A Regency Lady's Scandal: The Lady Gambles / The Lady Forfeits. Carole Mortimer

face, knowing, and regretting, being the obvious cause of her discomfort. He had not meant things to go so far as they had. As for demonstrating to Caro how ill equipped she was to withstand the advances of the gentlemen of the ton, Dominic knew full well that he had been the one seriously in danger of overstepping that line! ‘Caro—’

      ‘Mr Butler requires you, my lord,’ she reminded him.

      Dominic stood up impatiently to stride over to the door and unlock it, his expression darkening as the other man’s gaze instantly slid past him to where Caro stood with her back towards the door. Dominic deliberately stepped into the other man’s line of vision. ‘Yes?’

      Speculative blue eyes gazed back at him. ‘There is … something in the main salon I believe you should see.’

      Dominic frowned. ‘Can it not wait?’

      ‘No, my lord, it cannot,’ Drew stated flatly.

      ‘Very well.’ He nodded before turning to speak to Caro. ‘It appears that I have to leave you for a few minutes. If you will be so kind as to wait here for me—’

      ‘No.’

      Dominic’s eyes widened. ‘No?’

      ‘No.’ Caro rallied, still embarrassed by the intimacies she had allowed this man, but determined not to allow that embarrassment to render her helpless. She carefully lifted her cloak and bonnet from the chair she had placed them on earlier. ‘Mr Butler, is Ben available to escort me home now?’

      ‘Yes, he is.’

      ‘I would prefer that you wait for me here, Caro,’ Dominic insisted firmly.

      She met his gaze unflinchingly. ‘And I would prefer that Ben be the one to accompany me to my lodgings.’

      A nerve pulsed beside that savage slash of a scar on Dominic’s left cheek. ‘Why?’

      Caro looked away as she found she could not withstand the probing of that narrowed silver gaze. ‘I would simply prefer his company at this time, my lord.’

      ‘Drew, could you wait outside for a moment, please?’ Dominic did not even wait for the man’s compliance before stepping back into the room and firmly closing the door behind him.

      ‘I have nothing more to say to you, my lord—’

      ‘Dominic.’

      Caro gasped. ‘I beg your pardon?’

      The earl gave a graceful shrug. ‘You did not seem to have any difficulty calling me Dominic a few minutes ago,’ he reminded her wickedly.

      Caro’s cheeks burned with mortification as she recalled the most recent circumstances under which she had called this man by his first name. ‘I do not even wish to think about just now—’

      ‘Do not be so melodramatic,’ Dominic interjected. ‘Or perhaps, on consideration, it is the hideousness of my scars you would rather not dwell upon?’ His voice hardened even as he raised a hand to his scarred cheek.

      ‘I trust I am not so lily-livered, my lord,’ Caro protested indignantly. ‘No doubt you obtained that scar during the wars against Napoleon?’

      ‘Yes.’

      She nodded. ‘Then it would be most ungrateful of me—of any woman—to see your scar as anything less than the result of the act of bravery it undoubtedly was.’

      Dominic was well aware that some women found the scar on his face unsightly, even frightening. He should have known that the feisty Caro was made of sterner stuff. ‘I will endeavour to conclude my business with Butler as quickly as is possible, after which I will be free to escort you home. No, please do not argue with me any further tonight,’ he advised wearily as he saw that familiar light of rebellion enter those sea-green eyes.

      ‘You are altogether too fond of having your own way, sir.’ She frowned her disapproval at him.

      And his efforts to frighten this young woman into leaving London had only succeeded in alarming himself, Dominic recognised frustratedly. ‘And if I once again add the word please?’

      ‘Well?’ she prompted tartly as he added nothing further.

      Dominic found himself openly smiling at her waspishness. ‘Please, Caro, will you wait here for me?’ he said drily.

      Her chin remained proudly high. ‘I will consider the idea whilst you are talking to Mr Butler.’

      Dominic shot her one last exasperated glance before striding purposefully from the room. He forgot everything else, however—kissing and touching Caro, her response to those kisses and caresses, his own lack of control over that situation—the moment he entered the main salon of the club and saw a bloodstained and obviously badly beaten Nathaniel Thorne lying recumbent upon one of the couches there …

       Chapter Five

      ‘Dominic, why—?’

      ‘Not now, please, Caro,’ he cut in as he sat broodingly across from her inside the lamp-lit coach.

      Not that the lamp was really necessary, dawn having long broken, and the sun starting to appear above the rooftops and chimneys of London, by the time they had delivered Nathaniel safely to his home. The two of them had remained long enough to see him settled in his bedchamber and attended by several of his servants before taking their leave.

      Caro had given a horrified gasp earlier when she’d ventured from Drew’s office and entered the main salon of the club to see a group of men standing around Lord Thorne as he lay stretched out upon one of the couches, with blood covering much of his face and hands and dripping unchecked on to his elegant clothing.

      Not that Dominic had spared any time on the pallor of her cheeks or her stricken expression as he’d turned and seen her standing there. ‘Someone take her away from here!’ he had ordered as Caro stood there, simply too shocked to move.

      ‘Dom—’

      ‘Stay calm, Nate.’ His voice softened as he spoke soothingly to the injured man, some of that softness remaining in his face as he turned back to Caro. ‘It really would be better for all concerned if you left, Caro.’

      ‘I’ll take her back to my office,’ Drew offered before striding across the room to take a firm hold of her arm and practically drag her from the room.

      She barely heard the older man’s comforting words as he escorted her to his office before instructing Ben to remain on guard outside the door. Caro had paced the office for well over an hour whilst the two men obviously dealt with the bloody—and Caro sincerely hoped not too seriously injured—Nathaniel Thorne.

      Dominic had grimly avoided answering any of her questions when he’d finally arrived to escort her home. Caro had gasped in surprise as he had thrown his cloak over her head just as she was about to step outside. ‘What are you doing?’

      He had easily arrested her struggles to free herself. ‘Continue walking to the coach,’ he had instructed.

      Caro had thrown that cloak back impatiently as soon as she’d entered the carriage, any thought of further protest at Dominic’s rough handling of her dying in her throat as she saw Lord Thorne reclining upon the bench seat opposite, the dressings wrapped about both his hands seeming to indicate that he had received the attentions of a doctor since she had seen him last. His face had been cleansed of the blood, revealing his many cuts and bruises, injuries that could surely only have been inflicted by fists and knives.

      Caro felt herself quiver now as she remembered the full extent of those numerous gashes and bruises, and the imagined violence behind them. ‘How—?’

      ‘I