Danger Wears White (5 page)

His shout of surprised laughter made her step forward, arm outstretched. “Shhh!”

Near enough for him to grab her hand and overbalance her, so she fell into his lap.

Damn, he really didn’t have any clothes on. His limbs hardened against her, and something else, something intimate.

She’d seen men naked before. After all, she was a country girl, but she had never come so close to a cock in its tumescent state. The heat of it burned through the blankets, and hotter than ever, she tried to lever herself up.

He wrapped his good arm around her and hauled her up so she sat sideways on his lap. Her robe and night rail covered her decently, but without her stays she felt bare, vulnerable.

Even more when he kissed her.

Sparks and tingles shot from her fingertips to the most intimate parts of her, and she fought an urge to squirm. All that from a closed-mouth kiss of friendship and their close proximity. He didn’t mean it.

He thought her a poor servant girl. He probably thought she’d done this before, kissed a man so intimately, because servant girls did. At least hers did, the impertinent madams.

Now she knew why. His lips were warm on hers but with an underlying tenderness that revealed his true nature. His chest, hard yet so secure, was a wall she could rest against. The temptation was too great not to do so.

With a sigh she gave in, and as if she’d given him some kind of signal, he opened his mouth and touched his tongue to her lips.

Hesitantly, she opened and let him in. Gently he traced the edges of her mouth and licked inside with quick forays, like a bee collecting nectar from between the delicate petals of a flower. He tasted of apples and beer, an intoxicating combination.

He shifted her so she lay more securely against his chest, his uninjured arm holding her safe, while he explored her mouth with an abandon that was anything but safe.

His caresses grew more daring. He licked the roof of her mouth, then her tongue, teasing it with his until she responded, moving it to stroke him back. They played, and when he moaned into her mouth, the vibrations pulsed all the way to her toes, pausing at the place between her legs that began to throb. Innocent she might be, but she recognized arousal. The speed of it floored her. Her capacity for reason went on holiday.

As if he sensed the beat, he thrust his tongue into her mouth, darting it in and out with an insistence she found instinctive to follow. Accepting him, she responded in like mode, daring to dart her tongue between his lips. He sucked on it gently, like a special treat.

She was lost. She nestled into him and feasted.

His shaft burned into her backside, a hard rod that reminded her of his essential masculinity, and she responded, softening and heating, her body preparing itself for his possession.

When she shifted to move closer to him, she must have moved something under her because he moaned and finished the kiss, but kept her cradled close.

He gazed into her eyes. The darker blue lay around the outside, and the brightest color was at the center, surrounding the pupil. He had eyes the color of the sky on a summer night.

“I never meant to do that,” he murmured, his voice rumbling through his chest. “I meant it to tease, or as a kiss of friendship. Not this.”

He kissed her again. This time he kept it light, but it still affected her.

He gave her a crooked smile. “What is it? You’ve never been kissed before?”

“Not like that.” Maybe she shouldn’t have said it, but it was true. Paul had kissed her, and she’d enjoyed it, although he hadn’t used his tongue and he’d kept it much less—lavish. Another man had kissed her, grabbing her in a corner at a ball when she wasn’t prepared for it, and he’d bestowed a wet and sloppy kiss on her mouth. Horrid. She’d shoved him away, ensuring he wouldn’t come near her again.

Nothing like this, but then, what could be? How could she have imagined anything like this?

When she stretched up and curled her arm around his neck, he held her off, firmly but gently.

“No, I won’t do that to you.”

“Even if I want you to?”

His smile turned rueful. “Don’t tempt me, sweetness.”

With a shock, rationality returned, slamming back into her brain.

She sat up, making him groan again, but this time with an edge of pain. Scrambling off the bed, she stammered her apology. “I’m sorry, so sorry!”

He cupped his tender parts over the blanket. “It’s what I deserve, to have an elbow in the balls. I’m only surprised you didn’t do it earlier. Please accept my apology.”

She still wanted to do it again. That was why she kept her distance. Instead of going closer, she busied herself sorting out the fruit so he could reach it from the bed and stacking the rest of the food on the chest, covering it with a linen cloth. She should really have brought more to drink. Her fumbling covered the few minutes she needed to get some semblance of calm into her ravished senses.

