The Marquess (27 page)

“You’ll have Matilda up here looking to see if
the ghosts have got you,” Michael reminded him. “I’d suggest
you lower your bellows an octave or two.”

“I’ll damned well shout as loud as I choose, and
to hell with the servants.” Even as he protested, Gavin lowered his
voice, replacing shouts by pacing the salon. Protecting the women from
discovery had almost become second nature.

“You’ll have Miss Whitnell with you. She can
tell you who’s who and what. If the duke has the papers, then it
shouldn’t take long at all. Someone may have burned a house down to
obtain what’s in them. You wouldn’t want anyone else hurt, would
you?”

Gavin sent his brother a malevolent glare. With the skin of
his scarred cheek drawn up and white, the look would have terrified a lesser
man. Michael leaned against the wall, unperturbed.

“You have no proof of that. You just want to be left
alone with Lady Blanche. She’s not your type, you know. You might as well
bang your head against the wall. You would fare better if I stayed here and you
accompanied the dauntless Miss Whitnell.”

Michael gave his brother a knowing look. “I ought to
at that. You would come flying after us within days. I’ve seen that
proprietary look before. You’ve staked your claim, and you’ll cut
the balls off any man daring to come between you. Don’t warn me about the
Lady Blanche. You’ve grabbed a firebrand by the wrong end, and you’ll
be lucky to escape with your flesh still attached. Abstinence has made mush of
your brains.”

Gavin looked away. He didn’t dare confirm his
brother’s opinion, but he felt the truth of it all the same. He had gone
around in a state of near arousal all day, just thinking about the moments when
he could pry Dillian away from the others.

Matilda had looked at him peculiarly when he’d
included sponges on the list of supplies he wanted from the village. And he
didn’t even care. He meant to bury himself deep inside Dillian’s
welcoming heat and stay there all night. He needed that. He damned well
deserved it after all this.

“Leave Miss Whitnell out of this,” he said
harshly. “I’m not going to London. You’re much better at
sneaking about than I am. You go. I’ll stay here with the ladies.”

“Sneaking is not what this is all about. We need
information, information that only people at a high level can provide. The duke
already recognizes me. He will make no connection between an eccentric
marquess, Lady Blanche, and the papers he must have stolen from the vault. We
have no other choice. You have to be the one who pries the papers out of him.”

“He’s probably already discovered they’re
nothing but a soldier’s notes on the most potent apple punch, or a litany
of the best whores in Europe. This is a wild-goose chase, Michael. I’ll
not suffer society for this nonsense.”

“My father didn’t need notes on whores and
punch, he had an excellent memory.” A slender female figure glided into
the abandoned salon, her high-waisted blue gown floating almost as ethereally
as the ghost supposedly haunting this place.

Gavin felt his guts twist with the pain of desire. He had
indeed gone too long without a woman for this one to sever his senses like
this.

“Then you looked at the papers? You know what’s
in them?” he asked sarcastically, in a futile attempt to distance himself
from her.

“They’re diaries of military strategy mostly. I
glanced through them once, to see if I could find any personal information. He
had maps and notes about this regiment and that. A lot of it was in a shorthand
code he often used. I didn’t see anything of any interest to anyone. The
war is over. Of what use can any of it be?”

Michael and Gavin exchanged looks. Gavin knew even better
than his brother what those notes could mean if read by the proper authorities.
A detailed accounting of military strategy might make an excellent book for war
aficionados, or lead to the public condemnation of incompetent officers who
drove their men into losing positions and left them. Such papers could contain
tales only dead men knew.

They could also lead to the spoils of war, hidden while on
the march and never claimed later. The possibilities loomed innumerable.
Someone knew what those books contained.

“We won’t know until we find them,”
Michael pointed out. “If they’re the reason someone intends you or
Lady Blanche harm, we must find them first.”

Gavin watched Dillian’s eyes widen with a fleeting
moment’s fear, then shutter again. She didn’t even know he watched.

