The Love Affair of an English Lord (3 page)

He turned slowly, looking her up and down as if he had been resisting the urge to do so all along. His face was lean, the masculine features overshadowed by a tension that Chloe could almost feel. In fact, she caught her breath at the suppressed intensity, the male interest that he had not allowed to show before. Had she wondered whether he'd noticed her as a woman? Well, she would wonder no more. Never in her life had a man's gaze left her feeling more seduced and desirable than his brief heated glance. Only when his gray eyes met hers did the faintest flicker of humor appear.

“Yes,” he said. “I've heard quite a few things about you, in fact.”

“Why should I be of interest to you?” she asked in an undertone.

He hesitated. They were standing in the shadows of the white willow trees that bordered the manor house. Chloe could hear the rain pattering on the silvery leaves, dripping, enclosing them in humid darkness. She sensed he was on the verge of telling her something, a secret, perhaps even the reason why he seemed so preoccupied and impolite. Those soulful gray eyes of his quite softened her heart. Was he sad, stricken perhaps with a terminal illness?

She edged a little closer, hoping to inspire confidence. She had always been drawn to lost animals, to lost people. But there was something else drawing her to him now, a dangerous curiosity, a magnetic heat. If he had been cool toward her before, he seemed to be a veritable hotbed of dark emotion now.

“Why?” she asked again.

She should have been surprised when he drew her into his arms and kissed her. What surprised her more was that she did not melt into the rain, her body suddenly boneless, drugged with the heady sweetness of brandy on his breath. There was power and arrogance and almost desperation in the way his lips took possession of hers. A decade from now she would remember the thrill of that kiss. She struggled for breath. He allowed her but the merest gasp before his tongue drove more deeply into the soft recesses of her mouth.

“Why?” he whispered, holding her as if she were a lifeline, a link to sanity.

And Chloe's own sanity was suddenly in question as his hands drifted down her back, caressing the arch of her spine through her cloak, the contours of her bottom. In her past flirtations she had always felt in control, mistress of her fate. Now her control went up in flames. The dangerous hardness of his body supported and weakened her at once.

She heard him groan into the hollow of her throat. She had not been kissed like this before. She had not been touched like this. Even through her clothing his hands knew where to linger, how to arouse. A raindrop fell on her cheek and slid down against her neck. He licked it, the curl of his tongue sending a deep shiver through her body.

“You shouldn't go out alone,” he said, and kissed her again, his mouth wet, his big arms tightening around her.

The sensual rasp of his voice almost brought her to her knees. Her heart was pounding in her throat, her ears. “Why not?” she whispered, taunting him back, not wanting to show how she struggled with herself to stop this from going any further.

He drew away from her with a smile. “This is a small village.” His voice was detached again. She might have imagined the heat between them. Before she could even move, he had remounted and wheeled his horse in the opposite direction. “Yet there are dangers to avoid even here for a pretty young woman with a nose for trouble. Stay off my property in future.”

A nose for trouble? Dangers to avoid? Meaning what? she wondered. Chloe, the daughter of a deceased marquess, the sister of the current marquess who wielded considerable influence, had been too flabbergasted by his blunt dismissal to ask. She had stood in the rain, drenched and offended, to watch him gallop off as if he were part of the angry storm. She had stood in disbelief, still burning from that kiss, from his enigmatic advice.

How did he know about her? And what was she to make of his melodramatic warning? The only menace Chloe had encountered in this dreary village until today was a parson who loved to spread gossip and a worrisome aunt. Good heavens, was she made of glass?

Without a doubt Dominic Breckland was the rudest and most attractive man she had ever met. Obviously he didn't give tuppence for what she thought. He did not seem to care that she might report his behavior to her brothers, who would probably only defend him anyway, assuming Chloe had been at fault.

 

Chloe lingered in the rain until he disappeared from sight, no longer feeling the chill. Feeling an extraordinary heat and annoyance, if anything. She had stayed there, and suddenly she realized that she had never dreamed a man like Lord Stratfield even existed, and wished she had never made the discovery.

