The Capture of the Earl of Glencrae (21 page)

“Which,” Vane said, casting the others a jaundiced look, “leaves me with Lady Osbaldestone.”

“It could have been worse,” Martin told him. “But luckily for me, Aunt Clara didn't attend.”

Vane humphed, but couldn't argue. Unraveling his great-aunt Clara's peripatetic discourse would give anyone a headache.

“Right.” Devil set down his pen. “We'll all go and request audience and enlightenment, and if whoever we speak with can suggest any others who we might in safety approach, do that, too. It's only the middle of the afternoon, but finding our targets at home, in a state to speak with us privately, may mean waiting until tomorrow . . . let's reconvene here on the morning of the day after tomorrow.”

The others nodded or grunted in agreement. Rising, they left the library, still unwaveringly determined on their hunt.

A
ngelica swept into the drawing room that evening in an extremely mellow mood, further gilded by anticipation.

She was wearing one of her new evening gowns in a delicate shade of violet; she'd convinced the modiste to dispense with all ruffles, ribbons, and bows, and felt justifiably pleased with the result.

Dominic had been standing before the hearth, staring at the blaze; hearing her, he turned. If the arrested look on his face was any guide, her sartorial arrow had found its mark.

His gaze raced over her, then returned to linger on her breasts, the upper swells enticingly revealed by the sweetheart neckline. As she halted before him, he blinked, then raised his gaze to her face, to her eyes. “I thought . . .” He blinked again, then frowned. “Isn't that rather . . . unfussy?”

She smiled. “You mean plain—and yes, deliberately so. As I'm sure you've noticed, I'm neither tall, nor overendowed, so frills and furbelows make me feel—and look—weighed down. Simple and elegant, however”—she waved a hand down her figure—“is more flattering, and serves to display but not disguise, thus shifting the focus from the gown itself to what's in it.”

Looking into his eyes, she let her smile deepen. “And as you see, it works.”

His eyes narrowed; she could see him toying with some response, but in the end, he only grunted.

“My lord, miss, dinner is served.”

They both looked across to see MacIntyre standing just inside the door.

Dominic glanced at her, then offered his arm. “Dinner, my lady.”

She smiled, serenely confident, and set her hand on his sleeve.

As he led her into the dining room, Dominic inwardly shook his head—at her, and himself. Despite his declaration of the morning, she was clearly intent on playing the age-old game. Her tactics, however, were not exactly flirting, but rather an engagement more subtle and definitely more potently provoking—witness the fact that he was responding.

Why, he didn't know; just seeing her left him half aroused—he didn't need further stimulation.

He sat her in her chair, then walked up the table to his. MacIntyre and the footmen brought in the platters and the meal began.

Contrary to his expectations—he was starting to suspect that she delighted in confounding them—her conversation held no hidden agenda but was wholly focused on their upcoming journey.

“Brenda's packing everything she can this evening so we won't keep you waiting in the morning.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “Are you truly set on leaving at dawn?”

He nodded. “First light—as soon as there's light enough to ride safely.” After a moment of debating whether he really wanted to know, he asked, “How many bags do you have?”

“Only three—and one bandbox, of course.”

“Of course.”

She registered his dry tone, but only smiled. “I know you ordered sumpter horses, so there won't be any bother with only that much luggage.”

He grunted—a non-reply—but he knew that, for a lady of her station, three bags and a bandbox was traveling very light.

They talked of this and that, touching on and reassessing all the preparations for the trip, but neither he nor she uncovered any lack or oversight. The interaction, however, necessarily drew his gaze again and again to her face—to her lips, to her eyes, to the shadows her lashes cast on her cheeks.

At one point, wine sleeked her lower lip; he watched, unwillingly fascinated, as her tongue came out and swept over the full curve. He thought of his own tongue doing the same, then . . .

He looked away, surreptitiously shifted in his chair, and had to wonder if she was doing it deliberately—purposely stoking his lust. He assumed she was, but although thereafter he watched her closely, he never caught her out in any too-open, too-deliberate, intentionally arousing act.

