To Charm a Naughty Countess (5 page)

So she
did
hold the earl in disfavor. Michael felt as gratified as if he’d done something far more heroic for her than stand under a lantern and allow her to grab his arm. “The peace offering declined,” he murmured.

“Indeed,” Everett said, equally low. “The villain, such as he is, vanquished. Poor fellow.”

Michael’s mouth twitched. Everett was turning out to be amusing company, especially when he directed his observations away from Michael.

This desire to observe seemed to be what had split Everett from the remainder of the callers—whether by his doing or theirs, Michael knew not. But it made sense to Michael to do the same. He could search for clues about Caroline: why she had offered to help him; what she thought of him.

His eyes needed training in the subtle rules of society, just as they had once learned to interpret an engineer’s mechanical drawings. Already, Michael had forgotten an essential component: a bouquet. And the fact that one ought not to flip the furniture upside down.

But people had fewer moving parts than the simplest of machines. It should be possible to understand them, inscrutable though they seemed now. Trevithick’s steam engines had seemed mysterious too, until Michael familiarized himself with their inner workings.

“Gracious,” said Caroline as Stratton began to nudge himself onto her settee. “Can it really be quarter of four?”

A dozen hands reached for fobs, drew out pocket watches. Unnecessary. A mantel clock squatted within sight.

“Yes, it can be,” Michael said. “As of five minutes ago, it was forty past the hour.”

Caroline shot him a look, though he thought she smiled faintly. Then she began a flurry of graceful fidgeting, nudging dainty embroidered cushions, and smoothing her gown. “I am dreadfully sorry, you dear men, but I’ve an appointment I simply can’t miss. I do hate to end our time together.”

Her mouth was not a pout, but something much better. It showed not childish disappointment, but regret. And promise.

Michael had not known a mouth could say so much without uttering a word.

The other men obeyed the command to depart, bowing, babbling their promises of invitation, jostling one another as they tried for one last look at their queen.

Michael waited, and when the eddy of departing callers began to trickle away, he aimed a bow in Caroline’s direction and trod toward the door. Wondering why he had come only to lie about a foolishly named flower, then make a fool of himself in turn. He understood no more about Caroline’s offer than when he’d come.

Whap
. Something heavy and soft struck him between the shoulder blades.

Michael turned. Caroline smiled at him and tossed a small embroidered cushion from hand to hand. Its twin lay on the floor at Michael’s feet.

“So sorry, Wyverne,” she said. “It must have slipped from my grasp. Do stay and I shall have a maid brush your coat.”

To Michael’s right, the last of the candied callers was thundering down the stairs to the ground floor.

He was left alone with Caro, then. “You did that on purpose.”

“Of course I did. Don’t tell me you’ve never wanted to hit a duke with a pillow.”

He considered. The only other duke he had known well was his father. “Not with a pillow, no.”

Caroline retrieved her embroidered missile from the floor, then pounded it into place among a litter of similar cushions on her long settee. “Did you enjoy mingling with society again, Wyverne? I am honored—or maybe you should be honored—to have you encounter the cream of London’s bachelor society in my drawing room.”

“They remind me of tame animals, actually. Puppies.” Michael wanted to pace and shake out his feet. Instead, he lifted each booted heel and planted them firmly on the patterned carpet.

Rather than look insulted, Caroline grinned. “There is nothing at all wrong in playing with puppies.” Michael snorted, and Caroline laughed. “You’re not the first to call them puppies. The other was my cousin and companion, on whose judgment I always relied.”

“Past tense?”

“Not exactly. I still love her dearly, but she married and ran off to a quiet little town outside London. It is the one decision she made that I could ever fault—not her marriage, which was wonderful, but her decision to leave the City.” A rueful expression crossed her face. “Anyway, it’s strange that you should use the same word for my callers. If I am not careful, I may find myself asking you for advice, as I did Frances.”

Michael’s mind tumbled with silks and slippers and lacy unmentionables. “It would hardly be appropriate for me to advise you as your lady’s companion did.”

