Dukes Prefer Blondes (14 page)

She was right, absolutely right.

“You have a point,” he said.

“Do I?” She leaned forward to peer into his face, and he caught the faintest whiff of her scent. “Did you find it painful to say that? It looked painful. All the same, I'm all aflutter.” She sat back and pretended to fan herself with a gloved hand.

“But,” he said.

“There's always a
but
,” she said.

“The trouble is, they know you can identify
them
,” he said.

She dismissed this with a queenly wave, not at all marred by the dirty glove. “Very silly of them,” she said. “Everybody knows we ladies can't tell the difference between one pauper and the next. They all look the same under the dirt and rags. Not that anybody wants to look closely at them, since it means getting near enough to smell them. Everybody knows we're perfectly happy to let cutthroats and thieves go about their business, as long as they stay out of our neighborhoods, and stick to robbing their neighbors and cutting their throats.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you quite finished?”

“Not nearly,” she said. “They know we'd never appear in a place as sordid as a courtroom. A lady would never be so vulgar as to stand in the witness box. She might as well stand in the dock, because her reputation would certainly be found guilty and hanged—­possibly drawn and quartered, too—­and minutely dissected thereafter.”

She lifted her perfect chin and gazed at him defiantly.

His other self was painfully tempted to do something the rational Radford was sure would only make matters worse.

“Very well,” he said. “Do as you like. I haven't time to play nursemaid. I've a libel to prosecute, a dying father to look in on, a funeral to attend in Herefordshire, and a mad cousin's ghastly affairs to sort out, practically simultaneously. I shall leave you to Lady Exton, with my greatest sympathy.”

She would go her way and he would go his.

In a very short time, in fact. At the end of this trip across London.

He looked out of the window, because looking at her was making him unhappy and restless and he was having the devil's own time detaching himself. He was surprised to see how far they'd come already. “Ah, we're nearly at Hyde Park Corner,” he said calmly.

C
lara wanted to tear her tongue out. She wanted to slap herself. But she did neither of these things because the first was easier said than done and the second was vulgar, and possibly a symptom of insanity.

“What is wrong with you?” she said. “Why did you let me go on with my ranting self-­pity? Why did you not tell me? Who's died?”

He didn't answer at once. First he looked out of the window. Then he looked down at his hands, resting on his knees. Then he frowned and said, “A young woman, I'm sorry to say. I shouldn't have spoken of it in that cavalier manner.”

A young woman.

Clara felt the way she'd done on the day she'd tried, though expressly forbidden, to skate on a pond, and the ice had given way under her feet, and sent her plunging into frigid waters.

She ignored the feeling. It was too foolish for words. He was a man, an attractive man if one overlooked the obnoxiousness. But women had to overlook men's personality flaws, else nobody would ever wed and/or reproduce and the human race would come to an end.

Naturally there would be a young woman in his life. Did Lady Clara Fairfax think she was the only woman in the world because a lot of silly men acted as though she were? Did she think Mr. Radford would be like all the rest, forsaking all others—­or pretending to—­to worship at her altar?

What nonsense. She knew she was merely this year's Most Fashionable Woman to Pursue, and that was mainly her dressmakers' doing.

Fashion wouldn't rule him. He'd judge for himself.

He was nothing like the other men she knew.

“After such a morning?” she said. “With so much on your mind? Who'd expect you to watch every single word? But here am I, showing off my skills in argument, when you've lost someone you care for. You shouldn't have let me babble on like that.”

“Firstly, listening to you was educational and entertaining,” he said. “With discipline you might make a fair advocate, were women admitted to the bar. Secondly . . . I didn't know her.”

The frozen sensation ebbed.

“But she was young,” he went on. “And she died, I don't doubt, from trying repeatedly to produce an heir for my benighted cousin. Do you remember Bernard? You chipped a tooth on his elbow.”

She nodded. How could she forget Bernard? In her opinion, he was directly responsible for the end of her freedom . . . and her life going completely wrong.