In fact, she was so put out that she decided the only antidote was to completely forget her arrogant savior, which proved to be exactly the same advice her distraught aunt dispensed a few minutes later.

“I could not believe my eyes, Chloe Boscastle! I could not believe I saw you on a horse with Lord Stratfield. Holding him around the middle!”

Chloe darted to the window to peer outside. “I wandered onto his property by mistake. He brought me home.”

“Well, that was a miracle in itself. The man is said to seduce every woman he meets.”

“Did he ever seduce you, Aunt Gwendolyn?”

“Do not be impertinent. Stratfield is a neighbor and a nobleman, and as such I respect him. But that doesn't mean I approve of his keeping a mistress on his estate.”

“Have you met her?” Chloe asked curiously, turning from the window in disappointment that he had not returned.

“Of course I haven't, Chloe.”

Aunt Gwendolyn pulled the curtains back into place, looking indignant at the question. “Parson Grimsby has seen her on several occasions. In the viscount's window, Chloe.”

Chloe bit her lip in amusement. “Perhaps the viscount has a sister or an aunt staying with him.”

Aunt Gwendolyn's face had colored beneath her rice powder. “I hardly think he would have been behaving with a female relative in the manner the parson described.”

“Does he hold bacchanalian orgies in the middle of the night?” Chloe could not resist asking, to tease her.

“I do not have any idea,” her aunt sputtered in indignation. “Nor do I wish to know,” she added, “and neither should you. The fact that I sense something is amiss at Stratfield Hall should be warning enough, Chloe. Matters are not right with that man. Mark my words.”

And perhaps Chloe should have listened instead of laughing. Three weeks later the viscount had been stabbed to death in his bed.

Chapter 2

The news rocked the tiny village of Chistlebury to its roots. Chloe, who seemed to have developed an intolerance to clean country air, had caught a nasty chest cold and could not attend the funeral. The truth was that even before he died, Dominic had become a ghost to her, haunting her thoughts at all hours. She had dreamed of that kiss in the rain. She'd sworn to snub him the next time they met. She'd imagined kissing him again. She had even vowed that one day she and her brothers would hunt down his murderer.

She had cried in bed for two full days after the funeral, privately mourning her rude but attractive rescuer for reasons she could not explain. Her older brothers—Grayson, Heath, and Drake—had made a brief journey to pay their respects. No one appeared to have any idea who had killed Stratfield. His uncle Edgar had rushed all the way from Wales to investigate and handle practical matters.

But the parson had let it slip that Stratfield might have done a little spying during his war days; an old enemy could have resurfaced to murder him. And then his alleged attraction to a few married women had not exactly won him friends. He was a man who had lived as he pleased and apparently lived to please no one but himself. Little wonder he was not widely mourned.

He was dead, and Chloe had no choice but to forget him. She would not have been wise to encourage his attention anyway. He was a man who had lived on the darker side of life. For all she knew, he had done something to merit death. For all she knew, he would have been her downfall. And yet, for many reasons, she hoped his killer would be caught.

Pamela's high-pitched voice drew her back to the less interesting present. “He came here right after you left,” she whispered as they entered Chloe's bedchamber.

“Who came here?” Chloe asked blankly, resenting the return to reality.

“Your brother, of course.”

For a few irrational seconds Chloe had thought that Pamela meant the Stratfield Ghost. As matters stood, however, she did not have the luxury of worrying about the dead. It was the living who were tormenting her. Specifically, the living in the form of her brother Devon, who had become a wanted outlaw as the result of a prank he'd played last month.

On the way home from a gaming hall in Chelsea, Devon and two of his cocksure friends had held up a carriage that they believed was transporting a young courtesan who had been encouraging their attentions as well as denuding their pockets all evening.

The carriage, however, had belonged to an elderly banker. Shots had been fired, a footman wounded, and Devon had gone into hiding while his brother the marquess pulled strings to smooth down the mess his reckless sibling had made.

