Ripe for Pleasure (9 page)

He couldn’t. Not tonight. Not like this. Capitulation was one thing, but his was something else. And it left him feeling unclean.
Unworthy. Which he supposed he was. He’d never meant for her to be hurt.

A short indulgence—which she’d enjoy every bit as much as he—and then he’d be a rich man. She’d be none the wiser, having
lost something she’d never known she’d had. Something that was hers only by a random act of fate.

When the idea had come to him, it had been simple. Easy. Suddenly it was something else. Something sordid and cheap and unworthy
of a Vaughn. And that nasty realization was all his damn cousin’s fault. Telling her wouldn’t help a thing. She’d banish him
from her presence, leaving herself prey to Charles.

Her hands were on his chest, her face upturned. Damp eyelashes framed those magnificent eyes of hers. Eyes the color of the
Aegean. Eyes that pleaded. Her lips were parted, a sweet entreaty all their own. But there were shadows of exhaustion beneath
her eyes, and the beauty mark she’d worn so saucily as they’d set out for the theatre had been replaced by a raw, angry-looking
cut.

Leo cupped her face, caressing the high arch of her cheekbone, savoring the warm velvet of her skin, like the skin of a peach
fresh from the tree. “I think that would be breaking our bargain.”

Her face crumpled, the shadow under her eyes becoming hollows that reminded him far too much of the mark on her wrist. “Please?
Isn’t
please
begging enough?”

Leo shut his eyes as her plea dragged a smile out of him. “Yes, my dear, but of entirely the wrong order. What you want tonight
is sleep. But if you want me to stay, I can dispose myself on the chaise with perfect comfort.”

Viola eyed the chaise in question, then flicked her gaze up and down his length. “Doubtful as I find that, my lord, it won’t
do.” She shivered, pressed closer, and laid her head upon his chest, hands still clutching at his coat. “I don’t think I can
stand to go to bed alone tonight. To
be
alone tonight.”

Leo clenched his jaw, fighting the impulse to simply acquiesce. It would be so damn easy. “I can’t pretend that fright is
a suitable substitute for desire.” He swept her up into his arms and marched into her bedchamber. “What you want is comfort.
What you need is sleep. The first I’m more than willing to provide. The second—I think—will come to us both readily enough.”

He deposited her beside the bed, shaking his head at her rueful expression, wanting to laugh or to cry. The cold spot that
had taken up residence just behind his breastbone burned, seeming to expand with every falsehood and deception. With swift
efficiency, he stripped her of her dressing gown and bundled her, naked and fuming, into bed.

He’d thought this would be easy.

The alluring flash of skin—pale as the moonlight that limned it with a faint celestial glow—was almost more than he could
bear. The heavy sway of breasts, the flare of
hips below a trim waist, the rounded perfection of thighs, all of it beauty personified.

Had he really just sworn to sleep chastely beside her?

Leo undressed quickly, dropping his clothing unceremoniously onto the floor. Most of it was ruined anyway, fit only for the
rag-and-bone man. Wearing his drawers as a masculine chastity belt, he climbed into bed beside her.

As he slid beneath the covers, Viola fit herself to his side: head on his chest, breasts pressed close, thighs embracing one
of his own. Leo wrapped his arm around her and kissed the top of her head, letting the faint, lingering scent of lavender
hair powder invade his senses and lull him into a merely lustful stupor.

Viola made a sleepy, unintelligible sound and burrowed into him like a kitten, her breathing changing almost instantaneously
into the soft, steady rhythm of sleep. Leo stared up into the dark recesses of the canopy and cursed himself for a fool.

Viola woke to screams.

She sat bolt upright, hands flying to her mouth, terrified the sound was coming from her own throat. Her head swam, pounding
painfully as her heartbeat surged.

The sound went on: men and horses and the terrible roar of fire behind it all. An unholy red light flooded through the window.

Lord Leonidas was gone, the indentation he’d left in the mattress, stone cold. His coat and stockings lay abandoned, a milky
pool against the dark wood of the floor.

Viola staggered from bed, shrugging into her dressing gown as she rushed to the window. The mews were afire.
Half-dressed men struggled with fear-maddened horses. Smoke poured up to meet heavy clouds, the promise of rain a cruel taunt
in the face of such disaster.

