"Excuse me, Andrew," she said, politely easing away from him. For an instant, she caught a flash of anger as he realized he wasn't the man she would choose, but she kept on walking. A few feet away, Wingate was frowning, his jaw iron-hard. Beneath the folds of white satin, her legs were shaking. Her mouth felt so dry she couldn't have said another word if her life depended upon it.

She didn't have to. When she reached the place where Caleb stood, she simply reached out to him.

For an instant he didn't move and she thought that she had been wrong, that he didn't really want her as she had believed.

Then he stepped forward. One moment she was looking into his face and the next she was in his arms. She closed her eyes and felt a sweep of love for him so strong a lump swelled in her throat. The music swirled around them, urging them to dance, but Caleb simply held her and Lee clung to his neck. She knew people were staring, but she didn't care.

The orchestra began the waltz again. Caleb took a deep, shuddering breath and his mouth curved up in the softest, most endearing smile she had ever seen. Taking her hand, he led her out on the dance floor and swept her into the steps of the dance.

Other guests moved onto the floor beside them, falling into the rhythm of the waltz, the colorful congregation laughing, dancing with abandon as they whirled around the ballroom.

"I thought perhaps you would decide not to choose," Caleb said, his eyes locked on her face. "Or if you did, I would be the last man you would pick."

"So did I."

"Why did you change your mind?"

Because I love you. I love you so much. "You looked lonely. I thought you might need some company."

Caleb drew her closer. "I do," he said gruffly.

She smiled as he led her into a turn, but it felt a little sad. Caleb's I do was as close as she would ever come to a wedding vow. It had never mattered before.

It didn't now, she told herself firmly.

The waltz was coming to an end. "Let's get out of here," Caleb said softly. "We'll leave for London tonight."

She needed to pack. It was late and the roads would be dark. She didn't care. "Let me change into my riding clothes and throw a few things into a satchel. I'll bid farewell to my aunt and Lord Claymont, then we can leave."

"I'll have the horses saddled and brought round to the front." They left the dance floor, slipping away from the others, disappearing quietly out of sight. Lee said a brief farewell to her aunt, thanking her for the party and receiving a hug from Lord Claymont, then she left the ballroom and hurried upstairs.

She was leaving Parklands. She would have Jeannie pack the rest of her things and bring them to London once she was settled in. She wondered if she would ever return to the house she had been raised in, but she didn't think so. She was starting a new life, and though tonight hadn't gone exactly the way she had planned, it didn't matter.

She would be with Caleb.

She loved him.

She would stay with him until he went away.


Caleb sent a footman to rouse one of the grooms with instructions to saddle their horses, then waited at the bottom of the stairs for Lee's return. He couldn't stop smiling. He still couldn't believe his good fortune. Lee belonged to him. Until he returned to Spain, she would be his.

The smile slid away and a weight seemed to settle on his chest. He would be returning to duty and when he did, he would have to leave Lee behind.

A movement in the entry drew his attention to the familiar figure strolling toward him.

"Well, little brother, it would seem you are the man of the hour." Luc stopped in front of him, jauntily dressed in a full-sleeved shirt and tight leather breeches, a saber at his waist and an eye patch over one eye. The clothes of a pirate. Appropriate, Caleb thought, considering how many hearts Luc had managed to plunder.

"The man of the hour? I suppose you could say that."

"I assume the lady is your first official mistress. Congratulations on an excellent choice."

Caleb frowned. He had never thought of Lee that way and he didn't want to now. "I believe the lady chose me."

"Yes… so it would seem." Luc flicked a glance up the stairs. "I realize you are enamored of the girl, Caleb. I know you were her first and all of that, but the fact remains, you are the son of an earl and the girl is a Durant. Nothing is going to change that."

Caleb straightened. "If it's any of your business—which it is not—her social standing matters not in the least to me. However, the hard fact is, I'm an officer in His Majesty's Army. The war is far from over and I'll be returning to action very soon. When I do, my time with Lee will be over."

"Lee?"

Caleb made no reply. Luc didn't know her the way he did. He wouldn't understand that beneath her façade, Vermillion was simply Lee. He wouldn't understand that it was Lee that Caleb had wanted all along. That if there was any way to see it done, he would make certain that even after he was gone, Lee would be able to remain the woman she was inside, not the seductive creature everyone wanted her to be.

"All I'm saying is not to get too involved. You can't have her, Caleb, not permanently. You know it and so do I. Enjoy the time you have together, then let her go."

Caleb smiled thinly. "I appreciate your concern, Luc, but I'm not a little boy anymore. I haven't been for a number of years. My life is my own. I thought by now you understood that."

His brother looked a little surprised. As the eldest Tanner son, he had always watched out for his three younger siblings. But they were all grown men now. It was time Luc realized his job was over.

Luc smiled, the dimple appearing in his cheek. "You're right, Caleb. I suppose I should have figured that out a long time ago. I can't say I won't worry about you the way I always have, but from now on I'll try to keep my opinions to myself Shall I tell Father he can look forward to a visit?"

Caleb nodded, relieved that Luc had let the subject of Vermillion drop. "As soon as I can get away I'll make a trip to Selhurst."

Luc clapped him on the shoulder. "Let me know when you plan to leave and I'll go with you."

