Unbuttoning Miss Hardwick (13 page)

Chloe watched for his reaction, but the marquess only bowed his thanks. ‘When is it to be held?’ he asked.

‘In four days’ time,’ the
signor
answered. ‘There might be some posturing and jockeying for position in the meantime, but the race for the Spear will really begin at that lecture.’

Chloe jumped as he suddenly gripped her forearm tightly. ‘You must be careful, my dear. There is an air of something…desperation, perhaps, surrounding this object. I do not understand it.’ He gestured toward the door. ‘Laxton was merely rude. Others will likely be worse.’ His dearly familiar face had gone anxious and sad. ‘Promise me that you will take care.’

‘I do promise,’ she said, gripping his arm in return.

‘And you, my lord,’ the
signor
said to the marquess. ‘You must vow to protect her.’

Together they turned to regard her with solemn gazes.

‘I promise it.’ Lord Marland spoke to her friend, but his eyes were locked on hers as he spoke. ‘I will keep her safe from harm.’

Again, she was forced to bite back a laugh. The greatest danger to her well-being stood right before her, in shining Hessian boots. She suffered the most incredible urge to say it out loud.

But she did not. She dropped her gaze instead. This was all turning out to be so much more difficult than she had expected. Somewhere lay a path between paralysing fear and unacceptable risk. All she had to do was to find it.

Chapter Nine

T
ighten. Release. Tighten. Release.

Braedon’s right hand flexed continuously until he stretched his
fingers wide to put an end to it. He ached for a blade, could not wait to get to
the practice area he had set up in the gallery at Marland House. His gut roiled
with irritation and longing, anger and want. Too many conflicting emotions. He
needed to purge them with lunges and stabs, with a pounding heart and sweating
pores.

Instead, he struggled to keep his step light and his pace
steady as they made their way towards Mayfair. Even more difficult was the
effort to keep his eyes from straying to the woman at his side.

It felt like an impossibility—that he’d actually kissed
Hardwick. Yet it had been a logical course of action, considering the
circumstances, Signor Pisano’s fears and his own reluctance to tip his hand to
Laxton.

Improbable, then—not impossible. And even more unlikely had
been his incredible enjoyment of the thing. By all the saints in heaven, he’d
been enticed, entranced and more than ready to take down her bodice, tuck up her
skirts and immerse them both in a rising swell of pleasure.

She’d been ready, too. So sweetly she’d melted into him. Years
he’d spent erecting the armour about him, and in a moment’s time, she’d moulded
all of her soft curves against him, found every nick and chink, and started to
erode it all away.

And now he had to work out just what the hell to do with her.
That had not been
his
Hardwick, thrusting her tongue
against his. He could not take home to Denning the girl who’d settled herself so
snugly against his engorged manhood.

God help him, but he wanted to. He did not want to go back to a
home without her quiet presence, her steady, managing ways or her unfailing
support. He was going to have to find a way to persuade her back into her
buttoned-up persona—or he was going to have to give her up.

The very thought called up another desperate swirl of emotion
in his gut.

‘Four days,’ he said abruptly, just to chase those desolate
thoughts away. ‘We’ve started behind the game in this chase for the Spear—and
now we must wait four days to catch up? Surely there is something we can do.
More we can learn.’

‘I’ll make a few enquiries,’ Hardwick answered. ‘But I confess,
I’ll be glad of the delay. I will use the time to get a good deal accomplished
for your sister.’

He took her elbow as they crossed the intersection at Coventry
Street. ‘A little over a week away, is it not? Mairi said that Ashton is pushing
to make it back in time.’ He grimaced. ‘Good Lord, but the man had best make it.
I don’t wish to even contemplate the furor that would ensue, did he not.’

‘Oh, he will make it.’ Nimbly, she stepped out of the way of a
footman carting a pile of bandboxes into a house. ‘He’ll arrive in time to see
and appreciate the incredible amount of care and thought that the countess has
put into this event.’ She gave a self-conscious little laugh. ‘I believe your
sister means to bare her heart—and then, of course, they will live happily ever
after.’

Braedon fervently hoped she was right. ‘And what of you, then,
Hardwick? What will you do when Mairi’s event is over? She will be wrapped up in
her husband. You will have no more planning or errands or many little details to
keep on top of.’

‘I will be all right,’ she answered without looking at him.

‘How? Why? You say you won’t come back to Denning. Then just
what is next for you?’

She held her silence as they continued to walk.

