Regency High Society Vol 2: Sparhawk's Lady / The Earl's Intended Wife / Lord Calthorpe's Promise / The Society Catch. Miranda Jarrett

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СКАЧАТЬ along. Already smiling for the benefit of the others, she looked past her daughter to scan the crowd of people. “It’s too late for begging. The thing is done. You must prosper on your beauty and youth alone, Caroline, and you’d best pray that’s enough for Sir Harry.”

      With her own eyes downcast, Caroline sensed the stares of the others, felt their curiosity closing in on her like a heavy cloak. If her mother’s fingers had not dug so deeply into her arm she would have turned and fled. But there’d be no escape now. Though she was young, she wasn’t a fool. The moment she’d come into this room, her innocence and her good name were irrevocably gone. As her mother said, the thing was done, and Caroline’s fear settled into an icy dread. This night would be the worst of her life, and she prayed for the strength to survive it.

      Beside her, Miriam called greetings to her friends in a voice far sweeter than any she’d ever used with her daughter, a voice laced with gaiety and the promise of love.

       Oh, Mama, if only you’d shown that love to me…

      “So this is your prize chit, eh?” said the man eagerly, and Caroline’s heart froze. “By God, Miriam, but she’s a pretty piece, even finer than you claimed! Come now, missy, don’t be shy. Let’s have a proper look at you.”

      Roughly he seized her chin to turn her face up toward his and forced Caroline to meet his gaze. He was old, far older than she’d expected, his face florid and lined, his eyes nearly buried in the fleshiness of his cheeks, and when he smiled, his remaining teeth stained yellow from tobacco, the stench from his breath nearly made her faint. Powder from his old-fashioned wig sifted down onto his sloping, velvet-covered shoulders, and though his clothing was costly, no tailor in London could disguise the corpulence that swelled his waistcoat. This was the man she’d been sold to; this was the man whose bed she was to share, the man to whom she must willingly give her body.

      Dear Lord help her, she couldn’t do it, not with him. She couldn’t do it. With a little sob she jerked free and backed away, her hand over her mouth.

      Sir Harry was displeased, and so was her mother. “Maidenly fears, my lord, that’s all,” said Miriam quickly as she put her hands around her daughter’s shoulders, a show of maternal concern that also kept Caroline from retreating further. “I told you she’s only a fortnight from the country.”

      “Only a fortnight, eh?” The greedy lust in his eyes sickened Caroline. “Then you swear she’s still a virgin?”

      “Never touched by any man, my lord,” said her mother, fighting back a cough. “Not even kissed.”

      “Then come with me, little maid,” he said with a satisfied leer, “and I’ll teach you all you need to know.” His arm snaked around Caroline’s waist and pulled her close. Twisting frantically against his arm, she caught one final look of her mother, standing alone with the blood-soaked handkerchief pressed over her mouth, the tall plume in her hair nodding gently over her carefully expressionless face.

       Oh, Mama…

      The music continued, the conversations around them never paused, as Sir Harry pulled Caroline, stumbling across the floor toward the doors that opened to the garden. Dear Lord, the garden: he meant to be alone with her already. He wouldn’t even wait until they’d returned to his house. She balked, catching the heel of her shoe in her skirts, and with a little cry pitched forward.

      Swearing, he jerked her back to her feet. “Come along, you little hussy. Spirit in a woman’s one thing, but outright defiance is quite another. Unless that’s your game, eh? You play the wicked lass, and I’ll correct you?”

      Shaking her head, Caroline stared at him with desperate bewilderment. “No, sir, forgive me, I never meant to play any games on you!”

      His small eyes narrowed as he suddenly twisted her wrist so sharply that she yelped with pain. “On me or under me, we’ll try them all in time, won’t we, my little cat?”

      “Release the lady, Wrightsman,” said a mild voice behind them, and, her heart still pounding with fear, Caroline turned to see her defender. He didn’t look like a hero—thin and ungainly as a crane in a plain brown silk coat, his gray-streaked hair cropped short in monastic severity—but in Caroline’s eyes he was already worthy of a white horse. “I don’t believe she wishes to keep your company any longer.”

      “What she wishes doesn’t matter, Byfield,” growled Sir Harry. “She’s Merry Miriam’s daughter, and I’ve bought her services from Miriam herself.”

      The gray-haired man frowned. “Her own mother sold her to you?”

      “Aye, and drove a harder bargain than any moneylender,” said Sir Harry sourly. “I’ll have you know I’ve paid a king’s ransom for this little whore’s maidenhead.”

      “If she still has a maidenhead, then she’s hardly a whore,” reasoned Byfield. “For that matter, to my eye she looks too young for any sort of venal activity. Since when have your preferences turned to children, Wrightsman?”

      Sir Harry snorted. “Since Christmas week in Bath with that infernal actress. Left me with the French pox, damn her eyes! Even an old puritan like you must know the only real cure comes from lying with a virgin, and that means the girl’s bound to be young. How else can a man be certain the chit’s what she claims?”

      Incredulous, Byfield stared down his nose at the other man. “You would knowingly ruin the poor girl that way? Pox her in the empty hope of curing yourself?”

      “She’ll be paid well enough for her trouble, you can be sure.”

      “I don’t care what you gave that sorry excuse for a mother, Wrightsman. I won’t stand by and let you do this. Come round to my banker in the morning and you shall have double what you paid.”

      “Damn your interference, Byfield, it’s the girl I want, not the money!”

      “Triple it, then, and find yourself a new physician instead. Who can put a price on an innocent’s soul?” His smile grave, the sixth Earl of Byfield held out his hand to Caroline. “Here, child. You’re coming home with me, and I swear no one shall ever touch you against your will again.”

      And at last Caroline wept.

       Chapter One

      April 1803

      He would not be afraid.

      Jeremiah took a deep breath and rested his hand over the open top of the lantern’s globe, sealing the candle and its flame within beneath his palm. As the air was exhausted, the flame slowly began to flicker and dim, and the shadows in the bedchamber grew darker, deeper, closing in on Jeremiah as the small light faded. He could feel his heart pounding in his breast, his blood racing, every muscle tensing to run and escape the blind, irrational panic that was swallowing him as completely as the night itself. The little flame twisted one final time and guttered out, leaving only the smoking spark on the wick and the endless, silent, eternal blackness.

      With a choking sound deep in his throat, Jeremiah lifted his hand, his eyes desperately intent on the tiny glowing spark. His breath tight in his chest, he willed it back to life, struggling to concentrate on this last dot of light as the only way to fight the blind СКАЧАТЬ