Seducing the Beast (21 page)

“I thought you wanted to discuss this arrangement you planned, my lord.”

His eyes narrowed. “Very well. Our arrangement.”

“
Your arrangement
,” she snapped with a burst of acerbic temper that came out of her just when she thought she was near defeat and likely to shame herself with girly tears. “I never planned for this.”

“You set out to seduce me. You told me, within the first few moments we met.”

That shot of bitterness was gone. It left her exhausted. “I didn’t know it was you.” Her words fell like the first flakes of snow, so light she barely heard them, so fragile they melted even as they came into being.

Agitated, he looked for someone to pour more wine, apparently having forgotten he’d already sent them all out. Storming over to fetch the wine jug himself, he flipped the lid open with his thumb and refilled his goblet.

“How long do you expect this arrangement to last?” she asked.

“Until I grow bored,” he replied, smug, returning to his chair. He shot her a look but she remained solemn, unblinking.

“And then?”

“Then you may do as you please.” Bringing the refilled goblet back to his lips in a hurry, he almost spilled wine. She saw he was drinking too much. It must be unusual for him not to know his own limits, she thought acidly, since he was always prompt and thorough at telling other people theirs.

“Shall I find another lover?” she asked coolly.

Using the kerchief he held crumpled tight in his fist, he dabbed wine from his chin. “Certainly. If you wish.”

“It wouldn’t matter to you?”

He set down his goblet, fingers splayed around the base. “I’ve no doubt you’ll be ready to leave at the first chance of a better offer.”

“You have a deep distrust of women, it seems, your lordship. What happened to make you think this low of us?”

He regarded her thoughtfully, his tongue in his cheek. Suddenly, to her surprise, he began to speak. “My father’s first marriage was a match arranged from infancy. There was no love lost betwixt them. The marriage and the children--we were her painful duty.” He stopped a moment, his hand clenched around the wine-stained kerchief. “We were left to the care of nurses. Our mother’s visits to the nursery or the schoolroom were few and far betwixt. I often had to remind Gabriel who she was. She was not faithful to our father and took no pains to hide her affairs, but flaunted them. When I was sixteen and she lay ill with a fever, she told me she’d tried to abort me, took a potion to be rid of me. Gabriel, she told me that day, was born of passion--a love affair. I was born of hatred and duty.”

He leaned back in his chair, long legs stretched out languorously, hands behind his head. But the mercurial gold in his eyes belied the tranquil pose.

“No one knows what she told me, not even Gabriel. But now you know.” He gave a short, bewildered laugh, as if he couldn’t think why he told her all this. “She died soon after,” he went on briskly. “My father’s second marriage was brief, to a much younger woman from a noble but impoverished family. He was besotted with her.” He curled his lip in disgust. “She used him for his money, of course, and ran off with another man.” Sitting up, he shrugged and continued his supper. “Every woman I’ve ever known has only wanted me for the money and the favors. The minute I turn my back she’s in someone else’s bed.” He laughed abruptly, viciously. “Should be used to it by now.”

She could only attribute this speech to a wine-soaked tongue. Under no other circumstances would such a proud man unburden himself with brutal honesty to an inconsequential wench.

“You’ll tell me, of course, that you’re different,” he added.

But she should not have to tell him.

“No? Good. No more lies. We know what to expect from one another and there’ll be no disappointment.” Cold, dispassionate, his words hung in the brittle air between them. “Whatever your part in this deception perpetrated against me, I find myself loath to give you up. For now you’ll stay. You owe me your time a little longer, after the trick you pulled on me in London, pretending to be Lady Shelton. Think of it as a debt to work off.”

Even as her anger mounted, pity kept apace. The fierce struggle threatened to rip her heart asunder and Maddie knew she’d better be far, far away and quickly, before compassion won out and that meddling desire of hers to make things right spoiled any chance of saving herself.

“What happened?” she asked simply. “At the cottage. What happened there, with us? How do you explain it?”

His shoulders slumped and he drew a breath. “You took me off my guard. It won’t happen again.” So it seemed he considered those days a brief interlude of weakness, a fault to be corrected.

“Now I’m another servant.” She wondered if perhaps that was the only way he could deal with it—and with her.

