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  “Has he told me?” she retorted, coming out of her seat again. “Does the man ever speak of anything else would be a better question. Roger is convinced a woman requires a husband to look after her and manage her affairs and since I’ve seen fit to toss in his face—his words—every suitable candidate he’s put forth, he had no choice but to issue the Remmley ultimatum, and now he won’t give in. He insists it would be an insult to the duke to back out at this late date and that he can’t afford that politically. Just as politically he can’t afford a sister who lives alone and makes her own decisions and chooses for herself the company she’ll keep.”

  Ah, thought Christian, sensing that they were growing closer to the heart of the matter.

  “And,” he added, “one who sets tongues wagging by hiring women to drive her coach and tend her gardens and who dares to intrude on a God-given male domain by running a successful business of her own?”

  Her beautiful eyes were no less beguiling when narrowed to angry slits, he discovered.

  “You sound just like Roger,” she said, folding her arms stiffly across her chest. It was clearly not meant as a compliment. “I take it you share his ludicrous opinion that a woman needs a man to manage her affairs?”

  “I’m not sure,” he replied honestly. “I’d have to know more about the woman, and the situation in question.”

  She waved her hand impatiently. “The situation is that I want to be left alone to do what I want with my life. I am financially independent and have asked Roger for neither assistance nor advice. On the contrary, I have been most considerate of his sensibilities and conducted all my business affairs with the utmost discretion.”

  Christian quirked a brow.

  “That is to say with as much discretion as possible while still being competitive. I have even tolerated Roger’s endless meddling and matchmaking attempts. Until now. I am a busy woman, with others depending on me, and I no longer have either the time or inclination to indulge his fantasies for my future.”

  “So you don’t deny the rumors? You are running your own business and employing women exclusively?”

  She tossed her head. “I am.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I have this revolutionary idea that women have as much need—and right—to eat and keep a roof over their heads and care for their children as men do.”

  “Some would argue that it’s a man’s responsibility to feed and care for his wife and children.”

  “Then men will just have to cease running off to war and getting themselves killed, won’t they?” she retorted. “The women who work with me are all widows, war widows most of them, with young children and no other means of putting food on the table. Neither my brother nor Remmley nor any of their fine, upstanding gentlemen friends were willing to take a chance on these women, so I did.”

  “And in the process you get to thumb your nose at an overbearing brother and make yourself the center of a great deal of attention.”

  “Is that what you think of me?” she demanded, hands on her hips, a warrior’s gleam in her eye.

  He shrugged. “I am not sure what to think. Aren’t you the one who once told me she enjoyed shocking people and wanted to dedicate her life to doing things others didn’t dare?”

  “Yes, but I was sixteen at the time, a child … barely out of the nursery, to quote you.”

  “It appears you haven’t changed much.”

  Delilah pressed her lips together and folded her arms stiffly in front of her. “Think whatever pleases you,” she said.

  With a toss of her head she began to pace restlessly, whirling to face him from the far corner of the room. “But even if you share Roger’s asinine opinion about women, do you really believe that the punishment for wanting to live my own life should be a loveless marriage, shackled to a man who creaks when he walks and drools when he chews and whose hands are so cold they make me shiver? Do you?”

  No, he thought, meeting her impassioned gaze. God no. Though he could well understand why a man, any man, even one as old as Remmley, would want to put his hands on her. The beauty that had been only a promise at sixteen was in full flower now. The coltishness was gone from her movements and the wary innocence from her gaze … to devastating effect.

  With her full breasts, narrow waist, and gracefully curved hips, she might have stepped out of one of the fantasies he’d woven during the long, lonely nights between battles. Her eyes, angled beguilingly and smudged with dark lashes, reflected a tantalizing sensuality. Her cheekbones were high and her full lips rosy and provocative, souvenirs of a Hungarian Gypsy ancestor. Or so she’d told him on one of their long, rambling, clandestine walks years ago. With Delilah, he was never quite sure. Of anything. That was part of what had attracted him to her so strongly and in utter defiance of common sense.

