Lord of Scoundrels (13 page)

There was a short silence. Then, “Well,” he said, shifting a bit in his place, as though he were not altogether comfortable.

“You told me I should hire help,” she said. “What good will that do, when she’ll interfere with them as well? I shall still be involved—and driven—”

“Yes, yes, I understand,” he said. “She’s bothering you. I’ll make her stop. You should have told me before.”

She smoothed her gloves. “Until now, I was unaware you had any inclinations to slay dragons for me.”

“I don’t,” he said. “But one must be practical. You’ll want all your strength for the wedding night.”

“I cannot think why I should need strength,” she said, ignoring a host of spine-tingling images rising in her mind’s eye. “All I have to do is lie there.”

“
Naked
,” he said grimly.

“Truly?” She shot him a glance from under her lashes. “Well, if I must, I must, for you have the advantage of experience in these matters. Still, I do wish you’d told me sooner. I should not have put the modiste to so much trouble about the negligee.”

“The
what?
”

“It was ghastly expensive,” she said, “but the silk is as fine as gossamer, and the eyelet work about the neckline is exquisite. Aunt Louisa was horrified. She said only Cyprians wear such things, and it leaves nothing to the imagination.”

Jessica heard him suck in his breath, felt the muscular thigh tense against hers.

“But if it were left to Aunt Louisa,” she went on, “I should be covered from my chin to my toes in thick cotton ruffled white monstrosities with little pink bows and rosebuds. Which is absurd, when an evening gown reveals far more, not to mention—”

“What color?” he asked. His low voice had roughened.

“Wine red,” she said. “With narrow black ribbons threaded through the neckline. Here.” She traced a plunging
U
over her bosom. “And there’s the loveliest openwork over my…well,
here
.” She drew her finger over the curve of her breast a bare inch above the nipple. “And openwork on the right side of the skirt. From here”—she pointed to her hip—“down to the hem. And I bought—”

“Jess.” Her name was a strangled whisper.

“—slippers to match,” she continued. “Black mules with—”

“
Jess
.” In one furious flurry of motion, he threw down the reins and hauled her into his lap.

The movement startled the horses, who tossed their heads and snorted and commenced an agitated dance. “Stop it!” Dain said sharply. They stilled.

His powerful right arm tightened round Jessica’s waist and he pulled her close.

It was like sitting in the throbbing heat of a furnace: Brick-hard and hot, his body pulsed with tension. He slid his hand down over her hip and clasped her thigh.

She looked up. He was scowling malevolently at his big, gloved hand. “You,” he growled. “Plague take you.”

She tilted her head back. “I’ll return it, if you wish. The nightgown.”

His furious black gaze moved up, to her mouth. His breathing was harsh. “No, you won’t,” he said.

Then his mouth, hard and hungry, fell upon hers, dragging over her lips as though to punish her.

But what Jessica tasted was victory. She felt it in the heat he couldn’t disguise, and in the pulsing tension of his frame, and she heard it clear as any declaration when his tongue pushed impatiently for entry.

He wanted her. Still.

Maybe he didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help it, any more than she could help wanting him.

And for this moment, she needn’t pretend otherwise. She squirmed up to wrap her arms round his neck, and held tightly while he ravaged her mouth. And while she ravaged his.

They might have been two furious armies, and the kiss a life-or-death battle. They both wanted the same: conquest, possession. He gave no quarter. She wanted none. She couldn’t get enough of the hot sin of his mouth, the scorching pressure of his hand, dragging over her hip, brazenly claiming her breast.

She claimed, too, her hands raking over his massive shoulders and down, digging her fingers into the powerful sinews of his arms.
Mine
, she thought, as the muscles bunched and flexed under her touch.

And
mine
, she vowed, as she splayed her hands over his broad, hard chest. She would have him and keep him if it killed her. A monster he may be, but he was
her
monster. She would not share his stormy kisses with anyone else. She would not share his big, splendid body with anyone else.

She squirmed closer. He tensed and, groaning deep in his throat, moved his hand down and clasped her bottom, pulling her closer still. Even through the leather driving gloves and several layers of fabric, his bold grasp sent sizzling ripples of sensation over her skin.

