One Night With The Major
One Night With The Major
Bronwyn Scott
One daring encounter Binds her to his marriage bed! Part of Allied at the Altar: In England, innocent tea heiress Pavia Honeysett has always been judged for her face or her fortune. She would much rather return to her uncle’s palace in India. So to escape marriage to the aged man her father has chosen she will ruin herself! But her red-hot night with Major Camden Lithgow changes everything. Suddenly, this stranger will become her husband…
One daring encounter
Binds her to his marriage bed!
Part of Allied at the Altar: In England, innocent tea heiress Pavia Honeysett has always been judged for her face or her fortune. She would much rather return to her uncle’s palace in India. So to escape marriage to the aged man her father has chosen, she will ruin herself! But her red-hot night with Major Camden Lithgow changes everything. Suddenly, this stranger will become her husband...
BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and the proud mother of three wonderful children—one boy and two girls. When she’s not teaching or writing she enjoys playing the piano, travelling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages. Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website, bronwynnscott.com, or at her blog, bronwynswriting.blogspot.com (http://www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com). She loves to hear from readers.
Also by Bronwyn Scott (#uccd2f7d4-c241-5222-9ff4-3f526f6d4ed4)
Russian Royals of Kuban miniseries
Compromised by the Prince’s Touch
Innocent in the Prince’s Bed
Awakened by the Prince’s Passion
Seduced by the Prince’s Kiss
Allied at the Altar miniseries
A Marriage Deal with the Viscount
One Night with the Major
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
One Night with the Major
Bronwyn Scott
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08881-7
ONE NIGHT WITH THE MAJOR
© 2019 Nikki Poppen
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For all those who were told they couldn’t,
but found a way anyhow.
Dream big because we’re dreaming already.
Contents
Cover (#udf1b1744-9f1e-52b2-9bb3-da7fdd818347)
Back Cover Text (#u8879d6e0-f03a-51ae-a1c6-b7abb1d628e0)
About the Author (#u6f1a6dc7-0570-5a04-8118-e14a6d573771)
Booklist (#uc1a8bbc6-494e-506f-b6e9-612bf9d1edaf)
Title Page (#uf7ff96f0-2579-54bd-9fa3-5423af831611)
Copyright (#ucab48074-1f81-57d3-89bd-0c3e3fbcd25c)
Dedication (#u533bec1a-f671-5e0b-8778-11a1bc1b023d)
Chapter One (#u5bbaeae1-5c9b-5a87-a919-50ec2b660f1e)
Chapter Two (#u0b57afe9-d8eb-5dd5-ac88-5b09fb3ecdff)
Chapter Three (#u455fc3d5-0c21-5cde-9368-904ab239044c)
Chapter Four (#ubd268562-4739-5ed9-abe6-f7844bab3b7c)
Chapter Five (#u3f6511b3-81b7-59b7-ba50-a787eadb0c2a)
Chapter Six (#ufca9248d-44f8-5a2f-97b3-35db911652f2)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#uccd2f7d4-c241-5222-9ff4-3f526f6d4ed4)
A tavern on the outskirts of London—April 1855
Pavia Honeysett needed a man and she had her sights set on that one in the corner, the one in the navy-and-gold uniform with his back to the wall, perhaps out of a soldier’s habit, his eyes fixed on his ale, but she could tell even at a distance he wasn’t seeing it. His thoughts were far from here.
She studied him from behind the taproom’s kitchen door, amid the chatter of the other dancing girls who would be performing tonight. She took in the breadth of his shoulders, the straightness of his jaw. In a boisterous taproom, eagerly awaiting the night’s entertainment, he remained apart from the group in all ways: in bearing, in appearance, his clean-shaven jaw and golden hair a sharp contrast to the rough-hewn, home-spun male camaraderie around him. He was alone and he was perfect. It had taken her three nights of dancing in the taverns from Yorkshire to London just to find him. Now she only had to reel him in.
Pavia adjusted the gossamer fabric of her dancing veils one last time and swallowed hard. Now that the moment had come, she was nervous. She reminded herself she should feel lucky, not anxious. This was what she wanted—a chance to claim her own freedom. She’d planned for it since the moment the summons to London had arrived at Mrs Finlay’s Academy for Excellent Girls. She’d spent her pin money bribing the Academy grooms for the names of likely taverns where she could dance. This one, the Tiger’s Tooth, on the outskirts of the city, was supposed to be her best chance. It hosted nightly dancing entertainments featuring girls of all sorts of backgrounds from all parts of the British Empire. It had been easy to blend into the colourful milieu of dancers gathered in the kitchen waiting their turns to perform.
Applause erupted from the taproom for a dancer who claimed to be Persian. Pavia doubted the authenticity of that claim, but not the girl’s appeal. Men would not care with breasts like that. Pavia looked down at her own more modest ‘charms’ and hoped they’d be enough. One more girl to go and then it would be her turn. Unless... Unless she lost her nerve and slipped out the back door.
No, she wouldn’t think such things. It had to be tonight, or it would be too late. Tomorrow, she would be in London and under her father’s thumb, a pawn to be used in her father’s bid for social advancement. Pavia’s pulse began to race anxiously with all that meant. She was to be a virgin sacrifice in marriage to the Earl of Wenderly, a man old enough to be her grandfather. Both the men were rich, although her father liked to point out that he was richer by far, but Wenderly had a title and her father, for all the tea in China, quite literally, did not. Her father might be Oliver Honeysett, founding partner of Honeysett and Crooks, the largest importers of English tea, outstripping even the legendary Twinings Company, but he was still a Cit, still nouveau riche, one of the nabobs who’d made his fortune in India. In short, a man who’d worked for his money, a man who could rise no higher in the world without a title and it galled him.
She was to be his way into those lofty ranks of the peerage, the guarantee that if he did not possess a title, by God his grandchildren would. They would be the sons and daughters of an earl. But she didn’t want to marry Wenderly. She wanted something different for her life. She wanted adventure, to see the world, to live among her mother’s people again in India where she could be wanted for herself. The colour of her skin mattered not at all in the palace of her uncle, the Rajah of Sohra. Here in England, it was the only thing that mattered, the one thing men were willing to overlook in exchange for her father’s money or, in Wenderly’s case, her virginity. Wenderly was desperate for it, in fact, and that worried her a great deal, especially coupled as it was with the rumours whispered about him behind lace fans at deportment class. It was common knowledge among the girls at Mrs Finlay’s Academy who were scheduled to come out that no decent woman would have him. Then eyes would slide her way and the girls would nod to one another knowingly. No decent English girl, that was. But the Indian girl would do nicely. The implication was clear. In their minds, to be Indian in England was to be indecent.
Maybe she was being a bit indecent tonight. Pavia shook her filmy veils loose for fullness and laughed softly to herself at the irony. Tonight those English ladies would be right. She meant to lose that virginity Wenderly seemed to prize so much. In exchange, she would gain her freedom and that was worth any price. It was not a decision she’d taken lightly, but rather a decision she’d been forced to after pleading and begging and appealing to her father’s sense of reason failed to produce results. He was set on the match. Not even her mother could sway him. So now Pavia was taking matters into her own hands.
If life had taught her one thing so far, it was that there were no happy ever afters being handed out by handsome princes. If a girl wanted a happy ever after she had to make it for herself, seize it if she had to, invent it out of whole cloth if she must. If she didn’t, someone else, namely her father, would. Then, it would be his happy ending at her expense. That was untenable. Under no circumstance was her happy ever after the purvey of another, especially not a man. Not her father and certainly not the man he’d selected for her to marry. That’s what had happened to her mother—she had been married off to an Englishman and forced to live in an alien culture that had no sympathy for her. Pavia vowed silently once more that such an ending would not be for her.
She fastened the last veil across her face, leaving only her eyes visible as she marked the location of her target. He was the best choice she’d had in the three nights of her journey to London. In the other places her entourage had stopped, the men had been too rough. She might be acting rashly, but she was not without her own cautions. She didn’t want to end up battered, or with a disease, or, worst of all, with a child. At least she could control the latter. She had vinegar sponges waiting back at her own rooms in another inn. The quality of her candidate, however, was not nearly as controllable. Pavia sighed. When she’d designed this plan, she hadn’t realised how complicated it would be. She’d simply wanted to relieve herself of a ridiculously over-valued English inconvenience.
She considered her candidate one last time as the previous dancer finished. Would he be a decent lover? Would it hurt? The girls at school said it did, but they only had hearsay to go on. The women in her uncle’s palace, where sexuality was not nearly as taboo as it was here in England, had told other, more pleasurable stories. Whom did she believe? Perhaps it depended on the lover. This man in the corner looked as if he possessed some honour, but not too much, not enough to make him ask questions, or to make him stay, just enough to keep him from taking extraordinary advantage of her. The way he stared at that ale suggested he was someone who had his own demons to worry about. It also suggested that perhaps the hardest part would be persuading him to take what she was offering.
Pavia bit her lip, considering the option of failure for the first time. In all her imaginings she’d not thought of what would happen if she missed her mark. There was no time to think about that now. She’d fail for certain if she stood here all night. The girl behind her gave her a little nudge. It was her turn. She slipped a pair of tiny cymbals on to her thumbs and forefingers and opened the door. She gave a nod to the fiddler, who moved into a slow tune. It wasn’t Indian, to be sure. Irish, perhaps? She didn’t care, as long as it had a sinuous, haunting melody made for the undulation of hips and the sway of bodies.
She began to dance, slowly, evocatively, drawing all eyes towards her with the ringing, rhythmic click of her cymbals. She worked through the crowd deliberately, gracing a man here, another man there, with the tease of her attentions. She couldn’t be obvious about her target, couldn’t race over to him or it would be too transparent. But it must be him. Only the best would do for Pavia Honeysett.
The last made her smile behind her veils. She’d been raised in wealthy privilege, the only child of a tea merchant. She’d been taught to expect the best. Tonight would be no different. A man reached out for her as she passed. She moved beyond his grip, scolding him by turning her attentions towards another. But she understood the warning. She’d teased them with her glances and swaying hips; they would expect her to deliver on those promises. She’d reached the divide between the milieu of the long trestle tables and the soldier’s table at the wall. He seemed intent on not looking at her, the only man in the room who wasn’t looking. She would change that.
Pavia dropped a veil from the gold-coin belt about her waist, revealing a full glimpse of smooth leg. That got his attention. He was a man, not marble, after all, despite what his chiselled features suggested. She caught his eye and held it—demanded it, actually, with her hips. With a step forward closing the meagre distance between them, she smiled with her eyes, letting him guess at the lush mouth hidden from view beneath the silk draping.
Her candidate was a handsome man up close, golden haired and well kept. A firm mouth went with that strong, straight jaw, topped with sharp blue eyes that matched the strength of him. This was better than she’d hoped for. He’d be moving on, unlikely to linger in London. If she was lucky, he was already on the move to fulfil orders. The world was a big place. They would never see each other again after tonight. But first, she had to entice him and she had only six veils remaining. She couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.
* * *
Major Cam Lithgow was not a man who made mistakes, but he was making them in droves tonight. The first mistake was coming down to the taproom, wanting to drown his sorrows in ale, only to discover there was live entertainment. He should have left then. Not leaving was his second mistake. His third was making eye contact with the exotic dancer. His fourth was not looking away. How could he? She was dressed in carefully draped veils that simultaneously revealed and concealed the exquisite body beneath, all held carefully in place by a gold girdle that spanned a slim waist and rested on the delicious curves of her hips, jingling provocatively as those hips swayed their promises.
To his dismay, his body was becoming ‘interested’ in those promises, his mind interested in the dark eyes that held his. He’d not bartered on this when he’d come downstairs to the taproom.
The dancer loosened another veil from her belt with sensual skill, drawing the fabric across her body before letting it pool in his lap in blatant invitation. Behind her there were hoots and catcalls from the deserted crowd. There were growls of disappointment, too. Cam tensed. Jealous, disappointed drunk men were dangerous. Did she understand that? She’d played with them and then turned her back quite literally to choose the one man in the room who was least apt to accept her invitation. They weren’t likely to be very forgiving of the slight. Hell, he could see it now. If he didn’t claim her and take her upstairs, the taproom would brawl over her, competing for the right to be her second choice whether she wanted any of them or not. And he’d end up defending her whether he wanted to or not because a man of honour could do no less.
The dancer leaned backwards an impressive degree, letting her hips undulate in a sinuous, vertical line, like the hypnotic writhe of a cobra, skeins of silky black hair cascading from beneath the veil that hid her face except for the dark, wide, almond-shaped eyes. The man in him was aroused against his better judgement. She righted herself, her hips returning to a horizontal sway, and she reached for him. More precisely, she reached for his sword, pulling it from its sheathe in a lightning snatch before he could react. He’d let his guard down—he’d thought she was reaching for him or for the scarf in his lap. Now he was unarmed in a potentially dangerous environment.
She leaned backwards again and began the undulation, this time balancing the sword on her hip. Cam held his breath, torn between warning her how sharp the blade was and remaining silent for fear that speaking out would ruin her concentration. Miraculously, the sword lay steady. She became a dervish, then, taking the sword in hand and whirling about, a swirl of colours and veils in time to the music. When the music slowed and the whirlwind abated, his sword was balanced atop of her head. The room was alive now, the crowd clapping to the rhythm of her movements and the music; all of it pushing him towards a decision. Save her from the mob, or leave her to her self-imposed fate. He’d not come down here looking for adventure but it seemed adventure had found him anyway.
She turned a fast circle, the sword never slipping from her head and Cam made up his mind. Perhaps his mind had already been made up the moment their eyes had met. Her circle stopped. He rose and held out his hand. Good lord, he didn’t even know if she spoke English. This was madness. But he couldn’t leave her here when it was clear she had no idea of how much danger she might be in from men who might not hesitate to strip those veils from her, who might decide to make a plaything of her for their own amusement, who might not ascribe to the idea that a person was a person no matter the colour of their skin. There were too many ‘mights’ for his taste. Too much to leave to chance.
She dipped him an English curtsy, returned his sword and without a word let him lead her up the stairs. How did this happen to him? How did he find himself in the most unwanted circumstances? This was not an adventure he would have sought for himself. He was probably the only soldier in the British army who didn’t want to be back on English soil. Balaclava had been a bloodbath and he’d been the one to live to tell about it, a prospect so daunting, he couldn’t sleep at night—he still woke up screaming about it. But here he was—back in England and with one more responsibility to carry out when all he wanted was to be back with his troops and a life he understood, a life that pleased him.
At the top of the stairs, he ushered her into his chamber and shut the heavy oak door behind them. Cam leaned his head against the door frame, closing his eyes for a moment of clarity, savouring the coolness of the wood against his brow. Good lord, he had an exotic dancer in his room. His grandfather would die if he knew. Exotic dancers were not part of his grandfather’s plan for him.
Aside from the pleasure that came with the thought of niggling at his grandfather’s limited sensibilities, this was not how Cam had expected the evening to go. He’d gone down to the taproom in the hopes of forgetting everything, to put off his duty one more day. He could have easily ridden on to London tonight before dark, but that would have meant facing his grandfather, playing the returning war hero and the doting suitor to Caroline Beaufort, his intended, a young woman selected by his grandfather as worthy of a Lithgow with her exquisite looks and immaculate pedigree, but a woman who engendered nothing more than polite interest from him.
It was no wonder he loved soldiering. It was full of the adventures he thrived on—new places, new people, new tasks—where there was little time to spend worrying over the delicate concerns of etiquette, while life here in London spread before him like a vast empty wasteland full of useless occupations. Well, maybe it wasn’t quite an empty wasteland just yet. There was still the dancer to deal with. He needed to make it clear to her that she had his protection, that nothing else would occur in this chamber tonight. Despite what his body might have argued, he wasn’t in the mood. His mind was too fixed on the things he’d have to do tomorrow, like telling the Duke of Cowden his son, Cam’s own best friend, Fortis Tresham, wasn’t coming back.
Cam turned from the door, ready to make his pronouncement, and his mouth went dry. His dancer stood before him beautifully naked, her discarded veils at her feet, a tanned goddess come to life with high, bold breasts and a gentle hand over her shy nether pelt, a delicious contradiction of seduction and innocence. Had he really been about to refuse her? His body’s reaction laughed at the prospect, but his conscience pricked. How dare he think of pleasure when Fortis was dead.
He strode towards her, purposefully shrugging out of his coat and draping it about her. ‘You needn’t offer yourself to me. You are safe here.’ The coat was big, effectively hiding her, but it did nothing to dampen his response. With her face revealed, she fulfilled the promise of beauty: wide eyes, a full mouth, a delicate jaw that created a heart-shaped face and hinted at English antecedents.
‘Do you not want me?’ She sloughed off his coat, naked once more, her hands cupping her breasts, lifting them for his inspection.
‘It’s not that.’ Cam was uncharacteristically at a loss for words, he who shouted orders over the chaos of a battlefield. ‘It’s just that you don’t need to feel obliged.’ He’d never taken a woman to bed who felt obligated to be there and he wasn’t going to start now.
She moved towards him, reaching for the stock about his neck and tugging it free, determined to undress him. ‘And if I don’t feel obliged? Would you want me then?’ She smelled like adventure, all citrus and spice, a fragrance of the Far East, a fragrance of happier times, when he and Fortis had served two years for the Crown in India.
Cam swallowed hard. He was starting to lose this fight and maybe he should lose it. Maybe bedding her would help in some way with the grief he carried, a first step back towards living. No, that was ludicrous. He was simply justifying things now to please his body. He put his hands atop hers, stopping them where they worked the buttons of his uniform’s waistcoat. ‘I don’t know who you are. I don’t even know your name.’ He knew only that she was Indian and English, and beautiful.
She pressed a long, slim finger to his lips. ‘No names. It’s best that way, don’t you think?’ He didn’t think. He was starting to not think at all.
Chapter Two (#uccd2f7d4-c241-5222-9ff4-3f526f6d4ed4)
‘Let me help you.’ Her voice was soft, soothing, entirely at odds with the excited turmoil inside her. She’d got him this far, upstairs and into his room. But he’d done nothing to undress himself, so she’d do it for him.
He forgot to restrain her hands this time when she worked the buttons free. She pressed her advantage, slight as it was. ‘You came to the tavern to forget something tonight. I saw it in your face out there.’ She slid the waistcoat over his shoulders, down his arms and tossed it aside as if she undressed men every night. Pavia pulled his shirttails loose, praying at some point, he would take over. She would soon be in over her head despite whatever theoretical knowledge she had gleaned growing up in her uncle’s zenana, but even that was scarce little. She had not been in India since she was twelve. ‘You are hurting.’ Her hand stopped over his heart. ‘In here. I’ve seen men like you before.’
She had his shirt off him in moments, her hands pressed against his chest. She appealed to whatever sense of fair play he might possess—a trade. ‘You helped me down there tonight, now I will help you forget whatever it is that’s on your mind.’ She raised up on her tiptoes and took his mouth in a soft kiss. ‘Then, in the morning, we will be even. All debts between us paid.’ Such a bargain should appeal to a military man.
Under her mouth, he gave a harsh chuckle. ‘I will never be able to wipe my slate clean again.’
Ah, so she’d been right about the demons. Leave it to her luck to seduce the one man who didn’t have seduction on his mind. She twined her arms about his neck. She’d come too far to give up now. ‘Then erase it just for tonight.’ She whispered the temptation. ‘There is comfort here, free for the taking.’
She moved against him, kissing him again as if he’d already accepted her offer, her terms, and this time he gave over. His hands settled at her hips, holding her to him, his mouth opened to her, letting the kiss seduce him, draw him in to the fantasy until he became an active participant, kissing her back, with tongue and teeth at her ear, her neck, the caress of his mouth drawing heady sensations from her—sensations she had not expected. This was meant to be a job. She’d assumed it would be joyless. That was not the case.
