Leslie Lafoy (15 page)

“Greed does make people a bit blind. And overconfident.”

As does lust
, he reminded himself. “So if simple greed is her motive, then it stands to reason that she’d want as much money as could be had from my death, right?”

“A logical assumption.”

“So let’s say that I’m found flattened on the street.”

“She’d clutch her handkerchief and cry in a dignified way as she took the insurance money.”

“Absolutely. And then she’d leave the offices of the insurance company and go directly to the office of my solicitor to cry some more as she listens to the reading of my will.”

“Oh my God,” Simone whispered, her eyes widening.

“Precisely. Without a wife and heirs, I have no one to leave my personal fortune except my sister.”

“And with Emmy being a minor…”

Yes, an amazingly quick mind.
“I’m sure Em would live very well. For a while, anyway.”

“Until she met a tragic end, too. And then Lucinda, her grief-stricken mother, would inherit your personal estate as the only next of kin.”

Tristan nodded. “It would require some patience, but not a great deal of luck. She could be a very, very wealthy woman before a year was out.”

“But only if you die before you marry,” Simone countered. “After you marry, your wife and any heirs would inherit your personal estate, not Emmy.”

“Yes.”

“In that case,” she said, slowly, contemplatively, “announcing your engagement would send Lucinda into a panic. You’d have to die before you got to the ‘I do’ or she’d get nothing.”

“Forcing her hand quite effectively,” he allowed. “Unfortunately, I don’t think she’d be all that put off by disposing of my beloved in the process of eliminating me. Which, all in all, makes it rather difficult on my conscience to consider actually inviting a young woman to step blindly into what amounts to a deadly trap. And I’d think that explaining the circumstances would tend to dampen the interest most women might have in accepting my proposal.”

She grinned. “What you need is a young woman with some pluck and a set of eyes in the back of her head. A bit of ruthlessness to her wouldn’t hurt, either.”

Yes. Yes. And yes. Being a breathtakingly bold lover would be appreciated, too.

“Just out of curiosity, Tristan … When did you first think of me as the answer to all your prayers?”

She was assuming. Accurately. He could pretend to be a gentleman and deny it or face it squarely. “It depends on which prayers we’re talking about,” he answered. “If it’s my prayers for a beautiful, passionate lover, then you were the answer the moment I saw you standing beside Em at the punch bowl the other night. But if it’s my prayers for an accomplice in intrigue…”

He sighed. “Honestly, that didn’t occur to me until I watched you ride away yesterday morning. In the hours between then and now lust has been battling my conscience over the notion. There’s considerable danger involved and—”

“No one is going to believe that I’m willing to agree to marry. Not just out of the blue. Which, of course, I’m not. This would be purely for appearances and only for as long as it takes to draw Lucinda into making a move against you in Noland’s presence. Once that’s done, we’ll call off the whole thing and go our separate ways.”

“I haven’t agreed to this, you know.”

“I’d have to be forced into an engagement,” she went on, apparently ignoring his noble intent. “Otherwise it’s going to set tongues loose all over town. Well, they’re going to talk regardless, but, if I’m not forced into it, it will be in a way we don’t want. Lucinda may not know me, but she does listen to the tales. Our plan would come off ever so much better, not to mention quickly, if she doesn’t suspect that
she’s
being drawn into a trap.”

“Simone, I—”

“Obviously we need a scandal that would force us to marry. And marry quickly. I mean, there’s no sense in having a year-long engagement, is there? The faster we have to marry, the faster Lucinda has to act. We could have this whole affair over and done before the week is out.”

Well, yes, in a perfect world. But the world wasn’t perfect. “At which point,” Tristan observed, “assuming we survive it all, your guardian will want to kill me for having endangered you and put your family in the midst of a horrible scandal. And, to my thinking, have every right to do so on both counts.”

“Actually, that’s the silver lining in it all,” she blithely countered. “Not that Drayton would want to kill you. He wouldn’t. Not seriously. He’d be furious with me. And for once he’d make good on his threat to send me to the country house in chains. I’d get out of having to go through with the Season.”

“Your reputation would be destroyed.”

She grinned. “Thoroughly. Spectacularly.”