Even when her fingers played with her necklace and the pink crystal pendant that hung from it—focusing his unwilling mind and his all too willing libido on her breasts, on the valley between the firm mounds—he couldn't tell if her actions were artless, or artful.

Regardless, they were effective.

By the time they rose and he walked with her to the library, he was aching, but even more determined than he had been that morning to adhere to his declared position.

Angelica led the way into the library and made for her usual chair. She'd earlier asked Brenda to fetch the book she'd brought from the London house and leave it in the library; it was sitting on the table by the chair.

Hefting the weighty tome in both hands, she sat, laid it in her lap, and opened it to the last page she'd read. From the corner of her eye, she saw Dominic pause at the end of his desk and study her through narrowing eyes, but then he moved to his chair, sat, and focused on his papers. There seemed a few he hadn't yet dealt with, but the desk was almost clear.

Relaxing in the chair, she settled to read a few more pages, if only to distract her from what she had planned for the rest of the night. What she hoped she'd successfully organized to bring about.

Given the challenge of his morning's declaration, she felt buoyed by what she'd accomplished through the day. Convincing him to buy her the black filly had been an additional, unexpected victory; she hadn't known the horse would be there to be bought, but the result had confirmed that she could indeed manage him, albeit not easily. But her gowns had affected him exactly as she'd hoped, and all her other lures, heavily disguised though they'd been, appeared to have sunk home.

She had his measure now, sufficiently well to avoid any overt gambit at this point. Neither the setting nor his underlying watchfulness and resistance were in her favor, not here, not now; his will was simply too strong.

Even now, she wasn't at all sure, if they were to engage toe to toe, will to will, who would win. Wasn't sure if such a clash would end in triumph for either of them. But she'd planned for that, planned how to overcome the hurdles, indeed, to turn the setting, at least, to her advantage.

She tried to keep her mind focused on Robertson's words, but she remained intensely aware of the man behind the desk, and the excitement, anticipation, and sheer eager impatience building inside her.

Dominic found himself reading every paragraph, every sheet, at least three times before he could be sure all pertinent details had penetrated the sensual haze wreathing his mind. She was reading a book, for heaven's sake—admittedly a book about Scottish history—but why on earth his instincts, his awareness, wouldn't settle but remained expectantly fixed on her he couldn't fathom.

She was driving him demented without doing a damned thing—simply by breathing. By being.

By being anywhere near him, anywhere within his sight.

He wasn't foolish enough to pretend to himself that he wasn't, patently and painfully, deep in lust with her. If he were truthful, he had been since first setting eyes on her in Lady Cavendish's salon, and the attraction had only grown more powerful by the day—sometimes by the hour.

Worse, it was lust with a new edge—with all the fascinating allure of a familiar urge made new and exciting. She would be his wife, ergo different—his relationship with her would be novel and new, and some unruly part of him was slaveringly eager to find out in what way. To sample—

He cut the thought off. Jaw clenching, he lifted the last of the documents he had to deal with and set it on the blotter. Forced his eyes—and his mind—to read it.

He'd reached the end, signed it, and was blotting his signature when she stirred.

He glanced at her and caught her stifling a yawn.

She met his eyes and smiled one of her gentle, easy, apparently uncomplicated smiles. “I think I'll go up.”

Rising, she lifted the Robertson and tucked it under one arm. “I'll take this with me—I'm not even halfway through.”

He nodded. Watched as she glided to the door, opened it, and went out.

The door softly closed.

He stared at the panels.

He'd been expecting something quite different. He'd expected her to make some attempt to overturn, at least to challenge, his declaration of the morning—to make some attempt to cross the line he'd drawn.

To capitalize in some way on his susceptibility to her subtle, but very real, seduction.

He'd been steeled to resist, to hold firm.

To not let her bend him to her will—or more accurately to recruit his libido to her cause, and so defeat him.

And instead, she'd retreated.

She'd gone upstairs, and left him not just aching but . . . deflated.

