My Lady's Dare

At dinner, Elizabeth thought. Tonight. Night. Was that when he planned…?

She tried to analyze the earl’s tone. Of course, since she had been unable to since she had met him, she didn’t know why she was attempting to do so now. His face was equally expressionless. There was no leer, no innuendo, no hint in his manner that she should expect more from this dinner engagement with him than what was usually conveyed by the word.

“I have nothing to wear to dinner,” Elizabeth said, refusing to look down on the garish, too-revealing gown in which she was attired.

The Earl of Dare laughed, and when he did, she could feel the rush of blood into her cheeks. Did his laughter mean—

“Do you know that’s the first completely feminine thing I have heard you say,” Dare said. “I can’t tell you how reassuring it is.”

With that, he turned and began to climb the enormous staircase that dominated the entrance hall. He took the steps two at a time, silk knee britches stretching with the play of muscles in his thighs. Much more strongly defined muscles than she would have believed a wealthy gentleman of the ton might possess, Elizabeth thought, and then realized, a little startled, how inappropriate her contemplation of the Earl of Dare’s posterior really was.

“This way, then, Mrs. Carstairs,” Mrs. Hendricks said. This time the sniff was audible.

Elizabeth had endured far worse than the disapproval of a housekeeper during the past two years. If nothing else, she thought, such experiences gave one the strength to know that there was really nothing that could not be endured. And those experiences had also given her the ability to evaluate a situation she found herself in without hysteria or magnification. That might come later, of course, but so far…

“Thank you, Mrs. Hendricks,” she said simply, and with real gratitude.

The room she was taken to was nothing like she had expected. She supposed she had been anticipating she would be hidden away among the narrow little attic rooms the chambermaids shared. The chamber she had been taken to was a suite instead, large, airy, and charmingly decorated in shades of yellow and dull gold.

Apparently, when the earl had said she was his guest, his housekeeper had taken him at his word. Which spoke well of his control of his household, Elizabeth conceded. And again she found herself surprised at that revelation. She had no doubt that if Mrs. Hendricks believed she could get away with it, Elizabeth would have been relegated to the attic, out of sight and out of mind. That she hadn’t been was surely because the housekeeper knew the earl would check on her arrangements.

“Is there anything else, Mrs. Carstairs?” the woman asked. “I shall, of course, have your luggage brought up as soon as it arrives.”

The housekeeper’s face was tight with the force of her disapproval. Elizabeth knew that as soon as Mrs. Hendricks got downstairs, she would verbally vent her frustration at being so misused by the earl. Not to the maids, of course. That would be beneath her dignity. Perhaps to the cook, if their relationship were of longstanding. Almost certainly to Dare’s majordomo.

And his reaction, perhaps more properly his relationship to the earl, would determine how Elizabeth would be treated by the staff during her stay. And so, she thought, feeling for almost the first time the effects of the long stressful night she had just passed through, she might as well take advantage of this period of forced cooperation. In for a penny, in for a pound, she decided.

“A bath,” she said.

“A…bath?” the housekeeper repeated, as if she had never heard the word before.

Judging by the clean scent of sandalwood soap that had surrounded the earl as he sat beside her in the carriage this morning, that was very far from the truth.

“Before the fire, perhaps,” Elizabeth said, ignoring the housekeeper’s reluctance. “And please tell them that I like the water very hot.”

She turned away, walking over to the windows to pull aside the jonquil silk draperies so she could look down on the garden. What she had just done was a trick she had learned from her mother. Always assume that the servants are going to do exactly what you have told them to do, her mother had said. And then deal with it later if they do not.

“Of course,” the housekeeper said faintly.

More grist for the mill in her tale of mistreatment, Elizabeth thought, her smile hidden by her position.

“Thank you, Mrs. Hendricks. That will be all, I think.”

She waited until she heard the door close before she turned around, infinitely grateful to be alone at last. Away from the judgmental eyes of the servants. Away from the earl’s probing questions and his mocking smile.