The kiss was consuming. Pavia let the world shrink to encompass only this room, only this man, only this time as he took the kiss away from her, making it into his seduction at last, his hand in her hair, gathering it at the nape of her neck, his mouth insistent on hers, and her mouth answering with an insistent hunger of its own. Then they were both falling, to the bed, into the void of the night. Had he taken her down or had she pulled him? She didn’t know, she didn’t care. He was over her, her body warm as it stretched beneath him, all lush curves and slim lines against the hard muscle of him. The dusky peaks of her breasts arched up to brush his chest, teasing themselves into erectness. Her thighs cradled him, inviting him. This business of lovemaking was easier than she’d imagined, far easier than getting him up the stairs, and she knew she’d been lucky in her choice.
He was a deliberate lover, his body savouring the slow sheathing of itself in hers, making it clear this was not a fantasy to rush. He did not want to lose himself for just mere minutes, but for a night, for hours at a time. She gave a delicate moan beneath him at his first breaching, her body stirring in discomfort and then in accommodation. She arched against him in an untutored squirm that made him laugh, a warm, intimate chuckle. ‘Easy now, I know what you want. Be patient. I will take you there.’ His mouth hovered above hers, his hand pushing her hair back from her forehead in a gentle gesture as his hips began to move, and his body picked up an ancient rhythm of easement and surge.
She joined him in the intimate waltz, letting him set the pace, letting him drive them towards ecstasy’s cliffs as she lifted and fell with him. Her hands dug into his shoulders, her legs wrapped tight about him, holding him close, her body desperate for the promised fulfilment that hovered on the horizon they’d created. His exhalations suggested he was nearly there and she sensed that he was somehow with her and beyond her. When the pleasure took him, she was left alone, that same pleasure eluding her. But she could not complain as his chest heaved and his muscled arms trembled with his release. She had got what she’d come for.
It was done. Completely and most thoroughly. Not that she’d been any judge before, but she was now. Her nameless lover had comported himself well. She could have asked for nothing better. Pavia imagined this would become the measure against which any other lover would be compared. He would be measured against this golden-haired, broad-shouldered god of a man who lay sleeping beside her in post-coital exhaustion. She had chosen well. Maybe too well. Instead of leaping out of bed while he slept and running back to her inn a few streets away, she wanted to stay. She wanted to watch him sleep, wanted to trace the musculature of his chest with her finger, wanted to indulge her imagination in guessing his story. Who was he? What was he doing here? Where was he going? Answering those questions broke her rules. No names, no regrets, no tomorrows.
It was the novelty of him that tempted her to linger. She’d not thought a man could be so beautiful. She’d not expected to enjoy his body, seeing it, touching it. It was well muscled and smooth, his chest tanned and devoid of coarse hair, perhaps from campaigns spent sleeping out of doors and bathing in foreign rivers. Pavia let her imagination run wild, shamelessly romanticising the life of a soldier. Not just any soldier, an officer of some rank if she read his uniform aright. There’d been plenty of the East India Company men at their home in India, enough for her to know an officer’s uniform when she saw one.
She’d not been prepared either for the surge of emotion the act had raised. She’d expected a messy, painful interlude of grunts and thrusts until the deed was done. There had been discomfort, but nothing unbearable and nothing that had lasted once the initial shock had receded, replaced by something, if not breathtaking and heart-stopping, certainly pleasant in its own right. It had been different for him, however. For him, it had been breathtaking and heart-stopping. She’d seen it in his face as his release came over him like a wave. A nugget of irrational, womanly pride had formed in realisation that she’d been the cause of it. Whatever had haunted him in the taproom had been temporarily exorcised.
He stirred beside her, his blue eyes searching for her. Somewhere in the room, a log crackled and split in the fireplace. His arm reached for her, drawing her against his side, her head cushioned on the place where his shoulder met chest. This was one more thing she’d not counted on—this easy intimacy of lying naked with a man. She didn’t want to question it, didn’t want to over think it and become self-conscious.
‘I’ve been to India,’ he said in a voice made husky from sleep and waking. ‘It’s a beautiful place, wild, exotic. Not like here.’ His finger traced a slow, idle route over the curve of her hip, raising delicate goose pimples in its wake. ‘Where are you from? What part?’
‘Sohra.’ Telling him that much wouldn’t break her self-imposed rules of anonymity. ‘Do you know where that is?’ He probably didn’t. It was a remote principality.
‘Hmm. No,’ he replied drowsily. ‘I was stationed in Madras.’
‘Sohra is a long way from there. It’s up in the Khasi Hills in the north-east.’ She sighed, her own finger drawing a map of her uncle’s home on his chest. ‘We have green hills, cool breezes and waterfalls.’ She sighed. Just talking about Sohra brought its own kind of peace. ‘We have root bridges and mountains.’
He chuckled, the sound rumbling his chest beneath her ear. ‘I am jealous. Madras was hot and steamy. A man could sweat through his uniform within minutes of putting it on and the streets smelled horribly.’
She raised up on an elbow and gave him a teasing scold. ‘You just said India was beautiful. That description doesn’t sound beautiful.’
‘Oh, but it was. Once I got out of town, the jungle was splendid. The fruits, the animals, incredible.’ He laughed in his defence, then sobered. ‘It’s different than here. Everything here is so...tame... Do you miss it?’
‘Of course.’ She let him draw her back down, but not before the flicker of memory danced in his eyes. She probed it. ‘What are you missing? A place? A person?’ It struck her too late who that person might be. ‘A woman?’ A quick spike of jealousy stabbed at her. She didn’t want to think about this man with another woman. Tonight, she wanted him to belong solely to her. Yet it was another item unreckoned when she’d concocted this plan. It was supposed to have been simple: find a man, bed him and leave.
He shook his head. ‘No woman. A military man isn’t very good at making or keeping commitments of that nature. His days are not his own. Nor his life. It could end at any time.’ He was warning her to remember what they’d agreed upon. She didn’t need the reminder. She’d been the one to set the rules. But it was more than a warning. He was hinting at something larger, something his soul wanted to share. She waited, letting the silence stretch about them. She sensed he wanted to talk, the desire was in him, if only he could find the words. She gave him time and at last the words came.
‘My friend was killed in battle, at a place called Balaclava, near Sevastopol. He was an officer in the cavalry, one of the best. I saw him go down. One moment he was waving his sword, rallying his troops, and the next he was gone.’ Three sentences was all she would get. Perhaps he, too, was caught in limbo between the freedom of whispering secrets to a stranger to whom those secrets would mean nothing and the need to keep those secrets hidden in order to protect himself. The less they knew of each other the better. It was the deal after all.
‘I am sorry.’ She said the simple words softly, meaning them.
‘Tonight is not for war.’ He reached for her, tasting her—her mouth, her neck, the pulse at its base, the swells of her breasts—with sweet, slow kisses as his mouth, his hands, moved down her body. He laved the indentation of her navel with his tongue, his hands at the span of her waist, and then his mouth was in the curls hiding her core, his breath warm against her dampness. ‘You’ve not had your pleasure yet.’ Sharp blue eyes looked up at her from their intimate position at her thighs, burning with cobalt desire, for her perhaps, or for smothering the past. It didn’t matter to her body which. Her pulse quickened in a way that had nothing to do with her quest tonight, and everything to do with this man staring up at her. ‘Permit me?’ She might have permitted him out of curiosity alone, but Pavia was well beyond that now. Her surrender was imminent. She was not only curious, but intrigued by this man. He’d become more than a means to an end. No one had warned her about that.
The end was different now than when she’d begun. His wicked tongue licked at the seam of her in proof of that. The end was much more short term; the end was not a blocking of Wenderly’s unwanted suit, but something much more pleasurable, much more elusive—the goal was now this pleasure her soldier alluded to. He licked her again and she moaned. She wanted what he’d had. She’d seen his face—she wanted that, too, that sense of being swept away, of being beyond the physical realm. For a moment he’d been transported. Was it possible for her, too? His tongue found a hidden nub and she cried out her surprise, her enjoyment, the sensation sharper, stronger than before. ‘It’s all right to let go,’ he murmured against her skin. ‘You’re safe with me. Let the pleasure come,’ he coaxed. Her rational mind had no reason to believe him, but her body did. He’d done nothing but respect her since they’d come upstairs.
His mouth took her again and she felt the option to choose slipping away. She would give over to pleasure whether she wished it or not. And she did, her hands fisting first in the linen of the bedsheets and then the thickness of his hair, holding him to her for fear he’d leave her before the pleasure was complete. She would not survive it if he did. She arched into him, once, twice more, sensation driving her to the brink of madness and then to breaking. She felt herself shatter against his mouth, her body shuddering its own completion. This was what he’d felt. This was how he’d felt. Now she knew. In the swirling kaleidoscope of completion, she felt omniscient, as if she was in possession of great knowledge, of great power, one of the world’s supreme mysteries made known to her alone.
Her lover stretched along beside her, his eyes smoky, his face content. The act had given him pleasure as well. Pleasing her had been important to him. Would all lovers be this considerate? She yawned and he smiled. ‘Come and rest.’ Against her better judgement she did, nestling into ‘her’ spot at his shoulder. How quickly she’d become possessive of this stranger’s body. What could it hurt to lay in his arms an hour longer? It wasn’t as if she could sneak downstairs just yet without being noticed.
* * *
Pavia hadn’t meant to sleep. She hadn’t meant to linger after midnight. But when she woke, it was clear she’d done both. The window showed grey shadows of coming dawn and she knew a moment’s panic. She’d slept the night away! Beside her, her nameless lover slept unbothered, his sleeping countenance as handsome as it had been the night before. She had to hurry—hurry to get out of this room before he awoke, hurry to get back to the inn before her maid realised she was missing.
Pavia slid out of bed, wincing at her sore muscles—another surprise. She hastily gathered her veils, quietly retrieving her jingly gold belt. She’d been counting on the darkness to make her less conspicuous walking back. Now that advantage was gone, too, yet another reason to hurry. A girl wearing nothing but veils walking through the morning streets was bound to stand out. She did not want to be remembered. The cloak she’d worn the night before had been left behind in the kitchen. She took a final look at the man in the bed and slipped out of the room, closing the door softly on her one adventure. In the dim hall, Pavia squared her shoulders, warding off a sense of melancholy as she left the room and its occupant behind.
She ought to be pleased. Her quest had been irrevocably successful and now it was time to go forward into the future she’d chosen for herself; a future that would be somewhat uncertain at the outset and most definitely rocky. Her father would be furious once she announced she no longer met Wenderly’s marital criteria. That was a given. But what he would do was not as obvious. Would he banish her to the countryside? Force her into seclusion? Would he send her back to India and be done with her? She’d prefer the latter. Her uncle would take her in, she was sure of it. Perhaps her mother would come with her and they could both be free. She would hold on to that hope through the difficult times that would come first. If there was one certainty at the moment, it was this: things would likely get worse before they got better. But they would get better, Pavia reasoned, a little smile teasing her mouth as she walked. It was already better. She wasn’t going to marry Wenderly. She couldn’t. It was now impossible. She was completely and thoroughly ruined.
Chapter Three (#uccd2f7d4-c241-5222-9ff4-3f526f6d4ed4)
For the first time in the months since Balaclava, Cam slept. Thoroughly, completely. And, damn it, the price for that sleep was too high. Cam knew before he opened his eyes that she was gone. The room felt different, smelt different; it lacked a certain vibrancy.
Cam gave a groan and opened one eye, hoping his other senses were wrong. But sight only confirmed his disappointment. Her veils were gone. Except for the last mementos of scent, she had vanished with the night. Not that he hadn’t expected as much. She’d made it clear there’d be nothing between them beyond the night. Yet, it would have been nice to wake up to her; to the curve of her derrière tucked against him, to perhaps take her gently from behind as she woke, a chance to redeem himself as a lover.
She’d not been with him when release had claimed him alone. Her pleasure had waited until he’d taken her with his mouth, determined that she know the joy of release with him. It was a point of pride that his lovers found their pleasure, too. That the pleasure had initially eluded her had come as something of a surprise to Cam. He’d not been prepared for that. Everything leading up to his climax had suggested that moment would be jointly shared. Except for her eyes. Damn it, he should have put more credence in her eyes.
Even now in the grey coolness of morning, the heat of the night was etched on his mind with startling clarity. Her body had welcomed him eagerly, but her eyes had been dark and knowing, and not nearly as pliant, or as hot, as the rest of her. There’d been reserve in her gaze, a piece of her that she’d held back. And in the heat of the moment, Cam had wanted to claim it. Even now, he could recall that fierce surge of possession with warrior-like sharpness. He’d wanted that one piece of her, wanted to know what it was that she held back and why. And he’d set out to conquer it, driving himself into the oblivion of lovemaking, urged there by the arch of her body, the sounds of her mouth as he thrust into the tight, wet heat of her. The tightness had been exquisite, shaping itself around him as he moved within her. But despite his intent to conquer, to claim, that one piece had remained in abeyance, reserved from the encounter. For all his skill, he’d not been able to coax it forward. Despite the encouraging mewls and the subtle urgings of her body, he was alone when his release had come, pulsing, hard and sweeping, leaving him spent and, for a precious amount of time, too replete to think of the world beyond their bed, too replete to worry over what had gone amiss.
This morning, he still felt too replete to worry over her flight from his bed. Why had she flown? Had she taken anything with her? He wondered vaguely if she’d robbed him while he’d slept and Cam found he didn’t care. He had few items of worth on his person save his ring, a watch and his officer’s gorget. He had his sword, of course, which would fetch a good amount. He rather hoped she hadn’t taken that. It would be hard to explain how he’d lost it. He had a money clip in a pocket of his coat. But money was replaceable.
Cam reached a long arm out and lifted his coat from the floor, feeling for the money clip, half-hoping it was gone. At least then he’d know she would be able to purchase some security, pay rent, buy food, buy clothes if she needed them. Perhaps she would not have to dance in taverns where men tupped her with their eyes. His hand closed disappointingly around the clip. All was intact.
Cam sighed, questions filling his head. Where would she go? What would she do? Would she be safe? These were new questions. He’d never given much thought before about such things. Then again, he was not inclined towards lightskirts as lovers in general. Continental widows who loved their freedom were more to his taste when it came to assuaging physical need. But last night had somehow transcended the usual satisfying of his carnal appetites. Worrying over his absent lover was a distraction he needed to set aside. He could do nothing for her and other business called today.
He squinted towards the window, testing the brightness. It was well past dawn. Past time to get on with the day and the unpleasantness that waited. Cam threw back the covers and swung his legs out of bed. He stretched, arms over his head, rotating side to side from the waist. He rotated to his left side, then to his right, then halt—what was that on the bed, revealed only when he’d thrown back the covers? The pale stains of sex and blood on the sheets were unmistakable. He’d bedded enough women and seen enough blood to know. There were only two conclusions he could draw from that and one of them seemed too far-fetched to even consider: his dancer had been a virgin. Virgins didn’t dance in taverns, didn’t take arbitrary strangers upstairs for the night. Yet his body remembered the exquisite tightness of her, the hesitation before her hips had taken up the rhythm of his. He remembered, too, the provocative shyness of her when she’d stood before him naked, perhaps defiant instead of bold. Then, there had been her one hand, protective and shielding, giving her the air of innocence.
It had been coyly done, but even now with blood on the sheets, he couldn’t quite convince himself it was more than an act simply because it didn’t make sense. What did make sense was the other, more practical conclusion. She’d got her menses in the night. Not that it mattered. She had vanished completely. He would never see her again, even if he wanted to. To his surprise, he did want to. She’d captivated him with her passion, her beauty, with the concern he’d seen in her eyes, as if he wasn’t just another customer. ‘You are hurting, in here.’ Cam’s eyes quartered the room looking for a token of her presence, a scarf left behind, a coin dropped from her belt. Anything that offered insight into her identity. But there would be no glass slipper for him, no way to trace her.
Just as well. What would he do anyway if he found her? He was here on leave. He had duties to carry out. He would go back to Sevastopol as soon as his leave was up in August. It was time to get on with those duties. Cam mapped out the day in his head. He would send for his batman, who had chosen to bed down in the stables, eat breakfast, shave, dress and then, when the hour was decent and he could put it off no longer, he would call on the Duke of Cowden.
* * *
‘Fortis is dead, Your Grace.’ As it turned out, there was no decent hour at which to tell an ageing man his son had been killed. Cam stood ramrod-straight at attention, bringing all his sense of military ceremony to the announcement. Cam would honour his fallen friend with every ounce of pomp and pride in him. Fortis’s family deserved as much and Cam had promised. It was not a promise he’d ever thought to keep. They’d been half-drunk the night he’d made the pledge years ago in India on their first posting. They’d been immortal then.
The Duke of Cowden received the news with as much aplomb as it was delivered with, but it was a Herculean task for them both to maintain the stiff upper lip demanded by social etiquette—an etiquette that maintained a man did not fall apart over loss: loss of money, loss of life, the loss of a child. A man carried on.
‘Will you join me in a drink to him, then?’ Cowden moved to the side board holding a cut-crystal decanter full of brandy. His hand trembled as he poured. Cam moved to take the tumbler before the older man could drop it. He’d not seen Cowden in nearly eight years, not since Fortis’s hasty wedding to Avaline Panshawe, a marriage Fortis barely acknowledged. Cowden’s hair was white and his face was lined, although his back was straight. He was still a tall, commanding man if one did not look too closely, but the age was showing in small ways: the shaking hand, the long pauses before he spoke.
Cowden raised his glass, his voice firm. ‘To my son, Fortis, who lived as he wanted and died as he wished.’ They drank, long, deep swallows to cover the emotion. It was exactly how Fortis had wished to die: in the saddle, in the heat of battle, exhilaration thrumming through his veins. Cam hoped it had lived up to Fortis’s expectations.
Cowden refilled his glass and gestured to a chair, his tone shifting. ‘There, now that’s done. We’ve fulfilled our social obligations. Perhaps you would sit and tell me the details, tell an old man about the last moments of his son’s life?’ Grey eyebrows lifted at the request, his blue eyes not as sharp as Cam remembered them. The Duke had always been a formidable figure to him, but a friendly one. Cowden was older than Cam’s father, but younger than his grandfather. He’d been a happy medium in Cam’s life while he was growing up. He’d always been welcome at Fortis’s home. He’d never thought he’d have to repay those years of kindnesses like this.
‘Should we call the others?’ Cam made a gesture towards the door of Cowden’s study. ‘Should we include them?’
Cowden shook his head. ‘Let them think Fortis is alive awhile longer. Besides, you needn’t sanitise the details with me,’ he offered knowingly. ‘The news will be upsetting enough as it is.’ The whole Cowden crew was in town at the moment even though the Season would not be fully under way for a few weeks yet: Frederick, the heir, who had always been so jealous of Fortis’s freedom to serve his country; Helena, his wife, and their five boys; Ferris, his wife, Anne, and new baby, and Avaline, Fortis’s widow—a woman Fortis had spent only three weeks of married life with before he’d returned to his troops. Had he loved Avaline? Had Avaline loved him? Fortis had said little of his marriage. But Cam knew she had written to him dutifully for seven years. Cam did not relish telling her the news.
He sat, thankful for Cowden’s offer of informality. He could be himself here. He could be a friend, talking to another about a mutual friend instead of being the officer. He would return the Duke’s gift with the very best of Fortis: stories of Fortis in camp, how well his men liked him, how well the other officers respected him, the brilliance of his strategies, the successes of his warcraft, his daring in the Battle of Alma, the one preceding Balaclava. No father could be prouder. No friend could be luckier than to have Fortis by his side. In truth, it felt good to reminisce this way, to remember Fortis as he’d been in life with someone who knew him well.
‘And at Balaclava?’ the Duke asked at last, too sharp to overlook the one omission in the tales Cam had so carefully chosen. Some of the elation the stories had created ebbed from the room. ‘All that brilliance, all that courage, could not save him?’
