The Dark Affair (13 page)

He drew in a slow, steady breath, met Daughtery’s eyes; then a cold grin of brutal promise curved his lips.

Daughtery hesitated.

And that was all that Powers needed. He aimed his fist straight for the bridge of Daughtery’s nose, hauled back and then sent all his rage and suffering into that blow.

Daughtery’s head snapped back and crimson shot into the air.

Powers jogged forward, dipped low, then drove his fist into the other man’s kidney.

Daughtery whirled drunkenly.

Wishing it didn’t have to end, that Margaret hadn’t been there and he could have kept this dance of pain going for as long as possible, he raised his guard and then made the final, punishing blow to Daughtery’s jaw.

The other man swayed on his feet and then fell to his knees.

The referee bent over, shouting the count in the Irishman’s face.

The crowd roared.

A salty-haired man, his own nose bent from a previous fight, grabbed Daughtery and tried to pull him to his feet. But Daughtery slumped to the floor, blood spilling from his mouth and out onto the stained ground.

The referee grabbed Powers’s hand and raised it high in the air.

A great shout of approval went up around him.

His gaze wandered over the blood-drunk faces, searching for the only one that mattered.

Margaret stood still, her indigo eyes shuttered.

It was the last response he’d expected. Fury, shock, even a hint of amazement were all things he’d thought to see. Anything but this blank acceptance.

And there it was.

Lady Maggie finally knew what he had known all along.

He was a lost cause.

S
omething had changed in the hours since the fight. Margaret had grown surprisingly quiet, only rallying to bully him out of his stained clothes and into a robe. Currently, she stood staring out the window as if the answers to all the world’s questions lingered just beyond the park.

He took a step toward her, hating that he cared about her sudden withdrawal. “Have you given up on me, then?”

She continued to stare out the window. “I’m Irish. Giving up is against our nature.”

Suddenly, he wanted to tease her, to find that banter that had so easily played between them before. Perhaps he had destroyed it today. “Lucky me.”

She snorted. “At the moment, you and I have grander problems than your need to have your brains bashed out.”

He lifted his brows. With every gesture, every word, he found himself able to draw from the coldness that was his strength. “Do we?”

She bit down on her lower lip before stating, “Your father.”

There was no surprise that his father was their largest problem. Ever since his wife and child had died in his father’s care, he’d known the old man wasn’t to be trusted. “He’s a bastard.”

She gave him a strange look before she continued. “He voiced doubts about your abilities to function this morning, and I shouldn’t put it past him to pack you away to some little attic in the country. Out of sight, out of mind. Frankly, after your antics this afternoon, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did so before my help has any effect.”

A dry laugh boomed out of him at her clear worry. “That will never happen.”

“Won’t it?”

“I’m my father’s only heir.” He shrugged. After all, this was self-evident, yet apparently, she still needed him to explain it. “He’ll stop at nothing to set me to rights. He’s been trying for years.”

“Perhaps he’s grown tired of trying,” she said evenly.

That stopped him, and he studied her with a new degree of consideration.

He and his father had never seen eye to eye. Not about anything—politics, the military, the way the estates were run, or how to care for Sophia after Jane’s birth. “Fortunately, with you as my wife, his reach is severely diminished.”

Her fingers tightened in her lap, the pale skin whitening to the shade of marble. “I’m not actually your wife.”

He didn’t need to think overlong on what she was alluding. But he wanted to hear her say it. To say that their marriage was a sham. “I beg your pardon.”

“Your father. He threatened annulment if I didn’t sort you out and soon.”

He snorted. “I’d have to consent to an annulment.”

“You’d have to be sane and without opium; otherwise I do not doubt he’d be willing to strip you of your rights. He would simply state that you had married me without full faculties.”

“Then you and I must make the rounds. Once everyone has seen the new Lady Stanhope, I’m sure any such doubts will be smoothed away. At least for some time.”

She flinched. “Can’t you just . . . ?” She shifted on her chair, her pale face tightening with displeasure.

Another laugh boomed out of his mouth. He shocked himself with the force of it. “What? Fuck you in the dark and do my duty?”

Her mouth tightened, but she nodded. “Exactly. Yes. And I had no idea it would be such a humorous proposition.”

“How noble of you,” he said, ignoring the rankling feeling that she would bed him to secure her position. Not so different from most of the women in his acquaintance.

