Chapter Nine
Crash!
Charles winced at the sound of splintering glass. The interloper raised her hands and let out a cry.
Bloody woman! It served her right for disturbing his peace. Why wasn’t she inside, simpering over the young men she sought to entrap? Or perhaps she’d ventured out for a tryst with some unsuspecting young fool.
He raised his hands in a gesture of appeasement and stepped toward her. She let out a whimper and her eyes widened, two dark pools in a face made pale by the moonlight.
The girl looked terrified. Why were women always so weak-bellied? Did she expect him to toss her over his shoulder and carry her off, when there must be at least fifty people inside who’d stop him?
Or perhaps she was playacting, like most women, feigning emotions to fool him into doing their bidding.
“Who are you,” she said, “and what are you doing here, hiding in the shadows?”
He lowered his hands.
After a pause, she spoke again, her voice a low whisper. “A-are you real?”
Of course I bloody am.
She dropped her gaze to his hands as he gestured his response.
“What are you doing?” she said. “Do you dismiss me as if I am nothing?”
He cocked his head to one side. The fear in her voice had been replaced by another emotion. Sorrow. And despair.
Perhaps she believed that she did not belong here.
Neither do I.
She tilted her chin. The action emphasized their difference in height, and, given the fear that had transfixed her at first, like a rabbit caught in a fox’s stare, he had to applaud—albeit grudgingly—the courage with which she looked up met his gaze straight on. Few men dared stare at him so openly.
He exhaled, and she set her mouth into a firm line, a flicker of defiance in her eyes.
“Will you not introduce yourself, at least?”
He arched an eyebrow. Most women he could read as if they wore placards declaring their intentions.
But the little creature before him now—he couldn’t make her out.
Pretty enough, though as unremarkable as most women.
But he had to admit that the expression in her eyes spoke of a little more intelligence than the typical female.
Perhaps that was why she believed she did not deserve to be here tonight.
According to Society, intellect was a flaw for which the woman could not be forgiven.
When entering the marriage state, a woman relinquished her fortune and her person.
But intellect could not be surrendered. And no man wanted a woman who could outdo him in a battle of wits.
As he continued to stare at her, she folded her arms.
“I see,” she said. “Like all the others, you think me unworthy.”
All the others?
He glanced toward the terrace doors. Had she been mistreated?
He curled his fists, tempering the anger rising in his gut as the memory pushed into his mind—a group of boys, bare-teethed and grinning, issuing taunts, pushing him, pinching his flesh while the schoolmasters were occupied elsewhere, then feigning innocence when adult eyes turned to them once more, before he returned home to an unforgiving father.
I showed them. I showed them all.
His skin itched at the memory of fighting back—the feeling of triumph when, after learning to defend himself, his fists had at last connected with his tormentors.
The fear that plagued his nightmares had dissipated and been reborn in their minds—until, at last, the tormentors feared the boy they had tormented.
Was this little thing standing before him also prey to tormentors? If she believed she didn’t deserve her place in Society, then the worst of the predators would sniff her fear out and exploit it.
Until she learned to fight back—or was crushed beneath their spite.
Don’t be a fool.
He gritted his teeth to dispel the brief flare of compassion. He couldn’t afford such weakness in a world where compassion and tenderness had no value.
At length he became aware of a soft voice, and he resumed his focus on the young woman before him.
“…don’t you think?”
Bugger. She’d been speaking.
She raised her eyebrows then blinked, and Charles caught a sheen of moisture in her eyes.
“I see,” she said. “You consider me not only beneath your notice, but also unworthy of a response.”
He gestured toward her.
Of course not.
“So, you dismiss me, is that it?” she said, her voice hardening as she glared at his hands.
Then she gave a cold smile. “A great shame, given that we’ve been indulging in such an interesting conversation.
” She gestured about the terrace. “Consider yourself fortunate that I deign to converse with you, given the greater intellect of our companions.”
He glanced about the terrace then raised his eyebrows.
“The plants, sir,” she said, an edge to her voice.
“I fancy I could elicit a more quick-witted and interesting response from a shrub, do you not think?” She placed her hands on her hips, nodding in an exaggerated manner.
“Oh yes, Miss Whitcombe,” she said, deepening her voice.
“I’m a simpleton, come to speak to the plants because they’re my intellectual equal. ”
She raised her voice to its usual feminine pitch.
“Oh, thank you, kind sir, I’m so glad we’re of one mind.
” Then she lowered the pitch and gestured to the terrace doors.
“Quite so, Miss Whitcombe. Not even the numbskulls inside with their heads filled with wool such as that coxcomb Sir Heath Moss, who’ll rut any creature with a pulse—and most likely many without—are able to match my lack of mental acuity. ”
Her voice wavered, then she blinked, and a fat droplet splashed onto her cheek, glistening in the moonlight.
“But a lack of intellect is a sin that can be forgiven, for it is indeed no sin,” she said.
“You are to be envied, sir. Your defining characteristic is lauded in Society, whereas mine…” She hesitated, her breath catching, and her lips trembled.
“I-I’m committing the gravest of all sins, merely by existing. I—”
She broke off and a sob escaped her lips.
Devil’s breeches, that was all he needed.
He approached her, hands outstretched, willing his conscience to believe that the action was purely to stop her wailing, ignoring the little voice that whispered in his mind of the need to ease her pain.
“No!”
She stepped back, then let out a scream as she lost her balance and tripped. She lurched sideways, and Charles caught sight of the shards of glass, their sharp edges gleaming malevolently in the moonlight like a thousand sinister smiles.
He lunged forward and caught her in his arms. She screamed again and struggled, but he tightened his grip to prevent her from falling.
After a moment, her struggles ceased and she surrendered, with the prey’s instinct that she was in the clutches of a stronger beast. Her body heaved as her breath came out in sharp gasps, and he held her close.
Beneath that plain little gown lay a body with deliciously soft curves and perfect, round breasts that were pressed against his chest. He caught his breath as his breeches tightened at the feel of two little peaks poking at his shirt.
Then he inhaled, relishing the soft scent, the faint undertones of rose, that stiffened his cock.
What the devil was she doing to him, this unremarkable little thing?
Eyes squeezed shut like she were readying herself to have her throat torn out by the wolf, she stilled in his grasp as if welcoming her fate.
She opened her eyes, and for a moment they stared at each other, two souls meeting across a chasm.
Then she spoke and broke the spell.
“Let me go.”
Another tear spilled onto her cheek as she whispered a plea. The despair in her tone threatened to breach the armor he’d fashioned around his heart.
“Please…”
Slowly he set her upright, but rather than release her, he paused. She made no attempt to move. Instead, she curled her fingers around his arms as she glanced toward the ground and the smashed glass. Understanding glimmered in her eyes and she parted her lips.
Then the doors crashed open, and a deep male voice bellowed with fury, “You blackguard!”
The woman in Charles’s arms stiffened, and he released her and stepped back. But it was too late. The newcomer strode onto the terrace, his eyes blazing with fury.
Shit. It was Whitcombe.
The woman turned to Whitcombe and let out a cry. “Montague!” she said. “It’s not—”
“Be quiet,” he said. “You’ve lost the right to speak. As for you…” He strode toward Charles and jabbed a finger at his chest. “You will marry her, or so help me God, I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
Charles shook his head, then Whitcombe twisted his face into a cold, cruel smile as he delivered the one threat capable of destroying Charles—the threat to the one thing in the world that he cared for.
“Or,” Whitcombe said, “I’ll shoot that horse of yours and feed him to my dogs.”
Shit.
He was trapped.