Leslie LaFoy (6 page)

“Do not think for one moment, Mr. Rivard,” she said quietly as she turned toward the back door, “that our contest is over and that you've won.”

He watched her go, amazed at the depth of her defiance. Did she really have the confidence to go with it? Or was it all just bravado? And why the hell was she so mad at him? It was her uncle who'd set the trap and sprung it. He was just as much an unsuspecting victim of
George Seaton-Smythe as she was. And he hated it, resented being a powerless pawn just as much as she obviously did.

But if she thought he was going to cry friends over their common fate, she could very well think again. She was a social disaster waiting to happen, and unless he got her under firm control, she'd undo what little good would come of the public speculation regarding their marriage. In the end, he told himself as he scooped up her valise, it didn't matter whether her defiance was real or contrived. It had to come to an end.

Her arms hugging her midriff, Claire stood in the cobbled courtyard at the rear of the tavern and glanced toward one end of the long alleyway and then the other. Large red brick buildings stood sentinel on either end, effectively corking her into a bottle. If only she'd spent yesterday evening and that morning exploring the city itself. If only she knew enough of it to find a safe place to hide until she could slip away in the night. She could find a way to make the money necessary to buy her passage back to England.

An honorable way. She could do books. Cook. Keep house. She had once spent her days maintaining a home, running a farm. She'd excelled at it all, had enjoyed every moment of those years. All she needed was for someone to trust her, to give her a chance. She could do it again. She hadn't forgotten how. James City. Yes, she needed to get back to the port. Someone there or nearby would certainly understand her plight and take pity on her.

A blast of warm, smoky air wafted over her, and Claire instinctively jumped and whirled about, regretting that she hadn't already run away and bracing for the next onslaught. Dear Lord, he was such a tall man and so powerfully built. The handle of her valise was invisible in the clutch of his hand, the weight of her
meager belongings seemingly nothing for him to lift as he silently held it out to her.

She would have scrambled away then, but even as she took her bag in hand, he seized her upper arm, his hand easily encircling the whole of it, his grip viselike.

“Do you often run about dressed as a man?” he asked quietly, his green eyes blazing as his gaze slowly raked her from the top of her head to the toes of her boots.

Ignoring the heat suddenly fanning across her cheeks, Claire took a steadying breath. She waited for his attention to return up the length of her body before she coolly replied, “As a point of information, Mr. Rivard, yes, I do.”

He swallowed hard and then his lips compressed into a hard line as he considered her with narrowed eyes. “Where are you lodged?” he finally asked.

Her heart skittering in renewed panic, Claire answered, “I won't tell you.”

The merest shadow of a smile touched one corner of his mouth as he cocked a dark brow and calmly said, “Then you leave me with no choice but to strip you out of these clothes right here.”

Claire felt her eyes widen, her insides shrink. Even as the voice of inner reason urged her to run, she heard herself gasp, “You wouldn't dare!”

He laughed, and she heard the distinctive notes of a man who knew he had, at last, gained the upper hand. “I would indeed,” he assured her, his eyes sparkling with hard amusement. His full mouth curved upward in a mocking smile. “Our nuptials are within the hour and I have no intention of standing before a cleric with my bride masquerading as a boy. You'll go naked before you go as you're now clothed. The choice is yours, Mistress Curran. You have three seconds to make it.”

His smile broadened. “One…”

Every instinct told her that he'd carry out his threat; that she faced the most dangerous man she'd ever met. Yes, he would strip her clothes from her where they stood. And take great pleasure in doing so. Breathing suddenly became a labored, torturous process too difficult to bear.

“Two…”

“The Grissell Hay House,” she snapped, as disgusted with her own cowardice as she was with his smirking sense of superiority.

D
EVON FOLLOWED
her into the small rented room and kicked the door closed behind them while saying, “Change into whatever you possess that might pass for reasonably respectable. The dress you had on in Edmund's office will do.”

From the center of the room, she faced him, her shoulders squared as always, that defiant spark lighting her violet eyes. With her hands balled into tiny fists at her sides, she said quietly, “You're loathsome.”

