A Little More Scandal (4 page)

Six

Catrin watched the stooped, officious man walk down the sun-drenched lane until he turned a corner. She stayed in that fixed position. Her neck felt soldered in place. Breathe in. Breathe out. A breeze from the north danced through the tree boughs and toyed with the wide ribbon tied below her chin. The ice beneath her fingernails certainly had not been born of the summer heat.

She had been right to suspect Mr. Christie, perhaps because he presented so much without artifice—the blunt, bullying strength of body and conviction. He was able to fool men with his lies, and maybe even other women, but she had registered his moment of hesitation like a tickle behind her ear. He
did
seek her story.

“Miss Jones. I was not expecting you.”

“Clearly.” He stood two steps up, which only added to his capacity to intimidate. To eliminate the artificial advantage, she climbed to meet him toe to toe. “Are you going to invite me inside? I believe we have much to say to one another.”

“You could say it here. I doubt our surroundings will alter the conversation to come.”

She scowled. “Likely not. But the point remains, Mr. Christie, that I would rather keep my concerns private. That’s been the issue all along.”

With a little shove of her shoulder against his upper arm—he moved not an inch—Catrin pushed past. The foyer was decorated with lovely golden wallpaper flecked through with silver threads that created a repeating floral pattern. Nothing too garish. But not to be forgotten, either. That seemed to be the theme of the décor: just enough wealth on display, without the mistakes many nouveau riche made in shouting their success to the world.

Or so she had heard. What Catrin knew of the finer things had been gleaned from the likes of Lady Julia. She’d had the privilege of a veritable summer-long tutorial on how to avoid appearing to be a social aspirant. They were generous in thinking she harbored no such ambitions. Or perhaps Lady Julia and her friends wanted to ensure that future balls, dinner parties, and cups of high tea were not without a topic of gossip. Namely, Catrin.

Her pride was none so fragile as to need everyone to speak well of her. Choosing to become a nurse had already earned speculation enough regarding her morals to fill encyclopedic volumes. But any unpleasantness would be better endured knowing that such a beautiful home awaited her. Safety and security. A base from which she could live as she wished.

Only Mr. Christie’s deception meant he was no longer an option.

He led her down a corridor. Delicate sconces lined the walk, as did serene landscapes and the occasional decorative mirror. The space was not so austere as to be unfriendly. In fact, it was appointed with charming collectibles. Yet neither did it reflect a soul she recognized. Despite knowing so little about him, Catrin could not imagine William Christie selecting any of the pieces. Too . . . finicky.

“This way.” His voice was a sleek, rolling thundercloud. He opened a door and ushered her into his office.

Catrin caught her breath. Now this . . . this she recognized.

Lined floor to ceiling with heavy bookcases made of a dark wood, maybe mahogany, the office was a bastion of all things robust and masculine. Supple oxblood leather upholstered the chairs. A heavy wrought-iron lamp hung from the ceiling, directly over an absolutely massive desk. On the wall behind the desk was displayed a framed map of Scotland as its borders had existed under Robert the Bruce—a blatant show of Scottish pride in the middle of London.

She wondered how men such as Lymon held their tempers, or their nerve, when confronting William within such a domain. It suited him so well that she shivered when stepping inside. If ever a tall, thickly muscled, raw-boned Scotsman had staked a base of operations, this was the ideal.

He walked past and leaned against the dark, highly polished desk. Catrin noticed a slight curve to his shoulders. She dared not think he appeared chagrined, yet his posture was not as confident as it had been in Lord Stalton’s parlor.

“Trust you,” she said. “I believe those were among the final words you produced when we last spoke privately.”

“Yes.”

“You lied to me.” Amazing that her voice remained so calm despite the fiery sense of betrayal thrumming behind her breast. The walk down the hall had been a mere distraction—a calm before the storm she readied to release. “You looked me square in the face, proposed courtship, and
lied
.”

He crossed sturdy arms over his chest and propped one ankle atop the other. Chin down, he looked at her from beneath bronze eyelashes. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I have a standing arrangement with Mr. Lymon regarding the story of your survival.”

As William detailed the arrangements, including how they would affect his railroading ambitions, Catrin sat in one of the leather chairs. The deep maroon leather nearly matched her second-best gown. That she owned only two gowns also made it her worst, but she disliked such defeatist thoughts. If the ocean had not the strength to swallow her whole, mere fashion would not finish the deed.

