The Bedding Proposal Read online

  “Eighteen,” Lord Leopold said.

  Thalia’s jaw tightened. What was he doing bidding on her kitten trinket box? What possible use could he have for such a thing? Then it occurred to her. Was this his revenge for the other night? For her refusal of his overtures and the champagne she’d tossed in his face?

  So much for wanting to start over.

  “Nineteen,” she said, the word hard and precise.

  He barely waited for the auctioneer to confirm her bid before he spoke. “Twenty-five.”

  A little ripple of reaction went through the crowd, all eyes affixed to her and Lord Leopold.

  Silently, she cursed.

  Twenty-five? More than she wanted to pay. More than she could afford, if truth be known, since twenty pounds had been her top bid from the start. Yet it galled her, the idea of giving in to him, of letting him take something that belonged to her by rights and that had been stolen from her once already.

  “Twenty-five going once, going twice—”

  Was she really going to let him have her box?

  “Thirty,” she said, throwing aside the last of her common sense.

  Renewed murmurs echoed. Then all was silent as everyone settled down, waiting for the next bid. Even the auctioneer paused for an extra moment before diving back into the action.

  “Do we have more than thirty, my lord?” Christie’s man asked. “Thirty-one? Will you go to thirty-one?”

  And Lord Leopold’s eyes met Thalia’s once more, his own fierce and enigmatic as if the two of them were engaged in a battle that went far beyond the present moment.

  She shivered, reading the barely concealed desire in his eyes. He wanted her; of that she had no doubt. And she sensed that he always got what he wanted, whether it be a porcelain trinket box or a woman who had taken his fancy.

  “Fifty,” he said in a deep, smooth voice.

  Her shoulders sank.

  It was over. She couldn’t possibly pay more than that and he knew it. Fifty pounds was more than her cook’s yearly salary, more than the cost of the coal she used to heat the house and the kitchen from autumn to spring, more than her allotment for food and sundries combined.

  “Fifty once, fifty twice . . .” The gavel came down. “Sold.”

  She looked down at her hands, clenched tight in her lap. Fury and disappointment warred within her, knowing her father’s lost gift was lost yet again.

  And all because of Lord Leopold Byron.

  She didn’t know yet what game he thought he was playing, but he was in for a sad awakening and his own rude disappointment. She knew all about being a man’s pawn and it was something she’d sworn never to be again.

  Rising to her feet, she signaled to her maid. It was time to leave.

  She didn’t look at him, careful to keep her gaze directed straight ahead as she walked out of the salesroom, head held high.

  To her relief, he didn’t follow. But she knew her reprieve was only temporary. It was simply a matter of waiting for his next volley in this battle of wills they had begun.

  Chapter 3

  “Would you look at that?” Lord Lawrence Byron said two afternoons later.

  He and Leo were finishing a late nuncheon in the study. Lawrence was ensconced in his favorite armchair near a sunlit window, Leo seated at a nearby table.

  They had moved into their new bachelor quarters in Cavendish Square a few months earlier. The town house was far larger and much better appointed than their previous lodgings. It also gave them enough privacy that neither felt inconvenienced by the other’s routine—although being twins, and close in a way only brothers could be, they never really minded each other’s company.

  “Look at what?” Leo asked absently as he ate the last few bites of an excellent beef pie.

  “At the trio of Pocket Venuses who just came out of the house next door at”—Lawrence cast a glance toward the clock on the mantelpiece—“two o’clock in the afternoon.”

  Leo wiped his mouth on a napkin, then leaned over to look out the window at the females in question.

  The trio of women—two blondes and a redhead—were giggling and talking as they climbed into a waiting coach in a colorful flurry of skirts. “They’re pretty, to be sure, but why the interest? Beyond the obvious, of course,” Leo said.

  “Because I happen to have seen them arrive last night and they have only now emerged.”

  “Spent the night, did they? All three?” He waggled his eyebrows and laughed. “You’re just cranky because Northcote didn’t invite you to the party.”