“You’d never have another chance at a Season.”

“Proof that God is indeed benevolent,” she rejoined, laughing softly.

“We’d be manipulating your family. Most unkindly.”

She sobered instantly. “There is that,” she admitted on a soft sigh.

“Let’s think on the course, Simone,” he suggested, feeling both virtuous and keenly disappointed. “We don’t have to make a decision tonight. Tomorrow or the day after or even six months from now will be soon enough. Lucinda isn’t going to act until she’s forced to by circumstance. It’s in her best interests to wait as long as possible. The longer the situation goes along as it is, the fewer suspicions that will be raised if something happens to me. I brought up the subject simply because I thought it only fair that you know that there are risks involved in being in my company.”

She nodded slowly and stared down at his legs. “Then I suppose that we’re to the time when I should wish you a good night and say that I’ll see you with Emmy in the morning.”

“I believe we are.”

Neither one of them moved to stand. Tristan watched the rise and fall of her breasts, battling the desire to reach out for her, to suggest that perhaps prudence was an overrated virtue.

Slowly she lifted her gaze to meet his. The light of desire flickered in the depths of her eyes and shimmered in her voice as she whispered, “Would it be all right to ask for a good-night kiss?”

A good man would kindly and politely decline the invitation outright. A cad would answer by taking her in his arms and pushing her mindlessly over the brink. Tristan forced himself to swallow. “That could be dangerous.”

She arched a brow and one corner of her mouth rose in the smallest, most deliciously wicked smile. “There are so few edges in my life these days.”

His sense of honor whimpered, but he ignored it and reached for her, slipping his arms around her waist and drawing her closer as he bent his head. She met his advance with a sigh of sweet sanction, twining her arms about his neck and melting against him. Her breasts pressing warm against his chest, her lips parted at the first touch of his tongue and she opened for him, willing and hot and delicious. Fire poured through his veins, arrowing into a hard, throbbing desire. He moaned at the sudden intensity of the need, and even as reason flitted through his awareness, he lifted her and drew her closer still.

She sighed and shifted in his arms, then tripped his heart as she seized control of their kiss and settled herself across his lap. God, for as long as he lived … He slipped his hands down her hips and then back to cup her and firmly hold her against the hardness of his desire. She went still and then tore her lips from his with a gasp. Regret flooded over him and he opened his eyes as his brain stumbled through scattered words in the hope of finding some that would make an apology. The light in her eyes caught his breath and sent his mind reeling.

“I don’t want to say good night,” she murmured, rolling her hips and sending a wave of exquisite pleasure through him. “Not yet.”

As he gasped for air and self-control, she moved against him again, slower and harder. “Simone,” he groaned, grabbing her hips and trying desperately to still her. “This is—”

“An intelligent impulse,” she declared, lifting her arms from his neck to open the buttons on her shirt.

Intelligent? No, it wasn’t; it was reckless in the extreme. But what the hell, he didn’t care. He’d just make damn sure they didn’t get caught and then all the ifs, maybes, shoulds, and oughts wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans. As for it being an impulse … It certainly could be; he was ready enough. But she deserved a better bed for their first mating than a cold wooden garden bench.

Tristan caught her hands and brought them to his shoulders. “You win, my sweet,” he said softly as he slipped his hands under her legs. She grinned wickedly as he lifted her up and gained his feet.

It wasn’t until he stepped to his horse outside the gate and slid her gently to her feet that she asked, “Where are you taking me?”

“To my bed.”

Her smile was slow but so lusciously wicked that it took every measure of his self-control to pull the reins from the ring and swing up across the saddle.

Chapter 9

Simone stood, her heart racing, and watched him settle into the saddle. God, if she was ever going to get caught being bad, there wasn’t another man on earth she’d rather be caught with. There had to be credit awarded for picking someone so handsome, so strong. And a man who could turn reason to ash with just a touch … He looked down at her and slowly smiled.

“You sit a horse very well,” she observed as her pulse quickened.

“Thank you. So do you.” He moved back on the smooth leather seat. “Come sit it with me.”

How exactly one did that … “I’ve never shared a mount before,” she admitted with a grin. “And I definitely recall several of my many deportment masters saying that ladies shouldn’t. Ever.”