Her stubbornness combined with every other emotion surging
inside of him and prodded forth a rush of anger. ‘Come now, Hardwick,’ he
insisted. ‘Tell me. What will you do?’

‘Why?’ She whirled on him. ‘Why should I tell you? You, who
shares nothing? What gives you the right to demand answers of me?’

Stunned, he could not answer. Likely because a good answer
didn’t exist.

‘For the life of me, I cannot understand why you would care, in
any case,’ she fumed. But then her eyes widened and her mouth dropped and she
rounded on him. ‘Unless you fear I mean to take advantage of your sister? Is
that what you think, Lord Marland?’

‘What? No, of course not.’

‘What is it, then?’ She shot him a look of scorn. ‘Are you
afraid I’ll go husband hunting among Lady Ashton’s male acquaintances?’

The thought almost physically repulsed him. ‘Is that what you
are after, then?’ he asked, biting back bile. ‘A husband?’

Her entire face pinched inwards with fury. ‘Oh, I did play my
role well, did I not, Lord Marland? Why is it so preposterous to you that I
should dream of such things—marriage and children? Someone of my own?’

Now he was the one to hold silent, because, again, there was no
answer to such a question.

Abruptly all the anger drained from her. Only sadness remained.
‘It is the sort of life most women expect, is it not?’

‘Is it what you wish for yourself?’ he asked roughly. He
watched her closely, not sure what he hoped her response would be.

It was only because he was paying such close attention that he
saw it—something dark moving behind her eyes. Something more bleak and obscure
than the fury that had lived there moments before. But her tone gave him no clue
as to what it might be.

‘I…I don’t know,’ she answered, sounding only wistful.
‘Sometimes I think that it is all that I wish for, and yet…I cannot quite see
it.’ She sighed and glanced askance at him. She was hugging the low iron fence
set before the buildings on this block with each step, as if it gave her a sense
of security. ‘I know I am not a choice for the men who live in your sister’s
world.’

In his world. The words resonated between them, for all that
they had been left unsaid.

‘Yet, I don’t know the sort of man that
I
would choose,’ she continued. ‘Largely because I’m not quite sure
where it is that I belong.’ She heaved a sigh. ‘And so, when your sister’s ball
is over…I shall keep looking, I suppose.’

Braedon shook his head. Here it was. Exactly the sort of
conversation that he wished never to have. Far from light and superficial, it
was everything that he knew to be dangerous. Too personal, too intimate, too
much
of everything. He should cut it off, push
her away. She’d already made one assault on his line of defences. He needed to
repulse her before she succeeded in weakening them further.

It was common sense. Basic strategy. He knew the truth of
it—and yet he turned his head sharply towards her. ‘Looking for what,
exactly?’

She shrugged. ‘For myself.’

She was maddening. Infinitely appealing, mysterious, vulnerable
and utterly maddening. And he was a colossal fool. She had him confused and
conflicted, and in his state of complete exasperation, he rounded on her. ‘I
confess, I can perfectly understand your confusion. For over a year you lived
under my roof, the ideal assistant, the very picture of efficiency and
reliability. Yet in the past two days I’ve seen you adopt the role of a baker’s
kitchen assistant, my sister’s extremely competent secretary, and now…’ he
gestured ‘…this.’

A lovely young woman. Warm. And, oh, so eminently
kissable.

He pushed the traitorous thoughts away. ‘Which of them is the
real you?’

She increased her pace. ‘Perhaps all of them,’ she said
defensively. ‘Do you not understand?’ Coming to a sudden halt, she turned to
him. ‘You are the Marquess of Marland. The infamous Marauding Marquess! Does
that mean that you are the master of Castle Denning, its land and people—and
nothing else?’

He frowned.

‘Of course not. You are many things. A peer of the realm, with
political reach and influence. A diplomat, who has worked with kings and
ministers and leaders of governments. You are a war hero. A warrior. A man with
a passion for the past and for the tools used before you, by men like you.’ She
crossed her arms and raised a brow. ‘An experienced and accomplished lover, as
well, if rumour is to be believed.’

My God, she had him blushing like a schoolgirl. ‘I don’t
think—’

‘Exactly!’ she exclaimed. She started walking again, and her
words tumbled from her nearly as fast as her feet carried her. ‘You don’t think.
You know who you are. You have been given many chances to explore all the many
different facets that make you the man you are. It has been different for me.
The image is unfinished, the puzzle incomplete.’ She sighed. ‘My role was cast
at Denning. I wasn’t going to learn anything more. I agreed to come to London
with your sister because I was hoping for the opportunity—for numerous
opportunities—to find pieces of me.’

