After the Kiss (11 page)

“Don’t worry, Uncle Marcus. We will keep Eliza company,” Reggie promised.

“Shh,” he hissed. “Remember Miss Sheringham is disguised as a man.”

“Not for much longer,” Eliza assured him. “Now that we have arrived in London, I can give up my disguise.”

“I will feel more comfortable if you keep it a little longer.”

“I cannot allow Julian to see me like this!” she protested.

“You will have warning enough to change, I promise you,” he said as he mounted his Thoroughbred. He waved one last time before he kneed his horse into the busy thoroughfare.

“Let’s go inside now, ladies,” Griggs said. “Time to eat.”

“I will be right in, Griggs,” Eliza said. “As soon as I check on Mephistopheles.”

Griggs scratched his head. “I don’t know, miss. Captain said I wasn’t to let you out of my sight.”

Eliza bit back an oath. So the captain thought she would disappear if given the chance, did he? She chuckled. Well, he was right. “Order me some bread and soup,” she cheerfully told Griggs. “I will be back before it is served.”

The sergeant’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

But there was nothing he could do, Eliza thought. Unless he planned to follow her around like a faithful hound. She gave him a smile that was the soul of innocence.

Reggie’s stomach growled. She grabbed the sergeant’s hand and tugged him toward the door to the inn. “I’m hungry, Griggs.”

He looked down at her and smiled. “Very well, lass.”

By the time he looked up again, Eliza was gone.

She led Mephistopheles out of the stable from a side door and asked the first person she saw for directions to Stephen’s Hotel on Bond Street. It was a frequent haunt of army officers on leave, and she knew Julian was staying there while in London.

Eliza had brought along her traveling bag, which she had made sure was left in the stable when they went into the inn, so that she could change into her dress if she had the chance. But she had decided it would be easier to gain admittance to Julian’s rooms as his younger brother, than as a single young lady. Julian would understand why she was dressed in his clothes once she explained why she had fled Ravenwood.

When she arrived at Stephen’s Hotel, Eliza was grateful for her disguise. The only females she saw wore daring décolletages, too much rouge, and heavy
black kohl on their eyes. She knew right away what they were, even though she was not even supposed to know such women existed.

Eliza only wished she had thought to bring one of Julian’s old uniforms. She was nearly the only gentleman in the hotel parlor dressed as a civilian. The riot of scarlet and Clarence blue and Cossack green uniforms was splendid. The colors were reflected back a dozen times in the soldiers’ patent leather boots and plumed shako hats. The last time Eliza had seen so many colorful ostrich plumes in one place, the Dowager Marchioness of Montcrief had donned them for a musicale in Kent.

Eliza explained at the desk that she was Julian Sheringham’s younger brother, come to London to visit him. To her dismay, she discovered Julian was not in. She looked around and realized she would surely end up being discovered if she sat waiting among the soldiers. She could hear enough of their conversations from where she stood to know she did not have a large enough vocabulary of oaths.

“Is it possible for me to wait for my brother in his rooms?” she asked.

“I dunno, sir,” the narrow-faced clerk said, appraising her down a very long nose. “Major Sheringham didn’t say nothin’ ’bout a brother.”

“As you can see, I am here,” Eliza said, taking care to keep her gravelly voice low. “I have not seen my—” She caught herself before she could say cousin. “Brother in two years. I want to surprise him.”

“Guess that’d be all right. Major Sheringham can throw you out as well as I can, if you ain’t who you say.”

A porter let her into Julian’s suite of rooms and set her traveling bag on the floor. When he held out his hand, she shook it and said, “Thank you.”

He scowled, muttered, “Clutch-fisted gentry,” set the key on a table inside the door, and left, closing the door behind him.

By the time Eliza realized the porter had been waiting for a coin, it was too late to call him back. She clasped her hands behind her and strode around the suite of rooms, looking for signs of Julian.

His hairbrush sat on the washstand, along with his shaving equipment. His beaver shaving brush was still damp, and she could see a puddle of water on his—she sniffed—sandalwood shaving soap. Perhaps he had only gone somewhere for breakfast and would be back soon.

