Regency Rogues and Rakes. Anna Campbell

had him. She would have lifted her skirts and taken her pleasure—against a wall or a door or on a windowsill—and got it out of her system.

      But this wasn’t another man, and she’d already let temper and pride get the better of her judgment.

      Leonie had warned her, before she left: “We’ll never have another chance like this. Don’t bugger it up.”

      The hell of it was, Marcelline wouldn’t know whether or not she’d botched it until it was too late.

      He said nothing for a time, and she wondered if he, too, was pondering the stories shortly to fly about London, and deciding how best to deal with them.

      But why should he fret about gossip? He was a man, and men were expected to chase women, especially in Paris. It was practically his patriotic duty. Lady Clara certainly hadn’t made any fuss about his affairs. It would have been common knowledge if she had. Since Longmore behaved much the same as his friend did, Marcelline doubted it had even dawned on the earl to mention the subject when issuing the ultimatum, whatever that was.

      Still, all the duke’s other liaisons in Paris had been ladies or sought-after members of the demimonde. Those sorts of conquests were prestigious.

      But a dressmaker—a common shopkeeper—wasn’t Clevedon’s usual thing, and anything unusual could set the ton on its ear.

      These cogitations took her to the ground floor. They did nothing to quiet her agitation.

      She waited while he told the porter to summon his carriage.

      When Clevedon turned back to her, she said, “How do you propose to explain this evening to Lady Clara? Or do you never explain yourself to her?”

      “Don’t speak of her,” he said.

      “You’re ridiculous,” she said. “You say it as though my uttering her name will somehow contaminate her. That must be your guilty conscience speaking, because it most assuredly isn’t your intellect. You know that she’s the one I want. She’s the one I came to Paris for. ‘Don’t speak of her,’ indeed.” She imitated his haughty tone. “Is that what you do with everything uncomfortable? Pretend it isn’t there? She’s there, you stubborn man. The woman you’re going to marry by summer’s end. You ought to speak of her. You ought to be reminding me of her vast superiority to me—except as regards dress, that is.”

      “I had originally planned,” he said levelly, “to write to Clara as I always do. I had planned to repeat the most fatuous conversations to which I was subjected in the course of the evening. I had planned to give my impressions of the company. I had planned to describe my sufferings from boredom—a boredom endured entirely on her account, in order provide her entertainment.”

      “How noble of you.”

      Something flickered in his eyes, and it was like the flash of a lighthouse, seen through a storm.

      She knew she approached dangerous waters, but if she didn’t get him under control, she risked smashing her business to pieces.

      “And you’d completely disregard my part in events?” Marcelline said. “Stupid question. It’s tactless to mention the women of dubious character you encounter in the course of your travels and entertainments. On the present occasion, however, I’d recommend against that approach. News of our exciting arrival at the party will soon be racing across the Channel, to arrive in London as early as Tuesday. I suggest you tackle the subject straight on. Tell her you brought me to win a wager. Or you did it for a joke.”

      “By God, you’re the most managing female,” he said.

      “I’m trying to manage my future,” she said. She heard the slight wobble in her voice. Alarmed, she took a calming breath. His gaze became heavy-lidded and shifted to her neckline. Her reaction to that little attention was the opposite of calming.

      Devil take him! He was the one who belonged on a leash.

      She started for the gate. The porter hastily opened it.

      “The carriage hasn’t arrived yet,” Clevedon said. “Do you mean to wait on the street for it, like a clerk waiting for the omnibus?”

      “I am not traveling in that or any other carriage with you,” she said. “We’ll go our separate ways this night.”

      “I cannot allow you to travel alone,” he said. “That’s asking for trouble.”

      And traveling with him in a closed carriage, in the dead of night, in her state of mind—or not mind—wasn’t? She needed to get away from him, not simply for appearances’ sake, but to think. There had to be a way to salvage this situation.

      “I’m not a sheltered miss,” she said. “I’ve traveled Paris on my own for years.”

      “Without a servant?”

      She wished she had something heavy to throw at his thick head.

      She’d grown up on the streets of Paris and London and other cities. She came from a family that lived by its wits. The stupid or naïve did not survive. The only enemy they hadn’t been able to outwit or outrun was the cholera.

      “Yes, without a servant,” she said. “Shocking, I know. To do anything without servants is unthinkable to you.”

      “Not true,” he said. “I can think of several things to do that do not require servants.”

      “How inventive of you,” she said.

      “In any event, the point is moot,” he said. “Here’s my carriage.”

      While she’d been trying not to think of the several activities one might perform without servants’ assistance, the carriage had drawn up to the entrance.

      “Adieu, then,” she said. “I’ll find a fiacre in the next street.”

      “It’s raining,” he said.

      “It is not…”

      She felt a wet plop on her shoulder. Another on her head.

      A footman leapt down from the back of the carriage, opened an umbrella, and hurried toward them. By the time he reached them, the occasional plop had already built to a rapid patter. She felt Clevedon’s hand at her back, nudging her under the umbrella, and guiding her to the carriage steps.

      It was the touch of his hand, the possessive, protective gesture. That was what undid her.

      She told herself she wasn’t made of sugar and wouldn’t melt. She told herself she’d walked in the rain many times. Her self didn’t listen.

      Her self was trapped in feelings: the big hand at her back, the big body close by. The night was growing darker and colder while the rain beat down harder. She was strong and independent and she’d lived on the streets, yet she’d always craved, as any animal does, shelter and protection.

      She was weak in that way. Self-denial wasn’t instinctive.

      She couldn’t break way from him or turn away from the open carriage door where shelter waited. She didn’t want to be cold and wet, walking alone in the dark in Paris.

      And so she climbed the steps and sank gratefully onto the well-cushioned seat, and told herself that catching a fatal chill or being attacked and raped in a dirty alley would not do her daughter or her sisters any good.

      He sat opposite.

      The door closed.

      She felt the slight bounce as the footman returned to his perch. She heard his rap on the roof, signaling the coachman to start.

      The carriage moved forward gently enough, but the streets here were far from smooth, and despite springs and well-cushioned seats, she felt the motion. The silence within was like the silence before a thunderstorm. She became acutely conscious of the wheels rattling over the stones and the rain drumming on the roof…and, within, the too-fierce pounding of her heart.

      “Going