My Lady, My Lord (13 page)

“You shouldn’t be saying anything of the sort.”

“Hypocrite. You may make any salacious comment you wish but I mayn’t speak in kind?” She drew a volume from the crate. “I am a woman of the world, Ian. I have seen Passion plays and belly dancers, dancing Cossacks and cussing toreadors. I am not your typical society miss.”

“Indeed you are not.”

“And I am not a prude,” she added more softly, simply because she had to. Her enthusiastic response to his kiss dragged at her memory, stealing into the space between them.

“No.” He could have said a great deal more.

She shelved the book upside down.

“Fitzhugh is screwing up his courage to come to the point.”

Her gaze shot up. “How on earth do you know that?”

“He told me. Rather, he told you.”

“Good heavens. This could not be more peculiar, could it?”

“You refused him before. Why?”

“He spoke to you about that?”

Ian nodded then tilted his head. He expected a response.

Corinna’s cheeks felt hot. “That is not any of your business.”

“It is if he chooses to ask for your hand again while I am in possession of it—in the most literal sense.”

The most literal sense.

Corinna’s chest grew extraordinarily tight, and she feared that she was coming to suspect why she had refused Lord Fitzhugh’s proposal of marriage nine years earlier, and other gentlemen’s offers.

But that was
ridiculous
. She had despised Ian Chance for longer than she could remember. Perhaps her confusion simply derived from the disconcerting experience of waking each morning in a man’s partially aroused body. In Ian’s aroused body. It gave her ideas she should never have. Ideas that—were she and he ever to escape this entrapment—could only cause her greater confusion.

He disliked her. She disliked him. There could be no two ways about it.

“You could have been a political hostess,” he said when she did not respond. “You could do what you do now with society’s full approbation.”

“I do have society’s approbation.”

“Married to a man of consequence, you could wield great influence.”

“I could wield great influence now, Lord Chance.” She took refuge from bewilderment in censure. “You hold a seat in Lords, or hadn’t you recalled that? How long has it been since you last sat in it?”

“Corinna.” His voice took on a warning note.

This was too much, her thoughts abruptly too tangled in a way she had never, ever imagined possible. It had to be the forced proximity of their situation. And, of course, that wretched kiss. If only she’d had other similar experiences so that
his
kiss would not measure so significantly in her estimation.

“If I had married I would have been obliged to always follow my husband’s policies, his likes and dislikes. I would have had to behave according to his standards rather than my own, and in doing so perhaps would never have achieved the respect that I now hold within elevated circles.”

“Plenty of society hostesses behave similarly. They go their own ways from their husbands, set their own standards.”

“You forget the criticism that you have leveled at me for years—my prickly morality. I do not consider a marriage vow to be an instant license to licentiousness.”

“I meant that you could go your own way socially.”

“Your mother did not.”

His fingertip ticked loudly on the edge of his pen. He placed it onto the desk but did not speak.

“It is a moot point now, at any rate,” she mumbled.

“Let us hope only for the time being.” His voice sounded tight.

A surprising tingle of humor stirred in Corinna’s middle, dissipating her befuddlement.

“Why, Ian, I believe you have just now restrained yourself from quarreling with me.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “All in the interest of returning you to a state in which you may, if desired, accept a gentleman’s hand when he offers it. Now,” he stood, “I will be going.”

“Will you return tomorrow, and again Thursday?”

He nodded and moved toward the door. She followed him into the corridor.

“We will arrange Friday’s meeting at a location that is above reproach but allows for deep play,” he said, taking her cloak from his own footman.

“What for? You’ve been to all the worst hells, I suspect.”

He glanced at the servant. “Yes, but you will be present, as well.”

He would be there to watch the game, in her body.

“Oh. Of course.”

To her surprise, Ian smiled and for an instant she saw him again behind the mask, the irrepressible glint she had become accustomed to seeing in her own mirror over the past several days. Without another word, he departed, leaving her borrowed heart beating with peculiar irregularity in the broad cavity of her chest.

C
ORINNA SUSPECTED
she should have acted with greater wisdom. After all, she’d read plenty of ancient and even recent treatises that warned against the evils of drink. But with her thoughts wretchedly twisted and her pulse still racing hours after Ian’s departure, she saw only one alternative to madness.