Her own smile faded, the momentary amusement at imagining the consternation below stairs disappearing in the reality of her situation. As she had told Dare, the unknown was always more frightening than the known, no matter how awful the known had been. And the unknowns in this situation…

She had no idea what Bonnet was up to. She had believed that she knew what the Earl of Dare wanted from her, but so far nothing had gone as she had expected about that. And, of course, she also had no idea what she should or could do about either.

Chapter Three

“And where did you find her, my lord,” Ned Harper asked, as he helped Dare out of his coat.

It usually took the aid of one of the footmen to get the earl into his perfectly tailored jackets, but taking them off was not quite so much a challenge as to require the presence of a third party in the earl’s bedroom. Perhaps, Dare thought, that was not to his advantage. Not if Ned was in the mood to lecture.

“At Bonnet’s,” the earl said easily. “I won her.”

He had given Elizabeth into the more than capable hands of his housekeeper. Although Mrs. Hendricks hadn’t spoken a word of protest, the earl had certainly been made aware of her disapproval of his “guest.” Her nostrils had flared in distaste, and she had never looked at Mrs. Carstairs as he had given his instructions.

“She was at the Frenchman’s?”

“Directing the servants and announcing the scores between hands.”

“At least you know she can count,” the valet said dismissingly. “Perhaps you can get her a position in one of the shops when you’ve finished with her.”

“I don’t think she’s equipped for working in a shop, Ned,” the earl said mildly.

“I suppose that after yesterday I should have known something like this would happen….”

The words, their tone clearly chiding, faded as the valet crossed the room. Smiling, Dare didn’t ask for an explanation of what Harper had meant. Nor did he reprimand his valet for what had sounded very much like insolence.

Their relationship had long ago slipped from the rigid bonds that normally governed the roles of master and servant and matured into a deep, abiding friendship. Ned Harper was one of the few people who always told the Earl of Dare exactly what he thought. Which was, of course, one of the reasons Dare valued him.

Only Ned and Ian did that, he acknowledged, stepping in front of the dressing table’s mirror to remove his stickpin. Actually, the earl thought with a smile, neither of them hesitated in expressing the most brutally honest opinion about his actions. At least the youngest Sinclair still held him in some awe. Of course, the gap between their ages alone was enough to ensure that Sebastian probably always would look up to him. Thank God someone would, he thought in amusement.

“Then what are you planning to do with her?” Ned asked when he returned from his errand, as if the break in the conversation had not occurred.

He had handed the coat to a footman waiting outside the bedroom door. From there it would be carried to the kitchens to be brushed and aired. Now Harper began to unwind the earl’s cravat.

“Do with her?” Dare repeated.

“You have a mistress. Unless you’re thinking of taking on another one. And since you seldom have leisure to visit the first…”

“My nights have been…otherwise occupied,” the earl said, smiling at his valet in the glass.

Harper’s dark eyes met the blue ones reflected in the mirror. “Exactly. So what would you be needing with the Frenchman’s whore.”

“What makes you so sure she’s a whore, Ned?”

The valet’s snort was expressive.

“Seriously,” the earl said softly.

Again, Harper’s eyes lifted to meet his master’s. They were no longer derisive. They held on the earl’s a long moment before his lips pursed.

“Well, let me see,” he said. “One, she was working for Bonnet. Two, you won her on a hand of cards. Three, she’s painted like a Maypole. And four, there isn’t enough fabric in the bodice of her gown to make a good codpiece. Will you be needing some more reasons?” Ned asked sarcastically.

“Do you know, Ned, I believe I will.”

“You don’t have time for this,” Harper warned.

“I know,” Dare acknowledged.

“Shall I find a house for her?” Ned asked, removing the silver-striped waistcoat.

The earl slipped the lawn shirt over his head before he answered. He turned, wearing nothing from the waist up, and held the shirt, still warm from its contact with his body, out to his valet. “It seemed to me that there might be enough room here for one more person,” he said.

“Not if you want to keep your staff.”

“Are my servants so sensitive that a woman’s presence might drive them away? If so, I’m not paying them enough.”