“Honestly, Wyverne. I wouldn’t ask you which bonnet went best with a certain frock, as I did my dear cousin. But if I wanted to know which shipping company was the most likely to guarantee me a return on my investment—”

“East India has locked up the trade in tea for the time being. The company is England’s most certain investment right now, outside of the Funds.” He blinked. “Oh. Is that what you meant? The manly sort of advice?”

“Well said. Yes. No one expects you to know how a woman lives in a man’s world, Wyverne, only how a man lives. Knowledge such as yours could make you a leader in society if you wished.”

“God forbid.”

“It needn’t go that far. But if you don’t know the answer to a question, you can always act offended that the question was put to you in the first place. No one will think less of a duke for having a poker up his backside. In fact, it’s almost expected.”

Michael’s head reared back. “I
beg
your pardon.”

“Perfect.” Caroline looked delighted. “That is exactly the tone of voice I meant. Now, if you could contrive to look down your nose slightly?”

Michael tilted his chin up thirty degrees. His eyes crossing over the bridge of his nose, he located Caroline’s smiling face. It was hard not to smile back, to keep his voice chilly as he repeated, “I
beg
your pardon.”

She shrugged. “Fair, fair. It’ll take practice. It’s only a shield, anyway. One of those things to say when you can’t think of anything to say.”

“Do you have such shields too?”

She considered. “
I’m as delighted as ever to see you
?”

The words she had used to greet Stratton. How had she greeted Michael himself? He couldn’t remember right now. Nor was he sure why she had offered to help him, or kept him after her other callers departed—or when they might talk about his impending marriage.

So he barked, as he always did when his thoughts began to spiral fruitlessly. “What, pray tell, is a coquelicot carnation? Is it some joke upon me?”

“It is not a joke, but an excuse,” Caroline said. “So that my callers would envy your foresight, rather than feeling superior to you for its lack.”

“Do you require blooms as payment for your company? What is the significance of a gift if it is required?”

Caroline’s eyes went glass-hard. “
I
require nothing, Wyverne. What flowers my callers choose to bring are just that: their choice. But there is an unspoken rule in society that a gentleman brings a gift when he calls on a lady. If you dislike the idea of flowers, sweetmeats are also acceptable.” She paused, then softened. “Such gifts are for the sake of appearances, like changing one’s clothing before dinner. In themselves, these acts may have little meaning, but they prove that one knows the rules of society.”

Ah. Those unspoken rules. They had been beaten into him throughout his youth, but they wouldn’t stay. His mind sieved them out like tiny herrings, holding fast to the meatier subjects of engineering, accounting, agriculture.

She did not deserve his harshness; she was only following the rules. And he should too, until he had captured a wife. “I will bring a gift next time I call.”

Caroline waved a careless hand. “There is no need, Wyverne. Simply tell everyone how well your coquelicot carnation is growing and postpone its delivery date, and I believe you will skate by on its uniqueness.”

She meant to help him.
Had
helped him in a tiny way. His mouth opened and closed, not wanting to grant a
thank
you
for something as small as falsifying a flower.

“Please call me Michael,” was what came out instead.

She popped up from her recline. “May I? How extraordinary.”

Michael splayed his fingers as he’d seen other gentlemen do and studied the buff on his fingernails. To the smallest detail, his valet had turned him out properly for a man of high society. Now his hands looked strangely decorative, as if they were no longer meant to be used.

“I would not have thought you would be surprised by this type of familiarity, since you grant it so often yourself.” He tried to speak lightly. He was not successful.

“The world has trimmed us from very different cloth. I do not expect you to tailor your behavior to mine, Michael.” A pause, as she tasted his name on her lips for the first time. He wondered if she recognized that such familiarity from him was a gift far more significant than a bouquet.

“We might not be so different, Caro,” he replied. “We made a pact together, after all. We must want the same things.”

“For you to find a rich wife? Truly, it has been my ambition in life this past decade.” She toyed with a silken cushion tassel, her ripe mouth curved.