She went to his club, found his friends, and ordered a drink.

It began with an innocent glass of wine, nothing stronger than she might have taken with dinner any night. With the second glass she argued to herself that she missed the company of interesting men and women, and imbibing a bit more than usual would help to dull the edge of her discomfort among his cronies.

But Marquess Drake and Lord Grace did not justify her previously poor opinion of them. Plying her with glass after glass of wine, then brandy, they regaled her with tales of their recent journey to Scotland, full of colorful anecdotes about the locals and descriptions of the historical sites they took in. She’d no idea they could be so amusing, nor such regular people. They didn’t speak at all of gambling, and only once did either of them mention a woman: when the marquess noted how an Edinburgh inn-maid’s inconvenient infatuation with Lord Grace left him without a shirt; when he sent it down to be laundered, the girl refused to return it.

Corinna enjoyed herself thoroughly, ate little, drank everything they set before her, and without knowing exactly how it occurred awoke in Ian’s massive bed to afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows.

She turned over and her roiling stomach protested. Her mouth tasted like flax wool, her head pounded, and her veins seemed to run with paste. Once, years ago, she had taken great satisfaction in imagining Ian feeling this wretched after a night of excess. The night of his father’s funeral.

Undoubtedly her lack of charity was coming home to roost.

“Sit up and drink, my lord.” Andrews’s fastidious tones brooked no argument.

Corinna cracked her eyelids open and peered at the glass in the servant’s outstretched hand. She grasped it with unsteady fingers, drank, and nearly cast up her accounts.

The valet stared at her fixedly. Her gaze skittered away. Not up to proving her identity at the moment, she leaned back on the bolster and draped a muscular arm over her eyes.

“Lady Corinna awaits you in your study, my lord.”

“Lady Corinna can go hang,” she grumbled. But she swung Ian’s long legs over the side of the bed, clutching the bedclothes to still the dizziness.

“As you have said many times,” the valet murmured with an odd inflection, and moved to the dressing chamber.

Sometime later, garbed to the nines in a tight-fitting coat, snowy cravat, and buff unmentionables, she made her way on wobbly albeit muscular legs to Ian’s study. He took one look at her and his brows rose.

“Had a night of it, did you?”

“Is it that obvious?” She put a hand to her pounding head.

He laughed. “I’ve looked better.”

He did, nearly always. Corinna could admit that now, although she didn’t know precisely why. Perhaps some sort of warped vanity.

He moved toward the door. “Come on. Fresh air will do you good. We’ll go to the park.”

“The park? No. I couldn’t walk a dozen yards to save my life right now, and I fear I would fall off that enormous black horse if I tried to mount him. My legs feel like aspic.”

“We’ll drive.”

She stared through eyes fogged by tiny blood vessels. “I cannot drive your phaeton.”

“Of course not. We’ll take the curricle.”

“No! Ian, I have the most wretched head of my life and even under the best of circumstances I am a mediocre whip.”

He leaned into the corridor. “Simmons,” he called in a light voice. “Lord Chance wishes the grays harnessed to the curricle. He will be along shortly.” He turned to her. “They’re easy goers. You’ll do fine.”

She narrowed her gaze. “You are not afraid of being seen with me?”

“I am confident my reputation can withstand it.”

“What if I do not wish to be seen with you?”

“Behind the Earl of Chance’s matched grays?” He looked incredulous. “My dear, most ladies would pay for the opportunity.”

A chuckle welled in her chest. “You are unbearably conceited, and I am not most ladies.”

“True.”

Corinna’s amusement abruptly deflated. “I cannot drive your horses. They are too good for me.”

“The delight of excellent carriage horses, Corinna, is that almost anyone can drive them. It’s the hacks that only experts can handle.”

“Why don’t you drive?”

“That, no one would believe.”

Despite her sluggish blood, she bristled. “Why not?”

“It is well known that it pains me even to allow my grooms to handle my cattle.”

And yet he was offering her the ribbons. She frowned.

