Scoundrel Ever After (Secrets and Scandals) (11 page)

She listened to his breathing, deep and sure, and let it flow through her until his proximity and heat lulled her body into relaxing. As sleep threatened, she voiced just one more thing. “I know you want to leave me in Wootton Bassett, but if you decide to go to America, I hope you’ll take me with you.”

He did nothing to indicate he’d heard her, which was just as well. Likely, he would have reconfirmed his plan to drop her off and behave as if the last two days had never happened. As if the last two days hadn’t altered her life in the most unchangeable of ways.

Her body twitched as sleep claimed her.

Chapter Six

A
S DUSK FELL
the next day, Ethan glanced over at Audrey. He was glad they were riding into Wootton Bassett at last. She looked tired and had every reason to be, considering how little he’d allowed her to rest the past two days. They’d been awakened just after dawn that morning by the sheep farmer who owned the barn they’d been sleeping in. He’d damned their souls as he’d run them off. Ethan had expected Audrey to be upset, but she’d been quite pleasant all day. In fact, she was bewilderingly cheery toward him. His revelations hadn’t sparked fear, disgust, or worst of all, pity. She treated him much the same as she’d done when he’d been her waltzing student.

His gaze again strayed to her riding beside him, as it had many times during their journey. He’d studied her greatly, the subtle turn of her nose at the very tip, the graceful sweep of her brows, the supple curve of her lips. She appeared so elegant, despite the hopeless creases in her gown and the absolute ramshackle mess of her hair trying to fight its way from beneath her bonnet. Elegant and composed. Maybe it was the way she carried herself. Or the commitment she’d demonstrated to this adventure she’d chosen. Or the way she hadn’t run screaming when he’d revealed he’d murdered someone.

And he’d expected her to. It was why he’d done it. She’d been flirting with him, dammit, and he was already too attracted to her. Nothing good could come from their association and once he settled her in Wootton Bassett, it would be at an end. He’d post a letter to Jason asking him to ensure her safety when she returned to London and he’d enclose a letter for Carlyle. The man owed him, and Ethan would collect. Carlyle would find a way to protect her until Gin Jimmy realized Ethan was gone for good.

A chill settled at the base of Ethan’s neck. He’d never planned his life around the welfare of someone else. It was a bloody nuisance. And yet, he’d bound himself to her—at least temporarily—when he’d snuck into her house for waltzing lessons.

If you decide to go to America, I hope you’ll take me with you
.

Her request had kept him up long after she’d fallen into slumber. He’d actually
considered
what she said. Fleeing to America where he
could
be Ethan Lockwood. And she could be . . . What could she be? His wife? The dream he’d long envisioned of somehow regaining the life that had been stolen from him had never included domestic bliss.

That dream had started to become reality when he’d entered Society several weeks ago as Jason Lockwood’s long-lost bastard brother. People had been titillated by his mysterious background and his charming disposition, which was at such odds with Jason’s reputation as a potential lunatic who hosted notorious vice parties, a reputation Ethan took credit for creating.

Ethan had done a good job displacing Jason from Society years ago when he’d accidentally scarred his face in a fight. Then he’d ensured Jason’s staff had fled his town house, declaring him mad like his mother. Jason’s marital eligibility had promptly disintegrated and he’d been left with nothing but a frightening reputation, which he’d turned into one of scandal and decadence when he began hosting London’s premier vice parties.

But Ethan didn’t want that revenge anymore. Instead, he and Jason had begun to claim the brotherhood they’d lost amidst the wreckage their parents’ hatred had left. That was more valuable to Ethan than he’d ever dreamed anything could be. To feel a sense of belonging, of rightness . . . He wanted that. And he couldn’t get it in America, which meant he had to find a way to make it happen in London.

“I’m not sure where Bassett Manor is located.” The lilt of Audrey’s voice broke into his thoughts. Bassett Manor was the estate where her friends resided.

“Shouldn’t be too hard to find,” he said as their horses walked onto the High Street. “How many estates can one little village have?”

“Actually, there’s another nearby, Cosgrove.”

Bloody rich people.
“Let’s just have a look, shall we?”

They rode up the street past some shops and a pub. Several coaches were parked in front of a large building. As they came closer, music drifted from the open doors.

Lanterns from the coaches and from the building illuminated the area and allowed him to see her face more clearly. She was smiling. His heart did a little trip, as if it had missed a beat.

“Can we listen, just for a minute?” she asked, guiding her horse to the side of the street.

He followed her and dismounted, his body protesting with its various aches and pains. He tied his horse to a post and helped her down. While he secured her mount beside his, she moved to the side of the building where a window was open and tapped her foot to the music.

They ought to find Bassett Manor, but he couldn’t deny her a moment’s joy after their grueling journey. Nor could he deny himself the joy of watching her.

The music stopped and then started again, but with a slower tune. A waltz.

She turned toward him. “Have you been practicing?”

He had, in fact. With some of the lightskirts at the Crystal, the flash house where he kept his primary lodging in St. Giles. They hadn’t been nearly as skilled or graceful as Audrey, but he’d closed his eyes and done his best to imagine her in their place. He realized he had the opportunity to enjoy the real thing. Perhaps the last such opportunity he’d ever have.

He went to her and offered his most courtly bow. “May I have the honor of this dance?”

She curtseyed in return. “You may.”

He clasped her hand and splayed his palm against her back as he swept her into the dance. He’d practiced enough to make the steps without counting, but he still worried about stepping on her toes, as he’d done the first time she’d taught him.

