London's Last True Scoundrel (3 page)

She sighed. “Very well. Thank you.” Reluctance showing in every line of her body, she handed the bandboxes up.

He tied them securely, then reached down a hand to her. “Put your right foot on mine,” he instructed her.

She did. Her grip tightened on his hand and he hauled her up. She might be a dab of a female, but the rain weighted her skirts. The pain in his shoulder flared, but his smile didn’t waver.

She didn’t smile back. Her eyes flickered as she looked into his face properly for the first time, but the expression of disdain did not alter.

“Thank you,” she said frigidly.

He gripped her around the waist and settled the wet, bedraggled bundle more comfortably across the saddle before him.

“You are freezing,” he said.

She sat as straight as she could under the circumstances, as if she had a poker rammed down the back of her gown.

He chuckled. Really, she was absurd. “Relax. I won’t bite.”

Much as he’d like to.

“I am perfectly relaxed,” she said stiffly.

“If you lean against me, you will be more comfortable,” he murmured provocatively, his breath warming her ear. “Shared body heat does wonders against the chill.”

She glanced at him suspiciously.

“I assure you, it’s true. It’s all to do with thermal conduction.”

He went on to explain the principles of heat transference, but despite all of the obscure, multisyllabic words he threw in to impress her, she refused to participate in his proposed experiment.

“Thank you. I do not regard the cold.”

She didn’t regard him, either, but stared ahead. Clearly, the affront to her dignity of allowing some nameless ruffian to escort her home—and at such scandalous proximity—was insurmountable.

With a mental shrug, he set the horse into a brisk walk, enjoying the way she was forced to move against him in rhythm with the motion of their mount. Despite the icy damp of her, despite his own aches and ails, his body went on full alert for action.

At close quarters, he noticed the warm, creamy perfection of her skin. That her irises were not blue, as he’d expected from her fair coloring, but light brown, flecked with hints of gold.

She had a lovely, queenly neck, he discovered, sadly shadowed by the high collar of her pelisse. She dressed like a spinster aunt, but she couldn’t have long left her teens.

“I believe it is customary in such situations to make polite conversation with your rescuer,” he said, teasing her.

She turned her head to look at him. Who knew warm brown eyes could turn so cold?

“We have not been introduced,” she said. “Therefore, I cannot converse with you.”

He wanted to laugh. Her bottom was so near to his groin as to make them very close acquaintances indeed. Yet she would be a stickler for the proprieties.

“Allow me to rectify that error,” he said. “I am—”

“Pray, don’t trouble yourself.” She flicked a repelling glance at him. “I don’t expect we shall meet again after today.”

He did laugh then. “Oho! If you think that, you don’t know much about men, Miss…?” He ended on a note of inquiry.

“Persistent, aren’t you?” She cocked an eyebrow but did not turn her head. She seemed quite determined not to look at him any longer than necessary. Did he present that much of an ugly spectacle?

Persistent? He thought about that. “I can be.”

In the pursuit of science, he’d been dogged. Some might say obsessed. And yet, since his return, he’d found little worth his extended attention. However, he would persevere with this lady, if only to ruffle those dignified feathers of hers.

She ignored him.

“Very well, then,” he said. “If you will not give me your name, I shall be obliged to make one up.”

“Can your horse not go any faster?” she asked.

“Let’s see, shall we?” He nudged the gelding into an easy canter, taking the opportunity to hug her in tight against him, ostensibly to save her from falling.

She squawked a furious protest. He ignored her.

“I might call you Joan,” he decided. “You have a certain air of the burning martyr about you. But I daresay that is merely because you are obliged to ride in the embrace of a reprobate such as me. If you smiled, you would not look like a Joan at all. You do smile, on occasion, I trust?”

No answer. Silent outrage poured from her in waves.

“
Not
Joan, then. Hmm. Something from the Greek pantheon, perhaps. Aphrodite? Or is that wishful thinking on my part?”

“You are ridiculous!” she burst out. “Even if we were introduced, I should never give you leave to use my given name.”

