Vanquished Page 8

  Callie drifted over to her desk where she spent the next few minutes perusing the articles recounting the recent rally and her last night's speech. Reading on, she felt her face flushing, not with embarrassment this time but anger. They'd been skewered by the London Times, the Globe, and the St. James's Gazette, but as they were staunchly Conservative publications, she'd half-expected that. It was the lukewarm coverage in the Liberal Westminster Gazette that really set her blood to boiling. A pity Hadrian St. Claire wasn't about now. Were he inclined to embroil them in one of the sparring matches he seemed to thrive on, she would have been more than ready to take him on.

  Slapping her gloves down on the desk's scarred surface, she let out an unladylike oath. "Bloody, bloody, bloody hell!"

  Coming up beside her, Harriet waited for the storm to settle before reaching out to take her coat. "How did it go with the photographer chap this morning?"

  Callie hesitated. Her session a deux with Hadrian St. Claire had been the most stimulating few hours she'd spent in a long while, but she could hardly say so. "It seems I'm not a terribly good portraiture subject, otherwise we might have finished today."

  Harriet turned to hang her coat on the rack by the door. "I still think you should have taken someone along with you."

  In no mood to be criticized, Callie reached up to unpin her hat. "I fail to see what taking two people away from our work would have accomplished when there's so very much of it to be done. At any rate, I'm too old to require a chaperone. I've been on the shelf for years." Glancing back at the conference table where the women had resumed working, she dropped her voice to a low whisper and added, "Mr. St. Claire is a professional. He photographs any number of respectable ladies, and I can't think he ravishes them all."

  True enough and yet his slightest touch while posing her had rendered a rush of sexual heat so hot, so scalding, she'd walked back to the office rather than taking a hansom, glad of the bracing winter air.

  Harriet turned back to her, looking less than convinced. "I only hope that is so. With a man like that, one never knows."

  Declining to press what precisely Harriet meant by "a man like that," Callie said, "Have no worries, I can more than manage Hadrian St. Claire."

  What she didn't say, indeed would have dissolved with shame to admit, was that the person most in need of managing was herself.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "Whether we consider that women ought to be especially devoted to what is beautiful or to what is good, there is much work in the interests of either to be done in politics; and if the ladies were only to take schools, workhouses, public buildings, parks, gardens, and picture galleries under their special protection, and try to send to Parliament a few members who would work efficiently at such subjects, the rest of the community would have cause to be glad of their help . . ."

  --HELEN TAYLOR, The Claim of Englishwomen to the Suffrage Constitutionally Considered, 1867

  Setting up in Parliament Square, Hadrian congratulated himself that moving his second session with Caledonia out into the open was nothing short of brilliant. The air was cold, more brisk rather than bitter; the sunshine, though tepid, sufficed to keep the damp at bay. And of course the square was but a short stroll from his studio, a critical consideration given that seduction was his game. The spoiler was that he must use passion as a weapon to destroy, to vanquish as Dandridge put it. Were it not for that, he couldn't have rushed Caledonia Rivers back to his rented rooms quickly enough. "Mr. St. Claire, hullo there."

  He finished unfolding the legs of his tripod and looked up to find his quarry hailing him from the other side of the park. Watching her approach, he found himself admiring the manner in which she carried herself. Shoulders back, spine straight, steps neither mincing nor hurried but well, purposive. How she would move once he got her out of those oh so cumbersome clothes and into his bed was a delicious discovery waiting to be made. The prospect alone set his groin to aching.

  "Good day." Reaching him, she extended her gloved hand as a man might, an idiosyncrasy he was coming to view with a certain degree of fondness.

  "It is, isn't it?" He enfolded her slender hand in his, holding on a second or two longer than was strictly necessary.

  She had on another of her hideous hats, but of course he'd known she would. A few wisps of hair had escaped and standing in full-on sunshine as she was, he saw that what had looked to be near black indoors was shaded with strands of rich mahogany. Even the woman's damnable hair color was complex, confounding, and not exactly as it appeared at first glance.