Cam shook his head ruefully. ‘It was a series of missteps from the beginning. Raglan should have been using the cavalry to cut off the Russians at the Causeway, but he refused to take action.’ Fortis had been furious at the Lieutenant General’s refusal to put the Light Brigade into play. ‘Major General Cardigan was angry by the time he saw the Russians going after our cannon. He might have stood around all day while others saw action, but he would be damned if he would hold back his troops while the Russians stole our guns off the ridge.’ There had been other mistakes, too. Like sending the note for permission to strike with a messenger who believed too heartily in what a mounted cavalry could do and there’d been a mistake in the route Cardigan used. They should not have cut through the valley. That route had drawn the fire of the entire Russian army. ‘Fortis was ready for the charge. He was magnificent on that stallion of his, his sabre overhead as he called his troops to him. We were the right flank, the second line.’ Cam let the euphoria of battle fill him as he told the tale, how they’d driven through the Russian artillery, how they’d persisted, meeting the Russian cavalry in combat, pushing them back. There had been heady moments, glorious moments! He would not forget how gallant, how fearless his friend had looked. But they hadn’t the strength or numbers to hold the position. They’d been forced to withdraw.
Some of the euphoria let him. ‘We took the worst of it in retreat, in my opinion. We couldn’t withdraw to safety. That’s when Fortis fell.’ When had Fortis realised they’d crossed the valley of death? That the mission was impossible? That they might have achieved smashing through the lines, but that victory was their very downfall. They were exposed with no hope of shelter.
‘The papers said only one hundred and ninety-three returned,’ Cowden said quietly, reverently. ‘That fifty-five of the Fourth’s regiment were killed and four officers.’ But not Lieutenant Colonel Lord George Paget, or Major Camden Lithgow. Guilt swamped him for having survived.
‘Yes,’ Cam replied sombrely. Six-hundred-and-seventy-three men had charged the valley. He’d been one of the one hundred and ninety-three. He still grappled with that reality. How was it that he’d emerged unscathed while those around him fell—officers, good men who knew how to handle themselves in battle—cut down while he had not a scratch? No one could explain it, not the generals who had sent him home, not the priests who’d prayed with him over the dead and now he had to explain to the Duke of Cowden. Why had he lived when Fortis had fallen?
The Duke shook his head and put a fatherly hand on his leg. ‘No, don’t do that. Don’t blame yourself for being spared. At least one of you lived to come home and tell the tales. Fortis was a soldier. He knew the risks. He embraced them.’
Cowden drew a breath to ask the only question that remained. ‘Did you see the body?’
‘I saw him fall. He was only a few yards away from me. Khan, his big black, went down. The Russians shot his horse out from under him.’ Perhaps a horse had made a difference. Perhaps that was why he’d survived. Cam and his strong grey stallion, Hengroen, had both remained miraculously intact. ‘I pushed towards Fortis the moment I saw.’ Cam remembered turning Hengroen towards the fallen Khan, but he couldn’t get close; it was an impossible horizontal movement in a vertical charge. All around him, men and horses were falling, blocking his way. He could do nothing but push forward.
‘And afterwards? Did you see his body then?’ Cowden pressed. It was the question Cam didn’t want to answer, a question that raised all his old hopes and fears when it came to Fortis—that somehow Fortis had survived, that he wasn’t dead.
‘No, Your Grace, I did not. I had orders to carry out and there was...difficulty, shall we say? Afterwards. The British army does not accept defeat without placing blame.’
A little light of misguided hope flared in Cowden’s eyes. Cam had been prepared for this even before Cowden uttered the words, ‘Do you think there’s a chance...?’ He let the words drift off.
‘No, Your Grace, I do not. Four hundred men and horses were slaughtered. I saw him go down in impossible circumstances.’ Cam looked down at his hands and swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. ‘I know what you’re thinking. That Fortis was strong enough, canny enough to survive. I thought it, too. For months I hoped. When things settled, I scoured the countryside every chance I got. It was winter, it was cold. I asked at huts and in little villages if anyone had nursed a wounded man.’ He paused, remembering the desperate months of searching, of hoping and all the emotions that went with alternately experiencing intense hope followed by the intense grief of disappointment. There’d be a possible story in a village that only turned out to be someone else. Towards the end, he’d been drunk quite a bit of the time and bitter. It was not the proudest chapter in his life. He still cringed to think about it, embarrassed by his grief and his inability to manage it. The army had been embarrassed, too. He knew why he’d been sent home. In their opinion, he’d become a danger to himself and perhaps to others. He did not want to fuel such a disastrous hope for the Duke.
‘It’s been seven months, Your Grace. If I thought there was any hope left I would not have come home.’ He would have found a way even if it meant desertion. The army had wanted him to go home sooner, but he’d refused, citing the difficulties of winter travels. He’d bought himself a little more time until finally the Major General had insisted he go home and recover before he shot someone by accident or himself on purpose. The latter was more likely. He’d got the gun as far as his head on two occasions.
Cowden smiled. ‘Of course. Forgive me, I am a foolish old man.’
‘And I was a foolish young one—there is nothing to forgive.’ Cam returned the smile. ‘We both loved him and we will miss him. Always.’ He was just starting to accept that part, that his life would go on and Fortis would be with him in his heart. Maybe some day there would be peace along with that knowledge. But it would not be today.
Cowden drew a deep breath, steadying himself. ‘Are you ready? Let’s go tell the others.’ He clapped a hand on Cam’s shoulder. ‘You’ve been very brave in coming here. I know it was not easy. You have your own grief to deal with. You and Fortis were close, like brothers.’ Cam thought he detected a warning in that statement, that the Duke sensed he wasn’t dealing or hadn’t dealt sufficiently with his own grief. The Duke would be right.
Cowden peered at him with kind eyes. ‘You’re a soldier just like Fortis. I can see you want to be with your men far more than you want to be here in London. But don’t underestimate the power of being home, Cam. Whatever you may think of him, your grandfather will be pleased to see you.’
It was technically true. His grandfather would be glad to see him, but not in the way Cowden meant. Not in the way of an elder family patriarch affectionately welcoming home the returning, youthful branch of his family tree. His grandfather would be glad to see him because of what Cam could do for the family. That was as far as his grandfather’s affections went, for any of them. The old man simply wasn’t capable of love.
Chapter Four (#uccd2f7d4-c241-5222-9ff4-3f526f6d4ed4)
The old man was, however, capable of a great deal of other things. Cam made his bow at four in the afternoon to his grandfather in the Earl of Aylsbury’s elegant pale blue Louis XV drawing room with its elaborate cornice work and gold leafing. By eight o’clock that evening, a family dinner, ostensibly in his honour, had been instigated with the best china laid out—his grandmother’s favourite Colandine pattern by Primavesi and Son in Cardiff blue, along with the very best wines—his grandfather’s favourite, the Chateau Margaux Bordeaux—and the best guests which included, not surprisingly, the Beauforts and their daughter, Caroline. By the end of the evening, Cam had an appointment to take Caroline out driving the next day and to escort her to a musicale the next. Everything was playing out just as he’d imagined it would. There were no surprises here. Just expectations. And he was meeting them all.
‘We’ll have a grand time, now that you’re home.’ Caroline smiled over her shoulder as he helped her with her wrap in the hall. The long evening was finally coming to a close. ‘There are so many entertainments this year. Mademoiselle Rachel will be performing at the St James’s Theatre in June...’
Cam did not hear the rest. Out there in the world, men were dying defending British interests abroad, dying to help their country build an empire and influence the world. In his estimation it was a noble legacy. Those lives had purpose. They were fighting for something, but was that something nothing more than the preservation of a life filled with the minutiae of looking forward to the talent of Mademoiselle Rachel treading the boards? It seemed an unfair trade. Surely there was more to life than the one depicted and acted out by Caroline Beaufort? He’d been in London less than a day and he was already itching to leave. The months of his leave stretched before him like an eternity. Today, he’d taken his first steps into the wasteland he’d imagined last night.
The thought of last night prompted a smile. What was his nameless lover doing right now? Then the smile faded. Was she dancing for another? No, he wouldn’t think of her like that—dancing with her veils, enticing another man. He would remember her as distinctly his. He would remember the way she looked, arching into him, her eyes wide as pleasure took her, the little sounds she made. She’d been as honest and open in her expression of pleasure as she had been in her nudity.
Caroline thought the smile was for her. ‘I am glad you’re home, Cam.’ Cam. That was new, as was the possessive way she held on to his arm and both set off alarms. Before, such a confession from her would have been accompanied by maidenly blushes. Tonight it was not, a reminder that she was not a shy maiden any more, no longer a debutante of eighteen, but a woman of twenty-one who was in her third Season.
‘I will go back to the Crimea in a few months. I am not home for good,’ Cam reminded her with a polite smile. He was already counting the days. His men needed him and he would continue to look for Fortis. He would do it discreetly this time. If Fortis was dead, he would find him—a body, a grave, anything to bring closure to that tragic day in Balaclava. Despite his counsel to Cowden, Cam wasn’t willing to give up until he had proof. Here in England, he was too far away to be effectual. He’d written letters and made enquiries, but it wasn’t the same as being on the ground. He didn’t want to be at parties, wasting his days with nothing when there was even the smallest chance Fortis might be out there, struggling to survive while he drank champagne. Cam pushed back the memories. Not now. He didn’t want to think about them here in front of everyone, people who didn’t understand what it meant to go to war.
Caroline trailed a well-manicured finger down his sleeve, oblivious to his pain. ‘Perhaps going back is not a foregone conclusion,’ she purred. ‘Maybe we will find you a reason to stay this time.’ The message was clear. There was a new enemy that demanded his attention right in front of him. Caroline had grown bold indeed. And why shouldn’t she be bold? She was not panicked she’d been out for three Seasons. Her family and the Lithgows, through his grandfather, had an understanding. She was to marry him. It was an understanding she’d been raised on and never had reason to doubt. The entrance hall of his grandfather’s home was no place to raise those doubts. So, Cam bent over her hand with a gallant smile and wished her goodnight.
Would he do it? Would he, like Fortis, marry a woman of his family’s choosing and simply leave her behind, going back to his old life as if nothing had happened? Or would his family demand he resign his commission? Would he do that, too—give up his career and his choice in order to marry and live the life the family wanted for him? Or would he refuse to marry at all? To refuse his family and the Earl was no small thing. As far as he knew, no one had refused his grandfather in Cam’s lifetime. Not his uncle, the heir, or his father. To what benefit would such a refusal be? What would be worth refusing the family and all the financial and social support that went with it?
* * *
That night, Cam dreamt quite pleasantly of his Indian girl, his secret life, his last adventure before falling into the abyss of the London Season. In the days that followed, filled with routs and parties, and Caroline clinging to his arm as if he were already hers, it was comforting to think of his dancer out there in the world somewhere. He thought of conversations he would have with her. He talked to her in his head the way he’d talked to her that night, confessing what he had confessed to no other. Perhaps if she were by his side instead of Caroline Beaufort, the magic of the Season would be restored.
The two women could not be more different: Caroline with her blonde paleness and penchant for tradition and correctness; his dancer with her toast-coloured skin and dark eyes and sensual boldness. Cam imagined her dressed in a fine ballgown, with jewels glittering at her neck, and he wondered what she’d think of the Season. Would she think it silly like he did? Or would she see the enchantment? In short, she became a fantasy of the ideal, the perfection of beauty and companionship—giving all to him while demanding nothing in return. It was a harmless fantasy. He could imagine all he liked. There was no chance of the fantasy being realised.
* * *
‘I cannot marry Wenderly.’ Pavia stood before her father’s desk of polished Indian rosewood, her shoulders straight, defiance coursing through her veins. She had made this argument before, only this time the outcome would be different. This time she had leverage.
‘Wenderly is an earl.’ Her father glanced at her mother, his eyes pleading with her to intercede, but her mother had launched a subtle rebellion of her own and refused to come to his rescue. He was on his own. One arranged marriage in the family was enough, her mother’s posture seemed to say. ‘He is highly placed in society.’ Pavia knew this argument of her father’s well. ‘You would be a countess. Your son would be an earl when Wenderly dies, which can’t be more than seven to ten years in the waiting.’ Leave it to her father to look at all angles, distasteful as they were. ‘You will be a rich, young widow, able to pick her next husband.’
How like her father to assume there would be a next husband. For all his innovation in business, he lacked a certain creativity when it came to imagining a woman’s life without a man beside her. She supposed to his balance-sheet-driven mind the deal looked acceptable, sustainable.
Pavia looked down at the fawn medallion woven in the Kashan carpet to hide her disgust. Minimum input, seven years, maybe less, and then maximum output to her benefit in her father’s eyes. She would be twenty-five, maybe twenty-eight. Not even thirty. But those seven years between now and then stretched before her interminably. Her father was assuming she’d survive them intact, mentally, emotionally. Her father was also assuming his numbers were right and Wenderly wasn’t endowed with supernaturally long life. Her father was just as confident in Wenderly’s demise as he was in the outcome of this conversation. He was going to win. It was the thing he did best: winning at all costs. And it had cost him plenty over the years, even if he couldn’t see it.
Pavia knew her father was not concerned about the cost of her rebellion. He viewed these arguments as a temporary unpleasantness between them that would end with her capitulation and the complete return of his wife’s loyalty, something he’d always taken for granted. As for herself, Pavia knew differently. This would not end well for him. She played her ace.
‘You don’t seem to understand. This is not an issue of wanting to. I cannot marry Wenderly. I no longer meet his marital criteria. I am not a virgin.’ She would never forget the silence that followed her statement. It was an expensive ace, not only in its acquisition, which had cost her the most valuable thing a young woman possessed by society’s standards, but also in the damage such acknowledgement would do to the inner workings of her family. It would positively cleave a chasm between her and her father.
In truth, the beginnings of that chasm were already there and had been ever since Pavia had realised she was nothing but a pawn for her father to use in the advancement of his ambitions. This would merely widen that chasm. The wedding negotiations with Wenderly had been a start, making it impossible to avoid what had already been the truth: at some point, she’d ceased to matter beyond being a placeholder for him, the face of his fortune. It had been this way ever since they’d returned to England. Now it had become a conflict that caught her mother in the middle—between a husband who wanted his wife’s loyalty and a daughter who wanted the same.
Her father’s eyes glinted dangerously, his voice razor-sharp. ‘Who? Tell me who and I will see that he answers for this on the field of honour.’ Of course that would be his first response—his first concern was always for appearances. How would this look to the public? What would people think? She should not be surprised. And yet, it stung that his first concern was not for her, even if that concern came with anger.
Pavia did not flinch. ‘I do not know his name.’ It was not a lie and she was glad for the truth. It would protect her from the guilt of dishonesty and it would protect her lover’s life. Images of his strong, glorious, well-muscled body came to mind. She pushed them away along with dangerous thoughts. It had occurred to her fleetingly on the walk back to her inn that it wouldn’t be impossible to find her lover. She knew the colour of his uniform, had some idea of his rank. She could go to the military offices at Whitehall and make enquiries. No. That was not what she’d promised him or herself. One night only. There were many reasons for that precaution and this was one of them. She did not want him to face her father at twenty paces for her folly. Her father, even at forty-five, was still deadly with a pistol.
Only now, when he’d been denied a victim, did he direct his attention towards her. ‘You ruined yourself to spite me? Turned yourself into a Jezebel as part of this temper tantrum of yours? Do you know what you’ve done? What man will have you now? And you’ve ruined this family.’ Her father’s anger rumbled near the surface. ‘All my life, I have worked for our family and in one instant you have destroyed it.’ It was a visible struggle to deny his temper free rein. Pavia did not think she ever recalled him being this furious. He pushed his hand through his hair. ‘Perhaps Wenderly can be duped.’ He gestured to her mother. ‘Sabita, you have to fix this. There must be some female trick to create the impression of virginity.’
Pavia froze. Her father meant to go through with it. If he did, her sacrifice would be for naught. She’d risked herself, brought conflict to her family, all for nothing. And she’d have to sustain the lie. She had not counted on this. She exchanged a quick glance with her mother, although she doubted there would be much hope there. Her mother would be just as mad as her father.
Her mother’s dark eyes held hers for a moment and then flitted away. ‘Wenderly isn’t the only peer on the market this Season,’ her mother offered. Pavia opened her mouth to protest. She didn’t want to marry Wenderly, but that didn’t mean she wanted to marry someone else either. Her mother slid her a stern look that said they would talk later. Pavia wasn’t fooled. When that conversation happened, her mother would do the talking. She would do the listening. ‘What is all your money worth, Oliver, if it can’t buy your daughter a husband? Surely your fortune can buy more than a middling earl.’ It was subtly done, the comment a compliment and a challenge. Her mother was a master when she chose to exert her influence. It was a choice she seldom made these days. England had beaten her down, changed her as it had changed her father. They’d been a different family in India.
Her father’s face became contemplative. Her mother smiled and pressed her argument softly. ‘There are two marquises and a duke hunting brides, and there are other earls desperate enough for funds to even look towards American brides. They’d be more than happy to take your money and overlook such a little thing as the lack of a maidenhead if their bride can keep a roof over the manor and claim English blood at the same time.’
‘It’s a slim field,’ her father mused, not liking the odds.
‘Slim for others, perhaps. But no one’s bank account can match yours and your daughter is beautiful,’ her mother responded smoothly. ‘Besides, Wenderly was no challenge for a man like yourself. Aren’t you always saying never take the first offer? Catching a husband isn’t much different than selling tea.’
Her father glanced at her mother who gave a small, imperceptible nod of encouragement. ‘All right,’ he said with an infrequent smile. ‘We shall go fishing, one last time. Draw up a list of the eligible men and we’ll see what can be done. We’ll need an invite to the Banfields’ ball in a couple weeks. It’s the most lavish entertainment this early in the Season. Pavia will need a gown that is equal to it. Get it ordered early so it will be done.’
Pavia smiled, careful not to betray her sense of victory. It wouldn’t be her fault if those gentlemen her mother spoke of didn’t come up to scratch. She had won. But she was acutely aware she’d only won time. Still, anything could happen in those precious weeks.
* * *
‘You betrayed me.’ Her mother glided into her room without so much as a knock and shut the door behind her, dismissing the maid with a flick of her hand. She could be imperious when she wanted to be. Once a princess, always a princess.
‘He’s the one who has betrayed us,’ Pavia argued. She’d been expecting this conversation and she was ready. ‘He wants to sell me to the highest bidder. Are you willing to let him do that? Wenderly is an old man with perverse tastes.’
‘A woman must marry, Pavia,’ her mother snapped. ‘Whether she likes it or not, she is nothing without a man. She has no money, no shelter, no status. Nothing with which she can protect herself. It’s not right, but it’s reality. What do you think happens to you without a husband if your father withdraws his protection?’ Her mother was furious.
‘This is not the Middle Ages,’ Pavia protested, hurt that her mother hadn’t sided with her immediately. Surely her mother saw the injustice of the situation?
Her mother sat at the edge of her bed, her voice quiet. ‘Your actions do not endear me to him. I had one job and that was to raise his child—a beautiful, obedient girl who would be a credit to him and help him advance his position in the world. I have failed.’ That silenced Pavia. She hadn’t thought of it like that. She’d thought only of what the arrangement with Wenderly meant to her.
‘I wish we were in India, with Uncle, like it used to be. I don’t know how you bear it.’ Pavia huffed. ‘Why don’t we go? Surely Father wouldn’t care if we went? We mean nothing to him, just chess pieces to move around his board.’ She searched her mother’s face for guidance. ‘How do you stand it? So far from home, so far from your family?’
‘Your father and I complete each other, Pavia. Dher aham prithvi tvam. If I am the sky, you are the earth. People change over time. Perhaps he is not the same man I married, but he is still the man I am married to. A wife stands by her husband. My brother made this marriage for me in good faith that I would be provided for and I have been. I want for nothing. I would not shame my brother by returning to his palace.’
‘But what about love?’