The bed was unmade, the sheets tousled as though he had not slept well. She started to turn away, uncomfortable intruding on his privacy. And noticed that both pillows bore the indentation of a head.

She crossed to the foot of the brass bed and grasped the bars with white-knuckled hands, staring hard at the pillows. Maybe he had slept on both pillows. She crossed to the pillow on one side, leaned over and sniffed the coverlet. Sandalwood. Julian had laid his head there. She stroked the pillow lovingly.

Eliza paused, then leaned across the bed and sniffed the other pillow. She rose abruptly, as the cloying smell of cheap rosewater assaulted her nose.

“He has had a woman here!”

Astonishment, anger, and hurt laced her voice. She knew men had their fancy pieces, but she had not
thought Julian … How stupid of her! She had seen the sort of females in the hotel parlor and overheard the soldiers’ ribald comments. The soldiers must be inviting the ladies of the demimonde to join them in their rooms. As Julian had obviously done.

She let out a breath she had been holding too long. That did nothing to relieve the ache in her chest.

Eliza fought back a surge of jealous anger. Only a nodcock would anguish over a single gentleman’s rendezvous with a paid-for paramour. She had no right to criticize Julian’s behavior until he was hers. She had no doubt that when he married, he would be a faithful husband. All the same, it hurt to know Julian had not come home to her at Ravenwood. That he had stayed in London to make love to another woman.

She hastened out of his bedroom, collapsed into a padded wooden chair close to the open window of the sitting room, and took several deep, calming breaths. Her nose was assailed by the stench of the gutters, while the strident sounds from the cobble-stoned street below jangled her nerves. She rose and fled toward the door but was not halfway there before she realized she had nowhere else to go.

Eliza returned to the chair by the window, pulled it far enough away to avoid the worst of the reeking foulness, and settled into it to think.

Her worst fear was that Julian would return to his rooms in the company of the demi-rep with whom he had spent the night. She did not think she could bear the comparison between herself—especially attired so indecorously in travel-stained clothes—and a beautiful, sensuous, sexually experienced woman.

So change into your walking dress
.

At least if she were dressed like a lady, Julian might be more likely to see her as a prospective bride. It would still be difficult for her to compete with a “beautiful, sensuous, sexually experienced” demi-rep. She threw out “beautiful” and “sexually experienced.” Julian would expect neither from her. As for “sensuous,” she would simply have to rely on instinct to guide her.

Eliza had no trouble getting out of Julian’s clothes. She brushed her hair, then pinned up part of it, leaving her face edged by wispy curls and a tangle of chestnut hair down her back.

Her pale blue merino day dress was horribly wrinkled from having been crumpled up in the cloth bag, but she hoped it would not be so bad once she had it on.

Getting it on proved more of a challenge than she had expected. Eliza was too used to having a maid. There was no way she could button up the dress by herself. It fell open halfway down her back, where she could not reach.

She stood pressing the square-cut neck to her throat, adjusting the short, puffy sleeves at her shoulders, when the doorknob began to turn. She felt a spurt of panic.

Oh, dear God! It must be Julian
.

She could not let him see her like this! She looked for a place to hide and realized how futile that would be. At some point she would have to come out and ask Julian to help her button up her dress.

It might as well be now.

She faced the door, her heart racing, her hand
clutching the blue merino wool against her breast. And waited for Julian to enter.

Eliza gasped when she saw who was standing in the doorway.

M
arcus stared, dumbstruck, at the half-dressed woman in Julian’s room. His body sprang to life, responding with decided interest to the female standing before him with tangled, waist-length chestnut hair cascading over her bared shoulders. Then it dawned on him who she was. And where she was.

During the hour he had been delayed helping to right an overturned cart of potatoes, and the gentleman’s curricle that was also involved in the accident, Miss Sheringham had somehow found her way here. And been ravished.

He felt outraged that Julian had taken such advantage of her, even if she was besotted with him. He searched the room for his friend, ready to seek an accounting on Miss Sheringham’s behalf. He would make sure Julian did the honorable thing and married her. Except, there were no dragons in sight to slay. Julian was nowhere to be seen.