“Not a woman,” Ned said, taking the shirt and folding it over his arm. “That woman. Mrs. Hendricks, for one, will never put up with it, my lord. No decent woman would.”

“Then I suppose Watson will be forced to find another housekeeper,” the earl said, meeting Ned’s eyes.

Then he walked across to the bed and sat down, holding out one leg, still neatly attired in knee britches and silk stockings, which delineated the well-developed muscles of his calf. Harper watched him a long moment, and then, lips tight with disapproval, he threw the earl’s clothing over a nearby chair and stalked over to the bed. He stooped and put his hand on the heel of the earl’s evening slipper. He pulled it off, and held it in both hands, still squatting on the floor before Dare.

“If you are willing to let Mrs. Hendricks walk out, as long as she’s been here, then you’ve got a bee in your bonnet for sure,” Ned said bitterly. “I knew as soon as I saw that woman she was trouble.”

“She’s in trouble, Ned. Would you have had me leave her to Bonnet’s tender mercies?”

“Yes,” Harper said shortly, grasping the other shoe by the heel and pulling it off roughly.

The valet carried the shoes over to the door and handed them to the waiting bootblack. When he had closed the door, he returned to look down on his master, who was stretched out comfortably on the bed, ankles crossed and hands locked together behind his head. The broad, dark chest was bare, and the skintight britches stretched over a flat stomach, narrow hips and muscular thighs.

The earl’s eyes were closed, the dark lashes lying against his cheeks like miniature fans. A lack of sleep during the past few days had left the fragile skin under them discolored like old bruises. Fatigue and grief had deepened the normally unnoticeable lines around his mouth.

Grief, Ned thought. He had known what this was all about from the beginning. The earl hadn’t been in time to rescue his friend, so he had rescued Mrs. Carstairs instead.

And here I am, Ned thought, nattering on at him like a schoolmaster because he’s brought some woman home. What does it matter if he wants to bring every strumpet in Gravesend home with him? Harper thought, unfolding a blanket he took from the foot of the bed and spreading it carefully over the earl. He’s more than earned the right to do that, even if they don’t want to be rescued.

Smiling at the thought, the valet walked across the room and pulled the heavy draperies across the windows. The room darkened as if it were twilight instead of midmorning. Ned waited for his eyes to adjust, and finally, unable to resist the impulse, he walked back to the high bed, almost tiptoeing so as not to chance waking the sleeper.

Even as a child, this was the Sinclair who could be counted on to bring home the strays. Any sick or mistreated animal Val had ever encountered had found its way back to the warmth of the Sinclair stables. Everyone believed that Mr. Ian was the best of the lot, and in a way, Ned supposed they were right.

But I wouldn’t be trading this one, Harper thought, adjusting the cover he had laid over the broad chest, which rose and fell with a regularity that told him the earl was already deeply asleep.

I hope to God you don’t disappoint him, he thought, remembering the flawless beauty of the woman who had waltzed in through the front door of the town house this morning as if she owned it. Whatever your story is, lass, I hope it, and you, are worthy of his interest.

He watched a moment more, at least until the tense muscles in the handsome face had relaxed, giving way to exhaustion, and then Ned Harper turned and, picking up the clothing he had laid over the chair, tiptoed out of the room.

“More sole?” the Earl of Dare asked.

Elizabeth looked up from the contemplation of her plate, where her original portion of fish resided untouched. The delicate sauce with which it had been dressed was congealed unappetizingly around it.

“Or perhaps not,” Dare said softly, his eyes rising from the dish to meet hers. He signaled the butler with the lift of one dark eyebrow, and a footman obediently slipped her plate away. “I’m sorry if you found the fish unappealing. Perhaps there might be something else that—”

“Thank you, my lord, but no,” she said. “I find…I’m afraid I’m really not very hungry.”

“Indisposed, Mrs. Carstairs?” the earl asked, his deep voice touched with amusement.

Again the dark, highly expressive eyebrow arched. Its meaning was as clear to her as it had been to his majordomo before. He was mocking her. Mocking what he believed to be her false claim of being ill.