Why did he have to keep thinking better of her than she actually was? It led only to an inevitable feeling of disappointment, and he’d believed for some time, until she’d had the audacity to cross his path, that he was beyond disappointment.

She sniffed. “It’s not noble. It’s necessary. And right now, it’s most necessary to—”

He leaned forward and drawled, “Rid you of your maidenhead?”

Those beautiful hands of hers stilled in her lap. In fact, her entire body seemed to freeze. “It would certainly put a kink in your father’s ability to manipulate your situation.”

James lifted a brow. “I do think you mean
our
situation.”

At last, she shifted on her seat, her saintly face animated with her discomfort. “Yes. Our situation.”

How long had she operated alone? Without the assistance or companionship of a man? Obviously, she had worked with men, but from the starch in her shoulders and her primly folded hands, it had been many years since she had allowed one to be intimate with her.

Perhaps she had never been intimate.

Had his little saint lived her whole life adrift and without support? “Your parents aren’t living?”

Maggie blinked once, but beyond that, her countenance didn’t alter. “I don’t wish to discuss my parents any further than we did this morning, but to answer you, no.”

“Neither?”

A small furrow formed between her brows. “Neither.”

Pieces were falling into place. She’d learned to become independent, to make others dependent on her. To save those who needed to be saved to prove that she was safe, high above the mire. Was she afraid of falling from her high, perfect shelf and shattering upon the ground, as it seemed her parents had done before her? “How long ago?”

Her mouth pursed, as if she was about to make an acerbic comment. She paused, and that brief riot of anger faded from her countenance. “May I point out that my background is hardly the root of our predicament at present?”

He hesitated, wondering at the words hovering on his lips. Dare he say them? They were so entirely out of character to him. “I realize you don’t like to discuss yourself, but how else am I to learn anything about you and why you are here? Unless, of course, you wish us to remain total strangers. If that’s the case, I shan’t simply climb into bed with you, close my eyes, and do the deed.”

She let out a little growl, and then her mouth popped open with apparent shock at her reaction to his provocation.

“Truly, Maggie. Why are you here?”

“In London?”

He gave her a dry smile. “Don’t be obtuse. Why are you here with me?”

A small smile tugged at her lips before she stated quite factually, “For funds.”

He scowled. The motion hurt, but it was a delicious sort of pain. The bruises along his jaw ached with the sort of ache that at least kept him present and not thinking of unpleasant things. “I must admit I have never paid a woman to keep me company in my room.”

“
You
haven’t paid me.”

“Worse and worse.” He
tsk
ed. “My father paid you.”

She nodded.

“How incredibly disheartening,” he said, a touch of mockery in his voice. “Usually my charm is suffice to lure ladies to my web.”

That seemed to strike a chord within her, for she grew silent, and yet a sort of vibrancy crackled from her, her eyes flickering with a hot consideration. “I do not think it is charm that draws women to your bed.”

The humor that had shook his body but a moment before stilled into something brittle. “What is it, then?”

A soft exhale passed her lips, and her eyes softened ever so slightly, but not with the usual weakness of women. Her eyes softened into the cobalt blue of fascination and the desire to touch that which was forbidden. “You are dangerous.”

His own voice grew quiet, a rumble through the room as he gave in to the urge to tempt her. “Is it danger, then, that attracts women?”

She cocked her head to the side. A lock of her red hair caressed her cheek. “Many women.”

A knock echoed gently on the door, and Maggie whipped toward it, those soldier’s shoulders of hers straight. Wordlessly, she opened the door and took the bowl of ice she’d ordered when they’d returned this evening.

“Does danger attract you?” he asked as she closed the door.

Her fingers tightened around the bowl as she faced him.

The slight press of her lips and a hint of rose against her pale skin in the firelight answered his question. But it was answer enough. He braced his hands on the mattress, his fingers sliding over the silk, silk as soft as her skin would be, as he tried to wrap his head around her silent admission. “So you find me attractive.”

She bustled forward, her movements controlled. “I find you attractive enough.”

That brittle sense deep in his heart iced over. The playfulness that had warmed it and threatened to lure him out from his faithful and isolated cave faded into oblivion at her flat, mercenary words. The familiar deadness resumed its place. “Of course. Attractive enough that it would not be such a punishment to have my cock in your sheath.”

She blanched before setting the bowl on the polished bedside table. “Given your reputation, my lord, you are not entirely discerning. Surely—”

“I should roll over and allow you to mount me?” He cut her off, feeling surprisingly ill that his own reputation could be displayed in such a way. “Fascinating proposition, but you do realize that your willingness to sacrifice yourself beneath me doesn’t mean anything?”

