Suzanne Robinson (10 page)

It was late. She was supposed to be helping the scullery maid with pots and pans, but she’d been diligent about the washing up for two nights and done the bulk of the work for the scullery. Her absence wouldn’t be resented.

Liza skimmed along the hall and down the front stairs after looking to see that the foyer was uninhabited. Darting into the parlor next to the library, she shut herself in and crept to the door that connected the room to the library. She had oiled its hinges and lock only this morning.

She caught her breath, twisted the handle, and eased the door open so that a sliver of light beamed into the dark parlor. Letting the air out of her lungs slowly, she waited a moment before risking a look through the gap. The movement hadn’t been detected, so she widened the crack.

All five of them were there, including Jocelin Marshall. As she examined the group lounging about
the room, Asher Fox seemed to be listening to a muted discussion he found distasteful. His nostrils widened while his drooping eyelids swept down to conceal a gaze she’d often seen when a gentlewoman happened upon her while she emptied slops. From a family of military heroes, Fox was the grandson of old General Lord Peter Bingham Fox, of revered memory for his part in the battle of Waterloo. His father, the present Lord Peter, had served in the Horse Guards with distinction. His distant ancestor had fought for Charles II’s restoration.

She’d seen the man warming himself nearest the fire. Lord Winthrop, he whose chin and hairline were in a race to see which could disappear faster. Even Liza, uninterested as she was in Society, knew that his mother was the offspring of a liaison between the daughter of one of the queen’s uncles and of the Earl of Mumford. Winthrop was glaring at Arthur Thurston-Coombes, a son of mere gentry. Then there was the earl, martinet of the drill field and parade ground, Reginald Underwood, Earl Halloway.

The earl had settled himself in the chair opposite Winthrop. Halloway was known as a connoisseur of women. He leaned forward in his chair and followed Jocelin’s every move. Choke, in a rare moment of gossip, had commented that Halloway resented Jocelin’s attraction for the ladies, mostly because a certain Miss Birch had deserted him for the viscount.

Liza surveyed them all and marveled that the veneer of civility these men cultivated could contain all the seething resentments and personal foibles. Her gaze snapped back to Lord Winthrop when he made a sound of impatience.

“Blast it, Coombes, must you reveal your lack of
breeding? Take the band from around your cigar, man.”

Thurston-Coombes, the youngest of the group, flushed, sucked on his cigar, and blew smoke at Winthrop. “You always were a bounder, Buggy old chap, but we’re not in the regiment anymore, so stuff your pretensions up your ass.”

Jocelin laughed softly. Halloway left his perch and walked over to him. He swirled the remaining port around in his glass.

“I saw you riding in the park yesterday,” the earl said. The others went silent and watched the two. Jocelin glanced down at Halloway, then took a sip of whiskey.

“Keeping track of my social engagements?” he asked.

Halloway slammed his glass down on an end table. “You sneaking bastard, I saw you with her.”

Jocelin carefully set his own glass down and selected a cigar from a box on the table. “My dear Hal, I never sneak where women are concerned. However, I am discreet. Now shut your mouth, for if you mean to taint a lady’s reputation, I’ll pull your spine out your ass.”

“God,” the earl said, flushing to the color of a geranium. “I’d like to see you try.”

Arthur Thurston-Coombes guffawed. “Me too.”

“Sod you all,” Halloway said, as he glared at Jocelin and took a gulp of port.

Asher Fox pushed himself away from the mantel, on which he’d been leaning. “Please, old fellow, they’re just baiting you, and you allow it. You’re so touchy. Please, chaps, we’re all on edge because of Stapleton.”

Halloway shrugged and turned his back to the group.

“Odd, Stapleton’s going like that,” Thurston-Coombes said. “Still, he’d been upset about something the last few days. Emptying the bottle more than usual.”

Halloway sighed and turned back around, his foul mood having evaporated. “And then last year we lost old Harry Airey and young Elliot. Wouldn’t have thought they’d go in for slum crawling. Stupid, that.”

“They had no sense of propriety,” Lord Winthrop said as he held out his glass to Jocelin for a refill. “Airey was half mad, and Elliot, well, everyone knew his family wasn’t quite the thing.”

Thurston-Coombes swore at Winthrop. “Christ, you can be such a prick.”