Chloe unbuttoned her blue muslin gown and sank down onto the bed with an involuntary shiver, staring at one of the bulging leather trunks that had arrived during the day. The other had been dragged into the dressing closet for lack of space. Her sister Emma had sent a costume to cover every occasion, not guessing how empty Chloe's social life had become.

“I suppose Devon wanted more money,” she said, staring around the room. Was it her imagination, all the talk of ghosts, that made her feel edgy and alert? Or was she worried because it seemed that her family was on the verge of falling apart? Except for Grayson, happily married to his clever wife, Jane, all her Boscastle siblings appeared to be unsettled. Perhaps she should concentrate on her newfound admirer Lord St. John. He had the most gorgeous brown eyes and teasing grin, even if he had seemed a trifle shallow. Why could she not be satisfied with a young man like him?

“Your brother came in through the window again when I was sorting out your clothes,” Pamela said in an undertone. “The handsome devil has absolutely no sense of propriety, Chloe.”

“Propriety?” Chloe gasped, one hand lifting to her mouth. “I absolutely forgot about the chemise Devon left in the window!”

Pamela looked puzzled. “What chemise? I did not notice Devon with a chemise.”

“The one that I saw from the carriage. I suppose it doesn't matter now. I suppose my brother thinks he's very funny,” she said crossly. “Remind me to remove it before I go to bed. I shall have to push this trunk into the closet anyway.”

“Aren't you even going to look through it?” Pamela asked in disappointment.

“Not to—” Chloe rose slowly from the bed, her gaze moving to the closet door. Her gown slid down to her waist, and she shivered. She wondered if she might be coming down with another cold. The strangest prickles had just run down her spine. “What was that noise?”

Pamela glanced over her shoulder. “What noise?”

“It sounded like a man moaning,” Chloe said quietly.

“A—oh, that. It's probably the creaky old gate in the drive. Ever since Lord Stratfield was killed, Mama has it locked for the night, though I'm not sure whether it's to keep out his ghost or his murderer. A ghost wouldn't use a gate, would he? Oh, look at this.”

Pamela had dropped to her knees, sifting happily through a trunkful of scented fans, shoes, and fringed shawls. Her eyes brightened as she removed a French buckram corset of ivory silk with whalebone supports designed to slim a woman's waist while enhancing the size of her breasts.

Chloe couldn't help laughing at her cousin's expression of shocked delight. Sometimes it did her heart good to see things from Pamela's unsophisticated perspective. “It came all the way from Paris.”

“No wonder they had a revolution.”

“Why don't you try it on?” Chloe suggested teasingly. “It's not as if I'll have much use for it in the near future.”

“Me?” Pamela rose before the oak-framed cheval glass, holding the corset to the modest curves beneath her plain calico bodice. “Can you imagine?”

Chloe slipped out of her gown and stretched across the bed in her own chemise, short corset, and stockings. “Perhaps if I'd been wearing that tonight, Lord St. John would have offered for me on the spot.” The thought of which should had made her feel happier than it did.

“Ravish you is more likely,” Pamela said somberly. “I suppose you ought to consider yourself honored. Justin seems to think himself a bit above the young ladies of Chistlebury.”

“Why don't you wear that corset under your Sunday dress?” Chloe propped herself up on her elbow, deciding she must be desperate indeed if luring her cousin into fashion decadence was her only source of excitement. “Heavens, Pamela, I think you need to position it a little lower. You aren't meant to enhance the size of your chin.”

“Lower? But how do you get your, er, bosoms, into position?”

“It looks complicated, but the design really does flattering things to one's figure.” Chloe sat up slowly, shivering again for no reason. Just her luck to be coming down with another cold when Justin had mentioned a possible boating party at the end of the week. “The first time I put it on, my maid laced me halfway in and halfway out on the top. I looked like one of those Amazon women who lopped off one of their breasts so they could take better aim with their bows.”