“Don’t worry. I’ve foraged and found worse,” he said, as if he’d forgotten her kiss already. “I have the juice from the apples and plenty to eat. You’re not imprisoning me, are you?”

She lifted her head from her self-imposed task and stared at him in alarm. “No, but don’t try to get out. The gallery outside is all timber, and if you don’t know which board to tread on it creaks like a ship at sea. During the day people use the gallery to cross from one side of the house to another.”

“I see. So I am in effect a prisoner?” He shot her a sudden grin. “No matter. I’m in no state to go far for a day or two.”

“I must get back.” Unable to stay another moment in this room with the man who had become overwhelmingly attractive, Imogen turned and left.

* * * *

The rustle at the door jolted Tony out of sleep. He sat up in bed, suppressing his groan as pain shot through his arm. He’d slept fitfully, but better than in many campaigns, and should have felt able to cope, but weakness still excoriated him, turning every part of his body to leaden lethargy.

Despite that, he reached for the knife she’d left behind, which he’d shoved under his pillow. He felt uneasy without a weapon, and his would-be assassin had taken his pistol and sword, but he had this table knife. At least it had a sharp point, and he could do a great deal with it, even in this state.

The panel moved, letting in a blinding shaft of light. He’d become used to the dim light in here.

He half closed his eyes until something blocked the source of it. The shape of a man, bent and shuffling.

Tony cleared the sleep from his throat. “And who might you be?”

“Old George.” The man scrambled down the ladder and turned to grab a small cask. “I brought your beer. Miss Emmy must be mad, doing this.”

“I think so too, but I’m grateful for the madness.”

“My boy says we should keep your secret,” Old George continued.

He didn’t look that old to Tony, probably around fifty.

He heaved the cask across the room as if it weighed nothing and set it up in the corner. “I put a tap in it but wait for it to settle before you ’ave anything. Listen.”

He turned to face Tony. “This ’ouse ’as suffered because of the Cause. I don’t want that ’appennin’ again, clear?”

Tony tended to agree, though he could hardly say that. He was supposed to be a Jacobite spy. If he confessed otherwise, Emmy might not feel the same way about him. She might betray him, and in his current state, he couldn’t fight very effectively. After that he could probably get out of the tangle, but not without scandal and not without his powerful family becoming involved. He’d rather confess his failure privately and slink away in the night. Perhaps he’d even get the chance to achieve his mission and find the documents he’d come for. “I understand. Once I’m well enough, I’ll leave.”

Old George grunted. He put his hands on his hips, increasing his girth impressively. Although he could stand upright in this cramped space, he filled it with little to spare. “Good. I’ll come and get you. I don’t want ’er involved any more than she ’as to. And don’t come back.”

“You’re not a loyalist?” He forced a smile he feared was more of a grimace.

“Depends. I used t’ be. I could see the sense. And Gawd knows we need something. But as things turned out, it’s time to start again. Especially the people ’ere. We need a bit of peace. Not all that hurly burly again.”

By which Tony assumed he meant the ’forty-five. The Young Pretender had mustered forces from the Catholic peers in this area. Lancashire had been as hot for the would-be prince as Scotland, but it hadn’t done either the Pretender or the county any good. Many old families were ruined. This one had come close.

“I promise I will leave quietly as soon as I can. Your friend even offered me a horse. Is that possible?”

Old George gave him a considering stare. “Yes.”

That was succinct. “Another day, perhaps two.”

“I’ll ’ave a coat for you too.”

“Just as well. I might get taken up for a madman if I rode around the countryside with half a coat. What made you do it?”

“I wouldn’t have brung you ’ere. I’d ’ave told somebody, but you was ’urt and she always did ’ave a soft spot for the wounded.”

He couldn’t deny that. He’d been in danger of bleeding to death. That must be why he felt so weak now.

With one final “humph,” Old George left and settled the panel back into place.

