He turned and hurried out the rear of the building. Outside in the springtime, there was the well-known London hubbub—the shouts of a boy selling papers, the noise of carriages clip-clopping along the cobbles, and the low-level chat of the bustling streets. All those sounds closeted away from the comforts of White’s. Thankfully, there were several idling vehicles. With a wave of his hand, Woolwich signalled the nearest hackney over to them. Turning, he beckoned to Miss Blackman with a gesture of solidarity, a sign that she could leave the shallow doorway and make her way over.
“Here we go.” He pulled open the hackney’s door and gestured for her to get inside.
For some reason, Miss Blackman paused on the small steps that led up to the carriage and forced her hand to reach out for him. With a quick movement, she grabbed his wrist between her fingers, catching the thinnest point between the shirt material and the curve of Woolwich’s hand. Her movements caused him to freeze, her touch oddly intimate.
With his free hand, Woolwich moved to his waistcoat and offered her enough change to get her across the city and back again.
But Miss Blackman refused the unspoken offer. She leant closer to him, and for one wild moment, Woolwich thought she might kiss him. Instead, she paused and smiled now that their eyes were level. Her eyes bored into his, assessing him for weakness. “I will not forget what you said.”
“Stop this nonsense.” Woolwich was not going to let her dictate this interaction or paint this situation to her advantage. He stepped closer and forced Miss Blackman into the carriage. He took a seat, going against his prior decision, and shouted out to the hackney driver, “Hurstbourne House, Lyall Street, Belgravia.”
Folding herself into the opposite seat, Miss Blackman looked galled that he had stopped her from getting away from him. It was satisfying to feel as if he was winning, Woolwich thought.
The hackney set off. It would not take long to get her to Hurstbourne’s townhouse and have this matter resolved.
“If your plan is to tell Heatherbroke, so much the better. He will certainly find out sooner or later. But you may wish to consider what I now know about you. And how precisely you found out this information. Your apparent wanton desire to—” he gave a way of a hand to indicate Miss Blackman’s garb. “It is demonstrative of your lack of decorum that underpins a desperate need for attention.”
“You can think the worst of me. I don’t care a jot what your feelings are towards me,” Miss Blackman said. “So long as you stay away from Lady Heatherbroke, if you dislike the marquess so much, deal with it between the two of you—don’t drag my friend into your own poisonous affair.”
“She married that man. She knew what she was getting herself into.” Woolwich’s initial bet had been thrown down without much thought, but now that he was challenged for his idea, he was warming to it mainly because it would prevent any talk of his late wife. Less because he wanted to annoy Heatherbroke, although that would be a good thing, but also because it would infuriate Miss Blackman. That would be deeply rewarding.
“None of it is her fault. Or of Lady Heatherbroke’s making,” Miss Blackman insisted. “Or why you are angry with the marquess.”
Woolwich leant forward, closing the distance between them. He was tight-lipped, although he feared his anger was peeking through, but when he spoke, there was a malicious tint to his question, “Do I detect a little too much interest in your friend? Or is it Heatherbroke himself that calls your heroic defence?”
With a quick shake of her head at his lewd query, Miss Blackman said, “Don’t be crude. I can wish that a good marriage might not be hurt—without desiring either party. Besides,” Miss Blackman cut herself off, “the two of them are happily married. And… I question your abilities.” Her eyes flicked over him dismissively. “I entirely doubt your charms to tempt the marchioness away from her beloved husband.”
The carriage rumbled away, carrying them through Green Park towards the Belgravia townhouse. The dappled trees and springtime blooms passed their windows. Woolwich had leant back at her latest jab, but when the hackney started to slow, Woolwich found himself smiling in a way that caused Miss Blackman to frown.
As the hackney came to a stop and she scrambled towards the door, Woolwich leant forward, his hand blocking her escape completely, preventing Miss Blackman from leaving. He said, in what he hoped was a thoroughly warning tone, “That sounds remarkably like a contest, Miss Blackman. I will simply have to take you up on that challenge if you really don’t believe me capable of seduction.”
