Although something peculiar in the tone of his voice told her that he wasn’t at all happy about that. Was Carlisle regretting his decision to find her a husband?
She shook her head. “And fleeing just as quickly when they learn that I have no dowry and that Papa will never allow a son-in-law into the company.” If she had her way, enough of tonight’s gentlemen would call on her in the days to come to spread that bit of news throughout the ton. By the end of the fortnight, not one gentleman would be daft enough to pursue her, and August would arrive without a single suitor in sight. Perfect.
“You underestimate your worth,” he assured her, his gaze traveling deliberately over her. His blue eyes shined like the devil’s own in the flickering light of the chandeliers.
Her pulse jumped in foolish response. “You’re mistaken,” she answered as icily as she could manage, although her words infuriatingly came out sounding more like a purr than a setdown. “No gentleman will want me when he discovers that I’ll enter marriage as penniless as a beggar.”
“A woman who looks the way you do, with a sharp mind that’s a constant challenge…” His deep voice swirled through her and raised goose bumps across her skin. “You’re an unpredictable beauty who keeps a man on his toes,” he murmured, his dark gaze dropping to her mouth. “They’ll certainly want you.”
As he stared at her, a wolfish gleam lit his eyes. Oh, how she remembered that look! She’d seen it before…when he’d pushed her against the wall and plundered her mouth, as if to devour her one breath-stealing kiss at a time.
“Wanting and having are two very different things,” she reminded him, unable to keep the trembling from her voice. She’d learned that lesson the hard way when her father refused to let her work with him. But now, with every moment she spent in Carlisle’s presence, she was beginning to realize so much more about the difference. “What do you want from me, Carlisle?”
He froze. Only a heartbeat, not long enough that anyone else would have noticed—but Mariah did. Just as she noticed the heated look that darkened his face. One that made her tremble.
“I want you to realize that your father and I have only the best intentions for you,” he answered, yet she had the distinct impression that he’d wanted to say something very different but censored himself. “That fighting against us will come to no good.”
“I will not give up.” She wouldn’t—couldn’t—surrender her dream.
“You should,” he countered firmly, pushing himself away from the doorframe and once more taking her arm to walk on. But she refused to go.
Despite the low warning licking at the backs of her knees that she was poking a stick at a tiger, she was spurred on by her anger. Both at him and at herself for being drawn so inexplicably to such a coldhearted devil, to the tingles of his casual touches and the heat of his not-so-casual kisses.
“What truly frustrates you, Carlisle?” She slowly moved her arm away from him. But because he didn’t drop his hand away, he caressed all the way down her forearm and sparked the unsettling sensation of his fingers continuing to caress her long after she’d shifted away. “That I’m doing exactly what any young lady should do to find a husband?” Her voice lowered to a breathless whisper. “Or the knowledge that it ultimately won’t work?”
Anger instantly lit his eyes with a gleam so intense that they glowed like brimstone. “Do not play games with me, Mariah,” he warned, his voice more frightening for all its cold control.
“Then call off this foolish season.” She smiled as if they were discussing nothing more innocuous than the weather.
“You know I won’t do that,” he bit out.
She countered acerbically, “And you know you won’t win.”
Then she sauntered away, not caring that she’d given him a public cut right there in Baron Gantry’s music room. The beast deserved far more than that!
As she walked away, Mariah felt the heat of his furious gaze on her. She’d successfully revealed to him tonight what kind of opponent he had in her. One who would never admit defeat.
Robert Carlisle might have declared war, but victory would be hers.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Four Aggravating Days Later
Please, Uncle Robert?” Clara looked up at him beseechingly through nine-year-old eyes, but the tug at his heart told him that she’d already mastered the womanly skill of wrapping men around her finger. When she finally became old enough to debut, the gentlemen of the ton wouldn’t stand a chance of resisting her. “Daisy’s all alone and frightened.”
As if on cue, the kitten gave a heartrending cry from the chestnut tree in the far corner of the garden, where it had gotten itself stuck by not having enough sense to use its claws to climb down. Clara tugged at his jacket sleeve to convince him to help.
“Sweeting, she’s a cat,” he tried to explain logically. “If she can climb up, she’ll eventually climb back down.”
Clara let out a soft sob. “Please, Uncle Robert!”
His shoulders sagged. Apparently, logic didn’t work on nine-year-old girls.
“Yes,” a soft voice called out with amusement, and he glanced down the garden path to see Mariah strolling toward them. She reached Clara and knelt down to pull the girl into her arms to comfort her. “Please, Uncle Robert.”
He clenched his jaw. Leave it to the Hellion to sneak away from the tea his sister, Josephine, was hosting in the drawing room at Audley House and make a beeline to him to cause trouble. He’d come out into the garden to enjoy the air—and to escape the women, most of whom seemed to think he needed to meet one of their unmarried female relations—only to be assailed by two of their kind.
“I was just explaining to Clara that the kitten will come down when it’s ready,” he said, pointing to the small puff of white fur clinging to one of the high boughs.
His niece gave a hiccupping sob and wrapped her arms around Mariah’s neck, turning away from him to focus all her charms on her new ally. “Daisy’s just a baby, and she’s frightened,” Clara choked out softly, in that I-am-a-helpless-female-who-needs-a-hero voice she’d practiced to perfection on all three of her uncles since Josie and Chesney adopted her shortly after they married. All golden curls and big blue eyes, she’d learned quickly how to manipulate the three men to get whatever she wanted.
Then her mouth hardened in cold accusation. “But Uncle Robert wants to leave her up there!”
He blinked. Apparently, he and his brothers had created a monster.
“It’s a cat,” he reminded them with exasperation. “They climb trees. It’s what they do.”
Mariah narrowed her eyes on him in disapproval. Apparently, logic didn’t work on twenty-five-year-old hellions, either.
She tucked one of Clara’s curls behind her ear. “Well, it seems that Daisy’s gotten herself into quite the predicament.”
“Yes.” Clara sighed, the long-suffering sound of a mother whose child often misbehaved.
“Have you tried calling to her?”
She nodded.
“What about tempting her with a treat?”
Another nod, this time accompanied by a finger pointing at a saucer of cream on the grass beneath the tree.
“I see.” Mariah commented gravely, “She must be very stuck, then.”
He heaved out a breath of aggravation. “Oh, for Lucif—”
“Uncle Robert,” Mariah interrupted sharply, shooting him a warning look at the curse he was about to unthinkingly spit out in front of his young niece. Then she smiled, one that curled forebodingly down his spine. “It seems the only way to save Daisy is for you to climb up after her.”
Aware that his niece was listening, he forced a smile and said as sweetly as possible, “You really expect me to climb a tree to rescue a cat?”
“Saving a damsel in distress seems a perfectly heroic thing for a dashing gentleman to do,” she pointed out ingenuously.
Clara nodded her agreement with a loud sniff.
His smile tightened. “It’s a cat. With claws. Twenty feet in the air.”