Betina Krahn (9 page)

“Look, I know this place,” he said, exasperated. “The Quill and Scroll is an old college hall that was bought by a German brew master and turned into a large tavern. It’s loud, rude and not at all suitable for ladies.”

Was this new designation as a “lady” an elevation or a dismissal?

“All the more reason I should accompany you. I need to see my prospects in their natural settings, whether appropriate for ladies or not.” She turned to Mercy. “Don’t let him leave without me.”

The loyal maid positioned herself between Jack and the stairs, crossed her ample arms and glowered. Shortly, Mariah returned, wearing her coat and hat, and gave the old woman a one-armed hug.

“You needn’t wait up, Mercy. After such a long day, I’m sure you’re exhausted.”

Mercy nodded gratefully.

“Careful, miz. Them students look none too trusty.”

T
HAT WAS
how she and Jack came to be entering the noisy hall of the Quill and Scroll at ten o’clock on a weekday evening. The place was filled with smoke, the scent of spilled ale and tables ringed by a motley collection of chairs and benches swiped from lecture halls. Generations of aspiring scholars had whiled away their undergraduate years on those worn seats and carved their names for posterity in the posts and beams that held up the roof.

All the way over in the cab, Jack had admonished her to stay close, let him do the talking and not engage any of the drunken students. He behaved as if she—essentially a tavern-keeper herself—had never been in an ale house before. By the time he steered her briskly to the crowded bar to inquire after Winston Martindale, she was roundly annoyed.

They were directed to one side of a massive fireplace, where two groups of young men in black robes were engaged in a rowdy and freewheeling dispute. As she and Jack approached, it became clear that their discourse was being refereed by a portly, red-faced fellow in a scholar’s robe and cap. He had on the table before him a stand holding a line of wooden beads, which he shuttled back and forth with sausage-like digits whenever one of the sides made a point.
Martindale.

Oh, dear.

They watched for a few minutes, trying to make sense of
the ale-fueled chaos. Between issuing “hear-hear’s” and awarding points in the debate, the pudgy professor gnawed on a roast turkey leg and sucked ale from a large tankard. Then he caught sight of Mariah watching him.

“Whoa-ho—we have company, ladsss!” he roared. “Mind your mannersss and make some room!” He shoved to his feet and beckoned. “Come, join usss, my lovely. And you, too—” he pointed at Jack with his drumstick “—whoever you are. Beer—get our visitors sssome beer!”

“Jack St. Lawrence, Professor Martindale. And this is Mrs. Eller.” Jack held his top hat with one hand and Mariah’s elbow with the other. He looked over the seats the students had vacated and urged Mariah forward. “We were hoping we might have a private word with you.”

A wave of
oooh
’s from the students and calls of “Winnie needs a word with a lai-dy!” mingled with derisive laughter and drunken male giggles. Winston ordered the students away, calling them ingrates and sophomoric twits and pelting them with crusts of bread. When the three were finally seated together at the ale-sticky table, Martindale wiped his greasy hands on his robe and looked Mariah over…a bit too appreciatively.

“Now what’s ssso urgent that it must interrupt my sssupervisionsss?”

That was when she noticed how odd the professor’s teeth were. Huge and unnaturally white…all exactly the same shape…like the staves of a picket fence. When his grin broadened, she saw that his gums were gray and realized that they—like his enormous teeth—were artificial. Which accounted for the mushy nature of his
s
’s.

“I never object to being interrupted by one of the Gracesss,” he said, reaching for her hand with smarmy familiarity. “Essspecially Beauty.”

“We are putting together a roster of speakers—” Mariah scrambled to concoct a story as she freed herself from his grasp “—for a lecture tour, and hope to include a professor who can address advances in modern knowledge. The topic of our tour will be ‘The Future: Are There Any Mysteries Left?’ We were given your name and hope to add you to our list of speakers.”

“Given my name?” He seemed delighted at first, but pleasure soon gave way to confusion. “By whom?”

Mariah turned to Jack, but he gave her a don’t-look-at-me-this-is-your-story scowl, and she answered with the name closest to her tongue.

“The Prince of Wales.”

“The Prince of—you got my name from
the Prince of Wales?
For a lissst of ssspeakersss?” He shook off some of his bleariness. Looking from Mariah to Jack and back, he was struck by a tardy burst of comprehension.