‘Love is only one thing to build a marriage on and sometimes love alone is not enough. There are other things that matter, too. Surely you don’t believe in fairy tales, Pavia?’ Her mother was unrelenting.
‘No, not fairy tales, but marriage should be reasonable, mutual, at least.’ How could she believe in fairy tales when her mother had left her home to follow a husband halfway around the world who had no time for her? Who was always gone, leaving her alone in a strange country?
‘It can start that way, but things do not always go as planned.’ She reached for Pavia’s hand. ‘You blame your father for too much. He didn’t understand how difficult it would be for us here.’ She smiled softly.
‘We had so much hope. When we came to England, he had already made his first fortune. You were twelve and we were naïve. We thought we could throw money at our obstacles and they would dissolve. He bought this house, then the estate in the country. He sent you to Mrs Finlay’s. He gave us all the trappings of nobility. When that was not greeted with acceptance, he worked harder, made another fortune and then another. But nothing changed. I was not invited anywhere. I have not become the great hostess he wanted. He wanted London at our feet and he didn’t get it. I failed him, but he has another chance through you.’ She paused. ‘I just want you to understand why he pushes so hard.’
‘You shouldn’t have to justify his failings to me.’ Pavia rose from the bed. She would never be as tolerant, as forgiving, as her mother, nor would she be as accepting. ‘I’m not like you. I don’t want a marriage of convenience to a man I have to make excuses for. I want to be free. I want to go places and see things. Women can do that now, Mother. The railway is opening up travel like never before. The world is changing.’
‘Not really, it isn’t. Have you not heard a word I’ve said?’ Her mother sighed. ‘I love you and I want you to be safe and cared for. What about the Marquis of Chatham? He seems like a tolerant man. Perhaps Wenderly was not the best choice, but you are safe from him only if you can bring another lord up to scratch. Don’t waste this chance, Pavia. And for heaven’s sake, don’t fall for the lie these modern women portray in their pamphlets. Don’t believe for a minute that you are free. A woman alone is never free. She is in constant danger. The sooner you understand that, the better. Now, let’s talk about a gown for the Banfields’ ball.’
Chapter Five (#uccd2f7d4-c241-5222-9ff4-3f526f6d4ed4)
The Banfields’ ball went down better with champagne. Cam grabbed another flute from a passing tray, adeptly trading his empty one for a full. It was a move he’d perfected over the last two weeks—weeks filled with entertainments like this one, each event grander than the previous as the official opening of the Season drew closer. That opening was so close now, the Banfields’ ball might be considered a soft open for the festivities that would soon be underway. Everyone who was considered anyone of importance for this Season was here tonight, doing one last dress rehearsal, the diamonds brighter, the dresses whiter, the smiles wider. Even the ballroom itself seemed to glitter with a sense of its own self-importance: chandeliers from the Venetian masters, the slim Ionic-styled columns framing the ballroom wrapped in elegant swathes of shimmering pale rose silk and white roses everywhere. Out on the dance floor, Caroline swirled by in a froth of ivory and pink skirts on the arm of a young, but financially disadvantaged viscount’s heir. She flashed Cam a smile. He raised his glass in salute and drained it, his eyes already roving the room, searching out a footman with a tray. Ah, there was one! He moved to swap flutes, a low, familiar chuckle erupting behind him.
‘Easy there, soldier, don’t you think you’ve had enough? You’ll be too foxed by midnight to take the lovely Miss Beaufort in for supper.’
‘That’s the point.’ Cam laughed, turning to shake hands with an old friend. ‘Sutton Keynes, what brings you to town? I thought you never left Newmarket these days.’
Tall and immaculately turned out, Sutton looked far more like a gentleman tonight than the dairyman he aspired to be. One would never guess he spent his days mucking around in camel stalls. Sutton shrugged evasively. ‘I had business in town. Uncle is at it again, another one of his crazy schemes to see me wed. Best to nip that in the bud before the Season heats up.’ It was said jovially, but Sutton’s eyes were tired and his mouth was tight. Cam wondered if there was something more serious at play this time. Ever since he’d known Sutton back in school, Sutton’s uncle had been, well, odd to say the least. ‘Nothing I can’t handle, of course,’ Sutton added and then lowered his voice. ‘I heard about Fortis. I am sorry. Is that the only reason you’re home?’ He nodded towards the dance floor. ‘Miss Beaufort grows lovelier every year. Your grandfather certainly knows how to pick them.’ The mechanics of the arrangement were an open secret between Cam and his friends.
‘Then my grandfather can marry her.’ Cam swallowed the contents of the icy flute whole. Damn, the glasses were holding less and less as the night wore on. Either that or he was emptying them faster.
‘Your grandmother might have something to say about that,’ Sutton joked to take the acerbic edge off his comment, but his voice was low when he spoke again, invoking all the privacy that could be mustered in a ballroom. ‘So, is it the match you’re opposed to, old friend, or the way it came into being? Caroline is as good a choice as any and better than most.’ Sutton paused. ‘Unless, of course, you have someone else in mind?’ Images of his dark-eyed dancer swam in his mind. Cam pushed them away. He didn’t want to think of her tonight, not when such images could only serve to torture him with reminders of what he couldn’t have.
‘There is no one else.’ Cam infused his words with a sense of finality. He wanted to move away from this avenue of conversation, but Sutton seemed determined.
‘What if there was someone else? What if you went to your grandfather and said, “Here’s who I want to marry”?’ Sutton surveyed the ballroom. ‘Granted, it might be difficult this year. There’s not much to pick from in the way of outstanding catches. There’s the usual milieu of grasping gentry, baron’s daughters and such. That won’t impress your grandfather. But...’ Sutton’s voice picked up a tempo of excitement ‘...Endicott’s last daughter is out this year. I think there’s been an Endicott girl on the market every year since we came up, poor man.’
‘I don’t want an Endicott girl.’ Cam shook his head.
‘Well, there are only two viscounts’ daughters and one daughter of a marquis this year. People are saying it will be a bloodbath, the three of them will make rutting stags of us all.’ Sutton took another sip of champagne, his glass still half-full. ‘There is a Cit heiress, though.’ He raised his dark eyebrows. ‘That should make things interesting. She’s the only child of Oliver Honeysett, the tea merchant. He’s made it clear he wants a title and is willing to pay for it. His fortune would keep a man in horses for life.’ Sutton calculated everything in horses, or camels. The man should have been a Bedouin. ‘Of course, you don’t need the money, but plenty of these fellows do. It’s always interesting how that dilemma plays out,’ Sutton commented neutrally.
Cam didn’t respond. He eyed his empty glass and sighed. ‘It doesn’t matter, Sut, they’re all the same. This year, last year, next year. They’re all the same. Every girl, every night, every ball, all the same.’ It had taken coming home to really see that. He’d been gone from London for seven years and he might as well as not been. Nothing was different. The routine was the same, even the balls were the same. He went to the same places, saw the same people. Men’s trouser legs were a bit narrower, but, other than that, sameness permeated everything and it was suffocating him like a stock tied too tight. Even now, he had the sensation that he couldn’t breathe.
Across the room, a ripple shifted the crowd as the dance ended and couples walked back to their groups, new pairs drifting on to the floor. It was the flash of turquoise that caught his eye, bright and vibrant, and Cam’s eye riveted on it. Turquoise and dark hair, both a striking contrast against the pale palette of ivories and creams and blondeness around him. It was enough to capture his attention and to recall the memories he’d been trying to subdue all evening. ‘Who is that?’ Cam gestured with his flute. Maybe someone new to hold his interest was exactly what he needed, someone to replace his dancer in his fantasies.
‘You have good taste.’ Sutton followed his gaze. ‘It must be all that time abroad. That is the tea merchant’s daughter, our richest, most controversial prize of the Season.’
‘Because she’s a Cit? One would think we’d be more progressive these days. If we can power steam ships and run an empire, surely we can broaden our minds about social class.’ Good lord, the champagne was starting to take effect. His tongue was looser than a Covent Garden whore.
Sutton laughed. ‘It’s all about self-protection and you know it, Cam. People think if we let everyone in, the peerage would mean nothing and we’d be useless. But that’s not the problem with her. I dare say most would make an allowance for the Honeysetts in order to get their hands on all that money. Lord knows the aristocracy needs it.’ He dropped his voice even lower. ‘It’s her breeding, I’m talking about. Society is uncomfortable with the fact that her mother’s Indian. She’s a mixed-blood heiress and society has no idea what to do with her.’
‘Society had better get used to it. Empires by nature are not homogenous.’ Cam couldn’t keep the disgust out of his voice. The colour of someone’s skin should not determine their value. He thought of his dancer and the leers men had cast her in the tavern, and the disregard he’d feared they would show her without his protection.
‘True enough,’ Sutton agreed. ‘We’re seeing more and more of that as the empire expands—wealthy men marrying abroad and bringing their children home, only to discover England doesn’t want them. They’re trapped between worlds.’
Cam’s heart went out to the heiress. The Season must be torture for her, knowing that no matter how much money her father had, her antecedents would be held against her, weighed against access to that fortune. The girl would never truly know if she was appreciated for herself. ‘I want to meet her,’ Cam said, the decisiveness clearing the fuzziness of his head.
The request stunned Sutton. ‘I’ve only met her once, last week at the Haverfords’ rout.’
‘Good. Then she’ll remember you.’ Cam made a forward motion with his hand. ‘Lead on.’
‘It won’t do you any good,’ Sutton argued as they wove through the crowd. ‘Rumour has it, she’s nearly engaged to Wenderly.’
‘Wenderly?’ Cam’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Is he still around? The man must be nearly sixty. I’d think a widow would be more his sort.’
‘Well, you’d be wrong,’ Sutton said over his shoulder. ‘He’s got a taste for virgins these days.’
They approached the heiress’s little court from the side so that she was turned away from them. The crowd parted to make room for the newcomers and Cam stood back, waiting for Sutton to make the introductions.
‘Miss Honeysett, a pleasure to see you again.’
‘Mr Keynes! How good to see you. How is your camel dairy?’ she effused with genuine sincerity in a voice that held notes of the familiar, the smoke of it, the soft intimacy of it, sending a ripple of awareness through Cam.
‘My dairy is fine, how kind of you to remember.’ Sutton bowed over her gloved hand. ‘I have a friend with me tonight who would like to meet you. May I introduce you? Miss Pavia Honeysett, this is Major Camden Lithgow, lately of the Fourth Queen’s Own Hussars, although he’s not in uniform tonight as he’s home on leave.’
Cam stepped forward, his gaze locking on Miss Honeysett for the first time. He stalled, barely hearing Sutton finish the introduction. His heart pounded hard. The room seemed to spin either from champagne or from the shock of a fantasy come to life. His mind grappled with the enormous improbability of it all. After weeks of wishing for it, his dark-eyed dancer was here.
* * *
He was here. Pavia froze, barely remembering to extend her hand, so intent was she on his face—a face she’d studied intimately in the dark, a face she’d committed to memory. Only now the face had a name: Major Camden Lithgow. ‘Enchanté,’ Pavia murmured automatically.
Mrs Finlay’s academy had done its job with years of drills to help protect against unnerving circumstances. Perhaps he wouldn’t recognise her. It was a short-lived thought. The sharp look of shock in his eyes said he remembered her quite well. He’d not expected to find her here either.
‘The pleasure is all mine.’ His eyes lingered on her, full of memories and questions even as he delivered that wickedly wrapped double entendre. In the world beyond Cam Lithgow’s broad shoulder, the musicians struck up the beginnings of a dance. She was caught off guard, but Cam took advantage. ‘Might I hope you are free for the waltz?’ She was envious how quickly he’d recovered his aplomb while she was still wallowing in stunned surprise.
‘Absolutely.’ She took his arm and let him whisk her away to the dance floor and whatever privacy they might find there. It was the perfect short-term remedy. They would be seen, but not heard.
‘You were not a dancer like those other girls that night.’ He wasted no time, his hand at her waist, moving them into the waltz as he began his interrogation.
‘No.’ She was breathless as they took the first turn, the speed of his pace perhaps akin to the speed with which his mind was working, sorting, as she was, through the surprise and the facts. ‘I was not supposed to see you again.’
‘Nor I you, yet here we are, dancing again, but in very different circumstances,’ the Major said tautly.
Pavia lifted her chin defiantly. ‘Here we are, but it changes nothing. I am not asking you to claim a previous association with me. In fact, I’d prefer you didn’t.’ Never mind that she still dreamed about him at night, that he, nameless as he’d been, had somehow managed to imprint himself on her heart, on her mind, in that short time. She knew now she’d never be rid of him.
‘I know.’ His blue eyes narrowed, fixed on her in a piercing cobalt stare. ‘My friend tells me you’re engaged to Wenderly.’ He paused, perhaps considering that piece of information, and her mouth went dry. Did he know she’d been a virgin? Would he put the pieces together? Would he be angry? She didn’t want his anger. Even now, her body thrilled to the feel of his hand at her waist, of his hand in hers, the weight of his gaze on her, things she’d never thought to experience again.
‘It’s a possibility.’ Pavia was careful with her words. She couldn’t risk him saying otherwise if it came up in casual conversation at his clubs.
He arched blonde brows in doubt. ‘Truly? Does the earl tolerate such liberal behaviour in his fiancée? Does he know you dance in taverns and seduce men in their chambers?’
Pavia froze him with a stare. Scolding him silently for such crassness was the only recourse open to her. She could not plead it was only the one time or he would know her secret and he would know she’d used him. But it sat poorly with her to let him get away with thinking what she’d done with him was habitual. ‘That was one night out of time. It is best we forget about it,’ she said tightly. ‘If we don’t acknowledge it, it is as if it never happened.’
‘Of course, if that is what you want. You have nothing to fear from me. Your secret is safe.’ But Pavia thought she detected a shadow of disappointment as he reassured her. ‘I won’t be in London long, just until my leave ends in August. I will rejoin my troops in the Crimea. Don’t worry. London is large. We needn’t encounter one another again.’ He smiled, but it was not warm. ‘I won’t be home for a long while then. If ever.’ He was angry. There was a coldness to his words as the dance ended and he escorted her back to her court.
So it was done. Her fantasy had come full circle as his broad-shouldered back walked away from her, swallowed up in the crush of the ballroom as best it could be. Major Lithgow was taller than most, his hair brighter than most. Pavia was certain she could find him in any room if she looked. She could not look. It would do no good to torture herself with looking. A hundred questions had gone unasked during their waltz. The less she knew of him the better, the harder it would be to find him. He was not an acceptable substitute for Wenderly or for the other titled gentlemen she was supposed to be chasing. He was a military officer of some rank and respect, but he did not come with the title her father coveted. He would say she could have any officer. There was nothing special there. She had to give the major up.
‘Miss Honeysett, I believe this dance is mine.’ A wheat-haired man of respectable height and impeccable dress bowed before her, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled, confident in himself and his appeal.
Pavia returned the smile of the only Marquis out wife-hunting this Season. ‘Yes, I believe it is.’ Beyond him, she caught her father’s eye and nod of approval. And beyond her father was the golden head of Major Camden Lithgow, a pretty blonde beside him, her hand on his arm, her face laughing up at him, her body leaning close as if they were long acquainted and easy with one another. The sight riveted Pavia with a surge of irrational, jealous anger. How dare he! How dare he what? How dare he do exactly as she’d bid him and forget her?
Only there was no forgetting, was there? He knew that woman and she knew him. Quite well. Their body language suggested a history between them. No wonder he hadn’t flinched at her request to forget their night. He’d hardly want the pretty blonde with him to know such a thing.
‘Ahem.’ The Marquis smiled again, revealing straight white teeth as he attempted to reclaim her attention with a compliment. ‘I have been looking forward to this dance all evening.’
Pavia gave herself a mental scold. She needed to focus. This was a man to bring up to scratch. It shouldn’t be too hard; he was thirty-five, needed to marry and he was penniless—penniless enough to overlook her antecedents in exchange for a fortune.
‘As have I,’ Pavia lied smoothly and laid her hand on his sleeve.
Chapter Six (#uccd2f7d4-c241-5222-9ff4-3f526f6d4ed4)
She wanted nothing to do with him! The thought still rankled a week later. It didn’t help that for a girl who’d claimed to dismiss him, she was everywhere. Cam couldn’t go to a musicale, a ball or a sailing party without her being there. So much for the idea that London was a big place. He couldn’t seem to avoid her. Worst of all, she’d grown an appendage otherwise known as the Marquis of Chatham. She was on his arm, laughing, smiling, entrancing. Chatham was clearly smitten with her. Today was no different. She was dressed in a day gown of simple white muslin with a square neck and tiers of ruffles at the hem and charming Chatham effortlessly.
‘It seems Wenderly has some competition,’ Cam remarked drily to Sutton from their vantage point at the Countess of Claremont’s Richmond picnic. Caroline and the others in their group had wandered off a short distance to view the river, giving him a few minutes alone with Sutton.
Pavia and Chatham had wandered off on their own somewhere too, he’d noted, and the thought sent a hard surge of something through him. There were only so many things two people stole away on their own to do. Hot images of their one night swam to the fore followed by a bolt of undeniable jealousy. Had Chatham kissed her yet? Did he, too, know the sensual press of her lips, how she moved her whole body into a kiss? The way her breasts felt pressed against one’s chest? Of course, she’d been naked then, naked for him. Irrationally, he wanted to be the only one she was naked for, the only one she kissed like that.
‘And Caroline?’ Sutton asked rather bluntly, breaking into his thoughts. ‘Does she have some competition as well?’
Cam shot his friend a hard stare. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’
Sutton chuckled. ‘It means you haven’t been able to take your eyes off Pavia Honeysett since the Banfields’ ball.’ Sutton cocked his head, considering. ‘Nor she you, I think. She watches you when you’re not looking.’ Sutton plucked an orange from the basket on the blanket and began to peel.
She watched him? Cam schooled his features into bland neutrality, careful not to give away any reaction as to how that made him feel. A schoolboy exhilaration shot through him. He’d laugh at himself if Sutton wasn’t already doing it for him. He was twenty-eight and a soldier who’d seen the world. He was well past the crushes and infatuations of a green boy, yet here he was, fantasising about a woman he couldn’t have. ‘So, she’s decided to go to the highest bidder?’ Cam asked, definitively forgoing a response to Sutton’s question.
‘I think that’s what her father has decided,’ Sutton replied evasively.
Under other circumstances, Cam would find little to dislike about Chatham. The man was an excellent horseman, a solid marksman who responsibly held his seat in the House of Lords and kept a superior wine cellar. He supposed women found the Marquis attractive in other ways. He was tall and kept a clean, well-tailored appearance. He would, indeed, be an extraordinary catch for a Cit’s daughter. She would be able to vault to the top of society’s rungs with such a marriage.
‘She won’t get a higher bid than that.’ Cam couldn’t keep the despondency out of his voice. He couldn’t compete with the Marquis. He’d never before felt any lack in his assets. He had a comfortable income, a small manor house in Little Trull in Somerset, which he never visited, political connections through his grandfather and opportunities to use those connections if he ever left the military. But those assets paled in comparison to what a marquis could offer, even one in financial straits. And yet she looked at him.
Cam rose from the blanket, feeling suddenly restless. ‘I’m going for a walk.’ He needed space. Perhaps if he had a moment’s privacy he could regain perspective. He felt as if he hadn’t had a moment to breathe on his own since he’d been home. His days and his nights were filled with family and the family’s plans for him. There’d been dinners and parties, and councils with his grandfather and his father, like the one this morning before he’d set out for Richmond, only this time Caroline’s father had been there, too. It had been conducted pleasantly enough. No one was putting his thumbs to the screws. But the message was the same: It was time to make the engagement official. Caroline had waited patiently through three Seasons. It was hinted that she’d even passed on other offers.