A curious numbness began to replace her anger, perhaps because he radiated mere calm. Only the stark facts of his enterprise, in which she figured as one of many cogs. Had he lied again, or had he attempted flattery or a slick recovery, she would’ve ended the appointment without hesitation.

She watched the movement of his mouth. That deep Scots brogue should’ve been banned by prestigious lawmakers and outlawed in international treaties. He was simply too gruff, too plainly charming. Catrin found herself drawn, pulled, gathered into his sphere. Was that how he succeeded where so many men failed? He possessed some intangibility that made people want to stand beside him, as if his winner-take-all attitude might rub off on them. A mystic, not a businessman, who had been spinning straw into gold since his days as a penniless lad on the streets of Glasgow.

His pragmatic approach spoke to her own ambitions. If only he’d decided against deception. The underhanded tactic meant he thought little better of her than of any other guileless female. She had fought just such probing bastards for months. He deserved no special concern, because her rationale for keeping her secret remained vital.

He finished his recitation with no fanfare.

“Why did you withhold this from me?” she asked.

“Because my plans had very little to do with dancing, or even your gorgeous mouth. I doubt many women would have found the truth palatable, let alone engaging.”

“Less palatable than being lied to? Perhaps some might prefer such condescension, but I am not one of them. You’ve insulted me with the very idea that I could be manipulated so easily.”

“Yet you also admitted having ulterior motives for our would-be tryst.”

“Yes,” she said tightly. “
Admitted
is the important word. I do not recall you offering any such information.”

“We’re both in this for selfish means.”

“I have my reasons for keeping quiet.”

A swell of nausea momentarily distracted her from the argument. Waves and waves and waves again. She could share not a word of it. That she would need to lock that hideous ordeal in her heart forever was too difficult to contemplate. She would need to face each new morning with the same resolve. For the rest of her life.

She flashed her gaze back to William. “You seem ready to barrel right past my intentions, set on invading my privacy, all for the sake of profiting from my experience. That’s hardly consistent with an honest courtship!”

“And the matter of your poverty?”

“I hardly see what that has to do with it. If anything, it forced me to be even more forthright. I cannot imagine a man such as yourself so artless as to believe I would fall instantly in love with you.”

Brows lifted, chin still down, he offered a disparaging grin. “No.”

“Then we have very little more to discuss, Mr. Christie.”

“It’s William.”

“You were William when I let you kiss me.”

“Has that moment officially passed?”

Catrin found neither despair nor hope in his tone, which made her hesitate. The fact remained, she was the aggrieved party. But she was also a woman on the hunt. William Christie remained a blunt man. If she could discern whether he hid any other malicious intentions . . .

“Not officially,” she said after a hard swallow. “So you see our dilemma.”

At that, he straightened. “I see two people with incompatible problems. I do not, however, believe in problems without resolutions.”

The room needed another ten feet square to accommodate his wide shoulders. The lamp above the desk cast light just behind his head, creating a halo around the edges of hair the shade of ripened wheat. Although impressive, the effect obscured his eyes in a wisp of shadow. She would have liked to see what he was thinking.

“In that we are in agreement,” she said.

He raised his brows and drew his head back. Obvious surprise. Obvious . . . interest.

Catrin’s icy shock started to thaw. She could negotiate as well as anyone. Five years spent haggling for soap or bandages, or trading in foreign towns where no one spoke English, had provided her with priceless skills—on occasion through inelegant trial and error.

“You are in need of a story, are you not?”

“Yes.”
Wariness pinched at his eyes. “Do you intend to share it with me?”

“Perhaps I will share a story, especially now that Mr. Lymon has seen us together. What you both likely thought a rather unfortunate meeting on your front stoop could be advantageous.”

“How do you know what I thought unfortunate?”

“You were caught in a lie, Mr. Christie,” she said simply. “That could not have been any more pleasant for you than it was for me.”

Slowly, resuming that pose by which he knelt without any thought toward matrimony, he brought his face even with hers. “It was unpleasant. For you especially. I apologize.”