She wanted his touch upon her naked flesh: big, bare, dark hands moving over her, everywhere. Rough or gentle, she didn’t care. As long as he wanted her. As long as he kissed her and touched her like this…as though he were starving, as she was, as though he couldn’t get enough of her, as she couldn’t of him.

He dragged his mouth from hers and, muttering what sounded like Italian curses, took his warm hand off her buttock.

“Let go of me,” he said thickly.

Swallowing a cry of frustration, she brought her hands down, folded them upon her lap, and stared at a tree opposite.

Dain gazed at her in furious despair.

He should have known better than to come within a mile of her. They’d be wed in thirteen days, and he would have the wedding night and as many nights thereafter as he needed to slake his lust and be done with it. He had told himself it didn’t matter how much she haunted and plagued him meanwhile. He had endured worse, for smaller reward, and he could surely endure a few weeks of frustration.

He had to endure it, because he had a far too vivid image of the alternative: the Marquess of Dain hovering about and panting over his bride-to-be like a starving mongrel at a butcher’s cart. He would be fretting and yapping at her doorstep by day and howling at her window by night. He would be trotting after her to dressmakers and milliners and cobblers and haberdashers, and snarling and growling about her at parties.

He was used to getting what he wanted the instant he wanted it, and to wisely ignoring or rejecting what he couldn’t get that instant. He had found he could no more disregard her than a famished hound could disregard a slab of meat.

He should have realized that the day he met her, when he’d lingered in Champtois’ shop, unable to take his eyes off her. He should at least have discerned the problem the day he’d gone to pieces just taking off her damned glove.

In any case, there was no escaping the truth now, when he’d given himself—and her—so mortifyingly eloquent a display. All she had to do was describe a bit of lingerie, and he lost his mind and tried to devour her.

“Do you want me to get off your lap?” she asked politely, still gazing straight ahead.

“Do you want to?” he asked irritably.

“No, I am perfectly comfortable,” she said.

He wished he could say the same. Thanks to the small, round bottom perched so confounded
comfortably
upon his lap, his loins were experiencing the fiery torments of the damned. He was throbbingly aware that release was mere inches away. He had only to turn her toward him and lift her skirts and…

And she might as well have been in China, for all the chance there was of that happening, he thought bitterly. That was the trouble with ladies—one of the legion of troubles. You couldn’t just do the business when you wanted to. You had to court and persuade, and then you had to do it in a proper bed. In the dark.

“You may stay, then,” he said. “But don’t kiss me again. It’s…provoking. And don’t tell me about your sleeping apparel.”

“Very well,” she said, glancing idly about her, just as though she were sitting at a tea table. “Did you know that Shelley’s first wife drowned herself in the Serpentine?”

“Is my first wife considering the same?” he asked, eyeing her uneasily.

“Certainly not. Genevieve says that killing oneself on account of a man is inexcusably gauche. I was merely making conversation.”

He thought that, despite the torments, it was rather pleasant to have a soft, clean-smelling lady perched upon his knee, making idle conversation. He felt a smile tugging at his mouth. He quickly twisted it into a scowl. “Does that mean you’ve left off being cross for the moment?”

“Yes.” She glanced down at his useless left hand, which had slid onto the seat during their stormy embrace. “You really ought to wear a sling, Dain. So that it doesn’t bang into things. You could do it a serious injury, and never notice.”

“I’ve only banged it once or twice,” he said, frowning at it. “And I noticed, I assure you. I feel everything, just as though it worked. But it doesn’t. Won’t. Just lies there. Hangs there. Whatever.” He laughed. “Conscience bothering you?”

“Not in the least,” she said. “I thought of taking a horsewhip to you, but you wouldn’t have felt a thing, I daresay.”

He studied her slim arm. “That would want a good deal more muscle than you could hope for,” he said. “And you’d never be quick enough. I’d skip out of your way and laugh.”

She looked up. “You’d laugh even if I managed to strike. You’d laugh if your back were torn to shreds. Did you laugh after I shot you?”

“Had to,” he answered lightly. “Because I swooned. Ridiculous.”