“He suffered an infection, you'll be pleased to know,” Mr. Radford said. “But he survived. Very recently he be­came the Duke of Malvern. At present, it seems, his mind is disordered by grief. Or disappointment. Or something. At any rate, they're all alarmed and want me there yesterday.”

“Herefordshire,” she said, sinking into the lake again.

“Yes.”

“For how long?” Why did she ask? What difference did it make? He'd said only a moment ago he'd never see her again.

“Hard to say,” he said. “But you needn't worry that Toby Coppy's affairs will be neglected in my absence. I'll write to Westcott from Richmond, and he'll find a place for the boy. Want of intellect won't be a problem. In some professions, the smaller the brain, the better. Some would say that's true of the legal profession, but they overlook the fact that one must read and write—­at least after a fashion. On the other hand, any number of boys are useless at manual trades. Our Tilsley, for instance. More or less a charity case. But our reasoning was, firstly, we got him young and cheap, and could train him up properly without having to break him of bad habits—­”

“Mr. Radford.”

His cool grey gaze met hers. “Lady Clara.”

She swallowed. “I daresay we'll never see each other again.”

“I calculate the odds strongly against,” he said.

Stay
, she wanted to say.
I'm not ready for you to be gone from my life.

She said, “Then I'd better thank you now for helping me recover Bridget's brother.”

“You'd better not,” he said. “This entire undertaking was against my better judgment.”

“It wasn't against
mine
,” she said. “It was difficult and painful and sickening and shocking, but it was what I wanted to do, and I did it. I didn't simply hear about it or read about it. I was there. I was a part of it. I saw a world and understood a few things I could never have properly understood before. And I think I'll be better for the experience.”

“I think you're romanticizing,” he said. “I think you'll have nightmares. I think your maid had better burn every stitch you're wearing. I'll be kicking myself all the way to Richmond, and parts beyond, for not tying you to the carriage seat. Only look at your gloves!”

She looked at them. They'd become remarkably grubby in a remarkably short time. She peeled them off.

“Even when you were dressed in that imbecile disguise the first day you came to my chambers, you were
unsoiled
,” he said. “You won't be the better for this.”

“I will be,” she said. “And Toby will be, too.”

“Yes, poor Toby. You're so fanatical about keeping your promise to his sister. You're mighty whimsical about your promises, I notice. What about your promise to me? ‘
Please
,' you said, in the most pathetic way—­and I of all men should know better than to be moved by pathetics—­and big blue eyes threatening tears—­”

“Big blue—­”

“But no, I'm as slow-­witted as every other man in London, it seems. ‘Please,' you said. ‘I promise to do what you say.' And I believed you.”

“Oh, Mr. Radford,” she said. She moved to the edge of the seat and leaned toward him.

“Don't oh-­Mr.-­Radford me,” he said. “Impulsiveness, that's what it is. This is how you end up with a chipped tooth. I hope dirty gloves are the worst of today's souvenirs. Thank me, indeed. It'll be thanks to my making one mistake after another if you end up with a splinter infection or tetanus. Seven mistakes by my count. No, eight. Number Eight was believing you when you promised. No, we're up to nine at least. Number Nine was—­”

“Stop,” she said. “Stop it.” She reached across and grabbed two fistfuls of his coat.

Before he could say anything more or she could think twice, she pulled him toward her and kissed him. On the lips. Fiercely. Desperately. In the most unladylike manner.

M
istake Number Ten, she was in his lap, and Radford didn't know how she'd landed there or who was the perpetrator, and he didn't care. He'd raged at her because he couldn't say what he wanted to and hadn't wanted to think what he was thinking.

He wasn't ready to say goodbye forever.

Kensington was drawing ever closer and he was in turmoil.

He wanted more time. He wanted to turn the hackney in another direction, any other direction, even though his reasoning self knew what he had to do and all the reasons he ought to do it.