Asher Fox dropped an arm about Coombes’s shoulders. “That’s enough. I think we’re all a bit coshed about Stapleton. We’ve finished our business, so let’s go home. We’ve got a job of work to do if we’re going to canvass for support among the members. No need to go savaging each other. Remember what it was like in the Crimea. We’d be dead if we’d gone at each other like this.”

Thurston-Coombes waved his glass at the viscount. “Not old Jos. He’d have painted himself with mud, stolen into our tents, and slit our throats.”

Jocelin grinned at the young man.

“Yours first, old boy.”

“I’m honored,” Coombes said with a bow.

Liza pulled back from the door as the men rose and filed out of the library. She went to the door that let out onto the foyer to watch them leave. The viscount said good-bye to his friends, dismissed Choke and the footmen, and ran upstairs. She heard
his door shut. Racing belowstairs, she was just in time to receive Choke’s instructions to tidy the library.

She trudged back upstairs and began collecting glasses, snifters, and ashtrays. While she worked, she repeated the list of names under her breath. Stumbling over the last one, she decided to write them down. A secretary desk surmounted by a cabinet with beveled glass contained paper and pens. She took a sheet, dipped a pen in an inkwell, and scribbled the names quickly. She closed the desktop, folded the paper, and slipped it inside the padded sleeve of her gown.

As she pulled the cuff down on her wrist, the door opened.

“I knew you’d come out if I waited long enough.”

The viscount propped himself against the door frame and hooked a thumb in his waistband. He had pulled his necktie loose, and his top shirt studs were missing. He hadn’t had his hair cut since he came home, and a lock of it fell over his brow. Although he’d brushed the rest of it back, it had dropped forward again, moonless-night black, soft, and gleaming as though sprinkled with starlight. Liza hadn’t moved since he spoke. In that first moment, she had been afraid he had seen her writing or putting away the piece of paper, but he didn’t remark upon it.

Instead he came into the room, shoved the door closed, and kept walking. This was what she’d been dreading. As he moved, she darted around a wingback chair. Scooping up two glasses, she put them on a tray. She was about to pick up the tray and run when he caught her.

Suddenly he was behind her. An arm reached around her and pushed the tray back down on the
table. Liza let go of it and sidled away from him. He grabbed her arm, then caught her around the waist and drew her close. Pushing against his chest, Liza wondered how human flesh could feel so dense and unyielding. Did he suspect she’d been snooping? Frantic, she bent her knees and dropped straight down and out of his grasp.

He beat her to the door and put his back to it. Liza tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. Why did he have to have that disturbing body? She hadn’t expected to see him. She’d been caught unprepared. Her skin tingled, and in spite of her dread, some unbalanced, animal part of her put mad thoughts in her head.
Don’t run. Let him touch you. If he touches you, you can touch him
. Lord in heaven, she wanted to dig her fingers into his bare flesh. No, how wicked.

“Why do you run away?”

“Um, hmm.”

“Um, hmm?” The viscount’s hand snaked out and captured hers. “Why, you’re shaking. Hang it, woman, I only want to seduce you, not beat you.”

Liza yanked her hand out of his grasp. “I’m a respectable woman, my lord. I give you no reason to doubt it, so please keep your hands away.”

Swearing, the viscount crossed his arms. “I never met such a cantankerous filly.”

“You’re angry.”

“I am not.”

“Yes, you are. You’re talking in that drawl that makes you sound like you wished you could shoot me like those ruffians over in America, those, those gunfighter persons.”

“Gunfighter persons? Hell, woman, all I want to do is kiss you.”

Liza snorted, her courage shored up by the fact
that he hadn’t tried to capture her again. “Kiss indeed.”

She shouldn’t have been so contemptuous. His eyes narrowed, and his gaze ripped up and down her body. When he spoke, the soft huskiness of his voice alerted her to a new danger.

“You got something against makin’ love, honey?”

Liza stopped herself from sidling backward. She couldn’t let him know how easily he could discompose her. Furious at the thought that she might want a man who sampled women like tea sandwiches, she lifted her chin.

“Making love, my lord? Mercy, what you want isn’t making love. You don’t even know me, so you can’t love me, which means you just want to have relations with me. I got no use for being used.”