She plucked up a piece of ice and oh so slowly administered it to his cheek. “What do you mean?”

He sucked in a breath that had nothing to do with the startling cold, but rather her gentle touch.

Captivated by her own movement, she slid the ice carefully down his cheek and to his jaw.

She lingered just at the place where his chin met his neck.

How he longed for her to trace that ice lower, for her to wish to explore his body as much as he longed to explore hers. “Oh, Maggie,” he whispered. “Surely you know consummation has nothing to do with annulment. At least not in England.”

“Oh.” Her face fell, and she started to pull her hand away. “In a Catholic marriage—”

He clasped her hand, allowing the melting ice to slip between their fingers. “This is not a Catholic country, Maggie. You know that better than most. And in truth, I wouldn’t take you to bed for such cold reasons.”

She licked her lips. “An heir would make our marriage safe, would it not?”

“It would. Is that what you want? To carry my child for your protection?”

She studied their interlaced fingers. “Not just for mine. For yours as well.”

Slowly, he stood, his long muscled legs surer than they had been in days. His robe parted ever so slightly, but only enough to bare his chest past his navel. Cold air skimmed his body. How easy it would be to drop the fabric, gesture for her to join him, and take what she was offering.

It might be a faster route to secure his freedom by pleasuring her, by playing off that strange connection women felt to the men they made love to. And yet, at the very thought, he felt suddenly dirty. And used. He’d engaged in countless fucks since his wife had died. Some of them touched with some vague hint of meaning, but most had been empty soul-draining experiences that had provided the same sort of escape opium and wine had done. It would be so easy to lose himself for a few moments in her body. To find forgetfulness. But he would not allow himself to descend to that hellish place with her.

Apparently, he had not yet gone as low as one might.

So, instead, he slipped his palm along her waist, pulling her close, studying her with a stillness that usually put all those around him on edge. After several long moments, her chest barely lifting for breath, he leaned in until his face was but inches from hers.

Her indigo eyes widened, and the pupils dilated.

“Let me be clear,” he said softly. “If and when we go to bed, it will have nothing to do with bargains. Do you understand?”

On a soft breath, her lips parted, exposing just the tip of her pink tongue.

The carnal urge to take her mouth and show her that there was so much more between a man and a woman than coupling for the sake of contracts and validations of ceremonies rumbled beneath his surface. But his little nurse needed to learn quickly that she was not to have her way in all things. Not even when he was in a state where all power had seemingly been stripped away from him.

And then it struck him, what he needed to do. “We are leaving this house.”

She tilted her head back, her eyes half closed. “We cannot leave—”

“Pack what little you have.” He paused. She did have so little. At least in that, he could change things for her. He could give her anything she desired.

His hands tightened about her, lest his sudden clarity gave over to the chaos raging just below his surface. “We are leaving, and we are leaving now.”

She snapped her eyes wide, then pulled back into the chair, her body suddenly defiant within the frame of his. “What you propose—”

“Is far more logical than you offering yourself spread-eagle upon my bed, eyes closed and teeth gritted.”

She was silent for a moment before her gaze flicked toward the window. She swallowed, the delicate muscles of her neck shifting in the most fascinating of ways before she whispered, “Would I?”

He stared at that pale skin, strained over her flesh. He longed to press his mouth to it, to feel the beat of her heart beneath his lips. “Would you what?”

“Close my eyes and grit my teeth?”

Her words slammed into him with such shocking force that he sucked in a sharp breath and started to pull away, but not before he drank in her scent, soft with the gentle touch of lavender.

It didn’t matter that every instinct inside him demanded that he pick her up, throw her on the bed, shove up those long skirts, and ram into her tight, wet body, making her his. But he couldn’t. He didn’t deserve her. Not after all the things he had done.

But a kiss? Surely, no harm could befall them from a kiss.

He studied her face, wishing he could see deep into her soul, wishing that there were no long-ago assembled walls in either of them. It might never be possible for either of them to scale those blockades, but at least they could meet with a touch of lips.

Biding his time, stealing through the air between them, he lowered his head.

As she realized his intent, her eyes flared, but she didn’t pull away. In fact, her head dropped back ever so slightly, offering up her mouth.

Those pink lips in her pale face called to him, and before he could think further, he took them in a soft kiss. A sound of surprise slipped from her lips to his.