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Bronwyn Scott
One daring encounter Binds her to his marriage bed! Part of Allied at the Altar: In England, innocent tea heiress Pavia Honeysett has always been judged for her face or her fortune. She would much rather return to her uncle’s palace in India. So to escape marriage to the aged man her father has chosen she will ruin herself! But her red-hot night with Major Camden Lithgow changes everything. Suddenly, this stranger will become her husband…
One daring encounter
Binds her to his marriage bed!
Part of Allied at the Altar: In England, innocent tea heiress Pavia Honeysett has always been judged for her face or her fortune. She would much rather return to her uncle’s palace in India. So to escape marriage to the aged man her father has chosen, she will ruin herself! But her red-hot night with Major Camden Lithgow changes everything. Suddenly, this stranger will become her husband...
BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and the proud mother of three wonderful children—one boy and two girls. When she’s not teaching or writing she enjoys playing the piano, travelling—especially to Florence, Italy—and studying history and foreign languages. Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website, bronwynnscott.com, or at her blog, bronwynswriting.blogspot.com (http://www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com). She loves to hear from readers.
Also by Bronwyn Scott (#uccd2f7d4-c241-5222-9ff4-3f526f6d4ed4)
Russian Royals of Kuban miniseries
Compromised by the Prince’s Touch
Innocent in the Prince’s Bed
Awakened by the Prince’s Passion
Seduced by the Prince’s Kiss
Allied at the Altar miniseries
A Marriage Deal with the Viscount
One Night with the Major
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
One Night with the Major
Bronwyn Scott
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08881-7
ONE NIGHT WITH THE MAJOR
© 2019 Nikki Poppen
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For all those who were told they couldn’t,
but found a way anyhow.
Dream big because we’re dreaming already.
Contents
Cover (#udf1b1744-9f1e-52b2-9bb3-da7fdd818347)
Back Cover Text (#u8879d6e0-f03a-51ae-a1c6-b7abb1d628e0)
About the Author (#u6f1a6dc7-0570-5a04-8118-e14a6d573771)
Booklist (#uc1a8bbc6-494e-506f-b6e9-612bf9d1edaf)
Title Page (#uf7ff96f0-2579-54bd-9fa3-5423af831611)
Copyright (#ucab48074-1f81-57d3-89bd-0c3e3fbcd25c)
Dedication (#u533bec1a-f671-5e0b-8778-11a1bc1b023d)
Chapter One (#u5bbaeae1-5c9b-5a87-a919-50ec2b660f1e)
Chapter Two (#u0b57afe9-d8eb-5dd5-ac88-5b09fb3ecdff)
Chapter Three (#u455fc3d5-0c21-5cde-9368-904ab239044c)
Chapter Four (#ubd268562-4739-5ed9-abe6-f7844bab3b7c)
Chapter Five (#u3f6511b3-81b7-59b7-ba50-a787eadb0c2a)
Chapter Six (#ufca9248d-44f8-5a2f-97b3-35db911652f2)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#uccd2f7d4-c241-5222-9ff4-3f526f6d4ed4)
A tavern on the outskirts of London—April 1855
Pavia Honeysett needed a man and she had her sights set on that one in the corner, the one in the navy-and-gold uniform with his back to the wall, perhaps out of a soldier’s habit, his eyes fixed on his ale, but she could tell even at a distance he wasn’t seeing it. His thoughts were far from here.
She studied him from behind the taproom’s kitchen door, amid the chatter of the other dancing girls who would be performing tonight. She took in the breadth of his shoulders, the straightness of his jaw. In a boisterous taproom, eagerly awaiting the night’s entertainment, he remained apart from the group in all ways: in bearing, in appearance, his clean-shaven jaw and golden hair a sharp contrast to the rough-hewn, home-spun male camaraderie around him. He was alone and he was perfect. It had taken her three nights of dancing in the taverns from Yorkshire to London just to find him. Now she only had to reel him in.
Pavia adjusted the gossamer fabric of her dancing veils one last time and swallowed hard. Now that the moment had come, she was nervous. She reminded herself she should feel lucky, not anxious. This was what she wanted—a chance to claim her own freedom. She’d planned for it since the moment the summons to London had arrived at Mrs Finlay’s Academy for Excellent Girls. She’d spent her pin money bribing the Academy grooms for the names of likely taverns where she could dance. This one, the Tiger’s Tooth, on the outskirts of the city, was supposed to be her best chance. It hosted nightly dancing entertainments featuring girls of all sorts of backgrounds from all parts of the British Empire. It had been easy to blend into the colourful milieu of dancers gathered in the kitchen waiting their turns to perform.
Applause erupted from the taproom for a dancer who claimed to be Persian. Pavia doubted the authenticity of that claim, but not the girl’s appeal. Men would not care with breasts like that. Pavia looked down at her own more modest ‘charms’ and hoped they’d be enough. One more girl to go and then it would be her turn. Unless... Unless she lost her nerve and slipped out the back door.
No, she wouldn’t think such things. It had to be tonight, or it would be too late. Tomorrow, she would be in London and under her father’s thumb, a pawn to be used in her father’s bid for social advancement. Pavia’s pulse began to race anxiously with all that meant. She was to be a virgin sacrifice in marriage to the Earl of Wenderly, a man old enough to be her grandfather. Both the men were rich, although her father liked to point out that he was richer by far, but Wenderly had a title and her father, for all the tea in China, quite literally, did not. Her father might be Oliver Honeysett, founding partner of Honeysett and Crooks, the largest importers of English tea, outstripping even the legendary Twinings Company, but he was still a Cit, still nouveau riche, one of the nabobs who’d made his fortune in India. In short, a man who’d worked for his money, a man who could rise no higher in the world without a title and it galled him.
She was to be his way into those lofty ranks of the peerage, the guarantee that if he did not possess a title, by God his grandchildren would. They would be the sons and daughters of an earl. But she didn’t want to marry Wenderly. She wanted something different for her life. She wanted adventure, to see the world, to live among her mother’s people again in India where she could be wanted for herself. The colour of her skin mattered not at all in the palace of her uncle, the Rajah of Sohra. Here in England, it was the only thing that mattered, the one thing men were willing to overlook in exchange for her father’s money or, in Wenderly’s case, her virginity. Wenderly was desperate for it, in fact, and that worried her a great deal, especially coupled as it was with the rumours whispered about him behind lace fans at deportment class. It was common knowledge among the girls at Mrs Finlay’s Academy who were scheduled to come out that no decent woman would have him. Then eyes would slide her way and the girls would nod to one another knowingly. No decent English girl, that was. But the Indian girl would do nicely. The implication was clear. In their minds, to be Indian in England was to be indecent.
Maybe she was being a bit indecent tonight. Pavia shook her filmy veils loose for fullness and laughed softly to herself at the irony. Tonight those English ladies would be right. She meant to lose that virginity Wenderly seemed to prize so much. In exchange, she would gain her freedom and that was worth any price. It was not a decision she’d taken lightly, but rather a decision she’d been forced to after pleading and begging and appealing to her father’s sense of reason failed to produce results. He was set on the match. Not even her mother could sway him. So now Pavia was taking matters into her own hands.
If life had taught her one thing so far, it was that there were no happy ever afters being handed out by handsome princes. If a girl wanted a happy ever after she had to make it for herself, seize it if she had to, invent it out of whole cloth if she must. If she didn’t, someone else, namely her father, would. Then, it would be his happy ending at her expense. That was untenable. Under no circumstance was her happy ever after the purvey of another, especially not a man. Not her father and certainly not the man he’d selected for her to marry. That’s what had happened to her mother—she had been married off to an Englishman and forced to live in an alien culture that had no sympathy for her. Pavia vowed silently once more that such an ending would not be for her.
She fastened the last veil across her face, leaving only her eyes visible as she marked the location of her target. He was the best choice she’d had in the three nights of her journey to London. In the other places her entourage had stopped, the men had been too rough. She might be acting rashly, but she was not without her own cautions. She didn’t want to end up battered, or with a disease, or, worst of all, with a child. At least she could control the latter. She had vinegar sponges waiting back at her own rooms in another inn. The quality of her candidate, however, was not nearly as controllable. Pavia sighed. When she’d designed this plan, she hadn’t realised how complicated it would be. She’d simply wanted to relieve herself of a ridiculously over-valued English inconvenience.
She considered her candidate one last time as the previous dancer finished. Would he be a decent lover? Would it hurt? The girls at school said it did, but they only had hearsay to go on. The women in her uncle’s palace, where sexuality was not nearly as taboo as it was here in England, had told other, more pleasurable stories. Whom did she believe? Perhaps it depended on the lover. This man in the corner looked as if he possessed some honour, but not too much, not enough to make him ask questions, or to make him stay, just enough to keep him from taking extraordinary advantage of her. The way he stared at that ale suggested he was someone who had his own demons to worry about. It also suggested that perhaps the hardest part would be persuading him to take what she was offering.
Pavia bit her lip, considering the option of failure for the first time. In all her imaginings she’d not thought of what would happen if she missed her mark. There was no time to think about that now. She’d fail for certain if she stood here all night. The girl behind her gave her a little nudge. It was her turn. She slipped a pair of tiny cymbals on to her thumbs and forefingers and opened the door. She gave a nod to the fiddler, who moved into a slow tune. It wasn’t Indian, to be sure. Irish, perhaps? She didn’t care, as long as it had a sinuous, haunting melody made for the undulation of hips and the sway of bodies.
She began to dance, slowly, evocatively, drawing all eyes towards her with the ringing, rhythmic click of her cymbals. She worked through the crowd deliberately, gracing a man here, another man there, with the tease of her attentions. She couldn’t be obvious about her target, couldn’t race over to him or it would be too transparent. But it must be him. Only the best would do for Pavia Honeysett.
The last made her smile behind her veils. She’d been raised in wealthy privilege, the only child of a tea merchant. She’d been taught to expect the best. Tonight would be no different. A man reached out for her as she passed. She moved beyond his grip, scolding him by turning her attentions towards another. But she understood the warning. She’d teased them with her glances and swaying hips; they would expect her to deliver on those promises. She’d reached the divide between the milieu of the long trestle tables and the soldier’s table at the wall. He seemed intent on not looking at her, the only man in the room who wasn’t looking. She would change that.
Pavia dropped a veil from the gold-coin belt about her waist, revealing a full glimpse of smooth leg. That got his attention. He was a man, not marble, after all, despite what his chiselled features suggested. She caught his eye and held it—demanded it, actually, with her hips. With a step forward closing the meagre distance between them, she smiled with her eyes, letting him guess at the lush mouth hidden from view beneath the silk draping.
Her candidate was a handsome man up close, golden haired and well kept. A firm mouth went with that strong, straight jaw, topped with sharp blue eyes that matched the strength of him. This was better than she’d hoped for. He’d be moving on, unlikely to linger in London. If she was lucky, he was already on the move to fulfil orders. The world was a big place. They would never see each other again after tonight. But first, she had to entice him and she had only six veils remaining. She couldn’t afford to make any mistakes.
* * *
Major Cam Lithgow was not a man who made mistakes, but he was making them in droves tonight. The first mistake was coming down to the taproom, wanting to drown his sorrows in ale, only to discover there was live entertainment. He should have left then. Not leaving was his second mistake. His third was making eye contact with the exotic dancer. His fourth was not looking away. How could he? She was dressed in carefully draped veils that simultaneously revealed and concealed the exquisite body beneath, all held carefully in place by a gold girdle that spanned a slim waist and rested on the delicious curves of her hips, jingling provocatively as those hips swayed their promises.
To his dismay, his body was becoming ‘interested’ in those promises, his mind interested in the dark eyes that held his. He’d not bartered on this when he’d come downstairs to the taproom.
The dancer loosened another veil from her belt with sensual skill, drawing the fabric across her body before letting it pool in his lap in blatant invitation. Behind her there were hoots and catcalls from the deserted crowd. There were growls of disappointment, too. Cam tensed. Jealous, disappointed drunk men were dangerous. Did she understand that? She’d played with them and then turned her back quite literally to choose the one man in the room who was least apt to accept her invitation. They weren’t likely to be very forgiving of the slight. Hell, he could see it now. If he didn’t claim her and take her upstairs, the taproom would brawl over her, competing for the right to be her second choice whether she wanted any of them or not. And he’d end up defending her whether he wanted to or not because a man of honour could do no less.
The dancer leaned backwards an impressive degree, letting her hips undulate in a sinuous, vertical line, like the hypnotic writhe of a cobra, skeins of silky black hair cascading from beneath the veil that hid her face except for the dark, wide, almond-shaped eyes. The man in him was aroused against his better judgement. She righted herself, her hips returning to a horizontal sway, and she reached for him. More precisely, she reached for his sword, pulling it from its sheathe in a lightning snatch before he could react. He’d let his guard down—he’d thought she was reaching for him or for the scarf in his lap. Now he was unarmed in a potentially dangerous environment.
She leaned backwards again and began the undulation, this time balancing the sword on her hip. Cam held his breath, torn between warning her how sharp the blade was and remaining silent for fear that speaking out would ruin her concentration. Miraculously, the sword lay steady. She became a dervish, then, taking the sword in hand and whirling about, a swirl of colours and veils in time to the music. When the music slowed and the whirlwind abated, his sword was balanced atop of her head. The room was alive now, the crowd clapping to the rhythm of her movements and the music; all of it pushing him towards a decision. Save her from the mob, or leave her to her self-imposed fate. He’d not come down here looking for adventure but it seemed adventure had found him anyway.
She turned a fast circle, the sword never slipping from her head and Cam made up his mind. Perhaps his mind had already been made up the moment their eyes had met. Her circle stopped. He rose and held out his hand. Good lord, he didn’t even know if she spoke English. This was madness. But he couldn’t leave her here when it was clear she had no idea of how much danger she might be in from men who might not hesitate to strip those veils from her, who might decide to make a plaything of her for their own amusement, who might not ascribe to the idea that a person was a person no matter the colour of their skin. There were too many ‘mights’ for his taste. Too much to leave to chance.
She dipped him an English curtsy, returned his sword and without a word let him lead her up the stairs. How did this happen to him? How did he find himself in the most unwanted circumstances? This was not an adventure he would have sought for himself. He was probably the only soldier in the British army who didn’t want to be back on English soil. Balaclava had been a bloodbath and he’d been the one to live to tell about it, a prospect so daunting, he couldn’t sleep at night—he still woke up screaming about it. But here he was—back in England and with one more responsibility to carry out when all he wanted was to be back with his troops and a life he understood, a life that pleased him.
At the top of the stairs, he ushered her into his chamber and shut the heavy oak door behind them. Cam leaned his head against the door frame, closing his eyes for a moment of clarity, savouring the coolness of the wood against his brow. Good lord, he had an exotic dancer in his room. His grandfather would die if he knew. Exotic dancers were not part of his grandfather’s plan for him.
Aside from the pleasure that came with the thought of niggling at his grandfather’s limited sensibilities, this was not how Cam had expected the evening to go. He’d gone down to the taproom in the hopes of forgetting everything, to put off his duty one more day. He could have easily ridden on to London tonight before dark, but that would have meant facing his grandfather, playing the returning war hero and the doting suitor to Caroline Beaufort, his intended, a young woman selected by his grandfather as worthy of a Lithgow with her exquisite looks and immaculate pedigree, but a woman who engendered nothing more than polite interest from him.
It was no wonder he loved soldiering. It was full of the adventures he thrived on—new places, new people, new tasks—where there was little time to spend worrying over the delicate concerns of etiquette, while life here in London spread before him like a vast empty wasteland full of useless occupations. Well, maybe it wasn’t quite an empty wasteland just yet. There was still the dancer to deal with. He needed to make it clear to her that she had his protection, that nothing else would occur in this chamber tonight. Despite what his body might have argued, he wasn’t in the mood. His mind was too fixed on the things he’d have to do tomorrow, like telling the Duke of Cowden his son, Cam’s own best friend, Fortis Tresham, wasn’t coming back.
Cam turned from the door, ready to make his pronouncement, and his mouth went dry. His dancer stood before him beautifully naked, her discarded veils at her feet, a tanned goddess come to life with high, bold breasts and a gentle hand over her shy nether pelt, a delicious contradiction of seduction and innocence. Had he really been about to refuse her? His body’s reaction laughed at the prospect, but his conscience pricked. How dare he think of pleasure when Fortis was dead.
He strode towards her, purposefully shrugging out of his coat and draping it about her. ‘You needn’t offer yourself to me. You are safe here.’ The coat was big, effectively hiding her, but it did nothing to dampen his response. With her face revealed, she fulfilled the promise of beauty: wide eyes, a full mouth, a delicate jaw that created a heart-shaped face and hinted at English antecedents.
‘Do you not want me?’ She sloughed off his coat, naked once more, her hands cupping her breasts, lifting them for his inspection.
‘It’s not that.’ Cam was uncharacteristically at a loss for words, he who shouted orders over the chaos of a battlefield. ‘It’s just that you don’t need to feel obliged.’ He’d never taken a woman to bed who felt obligated to be there and he wasn’t going to start now.
She moved towards him, reaching for the stock about his neck and tugging it free, determined to undress him. ‘And if I don’t feel obliged? Would you want me then?’ She smelled like adventure, all citrus and spice, a fragrance of the Far East, a fragrance of happier times, when he and Fortis had served two years for the Crown in India.
Cam swallowed hard. He was starting to lose this fight and maybe he should lose it. Maybe bedding her would help in some way with the grief he carried, a first step back towards living. No, that was ludicrous. He was simply justifying things now to please his body. He put his hands atop hers, stopping them where they worked the buttons of his uniform’s waistcoat. ‘I don’t know who you are. I don’t even know your name.’ He knew only that she was Indian and English, and beautiful.
She pressed a long, slim finger to his lips. ‘No names. It’s best that way, don’t you think?’ He didn’t think. He was starting to not think at all.
Chapter Two (#uccd2f7d4-c241-5222-9ff4-3f526f6d4ed4)
‘Let me help you.’ Her voice was soft, soothing, entirely at odds with the excited turmoil inside her. She’d got him this far, upstairs and into his room. But he’d done nothing to undress himself, so she’d do it for him.
He forgot to restrain her hands this time when she worked the buttons free. She pressed her advantage, slight as it was. ‘You came to the tavern to forget something tonight. I saw it in your face out there.’ She slid the waistcoat over his shoulders, down his arms and tossed it aside as if she undressed men every night. Pavia pulled his shirttails loose, praying at some point, he would take over. She would soon be in over her head despite whatever theoretical knowledge she had gleaned growing up in her uncle’s zenana, but even that was scarce little. She had not been in India since she was twelve. ‘You are hurting.’ Her hand stopped over his heart. ‘In here. I’ve seen men like you before.’
She had his shirt off him in moments, her hands pressed against his chest. She appealed to whatever sense of fair play he might possess—a trade. ‘You helped me down there tonight, now I will help you forget whatever it is that’s on your mind.’ She raised up on her tiptoes and took his mouth in a soft kiss. ‘Then, in the morning, we will be even. All debts between us paid.’ Such a bargain should appeal to a military man.
Under her mouth, he gave a harsh chuckle. ‘I will never be able to wipe my slate clean again.’
Ah, so she’d been right about the demons. Leave it to her luck to seduce the one man who didn’t have seduction on his mind. She twined her arms about his neck. She’d come too far to give up now. ‘Then erase it just for tonight.’ She whispered the temptation. ‘There is comfort here, free for the taking.’
She moved against him, kissing him again as if he’d already accepted her offer, her terms, and this time he gave over. His hands settled at her hips, holding her to him, his mouth opened to her, letting the kiss seduce him, draw him in to the fantasy until he became an active participant, kissing her back, with tongue and teeth at her ear, her neck, the caress of his mouth drawing heady sensations from her—sensations she had not expected. This was meant to be a job. She’d assumed it would be joyless. That was not the case.