  “What party? Far as I could tell, they were the only guests.”

  Leo whistled. “You’ve got to hand it to him. He certainly knows how to enjoy himself.”

  “You and I know how to enjoy ourselves. Northcote is . . . well . . . the man is a complete reprobate.”

  Leo laughed again. “Complete, hmm? What does that make us? Partial reprobates?”

  “Very funny,” Lawrence said.

  Leo smirked. “I don’t have to worry, do I? You aren’t in danger of turning Methodist on me or anything?”

  Lawrence gave a derisive snort. “Hardly.”

  “Then what’s with spying on Northcote? If you aren’t careful, old Lady Higgleston will be complaining that you’re trying to steal her thunder as the biggest pair of prying eyes in the neighborhood.”

  “Nobody could have a bigger pair of prying eyes than Lady Higgleston. Her front curtains twitch more than an aged beggar with the palsy. You know she has to have seen those playthings of Northcote’s come trotting down his front steps just now. She’ll probably be up all night writing the details to every Tom, Dick and Harry in a two-hundred-mile radius.”

  “I doubt the old girl knows any Toms, Dicks or Harrys, considering her general opinion of men.” Leo grinned and leaned back in his chair. “It’s really rather decent of Northcote to pull the limelight off us. Maybe we should send him a present. Box of French letters, do you think?”

  He and Lawrence exchanged looks, then started laughing.

  “You never did answer my question about spying on him,” Leo said once he’d regained control of his voice.

  “No, because I wasn’t spying. Well, not the way you’re implying. I was in here working on a case last night when his light-o’-loves arrived. It was rather difficult not to notice them.”

  “Oh, I’m sure. You just casually happened to note the time and everything, did you?”

  Lawrence shot him a narrow-eyed glare, which Leo completely ignored.

  “All I can say is the next time you run into Northcote, why don’t you ask the man to be neighborly and share?” Leo said. “Or else invite your own coterie of ladyloves over.”

  Lawrence leaned back in his chair. “Two for me? One for you?”

  “I’m not greedy—you can enjoy all three. I’m pursuing my own quarry at the moment and she’s the only one I want right now.”

  Lawrence’s gold and green eyes lit with understanding. “La Lennox, you mean? So you still haven’t given up on that hopeless quest?”

  “Not a bit. Why would I when I’ve only just begun? In fact, I’m sending her a little something special.”

  “Apology presents already? I take it this is for something more than the other night at Elmore’s? What have you done now to vex her?”

  “Vex” was a nice way to put matters, especially considering the expression on Lady Thalia’s face when she’d walked out of the auction. She’d looked shocked and furious and curiously wounded.

  He shouldn’t have done it, he realized. He ought to have stepped back and let her win the bid. But he’d planned on buying the Meissen piece anyway and his natural competitiveness had asserted itself so that he just hadn’t been able to resist. Besides, as he’d realized at the time, it gave him an excellent reason to contact her again, which he would not otherwise have had.

  “I’ve done nothing that cannot be repaired,” Leo said. “Anyway, her vexation only livens up the game.”

  H
is twin laughed. “I doubt she agrees.”

  “We’ll see.” Leo laid his napkin aside and got up from the table. “Now as much as I hate to end our conversation, I’m promised to meet with my estate manager. Wants to talk about crop rotation and how best to drain the southern fields for planting next spring. He should be here any minute.”

  “Ah, Brightvale. When you won it at the card table, I bet you never imagined all the things you’d have to learn about property management, tenant relations and farming. Gives one new respect for our Ned.”

  “Believe me, he has my full respect and admiration. I thank my lucky stars that I wasn’t born the duke. That’s more responsibility than I’d ever want on my shoulders. Our brother wears the mantle well.”

  “Oh, I think you could take it on if you were put to the test.”

  “Me? The hedonistic wastrel? The unrepentant rake? I trust you won’t be bandying that opinion about to any of our acquaintance or you’ll have my reputation in tatters.”

  “What reputation?”

  Leo grinned. “My point exactly.”

