Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Fitz had lost his head.
Somewhere between first laying eyes upon Miss Caroline Quick and calling her a hussy, he had quite comprehensively kicked over the traces and run away with the carriage and now he was finding it next to impossible to rein himself back in.
Not with her in his arms like this, a lithe flame of a woman with a surprisingly strong grip and a frankly astonishing enthusiasm for the act of kissing.
She tasted like fresh tea and raspberries with cream and everything nice.
The way she moved against him, her lips seeking and hands petting, made all of Fitz’s blood drain out of his head and rush southwards.
He took what she offered so generously, stroking deep with his tongue and reveling in the way she moaned into his mouth.
The air around them crackled; he was dimly surprised the potted palm shielding them from the rest of the ballroom had not exploded in a fireball, incinerated by the heat of this kiss, which he never wanted to end.
Oh, yes, right, the ballroom. Damn.
If Fitz were discovered debauching a young lady behind a potted palm, his father would have him dragged before the parson without another word. Even if the young lady in question was debauching him right back. Even if he was only kissing her to save his father from her clutches!
Fitz winced, well aware that if he himself did not find that argument convincing, he would have trouble getting his father to accept it.
He lightened the kiss, dragging his lips from hers with a sigh she echoed. Forcing his hands to let go of her, it took everything Fitz had to step back and put a more decorous distance between them when every instinct was urging him to claim her utterly.
But Fitz had it on good authority that his instincts were generally terrible and ought not to be trusted.
Caroline’s lashes fluttered for a moment before she opened those unearthly violet eyes and skewered him once again on the brilliant point of her gaze.
“Why did you stop?”
Fitz raked a hand through his hair, feeling a bit hard done by. It wasn’t as if stopping had been easy. “Would you have preferred I ravish you against the wall?”
The minx had the audacity to actually consider the question for a long moment. She appeared conflicted. “I suppose that would have been unwise. They will be starting the supper dance soon, and we have yet to reach an agreement on our course of action.”
Fitz’s temper was usually so even and mild. He barely recognized himself as he gave into the irresistible compulsion to trap her in the cage of his arms once more. “You cannot still be thinking of my father and marriage in the same breath. Not after that kiss.”
She frowned up at him, but her body melted into his as if they were lovers of long standing, who knew every inch of each other. Fitz felt slightly crazed.
“I don’t follow. What does that kiss have to do with your father?”
He bared his teeth at the mere suggestion of his father putting hands on this girl. “For the last time,” he growled. “I will not help you trick my father into marrying you!”
Her slim frame went rigid in his arms. Small hands came up to push against his chest, but it was her annoyed exclamation that had him staggering backward.
“Of all the aggravating, impossible—Lord Fitzwilliam, you are ridiculous. I beg you will listen and understand when I assure you that I have no intention of marrying anyone! Least of all your father!”
Fitz blinked. He did not understand.
“I don’t understand.” May as well admit it. “What the devil is going on here. Is this some sort of…prank? Did Thorne put you up to this?”
It was just the sort of thing his best friend, the Duke of Thornecliff, would do, Fitz reflected angrily. An obscure, scandalous, mocking scheme with no aim other than to amuse himself at another’s expense, and Fitz never quite got the joke.
But Caroline was shaking her head impatiently. “I don’t know who that is, and you are still not listening. Attend properly, please. My questions about your father are not on my own behalf.”
The clouds parted a bit. “Ah. For a friend, then?”
She shook her head again, a pensive expression taking over her face. “Well. In a way. It has been only the two of us for so long, she is the most important person in the world to me. And I would do anything to see her happy—anything except stay in London.”
“What’s wrong with London?” Fitz demanded, offended, as though he hadn’t spent the better part of the evening silently bemoaning his own forced presence in the city.
“I beg you will not allow yourself to become distracted yet again, Lord Fitzwilliam. London is not where I am meant to be. I would like to leave and of course I’m perfectly capable of being on my own, but my mother won’t hear of it.
She is determined to make a martyr of herself and come along, even though it’s plain to see that now we’ve returned to the city, she should prefer to remain.