They both knew why she might attempt to invent an illness tonight, but that wasn’t the kind of woman she was. Whatever else she might have become during the past two years, she wasn’t a coward. Of course, the earl had no way of knowing that.

“I am not indisposed,” she said. “I am rarely indisposed, I assure you, Lord Dare. I am simply…not hungry.”

“May I tempt you with a sweet? Or a nice cheese, perhaps?”

“No, my lord, you may not,” she said, and then hearing the sharpness of her tone, she added more politely, at least on the surface, “Thank you, but no.”

“Cook will be devastated,” the earl said, lifting his wine to his lips. He watched her over the rim of the glass a second or two before he drank.

“You, yourself, have made an excellent dinner. My compliments on your appetite. And your servants are very well-trained for a bachelor household. My compliments on the service tonight, as well.”

“Why, thank you, Mrs. Carstairs,” he said, smiling, seeming not the slightest bit annoyed by her comments. “Your approval of my staff is very kind. And I hope their…service was also satisfactory in preparing your bath this morning?”

The question was highly improper, and he certainly knew it. It was intended to convey two messages, and she had understood the import of both. The first was a reminder, she believed, of her own recent “service” at Bonnet’s. The second was clearly meant to warn her that nothing went on in the Earl of Dare’s household about which he was not informed.

“The arrangements for my bath were very satisfactory, I assure you,” she said. “I was told by one of the footmen who brought up the water that you yourself bathe. Quite frequently, I understand.”

That was a lie, of course. Under Mrs. Hendricks’ watchful eyes, the footman hadn’t said a word, but unless Dare stooped to question his servants, he couldn’t verify that. Perhaps it would give him pause to believe that information passed both ways.

His lips tilted in response. “My staff seems much inclined to gossip about simple household…affairs,” he said.

He appeared unannoyed by her comment. Which was not, of course, what she had intended.

“Another warning, my lord?” she asked innocently.

“Simply a realization. Apparently my servants are not so well-trained as you have led me to believe.”

“Or perhaps they are simply bored,” she suggested.

He inclined his head, as if he were thinking about the possibility, but he let the silence build between them as the footmen removed the rest of the dishes.

“More wine?” he asked when that had been done. Again he signaled and the servant approached to refill their glasses. Hers was still untouched, a fact he was almost certainly aware of.

“Thank you, no,” she said, and the footman who had been approaching stepped back to his place against the wall.

“I thought you might feel in need of some Dutch courage.”

“Really?” she said, her voice conveying what she hoped was a note of surprise. “I wonder why?”

He laughed, the sound again as pleasant as she had found it to be this morning. And when his laughter faded away, he was still looking at her, his blue eyes serious for almost the first time since she had met him.

“Because you’re a woman alone with a man about whom you know nothing. A man who won you in a game of cards. I’ve been trying to imagine all day what you must be feeling.”

“And what did you…imagine my feelings to be, my lord?”

“A degree of curiosity, I suppose. Even anxiety perhaps. Or am I wrong?”

She hesitated, but what he had said was only what anyone in her position might confess to feeling.

“No,” she admitted. “You aren’t wrong.”

He lifted his glass again, moving it in a small salute in her direction, before he brought it to his lips.

“Were you planning to satisfy my curiosity?” she asked.

“You may ask me anything,” Dare said graciously.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“My mistress is jealous of her position.”

It was the closest he had come to admitting what she had supposed all along to be his purpose. He was interested in her sexually. Bonnet had offered her “services,” and that had titillated the earl’s interest.

This, then, was why he had forced the Frenchman to stake her instead of his house. Dare had now openly confessed his intent, and the fear and dread she had fought all day tightened her chest, making it hard to breathe.

“I thought,” the earl continued, “she might not be pleased if I took you there. And I own only the two houses in London, you see.”

It took a second or two for the meaning of that to penetrate her anxiety. He had confused her again. Deliberately confused her. He was playing with her, as a cat will play with an exhausted and dying mouse, trying to make it jump and run again.

Cat and mouse was, however, a game she had played successfully for over two years. And it was one at which she thought she was perhaps the better gamester.

