had not allowed herself to admit, until this evening when she saw the two men together, how very dangerous it was to let herself love Braddock. There was no changing history. Denbigh had killed Lord James. That death would always lie between her family and Braddock.
It was possible, if she continued to see him, that the two men might make peace. Possible. But not probable. More likely, the enforced proximity would produce exactly the result Charlotte had predicted. Some day, when Olivia was not around, Braddock would throw a glove in Lion’s face. And one, or both men, would end up dead.
She opened her mouth to tell the duke she would no longer be at home to him if he came to see her at the house on Grosvenor Square in the future. She simply could not get the words to come out.
“Is something wrong, Lady Olivia?” the duke asked.
“It is only the headache.”
“Let me arrange for a hackney, and I will see you home.”
“I don’t think my brother—”
He put a fingertip to her lips. The touch was electrifying. She gasped, and he went still. She looked up into his eyes and saw surprise and … something else. The brief moment of doubt she had seen in his eyes was gone almost before she recognized it for what it was. Doubt about what? She wondered. Too many things came to mind for comfort.
“It is improper for me to be with you unchaperoned,” she pointed out. “The gossips would tear us to bits if they discovered it.”
“Nothing will come amiss,” he said in a low, vibrant voice. “Trust me.”
Her heart ached with wanting to do exactly that. “Very well,” she said. “I must tell my brother I am leaving.”
“I will take care of that, as well,” he assured her.
He escorted her outside and settled her in a hackney he summoned with a wave of his hand. The ancient cab had cracked leather seats, rather than the plush upholstery she was used to, and it stank of unmentionable smells.
She wanted to change her mind, but the duke had gone back inside for a moment, and she was afraid to get out of the hackney and wait for him on the curb all by herself.
“I’ve left a note to be delivered to your brother at the interval,” the duke said as he joined her in the hackney. “With Lady Charlotte to keep him entertained, he’s not likely to notice you’re gone until then.”
Olivia worried that Denbigh would look sooner, discover her gone, and turn the theater upside down searching for her. Braddock’s unconcern helped her to ignore her own misgivings. And with him beside her, the hackney did not seem as awful.
When she was finally alone with the duke in the darkened carriage, and they were driving along the streets of London toward their destination, she acknowledged the impropriety of the situation. It was easy to tell herself no one would ever know. But it was dangerous for both of them. The parson’s mousetrap would snap closed tight on Braddock if they were discovered alone together.
She was so focused on the impropriety of riding home with Braddock unaccompanied, that she had entirely forgotten why custom decreed a lady must never be alone with a single gentleman. Braddock reminded her when he reached for her hand and held it warmly in his.
“This is … you should … I cannot …”
While she was busy concentrating on what he was doing with her hand, Braddock lowered his head and kissed her on the mouth. It was a bare meeting of lips, so fleeting that if she hadn’t seen the glitter of his blue eyes in the passing street lamps as he raised his head again, she would have thought she had imagined it.
Flustered, she turned her face to stare out the window. “You should not have done that,” she said, breathless and excited and horrified all at once.
“Why not?” he asked. “I wanted to taste your lips to see if they could possibly be as sweet as the berries you must have pressed against them earlier this evening to make them so red.”
“Oh. It is only paint, Your Grace. Lady Charlotte—”
“You tasted of berries, I am sure.”
She turned to him with a protest on her lips and was caught by the force of his gaze trained on her face.
“Perhaps I was mistaken,” he said. “Let me see.”
She sat frozen like a rabbit, uncertain which way to bounce, as his head lowered and his lips claimed hers again.
She should have been ready. This time there had been no surprise about what he was going to do. But his second taste of her sent a frisson of feeling streaking through her even stronger than the first.
She knew she ought to pull away. She knew she ought to demand he take her home immediately. She knew she ought to keep her lips pressed tight against his exploring tongue.
But all the pent-up emotions she had stuffed down inside her for so many years cascaded over her like the rush of water over a broken dam. She moaned as she opened her mouth to him, a grating, carnal sound so foreign to her ears that she would have been mortified if she had been capable of rational thought at all.
His tongue was doing something to her, causing her body to draw up like a purse string inside. Her ears roared, and the blood pounded in the pulse at her throat as he nibbled gently at her lips, begging her to open to him.