The kiss was consuming. Pavia let the world shrink to encompass only this room, only this man, only this time as he took the kiss away from her, making it into his seduction at last, his hand in her hair, gathering it at the nape of her neck, his mouth insistent on hers, and her mouth answering with an insistent hunger of its own. Then they were both falling, to the bed, into the void of the night. Had he taken her down or had she pulled him? She didn’t know, she didn’t care. He was over her, her body warm as it stretched beneath him, all lush curves and slim lines against the hard muscle of him. The dusky peaks of her breasts arched up to brush his chest, teasing themselves into erectness. Her thighs cradled him, inviting him. This business of lovemaking was easier than she’d imagined, far easier than getting him up the stairs, and she knew she’d been lucky in her choice.
He was a deliberate lover, his body savouring the slow sheathing of itself in hers, making it clear this was not a fantasy to rush. He did not want to lose himself for just mere minutes, but for a night, for hours at a time. She gave a delicate moan beneath him at his first breaching, her body stirring in discomfort and then in accommodation. She arched against him in an untutored squirm that made him laugh, a warm, intimate chuckle. ‘Easy now, I know what you want. Be patient. I will take you there.’ His mouth hovered above hers, his hand pushing her hair back from her forehead in a gentle gesture as his hips began to move, and his body picked up an ancient rhythm of easement and surge.
She joined him in the intimate waltz, letting him set the pace, letting him drive them towards ecstasy’s cliffs as she lifted and fell with him. Her hands dug into his shoulders, her legs wrapped tight about him, holding him close, her body desperate for the promised fulfilment that hovered on the horizon they’d created. His exhalations suggested he was nearly there and she sensed that he was somehow with her and beyond her. When the pleasure took him, she was left alone, that same pleasure eluding her. But she could not complain as his chest heaved and his muscled arms trembled with his release. She had got what she’d come for.
It was done. Completely and most thoroughly. Not that she’d been any judge before, but she was now. Her nameless lover had comported himself well. She could have asked for nothing better. Pavia imagined this would become the measure against which any other lover would be compared. He would be measured against this golden-haired, broad-shouldered god of a man who lay sleeping beside her in post-coital exhaustion. She had chosen well. Maybe too well. Instead of leaping out of bed while he slept and running back to her inn a few streets away, she wanted to stay. She wanted to watch him sleep, wanted to trace the musculature of his chest with her finger, wanted to indulge her imagination in guessing his story. Who was he? What was he doing here? Where was he going? Answering those questions broke her rules. No names, no regrets, no tomorrows.
It was the novelty of him that tempted her to linger. She’d not thought a man could be so beautiful. She’d not expected to enjoy his body, seeing it, touching it. It was well muscled and smooth, his chest tanned and devoid of coarse hair, perhaps from campaigns spent sleeping out of doors and bathing in foreign rivers. Pavia let her imagination run wild, shamelessly romanticising the life of a soldier. Not just any soldier, an officer of some rank if she read his uniform aright. There’d been plenty of the East India Company men at their home in India, enough for her to know an officer’s uniform when she saw one.
She’d not been prepared either for the surge of emotion the act had raised. She’d expected a messy, painful interlude of grunts and thrusts until the deed was done. There had been discomfort, but nothing unbearable and nothing that had lasted once the initial shock had receded, replaced by something, if not breathtaking and heart-stopping, certainly pleasant in its own right. It had been different for him, however. For him, it had been breathtaking and heart-stopping. She’d seen it in his face as his release came over him like a wave. A nugget of irrational, womanly pride had formed in realisation that she’d been the cause of it. Whatever had haunted him in the taproom had been temporarily exorcised.
He stirred beside her, his blue eyes searching for her. Somewhere in the room, a log crackled and split in the fireplace. His arm reached for her, drawing her against his side, her head cushioned on the place where his shoulder met chest. This was one more thing she’d not counted on—this easy intimacy of lying naked with a man. She didn’t want to question it, didn’t want to over think it and become self-conscious.
‘I’ve been to India,’ he said in a voice made husky from sleep and waking. ‘It’s a beautiful place, wild, exotic. Not like here.’ His finger traced a slow, idle route over the curve of her hip, raising delicate goose pimples in its wake. ‘Where are you from? What part?’
‘Sohra.’ Telling him that much wouldn’t break her self-imposed rules of anonymity. ‘Do you know where that is?’ He probably didn’t. It was a remote principality.
‘Hmm. No,’ he replied drowsily. ‘I was stationed in Madras.’
‘Sohra is a long way from there. It’s up in the Khasi Hills in the north-east.’ She sighed, her own finger drawing a map of her uncle’s home on his chest. ‘We have green hills, cool breezes and waterfalls.’ She sighed. Just talking about Sohra brought its own kind of peace. ‘We have root bridges and mountains.’
He chuckled, the sound rumbling his chest beneath her ear. ‘I am jealous. Madras was hot and steamy. A man could sweat through his uniform within minutes of putting it on and the streets smelled horribly.’
She raised up on an elbow and gave him a teasing scold. ‘You just said India was beautiful. That description doesn’t sound beautiful.’
‘Oh, but it was. Once I got out of town, the jungle was splendid. The fruits, the animals, incredible.’ He laughed in his defence, then sobered. ‘It’s different than here. Everything here is so...tame... Do you miss it?’
‘Of course.’ She let him draw her back down, but not before the flicker of memory danced in his eyes. She probed it. ‘What are you missing? A place? A person?’ It struck her too late who that person might be. ‘A woman?’ A quick spike of jealousy stabbed at her. She didn’t want to think about this man with another woman. Tonight, she wanted him to belong solely to her. Yet it was another item unreckoned when she’d concocted this plan. It was supposed to have been simple: find a man, bed him and leave.
He shook his head. ‘No woman. A military man isn’t very good at making or keeping commitments of that nature. His days are not his own. Nor his life. It could end at any time.’ He was warning her to remember what they’d agreed upon. She didn’t need the reminder. She’d been the one to set the rules. But it was more than a warning. He was hinting at something larger, something his soul wanted to share. She waited, letting the silence stretch about them. She sensed he wanted to talk, the desire was in him, if only he could find the words. She gave him time and at last the words came.
‘My friend was killed in battle, at a place called Balaclava, near Sevastopol. He was an officer in the cavalry, one of the best. I saw him go down. One moment he was waving his sword, rallying his troops, and the next he was gone.’ Three sentences was all she would get. Perhaps he, too, was caught in limbo between the freedom of whispering secrets to a stranger to whom those secrets would mean nothing and the need to keep those secrets hidden in order to protect himself. The less they knew of each other the better. It was the deal after all.
‘I am sorry.’ She said the simple words softly, meaning them.
‘Tonight is not for war.’ He reached for her, tasting her—her mouth, her neck, the pulse at its base, the swells of her breasts—with sweet, slow kisses as his mouth, his hands, moved down her body. He laved the indentation of her navel with his tongue, his hands at the span of her waist, and then his mouth was in the curls hiding her core, his breath warm against her dampness. ‘You’ve not had your pleasure yet.’ Sharp blue eyes looked up at her from their intimate position at her thighs, burning with cobalt desire, for her perhaps, or for smothering the past. It didn’t matter to her body which. Her pulse quickened in a way that had nothing to do with her quest tonight, and everything to do with this man staring up at her. ‘Permit me?’ She might have permitted him out of curiosity alone, but Pavia was well beyond that now. Her surrender was imminent. She was not only curious, but intrigued by this man. He’d become more than a means to an end. No one had warned her about that.
The end was different now than when she’d begun. His wicked tongue licked at the seam of her in proof of that. The end was much more short term; the end was not a blocking of Wenderly’s unwanted suit, but something much more pleasurable, much more elusive—the goal was now this pleasure her soldier alluded to. He licked her again and she moaned. She wanted what he’d had. She’d seen his face—she wanted that, too, that sense of being swept away, of being beyond the physical realm. For a moment he’d been transported. Was it possible for her, too? His tongue found a hidden nub and she cried out her surprise, her enjoyment, the sensation sharper, stronger than before. ‘It’s all right to let go,’ he murmured against her skin. ‘You’re safe with me. Let the pleasure come,’ he coaxed. Her rational mind had no reason to believe him, but her body did. He’d done nothing but respect her since they’d come upstairs.
His mouth took her again and she felt the option to choose slipping away. She would give over to pleasure whether she wished it or not. And she did, her hands fisting first in the linen of the bedsheets and then the thickness of his hair, holding him to her for fear he’d leave her before the pleasure was complete. She would not survive it if he did. She arched into him, once, twice more, sensation driving her to the brink of madness and then to breaking. She felt herself shatter against his mouth, her body shuddering its own completion. This was what he’d felt. This was how he’d felt. Now she knew. In the swirling kaleidoscope of completion, she felt omniscient, as if she was in possession of great knowledge, of great power, one of the world’s supreme mysteries made known to her alone.
Her lover stretched along beside her, his eyes smoky, his face content. The act had given him pleasure as well. Pleasing her had been important to him. Would all lovers be this considerate? She yawned and he smiled. ‘Come and rest.’ Against her better judgement she did, nestling into ‘her’ spot at his shoulder. How quickly she’d become possessive of this stranger’s body. What could it hurt to lay in his arms an hour longer? It wasn’t as if she could sneak downstairs just yet without being noticed.
* * *
Pavia hadn’t meant to sleep. She hadn’t meant to linger after midnight. But when she woke, it was clear she’d done both. The window showed grey shadows of coming dawn and she knew a moment’s panic. She’d slept the night away! Beside her, her nameless lover slept unbothered, his sleeping countenance as handsome as it had been the night before. She had to hurry—hurry to get out of this room before he awoke, hurry to get back to the inn before her maid realised she was missing.
Pavia slid out of bed, wincing at her sore muscles—another surprise. She hastily gathered her veils, quietly retrieving her jingly gold belt. She’d been counting on the darkness to make her less conspicuous walking back. Now that advantage was gone, too, yet another reason to hurry. A girl wearing nothing but veils walking through the morning streets was bound to stand out. She did not want to be remembered. The cloak she’d worn the night before had been left behind in the kitchen. She took a final look at the man in the bed and slipped out of the room, closing the door softly on her one adventure. In the dim hall, Pavia squared her shoulders, warding off a sense of melancholy as she left the room and its occupant behind.
She ought to be pleased. Her quest had been irrevocably successful and now it was time to go forward into the future she’d chosen for herself; a future that would be somewhat uncertain at the outset and most definitely rocky. Her father would be furious once she announced she no longer met Wenderly’s marital criteria. That was a given. But what he would do was not as obvious. Would he banish her to the countryside? Force her into seclusion? Would he send her back to India and be done with her? She’d prefer the latter. Her uncle would take her in, she was sure of it. Perhaps her mother would come with her and they could both be free. She would hold on to that hope through the difficult times that would come first. If there was one certainty at the moment, it was this: things would likely get worse before they got better. But they would get better, Pavia reasoned, a little smile teasing her mouth as she walked. It was already better. She wasn’t going to marry Wenderly. She couldn’t. It was now impossible. She was completely and thoroughly ruined.
Chapter Three (#uccd2f7d4-c241-5222-9ff4-3f526f6d4ed4)
For the first time in the months since Balaclava, Cam slept. Thoroughly, completely. And, damn it, the price for that sleep was too high. Cam knew before he opened his eyes that she was gone. The room felt different, smelt different; it lacked a certain vibrancy.
Cam gave a groan and opened one eye, hoping his other senses were wrong. But sight only confirmed his disappointment. Her veils were gone. Except for the last mementos of scent, she had vanished with the night. Not that he hadn’t expected as much. She’d made it clear there’d be nothing between them beyond the night. Yet, it would have been nice to wake up to her; to the curve of her derrière tucked against him, to perhaps take her gently from behind as she woke, a chance to redeem himself as a lover.
She’d not been with him when release had claimed him alone. Her pleasure had waited until he’d taken her with his mouth, determined that she know the joy of release with him. It was a point of pride that his lovers found their pleasure, too. That the pleasure had initially eluded her had come as something of a surprise to Cam. He’d not been prepared for that. Everything leading up to his climax had suggested that moment would be jointly shared. Except for her eyes. Damn it, he should have put more credence in her eyes.
Even now in the grey coolness of morning, the heat of the night was etched on his mind with startling clarity. Her body had welcomed him eagerly, but her eyes had been dark and knowing, and not nearly as pliant, or as hot, as the rest of her. There’d been reserve in her gaze, a piece of her that she’d held back. And in the heat of the moment, Cam had wanted to claim it. Even now, he could recall that fierce surge of possession with warrior-like sharpness. He’d wanted that one piece of her, wanted to know what it was that she held back and why. And he’d set out to conquer it, driving himself into the oblivion of lovemaking, urged there by the arch of her body, the sounds of her mouth as he thrust into the tight, wet heat of her. The tightness had been exquisite, shaping itself around him as he moved within her. But despite his intent to conquer, to claim, that one piece had remained in abeyance, reserved from the encounter. For all his skill, he’d not been able to coax it forward. Despite the encouraging mewls and the subtle urgings of her body, he was alone when his release had come, pulsing, hard and sweeping, leaving him spent and, for a precious amount of time, too replete to think of the world beyond their bed, too replete to worry over what had gone amiss.
This morning, he still felt too replete to worry over her flight from his bed. Why had she flown? Had she taken anything with her? He wondered vaguely if she’d robbed him while he’d slept and Cam found he didn’t care. He had few items of worth on his person save his ring, a watch and his officer’s gorget. He had his sword, of course, which would fetch a good amount. He rather hoped she hadn’t taken that. It would be hard to explain how he’d lost it. He had a money clip in a pocket of his coat. But money was replaceable.
Cam reached a long arm out and lifted his coat from the floor, feeling for the money clip, half-hoping it was gone. At least then he’d know she would be able to purchase some security, pay rent, buy food, buy clothes if she needed them. Perhaps she would not have to dance in taverns where men tupped her with their eyes. His hand closed disappointingly around the clip. All was intact.
Cam sighed, questions filling his head. Where would she go? What would she do? Would she be safe? These were new questions. He’d never given much thought before about such things. Then again, he was not inclined towards lightskirts as lovers in general. Continental widows who loved their freedom were more to his taste when it came to assuaging physical need. But last night had somehow transcended the usual satisfying of his carnal appetites. Worrying over his absent lover was a distraction he needed to set aside. He could do nothing for her and other business called today.
He squinted towards the window, testing the brightness. It was well past dawn. Past time to get on with the day and the unpleasantness that waited. Cam threw back the covers and swung his legs out of bed. He stretched, arms over his head, rotating side to side from the waist. He rotated to his left side, then to his right, then halt—what was that on the bed, revealed only when he’d thrown back the covers? The pale stains of sex and blood on the sheets were unmistakable. He’d bedded enough women and seen enough blood to know. There were only two conclusions he could draw from that and one of them seemed too far-fetched to even consider: his dancer had been a virgin. Virgins didn’t dance in taverns, didn’t take arbitrary strangers upstairs for the night. Yet his body remembered the exquisite tightness of her, the hesitation before her hips had taken up the rhythm of his. He remembered, too, the provocative shyness of her when she’d stood before him naked, perhaps defiant instead of bold. Then, there had been her one hand, protective and shielding, giving her the air of innocence.
It had been coyly done, but even now with blood on the sheets, he couldn’t quite convince himself it was more than an act simply because it didn’t make sense. What did make sense was the other, more practical conclusion. She’d got her menses in the night. Not that it mattered. She had vanished completely. He would never see her again, even if he wanted to. To his surprise, he did want to. She’d captivated him with her passion, her beauty, with the concern he’d seen in her eyes, as if he wasn’t just another customer. ‘You are hurting, in here.’ Cam’s eyes quartered the room looking for a token of her presence, a scarf left behind, a coin dropped from her belt. Anything that offered insight into her identity. But there would be no glass slipper for him, no way to trace her.
Just as well. What would he do anyway if he found her? He was here on leave. He had duties to carry out. He would go back to Sevastopol as soon as his leave was up in August. It was time to get on with those duties. Cam mapped out the day in his head. He would send for his batman, who had chosen to bed down in the stables, eat breakfast, shave, dress and then, when the hour was decent and he could put it off no longer, he would call on the Duke of Cowden.
* * *
‘Fortis is dead, Your Grace.’ As it turned out, there was no decent hour at which to tell an ageing man his son had been killed. Cam stood ramrod-straight at attention, bringing all his sense of military ceremony to the announcement. Cam would honour his fallen friend with every ounce of pomp and pride in him. Fortis’s family deserved as much and Cam had promised. It was not a promise he’d ever thought to keep. They’d been half-drunk the night he’d made the pledge years ago in India on their first posting. They’d been immortal then.
The Duke of Cowden received the news with as much aplomb as it was delivered with, but it was a Herculean task for them both to maintain the stiff upper lip demanded by social etiquette—an etiquette that maintained a man did not fall apart over loss: loss of money, loss of life, the loss of a child. A man carried on.
‘Will you join me in a drink to him, then?’ Cowden moved to the side board holding a cut-crystal decanter full of brandy. His hand trembled as he poured. Cam moved to take the tumbler before the older man could drop it. He’d not seen Cowden in nearly eight years, not since Fortis’s hasty wedding to Avaline Panshawe, a marriage Fortis barely acknowledged. Cowden’s hair was white and his face was lined, although his back was straight. He was still a tall, commanding man if one did not look too closely, but the age was showing in small ways: the shaking hand, the long pauses before he spoke.
Cowden raised his glass, his voice firm. ‘To my son, Fortis, who lived as he wanted and died as he wished.’ They drank, long, deep swallows to cover the emotion. It was exactly how Fortis had wished to die: in the saddle, in the heat of battle, exhilaration thrumming through his veins. Cam hoped it had lived up to Fortis’s expectations.
Cowden refilled his glass and gestured to a chair, his tone shifting. ‘There, now that’s done. We’ve fulfilled our social obligations. Perhaps you would sit and tell me the details, tell an old man about the last moments of his son’s life?’ Grey eyebrows lifted at the request, his blue eyes not as sharp as Cam remembered them. The Duke had always been a formidable figure to him, but a friendly one. Cowden was older than Cam’s father, but younger than his grandfather. He’d been a happy medium in Cam’s life while he was growing up. He’d always been welcome at Fortis’s home. He’d never thought he’d have to repay those years of kindnesses like this.
‘Should we call the others?’ Cam made a gesture towards the door of Cowden’s study. ‘Should we include them?’
Cowden shook his head. ‘Let them think Fortis is alive awhile longer. Besides, you needn’t sanitise the details with me,’ he offered knowingly. ‘The news will be upsetting enough as it is.’ The whole Cowden crew was in town at the moment even though the Season would not be fully under way for a few weeks yet: Frederick, the heir, who had always been so jealous of Fortis’s freedom to serve his country; Helena, his wife, and their five boys; Ferris, his wife, Anne, and new baby, and Avaline, Fortis’s widow—a woman Fortis had spent only three weeks of married life with before he’d returned to his troops. Had he loved Avaline? Had Avaline loved him? Fortis had said little of his marriage. But Cam knew she had written to him dutifully for seven years. Cam did not relish telling her the news.
He sat, thankful for Cowden’s offer of informality. He could be himself here. He could be a friend, talking to another about a mutual friend instead of being the officer. He would return the Duke’s gift with the very best of Fortis: stories of Fortis in camp, how well his men liked him, how well the other officers respected him, the brilliance of his strategies, the successes of his warcraft, his daring in the Battle of Alma, the one preceding Balaclava. No father could be prouder. No friend could be luckier than to have Fortis by his side. In truth, it felt good to reminisce this way, to remember Fortis as he’d been in life with someone who knew him well.
‘And at Balaclava?’ the Duke asked at last, too sharp to overlook the one omission in the tales Cam had so carefully chosen. Some of the elation the stories had created ebbed from the room. ‘All that brilliance, all that courage, could not save him?’
