The Mischievous Miss Murphy (11 page)

Now that he had put Candie in the picture, so to speak, he felt his former confidence returning, and along with it the firm conviction that Candie was not indifferent to him. Looking at her sitting on the settee with the sun behind her, lighting her white-blonde hair like a halo, he had a momentary twinge as he thought of his plans for her, but although he had indulged himself in a moment or two of wishful thinking earlier in their acquaintance, he no longer harbored the slightest doubt as to Candie’s morals—or the lack of them.

She wasn’t a paradox, a mixture of cool worldliness housed inside an unworldly, untouched body. That was wishful thinking—although why he would want his mistress to be an innocent was a contradiction he chose not to explore. She was a thief, an intelligent thief, perhaps, but a thief just the same, and it was beyond the realm of possibility that she had lived almost two decades without once taking advantage of her natural attributes in order to reline her empty pockets.

Max put on a fine act—his concerned, loving-uncle role was really quite credible—but, all things considered, it was damned near impossible to swallow. Max was an opportunist, a user, and there was no way he could convince Tony he had been able to withstand the temptation to exploit such a sure money-maker as Candie’s delectable body.

The pair had been silent for more than five minutes, both lost in their own thoughts, when Tony belatedly shook his head clear of such unpleasant conjectures and prepared to take his leave.

Candie rose to walk him to the door, apologizing for not serving him any refreshments, and extended a hand in farewell.

Tony looked down at her hand, then up into her seemingly guileless sherry eyes. A promise was a promise, he reminded himself, and he was a man of honor. Two weeks he had agreed to, and two weeks it would be.

Starting five minutes from now!

His hands reaching out to capture her shoulders in a loose embrace, Tony slowly lowered his head to press his lips gently against Candie’s soft mouth. Her slight gasp of surprise was followed by a short release of breath, warm, perfumed air Tony drew into his own mouth as he moved to deepen the kiss.

But at the touch of his tongue on the moist inner edge of her bottom lip, Candie, who had been in the act of swaying toward Tony’s hard body, drew back sharply, abruptly breaking the contact before taking three quick steps backward and out of the invisible danger zone she had so lately inhabited.

The girl who had glibly talked her way out of more tight spots than a generation of field mice evading a servant maid’s lethal broom then found her voice but mislaid her glib tongue, stammering, “Wh-what did you d-do that for?”

“That’s to seal our truce, my sweetness. You’ll do your best to keep Max in line and Patsy happy, and I’ll forget my duty to report you and your uncle to the authorities for fraud, wrongful impersonation, and general mischief for the coming fortnight.”

“And at the end of that fortnight?” Candie asked, hating her voice for its tendency to quaver. “When your debt to Max is paid in full? What then?”

The Marquess of Coniston was a real treat to behold when he smiled in genuine amusement. His mouth would split into an unabashed grin, showing off his flawless teeth, while his smooth, lean cheeks displayed long, dimplelike creases, and his dark eyes danced and sparkled and crinkled engagingly at the corners. Just such a heart-stirring sight appeared at Candie’s latest question, and while part of her fairly melted under the beauty of the smile, another, saner part of her wished nothing more than to dive into her bed and pull the covers up over her head.

“Why then, my dear, apprehensive gamester,” he drawled maddeningly, “it will be my pleasure to initiate my plans concerning your future. It’s only fitting, you know, seeing as how Patsy and Max will have had their turn.”

“And I’m to have no say in any of this?” Candie asked, her sherry eyes narrowing dangerously.

Tony reached out his index finger and delivered a playful tap to the side of her nose. “Nary a word,” he informed her jauntily, although this time his smile did not quite reach his eyes. Opening the door, he turned, bowed, and stepped over the threshold before glancing back at Candie to see if she was still standing statuelike, her cheeks flushed with indignation.

But to his chagrin, Candie was smiling from her full pink mouth all the way up to her amusement-filled eyes.

“Candie?” he questioned involuntarily, disliking his sudden feeling of being put slightly off balance.

“Good day to you, my lord,” was all she replied, already in the act of shutting the door, before adding impetuously, “And it’s looking forward I am to hearing all about your plans for me. It’s been a long time since I’ve sparred with anyone even remotely up to my weight. I so dearly love a challenge, don’t you know. Almost as much as I delight in watching arrogant know-it-all’s like you eat crow!”

The door closed in his face before he could think up a fitting retort, leaving Tony to walk away with the infuriating (and perhaps just a tad unsettling) sound of Candie’s confident laughter ringing in his ears.

As he emerged out onto the flagway, his shoulders stiffened as mentally he reclassified his pending pursuit of Candie’s questionable virtue, filing it instead under the heading “Murphy Assault Plan,” not being so obtuse as to still believe he had but to dangle a bauble or two under Candie’s nose to have her falling into his arms, not after she had just hurled a figurative gauntlet at his feet.

