In the Arms of the Heiress (A LADIES UNLACED NOVEL) (4 page)

That
he thought he could manage. This Maximillian sounded like a moony moron that bore no resemblance to anyone he knew, and Rosemont was bound to be perfectly awful. He’d probably break the china and piss in a corner before it was all done.

If only he’d found the courage to kill himself the other night, he would not be bumping knees in this poorly sprung carriage with Louisa Stratton and her outspoken maid. He’d always had a passion for redheads, when he’d felt passion. But somehow Kathleen’s blond mistress appealed much more to his lower nature.

Charles wondered what the heiress would look like when her corset was unstrung. He pictured bright pink lines on milk-white skin, bountiful breasts bursting into his rough hands, her waist as small as a child’s.

And then he saw himself lacing her back up, pulling the strings so tight she could barely move. Barely breathe. He would put his hand around that tiny waist and keep her still. He could do anything he wanted to her then, and she would be unable to resist. He’d pluck the pins from her pompadour and use her golden hair to guide her down—

He was a beast. Miss Stratton was not that kind of girl, and he wasn’t that kind of man, was he? He’d never felt such unnatural desire in his life—to subdue. To control.

How odd that modern women spent a fortune on corsets to contort their bodies to such unnatural shapes. A few months in a Boer concentration camp would have whittled their waists down to size at no expense at all.

Charles shut his eyes. He could pretend to sleep until Mount Street. Maybe Miss Stratton was right. Charles would see this Dr. Fentress. Swallow bottles full of his elixir if it would make the nightmares stop and the days clearer. If he was to do without gin, he would need a bloody miracle.

Chapter

5

Thursday, December 3, 1903

T
he next day, Charles was both ginless and lacking in any sort of miracle. The princess had kept the porters busy at Victoria Station. Charles did not understand how one woman could fill so many trunks. And how could they all have been stuffed in her little motorcar during her travels? But apparently Louisa had sent them along with her car by steamship across the Channel. The car, thank the powers that be, would remain in London until the proper parts were found for it.

Charles might not value his life, but he had no desire to end it in a ditch on the road to Rosemont, and he was grateful to sink into a somewhat tattered first-class compartment of the Chatham Line. The railroad company had the reputation of being a somewhat shaky enterprise, but at least its trains always arrived on time.

In Charles’s case, he was not sure that was altogether a good thing. He’d gotten ahold of that magazine from Mrs. Evensong yesterday after tea, had seen photographs of Rosemont’s turrets and vast expanse of lawn running down to the sea. Charlie Cooper was going to be very much out of place.

He’d had hopes that he’d be left to himself on the train with the ladies in an adjacent compartment, but that was not to be. The maid Kathleen made a great show of taking out a book so as not to participate in the conversation between “husband” and “wife.” Charles shut his eyes at the blur of gray sky and bare trees beyond the window, but he couldn’t shut his ears. Louisa Stratton was chattering incessantly as she was wont to do.

“Chattin’ Stratton,” he mumbled.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Are you never silent? You’re giving me the devil of a headache.”

“I suppose I’m a bit nervous about going home,” Louisa said, surprising him. “I haven’t seen my family in over a year. And it’s absolutely essential you understand the role you are to play. I thought we just might brush up on the details we discussed with Mrs. Evensong.”

“Rembrandt. Louvre. You were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.”

Her golden brows knit. “I’m sure I never told you to say that.”

“It’s my own invention. You want Max to be your devoted dog, don’t you?”

“Not at all! I would never want a man who could be led around on a leash. Maximillian is much too much of a man to allow me to dominate.”

Charles flashed back to his mental image of a near-naked Louisa, her creamy flesh encased by a rigid corset. Bound. Helpless. Perhaps with a gag over those lovely ever-mobile lips. He shifted in discomfort on the seat. What the hell was she doing to him?

“Fine. Then we will discount your looks. Did I marry you for your money?” Charles was sure this girl had been hotly pursued for her face and figure—the fortune was just a bonus.

“Maximillian has his own independent income. A substantial one.”

“How did I earn it?”

Her tongue poked into the corner of her lush lips before she spoke. “You didn’t. You inherited it.”

“Just like you, then.”

“Surely you know women are limited in their choices of profession,” she said. “And in so many things. You men control the world, and a bloody mess you’ve made of it.”

Louisa Stratton didn’t know the half of it. “I cannot disagree. So, my income is enormous, because I’ve invested wisely and am a genius with numbers.”