It had been ridiculous, he realized now, as he searched the cool grey depths of her eyes. It had been absurd to be outraged with her. The scene in the Wallingdons’ garden hadn’t been her doing. He was beginning to suspect whose it had been. If the suspicion was correct, he had not only behaved abominably, but had been unforgivably stupid.

He’d deserved to be shot. And she’d done it well. Dramatically. He smiled, recollecting. “It was neatly done, Jess. I’ll give you that.”

“It was splendidly done,” she said. “Admit it: brilliantly planned and executed.”

He looked away, toward Nick and Harry, who were pretending to be sleepily at peace with the world. “It was very well done,” he said. “Now I think of it. The red and black garments. The Lady Macbeth voice.” He chuckled. “The way my courageous comrades bolted up in terror at the sight of you. Like a lot of ladies at a tea party invaded by a mouse.”

His amused gaze came back to her. “Maybe it was worth being shot, just to see that. Sellowby—Goodridge—in a panic over a little female in a temper fit.”

“I am not
little
,” she said sharply. “Just because you are a great gawk of a lummox, you needn’t make me out to be negligible. For your information, my lord Goliath, I happen to be taller than average.”

He patted her arm. “You needn’t worry, Jess. I’m still going to marry you, and I’ll manage to make do somehow. You are not to be anxious on that score. In fact, I’ve brought proof.”

He slid his hand into the deep carriage pocket. It took him a moment to find the package he’d hidden there, and the moment was enough to set his heart pounding with anxiety.

He’d spent three agitated hours selecting the gift. He’d rather be stretched upon a rack than return to Number Thirty-two, Ludgate Hill, and endure that hellish experience again. At last his fingers closed upon the tiny box.

Still, his heart didn’t stop pounding, even when he drew it out and clumsily pressed it into her hand. “You’d better open it yourself,” he said tightly. “It’s a deuced awkward business with one hand.”

Her grey glance darting from him to the package, she opened it.

There was a short silence. His insides knotted and his skin grew clammy with sweat.

Then, “Oh,” she said. “Oh, Dain.”

His helpless panic eased a fraction.

“We’re betrothed,” he said stiffly. “It’s a betrothal ring.”

The clerk at Rundell and Bridge had made appalling suggestions. A birthstone—when Dain had no idea when her birthday was. A stone to match her eyes—when there was no such stone, no such object in existence.

The obsequious worm had even dared to suggest a row of gems whose initials formed a message: Diamond-Emerald-Amethyst-Ruby-Epidote-Sapphire-Turquoise…for
DEAREST
. Dain had very nearly lost his breakfast.

Then, finally, when he’d been driven to the last stage of desperation, poring over emeralds and amethysts and pearls and opals and aquamarines and every other curst mineral a craftsman could clamp onto a ring…then, in the last of what seemed like a thousand velvet-padded trays, Dain had found it.

A single cabochon ruby, so smoothly polished that it seemed liquid, surrounded by heartbreakingly perfect diamonds.

He had told himself he didn’t care whether she liked it or not. She’d have to wear it anyway.

He’d found it a great deal easier to pretend when she wasn’t near. Easier to make believe he’d chosen that particular ring simply because it was the finest. Easier to hide in his dark wasteland of a heart the real reason: that it was a tribute, its symbolism as mawkish as any the jeweler’s clerk had proposed.

A bloodred stone for the brave girl who’d shed his blood. And diamonds flashing fiery sparks, because lightning had flashed the first time she’d kissed him.

Her gazed lifted to his. Silver mist shimmered in her eyes. “It’s beautiful,” she said softly. “Thank you.” She pulled off her glove and took the ring from the box. “You must put it on my finger.”

“Must I?” He tried to sound disgusted. “Some sentimental twaddle, I suppose.”

“There’s no one to see,” she said.

He took the ring from her and slipped it over her finger, then quickly drew his hand away, afraid she’d discern the trembling.

She turned her hand this way and that, and the diamonds took fire.

She smiled.

“At least it fits,” he said.

“Perfectly.” Turning her head, she darted one quick kiss at his cheek, then hastily returned to her seat. “Thank you, Beelzebub,” she said very softly.

His heart constricted painfully. He snatched up the reins. “We’d better get out of here, before the fashionable stampede begins,” he said, his voice very gruff. “Nick! Harry! You can stop playing dead now.”