“Did they say why?”

She chuckled, remembering. “No, they just looked horrified when I asked.”

He laughed softly. “Hop up on that mounting block, turn your back to me, and I’ll show you why they were so adamant.”

She’d long ago surmised the danger, but the prospect of actually experiencing it … She vaulted up on the stone and obediently turned to face the fence. No sooner had she done so than Tristan’s arm slid around her waist. She folded her arms across it, tucking her fingers beneath the steel band as he lifted her up and drew her across his lap.

Oh yes. Why ladies shouldn’t share a horse was obvious. Hard, pressing, and hotly obvious. She shifted, settling her hips between his thighs. His breath caught in a delightful way.

“Comfortable?”

She looked up at him and grinned. “Comfortable is what one is when sitting in a well-upholstered chair in the morning room, sipping coffee, and chatting with your sister. My sister’s not here and you’re not the least bit well upholstered. In fact.” She deliberately wiggled her hips, rubbing against his hardness. “Yes, you’re decidedly lumpy.”

“I’m sure you can smooth me out with no effort at all.”

“Right here?”

“God,” he groaned, and turned the horse about.

As they eased out of the shadows and made their way onto the dew-damp cobblestones of the street, his jaw tightened and his fingers tightened on the reins. She thought about easing slightly forward to ease the friction and his suffering, but even as the thought occurred to her, he laid his free hand on her thigh and began to draw heated circles with his palm. Circles that ever so slowly and deliberately moved inward and up.

“Where are we going?” she asked on a ragged breath.

“It’s a surprise.”

No one had ever touched her so intimately. The heat of his hand and the friction of her trousers against sensitive nerves set her on fire. She closed her eyes and tried to control the pulsing of her womb. “Generally speaking, I’ve never cared much for surprises.”

“You’ll like this one.”

“I am so far,” she admitted, shifting to allow him freer access.

He bent his head and feathered a kiss to her temple, asking, “Are you impatient, Simone?” as the heel of his hand came to rest on the lowest button of her pants. And stopped.

“I hope you don’t consider that too brazen,” she answered tightly as she squirmed, trying to get his hand to move again. “Not that I care if you do.”

“In private,” he whispered into her hair, “there’s no such thing as too anything.”

“Then could we possibly ride any faster?”

“But it’s dark,” he murmured, slowly pressing his hand into her and rubbing. “And the streets are deserted.”

“Oh, Tristan,” she whimpered as the exquisite heat and throbbing returned, instant and more intense for its momentary absence. “That’s heav—” She gasped at the sudden jolt of pleasure. Even as she smiled in satisfaction another shot through her, deeper and hotter and more compelling. Then another even more urgent. And another. She arched up and turned into him, desperately trying to pull away, to trap his hand—anything to keep her wits above the flood of too keen sensation.

He didn’t relent. Neither did the pleasure. In a heartbeat, it shattered her control, and delight quaked through every fiber of her body, melting her bones and wondrously overfilling her senses.

As he pressed kisses into her hair, her mind drifted slowly back to earth. “Dear God,” she whispered, amazed.

He laughed, the sound rolling gently through her and deepening her contentment. She smiled, thinking that, yes, if there was ever a man worth a scandal, it was Tristan Townsend. She leaned into him, nestling her cheek against the heated plane of his chest. Listening to the strong, steady beat of his heart, she closed her eyes and surrendered to the lullaby.

*   *   *

Simone stood in the shadows as Tristan had instructed and watched him lead the horse toward the dimly lit guard shack at the farthest corner of the warehouse. Part of her brain dully mulled the fact that she was serenely obeying what amounted to an imperial command. Another part was really quite impressed with his attempt to protect both her reputation and his horse. And yet another part of her brain was dutifully recording the sights and sounds and smells of the world around her. A world she hadn’t seen since the day she’d been sold into the peerage.

The corners of her mouth twitched and her awareness roused from its deep and pleasant stupor. The river. She was back to the river. She could smell it, could hear it. To her left and behind. She turned and walked deeper into the shadows, rounded the near corner, and then stopped, her heart swelling. The Thames. The tide was high tonight. And the water was warm.