  Remembering himself, he pointed to the statue of the great American president and emancipator, Abraham Lincoln; along with being situated in a fortuitous spot of sunlight, the obvious parallel appealed to him. "I thought we might begin by standing you over there."

  "Right, then." She walked over to the bronze and turned about, arms held out at her sides as if to embrace the day in all its glory. "Like this?"

  "Let's have a look, shall we?" He slipped beneath the camera cloth and brought the aperture of the lens to focus on her head and shoulders.

  Hers wasn't, strictly speaking, a beautiful face, at least not in a classical sense of strict symmetry and form, but there was beauty in it, a subtlety, a nuance, a passion that spoke to his artist's soul. He especially fancied her chin, rather too square for fashion but softened by that slight and rather beguiling cleft. The other day in his studio when she'd lifted it to dress him down, he'd imagined putting his thumb there, just there, and gently drawing her face upward so their mouths might meet.

  "I don't suppose I could persuade you to part with the hat?" he called out though it was a foolish question. He well knew what her answer would be.

  She responded with the anticipated shake of her head. "It is winter, Mr. St. Claire."

  Ah, well, it was worth a try. At least she'd left off the spectacles. That was something, he supposed. "In that case, do pull back the veil . . . yes, that's the way, only a bit more like . . ."

  He ducked out from behind the camera and came toward her. Reaching out, he smoothed down the one side of the netting that had lifted with the wind and caught a whiff of some delectable scent, rosewater and cinnamon, or so he thought. Just a light touch, he fancied, and likely dabbed behind the shell of that delectable ear. It took only a handful of seconds for him to pin the veil back in place and yet standing close to her as he was, it was all the time needed to make him hard.

  He stepped back, grateful for the concealing folds of his overcoat. "There, much better now. You've beautiful eyes as I've said before. It's a pity to hide them."

  She arched a brow. "You're a master of flattery, are you not?"

  Annoyed, he turned and walked back over to his camera. Never in his life had he met a woman so averse to compliments. Over his shoulder, he tossed off, "The customary response to a compliment is thank you. You might try it sometime."

  She opened her mouth to reply when children's laughter had her turning away toward a trio of small boys kicking about a rugby ball. Hadrian had noticed them earlier when he'd arrived to set up but other than the proximity of their play and its potential for disruption he hadn't given them much thought. But now he looked back at Caledonia. Judging from her rapt expression and soft smile, she must genuinely like children--yet another paradox since it seemed she'd chosen not to have any of her own.

  The ball bounding between them caught the leg of the tripod, catching him off-guard and nearly knocking the camera to the ground. For a split second, the sight and sound of a shattering camera lens ripped through his memory, resurrecting a sharp, primitive pain.

  One of the boys rushed up to Caledonia, damp blond hair sticking to his flushed cherub's cheeks. "Crikey, miss, I'm that sorry. We didn't mean it. We was only playing."

  Hadrian whirled to confront the pintsized offender. "Mind what you're about, you little bugger," he shouted, rather louder than he ought, although already the anger was ebbing, leaving in its wake the familiar soul-sinking emptiness.
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  The boy stopped in his tracks. Bottom lip trembling, he backed up to Caledonia just as his two mates approached. The other two boys took one look at Hadrian and halted.

  Over the top of the child's towhead, Caledonia sent Hadrian a scorching look. "Really, Mr. St. Claire, it was an accident. They were only having a bit of fun, weren't you lads?"

  The trio nodded in unison. A tall, lanky boy in a stocking cap and corded trousers patched at the knees chanced a step forward to scoop up the ball. Adam's apple bobbing, he swallowed and said, "We didn't mean no 'arm, sir, honest we didn't." He nodded to the blond-haired boy, the smallest of the lot, on whose thin shoulder Caledonia's gloved hand now rested. "Ned 'ere isn't a very good kicker is all."

  "Oliver Tuttle, you take that back or else." Fear apparently forgotten in the need to uphold masculine pride, the boy, Ned, deserted his protector's side and took a step forward, hands fisted.

  "Or else what?" Oliver, a good head taller, approached until the pair was all but butting heads.

