Taming Beauty (10 page)

The ninth Baron Malleville did not recognize the warning as he led a silent, rumpled and barefoot Lilith up over the hill and down the other side.

Nor did he recognize it when he spotted the gray and blue carriage sitting on the weed-riddled front lawn, Dunaway’s servants scurrying around, offloading trunks, portmanteaus and hat boxes. Lord Dunaway and Lady Priscilla stood off to the side in animated conversation with two slender, elegantly dressed ladies.

Lilith tugged her hand free of his and increased her pace until she was nearly running down the incline. Jasper allowed her to take the lead, his gaze drifting from the wispy curls that had escaped the lopsided coil atop her head to spill down her narrow back, to the sway of her hips above long legs hidden beneath wrinkled and grass-stained yellow skirts.

He’d nestled between those legs, had one of them curled up over his flanks, pulling him tight against her swiveling hips, rendering him insensible to everything but the need to take her, to mark her and claim her as his own.

“Lilith!” One of the newly arrived ladies on the lawn called out, watching their approach from beneath the brim of an outrageous bonnet festooned with flowers and trailing ribbons.

The other lady spun around, bright blue skirts swirling about her, one gloved hand rising to shade her eyes. Sunlight glinted off golden hair pulled into a long braid resting over her shoulder. 

“Good God, what are they doing here?” Lilith’s husky voice carried on the breeze, trembling with what might have been shock or even horror.

“Friends of yours?” Jasper caught up with her and reached for her hand, thinking to offer whatever support or comfort he could.

“What are you doing?” she hissed, sidestepping and batting at his hand. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Quite possibly,” he replied with a rusty laugh.

“Stop growling at me.”

“I wasn’t aware—”

“This is all your fault.”

“My fault?”

“Why, oh why did you have to turn up stubborn?” she asked. “And honorable, of all things?”

“Look who’s come to visit,” Lady Priscilla called out with a giggle.

“Yes, kitten, just look who’s come to visit,” Dunaway echoed around a chuckle, taking hold of his daughter’s arm and holding her back when the two ladies started across the lawn.

As they neared, Jasper was struck by their youth and beauty, but still the warning did not quite register.

The bonneted lady was perhaps eight and ten, with wispy tendrils of flaxen hair falling to frame a faintly square chin and wide mouth. Her skin was as pale as parchment without so much as a freckle dotting her straight, narrow nose or high, sculpted cheekbones. Dark brows winged up beneath a smooth, patrician forehead and equally dark lashes surrounded eyes as green as new grass, a cynicism beyond her tender years lurking in their depths.

The other lady was likely still in the schoolroom, though there was nothing of the innocent ingénue in her wide-set turquoise eyes. Her complexion was beyond sun-kissed, bordering on bronzed. She possessed the same high cheekbones, angular jaw, and perfectly arched brows, though both her brows and her lashes were fair. A dimple flashed as her lush lips curled up at one corner, offering up a lopsided smile that struck Jasper as faintly mocking.

Both ladies were dressed in the height of fashion, their gowns clearly chosen to match their eyes and call attention to their willowy arms and long necks.

There was something oddly familiar in their graceful movements, in the tilt of their chins and in their inquisitive gazes as they landed on Lilith, ignoring Jasper as if he weren’t standing close enough their shadows merged and melded like two lovers sprawled across the lawn.

“Good Lord, Lilith, you look as if you’ve taken a tumble down a hill,” the bonneted beauty said by way of greeting.

“What on earth are you doing here, Harry?” Lilith demanded, coming to a halt and thrusting her hands to her hips.

“Alabaster could hardly make the journey alone,” the improbably named lady replied airily. “And when Kate caught me shimmying down the tree outside my window, there was nothing for it but to bring her along.”

“You snuck out of school?” Lilith aimed the question at the younger girl. “Good gracious, Mr. Price will be worried sick when he realizes you’ve gone missing.”