She held her breath for a moment, taken aback, but she did not lean against the leather. He caged her with broad shoulders, his hands on either armrest. The two weeks since Lord Stalton’s ball had been an experiment, matching other men against William’s . . . well,
all
of him. Although she had allowed no one else to kiss her—feeling, quite sensibly, that tempting fate once had been enough—she had listened to their voices, watched their eyes, felt their hands as they guided her through waltzes and quadrilles.

With each candidate, she knew two things: a glimmer of unease in her stomach, and the fact that William Christie watched her, no matter what she did or with whom she danced. None of her other possible suitors had been so complicated. Neither had they exuded any tingle of anticipation and adventure.

This was complicated, but it was a paltry concern to overcome if the rewards proved suitable.

“It was unpleasant,” she said, throat tight. “But do not apologize when you do not mean it. I specifically asked your intentions, and you chose to keep them from me. Do you remember that?”

“I do.”

“Then you did so with the full intent of deceiving me. To apologize now is insulting.”

He frowned briefly. “I must say, that’s the first time a woman has ever refused to accept my apology.”

“They believed you. I do not.”

She licked her lower lip. His shadow-dark eyes fixed on the spot her tongue had touched. A tiny flicker of hope caught fire in her throat. She was suddenly breathless as he watched her once again. No other men stood between them. No other suitors. A spark would ignite the air in his leather-scented office. Rather than repeat the intimate gesture, thus creating such a spark on purpose, she refrained.

They needed to talk, not consume one another again.

But the words that came were not at all sensible. More like pained. Or intentionally provocative. She was too swirled with emotions to sort one from the other. “Were all of your words lies? About my mouth, for example?”

“No.”

“You’ll have to prove that to me if we’re to continue.”

He flashed that infuriating little smile. “Continue?”

“With our deliberations. I was offering you a story of my miraculous survival, which Mr. Lymon will assume is true. Perhaps then, once the whole salacious scandal is in print, I’ll be able to escape the constant gossip.”

“But it won’t be the truth,” he said with narrowed eyes.

“Of course not. Why would I offer that? More to the point, why would you ever need to know?”

His fingers stretched along the armrest until his hands covered hers. Naturally, alone in his office, he wore no gloves. White scars no wider than delicate embroidery needles lined the backs of his knuckles. From fighting? Sleek blond hairs poked out from his cuffs—more softness on a man who possessed so little of it. “What do you have to hide, Catrin?”

“About what happened?” She shuddered. “A great deal. But none of that matters. Mr. Lymon sells lots of papers. You will claim the lion’s share of the
Daily Journal
, and make your way on to fame and even more fortune by crisscrossing railroads over the whole of England.”

That beautiful male mouth quirked into another rare, genuine smile. But it also held an edge of suspicion, as if she were the party to be feared.

Fair enough. She quite liked that idea.

“And for dear Catrin? What do you get out of all this? Simply the privilege of walking into a ballroom without speculation as to your silence?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Christie.” She leaned forward and brushed her lips against the mouth she could not resist. The barest kiss. “I meant it when I said my intentions have always been forthright. I am in search of a husband. What I propose is a trade.”

Seven

William paid no mind to thought. He simply kissed her.

Her declaration was no genuine surprise, but he wanted to make sure she understood that toying with him had consequences. Tied up in knots, pulled by conflicting ambitions, he took the easiest path. Their mouths did not meld; they dueled. She fought back as much as she acquiesced, with her tongue a weapon at turns defending and assaulting. He pushed deeper into her wet warmth, where her maddening ideas—she was so bloody quick of mind—found voice. Those lips. God, he could kiss them for the rest of time. She felt that good, that right.

“You silly, stupid girl,” he rasped against her throat. Her hands slipped up his forearms, his biceps, to the sharp tension between his shoulders and his neck. A brief squeeze. He nearly groaned. Then her clever fingers untied his cravat and slid down his nape, as if searching for even more of him—more forbidden places. “You have no idea what it is to be married to me.”

“Surely it involves more of this.”

The only other woman he had known to behave so naturally and speak so frankly had been Georgette. He had attributed her differences to a Gallic lack of inhibition and a slightly cynical bent. A dancer, yes, and an amazing young woman, she had nonetheless taken men to bed for money. She had said it was easier to be frank about the matter than to sink beneath the shame.

