The Thirteenth Earl (16 page)

“No, I am not. You are.”

Cassandra figured if she was going to be dissolute and debauched, she ought to go all the way. She took a quick and deep pull from the flask and winced. Horrible. She put back another swig quickly, before her burning mouth could recover. No better. How did people do this all the time? Why would have Thaxton done this to himself, ever?

“One more,” Thaxton said. He was watching her with a serene smile, which seemed odd. She felt warm, even though she was half-undressed.

“I feel like I could breathe fire.”

“Good, good. Exactly as you should.”

She braved one more, because she did like the warm feeling. It did not matter that she was down to her chemise, the top half of her gown dropped almost to her knees. She smiled, absently taking another drink. She tilted her head, watching Thaxton. He really was a beautiful man. If one wanted to be swept off one’s feet, he was a fine candidate.

“I fancy you,” she said. This time the whisky did not burn so much as slide down her throat. “Jonathan. Jonathan. Your name is lovely, you know.”

“That is enough, dear,” he said, taking back the flask.

The man had exquisite hands. Giant hands. Hands that were scooping her up and actually, in reality, sweeping her off her feet. Her gown barely stayed on as he lifted her, depositing her gently against the pillows on the bed. She watched as he pulled the garment the rest of the way off and laid it gently over a chair. The air hit her chemise and she shivered. The whole situation had taken on a dreamlike quality.

“I know what happens,” she said, her voice wavering. “I am not an idiot.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Pardon?”

“I know what happens in bed, I mean. I have been told.”

“Ah,” he said, lying down next to her. “Wonderful.”

Though he spoke with no particular inflection, his smile turned wolfish. His talented fingers had found their way under the chemise, dancing at the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. The look in his eyes had changed—it had a new glaze, a directionless yearning.

Directionless yearning? She
was
drunk.

“You are far too clothed,” she said. His fingers drifted closer and closer to the ache between her legs. “Inequitable.”

“A very good point,” he agreed, pulling his cravat loose and dragging it across her torso. His shirt followed, billowing and landing next to her head.

She had been taught it was not polite to stare, but Thaxton would have to forgive her. The viscount in only his trousers was a sight to behold. If fencing was the exercise he got, it was more than enough to define his lean frame.

“You have not answered me,” he said, easing her legs apart.

“Jonathan, you are in my bed. Is that not enough of an answer?”

“I would like to hear it all the same.” He knelt at her feet, backlit by the dying fire at the hearth. His shadowed face looked amused. “As I am about to do something startlingly intimate, your explicit consent would very much reassure me.”

She had no words as he leaned down, shimmying the chemise up to kiss her stomach. He pulled down her drawers, whisking them off her legs. She fought the urge to push him away, a strange, embarrassed instinct. She wanted him so much, but she had no idea what she wanted, just a nebulous sense of clinical terms. His tongue on her hip was not clinical, not at all. It was sublime. She stifled an undignified yelp.

“Say you are mine, Cassandra,” he said, looking up from her torso. “Marry me.”

“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, please keep . . .”

She did not know what she wanted him to continue doing, really. She could not find the thread of that sentence before it was obliterated by his kiss, in a place where she had never even been touched. She gasped and her head lolled back with the impossibly pleasurable sensation—she had not even known such a thing was involved in lovemaking. If it felt this good, why had no one mentioned it before? She sank into the bed like a limp poppet, her bare legs flanking the viscount, only his hair visible because his face was buried between her legs. Whatever magic he was doing with his tongue, she hoped he would never stop.

But he did.

“No,” she pleaded, nearly a sob. “More.”

He scaled her, his fingers finding her lips, pressing into them to silence her. He bit her ear, speaking softly into it.

“Yes, darling, but you are moaning. We want to be discovered, but not too soon. Moreover, those noises will make me lose all control.”

“I think I am drunk,” she whispered.

Thaxton smiled and lifted her chemise over her head. His eyes devoured her and his hands followed, his obvious lust squelching her impulse to cover herself.

“Thirteenth Countess Vane,” he said with reverence. “I did not think you existed. Imagine my delight to find you are real.”

His fingers traveled back to retrace the paths his tongue had laid, and she sighed in ecstasy. No feeling before came close to the euphoria of being touched by him. She just
wanted
—a building need that did not know where to attach. She tried to voice it, but he sank down again and then she could not think at all. He slipped a finger inside of her, and his tongue started working in concert with it. Her hand shot out to the side, grabbing a pillow to stifle the sounds that were spilling from her. She whimpered, shivered uncontrollably, and her thighs pressed in on his head.