A grin creased his mouth that upon his own face would certainly have appeared wicked. He shrugged. “Necessity.” He gestured her into the corridor.

“It is not necessary that you drag me out into the overly bright day when my head feels like this,” she said with a great deal more truculence than she intended. “I think you mean to torment me. As usual.”

“Perhaps, but I also have some familiarity with your current state. Believe me, it will help.”

The sun spilled out from behind puffy white clouds, shedding its cheer onto the crowded drives and paths of Hyde Park at this most fashionable hour. The air was crisp, clearing Corinna’s head, and the grays were in fact not difficult to handle although certainly powerful. But Ian’s strength could manage them, and as long as she concentrated they remained in hand. Despite the curious glances passersby and acquaintances sent their way, Corinna found herself enjoying the outing.

A pair of riders came close on one side and greeted them, friends of hers. She nodded and listened to him exchange pleasantries, drawing the cool air into her lungs and feeling better each moment. A glittering blue barouche pulled up on her side.

The Baroness of Weston reclined amidst snowy white leather squabs behind a team of equally milky horses. She wore a brilliant yellow morning gown, cinched beneath her curvaceous breasts with white satin ribbons, and a chip straw hat upon her fashionably short guinea-gold locks, decorated with white and yellow miniature roses looking as fresh as though they’d been picked minutes earlier. To complete the vision, a white shawl draped over her tapering shoulders and she held a tiny yellow and white lace parasol in delicate fingers. Her gentian eyes sparkled, lips parted upon a tinkling laugh as she leaned forward and extended her hand, as though Corinna would take it over the very wheels.

“Why, Chance, what a curiosity to see you here at this hour. You never like to drive in the afternoon,” she purred. “But perhaps your companion anticipates another attack on her well-established virtue from an unexpected quarter? How dreadful that you should again find yourself in the role of lady’s lapdog, especially when, if I recall, you much prefer it the other way around.” Her blue eyes glittered with malice.

Corinna—who had traded banter with some of Europe’s greatest intellects—stared into the half-wit baroness’s breathtaking, upturned face, and wanted to cry.

~o0o~

He must get her away from this. With her sharp tongue and keen wit, Corinna could hold her own against anything Amabel Weston threw her way. But Ian didn’t want to give her that opportunity.

Amabel’s eyes gleamed with spiteful intent. She might say anything to him in her current state of betrayal. He had complete confidence that with a crook of his finger he could woo the baroness back into his bed—once he possessed that finger again, of course. But he wouldn’t wager on Corinna not saying something rash now. Her face looked extraordinarily grim.

His
face.

What had he been thinking to bring them out in public like this? She would ruin his life, and he would be obliged to sit back and watch it happen.

But not today. This time, being present, he could put a foot in the way of it. He bid Corinna’s friends a hasty
adieu
.

“Lady Weston,” he said in Corinna’s lightest tones, “what a lovely barouche. It matches the color of your eyes.”

Those eyes flickered wide for an instant, then narrowed. Amabel smiled. Her gaze shifted back to Corinna, then returned to Ian.

“And what a lovely way with words you have, Lady Corinna,” she said silkily, perusing the black dress Corinna’s maid had buttoned him into earlier. “But of course I do think I have heard that somewhere before, haven’t I, my lord?”

Corinna’s brow lifted, and her mouth opened. Ian jumped in.

“Thank you, my lady. How gracious of you. My lord, perhaps you might drive me home now. I have that appointment shortly, you know.”

Corinna lifted the ribbons. “Of course.”

“Oh, you mustn’t leave just yet.” Amabel waved her parasol back and forth behind her head like an upside down pendulum. “I’m only becoming accustomed to the sight of so much black in one carriage. I dare say it will prepare me for the next time I attend a funeral.”

The grays snorted, unusually restive. Corinna’s hands gripped the leathers tight. It was a miracle she didn’t respond to Amabel. Then she turned her strained gaze to him and he understood why. She didn’t wish to say something he would not.

Ian’s throat felt oddly thick.

“My lady,” he said, “would you allow me the pleasure of your company in your beautiful carriage for a moment? I must be getting to that appointment soon, of course, but I would so much enjoy a brief
tête-à-tête
with you first.”