He wanted to change that. He wanted all that brilliant
intensity focused on him alone. He wanted to be the sole beneficiary of all
that female loveliness. If he must sacrifice his pride and submit to the
inglorious rounds of London society, he’d demand Dillian as his reward.
He would become the center of her universe. Gavin liked that idea almost well
enough to accept Michael’s dastardly plans.

“And you have some fool idea that the duke will take
me into his confidence and shower me with those papers?” Gavin asked, his
tone demanding that Dillian look at him.

She did, and he felt the impact of those long-lashed eyes
all the way to his core. She regarded him with barely disguised hostility, but
he knew what he could do to her with just a touch. He took a step closer, just
to remind her of the chemistry.

He smiled when she crossed her arms over her breasts and
looked away.

“That’s the easiest solution,” Michael
agreed. “Or you could discover their location and send for me. While you
keep him distracted, I can ferret them out.”

“And the only way I can do this is by going about in
society?” Gavin held his gaze on Dillian while he spoke to Michael. He
kept his voice low and caressing, and she rewarded him with a shiver, while
avoiding his eyes.

“You also need access to the War Office once you
uncover the papers and discover their contents,” Michael continued. “We
need to know which man is best for our purposes.”

Gavin sensed his brother’s look of curiosity, but he
ignored it. He reached and tucked a loose curl behind Dillian’s ear. Her
hair always looked as if she’d just climbed from bed. He liked it like
that.

“And Miss Whitnell? What shall we do with her?”
Again, Gavin directed the level of his voice at her. She began running her
hands up and down her arms as if to warm them.

Michael didn’t answer.

Gavin waited a moment, enjoying watching her, knowing she
didn’t know which way to turn. When Michael still didn’t answer, he
glanced up, to find the salon empty of all but Dillian and himself.

He cursed and glared at the unlit shadows of this tomb. His
brother had the lazy habit of disappearing in the face of conflict. He glanced
back down at Dillian who looked equally bewildered as she tried to figure out
where the elusive O’Toole had gone.

“Don’t bother yourself. He’ll appear again
when he’s ready. In the meantime, Miss Whitnell, what are your
suggestions? Shall I take you to London as my mistress? I rather like the sound
of that.”

Color rose in her cheeks as she looked to the dust-covered
furniture and not at him. “If that’s what you prefer,” she
answered flatly. “But I rather think it would look odd if the Marquess of
Effingham suddenly turned up with Lady Blanche’s companion and began
asking questions.”

She’d certainly hit the nail on the head in no short
time, Gavin admitted, disgruntled. He couldn’t object to the idea of
London too much if he knew she would adorn his bed at his beck and call. But
her suggestion gave him images of a lonely bed while she gallivanted about
London having the time of her life.

“Then, I’ll leave you here,” he
threatened.

“That would suit me, but you don’t know a duke
from an earl, Anglesey from Dismouth. You won’t know how to go about. I
rather suspect O’Toole’s etiquette was learned on the back of a
mail coach. If you prefer to rely on it, then so be it. I’ll not argue.”

She didn’t stalk off, although Gavin suspected she
wanted to. She stood there, not looking at him, waiting for the slap in the
face he would give her.

He gave her what she expected, but he did it gently. He had
no reason for unselfishness. She would pay his price. But he would try not to
hurt her too badly in the process. Only as the words emerged from his mouth did
he realize how thoroughly she had snared him.

“You’ll go with me. We’ll take separate
residences and pretend no acquaintance, but you’ll make yourself
available when and where I ask. I’ll be discreet.” The words made
it sound as if he were in control, but they both knew if he wasn’t
wiggling on her hook, he would have left her behind.

She turned back to him then and really looked at him. What
Gavin saw in her eyes had him quivering right down to his toe bones. Before she
even spoke, he grabbed Dillian’s arm and pulled her out of the salon,
down the hall, toward the bedchamber. He would have her now and sort out those
other issues later.

Reaching his goal, Gavin slammed the door behind them and
dragged Dillian to the bed. Bending her unprotesting body backward on the high
mattress, he plunged his tongue between her teeth.