Catrin tightened her forearms and drew his head back to hers. William growled into her mouth. He kissed her with the abandon he rarely felt, always constrained by his ambitions and concern about how he should appear and behave to achieve them. Catrin upended those expectations. He dragged a huge breath into his chest. The burn of holding it in while he plunged his tongue between her lips was a quiet torture and a means of staying sane. He wanted to take her, to rip her clothes, tug her hair, make her scream.

Bloody hell.
How dare she be so contrary to what he had planned?

And yet he refrained, because she remained such an eager little devil. She played with fire without realizing he could burn her to cinders. Susannah had been terrified of his passion. Any lady of consequence would have been. Only Georgette had been able to keep pace with his needs. What did that say about him? No matter the expensive clothes he wore and the fine company he kept, he remained a beast who deserved to lie with a courtesan, not a woman born to a good, God-fearing family.

Catrin needed to know that. Now.

He crisscrossed his arms behind her back and her bum, then lifted her straight up from the chair. She gasped against his cheek. Any momentary shock dissipated as she sank more deeply into his embrace.

She bit his lower lip, her smile returning in force. “So strong,” she whispered against his wet mouth.

William’s vision wavered at the edges. He was trying to intimidate her, not impress her, yet her breathy compliment sent a thrilling jolt to his cock. Yes, he was strong. He had forged himself into a man no one would challenge. Yet this tiny, curious woman shoved at his control with more determination every time.

He wanted to shove right back.

Far, far too much fabric separated her thighs from his hands, but her bodice was wide and generous in its display of creamy skin. He stripped off her bonnet with one quick flick of ribbon, then laid her back along the desk. No softness or sweetness now as he suckled kisses down her throat and across to her delicate shoulder. Her intake of breath urged him without words, as did her squirming, gently thrusting hips.

William adjusted their position so that she stretched flat against the unforgiving mahogany. His legs tucked against the yards of satin between hers. He bowed up and over her body, and pressed her shoulders back against the ink blotter. She arched into his hold, thrusting up her bosom.

He feasted.

She was milk-and-honey sweetness. Hot. Soft. Firm and resilient. The dip of her bodice revealed the plump swells of her breasts. He skimmed his teeth across her skin, flicked his tongue beneath the hem of lace. The gasped sound of his name on her pretty apricot lips tempted him to keep taking more of this delicious treat. With two fingers, he tugged the lace down to reveal hidden secrets—the secrets she was more willing to reveal than what had taken place on that doomed ship.

He sucked deeper. Her pelvis shuddered beneath his, then met him in a long, hard grind. The mark he left on the upper curve of her left breast gave him a heady, uncomfortable shiver of ownership. He banished that thought, tugging again to expose her nipple. Perfectly pink, hard, petite. He took the bud into his mouth and licked until she fought free of his hands and grabbed the back of his head. The deep, sharp strokes of her fingertips along his scalp spoke in a language he never thought to share with such an unassuming young woman. The language of dark places.

Her other nipple was as responsive as the first. He tickled with his tongue, then tugged with his teeth. All the while he cupped and kneaded those small, beautifully formed breasts as she sought his touch. She behaved like a woman without limits. That thought transformed his prick from merely hard to insanely so. His breath was hot against her skin, radiating back against his damp mouth and the sweat along his upper lip. Another blazing kiss bubbled away rational thought.

Hands. He needed his hands on her backside, and he needed her hands flexing against his chest. Heedless of the barriers, he fought his way under her skirts and pushed past her thin cotton drawers. She moaned as she dipped the crown of her head back toward the desk. All he saw was the elegant stretch of her neck and her fiercely aroused nipples. He kissed down her jaw, down her throat.

If he suckled that delicate skin, he would leave a bruise. For all to see.

The choice at that moment was no choice at all. It was a primal call, like reflex and deep, forbidden instinct. He clasped his lips to her throat. A frantic pulse beat beneath his tongue, which matched his heartbeat. The suction he applied was light at first, but then his questing hand found her feminine mound, softly padded with a thatch of curls.

Her gasp and her sleek, wet flesh drove him to suck harder. She thrashed her head. Mischievous fingers fought the constraints of his suit, stripping him from the waist up. She scored him with her nails again and again—between his shoulder blades, over his biceps, across the meat of his chest.

“Amazing, William,” she breathed, lips moist and swollen.