She’d colored up quite nicely now, torturing that poor, pretty underlip with her teeth. A sudden yearning startled him in its sharp urgency. What the Devil was wrong with him? She was not the type of woman he usually favored. He couldn’t conceive of her ever sticking her hands down his trousers, moonlight or no.

The rain had eased a little, but lightning still frolicked about them. The storm was about to break around their ears and he didn’t give a damn. There was something about this young lady. He couldn’t put his finger on precisely what it was, but he wasn’t about to let her slip from his grasp too easily.

They’d covered two miles or so before it occurred to him he could use the storm to his advantage.

“I fear we might be obliged to take shelter nearby,” he commented. “It probably isn’t safe to be out.”

“I’d rather be struck by lightning than go anywhere private with you,” she declared in a stifled voice. “Ride on, if you please. My … destination is just down that lane, up ahead.”

He noticed the slight hesitation. Hadn’t she said she was going home before? Was she so prejudiced against him that she didn’t want him to know where she lived?

He hadn’t realized they were so close to the end of this delightful journey. He wanted to know more about her, to keep teasing her until he broke through all that dreadful propriety to the flesh-and-blood woman beneath.

He wondered who awaited this prickly little creature. Not a husband or a lover. For one thing, she didn’t have a ring on her finger. For another, he could see she was a virgin as clearly as if it had been stamped across her forehead.

Indeed, virtue never had such a staunch defender as this young lady. Despite the danger of falling from the saddle as their speed increased, she held doggedly to the pommel rather than lean back against him and accept his embrace.

Her profile was finely wrought. Enchanting. Perhaps it was just as well she did not smile. His heart might not have stood it.

Temptation gnawed at him. He’d had many women since his return from exile, but despite the intricate games aristocratic coquettes liked to indulge in, not one had left him in any doubt that those games would end in bed.

This lady gave him no quarter. The hunter in him found her complete disinterest—indeed, her antipathy—irresistible.

He glimpsed a sprawling manor house at the end of the lane. This was it. He halted his steed and stared down at his fair passenger.

CHAPTER TWO

“What do we stop for?” Even now, much as she longed to do so, Hilary could not bring herself to look this dreadful man in the eye.

He presented the most shocking figure. She recognized all too well the familiar signs of a scoundrel. She’d had considerable experience of them in her own family.

But this one was a slight variation on the theme, she had to admit. He possessed a sense of humor, for one thing. Intelligence, too. He did his utmost to hide it, but there was a disquieting expression in his gaze when it rested on her, as if he saw her more clearly than he’d any right to do. She wasn’t sure she liked that.

He was chivalrous in his own audacious, careless way. She was not stupid enough to believe he’d rescued her out of pure altruism, however. She knew the look in a man’s eye when he wanted her. She’d dealt with plenty of those while living in her brother’s house.

He was covered in bruises, but even beneath his swollen jaw and the purple contusion that flared across his cheekbone, she could tell at a glance he was a remarkably handsome man.

Liquid brown eyes framed with thick lashes, a head of dark brown hair that, even windblown and wet, fell romantically over his brow. A handsome, strong jaw that spoke of determination, perhaps even a streak of stubbornness, belied by his easygoing manner.

There was something about a man garbed in evening dress and looking utterly disheveled that awoke in her a dormant heat.

Confusion seethed in her brain. How could she find him in the least attractive? She knew his type from bitter experience. He was precisely the kind of man any lady with the least common sense would avoid.

His situation shouted a debauched personality. How on earth had he come to be riding about the countryside in his evening clothes at three in the afternoon? Perhaps he had not yet gone to bed?

Bed.

No. She ought not to think of this man in connection with a bed.

She’d tried not to notice how large his shoulders were, how strong the arm that encircled her. How broad the thigh that brushed hers now and then as he steered his horse.

He was a brute, a rogue, and most probably a libertine, too. He was everything a deVere trying her best to maintain her own standards in the face of an impossible handicap did
not
need.

But her pulse raced. Her body longed to melt against him, to draw warmth from that big, masculine form. Thermal conduction, he’d called it. Whatever the terminology, remaining aloof from him was like staying away from a roaring fire when one was frozen to the marrow.