Cam shook his head ruefully. ‘It was a series of missteps from the beginning. Raglan should have been using the cavalry to cut off the Russians at the Causeway, but he refused to take action.’ Fortis had been furious at the Lieutenant General’s refusal to put the Light Brigade into play. ‘Major General Cardigan was angry by the time he saw the Russians going after our cannon. He might have stood around all day while others saw action, but he would be damned if he would hold back his troops while the Russians stole our guns off the ridge.’ There had been other mistakes, too. Like sending the note for permission to strike with a messenger who believed too heartily in what a mounted cavalry could do and there’d been a mistake in the route Cardigan used. They should not have cut through the valley. That route had drawn the fire of the entire Russian army. ‘Fortis was ready for the charge. He was magnificent on that stallion of his, his sabre overhead as he called his troops to him. We were the right flank, the second line.’ Cam let the euphoria of battle fill him as he told the tale, how they’d driven through the Russian artillery, how they’d persisted, meeting the Russian cavalry in combat, pushing them back. There had been heady moments, glorious moments! He would not forget how gallant, how fearless his friend had looked. But they hadn’t the strength or numbers to hold the position. They’d been forced to withdraw.
Some of the euphoria let him. ‘We took the worst of it in retreat, in my opinion. We couldn’t withdraw to safety. That’s when Fortis fell.’ When had Fortis realised they’d crossed the valley of death? That the mission was impossible? That they might have achieved smashing through the lines, but that victory was their very downfall. They were exposed with no hope of shelter.
‘The papers said only one hundred and ninety-three returned,’ Cowden said quietly, reverently. ‘That fifty-five of the Fourth’s regiment were killed and four officers.’ But not Lieutenant Colonel Lord George Paget, or Major Camden Lithgow. Guilt swamped him for having survived.
‘Yes,’ Cam replied sombrely. Six-hundred-and-seventy-three men had charged the valley. He’d been one of the one hundred and ninety-three. He still grappled with that reality. How was it that he’d emerged unscathed while those around him fell—officers, good men who knew how to handle themselves in battle—cut down while he had not a scratch? No one could explain it, not the generals who had sent him home, not the priests who’d prayed with him over the dead and now he had to explain to the Duke of Cowden. Why had he lived when Fortis had fallen?
The Duke shook his head and put a fatherly hand on his leg. ‘No, don’t do that. Don’t blame yourself for being spared. At least one of you lived to come home and tell the tales. Fortis was a soldier. He knew the risks. He embraced them.’
Cowden drew a breath to ask the only question that remained. ‘Did you see the body?’
‘I saw him fall. He was only a few yards away from me. Khan, his big black, went down. The Russians shot his horse out from under him.’ Perhaps a horse had made a difference. Perhaps that was why he’d survived. Cam and his strong grey stallion, Hengroen, had both remained miraculously intact. ‘I pushed towards Fortis the moment I saw.’ Cam remembered turning Hengroen towards the fallen Khan, but he couldn’t get close; it was an impossible horizontal movement in a vertical charge. All around him, men and horses were falling, blocking his way. He could do nothing but push forward.
‘And afterwards? Did you see his body then?’ Cowden pressed. It was the question Cam didn’t want to answer, a question that raised all his old hopes and fears when it came to Fortis—that somehow Fortis had survived, that he wasn’t dead.
‘No, Your Grace, I did not. I had orders to carry out and there was...difficulty, shall we say? Afterwards. The British army does not accept defeat without placing blame.’
A little light of misguided hope flared in Cowden’s eyes. Cam had been prepared for this even before Cowden uttered the words, ‘Do you think there’s a chance...?’ He let the words drift off.
‘No, Your Grace, I do not. Four hundred men and horses were slaughtered. I saw him go down in impossible circumstances.’ Cam looked down at his hands and swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. ‘I know what you’re thinking. That Fortis was strong enough, canny enough to survive. I thought it, too. For months I hoped. When things settled, I scoured the countryside every chance I got. It was winter, it was cold. I asked at huts and in little villages if anyone had nursed a wounded man.’ He paused, remembering the desperate months of searching, of hoping and all the emotions that went with alternately experiencing intense hope followed by the intense grief of disappointment. There’d be a possible story in a village that only turned out to be someone else. Towards the end, he’d been drunk quite a bit of the time and bitter. It was not the proudest chapter in his life. He still cringed to think about it, embarrassed by his grief and his inability to manage it. The army had been embarrassed, too. He knew why he’d been sent home. In their opinion, he’d become a danger to himself and perhaps to others. He did not want to fuel such a disastrous hope for the Duke.
‘It’s been seven months, Your Grace. If I thought there was any hope left I would not have come home.’ He would have found a way even if it meant desertion. The army had wanted him to go home sooner, but he’d refused, citing the difficulties of winter travels. He’d bought himself a little more time until finally the Major General had insisted he go home and recover before he shot someone by accident or himself on purpose. The latter was more likely. He’d got the gun as far as his head on two occasions.
Cowden smiled. ‘Of course. Forgive me, I am a foolish old man.’
‘And I was a foolish young one—there is nothing to forgive.’ Cam returned the smile. ‘We both loved him and we will miss him. Always.’ He was just starting to accept that part, that his life would go on and Fortis would be with him in his heart. Maybe some day there would be peace along with that knowledge. But it would not be today.
Cowden drew a deep breath, steadying himself. ‘Are you ready? Let’s go tell the others.’ He clapped a hand on Cam’s shoulder. ‘You’ve been very brave in coming here. I know it was not easy. You have your own grief to deal with. You and Fortis were close, like brothers.’ Cam thought he detected a warning in that statement, that the Duke sensed he wasn’t dealing or hadn’t dealt sufficiently with his own grief. The Duke would be right.
Cowden peered at him with kind eyes. ‘You’re a soldier just like Fortis. I can see you want to be with your men far more than you want to be here in London. But don’t underestimate the power of being home, Cam. Whatever you may think of him, your grandfather will be pleased to see you.’
It was technically true. His grandfather would be glad to see him, but not in the way Cowden meant. Not in the way of an elder family patriarch affectionately welcoming home the returning, youthful branch of his family tree. His grandfather would be glad to see him because of what Cam could do for the family. That was as far as his grandfather’s affections went, for any of them. The old man simply wasn’t capable of love.
Chapter Four (#uccd2f7d4-c241-5222-9ff4-3f526f6d4ed4)
The old man was, however, capable of a great deal of other things. Cam made his bow at four in the afternoon to his grandfather in the Earl of Aylsbury’s elegant pale blue Louis XV drawing room with its elaborate cornice work and gold leafing. By eight o’clock that evening, a family dinner, ostensibly in his honour, had been instigated with the best china laid out—his grandmother’s favourite Colandine pattern by Primavesi and Son in Cardiff blue, along with the very best wines—his grandfather’s favourite, the Chateau Margaux Bordeaux—and the best guests which included, not surprisingly, the Beauforts and their daughter, Caroline. By the end of the evening, Cam had an appointment to take Caroline out driving the next day and to escort her to a musicale the next. Everything was playing out just as he’d imagined it would. There were no surprises here. Just expectations. And he was meeting them all.
‘We’ll have a grand time, now that you’re home.’ Caroline smiled over her shoulder as he helped her with her wrap in the hall. The long evening was finally coming to a close. ‘There are so many entertainments this year. Mademoiselle Rachel will be performing at the St James’s Theatre in June...’
Cam did not hear the rest. Out there in the world, men were dying defending British interests abroad, dying to help their country build an empire and influence the world. In his estimation it was a noble legacy. Those lives had purpose. They were fighting for something, but was that something nothing more than the preservation of a life filled with the minutiae of looking forward to the talent of Mademoiselle Rachel treading the boards? It seemed an unfair trade. Surely there was more to life than the one depicted and acted out by Caroline Beaufort? He’d been in London less than a day and he was already itching to leave. The months of his leave stretched before him like an eternity. Today, he’d taken his first steps into the wasteland he’d imagined last night.
The thought of last night prompted a smile. What was his nameless lover doing right now? Then the smile faded. Was she dancing for another? No, he wouldn’t think of her like that—dancing with her veils, enticing another man. He would remember her as distinctly his. He would remember the way she looked, arching into him, her eyes wide as pleasure took her, the little sounds she made. She’d been as honest and open in her expression of pleasure as she had been in her nudity.
Caroline thought the smile was for her. ‘I am glad you’re home, Cam.’ Cam. That was new, as was the possessive way she held on to his arm and both set off alarms. Before, such a confession from her would have been accompanied by maidenly blushes. Tonight it was not, a reminder that she was not a shy maiden any more, no longer a debutante of eighteen, but a woman of twenty-one who was in her third Season.
‘I will go back to the Crimea in a few months. I am not home for good,’ Cam reminded her with a polite smile. He was already counting the days. His men needed him and he would continue to look for Fortis. He would do it discreetly this time. If Fortis was dead, he would find him—a body, a grave, anything to bring closure to that tragic day in Balaclava. Despite his counsel to Cowden, Cam wasn’t willing to give up until he had proof. Here in England, he was too far away to be effectual. He’d written letters and made enquiries, but it wasn’t the same as being on the ground. He didn’t want to be at parties, wasting his days with nothing when there was even the smallest chance Fortis might be out there, struggling to survive while he drank champagne. Cam pushed back the memories. Not now. He didn’t want to think about them here in front of everyone, people who didn’t understand what it meant to go to war.
Caroline trailed a well-manicured finger down his sleeve, oblivious to his pain. ‘Perhaps going back is not a foregone conclusion,’ she purred. ‘Maybe we will find you a reason to stay this time.’ The message was clear. There was a new enemy that demanded his attention right in front of him. Caroline had grown bold indeed. And why shouldn’t she be bold? She was not panicked she’d been out for three Seasons. Her family and the Lithgows, through his grandfather, had an understanding. She was to marry him. It was an understanding she’d been raised on and never had reason to doubt. The entrance hall of his grandfather’s home was no place to raise those doubts. So, Cam bent over her hand with a gallant smile and wished her goodnight.
Would he do it? Would he, like Fortis, marry a woman of his family’s choosing and simply leave her behind, going back to his old life as if nothing had happened? Or would his family demand he resign his commission? Would he do that, too—give up his career and his choice in order to marry and live the life the family wanted for him? Or would he refuse to marry at all? To refuse his family and the Earl was no small thing. As far as he knew, no one had refused his grandfather in Cam’s lifetime. Not his uncle, the heir, or his father. To what benefit would such a refusal be? What would be worth refusing the family and all the financial and social support that went with it?
* * *
That night, Cam dreamt quite pleasantly of his Indian girl, his secret life, his last adventure before falling into the abyss of the London Season. In the days that followed, filled with routs and parties, and Caroline clinging to his arm as if he were already hers, it was comforting to think of his dancer out there in the world somewhere. He thought of conversations he would have with her. He talked to her in his head the way he’d talked to her that night, confessing what he had confessed to no other. Perhaps if she were by his side instead of Caroline Beaufort, the magic of the Season would be restored.
The two women could not be more different: Caroline with her blonde paleness and penchant for tradition and correctness; his dancer with her toast-coloured skin and dark eyes and sensual boldness. Cam imagined her dressed in a fine ballgown, with jewels glittering at her neck, and he wondered what she’d think of the Season. Would she think it silly like he did? Or would she see the enchantment? In short, she became a fantasy of the ideal, the perfection of beauty and companionship—giving all to him while demanding nothing in return. It was a harmless fantasy. He could imagine all he liked. There was no chance of the fantasy being realised.
* * *
‘I cannot marry Wenderly.’ Pavia stood before her father’s desk of polished Indian rosewood, her shoulders straight, defiance coursing through her veins. She had made this argument before, only this time the outcome would be different. This time she had leverage.
‘Wenderly is an earl.’ Her father glanced at her mother, his eyes pleading with her to intercede, but her mother had launched a subtle rebellion of her own and refused to come to his rescue. He was on his own. One arranged marriage in the family was enough, her mother’s posture seemed to say. ‘He is highly placed in society.’ Pavia knew this argument of her father’s well. ‘You would be a countess. Your son would be an earl when Wenderly dies, which can’t be more than seven to ten years in the waiting.’ Leave it to her father to look at all angles, distasteful as they were. ‘You will be a rich, young widow, able to pick her next husband.’
How like her father to assume there would be a next husband. For all his innovation in business, he lacked a certain creativity when it came to imagining a woman’s life without a man beside her. She supposed to his balance-sheet-driven mind the deal looked acceptable, sustainable.
Pavia looked down at the fawn medallion woven in the Kashan carpet to hide her disgust. Minimum input, seven years, maybe less, and then maximum output to her benefit in her father’s eyes. She would be twenty-five, maybe twenty-eight. Not even thirty. But those seven years between now and then stretched before her interminably. Her father was assuming she’d survive them intact, mentally, emotionally. Her father was also assuming his numbers were right and Wenderly wasn’t endowed with supernaturally long life. Her father was just as confident in Wenderly’s demise as he was in the outcome of this conversation. He was going to win. It was the thing he did best: winning at all costs. And it had cost him plenty over the years, even if he couldn’t see it.
Pavia knew her father was not concerned about the cost of her rebellion. He viewed these arguments as a temporary unpleasantness between them that would end with her capitulation and the complete return of his wife’s loyalty, something he’d always taken for granted. As for herself, Pavia knew differently. This would not end well for him. She played her ace.
‘You don’t seem to understand. This is not an issue of wanting to. I cannot marry Wenderly. I no longer meet his marital criteria. I am not a virgin.’ She would never forget the silence that followed her statement. It was an expensive ace, not only in its acquisition, which had cost her the most valuable thing a young woman possessed by society’s standards, but also in the damage such acknowledgement would do to the inner workings of her family. It would positively cleave a chasm between her and her father.
In truth, the beginnings of that chasm were already there and had been ever since Pavia had realised she was nothing but a pawn for her father to use in the advancement of his ambitions. This would merely widen that chasm. The wedding negotiations with Wenderly had been a start, making it impossible to avoid what had already been the truth: at some point, she’d ceased to matter beyond being a placeholder for him, the face of his fortune. It had been this way ever since they’d returned to England. Now it had become a conflict that caught her mother in the middle—between a husband who wanted his wife’s loyalty and a daughter who wanted the same.
Her father’s eyes glinted dangerously, his voice razor-sharp. ‘Who? Tell me who and I will see that he answers for this on the field of honour.’ Of course that would be his first response—his first concern was always for appearances. How would this look to the public? What would people think? She should not be surprised. And yet, it stung that his first concern was not for her, even if that concern came with anger.
Pavia did not flinch. ‘I do not know his name.’ It was not a lie and she was glad for the truth. It would protect her from the guilt of dishonesty and it would protect her lover’s life. Images of his strong, glorious, well-muscled body came to mind. She pushed them away along with dangerous thoughts. It had occurred to her fleetingly on the walk back to her inn that it wouldn’t be impossible to find her lover. She knew the colour of his uniform, had some idea of his rank. She could go to the military offices at Whitehall and make enquiries. No. That was not what she’d promised him or herself. One night only. There were many reasons for that precaution and this was one of them. She did not want him to face her father at twenty paces for her folly. Her father, even at forty-five, was still deadly with a pistol.
Only now, when he’d been denied a victim, did he direct his attention towards her. ‘You ruined yourself to spite me? Turned yourself into a Jezebel as part of this temper tantrum of yours? Do you know what you’ve done? What man will have you now? And you’ve ruined this family.’ Her father’s anger rumbled near the surface. ‘All my life, I have worked for our family and in one instant you have destroyed it.’ It was a visible struggle to deny his temper free rein. Pavia did not think she ever recalled him being this furious. He pushed his hand through his hair. ‘Perhaps Wenderly can be duped.’ He gestured to her mother. ‘Sabita, you have to fix this. There must be some female trick to create the impression of virginity.’
Pavia froze. Her father meant to go through with it. If he did, her sacrifice would be for naught. She’d risked herself, brought conflict to her family, all for nothing. And she’d have to sustain the lie. She had not counted on this. She exchanged a quick glance with her mother, although she doubted there would be much hope there. Her mother would be just as mad as her father.
Her mother’s dark eyes held hers for a moment and then flitted away. ‘Wenderly isn’t the only peer on the market this Season,’ her mother offered. Pavia opened her mouth to protest. She didn’t want to marry Wenderly, but that didn’t mean she wanted to marry someone else either. Her mother slid her a stern look that said they would talk later. Pavia wasn’t fooled. When that conversation happened, her mother would do the talking. She would do the listening. ‘What is all your money worth, Oliver, if it can’t buy your daughter a husband? Surely your fortune can buy more than a middling earl.’ It was subtly done, the comment a compliment and a challenge. Her mother was a master when she chose to exert her influence. It was a choice she seldom made these days. England had beaten her down, changed her as it had changed her father. They’d been a different family in India.
Her father’s face became contemplative. Her mother smiled and pressed her argument softly. ‘There are two marquises and a duke hunting brides, and there are other earls desperate enough for funds to even look towards American brides. They’d be more than happy to take your money and overlook such a little thing as the lack of a maidenhead if their bride can keep a roof over the manor and claim English blood at the same time.’
‘It’s a slim field,’ her father mused, not liking the odds.
‘Slim for others, perhaps. But no one’s bank account can match yours and your daughter is beautiful,’ her mother responded smoothly. ‘Besides, Wenderly was no challenge for a man like yourself. Aren’t you always saying never take the first offer? Catching a husband isn’t much different than selling tea.’
Her father glanced at her mother who gave a small, imperceptible nod of encouragement. ‘All right,’ he said with an infrequent smile. ‘We shall go fishing, one last time. Draw up a list of the eligible men and we’ll see what can be done. We’ll need an invite to the Banfields’ ball in a couple weeks. It’s the most lavish entertainment this early in the Season. Pavia will need a gown that is equal to it. Get it ordered early so it will be done.’
Pavia smiled, careful not to betray her sense of victory. It wouldn’t be her fault if those gentlemen her mother spoke of didn’t come up to scratch. She had won. But she was acutely aware she’d only won time. Still, anything could happen in those precious weeks.
* * *
‘You betrayed me.’ Her mother glided into her room without so much as a knock and shut the door behind her, dismissing the maid with a flick of her hand. She could be imperious when she wanted to be. Once a princess, always a princess.
‘He’s the one who has betrayed us,’ Pavia argued. She’d been expecting this conversation and she was ready. ‘He wants to sell me to the highest bidder. Are you willing to let him do that? Wenderly is an old man with perverse tastes.’
‘A woman must marry, Pavia,’ her mother snapped. ‘Whether she likes it or not, she is nothing without a man. She has no money, no shelter, no status. Nothing with which she can protect herself. It’s not right, but it’s reality. What do you think happens to you without a husband if your father withdraws his protection?’ Her mother was furious.
‘This is not the Middle Ages,’ Pavia protested, hurt that her mother hadn’t sided with her immediately. Surely her mother saw the injustice of the situation?
Her mother sat at the edge of her bed, her voice quiet. ‘Your actions do not endear me to him. I had one job and that was to raise his child—a beautiful, obedient girl who would be a credit to him and help him advance his position in the world. I have failed.’ That silenced Pavia. She hadn’t thought of it like that. She’d thought only of what the arrangement with Wenderly meant to her.
‘I wish we were in India, with Uncle, like it used to be. I don’t know how you bear it.’ Pavia huffed. ‘Why don’t we go? Surely Father wouldn’t care if we went? We mean nothing to him, just chess pieces to move around his board.’ She searched her mother’s face for guidance. ‘How do you stand it? So far from home, so far from your family?’
‘Your father and I complete each other, Pavia. Dher aham prithvi tvam. If I am the sky, you are the earth. People change over time. Perhaps he is not the same man I married, but he is still the man I am married to. A wife stands by her husband. My brother made this marriage for me in good faith that I would be provided for and I have been. I want for nothing. I would not shame my brother by returning to his palace.’
‘But what about love?’
‘Love is only one thing to build a marriage on and sometimes love alone is not enough. There are other things that matter, too. Surely you don’t believe in fairy tales, Pavia?’ Her mother was unrelenting.