She thought he said yes, and the thought of it made her shudder, hard, temporarily blinded by pleasure, as if the world were blotted out. She could not form a thought; she could not breathe. Would it go on forever? Was she mad? The pillow fell to her side, and she gasped in air, dizzy. Thaxton sat back on his knees, releasing a long breath. He mumbled something she couldn’t hear.

“What did you say?”

“I said that you have an aptitude which I cannot wait to cultivate. For climax, that is.”

“That was,” she gasped, “highly improper.”

“As a rule, I do not believe we should worry about propriety.”

“No one told me about . . .” She searched for a word to define what had happened to her and was left wanting. “Climax” did not seem strong enough. There was not a word to describe it at all. Her whole body felt limp, sated, and weightless.

“. . . that,” she finished.

He smiled, his hands busy discarding his trousers, then his undergarments, in a flurry of fabric. Again, Cassandra fought and lost the battle to not stare. She had never seen a man completely naked, except for drawings and statues, which had not prepared her for what was in front of her.

Thaxton hovered over her, brushing her hair away from her neck and breasts, where it had curled, damp. He bit his lip, looking unaware that he had done it, a little unmoored. She could have sworn she saw love in his eyes—or she could imagine it was love at that moment.

“Your beauty turns my logical side inside out,” he said, drawing in a deep breath. “I feel that I should tell you—once we . . . start . . . I may not be able to control myself for long. I have been thinking about this since we met.”

He positioned himself on top of her, kissing her neck until she relaxed again, her arms curling around his strong back. She traced the muscles there, tense with need, and felt the tip of him press into her. She groaned, wishing he would just do it, hoping that it did not hurt as much as some of the ladies said. The ache in her had reached a crescendo, and he had to alleviate it.

“I need you,” he said as a plea, his hands reaching behind her, gripping her buttocks and adjusting her hips. She stretched to accommodate him. It did not hurt, exactly, but she squirmed against him.

“Cassandra,” he groaned, “I fear I cannot be gentle.”

She moved her hips forward, pushing him in more.

“So,” she whispered, “do not be gentle.”

He definitely cursed that time, low and on a growl. Despite her permission and his need, he stayed steady and slow as he slid into her, and she bit her lip through the last of the pain.

He looked down, brushing a piece of hair from her face.

“I am yours,” he said.

Chapter Nine

Thaxton awoke before Cassandra, and he gingerly extracted himself from their embrace, trying not to wake her in the process. Sometime in the middle of the night, they had become completely entwined. He pulled on his trousers, trying to compose the delicate note he had to send.
Dear Countess, Miss Seton is rightly ruined; please do come and be scandalized. Sincerely, Lord Thaxton.
In the end, he went with
Lady S—As we discussed, we would like to enlist your help. C’s bedroom.
When he handed it to Sutton, in not much more than shirtsleeves, he received a look of censure so severe it made him glad he was barefoot—he had no boots in which to quake.

All he was concerned with was getting back to Cassandra’s bed.

He closed the door on his return, trying not to wake her. He shed his shirt but kept on his trousers, sliding back into bed behind her. She stirred, her hair half hiding an angelic smile.

“Good morning, my lord. Are you ready to play the rogue?”

“Always.” He smiled, burrowing in her neck.

“Lady Dorset will be furious.”

“So will Miles. I am sure it will be great fun. Do you want to run away, or stay and watch the fireworks?”

“Maybe we should leave immediately. Honestly, Jonathan, we should have discussed this more. What if your father objects?”

“If he made any formal objection, no one would take him seriously. Besides, he is sentimental. All I will have to do is tell him I love you.”

“You . . .”

Her sentence was left unfinished due to a knock at the door. Eliza had not taken long at all, Thaxton thought. Cassandra’s eyes widened at the sound, though she had been well prepared for the moment. They had discussed it, in whispers, before they had fallen asleep.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured, extracting his body from the embrace. “Everything is arranged.”

He opened the door with an exaggerated flourish, facing Cassandra, thinking it would be vastly amusing.

“Oh, my!” he exclaimed. “We are caught unawares. I shall have to marry you, Miss Seton.”

“Over my dead body,” Miles said from behind him.

Thaxton dimly heard Cassandra swear in a most unladylike fashion, clutching the covers at her throat.

“This is interesting,” Miles continued, crossing into the room. “I suppose I should be hurt or surprised. I am neither.”

“Anything but surprised,” Thaxton quipped, as he always did when he did not know what his next move should be. He had hoped to have Cassandra in a carriage headed to the Vane estate well before Miles could cause a nasty scene. He buttoned his shirt hastily, adding his waistcoat, stalling.