“But that’s not the lissst you truly mean, isss it? I’m on the
lissst
again!” He clapped his hands as a schoolboy does at the prospect of licorice whips. “They’ve put me back on the husssband lissst.” Then he astonished both Mariah and Jack by fixing her with a conspiratorial grin.

“Is it you?” he said with a giggle, barely able to keep himself in his chair. “Jenkies—you’re a beauty, my girl. You could do better than me.”

“What?” Mariah jerked back on the bench, grabbing Jack’s arm to steady herself. “What are you talking about?”

“They’ve put me back on the lissst to marry one of the prince’sss lady friends, right?” He looked around, as if trying out the notion in his head. “Usssed to be tried out quite regular. Thought those daysss were over.” He jiggled with excitement. “Mussst ’ave heard about my new teeth.” He turned his head from side to side, grinning like a Cheshire cat to show
them off. “Imported, you know. From Germany. Quite the clever little craftsssmen, those Hunsss.”

To impress her further, he took them out—uppers and lowers—and put them on the table for her to admire.

She stared at that set of huge porcelain teeth with bits of turkey caught between them and clapped a hand over her mouth.

Jack was on his feet in a heartbeat and pulling her up. She was aware of him telling Martindale that he was sadly mistaken and that they would find someone else for their “lecture tour,” before ushering her out.

She was still seeing big porcelain-white teeth before her eyes when they reached the pavement outside.

“I told you it was no place for a lady,” he said in a choked voice as he propelled her along. “You should have listened and stayed at the hotel.”

“And miss seeing that?” She found her voice. “Not for all the tea in China.” The full impact of it hit her. “He just popped his teeth out of his head!” She stopped on the pavement, pantomimed him plopping them on the table in front her, and then burst into giggles of disbelief. “Lord—I thought he was going to insist I try them out! Can you imagine?” She bared her teeth, feigning she was bucktoothed, and clacked her uppers and lowers together…before dissolving into full gales of laughter.

R
ELIEF ALLOWED
Jack to chuckle at her expression. Then an internal barrier snapped and he joined her in shoulder-quaking laughs; the sort that dispel tension and remind people of their common ground in humor.

He hadn’t laughed like this in—well, in a very long time.

Weakened, she leaned against him. It seemed only natural to put an arm around her in support, and for the next few
moments he gave himself over to the pleasure that migrated into him through that contact. His blood warmed as something new and precious unfolded around his heart.

Her eyes shimmered with moisture as she looked up, and he reached into his breast pocket, intending to offer her his handkerchief. Instead, he found himself dabbing her eyes. His other hand came up to cup her warm cheek and he stared down into dark-centered blue pools filled with genuine pleasure. A surge of protectiveness washed over him.

“Did you really get his name from the earl of Chester?” she asked.

He nodded, grappling with the strength of this new feeling.

“Though, I believe he did say it was his son’s recommendation.” He looked back at the doors of the Quill and Scroll. “The little sod. Probably had a good laugh handing over the name of his toothless old tutor.”

“Well, I had a good laugh, too, so I won’t hold it against him. Or against you. Though, I confess, I am losing all faith in this list of yours.”

“I had no idea, Mariah,” he said. “I was asked to solicit names from among the prince’s intimates and I…trusted their judgment.”

She winced as if she were about to confess a mortal sin.

“Heaven help me, I believe you.”

He offered her his arm as they began to walk and he set a leisurely pace that seemed perfect for the cool autumn night. Together they wound their way in companionable silence along the cobblestone streets beneath gas lamps that cast circles of soft golden light.

“That’s three out of four,” she said, pulling him back to the reality of yet another failed husband prospect.

“Three out of bloody four,” he echoed.

“So, what happens if I fail to marry in the next eleven days?”

He felt his gut tense and mouth dry in spite of himself.

“There is still one name on the list,” he said. Not that he expected the last candidate to be much different from the others. Not that he
wanted
that candidate to be different. He felt a peculiar weight against his chest and sent a hand to the envelope in his inner pocket. The damned license never let him forget for a minute that she was meant for someone else.

“Why should I believe he will be any more suitable? One was spoken for. Another was a mean-spirited bully.” She displayed the count on her fingers. “And the third was a feckless little squab with deplorable dental hygiene. I could do better standing in a town square yelling for volunteers.”

“You can’t cry off—I’ve already paid your blessed mortgage.”