She whimpered against his mouth but lifted her arms
willingly to circle his shoulders. Gavin needed no further encouragement.
Massaging her breasts with his hands, he rubbed his arousal against her, and
felt her arch against him.

When he reached to pull her gown up, the door behind them
slammed open again.

They both jumped, startled, their gazes swerving to see who
stood there. The doorway was empty.

Dillian giggled nervously behind him. “Perhaps the
lady is displeased with our presence.”

Cursing, Gavin looked down into her pale face and frightened
eyes and tore away. The ache of his arousal eased when she hesitantly took a
sitting position. She regarded him with wariness while curling her fingers into
knots in the bedcovers. At least she made no effort to run from him, nor did
she look at him with disgust. He should be grateful for small favors.

He walked over and slammed the door shut. Not finding a
bolt, he propped a chair against it. “You’ll find sponges and the
vinegar solution behind the dressing screen. Soak a sponge in the solution and
insert it as deeply as you can. You’ll have to learn the proper procedure
now. We’ll not have time for lessons in London.”

Deliberate cruelty was the only way to protect them both.
Once she understood this relationship had no future, he could offer her the
small kindnesses he would offer a mistress. Until then he would obliterate any
small hope she might harbor that he could offer her more. He should never have
bedded a virgin. They mixed up emotions with lust.

Gavin tried not to feel guilty about those thoughts as he
removed his clothes. She was twenty-five years of age, long past marriageable.
She knew what she was doing. She benefited as much as he, maybe more so, from
this arrangement. He had no reason to feel guilty over what was, after all, a
business transaction. He didn’t exactly bed a child.

But his ability to rationalize flew out the window the
instant Dillian emerged from behind the screen wearing nothing but the silk
robe she had carried in the prior night. Her nut brown curls clung to her pale
cheeks. Her devastatingly blue eyes filled her face. And the white silk clung
to every ample curve. Gavin drew her forward, pulling the robe aside and
filling his hand with her breast. She shuddered, but the nipple puckered
obligingly.

“Thank you,” he muttered, assaulted by too many
senses to say more before he bent and took that enticing plum into his mouth.

Her moan fed his needs. He eased her back against the bed.
Her robe fell open, and he plucked her nipples into readiness. She raised her
legs of her own accord, circling his hips to bring him close. The silk still
rubbed between them, hindering his access to the heat of his goal. Gavin swiped
the soft material away, positioned himself carefully, and thrust forward so
quickly she bucked off the bed, taking him deeper than he thought possible.

Not until he’d rode her hard and spilled his seed deep
inside her and began to harden again did he realize the trap he’d set for
himself.

He’d found the only woman in the kingdom who could
look on his grotesqueness without flinching, and he had turned her into a
whore. She would never look on him with anything but hatred from now on. She
would leave him the first chance she found. And he would be right back where he
started again.

Gavin closed his mind against the image of long lonely
nights tossing on the couch in his study, not considering them while he held
the solution in his arms.

Dillian struggled as he surged against her again, but Gavin
subdued her easily enough. She was as ripe as he was willing. They’d take
what pleasure they could from that. Her shudders of ecstasy from their last
joining still engulfed them.

* * * *

Dillian lay still against the sweat-dampened sheets,
absorbing the sensation of a man’s heavy leg entrapping hers. She could
feel his heartbeat and heard the sound of his even breathing. Those elemental
signs of life stirred something deep within her, something she had to deny
before the tear creeping down her cheek became a flood.

She would prefer denying the alien sponge, but she could
feel the heavy flow of his seed against her thigh and understood its necessity.
In just this brief time she had come to accept the naturalness of Gavin’s
body inside hers.

Her womb grew taut and ready just thinking of him. She even
understood now why women had children. She could easily dream up fantasies of
taming the beast, revealing the gentle man inside.

Turning her head, she traced the pale scars of his jaw,
knowing the damage went deeper than his skin, wanting to believe she could heal
it. She ached with a longing for completeness she’d never known before.