“Are you?”

“I was always good at maths. I could be, if I had any money to play around with. But I don’t. You saw where I lived, Miss Stratton.”

Louisa gave a delicate shudder. “Maximillian was raised in wealth in the French countryside.”

“Some château or other, I believe you said.”

“Château Lachapelle. It was once a monastery, and the Dark Monk is reputed to haunt the corridors.”

Charles laughed. What a fantastic imagination the idiot heiress had. “You have been reading too much fiction. I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“Very well. You don’t have to mention the monk if you don’t want to. I just thought it added a soupçon of interest to your childhood. Your parents were English expatriates who ran away from arranged marriages. Very romantic.”

A load of rubbish in Charles’s opinion. “There’s the tiniest glitch, Miss Stratton.”

“You must remember to call me Louisa! We’ve been married happily for months now.”

“I don’t speak French well,
Louisa
. I took it at school and pretty much left it there as well.”

She waved a gloved hand. “Oh, that won’t matter. We’ll just say your parents were eccentric and preferred to converse in their native tongue. You were tutored at the château. No one in my family will quiz you—they loathe the French as all good English people do. A few days in Paris to shop is one thing, but my aunt Grace never permitted me to go abroad even for that.”

“Poor little rich girl.”

Louisa’s cheeks turned pink. “You may think you know all about me, Mr. Cooper—”

“Max,” he reminded her. “We’re so happily married.”

“—but you don’t,
Maximillian
. I’m not saying I’ve had a horrible life—I know I’ve had advantages some can only dream about. But it was not a bed of roses at Rosemont.”

Charles laughed again. “Quite the turn of phrase, dear wife.”

Her blush deepened, but she soldiered on. “You collect art, and the château is filled with wonderful things.”

“Like the Dark Monk and my eccentric parents?”

“I’m quite sure I said they were dead, too—didn’t I, Kathleen?”

The maid did not look up from her book. “As doornails. So your aunt wouldn’t write to them.”

“Just so. While you are an esthete, you are also an athlete.”

“You rowed her on the Seine on a moonlit night, Mr. Norwich,” Kathleen said, turning a page.

More rubbish. Where did girls get such ideas? From unrealistic romances like Kathleen was reading, no doubt. Charles had never rowed anything or anyone in his life—now if she had him bowling a cricket match or playing rugby, he was her man.

“And what is the story behind my deformity? An oar in the eye?” He had suffered damage to his left eye when a shell exploded rather too near him. Once he’d come to, the doctors told him his vision might improve with time, but Charles saw no evidence of it so far.

“I don’t suppose you fence.”

“I do not.” He could hack his way through underbrush well enough, but the army had given up its swords for the deadly precision of automatic weaponry. Maxim machine guns were all the rage on the veldt.

Louisa was thinking, her pink tongue curled into the corner of her lips again. Charles had noted the habit and was hoping that tongue might be persuaded to do something else. “Do you box?”

He’d scrapped with his brothers growing up, and had held his own at school. “Yes, although I’m not one for the Queensberry rules.”

“Well then. You received an unlucky blow in the ring. That’s when you broke your nose, too.”

Charles kept his hand from touching the bridge of his nose, flattened courtesy of his brother Tom for some childhood infraction he couldn’t recall. “Won’t your aunt think I’m a savage?”

“Oh, no. Her son Hugh fancies himself quite a pugilist. He made a name for himself at Oxford. But if he challenges you, you must decline. I have a horror of the sport.” Louisa wrinkled her nose. “You gave up all that violence for me when we married.”

“No fighting. What else is forbidden?” Charles wished he was taking notes. He had a feeling the list was going to be a long one.

“You may not smoke. You
don’t
smoke, do you?”

“Filthy habit.”

“I’m so glad you agree. I understand it’s very difficult to give up once one’s begun. No drinking to excess, but I believe Mrs. Evensong covered that with you already. You must keep your wits about you at all times. My family is . . . difficult, and though they may test a saint’s sobriety, it is vital you don’t let them send you over the edge.”

What had Mrs. Evensong told Louisa? Not too much, he hoped. He’d enjoyed his pint in the past, but no more so than any other bloke. It wasn’t until he’d come home from the war that he’d let his demons loose and tried to drink himself into welcome oblivion.

