A Dangerous Man (29 page)

“Bases? What rubbish are you talking, Perth?” Acton asked.

“It’s a game they play in America, called baseball. ‘Covering your bases’ refers to protecting as many contingencies as possible.”

“Well, I still don’t know what the blazes—sorry, Mama, Miss Moreland—you mean,” Acton said.

Mercy noted his omission of her name. A small slight, inconsequential, but the cumulative effect was too much and, damn, damn, try as she might she could not control the quiver of her lower lip. Hart took three ground-eating strides to where Lord Acton stood.

“If you ever show Miss Coltrane the least amount of disrespect again, I shall see to it that you are personally and very, very physically involved in a scandal that shall have society hissing for years.”

Acton listened in open dread to the dispassionate promise and backed away, mumbling under his breath. “Didn’t mean any offense, I’m sure. Miss Coltrane, beg pardon.”

“What did he mean, ‘covering your bases’?” Annabelle persisted.

Mercy studied her a moment. “Your brother suspects that I’m not sure this is the best offer I can come up with. He is correct.”

Annabelle gasped with outrage.

“But,” Mercy continued, anger driving her now, “as I do not yet know if I have—how to say this?—a bun in the oven?” Annabelle’s hand flew
to cover her mouth. Lady Acton touched her hand to her heart. Vulgar did they think her? She would
bludgeon
them with her vulgarity—“I shall simply wait and see. If I am, ah … about to find pups? I expect I’ll make do with His Lordship here. But if I haven’t, er … swallowed a pumpkin seed? Why, then, the field is still open and I shall certainly aim higher than a mere earl. One month and I shall doubtless know if I’m to, hm … wear the bustle backward? The royal family is extensive, is it not? I’m sure I’ll have numerous opportunities. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some packing to do. I would not wish to blemish Lady Acton’s ancestral home with my presence. I will be leaving this afternoon.”

“You can’t leave, Miss Coltrane. Think of how it will look—”

“I don’t give a damn, and yes, madam, I can. And I will.” Without waiting for a reply, she rose and swept from the room.

Chapter 24

H
art bit out instructions for his sister and Acton and strode into the hall, intent on following Mercy. He looked around. She was already gone. Her very absence in the hundred-foot-long corridor confirmed his suspicions; her demeanor had been nine tenths bravado. As soon as she’d left the room she’d run. For sanctuary.

She wasn’t going to find any. Not from him. Not yet. They had to talk. When earlier this morning he’d found Annabelle closeted with Lady Acton, he’d demanded Mercy be sent for. Lady Acton had understood his intent. And though she’d obviously hated it, she been honor bound to support his proposal. Annabelle, however, had been dumbstruck.

He trotted down the hallway and up the stairs, ignoring the curious glances of the other guests. If only he had been able to cling to the notion that what he felt for Mercy was simple lust. But last
night had shattered any hopes of that. She’d ferreted out what little was left of his soul. She’d made him … 
feel
things.…

She’d told him he was not mad. She’d touched his shivering body, his face. God, she’d
looked
at him. Into him. And she hadn’t shrunk away.

His fingers clenched convulsively. Before, he’d hungered for her body—a constant state to which he’d become accustomed over the short week—but now, now he wanted the impossible. He wanted her heart.

His lips curled. How tenderly he’d demonstrated his regard. He’d fallen on her like a starving man on a feast, brutal in his rapaciousness. He’d taken her as though by forcing himself into her body he could absorb a part of her soul. And then, not content with that violation, he’d lashed her spent body to his side all night long, imprisoning her in his embrace, keeping her with him … until they’d been discovered.

It would be easy to tell himself he’d simply fallen asleep, but he knew it for a convenient lie. He hadn’t “simply fallen asleep” in eight years. No, he’d willed himself to unconsciousness. At some deep, insidious level he’d done everything in his power to bind her to him.

Because he must have her. He’d had to have her since he’d seen her across the room, since she’d recalled to him the sound of his own laughter, had seared his cold heart with her passion, had believed in him. How sweetly he’d repaid her faith, he thought as he approached her suite.

He did not pause outside. There were too many who’d crack their doors to see whether she allowed him entry and, if she refused him entry, too many witnesses to Acton’s door being kicked down.

He was amazed to find her door not only unbolted but unlatched. He entered silently, stopping as his vision adjusted to the sunlight-flooded room. He spied her sitting in front of a huge, ornate vanity. He froze.

She had unknotted her heavy chignon and was untangling the dark red hair as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. How could she be casual—how could anyone be casual—about something so exotic, so pretty?

He could not move. Unexpectedly confronted with her femininity, he was confounded by it. He stood in the shadowed doorway, oppressed and floundering in the purloined intimacy. In his entire life he had never seen a woman comb her hair.

Her fingers held the comb as delicately as a violinist would a bow. Each graceful movement, each smooth pass of the ivory teeth, each second she sat gazing heedlessly at her reflection, overwhelmed him.

She was artlessly, carelessly, exquisitely feminine. He could only watch, dumb, wrung wordless by the simple act, separated by the welling hunger—

“What?” She caught him off-guard. Her reflected gaze met his shadowed countenance in the
mirror. He moved into the light, up behind her. Their gazes tangled in the silvered glass.

“If you’ve come to apologize, I will kill you,” she said. “Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but someday, somehow, I’ll shoot you.”

Strangely, it was her very fierceness that lifted some of the darkness from him. “Then I won’t apologize,” he said, “as I have no intention of patting down your wedding dress searching for that damned pistol of yours.”

“I doubt that will be necessary.” How could she sound so calm? The blood was pounding in his ears. He wanted to sink to his knees and twist his fists in her hair and breathe in the womanly sweet-warm scent that played across her skin. Didn’t she know what she did to him?