Oddly disappointed. He'd been looking forward to the tussle . . .

“
Gah
!” The damned woman was tying him in knots.

He ransacked his desktop, but he'd finished, finally finished, every document, every contract, everything he'd needed to deal with before they left.

But going upstairs now . . . in this mood, he didn't trust himself to pass her door, to continue walking on to his, rather than knocking on hers and instigating the very engagement that he'd been expecting, but she'd avoided.

“And that way lies insanity.” With no other distraction offering, he opened the bottom drawer to his left and drew out the contract his father, nearly six years before, had negotiated with a group of London bankers.

If anything could refocus him on what was truly and immediately important, reading that contract was it.

Chapter Eleven

H
alf an hour later, his mind refocused, his thoughts revolving about the days ahead, Dominic lit the last candlestick left on the hall table and used it to light his way up the stairs.

He passed the door to the countess's suite without hesitation and continued to his own. Opening the door, he stepped into his sitting room—and halted.

There was a light in the bedroom. The door stood open, directly to his right, but from his present position he could see nothing beyond the front of an armoire. It didn't, however, take much mental effort to guess who was in his room.

For several seconds, he toyed with the notion of stepping back into the corridor, going to her suite, and sleeping there instead, but that smacked too much of cowardice.

And while his libido might be eager to discover exactly what she was doing in his bedroom, and what might come of that, he was not at all happy with her latest tack. He'd spent the last half hour recentering his thoughts on his primary objective, and now . . . jaw setting, already frowning, he shut the main door and stalked into the bedroom.

And discovered her in his bed.

Sitting propped up against the pillows, the covers to her collarbone, she was reading Robertson by the light of the bedside lamp.

He came to an abrupt halt a good three yards from the bed.

The lamplight washed over delicately rounded bare shoulders and set fiery glints flaring in the tumbled jumble of her hair, which fell in loose curls over said shoulders down to the line of her breasts.

She glanced up, smiled easily. “There you are. I wondered when you'd be up.”

“What. Are. You. Doing here?” His voice remained low, but displeasure and more vibrated through it.

As if surprised by his tone, she arched a haughty brow. “Reading and waiting for you, of course.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. Held onto his temper. “
Why
are you here?”

“Because I have several matters I wish to discuss with you that are more appropriately discussed here than elsewhere.” She closed the book. “Now you're here—”

“Did you, or did you not, hear what I had to say regarding such ‘matters' this morning?” Swinging away, he set the candlestick on the tallboy facing the bed. She was still wearing her necklace, and a silk robe lay over a chair beside the tallboy. He could see no evidence she'd removed her nightgown; presumably she was wearing a summery one with a drawstring rather than sleeves.

He turned to face her.

She met his eyes. “This morning you made a declaration based on your opinion. I don't recall you asking for mine.”

She thought him fool enough to allow her to voice it?

His face a mask of implacability, he let the moment—the silence weighted with his annoyance and anger—stretch; unmoved, unintimidated, she just watched him and waited. With a patience he didn't have.

Clearly this was one argument—one clash—they were destined to have.

“Very well.” He nodded. “What is it—this opinion of yours?”

“It's perfectly straightforward. As your countess-to-be, I believe I should start as I mean to go on. As I have in picking up the reins of your household, as I have in choosing a suitable wardrobe. And in the matter of our sleeping arrangements, sleeping in this bed.”

“You expect me to sleep beside you and not touch you?” The incredulous words slipped out before he'd thought.

She held his gaze and calmly stated, “No.”

The shackles he'd placed on his libido—that he'd spent the last half hour strengthening—shattered and fell away. Lust roared, not just to full life but to a rabid, ravenous hunger.

Her gaze remained steady, locked with his; there was absolutely no chance she didn't know—and mean—what she'd said. As an invitation to intimacy, it trumped any he'd ever heard.

There was only one reply he could make. “Not tonight.”

Two swift strides took him to the side of the bed. Stooping, he thrust his hands under the covers to scoop her up and carry her back to her room—and encountered bare skin. “
Christ
!” He pulled back his hands as if they'd been scalded.