‘No, not fairy tales, but marriage should be reasonable, mutual, at least.’ How could she believe in fairy tales when her mother had left her home to follow a husband halfway around the world who had no time for her? Who was always gone, leaving her alone in a strange country?
‘It can start that way, but things do not always go as planned.’ She reached for Pavia’s hand. ‘You blame your father for too much. He didn’t understand how difficult it would be for us here.’ She smiled softly.
‘We had so much hope. When we came to England, he had already made his first fortune. You were twelve and we were naïve. We thought we could throw money at our obstacles and they would dissolve. He bought this house, then the estate in the country. He sent you to Mrs Finlay’s. He gave us all the trappings of nobility. When that was not greeted with acceptance, he worked harder, made another fortune and then another. But nothing changed. I was not invited anywhere. I have not become the great hostess he wanted. He wanted London at our feet and he didn’t get it. I failed him, but he has another chance through you.’ She paused. ‘I just want you to understand why he pushes so hard.’
‘You shouldn’t have to justify his failings to me.’ Pavia rose from the bed. She would never be as tolerant, as forgiving, as her mother, nor would she be as accepting. ‘I’m not like you. I don’t want a marriage of convenience to a man I have to make excuses for. I want to be free. I want to go places and see things. Women can do that now, Mother. The railway is opening up travel like never before. The world is changing.’
‘Not really, it isn’t. Have you not heard a word I’ve said?’ Her mother sighed. ‘I love you and I want you to be safe and cared for. What about the Marquis of Chatham? He seems like a tolerant man. Perhaps Wenderly was not the best choice, but you are safe from him only if you can bring another lord up to scratch. Don’t waste this chance, Pavia. And for heaven’s sake, don’t fall for the lie these modern women portray in their pamphlets. Don’t believe for a minute that you are free. A woman alone is never free. She is in constant danger. The sooner you understand that, the better. Now, let’s talk about a gown for the Banfields’ ball.’
Chapter Five (#uccd2f7d4-c241-5222-9ff4-3f526f6d4ed4)
The Banfields’ ball went down better with champagne. Cam grabbed another flute from a passing tray, adeptly trading his empty one for a full. It was a move he’d perfected over the last two weeks—weeks filled with entertainments like this one, each event grander than the previous as the official opening of the Season drew closer. That opening was so close now, the Banfields’ ball might be considered a soft open for the festivities that would soon be underway. Everyone who was considered anyone of importance for this Season was here tonight, doing one last dress rehearsal, the diamonds brighter, the dresses whiter, the smiles wider. Even the ballroom itself seemed to glitter with a sense of its own self-importance: chandeliers from the Venetian masters, the slim Ionic-styled columns framing the ballroom wrapped in elegant swathes of shimmering pale rose silk and white roses everywhere. Out on the dance floor, Caroline swirled by in a froth of ivory and pink skirts on the arm of a young, but financially disadvantaged viscount’s heir. She flashed Cam a smile. He raised his glass in salute and drained it, his eyes already roving the room, searching out a footman with a tray. Ah, there was one! He moved to swap flutes, a low, familiar chuckle erupting behind him.
‘Easy there, soldier, don’t you think you’ve had enough? You’ll be too foxed by midnight to take the lovely Miss Beaufort in for supper.’
‘That’s the point.’ Cam laughed, turning to shake hands with an old friend. ‘Sutton Keynes, what brings you to town? I thought you never left Newmarket these days.’
Tall and immaculately turned out, Sutton looked far more like a gentleman tonight than the dairyman he aspired to be. One would never guess he spent his days mucking around in camel stalls. Sutton shrugged evasively. ‘I had business in town. Uncle is at it again, another one of his crazy schemes to see me wed. Best to nip that in the bud before the Season heats up.’ It was said jovially, but Sutton’s eyes were tired and his mouth was tight. Cam wondered if there was something more serious at play this time. Ever since he’d known Sutton back in school, Sutton’s uncle had been, well, odd to say the least. ‘Nothing I can’t handle, of course,’ Sutton added and then lowered his voice. ‘I heard about Fortis. I am sorry. Is that the only reason you’re home?’ He nodded towards the dance floor. ‘Miss Beaufort grows lovelier every year. Your grandfather certainly knows how to pick them.’ The mechanics of the arrangement were an open secret between Cam and his friends.
‘Then my grandfather can marry her.’ Cam swallowed the contents of the icy flute whole. Damn, the glasses were holding less and less as the night wore on. Either that or he was emptying them faster.
‘Your grandmother might have something to say about that,’ Sutton joked to take the acerbic edge off his comment, but his voice was low when he spoke again, invoking all the privacy that could be mustered in a ballroom. ‘So, is it the match you’re opposed to, old friend, or the way it came into being? Caroline is as good a choice as any and better than most.’ Sutton paused. ‘Unless, of course, you have someone else in mind?’ Images of his dark-eyed dancer swam in his mind. Cam pushed them away. He didn’t want to think of her tonight, not when such images could only serve to torture him with reminders of what he couldn’t have.
‘There is no one else.’ Cam infused his words with a sense of finality. He wanted to move away from this avenue of conversation, but Sutton seemed determined.
‘What if there was someone else? What if you went to your grandfather and said, “Here’s who I want to marry”?’ Sutton surveyed the ballroom. ‘Granted, it might be difficult this year. There’s not much to pick from in the way of outstanding catches. There’s the usual milieu of grasping gentry, baron’s daughters and such. That won’t impress your grandfather. But...’ Sutton’s voice picked up a tempo of excitement ‘...Endicott’s last daughter is out this year. I think there’s been an Endicott girl on the market every year since we came up, poor man.’
‘I don’t want an Endicott girl.’ Cam shook his head.
‘Well, there are only two viscounts’ daughters and one daughter of a marquis this year. People are saying it will be a bloodbath, the three of them will make rutting stags of us all.’ Sutton took another sip of champagne, his glass still half-full. ‘There is a Cit heiress, though.’ He raised his dark eyebrows. ‘That should make things interesting. She’s the only child of Oliver Honeysett, the tea merchant. He’s made it clear he wants a title and is willing to pay for it. His fortune would keep a man in horses for life.’ Sutton calculated everything in horses, or camels. The man should have been a Bedouin. ‘Of course, you don’t need the money, but plenty of these fellows do. It’s always interesting how that dilemma plays out,’ Sutton commented neutrally.
Cam didn’t respond. He eyed his empty glass and sighed. ‘It doesn’t matter, Sut, they’re all the same. This year, last year, next year. They’re all the same. Every girl, every night, every ball, all the same.’ It had taken coming home to really see that. He’d been gone from London for seven years and he might as well as not been. Nothing was different. The routine was the same, even the balls were the same. He went to the same places, saw the same people. Men’s trouser legs were a bit narrower, but, other than that, sameness permeated everything and it was suffocating him like a stock tied too tight. Even now, he had the sensation that he couldn’t breathe.
Across the room, a ripple shifted the crowd as the dance ended and couples walked back to their groups, new pairs drifting on to the floor. It was the flash of turquoise that caught his eye, bright and vibrant, and Cam’s eye riveted on it. Turquoise and dark hair, both a striking contrast against the pale palette of ivories and creams and blondeness around him. It was enough to capture his attention and to recall the memories he’d been trying to subdue all evening. ‘Who is that?’ Cam gestured with his flute. Maybe someone new to hold his interest was exactly what he needed, someone to replace his dancer in his fantasies.
‘You have good taste.’ Sutton followed his gaze. ‘It must be all that time abroad. That is the tea merchant’s daughter, our richest, most controversial prize of the Season.’
‘Because she’s a Cit? One would think we’d be more progressive these days. If we can power steam ships and run an empire, surely we can broaden our minds about social class.’ Good lord, the champagne was starting to take effect. His tongue was looser than a Covent Garden whore.
Sutton laughed. ‘It’s all about self-protection and you know it, Cam. People think if we let everyone in, the peerage would mean nothing and we’d be useless. But that’s not the problem with her. I dare say most would make an allowance for the Honeysetts in order to get their hands on all that money. Lord knows the aristocracy needs it.’ He dropped his voice even lower. ‘It’s her breeding, I’m talking about. Society is uncomfortable with the fact that her mother’s Indian. She’s a mixed-blood heiress and society has no idea what to do with her.’
‘Society had better get used to it. Empires by nature are not homogenous.’ Cam couldn’t keep the disgust out of his voice. The colour of someone’s skin should not determine their value. He thought of his dancer and the leers men had cast her in the tavern, and the disregard he’d feared they would show her without his protection.
‘True enough,’ Sutton agreed. ‘We’re seeing more and more of that as the empire expands—wealthy men marrying abroad and bringing their children home, only to discover England doesn’t want them. They’re trapped between worlds.’
Cam’s heart went out to the heiress. The Season must be torture for her, knowing that no matter how much money her father had, her antecedents would be held against her, weighed against access to that fortune. The girl would never truly know if she was appreciated for herself. ‘I want to meet her,’ Cam said, the decisiveness clearing the fuzziness of his head.
The request stunned Sutton. ‘I’ve only met her once, last week at the Haverfords’ rout.’
‘Good. Then she’ll remember you.’ Cam made a forward motion with his hand. ‘Lead on.’
‘It won’t do you any good,’ Sutton argued as they wove through the crowd. ‘Rumour has it, she’s nearly engaged to Wenderly.’
‘Wenderly?’ Cam’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Is he still around? The man must be nearly sixty. I’d think a widow would be more his sort.’
‘Well, you’d be wrong,’ Sutton said over his shoulder. ‘He’s got a taste for virgins these days.’
They approached the heiress’s little court from the side so that she was turned away from them. The crowd parted to make room for the newcomers and Cam stood back, waiting for Sutton to make the introductions.
‘Miss Honeysett, a pleasure to see you again.’
‘Mr Keynes! How good to see you. How is your camel dairy?’ she effused with genuine sincerity in a voice that held notes of the familiar, the smoke of it, the soft intimacy of it, sending a ripple of awareness through Cam.
‘My dairy is fine, how kind of you to remember.’ Sutton bowed over her gloved hand. ‘I have a friend with me tonight who would like to meet you. May I introduce you? Miss Pavia Honeysett, this is Major Camden Lithgow, lately of the Fourth Queen’s Own Hussars, although he’s not in uniform tonight as he’s home on leave.’
Cam stepped forward, his gaze locking on Miss Honeysett for the first time. He stalled, barely hearing Sutton finish the introduction. His heart pounded hard. The room seemed to spin either from champagne or from the shock of a fantasy come to life. His mind grappled with the enormous improbability of it all. After weeks of wishing for it, his dark-eyed dancer was here.
* * *
He was here. Pavia froze, barely remembering to extend her hand, so intent was she on his face—a face she’d studied intimately in the dark, a face she’d committed to memory. Only now the face had a name: Major Camden Lithgow. ‘Enchanté,’ Pavia murmured automatically.
Mrs Finlay’s academy had done its job with years of drills to help protect against unnerving circumstances. Perhaps he wouldn’t recognise her. It was a short-lived thought. The sharp look of shock in his eyes said he remembered her quite well. He’d not expected to find her here either.
‘The pleasure is all mine.’ His eyes lingered on her, full of memories and questions even as he delivered that wickedly wrapped double entendre. In the world beyond Cam Lithgow’s broad shoulder, the musicians struck up the beginnings of a dance. She was caught off guard, but Cam took advantage. ‘Might I hope you are free for the waltz?’ She was envious how quickly he’d recovered his aplomb while she was still wallowing in stunned surprise.
‘Absolutely.’ She took his arm and let him whisk her away to the dance floor and whatever privacy they might find there. It was the perfect short-term remedy. They would be seen, but not heard.
‘You were not a dancer like those other girls that night.’ He wasted no time, his hand at her waist, moving them into the waltz as he began his interrogation.
‘No.’ She was breathless as they took the first turn, the speed of his pace perhaps akin to the speed with which his mind was working, sorting, as she was, through the surprise and the facts. ‘I was not supposed to see you again.’
‘Nor I you, yet here we are, dancing again, but in very different circumstances,’ the Major said tautly.
Pavia lifted her chin defiantly. ‘Here we are, but it changes nothing. I am not asking you to claim a previous association with me. In fact, I’d prefer you didn’t.’ Never mind that she still dreamed about him at night, that he, nameless as he’d been, had somehow managed to imprint himself on her heart, on her mind, in that short time. She knew now she’d never be rid of him.
‘I know.’ His blue eyes narrowed, fixed on her in a piercing cobalt stare. ‘My friend tells me you’re engaged to Wenderly.’ He paused, perhaps considering that piece of information, and her mouth went dry. Did he know she’d been a virgin? Would he put the pieces together? Would he be angry? She didn’t want his anger. Even now, her body thrilled to the feel of his hand at her waist, of his hand in hers, the weight of his gaze on her, things she’d never thought to experience again.
‘It’s a possibility.’ Pavia was careful with her words. She couldn’t risk him saying otherwise if it came up in casual conversation at his clubs.
He arched blonde brows in doubt. ‘Truly? Does the earl tolerate such liberal behaviour in his fiancée? Does he know you dance in taverns and seduce men in their chambers?’
Pavia froze him with a stare. Scolding him silently for such crassness was the only recourse open to her. She could not plead it was only the one time or he would know her secret and he would know she’d used him. But it sat poorly with her to let him get away with thinking what she’d done with him was habitual. ‘That was one night out of time. It is best we forget about it,’ she said tightly. ‘If we don’t acknowledge it, it is as if it never happened.’
‘Of course, if that is what you want. You have nothing to fear from me. Your secret is safe.’ But Pavia thought she detected a shadow of disappointment as he reassured her. ‘I won’t be in London long, just until my leave ends in August. I will rejoin my troops in the Crimea. Don’t worry. London is large. We needn’t encounter one another again.’ He smiled, but it was not warm. ‘I won’t be home for a long while then. If ever.’ He was angry. There was a coldness to his words as the dance ended and he escorted her back to her court.
So it was done. Her fantasy had come full circle as his broad-shouldered back walked away from her, swallowed up in the crush of the ballroom as best it could be. Major Lithgow was taller than most, his hair brighter than most. Pavia was certain she could find him in any room if she looked. She could not look. It would do no good to torture herself with looking. A hundred questions had gone unasked during their waltz. The less she knew of him the better, the harder it would be to find him. He was not an acceptable substitute for Wenderly or for the other titled gentlemen she was supposed to be chasing. He was a military officer of some rank and respect, but he did not come with the title her father coveted. He would say she could have any officer. There was nothing special there. She had to give the major up.
‘Miss Honeysett, I believe this dance is mine.’ A wheat-haired man of respectable height and impeccable dress bowed before her, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled, confident in himself and his appeal.
Pavia returned the smile of the only Marquis out wife-hunting this Season. ‘Yes, I believe it is.’ Beyond him, she caught her father’s eye and nod of approval. And beyond her father was the golden head of Major Camden Lithgow, a pretty blonde beside him, her hand on his arm, her face laughing up at him, her body leaning close as if they were long acquainted and easy with one another. The sight riveted Pavia with a surge of irrational, jealous anger. How dare he! How dare he what? How dare he do exactly as she’d bid him and forget her?
Only there was no forgetting, was there? He knew that woman and she knew him. Quite well. Their body language suggested a history between them. No wonder he hadn’t flinched at her request to forget their night. He’d hardly want the pretty blonde with him to know such a thing.
‘Ahem.’ The Marquis smiled again, revealing straight white teeth as he attempted to reclaim her attention with a compliment. ‘I have been looking forward to this dance all evening.’
Pavia gave herself a mental scold. She needed to focus. This was a man to bring up to scratch. It shouldn’t be too hard; he was thirty-five, needed to marry and he was penniless—penniless enough to overlook her antecedents in exchange for a fortune.
‘As have I,’ Pavia lied smoothly and laid her hand on his sleeve.
Chapter Six (#uccd2f7d4-c241-5222-9ff4-3f526f6d4ed4)
She wanted nothing to do with him! The thought still rankled a week later. It didn’t help that for a girl who’d claimed to dismiss him, she was everywhere. Cam couldn’t go to a musicale, a ball or a sailing party without her being there. So much for the idea that London was a big place. He couldn’t seem to avoid her. Worst of all, she’d grown an appendage otherwise known as the Marquis of Chatham. She was on his arm, laughing, smiling, entrancing. Chatham was clearly smitten with her. Today was no different. She was dressed in a day gown of simple white muslin with a square neck and tiers of ruffles at the hem and charming Chatham effortlessly.
‘It seems Wenderly has some competition,’ Cam remarked drily to Sutton from their vantage point at the Countess of Claremont’s Richmond picnic. Caroline and the others in their group had wandered off a short distance to view the river, giving him a few minutes alone with Sutton.
Pavia and Chatham had wandered off on their own somewhere too, he’d noted, and the thought sent a hard surge of something through him. There were only so many things two people stole away on their own to do. Hot images of their one night swam to the fore followed by a bolt of undeniable jealousy. Had Chatham kissed her yet? Did he, too, know the sensual press of her lips, how she moved her whole body into a kiss? The way her breasts felt pressed against one’s chest? Of course, she’d been naked then, naked for him. Irrationally, he wanted to be the only one she was naked for, the only one she kissed like that.
‘And Caroline?’ Sutton asked rather bluntly, breaking into his thoughts. ‘Does she have some competition as well?’
Cam shot his friend a hard stare. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’
Sutton chuckled. ‘It means you haven’t been able to take your eyes off Pavia Honeysett since the Banfields’ ball.’ Sutton cocked his head, considering. ‘Nor she you, I think. She watches you when you’re not looking.’ Sutton plucked an orange from the basket on the blanket and began to peel.
She watched him? Cam schooled his features into bland neutrality, careful not to give away any reaction as to how that made him feel. A schoolboy exhilaration shot through him. He’d laugh at himself if Sutton wasn’t already doing it for him. He was twenty-eight and a soldier who’d seen the world. He was well past the crushes and infatuations of a green boy, yet here he was, fantasising about a woman he couldn’t have. ‘So, she’s decided to go to the highest bidder?’ Cam asked, definitively forgoing a response to Sutton’s question.
‘I think that’s what her father has decided,’ Sutton replied evasively.
Under other circumstances, Cam would find little to dislike about Chatham. The man was an excellent horseman, a solid marksman who responsibly held his seat in the House of Lords and kept a superior wine cellar. He supposed women found the Marquis attractive in other ways. He was tall and kept a clean, well-tailored appearance. He would, indeed, be an extraordinary catch for a Cit’s daughter. She would be able to vault to the top of society’s rungs with such a marriage.
‘She won’t get a higher bid than that.’ Cam couldn’t keep the despondency out of his voice. He couldn’t compete with the Marquis. He’d never before felt any lack in his assets. He had a comfortable income, a small manor house in Little Trull in Somerset, which he never visited, political connections through his grandfather and opportunities to use those connections if he ever left the military. But those assets paled in comparison to what a marquis could offer, even one in financial straits. And yet she looked at him.
Cam rose from the blanket, feeling suddenly restless. ‘I’m going for a walk.’ He needed space. Perhaps if he had a moment’s privacy he could regain perspective. He felt as if he hadn’t had a moment to breathe on his own since he’d been home. His days and his nights were filled with family and the family’s plans for him. There’d been dinners and parties, and councils with his grandfather and his father, like the one this morning before he’d set out for Richmond, only this time Caroline’s father had been there, too. It had been conducted pleasantly enough. No one was putting his thumbs to the screws. But the message was the same: It was time to make the engagement official. Caroline had waited patiently through three Seasons. It was hinted that she’d even passed on other offers.
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Bronwyn Scott
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: One daring encounter Binds her to his marriage bed! Part of Allied at the Altar: In England, innocent tea heiress Pavia Honeysett has always been judged for her face or her fortune. She would much rather return to her uncle’s palace in India. So to escape marriage to the aged man her father has chosen she will ruin herself! But her red-hot night with Major Camden Lithgow changes everything. Suddenly, this stranger will become her husband…