Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal (23 page)

“I dwell in London because of my sister’s situation…” He fell silent. Avis had had twelve years to come to terms with her situation, and she was very happily married now to a decent fellow on the neighboring estate. “Going home would have been difficult previously, and now I have obligations in the Lords.”

“You have a title, don’t you?”

He didn’t hesitate. “An earldom. Earl of Hazelton.” She cocked her head, and he waited for her mouth to flatten as she realized he’d been deceptive by omission.

“Papa was a reluctant duke. He didn’t want to sell out his commission and man the title, as he put it. I won’t tell.”

She wouldn’t. It came as a small surprise to realize he trusted her to keep his confidences in this.

“I’m running out of time,” he said, glancing through a crack in the leather curtains. It was a gorgeous day, so pretty it made a man… homesick. Maggie’s fingers laced with his.

“Running out of what sort of time?”

“An earldom is not a simple thing to obscure. Your papa has been complicit in my scheme, because he recalls the ordeal my sisters went through and understands my reasons, but people suspect. There are only so many times I can shuffle into Parliament all but wearing a disguise. Then too, it’s one thing to send a mere mister after an errant daughter or missing love token. It’s quite another to repose nasty secrets in a belted earl.”

She squeezed his hand. “You are telling me this because we’ve reached a parting of the ways.”

No, he was not, but it was as much of an opening as she’d give him, and the weight of his recently hatched scheme was pressing on his chest.

“In truth I do not want to part ways with you, Maggie Windham, and I’d ask you for a fair hearing.”

She turned her head to meet his gaze, though her bearing had become positively imperial with a simple lift of her chin. “I’m listening.”

“I have an heir, but he’s a distant cousin who wants nothing to do with titles, votes, or the obligation my sisters represent. He’s a Town man, handy with the ladies, and not given to agricultural matters in the least.”

“Is this Archer?”

In for a penny, in for a pound. “Yes. I’d like you to meet him.”

She shook her head, but he forged on rather than let her start on her protestations.

“One reluctant heir is not adequate to secure the succession. I am attracted to you, and I think the attraction is mutual. I am asking you to marry me, Maggie Windham. Cry the banns, reserve St. George’s, your mama weeping in the first row while your brothers glare at me for my audacity…”

He could not gauge her reaction.

“Her Grace is not my mother, and my brothers would not glare at you, and while I understand the honor you do—”

She tipped her head back, eyes closed. He watched while her throat worked and felt her hand clench in his. “Benjamin, I cannot.”

He had expected an uphill battle. He had not expected the single, silver tear that slipped from the corner of her closed eye and trickled down her cheek.

“Why not?”

She shook her head and accepted his handkerchief. “I’m just a by-blow, and being your countess would only ensure I was the subject of constant gossip. Our children would be ostracized; I’d be the subject of much criticism…”

“Our children would be the grandchildren of a duke and an earl. When one of the Wilson sisters can marry a titled lord and be accepted anywhere, your argument fails. We’d live in Cumbria, where the only ones to pass judgment would be the sheep climbing the fells. I’d give you as many children as you wanted, and we’d suit, Maggie Windham. We’d suit admirably.”

He was an educated, resourceful man, but just a man. Words were not winning the fair maid, and while he’d been prepared to work for her capitulation, he was not ready for her to wall herself off in specious arguments and stubborn silence.

He kissed her. He put all of his longing into the kiss, all of his determination to keep her safe and fight her battles for her. When she was sighing into his mouth and her hands were clinging to his biceps, he forced himself to pause, lest he be consummating unspoken vows on the carriage bench.

“You must not…” She drew in a slow, deep breath, their mouths an inch apart. “You cannot ravish my reason, Benjamin. I am discharging you, and we will be cordial acquaintances from this day forward.”

She dropped her forehead to his, her fingers circling his wrist where his hand cradled her jaw.

A tactical retreat might be in order, but he was not going to be easily discouraged.

“I will serenade you from the street, Maggie Windham. I will be so callow, you will marry me to save me from embarrassment.”

She smiled at his flummery. “Take me riding, and then let us part on a happier note.”

He shifted to bring his arm around her shoulders and urge her against his side. “I brought a picnic as well. Surely a disappointed suitor is entitled to a consolation meal?”

Her head rested on his shoulder, a cozy, comfortable posture that did nothing to still the hammering of his heart in his chest—and that after a single kiss.

She smiled and did not sit up. “If we ride the way I want to, we’ll need the sustenance. Tell me some more about your sisters.”

He told her. As they saddled up and rode the pretty lanes of Richmond, he babbled. He found himself recalling memories of his siblings from before their lives had been blighted by the assault of one and the physical injury to the other. He described Blessings in all its great, bucolic splendor, and he listened to Maggie wax just as eloquent about the Morelands estate in Kent.

When they handed off the horses to the groom a long hour later, the footmen had already spread the blankets and set out the picnic basket in a secluded copse along a path well away from the lanes.

In all their rambles, Hazlit had seen only one stately old town coach lumbering along, two footmen up behind, a coachman and groom in front. And still the weather held warm and fair, which could only bode well for his next bid to gain Maggie Windham’s hand—and to keep her safe.

***

It was a gorgeous day, the breeze soft and fragrant with the scent of blooming flowers and greening trees.

Maggie glanced around at the park in all its early spring beauty—for the day was genuinely an exponent of early spring—took a lungful of fresh air, and told herself it was the perfect day for a broken heart.

As a girl, she’d dreamed of one day having a husband and children, a home of her own and a family of her own—a real family. It was the same mundane dream every girl from good family felt entitled to have, and it was a wonderful dream.

