My Lady's Dare. Gayle Wilson

      Dare was still looking at her. She turned her head, and he smiled at her again, his blue eyes full of curiosity. Perhaps even kindness.

      Elizabeth Carstairs, however, no longer believed in kindness. Or in men who acted from altruistic motives. She knew very well what had prompted the Earl of Dare to demand that Bonnet make her his stake tonight. Therefore, she knew exactly what to expect from him. And she also knew there was nothing she could do except acquiesce. Not if this was what Bonnet wanted.

      “Come, Mrs. Carstairs,” the earl said again.

      The smile was gone, and although the words were soft, they were obviously a command. And so she placed her hand on the Earl of Dare’s arm, and this time, despite her dread, she was pleased to find that, through an enormous act of will, it did not tremble.

      Dare had expected Elizabeth Carstairs to be grateful for his rescue, and instead she was clearly dismayed by the prospect of coming home with him. He might be suffering from wounded vanity, he supposed, smiling at the notion in the concealing dimness of the carriage’s interior. He had not really been anticipating any particularly favorable reaction to him. Nothing except a little gratitude, perhaps.

      It seemed, however, that she didn’t plan to offer him even that. She hadn’t spoken since he’d handed her into the carriage. Through the window on her side of the closed coach, she had examined the London streets, which were just coming to life, as if she had never seen them before.

      Maybe she hadn’t. At least not at this hour. Dare had, usually when coming home from an all-night gaming session such as they had just left. Or when returning from his mistress’s.

      “I shall send for your things,” he said, more to solicit a response than because he was concerned about whatever possessions she had left behind. Those could be easily replaced.

      “Thank you,” she said.

      She turned to face him finally. In the sunlight, the cosmetics, even artfully applied, were jarring. There was something about them that was blatantly out of place. They simply didn’t fit. Not with her speech or with her manner. Of course, that shouldn’t be too surprising. Almost nothing he now knew about her fit with those.

      “How long have you worked for Bonnet?” he asked.

      There was a moment’s hesitation, and then she said, “Almost two years, my lord.”

      “And before that?”

      “Surely my past can be of no concern to you, Lord Dare,” she said softly, her eyes almost defiant.

      “I’m simply curious,” he said. “Indulge me.”

      He was curious, of course, but that wasn’t why he was pressing the issue. He wanted her to talk. She was obviously hiding something, and the sooner he discovered what it was, the sooner he could put this entire quixotic episode behind him. After all, there were other things he should be doing today, far more important than trying to unravel the mystery of the Frenchman’s whore.

      The word jolted, annoyingly, almost painfully, just as the rouge was jarring against the clear purity of her skin. But she probably is a whore, he reminded himself. Before his admittedly romantic nature managed to transform her into something else, Dare knew he needed to engrave that fact on his consciousness.

      “The story of my life isn’t particularly interesting,” she said. “Or unusual. I’m sure you would quickly become bored if I attempted to tell it to you.”

      “Why don’t you let me make that determination.”

      “Because it doesn’t matter. What I did before I came to Bonnet’s has nothing to do with the present. And certainly nothing to do with now.”

      And nothing to do with you, her tone suggested.

      “Be warned, Mrs. Carstairs. Mystery piques my interest. Forbidden fruit, I suppose.”

      “There is no mystery. If you must hear it, mine’s an ordinary enough story. My husband died, leaving a number of debts. Many of those were owed to Monsieur Bonnet. He made an offer of employment, and I accepted it.”

      “You had no family to turn to, of course,” Dare suggested, his lips quirking. “Nor did your husband. Neatly done, my dear. My compliments, but…no starving children? Or perhaps we are to pick them up on the way.”

      “Are you mocking me?”

      “Are you lying to me?” he countered.

      There was a long pause, and then she said, “If I am, what can it possibly matter to you?”

      “I told you. I’m curious.”

      She held his eyes a moment more, and then she turned her head again, looking out the window. The carriage had entered Mayfair and, in the morning sun, the facades of the town houses swept by in a panorama of architectural elegance. Servants busily polished brass plates and the bells on their front doors or washed marks of the previous day’s traffic from broad, shallow steps. Phaetons stood patiently before their entrances, waiting for the inhabitants to embark on rounds of morning calls or on business in the city.

      “And what was the late Mr. Carstairs’ occupation?” the earl asked politely, almost as if the sharpness that had ended the last exchange had not occurred.

      Again she turned to face him. “Are we to continue to play games, my lord? If so, perhaps I should tell you that my imagination is not great. I have no gift for storytelling.”

      “Only a gift for numbers,” he said, the subtle movement of his mouth not quite a smile. “Where did you learn to do that? What you do for Bonnet?”

      She didn’t answer, but she didn’t turn away.

      “Forbidden as well? Then what would you like to talk about, Mrs. Carstairs?”

      “I should like to know what you want from me,” she said bluntly, her eyes cold.

      “The pleasure of your company?” he suggested, his tone lightly mocking. “Your wit. The scintillating sparkle of your conversation.”

      “My…conversation, my lord?” she repeated, her tone equally caustic.

      “Of course,” he said softly. “What did you think I wanted from you, Mrs. Carstairs?”

      The carriage drew to a halt, preventing her from having to formulate an answer. The footmen rushed forward to open the door and to lower the steps. The earl descended, and then, playing the perfect gentleman, a role he had been trained for from birth, he held out his hand, palm upward. Elizabeth Carstairs gathered her skirts and put her fingers into his.

      They were trembling again, Dare realized. If she was accustomed to being offered to Bonnet’s guests for their pleasure, like his wine or his excellent cigars, then why would the thought of entering his town house cause this reaction?

      After all, what he had told her before was the truth. Dare was unaccustomed to being considered an ogre. Not by women. And certainly not an object of fear and trembling. If anything, he had the opposite effect on the fairer sex.

      Of course, he had decided a long time ago that their favorable reception might more properly be attributed to his wealth and position than to his person. However, those considerations aside, he had never had a complaint from a woman about his attentions. The thought was almost comforting in the face of her unspoken distress.

      “I’m not going to eat you, you know,” he said sotto voce, as he escorted her toward the front door.

      His servants were too well-trained to gawk, but he could imagine what they were thinking, despite their perfectly correct expressions. Dare had never even brought his mistress, who did not paint her face, to his home. He had certainly never before introduced a whore into its environs.

      Even as he thought the word, using it deliberately and for all the good reasons he had determined in the carriage, he could feel the childlike softness of her hand in his, trembling as strongly as if she were in the grip of an ague.