Texas Viscount (30 page)

      
Sabrina lay collapsed, limp as a rag doll over his chest, her hair spilling around his shoulders, pins scattered across the bed. He felt a pin poking his left side and moved to dislodge it, only to let out a hiss of startled pain. At once she raised herself up and looked down at him, her face now cast in twilight shadows.

      
“Are you...did I...hurt you?” she finally managed to ask.

      
He smiled crookedly, using his right hand to lift a silky coil of hair and rub it between his fingers. “Not you. Those hairpins. They're sharp as a fresh-stropped razor.”

      
She looked around the badly rumpled bed in dismay. Her skirts were bunched around her waist and her stocking-clad legs straddled his hips. She even had one slipper still on her foot! Dear heavens, what an absolute trollop she must appear!

      
“Now, don't go and get all huffed up on me,” he said softly. “Sometimes, making love with your clothes on isn't too bad...you think?”

      
She dared to meet his gaze, and the warmth of it brought an answering smile. He made her feel at ease, comfortable, as if this was the most natural thing in the world for both of them. “If you're fishing for compliments on your American ingenuity, I cannot but give them. Your plan was very well executed,” she said boldly. How utterly different this was from the fully dressed, hurried coupling that awful time with Dex.

      
As if reading her mind, Josh said, “I never want you to feel used, Sabrina.”

      
She said nothing, pushing to the back of her mind other ways in which a man might use a woman, in which he might be using her to get to Edmund. But tonight was for herself and her lover. No one else. Tomorrow would come soon enough.

      
“We have to get you out of that uncomfortable contraption,” Josh said. “Turn and sit on the edge of the bed with your back to me so I can unlace you.”

      
Doing as he asked, she could not resist saying, “You appear to have had considerable practice with female unmentionables.”

      
“As far as I'm concerned, there's nothing unmentionable about a beautiful woman like you.”

      
“I'm scarcely a great beauty like La Samsonov,” she said, shamelessly testing the waters.

      
His hands never broke their smooth motion as he continued unlacing her corset. “I've never made love to her. And you're every bit as beautiful, just in a different way. She's cold as a blue norther. You're warm as a summer day,” he murmured as he freed her from the corset and corset cover. His fingers massaged the reddened marks as he placed delicate kisses down her vertebrae.

      
Sabrina felt the magic of his mouth and let go of her jealous concern about the Russian woman. It was so difficult to think when he was near, doubly difficult when they were together in bed. A soft laugh bubbled to her lips. “No man has ever called me warm before,” she said.

      
“Only because they're too afraid of your sass to see beyond it to the real you...bright, warm, ready to laugh. That's important, being able to laugh,” he added. “Especially at yourself. Never pays to take yourself too seriously.”

      
“Ah, but as Hambleton's heir, you will require gravitas,” she said, only half teasing, as if trying to remind herself of the gulf between them.

      
“The grave part comes fast enough for everyone. Thing is, a man and a woman have to enjoy life while they're able.”

      
“You know I wasn't talking about a grave,” she scolded as he tossed her corset over the side of the bed.

      
Ignoring her comment, he said, “Now get rid of those skirts and stockings, then climb in bed beside me where you belong.”

      
Sabrina complied without protest, snuggling in his open arms as he spooned her against him and pulled the covers up.

* * * *

      
Josh lay awake early the next morning, watching Sabrina's slow, even breathing. Lordy, he was getting in deep over his head. He'd never in his wild amorous life spent a whole night actually sleeping with a woman. He paid them and sent them on their way, or went off on his own. But here he was, like a lovesick pup, mooning over how her eyelashes curled like dark fans over her cheeks and the way her lips almost parted as she smiled in her sleep.

      
Yup, this was bad. Or good. Damned if he knew which. The only thing he did know was that he wanted to keep her with him for as long as he could imagine. The thought of losing her made him feel hollow as spunk wood inside. Was that love? He was damned if he knew that, either. But until he did, there was no way Miss Sabrina Edgewater was leaving him, even if that meant he had to lasso and hogtie her like a prize heifer!

      
She did care about him, that he knew. He rubbed his aching arm, recalling how concerned she'd been about the injury. She was a cool, competent nurse, a no-nonsense female who didn't get all fluttery at the sight of blood. He smiled, recalling that she'd said growing up in a family with three brothers had been like being raised by wolves. Her wit was sharp and self-deprecating, much like his own, a rare trait. One he had not encountered since leaving Gertie and her girls. Sabrina seemed to understand how he felt about them. too.

      
But she didn't understand about Natasha Samsonov, of course, and he couldn't blame her, even if he was secretly pleased at her jealousy. There was no way he could explain to her why he spent time with the pesky Russian toe dancer. Just thinking about Natasha made him frown as he slid from the bed. The colonel owed him a lot for making him put up with that scary female.

      
She'd insisted on driving his Mercedes that afternoon and damn near wrecked it before he seized control of the wheel to keep them from careening into a hay cart. Then she'd turned her wrath from the hapless cart driver to him. The lady was used to getting her way, and had quite a temper when she didn't.

      
He had not learned anything from her that would be of use to Jamison, but perhaps yesterday's trap would provide some information. One assassin had been taken alive. They might get enough out of the fellow to stop the Russian conspiracy. That would suit Josh just fine. This spy stuff was more dangerous than bulldogging an ornery longhorn. The other would-be assassin who'd escaped was the one who had winged him.