“You are to ignore Cousin Isobel if she seems a bit too . . . friendly. Isobel still thinks there’s a chance for her to make a good match and will pump you about your bachelor friends. Make up something amusing but vague. She and Mama came to England from New York to marry titled gentlemen, though neither one succeeded.”

“That’s why you are not Lady Louisa.”

“Correct. Mama fell in love with Papa, and that was that. Of course, he had a fortune and didn’t need hers, so my American grandparents were somewhat mollified.”

“Are they still alive?”

Louisa shook her head. “They died when I was fourteen—a boating accident, like my parents. My relatives are very unlucky on water. I’m almost afraid to take a bath.”

Dear God. The thought of Louisa Stratton wet and naked in a porcelain tub was almost too much to contemplate. Charles took a deep breath.

“So, no fighting, drinking, smoking, and no flirting with Cousin Isobel. Have I got it all right?”

“It’s a start. We’ll have to be nimble as we go—the sands are always shifting at Rosemont.”

“Well, it is on the coast.”

“Why, Captain Cooper! I believe you’ve made a joke.”

So he had. A faint ray of sunshine seemed to be piercing his gloom. How could he fail to appreciate the improvement in his circumstances? Once the month was over, he’d have a substantial nest egg for his brothers and a harmless adventure with a very pretty girl to remember while he spent eternity in hell.

The train meandered through chocolate-box villages and gentle hills, Louisa talking all the way. Charles was getting used to her nervous energy. She seemed to have an opinion on everything and was not shy about expressing it. Poor Maximillian Norwich would never have a moment’s peace.

The real Maximillian would have strategies to quiet his voluble wife. He might give her a smoldering look across a room, inveigle a way to get her alone and kiss her until she was witless. Finger that intriguing mole at the corner of her mouth that her pink tongue always touched when she was thinking. Capture one of her demonstrative hands and place his lips on her palm. Nip a jeweled earlobe, breathe the scent of crushed violets from her long white neck.

“Captain Cooper—Maximillian—have you heard a word I’ve said?”

“Of course. I shall endeavor to do everything you say.” That was easy enough, wasn’t it? He had nothing better to do. But he had a nagging feeling he’d missed something important.

“Now, tell me about
your
family. I’ve told you all about mine.”

Had she? He couldn’t very well tell her he’d stopped paying attention some miles back.

“There’s not much to say.”

“Come now, don’t be shy. Just because
you
were not brought up in a château doesn’t mean I shall judge you.”

Charles could not picture ermine-coated Louisa Stratton in the humble kitchen that served as sitting room and occasional bedroom to his family. “My parents are dead. They both were employed by Alexander’s Pottery Works. My brothers and their wives work there now.”

“Oh. Pottery?”

“I don’t expect Alexander dishes are on your dining table at Rosemont. George Alexander produces unembellished, practical items, from teapots to chamber pots. For the lower classes. Just like me.”

He caught Kathleen’s brief flare of triumph across the seat.

“I—I thought you went to Harrow,” Louisa said doubtfully.

“And so I did. George sponsored me—took me right off the line and paid for my education.” Tom and Fred had resented Charles’s elevation. Ah yes. His nose—he remembered now.

“I have nieces and nephews, but I’m not close to my family anymore. I probably couldn’t tell you all their names if you put a gun to my temple. I was away a long while.”

“I see.”

“I hope you do, Miss Stratton. I may not turn out to be the right man for your job. Maximillian and I don’t have much in common—I’m bound to put my foot wrong somewhere. I’ve not visited too many châteaux or museums.”

Try none
.

There was her tongue peeking out again. He waited for her to tell him to get off at the next station. The silence lengthened—in fact, this was the longest time in their brief acquaintance that Louisa was not talking his ear off.

“You
were
an officer.”

“I rose on merit. And have a chest full of medals, for what they’re worth.”

Not much
.

Louisa sighed. “Well, I’m sure you’ll try your best. Everyone swears by Mrs. Evensong, so she must have confidence in you. She simply raved about you, you know. I confess I
did
wonder why you were agreeable to do this. I was looking for an actor. Someone with experience. You don’t strike me as one who will stick to the script.”

“A little improvisation might come in handy. I’ll try not to disappoint you.”

“Fingers crossed then.” Louisa gave him a bright smile. “We get off in three more stops. I expect Robertson will be there to meet us.”

Kathleen dropped her book to the floor. Charles bent to pick it up and handed it back to her, but not before reading the green and gold cover.
A CHECKED LOVE AFFAIR
.
Spare me
.