Page 24 of When the Marquess Needed Me (The Rake Chronicles #4)

Chapter Twenty-Two

M y love.

What in the name of God was wrong with her?

The Marquess of Leith had fallen asleep, gathering Beatrice up into his arms right before he did so. Now, he lay senseless beside her.

And she was awake, completely exasperated with herself.

Why in the world had she called him my love ?

It was the term of endearment they used in her family. Her most intimate form of address.

And she had gone and used it with Thomas Balfour, the Marquess of Leith, the man who was paying her to be his courtesan for two weeks.

He did not want to be called her love. What they were doing had nothing to do with love. She had told the man himself that she did not believe she could fall in love! And he had made clear he felt the same.

Clearly, the frantic pace at which they were tupping was addling her mind. She needed to regain her equilibrium.

So she slunk out from under his arm and returned to her chamber.

When Beatrice awoke the next morning, it was not the Marquess of Leith who stood over her bed.

“Bea, I am so sorry!” Sally exclaimed, throwing herself down on her counterpane. “I do not know what came over me. I had no notion that champagne could taste so fine.”

Through her own haze, it took Beatrice a moment to remember Sally’s calamity from the night before.

“You must be careful with the champagne, Sal. And with Charles. I believe he admires you.”

“He is handsome, I will say.”

“Sally! What about Fred Larkin?”

“Does being engaged to one man make me completely insensible of another? I never would have thought you’d countenance such prudery, Bea.”

She shook her head at her sister’s silliness. “You will feel badly if he falls in love with you.”

“I will be careful. I promise,” Sally said. “Now you must dress. Lord Leith wants to take you to Gunter’s.”

Her heart seized at the mention of the man. God, she hoped she would be able to face him after her foolishness. But, as Sally helped her dress, she reasoned that he would understand. He had been in quite a passion as well. He had thanked her after their last coupling, as if she hadn’t come twice from the effort herself.

Once she was dressed in another of her new Warburton gowns, a pink silk appropriate for daywear, she strode into the living room, attempting to beat down her trepidation.

There, he sat on the sofa, doing nothing—it appeared—but waiting for her.

“Sally informs me that we are going to Gunter’s.”

“Your sister is correct,” he said, standing, a small smile playing on his lips. “I must keep up my end of the bargain. Two weeks is not so long a time—and I’ve only taken you on two public outings.”

She supposed he was right. They were only on the fourth day of their arrangement, and she had demanded seven. But his return to the arrangement, after the fierce passion of the night before, deflated her. It even stung a bit. Although she knew it was what she technically wanted.

Perhaps, he was attempting to remind her of their agreement. After her unbecoming exuberance.

“Yes, we wouldn’t want you to be derelict,” she said, briskly.

“Come, then,” he said, offering her his arm. He looked her full in the face as she accepted it. To her surprise, where she had expected to see reserve, she saw openness. He had never looked, to her eye, more good-humored.

When they were in the carriage and clattering along the street, she turned to him.

“Why Gunter’s?”

“Every lady likes Gunter’s. It’s the height of fashion. And very public. We will eat our ices in the carriage and anyone who managed to miss your presence by my side at the opera the other night will know your name by this evening.”

She tried to feel grateful. He was being helpful. Thoughtful, even.

When they arrived at Gunter’s, the coachman and his assistant situated the vehicle outside the shop. Then, to her surprise, the coachman and his assistant began to fuss with the side of the vehicle.

“What are they doing?”

“It’s a landau. The top comes off.”

In a few moments, the entire front side of the carriage had fallen away—and they could see and be seen by the fashionable street before them.

The carriage opened, the assistant went into the shop to get their ices, bringing back a vanilla for him and a chocolate for her.

As she ate her ice, Beatrice could feel the eyes of the other diners on their carriage. He had especially opened up the carriage, she realized, so that she would get the publicity that she wanted. So she could find the other man that she would need to keep her soon. She tried not to let the thought dispirit her.

“Thank you for this trip,” she began, trying to speak in her usual spirits. “It is very thoughtful. It will be helpful, I’m sure, for finding my next protector.”

She looked at him as she said the words.

“I am happy to do it. I want to make you happy, Beatrice.”

“And I am sorry,” she said, the words rushing forward of their own volition, “about what I said yesterday.”

Now he truly looked confused. “When?”

“In—in bed.” It was unlike Beatrice to feel uncomfortable directly addressing a matter. At home, at Parkhorne, ever since her father had died, she had prided herself on plain speaking. With her family, with her lovers, in business, she did not stutter or evade. But, somehow, in this instance, with him, she found it difficult to be matter-of-fact.

He furrowed his brow.