CHAPTER4
The steps between the hackney and the back of the townhouse’s door had never seemed so far or taken such a long time to run across. She made for the side of the building, squeezing between the high walls that encased one of the buildings and the other, where there ran a little mews street. Thankfully, the trousers she wore made her movements speedier than if she’d been wearing her gown.
All the way, Clara was conscious of the duke’s eyes on her back. She had been certain in the carriage when the famously quiet, society-shunning duke sat before her when she declared that he was lacking in charm and wit to manage a seduction. She was confident that this statement would finally silence him. In no way had she expected that Woolwich would grin with such wicked rakish delight at her words, that it left her stomach churning.
He was not a rake. In the last few years of being ‘out’, Clara had learnt the rules and mores of thebeau monde,and whilst Woolwich was regarded as an arrogant bastard, he was not one who could muster enough passion to be a libertine.
If only he was not a foot taller than her. That was not helpful. The very size of him, made Clara deeply uncomfortable. Another charge to level against the man as if he had some control over his height. But it threw her and made her awkward, and for someone like the duke, she needed her wits about her.
Three years on the marriage mart had demonstrated that, in multiple ways, Clara did not fit in. From her bright red hair to her plump curves, or how much she adored gothic romance novels to the extent she ignored other feminine pursuits. She was not bold or flirtatious like Lady Verne or Mrs. Trawler, kind and gentle like Lady Silverton, or refined and elegant like Prudence. No, she was herself. There was no way she was going to change that, but the trouble remained and kept Clara feeling out of place.
Cursing to herself, Clara looked over her shoulder to see the hackney was still there and watching her. A mass of contradictions that the duke was, and now it seemed as if she had inadvertently drawn his attention. Still, it was better than him going after Lady Heatherbroke… wasn’t it?
Unable to answer that, she hurried inside.
The sheer grandeur of Hurstbourne’s home was an ever-impressive sight, and as Clara ducked through the rear door of the building, she knew that both the earl and her older sister would not be pleased to see Clara dressed in such an outfit. Nicholas Lynde, Earl of Hurstbourne, was a kind man, a good husband, and a patient member of the family. He did not love scandal, which was a shame since everyone, especially his female relations, seemed rather prone to it. She supposed she now fit into that description too. Breaking into White’s dressed as a man would certainly be classed as outrageous. It didn’t bode well for her. If only it had been one of the other members of Hurstbourne’s Oxford Set, they would have treated Clara dressed in boy’s clothes as a lark.
Clara threw down her hat on the carpeted steps. It was just dumb luck that she had been found by him. So much for taking the initiative.
With quick steps, she hurried up to her bedroom. When she had first been given this lovely chamber for her Season in London, she had been thrilled. It was the height of elegance and refinement. From the large oak bed to the matching furniture, which conveyed a reassuring blend of strength and comfort, and the warm, buttery cream wallpaper and curtains. She even loved the thick, sink-your-bare-feet-in carpet. But the best part was the fully stuffed bookshelves that Isabel had lovingly picked out for Clara. It was pleasing to have the option of climbing into one of the window seats and losing herself in a fictionalised world.
Only halfway through divesting herself of Tom’s clothes, there came a tentative knock on the bedroom door, and the soft voice of her sister called out to her. “Clara, are you in there?”
Unable to think of another course of action, and since she was still wearing Tom’s trousers, Clara dove towards the bed, darting between the covers as the door handle turned.
In walked Isabel, her oldest sister, now Lady Hurstbourne. Her normal feminine, blonde elegance, a dignified poise that Clara had always admired, had altered since Isabel was nearly nine months pregnant. She was, of course, still divinely pretty, but she certainly gave the distinct impression that she would be relieved if the baby she was carrying hurried up and arrived. Lady Hurstbourne frowned at the scrambling sight of her younger sister trying her best to adjust the blanket and sheets over her body.