  The idea of her youth and beauty being sacrificed for the sake of politics, or appearances, revolted him.

  “No,” he said at last. “I don’t think you should be forced to marry Remmley. Not for any reason.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief and looked hopeful. “Then you’ll help me?”

  “I might,” he said. “You still haven’t explained exactly what you have in mind.”

  “Nothing too complicated, since I have only a week before Roger intends to make the formal announcement of our betrothal. I’d first thought to avoid the inevitable by making myself so sick at the last minute that I would be unable to attend the ball Roger has planned. That’s why I needed Lillith’s nostrum.”

  “Let me get this straight. You intended to drink something you knew would make you sick?”

  “Yes, and there would be nothing Roger could do about it.” Her eyes sparkled. “Brilliant, isn’t it?”

  “Idiotic is more like it,” Christian retorted. “For once, couldn’t you have just thought to do what any other female would and plead a simple headache?”

  “You obviously don’t know Roger as well as you think. Nothing short of a disgusting and violent display of illness would prevent him from dragging me there to make an appearance. Obviously that’s no longer an option, though I still don’t understand what happened to the contents of the bottle.”

  “Spilled,” he said. “Hellishly clumsy of me, I know.”

  “You might have told me that instead of trying to pass off an empty bottle on me.”

  “I might have,” he allowed. “But would you have been so amenable to handing over the other bottle in exchange for nothing?”

  “We’ll never know, will we?” Her small smile gave way to a look of consternation. “Why are you so eager to obtain the incantation in the bottle?”

  Christian briefly considered telling her the truth. Then sanity returned. “I’m helping out a friend,” he said.

  “Now you’ll be helping another old friend at the same time. Me. Things have a way of working out for the best, don’t you think?”

  “For you, perhaps,” he said. “You’re not the one being bled to get back something he’s already bought and paid royally for.”

  “Stop grumbling. You’ll get your bottle back in plenty of time to help your friend.”

  “Provided I succeed in ruining you to your satisfaction?”

  “Yes, but that shouldn’t be a problem for you, of all people. All you have to do is be seen with me, frequently, and in ever-so-slightly compromising situations. I know for a fact that Remmley is not particularly fond of you. The mere suggestion that you are my special confidant will taint me by association and render me forever unsuitable in his eyes.”

  “Thinks that highly of me, does he?” he asked dryly.

  “I’m afraid so. As do most proper members of society.”

  “Hypocrites.”

  “And thank heaven they are or my plan would never work.” She smiled. “Now then, we should begin immediately. I’ve made plans to attend the theater with friends this evening. You can stop by our box and insist on speaking privately with me and then—”

  “No.”
/>   “No?”

  “No. If I agree to do what you ask, I will not be given instructions and fed my lines like some sort of puppet on a string. I’m perfectly capable of compromising a woman.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I know.”

  Christian cursed silently. He’d handed her the needle and she’d wasted no time pricking him with it. His hide would no doubt resemble a pincushion by the time she was through with him. If he went along with her plan.

  “So,” she prodded. “Will you do it?”

  “If I do, will you promise to relinquish the bottle—with the incantation intact—on the night of your brother’s ball, regardless of the outcome?”

  She paled at the possibility of failure, but nodded. “I promise.”

  Christian considered his options. They weren’t encouraging. He was damned—quite literally—if he surrendered the incantation and walked away. On the other hand, if he agreed to her scheme it would mean spending time with Delilah, and something warned him that could present a different sort of danger.

  It was, he realized suddenly, a new twist on a quandary he’d faced countless times in his reckless life. Flames were licking at the back of his heels and up ahead Delilah was holding the frying pan, waiting for him to jump.

  Old habits die hard, he thought, sighing and steeling himself to do what he inevitably did at such moments.