Therefore, I believe my best course of action is to see my mother married and settled into a new household before I depart. ”
“Your…mother.”
“She is also widowed, for several years now, and I know she’d like to be married again, though she will not admit as much to me.”
This was shaping up to be every bit as obscure and difficult to parse as one of Thorne’s mischiefs. What sort of girl wanted to gallivant off on her own, going so far as to shove her poor mother off onto some unsuspecting husband to make her escape?
An interesting sort of girl, that was what.
“And so…” Fitz felt his way. “You are matchmaking your mama with my father, of all people, and you would like my help?”
Caroline looked relieved. “That is precisely the shape of it, Lord Fitzwilliam. How clever you are.”
Fitz gave her a narrow look, sensing treachery. “Yes. Well. One does one’s best. What I don’t understand is why you’ve fixed upon my father and me in your machinations.”
“Ah.” She pursed her lips in thought. Fitz attempted not to allow the sight to turn him into a slavering beast. “As to that, I would prefer for the moment to keep the reasons behind my choice of your father to myself as it’s of a somewhat delicate nature.
But I hit upon you as my likeliest accomplice through the simple process of observation and scientific deduction. ”
Fitz wasn’t sure that was entirely complimentary. “Oh? And what makes you think I’ll help you in this lunatic endeavor?”
Her voice took on a lecturing quality. “In nature, we find that the seemingly random or strange behaviors exhibited by living creatures always have a reason behind them. The animal’s needs—for sustenance, for shelter, for a mate—will prompt and direct its every action. People are the same.”
Fitz raised his brows. Was she about to compare him to a wild animal?
“For several weeks now,” she went blithely on, “I have watched you dance attendance on a bevy of young ladies you couldn’t have cared less for, all to please and appease your father, who watches you like a general commanding his troops on the battlefield.
He wants you to wed but you would prefer to avoid matrimony. ”
The knowledge that she had been watching him, considering him so closely and in such a focused manner, gave Fitz an odd thrill.
He wondered how on earth he could have missed noticing her in return, but he had to admit to himself that he tended to pay only the barest attention to his surroundings when at a ball.
“What else did you think of me?” he demanded, intrigued. “While making your scientific deductions, which are brilliant, by the way.”
Pale pink roses bloomed along her cheekbones and her long lashes swept down to brush against them, as though Fitz had just paid her the prettiest compliment she’d ever heard.
“Most people don’t like it. When I deduce things about them.
They find it embarrassing, I think, though that is not usually my intention. ”
“I once stripped down to my smalls and took a dip in the Serpentine on a dare. At mid-day.” Fitz shrugged. “I’m hard to embarrass.”
She nodded gravely, as though adding that detail to her mental list of Fitz’s qualities.
“I see. You are very sure of who you are, and what you want. Which is to not get married. Oh by the by, will you tell me, for I could not make it out: why, then, do you attend a ball like this where there are nothing but marriage-minded ladies? Why not simply tell your father you don’t like it? ”
Fitz felt a shaft of the old bitterness pierce his heart. He looked away from her too-observant stare. “What a question. For someone who sees so much, you seem very unaware of the way the world works.”
“This world is not the entire world,” she pointed out in a mild tone than nevertheless rang through Fitz’s head like a gong.
“Good gad, don’t let anyone else hear you spouting such radical talk,” he warned with mock alarm to cover the strange way her words were echoing in his brain box.
“I don’t care about anyone else,” she said impatiently. “Tell me what you meant, about your circumstances.”
Shaking off the strange mood she’d put him in, Fitz pulled on his social mask and met her inquisitive stare with a devil-may-care grin.
“Why, that I’m penniless. My father is wealthy, of course, and my older brother will be marquess after him, and already has one of Father’s lesser titles and the estate to go with it.
Rob has a purpose and an income, even before the enormous dowry his fiancée will bring with her when they wed.
My sister married an earl, so she is well provided for and a credit to the family.
But I’m a younger son. My title is merely a courtesy title.
My inheritance is at my father’s discretion, as is my monthly allowance.
Therefore, I rely entirely on his goodwill for my livelihood. ”