Her gate burst open. A tall figure, hair flowing around his shoulders and mirroring the flames behind him, led a plunging
horse into her garden. He yanked the halter from its head, and the animal caroled away from him, a fierce display of muscle
and bone that sent Viola’s heart straight into her throat. Two more horses joined it before the gate snapped shut, and Vaughn
disappeared back into the smoking mews.

Viola ran into the street barefoot and in her bedclothes for the second time in as many weeks. A horse burst past her, dragging
a groom with it. Its hooves hit the cobbles with a sound like a smithy.

Viola pressed herself to the wall, aghast as the groom swung himself onto the back of the moving horse and held tightly as
the animal broke into a gallop. A second horse flew after them, leaving only the impression of terrifying strength and the
rolling flash of the whites of its eyes.

As Viola rounded the corner, the sky opened with a thunderclap that made the ground shake. The deluge soaked through her dressing
gown instantaneously. She shoved wet hair back, twisting it into a knot, impatiently searching the crowd for Vaughn. Gads,
tall as he was, he should be easy enough to spot, but he wasn’t.

They all paid a small fortune for the fire crew that was furiously battling the flames, water flying through a giant hand
pump on wheels, aided now by the sheets of rain pounding down upon them all. Men swirled around her, calling out warnings,
fighting to pull carriages from the
building, and struggling to control maddened horses. The spotted carriage dog that belonged to her neighbor wove through the
crowd, its white coat dulled by ash so it was almost unrecognizable.

A great cracking rent the air, and a shower of sparks erupted out the stable door, hitting the rain with an insidious hiss.
Viola’s hand again crept to her mouth, holding back a cry that seemed to deafen her from the inside out.

He wasn’t there. He simply wasn’t anywhere in the crowd. Another shower of sparks erupted as the stable fell in upon itself,
the first story crashing down into the stalls.

A man stumbled out and was caught up by the crowd, their hands slapping out flames as quickly as the rain. Her heart turned
over, but it wasn’t Vaughn.

Viola stepped back as a coach was dragged past her, paint bubbling up on the door, obscuring the crest. She spun about, lost
in the crowd, and bumped into a horse. She shrank away as it lashed out. Teeth caught her sleeve, yanked her off balance,
and sent her sliding across wet cobbles and down into a crumpled heap.

Her cry as she hit the cobbles was drowned out by a deafening boom of thunder. Someone caught her from behind, lifting her
up and away from the animal’s nervously mincing hooves. Viola wrang her hand over her mouth, stifling a sob.

“Hush bunting, you’ll frighten the horses.”

Wet, bedraggled, and holding firmly to the halter of a trembling horse, Vaughn wrapped one arm about her and held her tight.
His hair was half black with soot. Rain ran from it in great, gray runnels, streaming down his ruined shirt.

Lord Leonidas. Leo. He kept up a soft, singsong patter, though she couldn’t for the life of her tell if it was for her or
the horse. The horse dropped its head, exhaling loudly enough that she could feel it ripple through her.

“That’s a pretty girl.” He dropped his death grip on the halter and ran his hand caressingly over the horse’s neck. “Let’s
put her in with the others, shall we?”

Viola nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She blinked water out of her eyes, letting Vaughn lead her toward the gate to
her own yard, along with the mare.

He pushed the horse in, the wet slap of his hand on her rump sending her tail flicking. She nickered, and the others rambled
toward her, ears pricked with interest.

Viola bit her lip and looked helplessly at the ruin of her garden. The neat beds had been trampled into a soggy morass. One
bench had been tumbled over, the seat knocked from its base. The garden had been about the only thing that hadn’t been invaded
and turned upside down during the invasion of her home.

She sighed and then pressed her lips together disapprovingly as Leo chuckled softly in response. His arm snaked around her
waist, and he propelled her up along what was left of the gravel path.

The gravel bit into the tender flesh of her feet, causing her to walk slowly and take each step with deliberate care. The
rain continued unabated. Her wrapper seemed to have tripled in weight, its heavy folds making every step a struggle.

Once inside, they hurried up the servants’ stairs and into her room. Water dripping from his hair and pooling beneath him,
Leo heaped coal into the grate. Viola left to rummage through the linen press. She returned with her
arms loaded with towels to find Leo stripping off his wet shirt before a crackling fire.