He said nothing at first, then, holding her gaze with his own, he pulled at one end of his necktie where it hung over his shoulder. The black silk slithered against his shirt and came loose.

“Sometimes there’s just no talking with a woman.”

The tie dangled from his fingers, and she found herself staring at it. Then he launched himself at her. Startled, Liza was slow to react, and he caught her. She shrieked and tried to kick him, but he lifted her and squeezed. Her chest flattened against his. She gasped for breath, but his arms tightened. He walked over to the wingback chair by the fire, swung her into his arms, and sat down. Liza immediately tried to jump off him, but he clamped his hand to her waist. She couldn’t break his hold, and stopped trying when he slipped the tie around her neck.

Going rigid, she directed her gaze at his face instead of his hands. Her back was to the fire, and
light bathed his features. The viscount was gone, in spite of the evening clothes, the signet ring on his hand. Holding the tie at both ends, he drew her closer and closer.

“My lord.”

He was so close, she could feel his breath skimming across her cheek, and her vision filled with the sight of his lips.

“There ain’t no lord here, honey, so don’t bother,” he said as he touched her lips with his.

How amazing. Liza argued with herself: feel his lips, they’re so soft; make him stop; God, he’s putting his tongue in my mouth; make him stop; my blood, it’s going to boil and turn to steam.

He pulled on the ends of the tie, forcing her to accept a deeper, more penetrating kiss. Liza lost all rigidity in her body. He released the tie. One hand cupped the back of her head while the other kneaded her waist. Then, without warning, he sucked on her mouth. Liza moaned, heard herself, and panicked.

Merciful heavens, what was she doing? She opened her eyes. She didn’t even remember closing them. Grabbing a handful of soft, black hair, she yanked and propelled herself out of the chair. The viscount yelped and clutched at her. She scrambled out of reach, clamped a hand over her cap to rearrange it, and ran to the door. He thrust himself out of the chair, but stopped when she opened the door and took a step over the threshold.

“You come back here.”

She shook her head violently and gasped for breath.

His chest was heaving.

“You make me chase you, you’ll be mighty sorry.”

“You’re not civilized, you aren’t.”

“Look, honey. I just came from a place where women are scarce. A man who don’t take what he wants ends up with no woman at all.”

Liza gawked at him as she retied her apron. “This isn’t the American frontier, my lord. I got me reputation to—”

“Hang your reputation.”

He swooped at her while her hands were still tying a bow at her back. He surrounded her with his arms and planted his mouth on hers again. He kept it there for what seemed like a century, exploring her while she tried fruitlessly to make him release her. Then he lifted his lips just enough to allow him to whisper to her.

“Shit, honey, forget this silly idea you got about protecting your virtue. Give it to me, and I’ll settle you someplace real nice. Someplace where I can light all the lamps and finally get a good look at you.”

Fury enveloped her. As he lowered his mouth once again, she met his lips, and bit them. He cried out, and she pushed at his chest as hard as she could. He flew backward. Hitting the door, he stumbled and covered his mouth with one hand. Liza whirled and raced across the foyer, around the stairs and through the door that led to the back of the house. Hurtling downstairs, she paused to listen for him. She heard his footsteps on the landing above her head.

She ran through the dark kitchen, fumbled with the latch to the back door, and slipped outside. As she raced up the steps to the yard, she heard him.

“Wait!”

She paused on the top step and turned to face him. He was wiping blood from his lower lip. To her astonishment, he grinned at her.

“Damn all if you don’t set me on fire.”

His English accent had returned. Liza relaxed and breathed more easily.

He brushed a lock of hair back from his forehead. “Do you know how long it’s been since a woman refused me?”

Liza shook her head.

“Neither do I.” He glanced over her from head to toe. “I never knew what I was missing. No, don’t bolt again.”

“You touch me, and I’ll scream for Mr. Choke.”

He laughed and put his foot on the bottom step.

“I will,” she said.

“I know.”

He took another step. She would never be able to outrun him.

Frantic, Liza burst out, “I’ll scream for Loveday!”

He stopped then, and glared at her.

“I’ll scream louder than a steamship whistle, and Loveday will come out and find you.”

“You sly little midge.” His hand strangled the wrought-iron banister at his side. His glance raked over her again as silence fell. Suddenly he turned and stalked downstairs again.