“I didn’t say I was crying off. I just think it’s time for a different approach, that’s all. If I’m to be married within eleven days, I need to find more suitable husband candidates.” They had to pause to avoid a group of well-oiled students staggering out of a pub and stumbling arm-in-arm down the middle of the street. “That means going where men of substance and ambition gather.” She pulled him to a halt, searching some mental image. “I should go straight to London and search for my own husband.”

London. He groaned. He had hoped to leave it to her future husband to take her there and escort her through the appointments with dressmakers and milliners and visits to linen drapers and haberdashers. Now he was not only going to have to help her shop for gloves and corsets and stockings, he was going to have to help her shop for a man!

“And just how do you plan to carry on this search?” he said, annoyance rising to ruin his mood.

“In a perfectly logical and organized fashion,” she said, raising her chin and striking off briskly in the direction of their hotel. “I’m going to make a
list.
”

“W
HAT THE DEVIL
do you think you are doing?” Jack demanded in a loud whisper as Mariah pulled him down the third-floor hallway—past his hotel room and toward hers. “It’s almost midnight.” He gestured to the gaslights that had been extinguished everywhere but the lobby and stairwells. “You saw the look the desk clerk gave us when I asked for our room keys.”

“His depraved imaginings are
his
problem,” she said, unlocking her door and pulling him inside with her. He stood as stiff as a pole, holding his room key in a death grip, while she closed the door and lit the lamp.

“A lady doesn’t entertain gentlemen in her room at this late—”

“I’m not a lady, remember? I’m a widow who is about to become a ‘wife of convenience’ and a prince’s mistress.” She adjusted the lamp wick so that the room was softly lit, and she swayed toward him as she removed her gloves and let her coat slide down her shoulders. “But how sweet of you to say you find me ‘entertaining.’”

He felt a stir of anticipation in his loins and scowled.

“I don’t believe I said that.”

“I’ve noticed you don’t believe a lot of the things you say.”

While he sorted out that comment, she pulled his hat from his hands and replaced it with a pad of paper and a pen taken from her trunk.

“What is this?” He held the writing materials by two fingers, as if they were strange artifacts of an unknown civilization.

“Sit.” She pointed to the lone upholstered chair. “And make notes.”

“I beg your pardon. I am not a clerk,” he said defensively. “And I refuse to participate in whatever deviousness you have in mind. It has nothing to do with me.”

“It has everything to do with you.” She removed her hat and jacket, then pulled the overstuffed chair closer to the coal-burning hearth and gave the seat a pat, ordering him to sit. “Once I find a man who meets my requirements, you will have to convince him to cooperate and wed me.”

“I can’t imagine that would be necessary.” He eyed the seat with a tightening in his belly. “You’re quite persuasive enough on your own.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” She pushed him over to the chair, opened his greatcoat, and pulled it down his shoulders. “But men can be appallingly stubborn.
Sit.
”

He perched on the edge of the chair, pitched like Chinese fireworks ready to launch, and watched her hang his coat on a hook by the door. Her movements were fluid and unselfconscious, almost…hypnotic.

He shook himself more alert.

“Where to start?” She paced a few steps away and traced her lip thoughtfully. “Tall. Definitely. Somewhere near your height. With a manly frame and bearing.” She smiled as her gaze drifted over him.

“What the devil are you doing?”

“Making a list of things I want in a husband. Muscles. I do like muscles on a man. Not the hammer-wielding-blacksmith or beefy-field-hand sort. More the rowing-archery-expert-horsemanship kind.” She startled him by taking hold of his arm—“You don’t mind, do you?”—and feeling it up
and down. She lingered with a pleased expression over his tensed and bulging bicep. “Muscles very like yours, in fact.”

As she released him, his arm ached from greatly increased blood flow. That vigorous circulation spread through the rest of him, causing pressure in body parts that were going to get him in trouble if he stayed much longer.

“And let’s not forget good teeth,” she said with a wicked chuckle. “Nothing worse than having to kiss a man with rotten or missing teeth.” She made her buck-toothed face again, drawing a startled laugh from him. Then she pulled his gaze into hers, eyes twinkling, and bit that luscious lower lip of hers. “And you know how fond I am of kissing.”

She was wrong earlier, he thought, watching her resume pacing up and down the room. There wasn’t a man in Britain who could resist her when she was determined to be irresistible. As she was now.