  The corners of Caledonia's mouth curled upward, the sight of which stalled the sharp reply Hadrian had been about to make. "I'm a crack punter or at least I used to be. Maybe I could give you lads some pointers?" Her warm-eyed gaze encompassed the group.

  Ned's eyes widened to saucers. "But . . . you're a girl."

  Oliver elbowed him in the ribs. "She's a lady, idiot."

  Her smile broadened to a full-on grin that revealed the pretty dimple Hadrian had so far seen only once before, on their very first meeting. "I may be a girl but it so happens I grew up playing a great many rough and tumble games girls are not always encouraged to play." She reached out for the ball, and Oliver reluctantly surrendered it.

  Aware that he'd become an onlooker to the scene, Hadrian backed up to his camera. Slipping beneath the cover, he leaned in to frame his shot.

  Blissfully oblivious to his scrutiny, Caledonia raised the ball high above her head, and then dropped it. Catching it neatly atop her right foot, she kicked upward. The ball shot skyward, a perfect punt, its release coinciding with a sharp blast of wind. Like a stiff breeze to a ship's sail, the bluster caught beneath her skirts, showing a goodly portion of stocking-clad leg from trim ankle to shapely knee.

  Peering through his camera's viewer, Hadrian froze. All he need do was flex one finger and he would have, if not the damning photograph Dandridge demanded, a very promising start toward it. And yet he kept his hands still, letting the moment pass.

  She tugged down her skirt just as little Ned, hand tented above his eyes, stared across the square to where the ball landed on the ground, a tiny dot. Swinging back around to Callie he exclaimed, "Gorm, you're . . . good."

  Caledonia laughed. "I shall take that as a compliment. I used to be a fair hand at cricket, too, though I'm a better batter than sprinter--having to run in skirts puts girls at a decided disadvantage," she added with a wink.

  The two older boys trotted off to retrieve their ball, but Ned hung back. "Girl or not, you can play on my team anytime," he lisped, lifting worshipful eyes to Caledonia's face. He shuffled away and then stopped, turned about, and launched himself at her skirts, arms outstretched in a bear hug.

  "Thank you, sweeting. That is by far the nicest thing anyone has said to me in quite sometime."

  Blinking back tears, she ruffled his hair and bid him go and join his friends. With a final squeeze, the child sped off. She watched after him for a long moment, her wistful expression pulling at Hadrian's heart, the sadness in her profile a palpable thing, something he felt echoed in the aching emptiness of his own heart.

  "You like children, don't you?" It wasn't really a question so much as something to say, a reason to breach the silence.

  As if suddenly remembering him, she turned back. "Yes. Does that surprise you?"

  "A little," he admitted, leaning forward to focus the lens on her eyes.

  Wasn't it the American philosopher, Mr. Thoreau, who'd said the eyes are the window to the soul? If that were even half the truth, Caledonia Rivers must have a beautiful soul indeed. A less cautious man might find himself falling headfirst into those smoky green pools, so earnest and so sad.

  "Because motherhood is womankind's sacred calling, no doubt?" The edge to her tone told him that he'd struck a nerve, that on some level she was hurting.

  He thought of his mother, who'd spent half her time drunk on gin and the other half spreading her legs for any man with the requisite quid to spend. If motherhood had been her calling, sacred or otherwise, she'd hid it well.

  Slipping out from under the cover, he shook his head. "Watching you with that lot, I couldn't help thinking what a wonderful mother you'd make."

  She dropped her gaze to the frozen ground. "I rather think it's a bit late for a family. I'm coming on thirty." She gave up her age as one might reveal a dirty secret or at least something of which to be more than a little ashamed.

  "That's not so very old."

  Looking off into the distance, she shook her head. "A family would be a distraction if not an outright obstacle to continuing my work. It wouldn't be fair to anyone, the children especially."

  The cold-blooded practicality of her response grated on him, perhaps because his own mother had made him feel nothing but a nuisance. "Ah, the noble cause for which no sacrifice is too great."