She clasped her hands tightly in her lap to keep from reaching out to him. He had made no declaration. She was a fool to be doing even this much with him. But she could not stop herself.
She shivered at the sound he made, a raw, anguished groan, as he abandoned her mouth and drew away to stare down into her eyes. She felt herself quivering with expectation. She wanted him to kiss her again. Needed it. Craved it.
She saw he was tempted, that it would have taken only a slight move in his direction for him to take her in his arms and ravish her.
But the inhibitions of a lifetime were stronger than her newly awakened desire. She was a lady. Ladies did not throw themselves at gentlemen. She leaned back a bare fraction of an inch.
It was enough to break the spell.
She did not want the interlude to end. It was too close to what she had always imagined it might be like in her dreams—although her dreams did not hold a candle to the reality of being kissed by the duke.
“I had no idea I would feel so much,” she said in a halting voice.
The carriage came to a halt, and Olivia lifted the curtain and glanced out, expecting to see her grandfather’s house. The neighborhood was dark, the houses close set and narrow. Nothing was familiar. The door to the nearest house opened, and a butler stood framed in a square of light, waiting in expectation. Olivia wondered who he thought they were. Obviously some mistake had been made.
“Where are we?” she asked the duke. “Why have we stopped here?”
Lion snatched at the sleeve of Charlotte’s gauze dress to keep her from falling and felt the flimsy material tear free in his hand. He grabbed again, caught her elbow, and yanked her back from a certain fall to her death in the pit below. She was so caught up in the action on stage, she did not even notice the damage to her gown.
“Sit down,” he said in a deadly voice.
“But Lion, it’s all so exciting. I want to see everything. I want to feel everything.”
It was hard to deny her when she cajoled him so prettily. But he had to draw the line somewhere, or she really would end up on her head in the pit.
“If you would like, we will visit the pit during the interval,” he said. “But only if you promise to sit still for the rest of this act.”
“Oh, I will,” Charlotte promised. But she sat on the edge of her seat, as close to the rail as she could get. A moment later she settled back fully in her chair and laid her hand on his sleeve to get his attention. “Lion,” she said.
It was so unusual for her to use his name that he froze, wondering what she was going to ask for this time.
“I cannot go to the pit during the interval.”
“Why not?”
“I have to wait here to be introduced to all the gentlemen who have noticed this scandalous dress and come here for an introduction.”
Lion ground his teeth. Otherwise he was going to make a cake of himself by shouting at her. He turned to see if his sister could talk some sense into the girl—only to discover Olivia was missing … along with Braddock.
“Damn and blast!” he muttered. He could not make a scene. That would create the very scandal he was still hoping to avoid.
“It is time for us to leave, Charlotte,” he said, settling her wrap around her shoulders.
“I’m not ready to go,” she protested.
“Olivia has left with Braddock,” he hissed in her ear.
She turned so precipitously, she almost fell off her chair. “They’re gone? Where did they go?”
“I have no idea.” His imagination was providing several scenes that made his blood run cold. He had known Braddock intended to take revenge on him through his sister. Why had he not watched them more closely?
The answer was sitting right beside him. Watching Charlotte took more energy than supervising a whole schoolroom full of children.
“Where shall we go to look for them?” Charlotte asked.
“We aren’t going anywhere. You’re going home. Then I will discover the duke’s direction.”
“I don’t trust you to go alone,” Charlotte said. “You’ll end up getting killed in a duel with Braddock.”
“If I do, it won’t happen before dawn at the least. There are still several hours during which you will have to obey me.”
“What happens to me if you’re killed?” Charlotte asked. “Will I be free to do as I wish then?”
“Remove that bloodthirsty look from your eye, baggage. If anything happens to me, you will be passed along with the furniture and the paintings to the next Earl of Denbigh, whoever he may be.”
Charlotte pursed her lips. “I think I would prefer to deal with you. At least we have reached a sort of understanding. So, if you please, I would rather you did not let the duke kill you.”
“I’ll do my best to avoid it,” he assured her.
Before they could exit the box, the act ended. At least a score of fops and dandies and coxcombs collected outside the door, waiting for their chance to be presented to his ward.
In his determination not to have Charlotte importuned by a single one of them, Denbigh almost dismissed the messenger.