“And you're a bit of bad baggage,” he countered, moving back so that his body blocked her access to the door. “We appear to deserve each other.” The color and expressiveness of her eyes fascinated him. At the moment, they reminded him of the sky during the gathering of storms. What would they look like, he wondered, in the throes of physical passion? And in the quiet lull of the afterward?

Devon frowned and banished the wayward thoughts. He nodded toward the valise she'd tossed on the bed. “We haven't much time. Change your clothing.”

“Only when you've turned your back,” she demanded with all the haughtiness of an offended duchess.

He laughed outright, shaking his head. “So that you
can bash me over the head and make another attempt at escape?” He leaned his shoulders back against the door-jamb. Crossing his arms over his chest and one ankle casually over the other, he looked her up and down in the way he knew irritated her. “I'm no fool, mistress. Besides, in less than an hour's time you'll be my wife. The bargain's not of my making, but I believe I have every right to see the merchandise I'm acquiring.”

He watched clouds of doubt scuttle over the spark of her instant anger. “You promised, before a witness, that I'd leave this farce of a marriage untouched.”

“Don't flatter yourself,” he countered. “I have absolutely no intentions of bedding you. Not today. Not ever. You don't appeal to my senses in the least.” Even as the words left his mouth, a cynical inner voice scoffed,
Liar
.

“But if you don't immediately begin to properly attire yourself,” he continued, roughly forcing his mind to the matter at hand, “I'll be forced to accomplish the task for you. And bear in mind that I feel no compulsion to be gentle about it.”

She glared at him once before turning her back on him. He watched in amusement as she roughly stripped the coat from her shoulders and flung it on the bed. Her shirt followed within mere seconds and Devon's sense of victory suffered a quick demise. He sucked in his cheeks and shifted his stance, told himself that wisdom lay in observing propriety, in looking away while she unwound the bindings that had flattened her chest.

But he couldn't. God, he couldn't take his gaze from the flawless cream of her skin, couldn't keep it from roaming over the inviting length of her slender neck and down the elegant sweep of her shoulders and arms. It dropped lower to touch the curve of her hips where it disappeared into the waistband of her breeches, and he found himself again wondering about the provocatively long legs hidden by the woolen fabric.

The inner voice came again, this time soft with mockery.
You want her
. Devon swore beneath his breath. If the little half-naked hoyden ripping open the valise appealed to his baser instincts, it was only because he hadn't sought any release since he and Darice Lytton had parted ways. He could change that situation easily enough. He could set aside his suspicions, and Darice would forgive him at the first caress.

His gaze wandered over her again, his already heated blood warming even more at the sight of her bent over the now open valise. Devon forced his attention to the low ceiling of the room, but a flutter of white instantly brought his attention back to her.

“Where's your maid?” he heard himself ask as he watched her pull loosely laced stays over her head and down over her torso. Odd, he mused, he'd never disliked the idea of that particular garment before.

“I don't have a maid,” came the distracted reply.

“Am I to assume that you've traveled from London unaccompanied?”

She glanced at him over her smooth, alabaster shoulder. “Since I suspect that anything I might offer in way of explanation would be ignored, I'll leave you to think whatever you like.”

Christ, he frankly had no idea what to think of her. She'd been charming in a countrified way at their introduction in Edmund Cantrell's office. Then she'd bristled with all the indignation of a peer insulted in the House of Lords. The masquerade as a young man had been well crafted. She'd calmly stood her ground when confronted at the bar. In the courtyard behind the tavern, she'd been the vulnerable and skittish maiden. Now she played the cool, unflappable lady of quality. Claire Curran apparently changed who and what she was with the unexpected suddenness of spring weather.

Devon smiled to himself. Solving the puzzles of people had always intrigued and entertained him. The secret
lay in throwing them off kilter; goading them to anger was the simplest means to that end. “And would the worst I could imagine about you be so very far off the mark?” he asked.

She took a dress from the valise, the same dress she'd been wearing when he'd first met her. “I owe you no accounting of my circumstances, sir.”