Her words rang true; the pictures she painted loomed clear and
vivid. But he did not want to accept them, for they meant that he had no chance
of recovering his Hardwick—the one he was coming to realise that he so
desperately wanted back.

‘Do you know what I believe?’ he demanded, speeding up to catch
her. ‘I think that
my
Hardwick is the woman you
truly are. How else could you live the role and perform so well, were it not so?
You do know who you are. I know it, too, but for some reason I cannot
understand, you are afraid to admit it.’

She increased the distance between them, stepping closer to the
busy traffic travelling up and down King Street. ‘I would only be afraid, my
lord, if I thought you were correct.’

‘Come, Hardwick,’ he chided. ‘Listen to reason—’

‘No! It is your turn to listen.’ Anguish twisted her
expression. ‘Do you think that I was born that way? That I was a cold, sober
child who suppressed her needs, her wants, her every emotion? Who turned it all
into fuel so that she could work and work and work to fulfil someone else’s
dream?’

His heart gave a great thump, then stilled along with the rest
of him.

She stopped, too. ‘Do you think that I sprang from the womb
hiding behind a row of military-precise buttons and yards of bombazine?’

He swallowed. ‘Of course not.’

She walked on. ‘How do you suppose that I came to have so much
knowledge about history? Did you not think it odd that I so quickly came to
understand all that I needed to know about a collection like yours?’

‘I assumed that your father taught you,’ he said stiffly.

‘You are partly right,’ she nodded. ‘My father—my real
father—was a curator at the British museum. He loved history and his work. He
would take me there at times, to show me treasures and tell many wonderful
tales. I listened and I enjoyed his attention, of course, but history was
his
passion.’

They had reached Princes Street. Ahead, a narrow lane lay
tucked between the houses. Hardwick paused at the mouth of it. ‘Come,’ she
beckoned. ‘There is privacy here and this time it is I who would prefer no
audience for what I mean to say.’

A warning prickle ran up his spine. With a final cautionary
throb it reached his neck, raising all the fine hairs there. Braedon cast a
quick glance north towards Cavendish Square and considered leaving Hardwick
where she was. It wasn’t far to Mairi’s house now. And he greatly feared that
the woman he’d hoped to bring back home was already past his reach.
Disappointment swamped him, but dread surged even higher. They had shared enough
confidences for the day—or for a lifetime.

For long seconds he wavered. Hardwick waited a moment, limned
beautifully in the afternoon sun, before, without warning, she reached up and
removed her confection of a bonnet. Before the light could gather itself to do
battle with the inky darkness of her hair, she turned and disappeared.

It was a foregone conclusion, then. Without further hesitation
he admitted defeat and followed her until the lane opened into a small, cobbled
yard.

‘My father died,’ Hardwick continued as if there had been no
interlude. The bonnet swung from her hand. She didn’t turn to face him as she
stepped into the yard. ‘Just as autumn was turning to winter he caught a fever.
He lingered nearly until Christmas.’

Because the sun had begun its travels west, only one wall of
the courtyard was still bright and warm. Hardwick moved to the bench placed
against the brick and sat.

‘Things were…difficult for my mother and me after that. The
situation had become dire when she unexpectedly encountered George Hardwick. He
had been a friend to my father and seemed overjoyed to see her. A quick
courtship, then they were married.’

Braedon did not join her on the bench. The intimacies she
communicated were risk enough for him. He kept to his feet, leaned against the
sun-drenched warmth of the wall and listened.

‘She didn’t love him,’ Hardwick whispered. ‘I could see it. But
she tried her best to make him happy. She never smiled, during all those months
when we were alone. But for him…’ She swallowed the rest of the sentence. ‘She
was never very strong, but she cooked his favourite meals, tried to brighten his
rooms and listened as he recounted his frustration with the political aspects of
his work.’ For a long moment she sat quietly, her head resting against the back
of the bench.

‘But he must have spoken of his work to you as well?’ Braedon
asked.

She nodded. ‘I watched her—and I learned.’ She shivered despite
the heat baking into the wall behind her. ‘Those long, difficult months that
Mama and I were alone… The cold and the hunger, they were bad. Losing our little
house was horribly difficult. But the fear…’

She carried a voluminous Indian shawl of many
colours,
each rich shade complementary to the delicate pink of her gown. Draped artfully
at her elbows before, now she shook it out and wrapped it tight around her. He
might have told her from experience that nothing so external could protect her
from the seeping cold of difficult memories, but he merely watched and waited
for her to continue.