Pamela blushed pink to the roots of her auburn hair. “I have no idea what you're talking about, Chloe Boscastle, and I suspect you're making fun of me.”

“I'm not, honestly.”

Both young women paused, sighing as Aunt Gwendolyn began to shout for Pamela from the bottom of the stairs.

“Well,” Pamela said, “that's the end of me for the night.” She tossed the corset at Chloe. “And I've never heard of Amazon women, but if they aim their breasts at their beaux, I'm probably better off not knowing.”

She swept from the room in such a fit of giggles that the beeswax candles on the chest of drawers blew out. The flames died in a flutter of ghostly vapors.

Chloe slipped off the bed and stared around the smoky shadows of the darkened room. She felt chilly and very aware of being abandoned. She breathed in the scent of melted wax. She was certain she had caught some dreadful ailment.

Then another of those moaning sounds arose in the silence, and this time there was no mistake: the disturbance came from somewhere within her own closet.

Chloe was a city-bred young lady. She did not claim to know the first thing about managing practical matters on a country estate. Nor did she wish to. But one point was clear, even to her in all her blithe ignorance of rustic affairs. The wounded utterance that had just arisen from behind the door of her dressing closet was not anything a rusty gate had made.

 

Dominic came back to consciousness with a protesting groan of pain. The feminine voice had reached into the depths of his delirium, soft and alluring, reminding him of a time when he had enjoyed basic pleasures. When he had trusted a woman's touch. He wondered where he had heard the voice before, and he wondered briefly where the hell he was before he remembered; Lord help him, he was layered between what he'd dimly identified as female underwear.

He struggled to pull himself upright from the bottom of the trunk. The undignified position reminded him of how he had posed in a coffin and pretended to be dead only a few short weeks ago. The only thing obvious at the moment, however, was that he was feverish and irrational. There was no other plausible explanation for the words that echoed in his brain.

“The first time I put it on, my maid laced me halfway in and halfway out on the top. I looked like one of those Amazon women who lopped off one of their breasts so they could take better aim with their bows.”

He frowned, fighting the appeal of that voice, then surged to his feet in a shroud of scented petticoats. For a spell he stood disoriented and shaking, staring blankly at the door. With grim irony he realized that the mortal wounds inflicted by his murderer a month ago might indeed prove his death.

He remembered now. He had been chased earlier in the evening by the man he employed as his gamekeeper. The loyal Irish servant had only been ensuring the privacy of his new employer, not realizing it was his true master he threatened to shoot. Yes, Dominic admitted it had been foolhardy to venture so close to home, for he did not wish to be recognized yet. The world believed him dead. He had no desire to correct that mistake.

He had summoned the strength to climb a tree into this room to hide. Which did not appear to have been a wise move either. It was obvious he was in no condition for any sort of physical confrontation. That day would come soon enough. When he had regained his strength, he would take his revenge on the man who had schemed to destroy him.

For now he needed to heal, to plan, and to deal with the woman whose strange remark had awakened him. Her voice stirred up an enjoyable but elusive chord of memory. The fragrance of expensive soap, a soft female shape, and . . . he was puzzled. How did he know the feel and scent of her?

She had been talking to another person. He had no idea how large an audience he would be forced to entertain. In the event his ghostly presence failed to provide a sufficient distraction, he was reluctantly prepared to rely upon the physical.

Checking the ebony-inlaid pistol in his waistband, he stepped toward the door and braced himself for a dramatic scene.

It never failed to amuse him how hysterically people tended to react when confronted with a dead man.

 

Chloe heard suffering in that subdued groan, a plea for help she could not ignore. She pictured a man in pain, possibly dying from a mortal injury. A man confused and wounded who had taken refuge in her room. It did not occur to her for an instant that to help him would be to endanger herself. Her heroic spirit rose to the summons.

She pulled on her Chinese dressing robe and flew to the closet without any hesitation. . . . Believing with all her heart that the moan in the dark had come from her own reckless brother, Devon.