  * * *

  “Will there be anything else, milady?” her maid asked after she set the tea tray on a small table in Thalia’s study.

  “No, thank you, Parker, this looks excellent.”

  While her maid let herself out of the room, Thalia went to the tray and poured a cup of hot, fresh Ceylon tea, steam curling upward from the beverage in misty tendrils. She added a splash of milk, then selected one of the butter cookies that Mrs. Grove had added to the tray. She bit off the end, the sweet golden crumbs melting deliciously against her tongue.

  Rather than return to her desk, where the household account ledgers were stacked alongside a pile of bills and receipts in need of her attention, she carried her tea over to the window and gazed out at the garden beyond.

  The tree branches were a riot of orange, yellow and red, fallen autumn leaves strewn in sere layers over the gravel walkway and small patches of grass. The neatly trimmed evergreen hedges were going dormant in preparation for the coming winter, the black wrought iron garden bench already too cold for sitting.

  She would need to have the gardener come again to clear away the leaves. It would be a far easier matter to spare the money for his services now that she hadn’t bought the Meissen trinket box.

  Her fingers tightened on the cup handle, her mouth firming into a hard line. Regardless of how many times she told herself that the outcome of the auction was all for the best, that anyone might have outbid her and that she needed to put it all in the past, anger still flared inside her each and every time she thought of Lord Leopold Byron.

  Clearly he’d known she wanted the Meissen piece and yet he’d decided to go toe-to-toe with her, upping the bid again and again with an arrogant surety that he would win.

  At least it had cost him fifty pounds.

  Of course to him fifty pounds was probably pocket change, an amount he could afford to lose on a whim and forget without a second thought. He’d been born into one of the wealthiest, most influential families in England and was now apparently rich in his own right in spite of being a younger son. No doubt he was used to getting everything he wanted, including his own way.

  She scowled and drank her tea.

  Oh well, she thought, determined to put the whole thing out of her mind. Pretty as it might be, the trinket box was just a decorative whimsy. As for the sentimental value, she would simply have to remember the day her father had given it to her and all the memories that had come afterward. No one could take that from her.

  And she’d lost worse, she reminded herself. Much, much worse. Wounds that cut clean through to the soul and left scars that would never fully heal. Considered in that light, losing the trinket box was nothing more than a minor disappointment.

  Suddenly, a quiet meow came from the other side of the glass, interrupting her thoughts. Thalia looked down to find a pair of round, green eyes gazing hopefully at her out of a furry brown-and-black-striped face.

  “Hera,” she said, smiling. “Have you been out in the garden stalking squirrels again?”

  The cat gave her a look of complete innocence and meowed again.

  “Well, come in.” She set down her cup, then twisted the latch and opened the window. “Gotten chilled, have you?”

  With a sinuous grace, the cat moved inside and leapt down onto the floor on silent paws. She circled around Thalia, brushing up against her skirts.

  Thalia closed the window, then bent down to stroke the cat’s sleek coat, eliciting rumbling purrs. “You’re getting fur all over my skirts, you know. Parker will purse her lips like a lemon and complain about you when she sees the mess you’ve left.”

  Hera made another circuit around Thalia’s skirts and meowed one more time.

  “Oh never mind, she’ll just have to understand,” Thalia said. “What’s a little cat hair between friends?” She petted Hera again and earned a head nuzzle into her hand. “I need to see to some correspondence. Care to join me?”

  Thalia walked toward her desk. The little tabby followed and was up on the desk before Thalia had time to take a seat. Hera settled in one corner atop a pair of leather-bound books; it was a routine that was comfortable and familiar to them both.

  Thalia regarded the account books and bills with a baleful eye. Then sighing in resignation, she reached for the first bill.

  She’d been working for nearly half an hour when a tap came at the door. Glancing up, she saw her butler hovering near the threshold.

  “Yes? What is it, Fletcher?”

  He came forward slowly, a box held in his wizened hands. “A special delivery for you, milady.”