  He jumped.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A GENTLEMAN WOULD have given Delilah advance warning of how and when he intended to tryst with her. That was precisely why Christian had not done so. He wasn’t a gentleman, not much of one, anyway. Besides, he thought, taking care to stand in the shadows by the side of the road, their association had less to do with courtship rituals than blackmail. At least that’s what he kept telling himself.

  He had discovered that old habits weren’t the only thing that died hard. The last seven years might not have existed for the way he reacted when he was near Delilah. The restless anticipation that tightened the muscles in his chest, and lower, was the same he had felt that long-ago night as he strode across the ballroom at Greenwall, her family home.

  He hadn’t wanted to be there. Country house parties were not his preferred venue, but a more alluring invitation had fallen through when the lady’s husband returned home unexpectedly. He’d arrived at Greenwall feeling moody, regretting he’d let himself be talked into coming. Then he saw Delilah and he was transfixed.

  “Dance with me,” he’d said without preamble when he reached her side.

  It wasn’t a request. What it was, as evidenced by the shocked murmur that passed like a dark cloud across the elegant assemblage, was a flagrant violation of all that tonish society held dear. Delilah was sixteen, a pure-as-the-driven-snow innocent about to experience her first London season. And he was twenty-four, the Blackmoor Devil, a man of vast and unholy experience who ought to have known better than to let his interest be waylaid by a pair of wide green eyes flirting outrageously with him across a dance floor.

  He did know better, of course. It had been years since he’d prowled within ten feet of a virgin. That’s why he could offer no rational explanation for his actions that evening, nor afterward. Not then. Not now.

  To his credit, he had never actively pursued Delilah during the week-long springiest comprised of picnics and parties and balls. Not that her family would have permitted it had he tried. But neither had he discouraged her furtive pursuit of him. She’d called the tune, but he had danced, and he’d been infinitely more knowledgeable about the steps.

  He’d made himself available, he’d fallen into each of her inexpertly laid traps, and so they had spent many hours alone together, walking along cool, shady forest paths, rowing across the secluded cove she had shown him, and talking, always talking, more openly and naturally than he had ever been inclined to converse with the countless more glib and sophisticated women of his acquaintance.

  He had understood what was happening, of course. She had developed a crush on him. Her very first, he suspected, hatched, not in spite of his wicked reputation, but rather because of it. And in the process of indulging her infatuation, which was what he’d steadfastly assured himself he was doing, he had fallen madly in love with her.

  Mad as in insane. It wasn’t rational. Hell, it wasn’t even real, as it turned out, though it certainly felt real at the time. It was, however, the only explanation he could come up with for his behavior that week.

  Lovesick. The word alone made him cringe, but he was honest enough to acknowledge, if only to himself, that that’s what he’d been. After years of sidestepping the maneuvers of more experienced women, he had been felled by a mere slip of a girl. He was bedazzled by her honesty and her enthusiasm; enchanted by the brash way she looked at the world and, even more, at the fresh, new way the world looked to him when he was standing by her side. He couldn’t explain the spell she cast on him any more than he could deny it.

  Douse one lovesick fool with a liberal number of after-dinner brandies and you get a man reckless enough to dare anything, even a sixteen-year-old’s challenge to climb to her bedroom window and steal her away for a late-night ride on the swing hanging from the massive oak tree down by the summerhouse.

  It was there that Roger had found them, drawn by the sound of Delilah’s laughter as Christian pushed her higher and higher in the air. Of course, Roger had to climb from his bed and make his way to the summerhouse, giving Christian ample time to progress from pushing her to holding her, ample time for them to move inside the small shuttered bungalow, time for his passion and her eager curiosity to overtake whatever common sense either of them possessed.

  The laces of her white nightgown had been loosened and one strap had slipped off her shoulder. Her head was tossed back and his face was buried in her throat, his hands on her breasts, when the door had been flung open. Delilah gasped. He remembered that, too. Mostly, however, he remembered how she had looked, her pale gold hair unbound, her face flushed, her lips bee-stung from his kisses. She was, at that instant, the most beautiful sight he had ever seen, and part of him had wanted to kill her brother for intruding.