  He'd anticipated another of her sharp-tongued retorts but instead she regarded him for a long, quiet moment before asking, "What of you, Mr. St. Claire? There must be something you care about, something for which you'd sacrifice almost anything?"

  Her assumption that he harbored some innate nobility was so far off the mark he was moved to laugh. Surely those canny eyes of hers could see through him to who and what he really was?

  He made a point of taking out his handkerchief and using it to dust his camera's lens. "Sorry to disappoint but I'm afraid my own survival consumes my every selfish waking moment."

  "There must be something or someone you care for?"

  Her steady-on gaze had him scouring his brain. Gavin and Rourke were more blood brothers than friends; certainly the closest he had to family. He cared for Sally, too, though the boyhood ardor he'd felt for her long ago had faded to friendship. Beyond that . . .

  "There was a time when I fancied myself a future Roger Fenton, but that was a long time ago." Catching her questioning look, he added, "Fenton was the photographer who documented the Crimean War; but my idea was to make a photographic record of the poverty in England, London particularly."

  He didn't miss how her eyes lit up. God, those eyes, they had a way of catching at the light, at a man's heart, at his heart, as no others ever had. "You still could, couldn't you?"

  He shrugged and tucked the handkerchief back in his pocket. "Commissioned work pays, charity doesn't. At any rate, the world has martyrs aplenty. We self-interested sorts exist to keep things in balance."

  She shook her head, looking not so much angry as disappointed, as though he were a hopeless case indeed. "Why is it I suspect you are baiting me?"

  He grinned. "Why, Miss Rivers--or Caledonia, if I may be so bold--I'm sure I cannot say."

  "If you must call me by my given name, call me Callie. The only time I am called Caledonia is when I've got myself into mischief of some sort."

  She smiled then, a soft, easy smile that had him going undercover again, not because capturing the image would bring him any closer to bedding her but because for whatever reason he wanted to hold this moment for all time.

  "Very well, then, Callie it is. Should you mean to go on plumbing the depths of my black-hearted soul, best call me Hadrian."

  He pulled the striking cord. A muffled pop confirmed that her image, that smile, was embedded on the proving plate, part of history's record, theirs at least.

  Straightening, he looked over the top of the camera and asked, "So tell me, Callie, what think your parents of your determination to remain husbandless and childless? Or do you have siblings sufficient to keep the family nurseries stocked?"r />
  It was as if a veil had fallen over her face. Looking not so much at him as through him, she answered, "I have an older brother I haven't seen in years. He and his wife have twins, both boys, a fact that pleases my parents enormously-- carrying on the family name and all that."

  "What are your parents like?"

  She paused a moment before answering. "Staid, conventional. Father is the penultimate pater familia. Mother runs the household with an iron fist, yet wouldn't dream of picking up a newspaper and forming an opinion of her own. Aside from the occasional holiday, our contact is limited to correspondence, sketchy at best. I suppose it's fair to say my family doesn't approve of me." She kept her tone matter-of-fact, and yet he sensed the state of affairs caused her some degree of pain.

  "It's their loss, I'm sure," he said not because he was working to woo her but because, quite simply, he felt it must be true.

  "What of you? Do you have family here in London?"

  He shook his head, marveling at how neatly she'd managed to turn the tables on him yet again. Sticking to the story he and Gavin had come up with when he'd resurfaced in London the year before, he said, "I'm an only child."

  True enough, at least so far as he knew, though as a boy, he'd dreamt of having a brother just as he'd dreamt of living in the country. It wasn't until he'd left London and his past behind and made a fresh start at Roxbury House that he'd come close to realizing either dream.

  "An only child and a boy at that, you must have found yourself fawned over by a great number of aunts and uncles and grandparents."

  The happy family portrait she was painting was such a stark and cruel contrast to the circumstances of his actual upbringing that he felt the old buried bitterness rising up. "Hardly. My mother was a . . . widow actually." He thought of the other women who'd worked in Madame Dottie's, Sally especially, and for whatever reason was moved to embellish, "I had a number of aunts who spoiled me after a fashion. After Mum--Mother--died, I lived in an orphanage for a while."