"I'd like that," Caleb said, meaning it. He didn't get to see enough of his family anymore. It was something he missed. He would always regret not being able to have a family of his own, but his choice had been made long ago. The closest he could come was sharing a brief time with Lee.

Just thinking about it made him hard and he began to fidget as he resumed his vigil, waiting for the woman who would soon descend the stairs. His mind filled with exotic images of what he meant to do to her, once they reached London, of peeling her out of her clothes, tasting those luscious breasts, spreading her shapely legs, and—

Caleb forced the image away before his breeches got any more uncomfortable than they were already, but he smiled as he saw her at the top of the stairs. God, he couldn't wait to reach the city.


The party continued until well into the night. Elizabeth Sorenson, gowned as a medieval maiden in a long green velvet gown and golden girdle, a jeweled circlet over her short black hair, wandered into the garden. She was getting tired. She would have left the affair long ago if it hadn't been for the sandy-haired man in the black domino and black satin cape who had been watching her all evening.

Her husband, Charles Sorenson, Earl of Rotham.

"You look beautiful tonight, Beth." She started at his approach, surprised at his appearance in the garden at the very moment she had been thinking about him.

"Thank you, my lord."

"I would rather you called me Charles. You don't do it often enough anymore and I've always liked the way you say it."

She flushed. She couldn't remember the younger Charles she had known ever having been quite so gallant. "It was getting warm inside. I needed a little fresh air."

"The hour grows late. Perhaps it's time you went home. I would be happy to see you safely there."

She turned and looked up at him. She couldn't think of anything she would like more and anything she wanted less. "You don't have to bother. I came by myself. I can certainly return that same way. You needn't concern yourself."

"Don't I? I told you, Beth, I want another chance. I won't get that chance unless you find time for me. Unless you come to know me, to realize how much I've changed. Unless you can find it in your heart to trust me as you did once before."

Her defenses went up. He made it sound so easy when it wasn't easy at all. "Why should I trust you, Charles? How many mistresses have you had since the day we wed? How many women have you invited into your bed?"

"Too many, Beth. Too many faceless women who meant nothing at all to me." He reached out and gripped her shoulders. "But not lately, not for more than two years. Even before that, there was no one I wanted. Only you, Beth. Only you."

Her throat ached. She knew how good he was at seduction. He had seduced any number of females over the years. She couldn't listen to his honeyed words. She had to get away from him before he succeeded in convincing her to believe him and destroyed her yet again.

"You weren't the only one, Charles," she taunted as a means of self-defense. "I had affairs, as well. Men I made love to, men who wanted me the way you wanted other women."

He stiffened as she knew he would. Now he would go. The threat would be over. Dear God, why did it have to hurt so much?

"I don't care what you did in the past, Beth. I care only what happens in the future." He moved toward her, reached out and pulled her into his arms. "I don't believe there is anyone else. Not now. Not for a very long time. Let me make love to you, Beth. Let me be the husband I should have been from the start." And then he bent his head and kissed her.

She had expected an assault, not the feather-soft brush of his lips and yet that simple touch reached inside her, whispered over her very soul. Charles deepened the kiss and for an instant she kissed him back, kissed him as she had yearned to do a thousand times in the last ten years.

His arms came around her and his kiss turned fierce, but there was tenderness, too. A deep yearning welled inside her. She could feel his hardness, knew he was wildly aroused. He wanted her. And dear God, she wanted him.

But she wasn't the naïve young girl he had married and she knew what would happen if she let him into her heart again.

Elizabeth forced herself to pull away. Breathing raggedly, she turned and fled the garden.






19


« ^ »


The night was still and quiet but a bright slash of moonlight shone down from above, guiding their way along the road to London. On his big black gelding, Solomon, Caleb rode beside her. They were halfway to the city before Lee thought to ask him where, exactly, they were going.

"There's a small hotel in Piccadilly. It's called the Purley. The accommodations are first cabin and it's known for its discretion." His black horse blew a breath into the cool evening air. "You will stay there until I can find you more suitable accommodations."

She didn't like the sound of that—the reminder she had agreed to become his kept woman. But a bargain had been struck. She would uphold her end of the arrangement.

"I usually stay in my father's town house whenever I'm in London," he continued. "Luc has a place of his own. Ethan is rarely in London and my father is mostly at Selhurst, so the house is generally empty. I'll find something nice not far from the house so it'll be easy to get there."

She was liking this less and less. "So you'll just stop by whenever you get the urge? Is that how it works?"

Caleb drew rein on the black. "Actually, that's exactly how it works. Look, Lee, this was your idea, remember? You didn't have to agree to any of this. You could have made a different decision."

Her chin went up. "Maybe I should have."

Caleb's jaw hardened. His gloved hands tightened on the reins. "And maybe I ought to drag you down from that horse and show you exactly why you didn't." He was scowling, looking like he meant every word.

The thought of Caleb hauling her down, shoving up her riding skirt, and making love to her in the middle of the road left her slightly breathless. Setting her heels to the sides of her horse, she started forward before she goaded him into actually going through with it.

"I made a choice," she said to him over her shoulder. "I don't plan to go back on my word."

Caleb made no comment. He knew how independent she was. He must have realized how difficult it was for her to put herself completely in a man's hands for the first time in her life.