The pull of her responsiveness was so much greater than he had anticipated. So often, in such a brief span of time, she had taken him by surprise. He released her neck and grasped her backside. Her drawers were no barrier. He held bare flesh—round, supple, soft. His brain flickered. So little thought remained. He breathed heavily against her neck, right against the red-blue bruise he had sucked to the surface of her pale skin. He wanted to be inside this woman.

“We shouldn’t,” he managed to rasp.

Her little gyrations stilled. She caught his face with slender hands. William blinked and discovered a pale, clear brown. He finally recognized the color as her hypnotizing eyes. A flurry of kisses along his abused nose were the prelude to her shivering sigh. Then Catrin looked down between their disheveled bodies. He followed her gaze as her fingers trailed directly toward his trouser buttons.

“Shall we talk about ‘shouldn’t,’ William?”
With a few quick flicks and a graceless tug, she bared his cock, his ass, and clutched both. “Because I
shouldn’t
be alive.”

He groaned, as near to pain as he had ever experienced beneath a woman’s touch. Speaking was even more difficult than breathing. “I’ll take you.”

“I’ll be disappointed if you do not.”

“But I won’t marry you.”

Catrin only smiled. The teasing shape of her mouth snapped his reason in two. Damn her. He had given her more reminders to be sensible than any man could be expected to produce. But her slim fingers began to pulse along his hard length.

Hissing softly, he dropped his forehead to her bosom. He slid farther down, pulling free of her grasp just as he stripped her stockings and whatever other frilly garments kept him from her flesh. She had lithe, petite legs with sharp knees and dainty little feet. He palmed her thighs and pulled them apart to encircle his lower body. Her bottom slid forward on the desk. The hot sweetness of her arousal stabbed at the most primitive part of his brain.

He would do what Susannah had never permitted, what Georgette had taught him to enjoy almost more than sex. He would taste Miss Catrin Jones.

Her soft, breathy scream as he kissed her thigh was as near to a request to stop as she had uttered. The tension in her bare legs quivered on the edge of no. William was so very far gone. He could wait for that fateful word and put his honor to the staunchest of tests, or he could show her bliss. At that moment, so near to licking her sleek, glistening center, he possessed no other semblance of logic.

She tunneled her fingers into his hair. Tugged. Opened her thighs wider.

“Damn fool woman.”

He tasted, yes. He sipped. He licked and nipped and grabbed behind her knees. Like honey, her sugared slickness trickled across his tongue. Each subtle shift drew forth another of her sensuous gasps. William wanted to close his eyes and bask in his unexpected triumph, but he angled his gaze to watch as pleasure transformed her features. Usually so tidy and composed, Catrin was quickly coming undone: sweat along her brow, hair trailing like ragged pennants, and breasts up-thrust with every shallow inhale.

“William! Oh, God. Help me.”

He lifted his mouth, but kept her on the brink of climax with the steady pulse of his thumb. “Fight me on anything else, Catrin. Anything else. But not this. Relax, my delicious miss. Let it happen.”

“Let what . . . ?”

William sucked hard on her swollen bud. No more gentle teasing. No more luxuriating in her taste, although he could have done that until dawn. Instead he applied more pressure, faster, taking her wholly with his mouth. Her gasps became louder and more desperate. The tendons along her throat drew taut. Catrin smacked her hands on the desk and gripped the sides. The rich sugar of her climax slicked his fingers and bathed his tongue.

He would remember the image of her white, tense knuckles against the dark mahogany wood for the rest of his life.

But with a quick glance toward the office door, William knew he could risk no more. She was too bloody loud. Instead he traveled up her body, notched his thick cock against her opening, and pushed his palm flat against her mouth.

He slid inside.

Catrin flinched, stilled. Her eyes flared wide. She shook her head once, which chilled him to the core. A shiver climbed his back. He could feel his own pulse within her wet sheath. But damn the world, he found the strength to stop.

“Tell me.” He bowed low. And he removed his hand. He needed to hear the words, one way or another. “Tell me no if you must. Just get it over with.”

“My answer remains yes.” Her breathing was ragged. “But why silence me?”

A chuckle seemed so out of place, but he could not deny its rightness. “Because you’ll get us into trouble.”

“Can’t have that. Pray, do continue.” She grinned, smoothed his fingers back across her mouth, and flexed her hips.

William drew a deep breath, which did nothing to alleviate the dizzying rush. Instead he rode that rush and became the animal she dared him to reveal.