“We stopped off at Price of Folly on the way,” Kate replied. “Robbie understood perfectly the reason for our escape from Miss Beaumont’s hallowed halls.”

“Well, I am certainly glad someone does,” Lilith replied. “For I cannot say I understand it at all.”

“It’s quite simple, really,” Kate said. “Your grandmother felt unequal to the task you set for her, so she’s pawned it off on us.”

“Hmm, pawn as in a chess piece one is willing to sacrifice for the greater good?” Harry mused. “Or pawn as in to pledge as collateral on a loan?”

“Honestly, Harry, this is no time for your convoluted word games,” the younger lady drawled with a low, husky laugh. “Either way, I imagine Lilith is the pawn in Dunaway’s latest scheme.”

“Have you been pledged to this farmer in order to satisfy that man’s debts?” Harry raked her gaze over Jasper, her nose wrinkling and her lips pursing.

“It is Sissy who is pledged to marry Baron Malleville,” Lilith replied with a sigh Jasper wanted to believe held regret. “I am merely Dunaway’s sacrificial pawn.”

“Sacrificial pawn?” Jasper repeated, his gaze skipping from one lady to another in an attempt to keep up with their quixotic conversation.

“Oh for God’s sake, Lilith.” Harry clasped Lilith’s hand and removed her from his side, her shadow disengaging from his and leaving Jasper feeling an odd pang of loss. “When will you cease allowing that man to embroil you in his peccadilloes?”

“I didn’t recognize the trap until it was too late,” Lilith admitted, falling into step between the two ladies and allowing herself to be towed toward the house.

“What trap?” Jasper asked, taking up the rear position behind the trio.

“It is always a trap when that man comes calling,” Harry said.

Lilith pulled her hand from Harry’s, leaving the three ladies walking side by side but not touching.

“I’m afraid Harry is right,” Kate said. “It is best not to answer the door when the Earl of Dunaway comes knocking.”

“You haven’t compromised your principals, have you?” Harry shot a sharp glance back over her shoulder at Jasper, her green eyes fierce.

And all too familiar.

“Or anything else?” Kate added.

“Not yet, but I’ll admit to a near miss.”

“How near?”

“Near enough.”

“Then it’s a good thing we arrived when we did.”

“A splendid thing,” Lilith agreed.

“He didn’t attempt to force himself upon you, did he?” Harry asked.

“Of course not,” Lilith answered. “Baron Malleville is as honorable as the day is long. And Cornish days are longer than most.”

“Well, come along,” Harry ordered. “Auntie Alabaster is inside and the sooner we put our heads together and come up with a plan, the sooner we can be gone from this desolate patch of moorland.”

“It rather reminds me of home,” Kate said. “Did you see all the sheep grazing in the pasture?”

“You and your sheep,” Harry huffed out. “You likely named each and every one of them as we rode past.”

Lady Priscilla turned and trailed after the ladies as they passed Dunaway and continued into the house, Dervish welcoming them as if he’d never before seen a quartet of beautiful women cross the threshold.

“They are quite spectacular when seen together, are they not?” the earl asked, his gaze sharp.

His green-as-new-grass gaze, situated in a face comprised of exquisitely angled cheekbones, a straight, narrow nose, a wide mouth and a square jaw, all topped by blond curls—the masculine mold from which four beautiful women had been created.

“Yours, I take it?” Jasper asked, never mind the answer was written on the earl’s features, quite literally.

“I do proudly claim them as my own, though Harry refuses to return the favor.”

“You are an arrogant ass.”

Dunaway shrugged away the words with a smile. “One day soon, when Annalise and Madeleine are out from beneath their mother’s eagle eye, I shall gather them all together and have a family portrait painted.”

“What of the heir your wife is purportedly carrying?”

“Another daughter, no doubt.”

“You don’t seem unduly bothered by the possibility of not acquiring a son to inherit the title.”

“I’ll be quite dead so why should I be bothered by the probability my estate and title will revert to the crown?

“And what will be your daughters’ fates should you die tomorrow?” Jasper demanded. “Have you no care for their futures?”