Her mouth went dry even as her hands shook. Firelight washed one side of him with ruddy warmth. The creeping dawn eased through
the window, limning the other side with a soft, radiant glow.

He caught her watching, and his eyes crinkled with merriment. One large hand snatched a towel from her grasp. He disappeared
behind a curtain of white Turkish cotton, emerging with his dark hair in dramatic disarray.

Heat flushed through her, driving back the cold of the wet cloth that still clung to her. If she shrugged it off and reached
for him, would he resist? How much humiliation was she willing to accept in a single night?

He toed off his shoes and turned to drape his shirt over the fire screen. A powerful ripple of muscle moved beneath his skin
with every gesture. Viola clutched the towels to her chest.

It wasn’t fair that one man could be that perfect. That she could desire him as much as she did. It was frightening and exhilarating
all at the same time, like being driven too fast in a high-perch phaeton. The thrill made it hard to breathe, hard to think,
and it made her long for more.

Leo glanced over his shoulder. Viola was still rooted to the same spot, towels clutched to her chest as though they were some
kind of shield. He stepped toward her. Her eyes widened, pupils spiraling out, obscuring the vivid blue. With an unmistakably
wanton sigh, her lips parted. The soft lining of her lower lip called out for a kiss, for his mouth to meet hers, damp heat
to damp heat.

His hand closed over her upper arm just as the door burst open and her housekeeper erupted into the room. “Water’s heating
for a bath, ma’am.” She completely ignored him, gaze avoiding him with practiced perfection. “The fire in the mews is out,
and I’ve sent one of his lordship’s men off to fetch him dry things. In the meantime, I’ve got one of poor Ned’s nightshirts
for him so he doesn’t catch his death.”

Quick, efficient hands deposited the promised nightshirt on the bed and plucked up wet clothing and the other detritus of
their evening’s adventures. Viola’s eyes met his, bewilderment evident in the slight pucker of her brows.

“Tha-uh-thank you, Mrs. Draper. Can you fetch my green banyan? And then, yes, I think a bath is more than called for, for
both of us.”

A sharp stab of lust shot from groin to throat at visions of Viola smiling up from a tub, rosy and wet, her hair swirling
out in the water like a mermaid’s. But the tub in question wasn’t some small wooden affair or a dainty tin slipper tub.

No, he wanted to see her naked in the bathhouse at Dyrham. Surrounded by a Roman-inspired sea of stone and a deep tub of hot
water most commonly found only in London’s bagnios.

“I’ll not put your staff to the trouble, my dear. I can easily take myself home for my own ablutions.”

Viola turned to leave, throwing him one last rueful smile, bedraggled hair falling from its knot as she did so. Her housekeeper
swept out after her, tutting and fussing like a hen.

Leo shucked off the last of his wet clothing, pulled on the deceased footman’s too-small nightshirt, and settled in to wait
for his own clothes to arrive. From soup to nuts,
his evening had not gone as planned. His seduction had been interrupted, and so had his subsequent explorations.

Unable to sleep, he’d been quietly searching for a loose floorboard or a trigger lock for a secret door when the commotion
in the mews had intruded. He’d yanked on breeches and shirt, thrust his feet into his evening pumps, and gone to see what
was happening. After the past week of deadly maneuvers, something that raised the entire neighborhood boded ill.

He couldn’t be sure his cousin had set the fire—a groom coming home from a late night might have just as easily overturned
a lamp—but he wasn’t fool enough to believe it a mere coincidence. Leo walked across the room, checking boards for telltale
squeaks and looseness as he did so. He couldn’t possibly allow Viola to stay in London. Not with his cousin clearly willing
to do whatever it took to best him. And that meant that it truly was time to bring the League into things.

“So you’ve finally decided to include us in your adventure.” Devere yawned behind his hand and slouched lower in his chair,
balancing his booted feet on the fender as though preparing for a nap.

Sandison rolled his eyes and ignored him. “Shall we invite the entire membership, or just Thane and de Moulines?”

Leo pulled the packets of letters from his coat pocket and handed them over. “When you’ve read these, I think you’ll agree
that this is one adventure best kept within our smaller circle.”