“As for hair, I’m not fussy. Any color, as long as it’s plentiful.” As she passed, she reached over to rake her fingers through his dark waves. His scalp tingled and every hair on his body came to attention. “And soft. I love the contrast between soft hair and hard muscles. And I do love to curl my fingers in a man’s hair when I—” She gave an exaggerated shiver. “Are you getting all of this down?”

She moved to peer over his shoulder at the empty pad in his hands.

“Oh. No wonder you’re having trouble writing.” Her voice lowered as she slid around him in such a way that she pressed against him the whole time. “You still have your gloves on.”

Standing before him, she seized his hands and
bit
the kidskin at the end of one finger, tugging it with her teeth. The pad and pen he held tumbled to the floor as his whole body went rigid. One by one, she bit the tips of his glove fingers and slowly, with provocative leisure, drew them off. By the
time she reached for his other hand, his body was as taut as a bass string and vibrating with arousal. Then she raised his naked hand and nibbled the pads of his fingers with those perfect teeth and ripe lips.

He clenched his jaw and his indrawn breath turned into a hiss.

This was nothing short of torture.

What had he done to deserve this? He had kept the prince’s hunting revelries within bounds and seen to it that Bertie always made it to his bed and…
usurped the prince’s enjoyment of a woman he had clearly intended to bed.

That sobering thought threw him one last lifeline of sanity.

“I can’t do this.” His voice was an octave lower as he dragged his tingling hand back and pushed to his feet. She didn’t give an inch; he had to make room to stand by forcing the chair back with his legs. On his feet but badly off balance, he had to fight the pull of those forget-me-not-blue eyes.

“On the contrary.” She shifted, brushing against the bulge in his trousers with knee-weakening accuracy. “You seem quite capable.”

He groaned. “Don’t do this, Mariah.”

“Don’t do what?” The humor in her face gave way to a compelling earnestness. “Respond like a woman instead of a commodity? Don’t presume to take pleasure and passion where I can? Don’t try to steal a bit of joy and companionship before I go into a harness of carnal obligation?”

Pleasure, joy, companionship;
each word struck like a chisel, engraving itself on his heart. But it was the word
steal
that proved sharp enough to pierce his conscience.

“You belong to the prince,” he said thickly.

“Not yet, I don’t. Until I marry and go to the prince’s bed, I belong to no one but myself.”

She slipped her hands around his collar, pulling his head
down so that his mouth hovered above hers, so that warm breath and the incidental brush of lips against lips added to the persuasion of her words.

“In eleven days I’ll be married again, and indentured to the bed of a prince who values his carnal pleasures above my feelings, my personal worth and my freedom. But right now if I choose to share my bed and body, that is my decision and mine alone.”

She was right; the prince neither knew nor wanted to know about her distaste for what he required of her. That acknowledgment went straight to his core, illuminating the shameful fact that his abstinence was not inspired by true virtue or in consideration of his patron prince. Rather, it was but a tool of his own ambition. His self-denial was both self-serving and a sham.

“Just once, before I go into that miserable servitude, I want to make love because
I
desire it. Not because I am coerced or because it is a marital duty or even because it is the prudent thing to do. I want to make love for the pure joy and pleasure of it.” She ran her hand tenderly down his cheek. “And I want to do it with someone I like very much.”

She liked him.

When she stretched up to press her mouth against his, he’d have had to be made of hammered steel to resist kissing her back. And despite what his old tutor had said, he was not made of anything half so incorruptible. He did, however, manage to resist pulling her against him…

…until she ran her tongue between his lips with such deliberate provocation that he felt as if he had just been dropped into a blast furnace. Heat enveloped him; his arms enveloped her; and a heartbeat later they were as close as paper and sealing wax.

He trembled with the need to plunge his hands into her warm-honey hair and pull it loose, to bury his face in it and
rub it all over his bare chest and naked body. He ran his hands feverishly over her, seeking out every line, texture and curve he had mentally claimed in the last three days. Images of stockings and bare ankles and the tactile memory of naked thighs made his skin come alive with a hunger for that same kind of stimulation.

More. He wanted
more.

When she broke off that stream of kisses, he was mildly shocked to find his bones felt as if they wouldn’t support weight or movement. As he scrambled to recoup, she grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the bed.

E
VERY PARTICLE
of her body was vibrating with need. But not a garden variety, take-a-brandy-and-it-will-pass kind of urge. This was a bone-deep, part-of-me-is-missing kind of feeling…a hunger that reached all the way down into the soul and stretched and shoved and rearranged inner furnishings until it made room for something life-changing.