“You
have
been practicing. And with excellent results. You dance divinely, sir.”

He resisted the urge to nuzzle the graceful column of her neck. “I had an excellent teacher.”

“You seem the perfect gentleman.” Her tone had been light but now took a darker, more serious turn. She looked at him again with that infinitely warm and sympathetic gaze that threatened every wall he’d built around himself. “I’ll say it again, you can change what you are, who you want to be. Who you want to be
with
.”

He knew what she was asking. Temptation hovered before him just as surely as the promise of brotherhood was luring him back to London. Both were a risk and he was no stranger to risk . . .

“Ethan.” Her voice drew him back. Had she called him by his Christian name? No one save Jason had called him that since his mother had died. He’d been “Jagger” nearly as long as he could remember.

The music seemed to fade from his ears as he looked into her eyes. He slowed until they were no longer waltzing. She touched his cheek. His smooth, unscarred, pretty-boy cheek.

“Did you know I gave Jason his scar? I wish it had been the other way around.”

She shook her head. “Why?”

He smiled wryly. “A menacing facial disfigurement would’ve suited my lifestyle far better than his.”

She brought her other hand up and cupped his face. “Don’t wish that. Don’t.”

A part of him knew what she meant to do before she did it, but he was paralyzed by her touch, by the soft look of understanding and empathy in her gaze. And by God even if he could’ve moved, he wouldn’t have. He wanted her lips on his.

She kissed him, her mouth pressing against his with an innocence sweeter than any delicacy he’d tasted during all of his decadent years as Gin Jimmy’s right hand. During that time, Ethan had evaded death countless times, always with a fervor for life and an absolute refusal to surrender, but right now he thought he might welcome his maker, for nothing could be closer to heaven than her. Nor had he ever wanted anything more.

He wrapped his other arm around her and drew her up against him. Her tall, lithe body fit into his with sweet precision, as if their coupling was ordained by God himself. A silly notion, for God wouldn’t have paid any attention to Ethan Jagger.

Her hands moved from his face to the back of his neck. He took the action as an invitation and slanted his head. With his lips, he applied pressure to her mouth, coaxing, teasing. He held her close, anticipating she might flinch as he licked along her lower lip. She surprised him again by clasping him more tightly. Her lips parted in another invitation he couldn’t refuse.

He slid his tongue into her mouth. Cautiously, so as not to frighten her, he swept along her interior, relishing her velvety softness. She was hesitant, allowing him to kiss her but not responding in kind. It wasn’t enough. He wanted her to give what she was getting, to share in the rapture he felt.

He skimmed his left hand up her spine and fingered the curls that had escaped their pins and grazed the back of her neck. They were as soft and silky as he’d imagined. He wanted to twist his hands in them as he probed her mouth. And why not? He might never get this chance again.

He speared his fingers into her hair beneath her bonnet until he palmed the back of her head. Then he deepened the kiss, stroking his tongue into her mouth with mad possession, demanding her response.

Now she flinched. Or did she shiver? Whatever she did, she didn’t pull away, and that was all he needed. He tugged at her hair, pulling her head slightly back and arching her neck. He nipped at her lower lip. “Kiss me, Audrey.”

He’d looked at her shuttered eyelids as he’d spoken. Her eyes flashed open, their aqua depths sparkling like jewels. She stared at him the barest moment before pulling his mouth back to hers and doing exactly as he’d instructed.

Her kiss wasn’t perfect and it wasn’t graceful. Her teeth grazed his as their mouths connected, but the ferocity with which she clutched him to her and pressed her tongue into his fired his need better than any lustful imagining. But she was no dream. She was real and wonderful and everything he never knew he wanted.

He massaged her scalp as he plundered her mouth. The kiss burned through him. His cock grew hard as it had been the other morning when he’d rolled on top of her. That he could explain away as a typical morning problem. But he could no longer deny he wanted Audrey. He wanted her naked and moaning beneath him. On top of him. Every way he could have her.

Her fingers dug into his neck. She copied him and nipped at his lower lip. His lust roared and he pulled her head back farther, exposing her neck, then put his open mouth on her flesh. He sucked and nibbled beneath her jaw, then licked a path to her ear. He’d just lightly closed his teeth over her sensitive lobe when a cough behind him froze his desire.

“Oh my goodness, is that Audrey Cheswick?”

A
UDREY’S EYES FLEW
open and she stepped backward. Ethan let her go—there was no point in trying to think of him as anything other than Ethan now—and her knees wobbled. She managed to focus on the couple gaping at them from maybe five feet away, standing between them and the street. She recognized them of course, as they were the people she and Ethan had come to find.

“Lady Foxcroft.” Audrey strove to keep the apprehension from her tone. She curtseyed, as one would do in the presence of the daughter of a duke. Then she repeated the action for her husband. Though he wasn’t a peer at all, he still deserved a curtsey, she reasoned. “Mr. Foxcroft.”

“Good evening, Miss Cheswick,” Mr. Foxcroft said. He gave both Audrey and Ethan a thoroughly assessing perusal. “You are, ah, a bit underdressed for the assembly.”

Audrey and her friends had known Lady Foxcroft as Miranda before she’d been expelled from London two and a half years prior for exhibiting scandalous behavior. Her exploits had, in fact, inspired Audrey to launch her own ill-fated adventure with the blacksmith’s son.