He cocked his head, his mind reeling back through all the words they'd exchanged that morning. “That's the second time in our brief
courtship
that you've thrown those particular words at me,” he observed quietly, watching her. “Apparently your circumstances are of some consequence to you. As your husband, I have a right to know if they're likely to cause me some—”

“Social embarrassment,” she finished with just the slightest hint of derision in her voice. Her scorn was fully apparent when she added, just under her breath, “How utterly predictable.”

“Are they likely to need an explanation to my friends and family?” he pressed, his pride smarting from her tiny assault and demanding that she pay for it. “There must be a very good reason George Seaton-Smythe thought to concoct this desperate plan to marry you off. An indiscreet affair, perhaps? A petty theft?”

She whirled about, her hands on her hips, her chin set in hard resolve. She studied him for a long moment, a moment in which he watched appraisal and deliberation quench the vibrant spark of anger and darken her eyes to the color of midnight.

“At his death, my father's estate in Herefordshire passed into the hands of Seaton-Smythe,” she supplied, her manner as controlled as that of any barrister he'd ever seen. “As my husband, you're within your rights to demand the property as my dowry payment. When this marriage is finally annulled, I want it deeded to me as my settlement.”

Devon gave a derisive snort. “Along with a sizable annual sum to maintain it, I presume?”

“I neither need nor want anything from you,” she stated blandly, turning her back on him and beginning to rummage through her valise. “Besides,” she added in the next heartbeat, “the very fact that you're so easily bowing to my uncle's scheme tells me that you don't have so much as a sovereign to spare.”

The first of her words had taken the wind from his sails. The latter deeply wounded his already bruised pride. But he knew better than to stumble, flinging words right and left, into the trap she'd lain. If she honestly thought he had the power to demand anything and that Seaton-Smythe would be disposed to do anything so kindly and unprofitable as to give away valuable property, then she deserved to have her illusions come to a shattering, painful end. “Done,” he said even as he wondered if that single utterance might have been one too many.

“I want the agreement in writing,” she went on as calmly as before. “Signed, witnessed, and sealed before we exchange our vows.”

It was an interesting and unexpected turn. Very businesslike. And sensible. What an intriguing puzzle she was. Solving it probably wouldn't take very long, but it was a diversion in a world that didn't offer too many pleasant ones. Devon smiled. “Has anyone ever mentioned that you're a cold-blooded little mercenary?”

She twisted her mannish, braided queue up into a knot at the nape of her neck, then turned toward him. Holding the arrangement with one hand, she took a hairpin from her lips and nonchalantly pushed it into place while she answered, “Circumstances frequently dictate adaptations.”

“You're fond of that statement, aren't you?”

“It's the Curran creed.” She smiled and arched a
delicate brow. “What's the credo of the Rivards? Might makes right?”

Didn't she know she was courting his wrath? He knew that she was fully aware of what she was doing and the likely consequences. Apparently she didn't have the good sense to be frightened. No, that wasn't true either. If there was one thing he'd learned about Claire Curran in the single hour of their acquaintance, it was that she possessed both intelligence and common sense.

How many facets were there to this woman? What would she be like pinned between him and soft linen sheets? It didn't matter, he assured himself angrily. Thoughts of throwing her down on the bed were simple aberrations, the product of the day's turmoil and nothing more.

“Finish your dressing,” he instructed with a curt nod toward the valise. “We'll be late to our own wedding if you continue to dawdle.”

“I am finished dressing.”

Her calmness added to his irritation. “You're still wearing breeches and boots beneath your skirts.”

“No one will know.”

“I'll know.”

She studied him again, her gaze steady and without the slightest affectation. “And being absolutely proper and correct means everything to you, doesn't it? Even if it's utterly and completely foolish.” Then she tilted her head to the side and asked in all innocence, “Or is it that you can't discern the difference between matters of true importance and those that are trifling?”

“I see the distinction quite clearly, Mistress Curran,” Devon answered, coming away from the door. “But I also understand all too well the effects of trying to play the game outside the rules. The ripples of the slightest social censure often produce financial disasters of great proportion. Since we're to be shackled to one
another until such time as your uncle cancels the note of credit, it behooves us to have a clear understanding of expectations.”