“I will never cede her to you,” Miles said, his self-possession colder than his rage ever had been. “I could not give a fig if she is ruined. Her money will spend.”

“Would you care to talk in the hallway,” Thaxton ground out, “while the lady makes herself decent?”

“Gladly,” Miles said, brushing past him and out the door.

“Thax,” Cassandra hissed from behind her wall of coverlet, “what the hell are you doing?”

“Reasoning with a beast. Get dressed.”

“Do not let him goad you,” she said. “He is deliberately goading you and has been all this time.”

“It is not new to me,” he muttered. “I can handle Markwick. Clothes, Cassie.”

She shot him a glare, and he shut the door. She would have to forgive him later, he thought. He was surprised, angry, too on edge to watch his words.

“Nice try,” Miles said without looking up from the breakfast tray he was marauding, which had been meant for Cassandra. “Very nice try, but foolish. Do you think I care that you sullied her? She may as well be a bag of money, not a woman. Did you think I would let you leave this house with her?”

“Frankly, I had not intended you would know until it was well past done.”

Miles wiped his mouth with a napkin and discarded it on the tray.

“Always underestimating me,” he said. “I shall be sure to remember that on my honeymoon when I am filling the love of your life with my heir.”

“I should cut your tongue out,” Thaxton said.

“Please keep saying things like that.” Miles widened his eyes mockingly. “It goes
such
a long way in painting you as dangerously psychopathic.”

Thaxton curled his itchy right fist. He was running out of reasons to not knock the man out and throw him in a carriage bound for the farthest reaches.

“I know you think are entitled to everything,” Miles continued, “but you are not entitled to her. I am. She was promised to me before you ever met her. You may have your title, your power—what little there is left of that—and your wealth, but you will never have her.”

The smug smile would be Miles’s doom, Thaxton thought.

“And I will make each one of her days a living hell.”

“Lucy left you,” Thaxton surmised. “That changes your game, doesn’t it?”

“My game, sir? I have no idea what you refer to. Your mad mind invented some affair between the medium and I. You have no proof.”

Thaxton fell silent, thinking of the cuff links in his drawer. Fairly conclusive proof. Miles pounded on the door.

“Cassandra!” he yelled. “Do not dawdle.”

“I understand your hurry,” Thaxton drawled, “but there is no need to shout.”

Miles whirled back to him.

“Be as droll as you want. We are leaving. You can no longer protect that”—he sputtered, his countenance getting redder and redder—“that whore.”

Thaxton was rather pleased with the crack that rang out when he backhanded Miles, doubly pleased with the way Miles’s head snapped sideways.

“Pistols,” he heard himself say. “Dawn.”

His ears rang, a metallic taste filled his mouth.

“You would not dare,” Miles said, holding his cheek.

“You said over your dead body,” Thaxton said. “So be it.”

“So be it,” Miles parroted, yanking off his glove and throwing it at Thaxton’s feet. “I have been waiting for a reason to kill you.”

Thaxton stared down at the glove. He had challenged Markwick to a duel of honor. And he had accepted.

Cassandra’s fury would know no bounds.

“Lord Thaxton,” the countess said, rounding the corner without knowing what she was getting into the middle of, “you are . . . dressed. And Markwick. Well, I . . .”

“Name your second,” Miles seethed, not acknowledging Eliza.

Thaxton nodded to the countess.

“Good morning. Pardon me for a moment.” He turned back to Miles, his eyes deepening to an angry blue-black. “Spencer is my second. He will agree. Take your time naming yours, if you can find anyone to stand on your honor. We will convene in twenty minutes to go over the rules.”

Miles said nothing more, but his glare said volumes. He stormed away, and Thaxton hastily ushered Eliza into the bedroom, shutting and locking the door behind them. He felt as if he was panting, and he leaned against the back of the door, closing his eyes for a moment.

“I must assume something went wrong,” Eliza said. “Why was Miles here?”

“He burst in,” Cassandra explained. She was mostly dressed, but her hair could have used the attention of a calm hand. “We thought he was you, actually.”

Thaxton’s mouth would not open to tell them what had transpired in the hall. He knew he should. He also knew what the reaction would be. If he sank back any farther into the door, he would become a part of it.

“Jonathan?” Cassandra asked. “Are you quite all right?”

“
Erm.
He—he still wants to marry you.”

She crossed to his side, her tone still light but now cautious.

“I suppose we shall have to make a scene, then.”

He closed his eyes.

“Cassandra, I challenged Miles to a duel. I am sorry.” He took a breath.

She coughed. “I must have heard you wrong.”