“We said many things in bed yesterday, Beatrice. You will have to be more specific if you would like me to know which you are apologizing for.”

“Surely you know,” she said in frustration.

He shook his head, concern etched on his face.

She sighed. She would have to say it.

“The endearment. My love. It was silly. A slip of the tongue, you know.”

For a moment, he was still. With a dawning horror, it occurred to her that he had missed her words altogether and now she was drawing unnecessary attention to them. It would have been better, she was suddenly sure, to not say anything at all.

“Beatrice,” he said, taking her hand. She cringed. She was forcing him to tell her to check her emotions.

She pulled her hand away. “No, really—you mustn’t. As I said it was a mistake.”

He took her hand back. She liked the way his hands looked closing over her fingers, bare because she had just been eating the ice.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, bringing her hand to his mouth, brushing her knuckles against his lips. “But I want to be very, very clear.”

She squirmed. Dear Lord, this might be the most humiliating moment of her life.

“You can call me anything in bed that you like,” he said. “It doesn’t matter to me. As long as you continue letting me be that close to you, I don’t care what you call me.”

She exhaled. Of course, she realized, she had made too much of it.

“I see,” she said, with a little laugh. “It was silly of me to worry. I just didn’t want you to get the wrong impression.”

“Ah,” he said, thoughtfully. “Now I see.”

Her relief vanished in a flash. It occurred to her that she had somehow managed—if she hadn’t before—to say the wrong thing. His expression looked a bit stony, and he put his ice down on the squab, unfinished.

“Preston, we are leaving,” he said to his coachman. The assistant cleared the refuse of the ices. Then, the two men closed up the carriage once more, and the brilliant spring of Mayfair was once more on the other side of the carriage wall.

He looked out the window, appearing pensive.

Beatrice found herself paralyzed. She didn’t know how to remedy what she had just done.

She hadn’t meant to push him away. And now she was not sure how to remedy the distance that she had created.

“ I should be clear, Miss Salisbury,” he said, the return to her formal appellation a very poor sign, she knew, for their intimacy. “You need not worry about over-engaging my affections. I am a reasonable man. I am known for it. I have had many mistresses and have never found myself overset, as I told you. A rogue endearment is not enough to send me spinning.”

“Of course,” she said, grateful that he was speaking, that she did not have to begin the subject again. “I only did not want to make you uncomfortable. To make you think that I have begun harboring emotions that would only be irksome to you.”

He turned and looked at her. His amber eyes were shaded in the dimness of the carriage. She realized that she had no idea how he really felt about her.

This revelation was followed by a second. She was having difficulty knowing how she herself felt about him.

What she knew was that she enjoyed him. In bed and out of it. And that their time together was much more enjoyable when she felt the closeness with him that she had last night.

“Nothing you do is irksome to me,” he said, quietly.

She closed her eyes for a long second. His words touched some pain deep inside of her, which had been there for as long as she could remember. They made her feel strangely emotional.

“I am glad to hear it.”

“I want you to be natural with me. Do not worry about irking me. I know that you understand the limits of our arrangement. Inside of it, we may be as we wish. That is what I want.”

Beatrice exhaled. Ever since her father’s death, she was so used to being the rational one, the one with a plan, the one who saw things to rights. His simple words of tenderness and logic soothed her.

“Then I will be. I will say whatever nonsense in bed that comes into my mind.”

“Now you understand me exactly,” he said, smiling. “That is exactly what I would like.”

“Is there anything in particular you would like to be called in bed?” she said, looking up at him.

“I have already told you,” he said. “My Christian name. Thomas. When it is you, it feels altogether too formal to be called by my title.”

“But that’s what your mistresses have always called you.”

“It’s true,” he said. “But with you, it is different.”

“And why is that?”

He looked over at her, as if considering.

“It seems that, no matter what I do, you see what I would otherwise like to hide. So you might as well call me by my given name.”

“I do see some things, I suppose,” she said, considering his statement. It was true that she had understood, immediately, after that first time, that he had some very peculiar habits—that it had not been a moment but a pattern for him. “But not others.”

He shook his head. “I wager you see everything.”

She laughed. “No. You are very mysterious in some of your desires.”

He leveled her with a gaze. He looked so handsome and so powerful sitting across from her in his absurdly expensive carriage that most likely, on its own, could pay off her debts. In his polished Hessians and buckskin breeches, he was every inch the worldly peer, the wealthy and formidable marquess.

“I have no idea what you refer to. Enlighten me.”

She contemplated the question. The air had been so recently unsettled with them that she worried about setting things off-balance between them again. But she was genuinely curious. And he had just told her to be natural and not worry about irking him.

“Well, for one, I don’t understand why you won’t let me see you unclothed.”