More. She wanted
more.

She wanted to feel his weight bearing down on her, his heat searing her flesh, his passion filling her until she couldn’t breathe or think.

With her blood singing in her ears, she trapped his gaze in hers and began to work the buttons of her blouse. The starched cotton slid down her bare arms and dropped to the floor. Her belt and skirt went next, falling into a dark pool at her feet. She stood in petticoats and corset, sensing his hunger and praying desire would exert its inscrutable force.

“I’m offering, Jack,” she said, her heart thudding as she reached up to remove several pins and let her hair tumble over her shoulders. He seemed to have turned to stone, standing there, watching her as she ran her fingers through her hair and let it fall into a hedonistic tangle.

“Enjoy me. Let me enjoy you. Before it’s too late.”

With a muffled moan, he bore her back onto the bed and sank onto the soft mattress over her.

Electricity arced along her nerves, unleashing desire, making every movement, every action a rebellious celebration of freedom. She wrapped her arms around his neck and opened to his penetrating kisses as she arched and pressed her breasts against him, urging him to release her.

Moments later her laces were free and she lay in a tangle of half-shed garments, beckoning him to a sensory banquet. He rubbed his face in her light hair and inhaled, murmuring his findings.

“You smell like heliotrope—” he breathed her in “—and jasmine and honey. Damn me if you don’t smell downright
edible.
”

She gave a throaty laugh as he ripped off his coat and vest and flung them aside. With trembling hands, he peeled away her chemise.

Her breath caught as he buried his face between her breasts and rubbed his hot face over her cool skin. As his kisses and caresses trailed down her body, pleasure radiated into every curve and crevice. Soon he was grazing her with his teeth and she felt a drawing sensation in her sex that started a familiar chain of responses.

Her body tensed, her lips swelled, her pupils dilated and her sex began to burn with a thick, slow-swirling flame. Trembling with escalating pleasure, she directed his mouth over her shoulders and breasts until he reached her nipple and tongued and sucked that pebble-hard flesh.

When she couldn’t stand the longing anymore, she pushed him up and reached for his shirt buttons.

“Clothes…now…off,” she said, barely able to string words together. “Feel…all…you…over…”

A minute later, his shirt was gone and his chest descended on her like a living wall, crushing her breasts, giving her the weight and pressure she wanted. Air escaped her on a ragged moan. She raked his bare back with her fingernails and savored the way he responded with deeper, harder kisses.

As he ran his hands up the insides of her legs, she parted them and raised her stocking-clad legs on either side of him, wanting to wrap them around him. Then his fingers found her hot, wet core and she shivered, startled by the intensity of the sensation. His hand was firm but gentle as he read her reactions and adjusted his touch.

Time seemed to stop as he toyed deliberately with her, tracing lazy circles on her slick, heated flesh, bringing her to the edge of climax. She moaned with both pleasure and need, pressing against his hand, seeking a deeper, more satisfying contact. When his fingers slipped inside her, she tightened around them, relishing the rush of pleasure it released.

Gripping his back, she rode mounting waves of excitation, rising, expanding, then crashing through sensory boundaries into pure pleasure.

For a moment she couldn’t see or feel, could only float within a steamy cloud of mingled presence. When she opened her eyes it was to a pair of molten bronze disks, glowing with appreciation and desire.

“You do have the touch, Jack B. Nimble,” she whispered, pressing against him, more energized than sated. “Let’s see what else you have.”

She pushed him back and sat up, abandoning her garments as she rolled him onto his back. Straddling him, she swept her hair across his bare chest and laughed at the way he sucked air. She dragged her breasts up the midline of his body then she reversed course and retraced that path.

He twitched, tensed and then relaxed into a groan of
pleasure. When she reached his trouser buttons, he grabbed her hands.

“You don’t have to,” he said hoarsely.

“Don’t have to?” She registered the anxiety that had entered his expression. “I want to give pleasure as well as receive it, remember?”

The look in his eyes as he released her made her pause for a moment. Did he not believe her? Not trust her? For a moment she wondered what kind of sexual experiences had led him to impose such limits.

“You make me feel alive, Jack. And wanted.” She stuffed every bit of her longing and gratitude into a smile and aimed it straight for his heart. “I want to do the same for you.”