If she could just get home without giving the fellow any hint of her disquiet, she would be safe. Not far now.

Then he stopped.

She couldn’t help it. Her head whipped around. She stared up at him, her eyes widened at the intent expression on his face.

A flush scalded her cheeks. She’d been determined not to react to his teasing and succeeded for the most part. But the serious look disarmed her. She bit her lip.

“Stop that,” he ordered, startling her. Gently, he traced her lower lip with his fingertip, freeing it from the anxious clutch of her teeth.

He took her chin in a decided grip, tilted her face upward.

She let him do it, entranced by the compelling power of those serious dark eyes. Her heart beat frantically, but her brain had packed its bags and gone on holiday. She couldn’t have strung two thoughts together if her life depended upon it.

On a muttered oath, his mouth descended to hers and took command. His lips were hot and she was so very, very cold. His heat radiated outward, down her body, flowing through her, right to her toes.

He lifted her, pressed her more firmly against his body, warming her twice over. His arms, tight around her, his lips searching, drinking her in.

And his tongue. Oh, goodness, his tongue traced her lower lip, soothing, teasing. A gasp of shock made her lips part. Accepting an invitation she’d no notion of issuing, he licked inside, a languid, lascivious slide of his tongue that only seemed to make her heart pound harder and her knees go weak.

Finally, he raised his head. “Honey.” He said it on a ragged laugh. “I shall call you Honey, because you taste so very sweet.”

That made her shove away from him so hard she almost fell off his horse. “Put me down. Set me down this instant.”

His arm merely tightened around her. Heat glazed his eyes.

“No.”

A thrill of fearful excitement speared through her, and wasn’t that the opposite reaction to the one she ought to have? She’d always known her deVere blood would get her into trouble one day. If she’d resisted him as soon as he’d tried to kiss her, she’d be free now.

To her relief—or disappointment, she didn’t know which—he didn’t try it again but merely urged the horse forward.

After a few moments, he asked, “Who lives in this house?”

“My brothers,” she said shakily, not knowing whether to be glad or sorry for his change of subject. “They are large and ferocious. I daresay they would delight in adding a few extra bruises to your collection when I tell them what you’ve done.”

He brightened. Not the reaction she’d hoped for. “Really? Who are they, your brothers?”

“Thomas and Benedict deVere,” she said, hoping their reputations preceded them. “So you see—”

He laughed. “But I know them. At least, I know Tom. Well, well,” he said, eyeing her in a way that did not bode well at all. “So you’re a deVere.”

He seemed to find the circumstance vastly entertaining.

She was not amused.

“This does
not
constitute an introduction,” she said.

“Honey, I’d say we’re well past the introduction stage, wouldn’t you? But that’s all right. I like calling you Honey.”

Casually, as if the matter wasn’t anything of particular interest, he said, “I’m the Earl of Davenport, you know.”

“Davenport?” She frowned. “But I thought the earl was an older man.”

His lips twisted in a parody of a smile. “What? You haven’t heard? Where have you been these past few months, in a convent? No, no, you are thinking of my cousin Bertram. He succeeded me.”

“
Succeeded
you?” Now she was thoroughly confused.

“I was dead, you see,” he explained, as if that were the most reasonable thing in the world. “My cousin inherited. But then they found I wasn’t dead after all, so I am now the earl. And he is not.”

“But…” Oh, dear Heaven, it couldn’t be.

Her body went hot, then cold, then hot again. For the first time in her life, she felt as if she might faint. Hilary closed her eyes, squeezed them shut, then opened them again.

“What is your first name, my lord?”

“Jonathon,” he said. Then he flashed a genuine smile. “I knew you’d come around to my way of thinking. My dear Honey, this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”

He bent toward her, with that teasing lilt to his lips she utterly abhorred. He meant to
kiss
her again? He actually meant to—

“Ooh!”

For the first time in her polite, faultless life, Hilary drew back her hand and slapped her irritating companion’s face.