“Your duties will be pleasurable. You can’t deny that.” He looked at her, waiting. She lifted her shoulders in a half-shrug. “You enjoyed yourself in my company,” he exclaimed, his voice catching on the words, as if they hurt. “Or was that a lie too?”

“It’s the one thing that was not a lie,” she whispered, wistful suddenly.

His eyes regained a little of the old warmth and he swallowed. “I like you in that gown,” he choked out. “May I come to you tonight?”

She looked up in wonder that he’d asked, when she’d expected him to command. “Come to me? Would I not come to you?” It seemed unlikely he would put himself out to come to her chamber, but she was not conversant with these “arrangements”.

“If I come to you,” he explained patiently, “I can leave the moment I’m done. If you came to me, I’d have to ask you to get up and leave.”

Her lips parted. He scowled at her and asked if he said something amiss.

Again, the memories stirred, and her heart wept with longing. The change in him was like night from day, but as he told her once, she’d briefly given him the chance to walk in another man’s boots.

“Did you like the flowers in your chamber? I don’t yet know your favorites.” His tone changed. Now he was glib, a courteous lover, but it struck a false note. It was overdone, awkward, and when he came toward her with a slim wooden box, she felt as if they acted parts in a play. Rather than give her the box, he opened it himself, taking out a necklace of blue stones. As he placed it around her neck, he told her it was lapis lazuli, a treasure from the Swafford vault. “It reminded me of your eyes,” he said huskily, fixing the little clasp at the nape of her neck. His unsteady fingers brushed against her skin, as if she might be hot to the touch. The surging desire crept in again, the memories too strong.

Standing quickly, she thrust back the chair and it hit him in the thighs. “You shouldn’t give me this,” she said, fingers scrabbling blindly for the catch. “I don’t want your gifts.” She was breathing too fast. “And I hate those…those flowers,” she gasped, not even knowing their name. “My favorites are daisies--surely too humble and common for you.” She pulled on the necklace, while he stood in mute indignation, arms at his sides. “And let me give you a word of advice, your lordship. The next time you play the gallant suitor, at least have the good grace to pretend it’s not all about the fucking!”

The throaty word flew out before she even knew it was in her.

He replied icily, “You said it first. You claim not to know me now.” His eyes darkened. “And I know nothing about you, because you won’t tell me. Therefore, as you sweetly point out, that’s the only thing between us that is not a lie. What else can this be about, but the fucking?”

She pulled on the wretched necklace, filling the air with curses aimed at him, his house, his servants, his family, even his horses. Suddenly, his hands were on her waist. He spun her around and unclasped the necklace. “No need to be quite so demonstrative,” he said thickly. “You hate everything, I think I grasped that much.”

It wasn’t true, of course, but she was too angry to speak. While she was losing her heart to him in their cottage by the bay, he’d merely thought her a calculating, mercenary whore.

“Apparently, you no longer desire me,” he muttered. “I’m now a monster to you. Perhaps I should’ve expected it. I was a fool to think…” He dropped the necklace back in its box, but his fingers fumbled and the lid wouldn’t close. In a temper he tossed it across the table.

Oh, but she did desire him still. Contrary to what she knew she should feel for this heartless, arrogant man, lust raised its wicked head the moment he touched her, however slight the caress, however unintentional. Yet to him she was one of those plants to be shut inside the hothouse, carefully tended and kept for his amusement only.

She turned and found him looking at her oddly--why? Ah, her curls were falling loose from their caul. They stroked her shoulders, tickled her warm cheeks. He merely looked at her and she fell apart. If only she could be like Grace and never show her emotion. Instead she gave away every thought in her stupid head. “If you mean to come to me tonight,” she snapped, “will it be soon? Because I’m tired and will later have a headache.”

He looked askance. “You know in advance when you’ll have a headache?”

“I know I shall tonight!”

His lips turned inward.

“Better get on with it,” she added, her tone churlish and sing-song, hands on her waist.

“Quite,” he muttered. “Best get it over with, as you say.”

This was, of course, not what she’d said, but Maddie never bothered to correct it.

