Princes of Charming (2 page)

Her back to the Captain, she reached into a hidden pocket in her skirt and withdrew a gold pocket watch on a chain. She flipped it open, but not to study the time. The mechanism kept breaking down, sticking with both hands on the twelve. Drusilla ran a thumb over the glass face and sighed.

"Hopefully, Madam, the fortune my grandson Nicky will inherit from the Charmings can make up for his less auspicious beginnings."

Snapping the watch case shut, she slipped it back into her pocket. She should tell the Captain he'd been sent to her by mistake—that the services she preformed in her house, although discreet, were nothing whatsoever to do with matchmaking or etiquette. That what she provided within those walls was some of the very same temptation he sought to avoid for his grandson. Glancing back over her shoulder, she caught his anxious expression, saw his hands shake as he raised his sherry glass. While fumbling to put his handkerchief back in his pocket, he'd dislodged a few loose coins that fell to her carpet. He didn't notice. Drusilla did, of course, being a woman accustomed to emptying pockets on the sly and taking every opportunity to relieve the wealthy of their burdens—redistributing the wealth, as she liked to think of it.

She suspected that if she picked the Captain up, turned him upside down and shook him, there would not be much more to fall out. After his son's expensive lawsuit the Wilders had fallen on hard times. Evidently the Captain needed the Charming's Chocolate fortune for his grandson and now he came to Drusilla for help, to ensure the boy didn't lose his chance to inherit too.

Poor man. He would be mortified if he knew he'd been made a fool by some malicious person who'd sent him deliberately to the wrong place. The Captain might be a pontificating ass, but he clearly cared about his grandson and took on the responsibility of raising the boy when no one else wanted the task.

Really, why should she not help him? After catering to the disciplinary needs of London's wealthy elite for six years, she had some intimate connections. She could make inquiries, find a suitable young woman of good family for Master Nicholas Wilder, new prince of the Charming Chocolate empire. The lucky woman would certainly become a very rich wife and if Drusilla arranged the match it might be a feather in her own cap. It was always useful to have friends in high places. Friends who owed favors.

Perhaps she'd open a side business.

"Madam? You will take on the job?"

"I will, Captain Wilder."

His cheeks swelled, lifting the great, thick branches of his ivory moustache. "Excellent! Jolly good!" He lurched to his feet. "You will want to meet my grandson Nicky, of course."

"I should like that very much." If he was anything like his notorious father she'd taken on quite a challenge.

"I'll arrange a meeting when he comes to London soon, if that is agreeable to you."

She nodded. "I look forward to it."

"The young lady will be thoroughly vetted? We don't want any common flotsam."

Her smile in danger of becoming strained, she steered him toward the door. "Certainly, Captain. Leave it to me." Drusilla was very good at being polite when every inch of her longed to scream at the hypocrisy. She'd had a great deal of practice.

Behind the front door of this house she was Madame Pantoufle, purveyor of punishment to upper class toffs, who paid well for half an hour under her heel. In the outside world she was Mrs. Kent, respectable widow, left a comfortable income by a deceased, country parson husband.

Who, incidentally, had never existed.

No one would ever guess she was once a guttersnipe pickpocket, taken in by a kindly cook who, finding her out in the rain one day, gave her a post as scullery maid. No one would ever know how she dragged herself up by the boot laces after that, surviving almost as many lives as a cat—first rising to kitchen maid, then to cook, then mistress and finally Madame.

Now she was about to add another life—matchmaker.

She held the door for her guest and ushered him out with a gentle assurance, "Captain, you may consider me your grandson's Fairy God-mother."

Two in the Afternoon

November 17th

Moving along the street with a quick march, Drusilla paid little attention to her fellow pedestrians or the rush of horses and carriages. It looked like imminent rain and she was anxious to get back home before all her packages received a thorough dousing.

Suddenly, there was a carriage in her path. It turned a corner sharply, just as she prepared to dash across the street behind the passing omnibus. A second later and she would have been trampled under the horses. Stepping back with a shout, she dropped her packages and looked up, ready to berate the coachman. The door swung open, a face appeared.

"Mrs. Kent!"

His face was instantly familiar, but it took her a moment to place it. He had very warm, clever eyes the color of treacle and a smile equally sweet, but just as dangerous to a lady's figure.

Cocky brat may as well be written all over his— oh dear—now she remembered. A few weeks ago he came to her front door, having followed her all the way from the park. She didn't know his identity then and he never told her. Now here he was again and this time he introduced himself properly.

"Nicky Wilder." He reached out one hand. "At your service, madam. As you, I understand, are now at mine."

Ah. As she watched his wicked grin widen, the penny fully dropped.

Poor Captain Wilder—that bumbling, mustachioed fool—had been sent to her by this young man, his grandson, quite deliberately. The boy must have found out who she was and planned out his little scheme to get what he wanted.

"Before you shut your door on my face that evening, I told you I don't give up, didn't I?"

"Since you were in drink and had trailed after me on a whim, I certainly didn't think you'd go to these lengths—"

"Oh, I go to any length, Mrs. Kent, for a woman I fancy."

Ignoring the outstretched hand, she stooped to rescue her packages from the pavement. He leapt out, apparently eager to help. He was tall, lean, dressed in a tweed jacket, riding breeches with muddied knees and filth-encrusted boots. 

"I hope I didn't startle you too badly just now, madam."