No. She wouldn’t be staring at him so expectantly if she did. Little fool. Hadn’t he proven what he was capable of?

“Why is that?” he asked hoarsely.

“I wasn’t in my proper phase.”

“Phase.”

“Yes. You know.
Phase
. The timing. The—Don’t look at me as though you haven’t any idea what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t,” he replied honestly, watching in amazement as her face turned a bright shade of pink.

“I’m most sorry to offend,” she grated out, “and I’m sure you’ll just hitch your impressive aristocratic nose higher in the air, but I don’t know
what a
lady
calls being in season so I can only assure you I wasn’t
it
last night!”

“Aristocratic nose?” he repeated.

She sighed with exasperation. “Why is it men are incapable of dealing with the crux of a conversation?”

“You’re the one who mentioned my nose.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” she said in the tone of one capitulating to a demanding child. “Your nose; a great, bold brute of a nose it is. Most decidedly aristocratic and most decidedly it was elevated to aristocratic heights some few minutes ago. But, as I have been trying to point out, you needn’t worry about bequeathing such a magnificent specimen to my unworthy descendants, as
I do not believe I am breeding!”

“Oh.” She didn’t like his nose. He quelled the impulse to lean over her shoulder and examine it in the mirror. True, it was large but it hadn’t any unsightly crooks or—Damn and blast! How had he gone from self-castigation to dry-mouthed lust to fretting over his
nose?

Because of
her
, he thought. Because this is what she always did to him. From the moment he’d seen her, she’d harried him from the cold, dark place to which he retreated, the stronghold from which he’d attempted to hold on to his sanity. But sanity, it appeared, was better served with fire and wit and passion.

She was regarding his reflection with a rueful twist to her plush lips. Only flushed cheeks betrayed
that she was not as composed as she would have him believe.

“Oh?”
she parroted. “I would think you’d be a bit more enthusiastic over your ‘stay of execution.’ And would you kindly leave off admiring yourself in the mirror and attend to me? You
did
barge in here.”

The accusation was a lie, she thought. He’d slipped into her room like a fire-limned shadow, haunting her dreams, her thoughts.…

“Certainly there is nothing I’d like better to do than attend you.” He smiled wolfishly.

“Why are you here?”

“I know the most pressing reason for you to marry me is to legitimize any offspring we might have made last night—”

“I told you; I don’t think it is a concern.” She dropped her gaze and began toying with the silver-backed brush. He reached over her shoulder, his hand grazing her collarbone. She might as well have been naked. His touch electrified her. Even through the staid layers of wool and cotton and batiste she could feel a jolting physical awareness. He didn’t appear to even notice.

He wrested the brush from her frozen fingers. With odd hesitancy—she would swear he held his breath—he began brushing her hair. She could only stare at her hands, her own breath shallow and uneven, afraid he would stop.

What did he want? She had been so sure he had come to regretfully inform her he was withdrawing
his offer, that he would not be manipulated by Lady Acton.

“There are other matters to consider, though,” he said. His hands worked soothingly over her head, the bristles prickling her scalp before he pulled the brush firmly through each long tress.

His tenderness was hypnotizing and yet, and yet, he hadn’t said he
wanted
to marry her. “Nothing else matters,” she said.

“I know you don’t think so right now, Mercy.” His voice was soft, reasonable. “But you’re angry. And with every right to be. You are alone, vulnerable, and yet you were seduced and betrayed and now you are being driven toward a marriage you do not want. I’m amazed you haven’t used your pistol.” He smiled crookedly, and in spite of the fact that everything he said was true and damning of him, her heart felt wrung by the bleakness she glimpsed behind his calm facade.

“Don’t think I haven’t considered it,” she said gruffly to cover her confusion.

“Mercy, please listen to me. I swear I will try to act in your best interest. I will attempt to give you objective advice. There is a matter of honor at issue. I will be honest. Not only yours but mine. There are also reputations at stake, once again mine as well as yours. I know you don’t think mine is worth much, but to certain people … to my sisters … it is essential my reputation be unscathed.”

She’d expected it, so why did it hurt so damn, damn much? she thought. His hand touched her
shoulder and she jerked away. No, not kindness. Not from him. He could save his thoughtfulness for those damned sisters of his.

“How eloquent. Too bad you didn’t listen to your own advice last night. Still, I am hopeful that your sisters will somehow recover from
my
downfall. Comfort them with the assurance that I shan’t taint the Perth bloodlines.”

“I’m afraid,” he said, “that our
not
wedding will create a far greater scandal than otherwise.”

“Come now,” she said, and he closed his eyes.

Bitterness had been replete in her words. He’d never heard bitterness in her tone. Such a fine betrothal gift, he thought.

She went on. “It’s quite clear that Lady Acton and Acton and your sisters look on a union between us with the same degree of relish as they would sitting down to dine with a talking dog. So why can we not just forget it happened?”

“Could you ‘just forget’?”

Her cheeks burned and she bit down on her lip. No. She could not forget. How could she? His body over hers, his muscles slipping beneath her palms, his skin sleek with heat and sweat, the urgency of his possession, the feeling of tumultuous pleasure building toward some unseen peak …

“I will try.”

His pallor became obvious, but he did not waver. “Well, my dear, unfortunately society lacks your purpose or your will. And as for hoping it goes unnoticed—I am sure that within the week
half the guests will know where you spent last night.”

“How?”

“The chambermaid. She was with Annabelle. Belowstairs gossip quickly finds its way upstairs. No. I’m afraid the only course that will satisfy society is for us to wed.”

“I don’t give a damn for your society! And I meant what I said. Brenna will be in to pack my bags immediately. I’ve already sent for a carriage.”