Quick as a flash, she grabbed his cravat, preventing him from straightening.

He could still have easily done so, but, eye to eye with her determination, he had no reason to think she would release him if he did, and the image of him pulling her, naked, free of the covers . . .

He closed his eyes, clenched his jaw so hard he thought it would crack. “You don't have a stitch on.”

“I thought I'd save time. You, meanwhile, have far too many on.”

He opened his eyes and glared into hers, less than a foot away. His hands tingled with the remembered feel of warm, silken skin; fisting them, he leaned them on the edge of the bed.

She misinterpreted and pulled on his cravat to draw him closer, to draw his lips to hers.

He didn't shift an inch. “Why are you doing this? The real reason.” A test of wills, hers against his, in an arena where he was certain to fail?

She narrowed her eyes, her gaze boring into his as much as his was boring into hers . . . as if they could somehow see inside each other's minds. Eventually, without breaking the contact, she said, “I'll answer your question if you'll first answer mine.”

“Which is?”

“Why are you resisting being intimate with me when you've already decided I'm your countess-to-be? What's the real reason behind that?”

The answer—the real, deepest, and most true—swam through his mind: Because for the first time in his life he had no idea where bedding a woman would lead. She was that different. He saw her, reacted to her, thought of her, regarded her in ways that were utterly unique, and no matter what he tried to tell himself, that was not just because she was to be his wife.

But he couldn't say that. Couldn't even suggest it.

He dragged in a long, slow breath. Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he said, “As you already know, retrieving the goblet is vital to me. At this moment, doing everything possible to ensure we get it back is, to me, more important than anything else. Commencing a liaison—with you or any lady—at this time would almost certainly distract me from that vital purpose.” He paused, then amended, “Correction—commencing a sexual relationship with you at this point will definitely distract me, very likely more than usual precisely because you will be my countess, an ultimate outcome that, as we both know, isn't in any way in question regardless of when you formally consent to it. However, to indulge ourselves in that manner, one certain to lead to distraction, now, when my people are depending on both of us to recover the goblet and save the clan, would, in my view, qualify as an act bordering on betrayal.” Gaze locked with hers, he stopped, shut his lips, and waited.

A long moment went by during which she remained locked in their mutual gaze, then she blinked, refocused, searched his eyes, his face, then returned her green-gold gaze to his. “I understand your position and can see why you wish to hold to it. However, I have two reasons to advance against that, and both directly impinge on us being able to do our very best to reclaim the goblet.”

He gave up on impassivity and frowned. “You think we should become intimate so we'll be
better
able to trick my mother and reclaim the goblet?”

“Yes.” She nodded decisively.

She hadn't eased her double-handed grip on his cravat. Grim-faced, he shifted to sit on the side of the bed. “First reason.”

Angelica paused only to draw breath. “I, too, see our mutual distraction as a potential problem. On that issue, as it appears to have escaped your notice, allow me to point out that we're distracted—mightily—now. Do you really think this”—she almost took one hand from his cravat to wave between them, but stopped just in time, and instead locked her fingers more firmly in the linen and gave a small tug—“this unrelenting focus between us, me on you and you on me, is going to
lessen
as the days go by? That if we don't do something to satisfy it, but just keep putting it off, it will fade?”

She studied his eyes, then firmly stated, “Yes, it's distracting, but it's driven by curiosity, by constantly wondering about the prospect, how it will feel, what it will be like, and if we don't do what's necessary to sate that curiosity, it's only going to get progressively worse. If we continue to delay addressing the issue, by the time we reach the castle, I, for one, will be in no fit state to single-mindedly focus on our charade to trick your mother—how on earth could anyone expect me to be, when most of my mind will be focused on you? On us. On you and me together.”

He remained silent for a full minute, then said, “There's distraction, and distraction.”