  “I’ll kill you,” Roger had uttered, evidently sharing the sentiment. He looked as if he’d dressed in the dark, in a hurry, and his sandy hair was tousled.

  Christian felt Delilah stiffen and released her immediately, turning slightly so his shoulder blocked her from view as she hurriedly righted her nightclothes.

  “Calm down, Rog,” he said, striving for nonchalance, not an easy feat for a man who was breathless and flagrantly aroused. “It’s not what it seems.”

  Roger Ashton laughed harshly. “What kind of blind fool do you take me for, Lowell? You mean to say you weren’t just pawing my little sister? Putting your filthy hands all over her? Rearing to take full advantage if I hadn’t gotten here in the nick of time?”

  “I would never take advantage of Delilah.”

  “Ah. So you intend to marry her, then?”

  Marry her? Roger’s scornful tone made it clear he wasn’t serious, but the challenge held a certain appeal nonetheless. He could marry her, Christian thought, his newly awakened heart and the brandy working in unison. Hell, he would marry her.

  “No, Roger please, not that,” Delilah exclaimed, moving to stand in front of him.

  Before she put her back to him Christian had a fleeting glimpse of her face, washed of all color and frozen in horror. He came instantly to his senses. And he realized that for the first time ever, he, a master at playing a woman’s heartstrings, was the one who had been played for a fool. People had warned him that it would happen sooner or later, but he hadn’t believed it. And he didn’t like it.

  Of course Delilah did not want to marry him. She only wanted to play. Their long conversations had revealed that she was heady with anticipation of the season ahead and in no rush to have her wings clipped before she’d had a chance to spread them. She was riding a wave of burgeoning feminine power and cutting her teeth on the safest male h
eart available. Everyone knew that when it came to being shackled, women were eminently safe with the Blackmoor Devil. He never fell in love.

  “Marry her?” he countered, slanting Roger a look of sardonic amusement. “Really, Rog, she’s barely out of the nursery. Seems to me you’d be the one taking advantage if you forced that issue.”

  “But… you … you kissed her,” her brother insisted, his expression reflecting a decent man’s struggle to do the right thing. Which was why decent men were always at a disadvantage at such moments. “You touched her.”

  “Roger, please,” pleaded Delilah. “I beg you not to—”

  “Not to make more of this than there is,” Christian interjected to spare the further humiliation of hearing her beg her brother not to force an alliance she clearly found offensive in the extreme. “I intended only to tweak you a bit, as payback. You do remember that time you and a few others nailed my boots to the floor of one of the upstairs rooms at Madame Cosseau’s?”

  Roger’s face puckered. “But that was years ago, a schoolboy’s prank.”

  “Yes, well, some men outgrow such pranks and some of us never do. At any rate,” he continued, yawning as he sauntered to the door, “now we’re even. Good evening, Lady Ashton. I trust your brother will see you safely back to your door. ’Night, Rog.”

  He’d left before the household awoke the following morning. Three weeks later he was back with his regiment, still nursing his wounded pride, and she was betrothed to Andrew Moon, a pleasant enough, totally innocous young man, as Christian recalled, who no doubt couldn’t believe his luck that such a spirited beauty had fallen head over heels in love with him so quickly.

  If indeed she had. Delilah’s hasty marriage had always been a puzzle to him. Perhaps the coming days would provide him with an opportunity to solve it. Perhaps, he speculated, the days ahead would provide him with a second chance at other lost opportunities, as well.

  He glanced again at his watch. Either the theater was running late or Delilah had taken a different route home. His growing concern was alleviated a few moments later as the carriage traffic along Haymarket increased suddenly, signaling that the performance had at last ended. He watched for Delilah’s carriage with its four distinctive white horses. When it pulled into view, he stepped from the shadows, leading his own horse.