Amabel’s pencil-thin brows lifted. Corinna’s cheeks seemed somewhat pale. But neither of them protested. Quickly he said, “My lord?” Corinna wrapped the reins around the dowel and took his hand to help him from the curricle. Amabel’s groom handed him up into the barouche.

“Thank you, Lord Chase,” he said to Corinna with an even smile. “I will see you tomorrow to continue our work.”

“Good day, ladies.” Corinna nodded, plucked his grays into motion with a jolt that left Ian feeling sick to his stomach, and drove away.

“Lady Weston.” He turned to Amabel. “Let us be frank with each other, shall we? Lord Chance has asked me to assist him with a project for which he is somewhat unsuited, having to do with the collection in his personal library. I live quite near him here, and our families have been close neighbors in the countryside for decades. Why, he is like a brother to me.” Bile rose in his throat. “In short, there is nothing whatsoever to distress you in our association.”

That ought to do it. Neat, to the point, probably just as Corinna would have handled it herself if she cared to. The notion passed through his mind that Corinna would in fact not care in the least about what Amabel Weston thought of her. But Ian did, though that didn’t settle well in his gut.

Amabel opened her eyes wide, her lashes fanning out. “Why, Lady Corinna, you are quite the teaser, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what you can mean, my lady,” he said honestly. Women were irrational. Except Corinna, but she had rather too much rationality for his tastes.

“It’s common knowledge how Chance stole you right out from beneath the Marquess of Abernathy’s nose a few days ago. You cannot hide it from me, of all people.”

“You have mistaken the matter, my lady,” Ian said tightly. Damn and blast. “Lord Chance merely sought to defend me from unjust accusations.”

“Oh, you may tell yourself that now, my dear,” Amabel fluttered her lashes and her parasol ticked back and forth again, setting up a rhythm that lulled Ian into bemusement. “But no woman can resist the lure of a man like Ian Chance. I ought to know.”

She ought to know? He hadn’t needed to lure. The instant the gravedigger threw the dirt over her husband’s still warm body she’d been at Ian’s doorstep, begging. She’d begged several years before that, too, but he’d made it unquestionably clear to her that he never dallied with married women.

“Alas,” Amabel sighed and looked up into the bared branches of the trees lining the roadway, “he was terribly disappointing.”

Ian froze. “I beg your pardon?”

Amabel’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, you
know
, Lady Corinna. In a certain intimate area he lacks, well, shall we say, finesse?”

Finesse?

It was insupportable. Ian had kept a good number of mistresses over the past decade, all of whom he still enjoyed friendships with, a number of whom frequently asked him to renew their more intimate relations. Of course, he’d broken off each of those affairs gradually and carefully. Corinna had not allowed for that with Amabel. Even so, the baroness was probably a mistake to begin with. Her beauty alone had attracted him.

When he didn’t respond, her luscious lips parted in a small O. A fortnight ago Ian would have suggested to her precisely where she might put to use that ideally fashioned opening. Now he just wanted it to close.

“Forgive me, Lady Corinna,” she said sweetly. “Perhaps I’ve got it wrong. You really aren’t to Chance’s tastes, after all. Perhaps you truly are helping him with his library. Oh, how awkward.” She pretended to look away casually, then her gaze swung back. “Or perhaps you seek from him the same thing I did. Perhaps we are sisters of a sort.”

He should get out of the carriage now and walk the remainder of the way. “What sort is that, my lady?”

Amabel leaned closer, a brilliant smile on her lips. “The sort that recognizes opportunity when we see it. What woman would not fancy being addressed as a countess? Even
you
must see the advantage in that.” She dimpled in delight, scanning Corinna’s ebony garments again. Her mouth abruptly sank into a pout. “Or perhaps not.”

The barouche halted before Corinna’s house.

“Well, Lady Corinna, this has been a diversion. I’m sure I didn’t know what you intended when you came up into my carriage, but I feel ever so much better now having chatted with you. Good day.”

Ian stood on the sidewalk and watched the carriage carry his erstwhile mistress up the street. He looked in the direction of his own house.

No. He’d had enough of women for the day. But he couldn’t go to his club, either.