      
He had to reach Michael and find out what the government agents had learned from their captive. And, once and for all, he was going to find out just where his uncle fit into this whole diabolical tangle. He reached for a shirt with his good arm, then realized that Benton would be along any minute “to assist his lordship in dressing.” Sabrina had to be in her room before his valet discovered her asleep in his bed. Josh didn't give a damn what the snooty valet thought, but he knew she would be humiliated by servants' gossip.

      
With dismay he looked around the bed at their clothing, strewn everywhere. Just as he started to gather up an armful of skirts and female unmentionables, a sharp rap sounded on the hall door. He cursed beneath his breath.

      
“Good day, m'lord. I've brought hot coffee from the kitchen, just the way you like it.” Benton's nasal voice carried from the other side of the door, the tone implying how unsuitable strong black coffee, without at least the civilizing complement of cream, was as a morning beverage. English gentlemen drank tea.

      
Josh tensed when Benton tried the door, but fortunately, he'd remembered to lock it last night. Putting a finger to his lips as Sabrina sprang upright in bed with a look of horror on her face, he answered the valet. “Much obliged, Bent, but I'll come down directly for that coffee. Right now I feel like spending a little more time on siesta.”

      
“His lordship the earl has asked to speak with you as soon as you're up and about,” Benton replied stiffly. “Please ring when you require my assistance in dressing.”

      
“That'll be the day petunias sprout in hell,” Josh muttered as he watched Sabrina trying to slip from the bed, using the sheet for covering as she reached for the “unmentionables” he held bundled in his arms. Her face was as pink as sunrise when she met his laughing eyes. “He's gone. It's all right,” he soothed.

      
“Please, Josh, give me my...er, garments,” she implored, her eyes darting from his devilish look to the outside door, as if Benton and all the other servants were going to mount an attack and break it down at any moment.

      
“Well, at least you used my handle. No more ‘Lord-shipping’ me.” he said, offering her the bundle but holding it just far enough away that she had to let go of the sheet to reach it. He could read on her face the urge to stamp one small bare foot in frustration when she realized his ploy.

      
“You're taking advantage of me,” she said crossly, wiping sleep from her eyes.

      
“Appears to me that if I am, it isn't exactly the first time. ‘Sides, I've already seen everything there is to see...not that I don't want to see it again.”

      
“You are an utter...” Words failed her as she felt the edge of the sheet sliding down. While offering the bundle with his good arm, he surprised her by using his injured one to snatch the sheet away.

      
“Now we're even,” he said with a grin.

      
She clutched the clothing in front of her body while he stood completely naked in front of her. The only difference was that he remained calmly unconcerned about his nudity as he began picking up her remaining clothing and adding it to the growing pile in her arms. The night's rest had obviously done him a world of good. The pallor and weakness appeared to be gone as he moved gracefully around the room. Her eyes were drawn to the muscles rippling across his broad back, the way his long legs bent with clean economy as he knelt to pick up her slippers and then stood again.

      
“Here you go, Cinderella,” he said with a lopsided grin, placing the slippers on top of the teetering mound.

      
He knew he was a beautiful specimen, confound the man. She could not keep her eyes averted to save her life. “Cinderella is a good appellation, since it's past midnight and my magic wanes with daylight,” she managed.

      
“You haven't turned into a pumpkin. Far as I can see, you look even better in daylight.” His eyes swept from her tousled hair down to her trim ankles and dainty little bare feet.

      
“You know perfectly well it wasn't the girl but the coach that turned into a pumpkin,” she retorted with some sass.

      
“Yep, but I didn't expect you to turn into a mouse like the footmen in the story.”

      
“I do not lack for courage, Josh, but I must leave before your uncle comes upstairs after you. I doubt you can fob him off as easily as you did your valet. That does not make me into a ‘mouse’!” Now, how the devil was she going to cross to her room without affording him a full view of her bare backside?

      
As if reading her mind, Josh reached over and tucked the skirt around her fanny, managing to caress a rounded cheek as he did so. “Just trying to help a lady,” he said with an innocent wink.

      
Sabrina exited and closed the door behind her with as much dignity as she could muster, which was not a great deal considering how red her face was...and how her derriere tingled from his touch.

* * * *

      
When Josh entered his uncle's office, the old man was seated behind his desk, sorting through a sheaf of documents. He looked up at his nephew with a very serious expression on his face. In fact, Josh would have said the old man had aged another decade overnight. “You look like a fellow who's been on a nine-day bender. What's wrong, Uncle Ab?”

      
“Thank you for the compliment, my boy,” the old man said dryly as he waved Josh into a chair. “The elderly are ever so grateful just to be reminded that they still breathe. You, being a young and disgustingly resilient Anglo-American, appear little the worse for your encounter with a bullet yesterday.”

      
“I've been shot at a time or two during the war in Cuba, but there I knew who the enemy was,” Josh replied, wondering when the old man was going to ask him why he'd been shot. He leaned back like a good poker player, which he was, and waited for the earl to lay out his cards.

      
Hambleton sighed. “All right. I might as well explain the whole of this tangle, although I'd hoped, for your own protection, that it wouldn't prove necessary.”

      
“You work for the Foreign Office.” It was not a question. “I think you'd better level with me, Uncle Ab. I suppose you know the colonel—President Roosevelt—asked me to look into this mess for him?”

      
“Yes, I did. In fact, it was I who recommended to Salisbury that he request help from your old comrade in arms. Short of crossing the Atlantic myself, it was the only way I could be assured you'd accept your position as my heir. The situation here obviously precluded such a voyage on my part, and I must admit you are admirably suited for the task at hand,” Hambleton added with a touch of pride in his voice.