Since he could not take out his temper on Julian, Miss Sheringham got the brunt of it. “Where is he?”

Miss Sheringham clutched her dress to her bosom. “Who?”

“The gentleman who lives here,” he said curtly.

“I have not seen him.”

“Then explain why are you in such dishabille, Miss Sheringham,” he asked in a deadly voice.

“Oh.” Her face pinkened as she grabbed at the puffed sleeves of the dress, pulling them farther onto her shoulders. She spoke with a quiet dignity that impressed him. “I was merely changing from Julian’s borrowed clothes into a dress, Captain. You burst in here before I was able to finish.”

He heard the accusation in the last half of her speech and felt himself flushing. He never flushed. But then, he had never lost the upper hand with a woman, either. Until now.

He had not stopped to knock before he entered. He had not even bothered to ask the hotel clerk whether Julian was in his rooms, because he knew his friend rarely rose before noon. Today he obviously had.

“How did you get here?” Marcus demanded, taking the offensive to rid himself of embarrassment—and the sexual attraction he was struggling to control.

“I rode here on Mephistopheles.”

“Through London? By yourself?”

She nodded once in answer to each question.

He put a shaky hand to his brow. “Good lord.”

His surprise at finding Miss Sheringham so deliciously unclothed, his anger at the danger she had put herself in getting here, and a growing hunger for the feast laid before him, gave his voice a sharp edge. “How did you find this place?”

“Julian sent a letter to Cousin Nigel the day he arrived in London giving his direction,” she said with the throaty breathlessness of a woman in the throes of
passion. But it was not passion. It was fear … and defiance. Her stance reminded him of a lioness, with claws that could scratch.

It dawned on him that she had deceived him on purpose. “You did not think it necessary to share that information with me?” he said through tight jaws.

She looked him right in the eye, opened her mouth to speak, closed it, and shrugged, causing her puffed sleeves to fall down her arms.

He had never seen anything quite so fascinating as the regally tall Miss Sheringham, bare-shouldered, clutching an obviously unbuttoned day dress to her ample bosom.

The situation was fraught with danger for both of them. He had to remind himself that she had not, in fact, been ravished. Yet. The sight of such a mouthwatering morsel at his mercy was tempting. He was experienced enough to know how to get Miss Sheringham into bed and to ensure that she enjoyed herself as much as he did.

He reminded himself she was an innocent, a virgin. The consequence of slaking his desire for her was a leg-shackle. He was not inclined to give up his freedom, even for such a prize.

But he imagined wrapping himself in her hair, the silky smoothness of her shoulders beneath his callused fingertips, how her lips would taste, and what it would feel like to be the first to broach her. She would be tight and hot and wet …

He gritted his teeth at the realization his body had gone hard as a rock. If Miss Sheringham were more worldly, she would have known to get out while she still could. He was not without conscience; he had
never taken an unwilling woman to bed. But he could see no reason to refuse what a woman freely offered—with a little coaxing from him.

“Was this the way you planned to greet your cousin, Miss Sheringham?” he asked in a lazy, intimately suggestive voice.

“Of course not! I simply did not realize before I started that I could not reach a great many of the buttons on the back of this dress. I had no intention of allowing Julian to find me this way.” She sounded angry and a little flustered.

Julian
. Bloody hell! What madness had he been contemplating? Miss Sheringham was his best friend’s cousin. Marcus had to resist temptation. He had to keep his hands off her.

She turned her bared back to him, looked at him over her shoulder—not in the least coy—and said, “Would you, please?”

He could not quite believe Miss Sheringham expected him to act as her lady’s maid. He knew himself too well. If he got close enough to touch her flesh, she would be lucky to escape with her virtue.

“Pardon me,” he said. “I will leave you—”

She whirled, one hand outstretched to him. “Wait! You cannot leave. I need your help.”

One side of her bodice fell away entirely, revealing a thin lawn chemise decorated with satin rosebuds that barely concealed the single, luscious pink bud beneath it.

He had already started backing out the door, determined to wait downstairs for Julian’s return, when he heard male voices in the hall. Any moment he
would be in exactly the compromising situation he so earnestly wanted to avoid.