But now she was in his arms and kissing him, without doubt or hesitation. She grasped the back of his head firmly and possessively, knocking his hat off and holding him in place—­as though he'd be fool enough to try to get away. And she kissed him in a way that showed how quickly she'd learned from him. She showed as well how dangerous were the lessons he'd taught her.

The last time, he'd had only a tantalizing taste of possibilities. The last time he'd tasted surprise and a little shock and uncertainty, along with the innocent taste of Clara.

This time she did damage. This time her soft mouth's pressure vibrated through him, to make his heart vibrate, too, and drum heat through his muscles. His brain shrank to nearly nothing, far too small to form a coherent thought. Instead of thinking, he
felt
—­the delicious pressure of her mouth, the heat of her body pressing against his, the weight of her perfectly rounded bottom in his lap.

He wrapped his arms about her and crushed her to him. She fit so perfectly in his arms, and it seemed so exactly right for her to be there, as though she belonged and always had.

She smelled of Bad Neighborhood as he did, but that was irrelevant. The real Clara came through, the light herbal scent that blended so perfectly into the scent of her skin and filled his nose and his head and made a fog where there used to be sharp clarity. The dwindling taint of the ugly world they'd visited gave way to the immediate warmth and scent and taste of her.

He broke the kiss to bury his face in her neck and drink in her scent. He kissed the inch of skin above the stiff collar of her dress, and she gave a little gasp that eased into a sigh. She bent her head and kissed the top of his, and tangled her fingers in his hair. He shivered at the touch. He tipped his head back and looked up at her, into her unearthly face, and she put her hand over his eyes and brought her mouth to his again.

This time her kiss was fiercer, so potent that she made him forget she was an innocent. He pressed for more, his tongue urging until she parted her lips to him. The kiss quickly deepened, his tongue tangling with hers. She moved her hands down to grasp his shoulders, so tightly, as though she'd hold him forever.

He slid his hands over her back, down along her straight spine to her waist. The dress was stiff and severe and forbidding, as he'd insisted it be. Under it, layers of undergarments made a barrier between his gloved hands and her skin. Even in his fogged state, he knew he wouldn't get nearer to the real girl. But for now she was real enough, in his arms.

He slid his hands down to clasp her waist, then upward over the gentle curve to the swell of her stern bodice. And upward again to cup her breasts. He wasn't thinking. It was all instinct, and practice. He slid his thumb to one forbidding button and pushed it through its buttonhole.

Her hand covered his. She broke the kiss.

He stilled, as much as he could. He became suddenly aware of the pounding of his heart and the harshness of his breathing. He was far more heated than the situation warranted. One button!

She was breathing hard, too, her bodice rising and falling under his hand. He thought she'd push him away but she only kept her hand over his, over her breast.

He looked up at her. Her face was flushed, her lips swollen, her eyes shining. Her hat was tipped askew, and under it, a lock of pale gold hair had come loose to dangle near her eyebrow.

He did not want to be rational and sensible because that meant stopping and he didn't want to stop, not yet, not for a long time. He wanted to do unspeakable things to her ladyship, with her ladyship, here in a dilapidated hackney coach.

He made himself come to his senses.

He slid his hand out from under hers and tucked the button back into its buttonhole.

He didn't want her to come to her senses, either, but she did. She eased off his lap and back onto her seat in one smooth movement. She straightened her hat, smoothed the front of her dress, folded her hands, and looked out of the window.

She said, “I'm not going to ask if you're done being hysterical. It would be plain to the meanest intelligence that you've stored up years of that article, and it's bound to break out at intervals.”

“Hysterical!”

“I'm not going to apologize for kissing you,” she went on. “I'm not going to make excuses for doing so. The facts are simple and obvious. You would not stop scolding me and ranting. I'd had enough. I succumbed to a normal and natural feminine urge to silence a man talking nonsense.” She turned to meet his gaze, her chin up, her eyes bright, her cheeks pink. “And I will
not
promise never to do it again. I seem to have stored up a quantity of rebelliousness over the years, and you have the knack of unleashing it. You are extremely aggravating.”