Michael frowned. “I didn’t ask for your assistance. You offered it, which you needn’t have.”

“I did. I mustn’t tease you, Michael. I know you don’t like it.” Caroline looked contrite.

“You may act in the manner of your choosing.”

“Of course I may, you dratted duke. You needn’t give me permission to speak my mind in my own home. I’m trying to be gracious, that’s all.”

He drew a chair near the settee and seated himself facing Caroline. “It is hardly gracious to call me a
dratted
duke
, you know.”

She grinned. “There’s that ducal voice again. Well done. And you’re right, I shouldn’t have said that. In the privacy of my own home, I do tend to, ah, relax the proprieties.”

Michael could not imagine why her cheeks flushed, but the effect was lovely against her golden hair and the grass-green of her gown. Heat shuddered through his body, and he folded his arms tightly against it.

“To return to the matter at hand,” Caroline said, “propriety is exactly what we are concerned with. Namely, finding you a wife. A respectable one with pots of money. Need she be pretty as well?”

Michael only stared at fair hair, translucent skin, the curve of pink lips.

His mouth felt dry, his throat scratchy. A warning tap began in his head:
answer.
But he didn’t know the answer. His hands fell to his sides, then found the frail arms of his chair and clasped at them as if they were oars on a lifeboat.

Caroline spoke on. “We can but try for it. I’ve thought of three possibilities. None of them titled, of course.”

“Why
of
course
?”

Caroline dropped the silk tassel she had been marring. “Because the
ton
thinks you mad. Despite the lure of your title, they’ll be reluctant to ally their blue-blooded daughters to a line that might be tainted. You will do better seeking a wife in a family that wants to move up in the polite world. They’re more willing to overlook eccentricity.”

“Of course,” Michael echoed.

So, it was just as Sanders had warned him. As his own father had predicted so long ago. Now he must find a wife who would marry him
despite
.

Caro tapped his arm. “Michael, I don’t mean to offend you.”

“You have not.” He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “I know that you are quite right.”

“Money is what you need, not blue blood. If blood alone would answer your creditors’ demands, you could tap yours and sell it by the tablespoon.”

“That is gruesome.”

“Merely practical,” Caroline said. “I know you’re here for the sake of your dukedom and your tenants. And I am guessing you would rather bleed yourself dry than fritter about London unnecessarily.”

“Perhaps not
entirely
dry.” He tried to smile. To his surprise, he was successful.

“I believe by the time your courtship is completed, no one will think you anything but sane. More than sane, even. Brilliant. There’s a fine line between genius and madness, you know, and the line can be easily bridged by coin.”

The same notion had once occurred to him. “You think I can buy my sanity, then?”

“I have no doubt that you have always had it. The polite world has simply misinterpreted it. Having a full purse will encourage the
ton
to reevaluate you more generously. It made all the difference for me.”

He huffed. “You were never scorned by society.”

“As you have been away for eleven years, you cannot know what my life has been.” She gave him a cool smile. “Now, are you ready to hear about the young women I have identified?”

Again, Michael’s grip on the arms of his chair tightened. If Caroline’s voice had taken on the slightest tinge of pity or relish as she referred to his speckled character, he would have left her house at once. But she simply shrugged it off, as though a reputation for madness mattered little more than a reputation for overspending one’s quarterly allowance. She thought him sane; she offered her aid; she was confident of success.

She did not view him as someone damaged, after all.

The realization was freeing: he felt light and grounded at once, ready to do what was required of him not only as a duty, but with pleasure.

Though his duty and his pleasure had nothing to do with flaxen hair, with scandalous offers and floral figments. This was a matter of business.

The idea of trusting anyone, especially Caroline, was… unprecedented. But Michael was not averse to the unprecedented. If he had been, he would not have dredged his money into canals and boiled it away with steam power. And she certainly knew the business of society much better than he. It was quite logical to consult an expert.

His hands relaxed. “Very well. I would be grateful for your help. When shall we start?”