My Lady's Dare

And here I am, Ned thought, nattering on at him like a schoolmaster because he’s brought some woman home. What does it matter if he wants to bring every strumpet in Gravesend home with him? Harper thought, unfolding a blanket he took from the foot of the bed and spreading it carefully over the earl. He’s more than earned the right to do that, even if they don’t want to be rescued.

Smiling at the thought, the valet walked across the room and pulled the heavy draperies across the windows. The room darkened as if it were twilight instead of midmorning. Ned waited for his eyes to adjust, and finally, unable to resist the impulse, he walked back to the high bed, almost tiptoeing so as not to chance waking the sleeper.

Even as a child, this was the Sinclair who could be counted on to bring home the strays. Any sick or mistreated animal Val had ever encountered had found its way back to the warmth of the Sinclair stables. Everyone believed that Mr. Ian was the best of the lot, and in a way, Ned supposed they were right.

But I wouldn’t be trading this one, Harper thought, adjusting the cover he had laid over the broad chest, which rose and fell with a regularity that told him the earl was already deeply asleep.

I hope to God you don’t disappoint him, he thought, remembering the flawless beauty of the woman who had waltzed in through the front door of the town house this morning as if she owned it. Whatever your story is, lass, I hope it, and you, are worthy of his interest.

He watched a moment more, at least until the tense muscles in the handsome face had relaxed, giving way to exhaustion, and then Ned Harper turned and, picking up the clothing he had laid over the chair, tiptoed out of the room.

“More sole?” the Earl of Dare asked.

Elizabeth looked up from the contemplation of her plate, where her original portion of fish resided untouched. The delicate sauce with which it had been dressed was congealed unappetizingly around it.

“Or perhaps not,” Dare said softly, his eyes rising from the dish to meet hers. He signaled the butler with the lift of one dark eyebrow, and a footman obediently slipped her plate away. “I’m sorry if you found the fish unappealing. Perhaps there might be something else that—”

“Thank you, my lord, but no,” she said. “I find…I’m afraid I’m really not very hungry.”

“Indisposed, Mrs. Carstairs?” the earl asked, his deep voice touched with amusement.

Again the dark, highly expressive eyebrow arched. Its meaning was as clear to her as it had been to his majordomo before. He was mocking her. Mocking what he believed to be her false claim of being ill.

They both knew why she might attempt to invent an illness tonight, but that wasn’t the kind of woman she was. Whatever else she might have become during the past two years, she wasn’t a coward. Of course, the earl had no way of knowing that.

“I am not indisposed,” she said. “I am rarely indisposed, I assure you, Lord Dare. I am simply…not hungry.”

“May I tempt you with a sweet? Or a nice cheese, perhaps?”

“No, my lord, you may not,” she said, and then hearing the sharpness of her tone, she added more politely, at least on the surface, “Thank you, but no.”

“Cook will be devastated,” the earl said, lifting his wine to his lips. He watched her over the rim of the glass a second or two before he drank.

“You, yourself, have made an excellent dinner. My compliments on your appetite. And your servants are very well-trained for a bachelor household. My compliments on the service tonight, as well.”

“Why, thank you, Mrs. Carstairs,” he said, smiling, seeming not the slightest bit annoyed by her comments. “Your approval of my staff is very kind. And I hope their…service was also satisfactory in preparing your bath this morning?”

The question was highly improper, and he certainly knew it. It was intended to convey two messages, and she had understood the import of both. The first was a reminder, she believed, of her own recent “service” at Bonnet’s. The second was clearly meant to warn her that nothing went on in the Earl of Dare’s household about which he was not informed.

“The arrangements for my bath were very satisfactory, I assure you,” she said. “I was told by one of the footmen who brought up the water that you yourself bathe. Quite frequently, I understand.”

That was a lie, of course. Under Mrs. Hendricks’ watchful eyes, the footman hadn’t said a word, but unless Dare stooped to question his servants, he couldn’t verify that. Perhaps it would give him pause to believe that information passed both ways.

His lips tilted in response. “My staff seems much inclined to gossip about simple household…affairs,” he said.

He appeared unannoyed by her comment. Which was not, of course, what she had intended.

“Another warning, my lord?” she asked innocently.

“Simply a realization. Apparently my servants are not so well-trained as you have led me to believe.”

“Or perhaps they are simply bored,” she suggested.

He inclined his head, as if he were thinking about the possibility, but he let the silence build between them as the footmen removed the rest of the dishes.

“More wine?” he asked when that had been done. Again he signaled and the servant approached to refill their glasses. Hers was still untouched, a fact he was almost certainly aware of.

“Thank you, no,” she said, and the footman who had been approaching stepped back to his place against the wall.

“I thought you might feel in need of some Dutch courage.”

“Really?” she said, her voice conveying what she hoped was a note of surprise. “I wonder why?”

He laughed, the sound again as pleasant as she had found it to be this morning. And when his laughter faded away, he was still looking at her, his blue eyes serious for almost the first time since she had met him.

“Because you’re a woman alone with a man about whom you know nothing. A man who won you in a game of cards. I’ve been trying to imagine all day what you must be feeling.”

“And what did you…imagine my feelings to be, my lord?”

“A degree of curiosity, I suppose. Even anxiety perhaps. Or am I wrong?”

She hesitated, but what he had said was only what anyone in her position might confess to feeling.

“No,” she admitted. “You aren’t wrong.”

He lifted his glass again, moving it in a small salute in her direction, before he brought it to his lips.

“Were you planning to satisfy my curiosity?” she asked.

“You may ask me anything,” Dare said graciously.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“My mistress is jealous of her position.”

It was the closest he had come to admitting what she had supposed all along to be his purpose. He was interested in her sexually. Bonnet had offered her “services,” and that had titillated the earl’s interest.

This, then, was why he had forced the Frenchman to stake her instead of his house. Dare had now openly confessed his intent, and the fear and dread she had fought all day tightened her chest, making it hard to breathe.

“I thought,” the earl continued, “she might not be pleased if I took you there. And I own only the two houses in London, you see.”

It took a second or two for the meaning of that to penetrate her anxiety. He had confused her again. Deliberately confused her. He was playing with her, as a cat will play with an exhausted and dying mouse, trying to make it jump and run again.

Cat and mouse was, however, a game she had played successfully for over two years. And it was one at which she thought she was perhaps the better gamester.

“So you brought me to this house instead,” she said.

“There is a great deal of room,” Dare agreed, again lifting his glass.