"Not at all. I was just..." He'd taken all the packages from her and tossed them up into his carriage. Eyes narrowed, she took another, slower assessment of the grinning young man who apparently made bold presumptions. He wore no hat and his hair —light brown with touches of tarnished gold—was a rumpled mess, with a few small leaves tangled in it. There was a mark on the side of his brow. "Your grandfather told me not to expect you in Town for another week, Mr. Wilder."

"I know. But I couldn't wait once I knew he'd hired you for me." How could he speak and maintain that wide, artless smile at the same time? Clearly he had practice at being effortlessly charming. Or it was in the genes. If the latter was the case, his grandfather had missed out somehow for there was nothing effortless about the Captain's smile. It was as primped and trained as the curled tips of his waxed moustache. This boy, however, had a relaxed manner and an easy smile that could fell a lesser woman. "I think you and I can use my grandfather's error to our advantage, Mrs. Kent."

She did not return his smile. "Oh?"

He held out his hand again, this time to help her into his carriage. "Grandfather is quite naive and often gets the wrong end of the proverbial stick." He shrugged. "With a little encouragement from me, of course. Don't worry. I'm not going to tell him. Your secret is safe."

"Mr. Wilder—"

"Nicky. Everyone calls me Nicky."

"Mr. Wilder—"

"I see. Going to be like that is it?"

"There is no other way for it to be."

"Even after you spanked me behind the bandstand in the park?"

She exhaled sharply, glancing over her shoulder to be sure no one passing might have heard. "It was a case of mistaken identity. I was supposed to meet someone else on that bench and when you sat down I thought—"

"No need to apologize." He chuckled. "I enjoyed it tremendously. That's why I followed you home. Imagine my disappointment when you refused to let me in."

"Once I realized you were the wrong man and had deliberately misled me, of course I refused to—"

"But I was the
right
man, Mrs. Kent. I mean to prove it to you. Do get into my carriage, unless we must discuss this matter in public and in the rain."

She hesitated, because she did not like this one little bit. But her packages were already inside. What else could she do?

Finally accepting his hand, she stepped up into the carriage. He followed her swiftly and shut the door. The horses moved and the wheels rumbled forward.

"I'm afraid I had an accident this afternoon," he explained. "Ruddy horse balked at a hedge and decided to send me over it alone." He laughed merrily, showing her a tear in the seam of his breeches. 

"You have something on your face," she pointed out.

"I have? Damn and blast. And I was hoping to make such a good impression." His eyes gleamed impishly. "Do you have a handkerchief?"

Drusilla took one from a little pocket in her sleeve and offered it to him. Instead, he hitched closer on the edge of his seat and asked her to wipe it for him. After a brief hesitation, she licked the corner of her handkerchief and applied it gently to the little mark on his temple. It was now proven to be dirt, not a scratch, and came off with a few wipes. She returned quickly to a safer distance.

"Am I better now?"

"Yes."

He slid back. "Thank you."

For a few moments they rode along in silence. Drusilla had determined not to speak again, not to encourage him. His ideas were plain upon his handsome face, his intentions transparent as air. Yet she pretended not to see. Better ignore the boy. Since he was probably not ignored very often, it would do him good.

"I want to know all about you," he said, sprawling in the seat opposite.

"All you need know is that your grandfather hired me to teach you manners and find you a bride."

The smile faded from his lips, but not his eyes. "That's what he thinks." He stretched out his arms, resting his long hands flat on the seat. "I don't want a wife. You may as well know that I suppose."

"The Captain told me you are in agreement to marry."

"Of course he thinks that. The way to keep my grandfather happy and generous is to tell him exactly what he wants to hear." He sighed. "But then you know that don't you, Mrs. Kent? You did the same thing when he came to see you. Let the old man believe what he wants. Makes life easier. He's paying you a nice fee, I'm sure. One he can't really afford."

She thought about not answering, but changed her mind, decided to be honest, straightforward. "Yes. He cares about you very much and is paying me extremely well to arrange a good match."

"So you and I can play his error to our advantage and both get something out of it. We'll pretend you're trying your hardest to find me a bride and I'll let him go on thinking you're a respectable, discreet, society matchmaker, running charm school services."

"And what do you get out of it?"

"I get to share your...company, Mrs. Kent."

"You mean, you would like to invite me to tea?"

His eyes darkened. "I mean, Mrs. Kent, that I want to fuck you."

Drusilla calmed her quick temper with the hasty reminder that he was just a boy. People of twenty one never knew half as much as they thought they did about life. "I don't think so."

"I do." His gaze was on her lips, then her neck, then her bosom. "Now I have your company all to myself, thanks to Grandpapa."

She'd been stared at by men before, young and old, but never quite like this. Drusilla began to feel scalded through her clothes.

"Or else I'll tell him the truth about you. Grandpapa would be appalled to know what you really get up to behind those lace curtains. If he raises a hue and cry, accuses you of deliberate deception, all your high-profile patrons will flee won't they? You'll be out of business in a week."

His menacing gaze stroked her up and down as she sat across from him, her knees only a few inches from his.

"I see you have it all planned out," she said carefully. "Alas for you, Captain Wilder is not the only one confused about my services. I don't fuck, Mr. Wilder. I spank."

There was a long pause while he studied her from across the carriage.

"The clients who visit my house require discipline in many forms," she continued. "If they need penetration it is dispensed by me, not by them. I am in control."

Briefly he looked disconcerted, but his smile soon returned. "I'll be a novel experience for you then, won't I? I'll do the penetrating."

She could hardly believe the young man's audacity. If her eyes did not deceive her, he already sported a sizable erection under his corduroy trousers. "Why do they call you Madame Pantoufle?" he demanded. "It's French for slippers, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Why slippers?"