Kasey Michaels - The Passion of an Angel

When he didn’t answer her facetious questions she shrugged, then held up four fingers, touching them one at a time as she spoke. “I am, my Lord Daventry, the sum total of all my parts. Part child of long-forgotten doting parents, part product of a stern and socially conscious grandmother, part victim of a half-crazed grandfather who values money and his pathetic rituals more than he does his own flesh and blood, and part sister of a devoted but frequently absent, much older brother who loved me enough to see that I’d be taken care of, but not enough to make the effort of taking care of me himself.”

Her regal demeanor evaporated even as he watched, and all at once she looked very young, and very insecure. “And, now, lastly—what do I want? I don’t know, Daventry!” she exclaimed after a moment, grinning brightly again. “Not yet. But when I do, I’ll let you know. All right?” That said, she slapped her palms against the arms of the chair, then stood, obviously ready to leave the room.

Stung by her honesty, and once more feeling sorry for her and the bizarre, almost unnatural life she had led, he called out toward her retreating back: “I convinced your grandfather to make me a solemn promise before we left him to wallow in his purgatives. I agreed to continue paying him the quarterly allowance I’d been sending to you, and he gave his solemn word that he would will you his fortune. You’ll be a rich orphan one day—one day soon, if Shadwell also ambles about in that toga of his in mid-winter.”

His words stopped her just as she got to the door, and she turned to look at him intently, her hand frozen on the tarnished brass door latch.

Compassion hastily shoved to one side and delight at his good deed forgotten, he suddenly realized the full import of what he had accomplished in his gentleman’s agreement with Shadwell MacAfee. No wonder Prudence couldn’t think of a thing to say. He had her now. She was in his debt now, just as he was bound to the promise he had made to be guardian.

They were, finally, on an even footing. His guilt over leaving her in the country, locked away at that hellhole of a farm, and his second, worse guilt—that of coveting her, seeing her as a woman to be desired rather than a responsibility to be discharged—was no more.

It had been just this moment replaced by the sure knowledge that he had rescued her from that hellhole, and was about to launch her into society—into, he hoped, a quick, advantageous marriage with the promise of a fortune as an added fillip to the dowry he would bestow on her.

He had no reason to drink, to chastise himself. The scales he had been seeing in his mind, scales so recently tipped in favor of this comely ragamuffin, had just evened out, balanced by his maturity, his sense of duty, his intelligent, measured approach to what could, if he had let it, have disintegrated into a never-ending battle of wills.

He was, at last, established as her guardian. She was, at last, firmly in the position of grateful ward.

Though perhaps, as Prudence’s next words, dipped in vitriol and delivered in sharp, staccato jabs, those scales were still sadly out of kilter.

“You know, Daventry,” she said, shaking her head, “just when I thought you and I had come to some sort of agreement, just when I thought I could begin to be open with you, explain myself to you, prepare you, you went and proved to me that you have no understanding at all. None. But then, that’s why my brother picked you, isn’t it? You’re just the sort of honest, responsible, upstanding, gullible gentleman who believes in the value of promises, aren’t you? And I hate you for making me feel sorry for you!”

And with that, the enigma, the chameleon that was Angel MacAfee was gone, the door left open behind her, not because she had forgotten to close it, Banning was sure, but because he had asked her to shut it, and she wasn’t about to do anything he asked of her, required of her. Not, at least, without a fight.

Mostly, she wasn’t going to leave his mind. Not when he could close his eyes and still see her as she roused, warm, tousled, and eminently touchable, from her bed.

Not when the memory of the way she had walked toward him, taunting him with her eyes as she slid open the buttons of her gown, still caused his throat to grow dry, proving to him that he was not above lusting after her, even while knowing that she was too young, too innocent, too unsuitable, too alien to the image of the woman he would choose as his wife.

Not when, even with his eyes open and his head reasonably clear, he could still see her sitting in this room, drinking and lounging with the assured nonchalance of an equal, yet never letting him forget that she was an exciting, vibrant, desirable, unconquerable creature of unending contradictions.

Lastly, he would never forget, waking or sleeping, that she was his ward, his sworn responsibility, and therefore totally beyond his reach.

She pitied him. Even as she teased him, deliberately tormented him, she still pitied him, as if she were the adult and he the child. Perhaps she even despised him, believing him to be simple beyond belief in having put credence into Shadwell’s assurances as to the disposition of his wealth.

With the clear eyes of youth, she seemed to see all the vices, lies, and cynicism of the ages, making him the young one, the naive one. Still he wondered to himself why he seemed to lamentably unknowing to her when he was accustomed to believing himself a mature man of the world.

Perhaps she’s right, Banning thought, pushing the cork back into the wine bottle. All right. It didn’t seem that farfetched. Perhaps Shadwell wasn’t going to live up to his side of their agreement. Prudence must know her grandfather better than he did, having lived with him, witnessed his crushing economies in the name of fortune firsthand.

The man was an abomination, a miserable excuse for a human being, consumed by his eccentric rituals and a mad desire to amass wealth at the expense of his estate, his grandchildren, his own creature comforts.

But Shadwell had promised, and Banning knew that he had given his promise in return. And that, in Prudence’s mind, had branded him as an irredeemable fool.

What had she said to him earlier, flinging the words at him? Oh yes. He remembered now. Don’t blame me for the promises you made.

And he had been making a plethora of promises in recent years.

He had promised her brother that he would care for his “angel.”

He had promised his sister he would fetch that same unwanted ward to Mayfair where she could mold her into a simpering, giggling, die-away debutante.

He had promised Shadwell MacAfee a quarterly allowance against the fortune Prudence deserved.

He had promised his father that he would put away the silliness of youth when it came time to take on the family title, and would behave with the circumspection and sobriety befitting that title.

He had promised a multitude of things to people he could neither contact nor refuse.

But the real trick of the thing, the promise he would find most difficult to keep, was the one he made now to himself late on this quiet night in Epsom—his personal vow to stay as removed from the life of Prudence MacAfee as possible. To banish the image of this obstinate, headstrong, willful, profane, smudged-face “angel” from his mind, and—if he was very, very lucky—from even the fringes of his heart….

I stood

Among them, but not of them; in a shroud

Of thoughts which were not their thoughts.

George Noel Gordon,

Lord Byron

IT WAS JUST COMING ON TO dusk when Daventry’s coach entered the city, Miss Prentice snoring rather loudly in the shadows after being pushed into a corner by Rexford, who had squealed in disgust when the slumbering woman’s angular body had listed in his direction, her wide-brimmed purple bonnet slamming into the bridge of his nose.