And then she’d made her come out and shortly thereafter realized that if the family she already had was to be safe from social and financial harm, that simple, solid, mundane dream was not to be hers—not ever.

Benjamin, the Earl of Hazelton, had asked for her hand in marriage, and it hurt with the sweet, piercing ache of a wish that would never come true—a wish so dear she’d been unwilling to admit to herself she still held it in her heart.

A husband she could respect and
care
for
, children, a beautiful estate far from gossip and intrigue, passion such as she’d only glimpsed recently, and the illusion of safety and peace.

For it would be only an illusion. When Bridget’s first letter found her, the illusion would crack. When Maggie’s pin money went missing month after month, the cracks would start radiating through her happiness; when Benjamin put the pieces of the puzzle together, the dream would shatter altogether.

“Chicken or roasted beef?” Benjamin knelt by a huge wicker hamper, rummaging in its depth as he spoke. “This is a momentous decision, as it determines which bottle of wine I open first. And we’ve forced strawberries.” He glanced up at her. “I will wrestle you for the strawberries, be warned.”

He went on like that, teasing with a grave face, feeding her all but three of those strawberries, and plying her with a fruity, sweet white wine between every bite of chicken. When the meal was finished, Maggie realized the coach was gone, taking grooms, footmen, and horses with it.

“I’m alone with you, Benjamin, and you’ve been suspiciously charming for the past hour. What are you about?”

“I’m not sure.” He started repacking the hamper. “Enjoying the condemned man’s last meal, maybe. Why won’t you marry me, Maggie? The real reason, not the polite excuse.”

Because he was pretending to be busy with the plates and bottles and glasses, Maggie had a moment to study him. As he efficiently put away the detritus of their meal, she knew he was listening to her, even watching her.

She could not offer him explanations, and after today, gentleman that he was, he’d not ask for them. He’d resume his busy life, one foot in an earldom, another in the shadows of Mayfair, missing his home, fretting over his sisters, and politely
nodding
at Maggie Windham on the street.

The ache in her throat that had started with his proposal threatened to choke her.

“Will you kiss me good-bye, Benjamin?”

He sat back on his heels, the last bottle of wine in his hand, his shirt sleeves luffing gently in the spring breeze. Without answering, he put the bottle in the hamper and closed the wicker flaps. He met her gaze, his eyes a peculiar amber hue in the dappled shade. “Yes. I will kiss you, Maggie Windham.”

He crawled the few feet across the blanket, looking like some dark jungle cat on the scent of prey. Maggie sat, knees drawn to her chest, until Benjamin was nose to nose with her.

And then he was on her, literally and figuratively. She was on her back, his body caging hers, his mouth a force of nature against her own. This wasn’t like any kiss they’d shared before; it wasn’t like any kiss she might have imagined.

This was a pillaging, plundering kiss. A kiss that drew the passion right up through her body and had her clinging to him without thought. Desire, hot and needy, roared to life in her vitals.

“Benjamin…” She held his head still with her hand fisted in his hair and drew on the tongue he’d sent raiding secrets from her mouth.

“Don’t
think
, Maggie. Just kiss me.” His hand closed over her breast, and Maggie arched up into the pleasure he gave her. This was wrong, dangerous, stupid… and necessary to the survival of her soul. She kissed him with everything in her, kissed him against years—
more
years—of isolation and despair. Kissed him as if he were her last hope of passion—because he was.

She felt her skirts drifting up against her legs. She was about to whisper at him to hurry when he lifted himself away from her.

“Where are you—?”

He sat back not even a foot from her side and, still holding her gaze, undid the falls of his riding breeches. “I will not take from you what only a husband should accept, but by God, Maggie Windham, I will make you rethink your refusal of me.”

He tossed back her skirts and crouched over her. “Stop me now, Maggie, or let me give you the pleasure you deserve.”

Her eyes went to the place where his clothing was undone. She wanted to see him, to touch the part of him a wife might touch, to know the intimate scent and feel of him.

She lay on her back, knees drawn up, drawers exposed to the pretty day and to Benjamin Hazlit’s hot gaze. “I wouldn’t stop you if I could, Benjamin. This once, I want… I want
you
.”

“Not all of me.” His fingers went to the tapes of her drawers. “I won’t ruin you, Maggie, though you have certainly ruined me.”

And then with a lift of her hips, her drawers were off. He balled them up and tossed them to a corner of the blanket, and before Maggie could slap her knees closed, his hand was trailing down her thigh.

“I’m going to look, Maggie, and I’m going to touch, and you’re going to let me.”

He already was looking, staring at flesh Maggie herself had never seen and rarely touched with her own fingers.

“God above, you are gorgeous.”

His thumb traced over her mons. She closed her eyes and memorized the sensation. All the frantic need of the previous few minutes drained down into the place he was touching, coalescing into a slow, throbbing ache.

“Your hair is a shade darker here. Do you like this?” The question was almost conversational as he drew his fingers through her curls, slowly, repeatedly. “Or maybe you prefer a more intimate approach.”

He shifted his touch, parting folds of flesh in slow caresses. Sensation, hot and shivery at once, rippled up Maggie’s body. She arched toward him, need and frustration overcoming any pretense of self-control.

“I wish I could get you naked,” he said, staring at her sex. “I want to see your breasts, want to put my hands and mouth on you, want to feel you naked and half mad with passion beneath me.”

His voice had dropped to the register of passion, of darkness and pleasure. Maggie shifted on the blanket, the confinement of her clothing a form of torture.

He did something with his hands—used both of them to hold her intimate flesh and stroke over it at the same time. The sensation was exquisite and unbearably arousing.

“You must not.” She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, trying to communicate desperation with her grip. “I cannot bear this.”