“A note, my lord,” a fashionably dressed, but none-too-clean gentleman said, thrusting a folded parchment at him.
He grabbed for it primarily to keep it from stabbing him in the eye. Then he saw his name in bold script on the outside. “Thank you,” he said.
The messenger held out his hand. “The mort said you’d have a li’l’ sumthin’ for me.”
Denbigh searched for a coin small enough to serve as a tip and dropped it into the grimy palm. The beau-nasty quickly disappeared into the crowd.
Denbigh opened the letter and felt the blood drain from his face as he read the three words written there:
I have her.
His eyes skipped through the crowd searching for the messenger, but the man had already disappeared.
I have her. What did Braddock mean? That he had Olivia under his power and control and meant to rape and kill her? Or did he merely intend to give Denbigh notice that his missing sister was safe somewhere with her escort for the evening?
Denbigh was not comforted. An honorable man would not have disappeared. Braddock meant for him to worry. He wanted to provoke a duel.
Where had the duke taken Olivia? That was the burning question. Every moment counted. He had to find Olivia before the duke could compromise her. The sad truth was, Braddock would not even have to touch her. All he would have to do was keep her away overnight. She would be ruined.
Not that Olivia had lived in expectation of marriage, but she would not be able to hold her head up in company. She would be denied admittance to the best houses. And when he married, his choice of wife would be limited to those who would overlook the scandal.
Unfortunately, while Denbigh had been distracted, at least three fashionable fribbles had been uncouth enough to introduce themselves to Charlotte, who was merrily talking to them.
There was only one way to deal with fribbles. Or fops or coxcombs, for that matter. He gave them the cut direct.
Ignoring them as though they did not exist, he slipped an arm under Charlotte’s elbow and ushered her through the horde and out the door.
“That wasn’t very nice,” Charlotte protested as he led her down the hall. “Jerrold seemed very nice.”
“Jerrold?” She was calling a perfect stranger by his first name! “Jerrold is most likely a gazetted fortune hunter,” he said in severe tones.
His carriage was waiting in a long line, and Denbigh signaled for it to be brought to the door.
“He had nice eyes,” Charlotte said.
“Who had nice eyes?”
“Jerrold, of course.”
“Devil a bit,” Denbigh snapped. “Since when does the color of a man’s eyes matter?”
“It wasn’t the color,” Charlotte said. “No man could have eyes as beautiful as yours. But he looked at me as a person, and not as a bird-witted female.”
Denbigh discounted the compliment to his eyes. He wouldn’t put it past Charlotte to have made such an outrageous observation just to distract him from the main point of the argument.
He turned to face her and said, “Are you suggesting I treat you like a bird-witted female?”
She nodded.
“That’s ridiculous. I—”
“You dictate every move I make. You don’t allow me to think for myself, or make any decisions on my own.”
“That’s because, in my experience, you don’t make very smart ones.”
“I rest my case.”
“That you think I’m a shallow-pated ninny.”
“I said no such thing!”
Too late, Denbigh realized the cork-brained girl had provoked him into shouting. A quick look revealed the amused faces of a dozen coachmen, each of whom was sure to carry every word of his curb-side argument to the ton’s most noble houses. He would have groaned aloud, if he hadn’t known that would get repeated, as well.
The instant they were ensconced in the carriage on facing seats, Charlotte said, “I hope you realize that if you insist on scaring away potential suitors, we may be stuck in each other’s pockets for years and years to come.”
“I will find a husband for you, Charlotte, I promise. And—I don’t believe I am saying this—he will be a man you can like. But not tonight. Tonight I have other, more important, things on my mind.”
He had thought Charlotte did not realize the seriousness of Olivia’s disappearance until she said, “Do you really think he will hurt Livy?”
Denbigh felt a stab of fear and fought it back. Surely even Braddock was not scoundrel enough to physically abuse an innocent woman. He did not answer the question, because he did not trust his voice.
“She’s probably safe at home, and we’re both worrying for nothing,” Charlotte said to fill the silence.
Since Denbigh had to drop Charlotte in Grosvenor Square anyway, it was worth checking to see if Olivia had been delivered there by the duke.
But he very much feared she had become a victim of the duke’s revenge.