“So you brought me to this house instead,” she said.

“There is a great deal of room,” Dare agreed, again lifting his glass.

And then his hand hesitated, the journey never completed, as his eyes examined her. His scrutiny began with the arrangement of her hair. She had dressed it very simply, adorning it with a sprig of jasmine, which she had taken from one of the huge vases of flowers in her room.

His slow and careful appraisal surprised her. And unnerved her. For reasons she had not attempted to analyze, she had taken great pains over her appearance tonight. And yet, until now, Dare had hardly looked at her.

True to his word, he had had her things sent over from Bonnet’s. As she had unpacked the portmanteau this afternoon, she realized there was really very little to choose from, if one were not planning to entertain strange gentlemen in a gambling hell. None of the gowns the bag contained had seemed appropriate for a quiet dinner at home.

She had finally chosen the least revealing, one she had brought to the Frenchman’s house in the very beginning. It was more properly a day gown than half dress, although the fabric was a very fine blue silk. It was clearly several years out of style, something a man of fashion like Dare would be well aware of. At least it was modest, however, covering far more of her bosom than the one she had worn last night.

“My compliments, Mrs. Carstairs,” he said finally, after he had studied her for several long seconds. Not long enough to be insulting, perhaps, but very close. “I find I much prefer the lily ungilded,” he added softly.

He meant without the cosmetics Bonnet insisted she wear. They had been included with her things. She had not used them tonight, of course. Surveying her reflection in the looking glass in her room, however, she had been surprised to find she had grown so accustomed to wearing them that her cheeks and eyes appeared almost colorless without the paint.

“Thank you, my lord,” she said simply.

His prolonged examination was as improper as his question about her bath, but she didn’t want to antagonize him. And indeed, he had offered her no real insult. Not openly. At least, not yet.

“I wonder if you would consent to join me briefly in my study. There are some things we should discuss before I leave,” Dare said.

She had been trying to read the tone of the first sentence, and so it took a second or two for the sense of the second to penetrate. “Before you leave?” she repeated in surprise.

“I’m afraid business calls me away for a few days. My apologies for leaving you alone,” he said, still watching her.

She tried to keep her relief from showing. He had not said when he was leaving, but that had sounded as if…

“Of course,” she said faintly.

“Harper, my valet, will see to your needs in my absence. He will assign one of the maids to serve you tomorrow. I’m sorry I failed to think of that this morning.”

It had been over two years since Elizabeth had had an abigail. She wasn’t sure she remembered what it was like to be waited upon. The thought that he had been remiss in not providing her with a maid hadn’t even crossed her mind. After all, in spite of what the earl had told his housekeeper, she was well aware that she wasn’t here as his guest.

“If all goes well, I should be back within the week,” the earl continued. “I’ve asked Harper to meet us in my study. He’s probably waiting there now.”

She examined the information, looking for hidden pitfalls; however, this seemed to be a reprieve, if anything. Dare was to be away on business, and she would be left alone. He had implied it would be for a few days. Perhaps long enough for her to find a way to get a message to Bonnet?

She didn’t know what game the Frenchman was playing, but she knew he would never have allowed her out of his clutches if it had not been to his advantage. So she was certain there had been more to the game of cards in which he had staked her than appeared on the surface.

“If you would be so kind as to come with me….” Dare said, bringing her attention back to the present.

He was already standing, and there was a footman behind her chair, ready to pull it back so that she, too, might rise and join the earl in his study. Where she would be introduced to his valet. It all seemed harmless enough. Already her mind was working on the possible implications of the earl’s absence. And on its possible advantages.

“Of course,” she said.

She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting in the Earl of Dare’s valet, but it was certainly not the man who was waiting in the room to which Dare led her. Small and undistinguished, it seemed Harper might be more at home in the stables of a country estate than in this vast and elegant town house.

“Mrs. Carstairs, this is Harper, my valet,” the earl said.

There was something in Dare’s voice. A note of amusement, perhaps? And Elizabeth thought she knew why when she confronted the open dislike in Harper’s eyes.