Tony had little to do other than sleep, eat, and think. Ponder on his failures, perhaps. Bored with the social round in London, which never stopped, only peaked at certain times of the year, he’d leaped on this opportunity to act with all the enthusiasm of the barracks-bound soldier. Jolted into action by yet another argument with his brother, he’d only wanted to escape from London. That was how it felt when he’d first reached the open road. Freedom.

A strange place, this. The creaks and groans of a timber-built house disconcerted him. It was like existing inside a living thing, not a building. The timbers on the floor here weren’t straight. Neither were the walls. His bed was set in a corner of the room, but while the bed had right angles, the walls did not.

He loved it. All his life he’d lived in regimented circumstances. Either the family seat or a military tent, with everything where it should be. This appealed to his long-dormant sense of the ridiculous. It made him smile. God knew he needed a reason to smile. He picked up the prosaic list she’d made, the one she’d obviously forgotten, and smiled down at it like a loon. Shoving it under his pillow as if it were a love letter, he determined to keep it. She had a firm, steady hand, with few flourishes and loops. Like herself. He liked her the better for it.

Her kiss had given him reason, shocking him with its instant sensuality. He had nevertheless recalled that he was, nominally at least, a gentleman. He could not return the kindness she had bestowed on him by seducing her. Those were the actions of a cad, and he’d tried very hard not to be a cad. But oh, she was sweet, and she’d felt so good in his arms!

His wound throbbed, but he decided to leave it for now. He was too tired to concern himself with a little pain. He’d known worse.

* * * *

Imogen’s mother expected her to entertain her noble guests. Imogen guessed the visit wasn’t as unexpected as it had first appeared. The Holland covers were off the furniture in the summer parlor. Usually they didn’t come off before Easter. The paintings and furniture gleamed with extra polishing.

Was her mother matchmaking? Of course she was, but even if the Duke of Northwich was a known Jacobite, he wouldn’t want his son to marry the daughter of a person who’d had his title removed by Act of Attainder. Imogen still cringed at the memory.

They’d received a letter from her father, who loftily ordered them to ignore the edict, since it was imposed by an illegal government. A government that had the power to take everything they had. If not for this house, she and her mother would be living in a hovel somewhere.

A fact that her mother was blithely unconcerned about, or so it appeared when she arrived in the parlor in her best white lustring gown, as if preparing to take the salons of London by storm.

Lord Dankworth arrived shortly afterward, and from his dress Imogen concluded that he planned to take the air. She forced a smile. “It is cold today, sir. The rain turned into a hard frost this morning.”

He slanted her a smiling glance. “Lady Imogen, I am perfectly aware of that. I’ve been out already. I must compliment you on the excellent condition of the estate. I believe you manage it?”

“It is my estate, sir, so yes, you guess right.” He used her courtesy title but to correct him would be churlish. Besides, her mother would object if she did that.

He raised a dark brow. “Indeed, ma’am. You are to be commended. I find a woman who does more than sit in front of the fire and sew a fine seam far more interesting.”

Why should she care? Perhaps her lack of sleep had made her irritable. She ameliorated the sharp retort she’d originally planned in favor of a smile. “My mother sews far better than I. I could never keep the line entirely straight.” She glanced at her mother who gave her best gracious nod.

“Perhaps, madam, you would give me a tour later. I noticed a particularly run-down hut at the edge of your estate when I was riding here. Surely it must belong to someone else? But it could prove a hazard in a storm.”

Her heart pounded against her ribcage and she had to take a couple of deep breaths in order to remain in control. “The hut was part of a boundary dispute which has fortunately concluded in my favor. Unfortunately, the hut belongs to me. I will either have it repaired or demolished soon.”

“It is remarkable in a beautifully kept estate.” He favored her with a warm smile she was hard put not to turn her back on. She didn’t cultivate the estate to please some passing lord. She did it purely for herself, and to keep the house in food and fuel.

She murmured a “Thank you, sir,” and attempted to pass on to other matters, but she was to be disappointed.

“I would appreciate a tour of the grounds, if that is not too much trouble.” He came closer, with that smile fixed on his face, although something else lurked behind his eyes.