With no further delay, he pulled her into an angry kiss. His bristles were rough against her cheek and there was fraught desperation to his passion as he rushed in like a boy with his first fumbling encounter. His damp, forceful lips and wine-stained tongue covered the rapid pulse in her neck, his kisses were almost gasps of anger. His hands fought through her petticoats until they found the silk ribbon garters he’d purchased. Groaning, he slid his fingers across those ribbons and between her thighs. His breeches rubbed against her stockinged legs, his knee nudging hers apart. Then she felt his arrogant, roughened hand seeking, cajoling and demanding the wetness that betrayed her. Now he knew she wanted him. There was no way to hide that.

While his fingers stroked her intimately, exploring the treasured keepsake, his mouth descended to her neck, his rapid, liquid breaths fluttering there in rhythm with her pulse. He nipped her skin, suckling gently but devotedly. He would leave a mark on her, if he was not careful.

Not that she cared. She would give as good as she got, was just in the mood for a scrap.

She gasped, exhaling in a deep shuddering breath. No longer able to remain aloof, she reached for him. It was pitiful. He was the Earl of Swafford, the Beast, a notoriously wicked, unforgiving man, yet she wanted, needed, yearned for him with this pounding carnal desire. Even as her mind and heart railed against the injustice, her body still lusted, ignoring the complexity of this web in which she found herself trapped.

Surprisingly they made it as far as the blue chamber. They didn’t quite make it as far as the bed.

* * * *

It was a heated, savage coupling, neither willing to be gentle.

Well matched. The words soared in his mind as he mounted her, unrestrained, forceful and turbulent. She arched to meet him, never still, never submissive, standing her ground. Here, in bed, they quarreled without words, the anger unabated, living side by side with passionate, unceasing, covetous desire.

Once, licking sweat from his chest, she bit his nipple and he felt the tremor cascade down his body, teasing his cock without mercy. The breath ripped out of him, wildly unconstrained. He jerked her head back by the hair. Her eyes, full of sparks, were not afraid of him--she was almost laughing. When her lips parted, he silenced her quickly, his mouth on hers, rapacious, unyielding.

It was bewitchment, he realized, a craving he must surely get out of his system before it killed him. Or both of them.

* * * *

Once he was gone, she lay across the rumpled sheets, his seed warm inside her, and listened to the evensong of nightjars through the open lattice window. Tonight, again, he’d forgotten his blessed self-control, and she’d had no chance to find the herbs she needed. But what did he care? He could do as he pleased. Nothing would inconvenience him. Perhaps he thought she should be honored to bear his bastard.

Rolling over, she surveyed the wreckage of that moonlit chamber. The exquisite pieces of her gown lay on the floor, crumpled and discarded. There too were the petticoats in another pile and only steps from the bed, her corset. And there, the rose embroidered stockings hung over the arm of a chair where he’d tossed them after removing each with reverent ceremony, reminding her how much they cost. He would probably never reconcile himself to the idea of spending excessive coin on one woman; he marveled over it, as if that too was her fault, part of her cunning plan for his undoing.

A tiny voice reminded her how she had, in fact, set out to seduce him. She’d sold herself in exchange for Cousin Nathaniel’s pardon. Griff knew her aim, but not the spirit behind it. She wanted nothing for herself, but he couldn’t understand that. In his world, folk were motivated only by greed. He came from a very different world to her own. Ah! Now she made excuses for him too--like his staff.

She thought of the austere nursery in the west wing, the bars on the windows and the lonely, unloved description of his youth. Warm tears pricked under her lashes, but she turned her face into the pillow to dry them, for this was no time for pity. He had none, did he not?

And he already had a wife. He already had a wife. It echoed around her aching head, a cruel taunt by a spiteful bully.

Through her window, the nightjars sang on, a long, loud purr, calling out for a mate in one last frantic burst of enthusiasm before midnight. She knew exactly how they felt.

When she entered the cookhouse the next morning, there was a new face present, a man introduced as Wickes, the earl’s valet, freshly arrived from London. None of the other staff knew him, since he was only recently hired. When Gregory introduced them, Wickes was cleaning his fingernails with a knife. He gave no nod, no smile, but with hard, contemptuous eyes looked down his nose at her.