“My countess will see to it our daughters marry well,” Dunaway replied easily. “Kate is an heiress and as such will have her pick of the gentlemen when the time comes. And Harry…well, if ever there was a woman born to carve out her own destiny, Harry is that woman.”

“And Miss Aberdeen?” Jasper itched to wipe the supercilious grin off Dunaway’s face with his fists.

“The fair Lilith is something of a conundrum, is she not? I might suggest you settle a sum and a house on her. Except you haven’t the funds to keep her in the luxury to which she is accustomed, and while I did once dally with cousins, to disastrous effect, even I know diddling one’s wife’s sister is beyond the pale.” Dunaway turned and ambled toward the house as if he hadn’t all but suggested Jasper make Lilith his mistress. “So I suppose if you want Lil, you’ll have to marry her.”

“Marry Lilith?” Jasper repeated, his heart thundering and his mind racing with possibilities.

Dunaway skipped up the steps to the front porch and turned around. “Of course, first you’ll have to sever your betrothal to Sissy, thereby foregoing the thirty thousand pounds at three percent that come with her.”

Christ, he should have known Dunaway was simply toying with him. The earl would no more offer up Lilith on fair terms than he would turn away from an innocent woman, a disastrous investment or a losing hand of cards.

“Not to say Lilith would come to you entirely empty-handed.” Dunaway smiled like a cat swimming in a tub of fresh cream. “Hmm, I suppose I could see my way to dowering her with that drafty, decrepit old house on the Thames. Charmed Crosshairs, the locals call it, on account of the elderly gentlemen battling over the garden walls from both sides.”

Jasper’s hands clenched into fists as he fought his own battle to hold onto his temper at the man’s taunting. He held the mortgage to the property and by all accounts the house was falling to ruins and the swampland it sat on was slowly being swallowed by the river.

“Is my offer not to your liking, then?” Dunaway asked. “Ah, well, I can’t say as I blame you. Lilith is a contrary creature, fiercely independent and far too stubborn and selfish to make any sane man a good wife. Still, you can’t blame a father for trying to see his daughter well married.”

Jasper stomped past the smiling, sorry excuse for a father standing on the portico lest he give in to the urge to murder the man.

The sisters were gathered at the foot of the stairs, embroiled in animated, if hushed, conversation with a diminutive woman dressed in scarlet silk and dripping in diamonds and rubies.

The infamous Alabaster Sinclair waved one gloved hand through the air, silencing the ladies as she turned to watch Jasper’s approach.

Good Lord, the courtesan had to be past her sixtieth year, yet she retained the beauty which had reportedly started a decades’ long rift between two dukes and caused more than one young buck to lose his life dueling over her negligible honor.

Pale, silver curls tumbled artfully from an intricate coil of braids and loops atop her head, drifting down to frame delicate features dominated by large sapphire eyes and plump, rouged lips currently lifted into a smile promising all sorts of wicked, carnal pleasures.

Jasper looked from the lady to her granddaughter, unsettled to find the same smile gracing Lilith’s lips as she leaned upon the newel post in an elegant, indolent pose.

As she straightened from her graceful slouch, it occurred to Jasper she’d spoken true that night on the balcony. She did possess her own brand of prudence and along with it more honor and integrity than most men could lay claim to.

She might well be a virgin still, but she was no innocent girl untutored in the ways of men. She’d recognized the hunger in him from the very beginning. How easily she might have set her hooks into him, slowly and carefully reeling him in only to net him with his own desire.

Instead, she’d warned him time and again, finally spelling it all out, word by word.

Entice him, entrap him, string him along and, for an encore, pauper him.

As Jasper stormed past the ladies into his study, slamming the door behind him with enough force to send a shower of rubble falling from the stone hearth, he felt the sharp sting of regret.

He ought to have taken the sacrificial pawn Dunaway had offered up, claimed Lilith on the moors and sealed both their fates, familial duty and financial considerations be damned.