“Possibly.” Tilting her head, she tried to read his eyes, to gauge what exactly he'd meant, but she couldn't. “I concede that you know more about this than me. Never having been intimate before, I can't judge what level of distraction might continue subsequently, yet I cannot imagine it would be worse than the distraction we're currently subject to due to not having been intimate yet. In my experience, expectation and anticipation are always more powerful before one has done something rather than after.”

His lips tightened. Before he could say anything, she hurried on, “And if you do see the sense in my reasoning, and agree that we'll be better off addressing the issue before we reach the castle, then the questions of when and where arise, and the obvious best answers to both are now and here—in the safety of your house and the comfort of this bed.” She held his gaze. “If we're to commence an intimate relationship before we reach the castle, then I vote that we start it here, tonight, in this bed.”

A moment ticked past. When he continued to stare silently at her, she widened her eyes. “Well?”

After another half a minute of consideration, he said, “As I see it, both our arguments regarding distraction are valid. Which is to say that they cancel each other out, leaving us with no good reason to act now, nor to delay.” He held her gaze. “So . . . what's your second reason?”

Something much harder to explain. Looking into his eyes, she felt certain he'd guessed that she didn't really want to explain her second reason . . . but she would. To meet fate's challenge, and his, to convince him to take the next necessary step along the path to falling in love with her, she would dredge her thoughts, her emotions, and find the words.

She took a full minute to think, then, keeping her eyes on his, commenced, “When we reach the castle, neither of us can be sure of what it will take to convince your mother that I'm ruined. That's our aim, the goal we, together, have to achieve. Even though we haven't discussed what we might need to do, I'm sure you've thought of it, and I have, too. The part I'll have to play, the sort of charade I'll need to act out, won't necessarily be simple or straightforward. It might, very likely will be . . . difficult, on several levels. And not just for me, but for you, too.”

She paused; locked in the storm-tossed sea of his eyes, she could only hope that he would understand. “In order to perform as I—and you—will almost certainly have to, we need to be . . . closer.”

His brows fractionally rose; he was thinking, trying to follow her meaning.

That wouldn't be enough; increasingly sure she had to sway him, now, tonight, she searched inside, and found the truth—her own vulnerability—waiting to be owned, her real reason why. She drew a suddenly tight breath and, eyes still locked with his, forced herself to say, “To pull off our charade, to have the confidence to carry it off successfully, I'll need to have—and to know I have—complete and absolute trust in you, especially in the physical sense. And the only way I know of to reach that level of trust quickly, over the few days we have before we reach the castle, is for us to be intimate.”

Something shifted behind the gray clouds in his eyes. It was tempting to say more, but she pressed her lips tight and, her gaze locked with his, waited.

Dominic searched her eyes and saw nothing but stark honesty. He'd asked, and she'd told him. Simply and sincerely. And he understood. He knew far more than she did about the act of intimacy, and her view was unquestionably correct; for a woman, especially with a man of his strength, trust was . . . utterly essential.

And he could see why she wanted that particular level of trust, could imagine what she foresaw of their required actions at the castle.

She wasn't wrong in that, either.

He looked at her, and saw a woman, a lady, who had agreed to aid him, a man she hadn't known other than by adverse repute, to save a clan she had no connection to or responsibility for. She'd done all and more than he could possibly have expected of her; to this point, she had given unstintingly.

This was something she was asking in return. More, it was something she needed.

This was what he was being called on to give in return for all she'd already given him, and all she was committed to giving as the days rolled on.

He couldn't deny her.

Even though he had reservations—severe reservations that had grown even more acute through the last hour—over how what had already flared between them would play out for him.

He certainly couldn't deny her to protect himself.

Her first reason had been a practical one, the second an emotional one. His resistance to the first had been on practical grounds, too, just as his resistance to the second was as emotional as her need.

He saw the parallels, but seeing changed nothing.

Drawing in a breath, he scanned her face, taking in her tension—the same tension gripping him.

Returning his gaze to her eyes, he studied the emerald-flecked gold, then asked, “You do realize that once we're intimate, there will be no going back—not even by any sleight of hand, no matter how far-reaching, practiced by your family?”