“No, I most certainly told him pistols at dawn. He dishonored you, and he has been assassinating my character for as long as I have had one,” he said, the gravity of the situation settling in his stomach. “I will have satisfaction for his crimes, by the gentlemen’s code of honor. It is the only option left for resolving this feud. I am only surprised it had not happened sooner.”

“But no one duels anymore,” Cassandra said, stunned. “You must be joking.”

“Slow down, what?” Eliza said.

“Sometime soon, at dawn, Miles and I will pace ten apart and turn pistols on each other. I do not know how to make it any clearer. He called Cassandra . . . a dreadful slur, I will not repeat it . . . but to be honest, I should have slapped him a thousand times before then.”

The rest of his explanation was lost to the flurry of Cassandra’s balled-up fists, fluttering against his chest.

“You fool! You idiot!”

Cassandra thought she must be screaming. She hoped she was screaming. He deserved it. She pummeled Thaxton with fists and words at the same time, though both barely connected in her frenzy of angry panic.

“You
idiot
. How could you—why would you? Miles could do anything—tell my stepmother, use it to force the issue, or worse, go through with the duel. He will kill you—he
wants
to kill you! You lost your temper and now, now, now—”

He seized her wrists, stilling her.

“He will not kill me.”

“This cannot happen in my house,” Eliza said from directly behind Cassandra. She could hear the tremor in her friend’s voice, not see it.

“It will be outside, Countess,” Thaxton said.

“Do not,” Cassandra growled, hitting him on the chest with each word, “be-glib-right-now!”

“Pardon. Defensive glibness. But I am afraid that this is not a woman’s matter, and I do not expect either of you to understand. I cannot back down from something like this.”

“Dueling is illegal,” Cassandra said, trying another tack.

“As is prostitution, but that does not seem to stop anyone.”

“And barbaric.”

“Miles’s conduct has been barbaric. And this is the end result of that.”

He seemed so composed, as if he had not just altered his fate wholly. Her thoughts were racing, even as her hands stilled. The number of ways in which this duel of supposed honor could go wrong was so astronomical, she could not begin to process it.

“I should get Spencer,” Eliza said. “He will put a stop to this.”

“Yes, please do,” Thaxton said. “I need to speak with him, but I would also appreciate a moment alone with Cassandra.”

The request seemed all the more absurd because she had not moved, fists balled up on his lapels.

“I imagine you two have things you need to discuss,” Eliza said, nodding her head. “I will be back directly.”

As soon as the countess exited, Thaxton removed Cassandra’s hands from his chest and pulled her to him. She did not resist—she felt boneless, she could not. She burrowed her head into him, her voice stifled by his velvet jacket.

“You are going to leave me.”

“No, never, my love,” he said, stroking her hair. “I am going to shoot that bastard; then you and I are going to elope to Gretna Green. It will all be very dramatic, which I think is fitting, no?”

She realized she was crying. His collar had gone damp.

“This is daft,” she said.

“Again, fitting.”

Cassandra fought the urge to call him an idiot again. She looked down at her hand—sometime in the middle of the night, he had slipped his mother’s ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.

“Do not do it,” she said. “Back out.”

“Miles is a terrible shot. He cannot hit the broad side of a boat. I am not in any real danger.”

“Do not do this,” she repeated, thinking she could somehow hammer it into his brain. That each repetition would build upon the previous until he came to his senses.

“Impossible. The man deserves at the very least one bullet for his transgressions.”

“But there is so much we do not know. What was his plan with the séance? Why would he do that to you? He does not stand to inherit your estate. He had no motivation other than disliking you.”

“Hating me.”

“Hating you. He will shoot too soon.”

“He is far too concerned with reputation to do that. Too many witnesses.”

“This is incredibly rash,” she said, at wits’ end. “You are not thinking. At all.”

“More polite way of calling me a fool, but the sentiment is the same. I do not disagree with you. I would take it back if I could, Cassie, but understand, the wheels in motion now cannot be stopped.”

Eliza returned on Spencer’s heels, which may as well have been ablaze. He stalked into the room in an opera of fury, pushing Thaxton hard enough to dislodge him from Cassandra. She stumbled before managing to step out of the way of Spencer’s momentum.

“You. Bloody. Fool.”

Thaxton shrank back as Spencer advanced.

“Congratulate me, Spence. I am to be married.”

“Damn right you are.” He kept walking, forcing Thaxton back farther. “What were you thinking—in Cassandra’s room of all places? Did you
want
Markwick to find you? Did you want to challenge him?”

“I do not think he did,” Cassandra said.

“I did not ask you, Miss Seton. Jonathan, explain to me what is going on, in plain terms, without your characteristic verbal flourishes.”