Every time he saw her he wanted her more, and her easy reading of and immediate opposition to his intentions had intensified rather than lessened his desire. Not only would she decorate his bed, she would delight his senses. For no ignorant opera dancer or dull-as-ditch- water jaded society matron was Miss Candice Murphy. Even their arguments—and it seemed they argued every time they met—excited him. Soon there was to be a mighty battle, of the wits as well as the senses, and when she surrendered (as he knew she would), they would come together as equals, both giving and taking freely as was their right.

Tony’s muscles tightened as he savored an intoxicating vision of Candie’s eventual fate. Maybe he’d buy her a modest retreat in the country as well as the town house. And if he promises to behave himself, he mused, feeling magnanimous, I may just let Max visit her from time to time.

Candie, watching from her vantage point behind the lace curtains, followed Tony’s progress down Half Moon Street, her smile slowly fading as she realized that no matter who technically emerged the victor in their little battle of wills, she would inevitably end up the loser.

If she succumbed to Tony’s bound-to-be nearly irresistible campaign of seduction, she would not only have broken her well thought out and heretofore heartfelt vow to remain chaste, but she would have opened the door to the heartbreak that awaited her once he tired of her charms.

But if she bested him, if she resisted his blandishments and succeeded in forcing him to admit defeat, she would lose again. For then he would take his exit from her life, again leaving her brokenhearted.

If I let him seduce me, she told herself with a slightly hysterical giggle, at least I’ll have my memories to keep my broken heart company.

Allowing the curtains to drop back into place, she resolutely turned away from the window and Coniston’s departing form, reminding herself of the parting shot she had fired—her brave announcement that she looked forward to the excitement of matching wits with him.

It was true that Candie had inherited Max’s love of playing the game, going along with his schemes more for the mental exercise and the thrill of outfoxing her opponent than any thought of material gain, but soon she would be playing for the largest stakes of her career— herself.

And she would go it alone, without enlisting her uncle’s aid and thus giving herself an unfair advantage. Let Max weave his webs around targets gleaned from the potential victims he would meet at Lady Montague’s. She’d let him play this hand alone, while she pretended to go along with his ridiculous trumped-up story about wanting his niece to enter society. She had no time to play wealthy investor to one of her uncle’s captive audiences of greedy fools, no time to waste in endless hours of carefully penning genuine looking shares of stock in The Great Chinese Fireworks Consortium (written entirely in Chinese, of course) to be sold at the unheard of low price of fifty pounds a share.

No, outmaneuvering Tony as he sought to undermine her defenses and launching a counterattack meant to discourage him once and for all would give her more than enough to occupy her every waking hour.

She sank to her knees beside the ornate cradle, idly rocking it back and forth as she reviewed her knowledge of Tony Betancourt, searching for some chink in his armor or self-confidence that would give her the advantage she needed.

For the first time in her career, such conjuring did not afford her the slightest bit of pleasure.

C
andie’s note to Lady Montague informing her that, due to unforeseen circumstances, she and her uncle would have to decline her kind invitation to participate in her ladyship’s card party, was met with a scribbled response hand-delivered by Patsy’s second underfootman, demanding Candie present herself in Portman Square immediately.

As Candie was not averse to spending the morning in Lady Montague’s company, and with precious little to do in Half Moon Street, she bade the underfootman wait while she grabbed her pelisse and bonnet, begging the man’s company for the brisk walk up Park Lane.

Once seated in the small, elaborately decorated sitting room Patsy favored for intimate chats, Candie was amply entertained casting her gaze about the place.  She noted how Patsy’s flighty personality was so firmly stamped on this room filled with light and color and ridiculously ornate feminine fripperies while the rest of the mansion, or at least as much of it as she had seen on her first visit, leaned more toward the dark, and even the funereal.

“This room is exceptionally vulgar, isn’t it?” Patsy asked breezily, entering the room, her stylishly draped negligee floating about her and making her look like a small yacht in full sail. “But it does suit me, don’t you think?”

“What I think, my lady,” Candie replied, her sherry eyes twinkling, “is that I would give a great deal to have met your husband. You must have been as alike as chalk and cheese.”

“Harry?” Patsy said questioningly, screwing up her perfectly shaped nose. She looked about the room, filled floor to ceiling with treasures her late husband would have termed garbage, and allowed her features to re-form into an impish grin. “Oh, Harry would have had a rare fit if he could have seen his sanctuary turned out in such lamentably poor taste. He ran more to horrid paintings of dead game—you know the sort, the kind where the poor little animals lie limply at some brave huntsman’s feet, blood running from their sides—and furnishings whose styles and colors I found to be most depressing indeed. How astute of you, Candie, to notice.”

After summoning a servant and issuing orders for tea and cakes to be served immediately (and then exploding her image of grande dame by smiling widely and saying “Please, Haswick”), Lady Montague sat herself down beside Candie and demanded to know why the Murphys had refused her invitation.

“Uncle Max has, er, been called away unexpectedly on business, I’m afraid,” Candie told her hostess, finding herself averting her gaze as she found herself unable to lie directly into the woman’s guileless blue eyes.

Those blue eyes widened perceptively. “But then you’re all alone in the city! How can you stay alone on Half Moon Street? How long will he be gone?”