  “Really? How unusual.” With the exception of holidays and her birthday, she never received gifts. “Did the messenger say who sent it?”

  “There is a card, I believe.” Fletcher set the package with its gaily tied, gold satin bow in front of her on the desk. Quietly, he withdrew.

  She eyed the package for a moment, admiring the sophisticated elegance of the wrappings. Even more inviting was the nosegay of fresh purple violas secured underneath the ribbon; she touched the little flowers, finding their petals velvety soft.

  A curious tingle of suspicion went through her, but she ignored it and tugged free the bow. After taking an extra moment to set the nosegay carefully aside, she lifted off the lid.

  And there it was, nestled inside a protective cocoon of crumpled vellum and white silk—the Meissen trinket box. She recognized the tiny painted kitten paws and ball of red yarn first before she peeled back the silk to reveal the rest.

  A silent inhalation of breath caught in her lungs, her heart giving an odd knock inside her chest.

  She didn’t need to open the card to know who had sent the gift. But she reached for it anyway, unfolding the paper to see what was written inside.

  My Dearest Lady Thalia,

  Please accept this token of my esteem. I could not keep it, knowing that you would cherish it more.

  Ever Your Servant,

  L.B.

  She sat unmoving for a long moment, digesting his words and the fact that the trinket box, her trinket box, was in her possession once again.

  After laying down the card, she reached for it. With utmost care, she lifted out the delicate piece of porcelain. She hadn’t been able to touch it at the auction, not the way she’d wished, not holding it as she did now in a full, open, unhindered way. Reverent and admiring. The little box was exactly as she remembered, the paints just as bright, the expressions on the kittens’ faces just as sweet and mischievous as ever.

  She ran a fingertip over one feline back, memories crashing over her in waves. Then she sighed aloud, longing coursing through her with an almost tangible ache. Oh, how she wished she could carry it upstairs to her keepsake cabinet and place it inside.

  But a present such as this quite naturally came with strings. If she kept it, Lord Leopold would expect more. First supper, perhaps, then attendance at a play or
maybe a drive in the park. Next an invitation to her town house.

  Then finally into her bed.

  She had no doubt what it would mean if she accepted this gift. He’d bought the trinket box for fifty pounds and if she took it, he would be buying her as well.

  But she was not for sale.

  Calling forth every ounce of resolve at her disposal, she set the porcelain with its familiar kittens inside the box, tucked it back into its nest of protective silk and vellum and replaced the lid. She secured the ribbon around the package again and tied it neatly, though not with the same expert skill the original wrapper had used.

  She stood and crossed to ring the bell.

  Fletcher appeared a short time later, almost as if he had known she would have need of him again.

  “See that this is returned.” She held the package out to him. “The sender’s name is Lord Leopold Byron. I presume you can locate his address here in Town?”

  “Certainly, milady. Consider it done.”

  “And be careful. The item inside is fragile.”

  Fletcher nodded. “Of course. The utmost care shall be taken.”

  It was only after he had gone that she noticed the nosegay of flowers. Another token from Lord Leopold, something else she could not accept. Picking them up, she moved to her wastepaper basket. But even as she reached to toss them inside, she stopped. They were so pretty and it had been such a very long while since she’d had fresh flowers in the house—another unnecessary extravagance.

  What is the harm? she thought, stroking one of the petals again. Even overprotective mamas of innocent young girls had no objection to flowers. And heaven knew she was no naive, innocent young debutante.

  Flowers meant nothing.

  Carrying them back to her desk, she went to find a vase.

  * * *

  Early evening darkness obscured the dressing room windows as Leo finished tying a last knot in his cravat. He was promised for dinner and cards tonight with a group of his cronies. There would likely be further gambling and carousing afterward, but in spite of his justifiably wild reputation, he didn’t frequent brothels. Far too great a chance of picking up one of the unspeakable diseases that made the rounds in such establishments. He insisted on women of a better class who were clean and healthy. And if truth be known, he’d grown tired of quick, meaningless couplings. He preferred knowing any woman he took to his bed.