To Sin With A Scoundrel (42 page)

“No,” he replied, not bothering to glance up. “Only a man besotted by romance would know such drivel.”

“My, my, aren’t we in a prickly mood,” remarked his friend. “Any specific reason?”

Jack remained silent for a moment as the effervescence of the wine danced like tiny daggers against his tongue. Then, instead
of answering, he asked abruptly, “Is Lady Giamatti celebrating with you?”

“No, like you, she cried off,” replied Lucas slowly. “She claimed to be exhausted from all the excitement.”

“Hmmph.”

“She plans to leave for London at first light,” added his friend.

“As do I. So if you don’t mind, I think I’ll retire for the night.” Jack rose and ground the butt of his cheroot beneath his
boot. “And take the bottle with me for company—seeing as there are no willing wenches to warm my bed.”

“Ciara sends her thanks for all your help this afternoon,” said Lucas, ignoring the comment. He allowed a brief pause. “She
also said to ask you not to judge Lady Giamatti too harshly. They are the best of friends, and yet she has a feeling that
there is something troubling the marchesa of late. Something the lady dares not discuss with even her closest confidantes.”

“Assure your future bride that she need not worry over my opinion—I have none to speak of,” snapped Jack. “The marchesa and
her mysteries are no concern of mine.”

“Ah,” murmured Lucas. “And here I thought that I had detected a glimmer of interest in your eye.”

“You must have been looking through the prism of your own lovestruck gaze,” muttered Jack. “Not all of us have been struck
blind to reason by Cupid’s damn arrow.” As he turned for the terrace doors, he hesitated. “But the needling aside, I wish
you happiness, Lucas.”

A swirl of wind ruffled through the ivy leaves, nearly drowning out his friend’s reply.

“The same to you, Jack.”

He marched across the slate tiles, but as his hand touched the latch, he abruptly veered away, choosing instead to descend
the side steps and take the long way around to the guest quarters. Perhaps a vigorous walk would shake off his dark mood.

Damn.
He wasn’t usually so snarly with a friend.

Lifting the bottle to his lips, Jack quaffed the rest of its contents in one long gulp. There—that ought to loosen his mood,
he thought grimly, tugging at the knot of his cravat. The crunch of gravel underfoot echoed the
clink
of glass against the stones. Hopefully, Sir Henry would forgive him for the lapse of manners in littering his lovely grounds.
He rounded the privet hedge and stumbled past the garden statues…

One of the sculpted shapes appeared to move.

Jack stopped short. Surely the wine could not have gone to his head quite so quickly.

“You need not give me that basilisk stare, sir,” said the stone.

Of all the cursed luck.
It was not a figment of his foxed imagination but Alessandra della Giamatti in the flesh.

“Lucas said you had retired for the night,” he blurted out, then immediately regretted making any response.

“I decided to come outside for a breath of fresh air before seeking my bed.” Her hair was unpinned and fell in soft, shimmering
ebony waves over her shoulders as she stepped out from the shadows of a laughing faun. “Or is there some arcane Anglo-Saxon
rule that prohibits a lady from enjoying a solitary stroll after dark?”

Her words recalled an earlier clash. “Will you never cease snapping at me for having tried to do the honorable thing, marchesa?”
demanded Jack. “I have already admitted that my interference in the arcade was a mistake. How many times must I offer an apology?”

A week ago in London he had stepped in to defend her from the advances of an aggressive male. Unfortunately, the fellow in
question turned out to be her cousin.

“Not that I feel I was entirely in the wrong,” he couldn’t help adding. “An English gentleman does not allow another male
to continue haranguing a lady, especially after she has asked him to leave her alone. Code of honor, you see.”

Her jaw tightened. “It was a private discussion, sir.”

“Then you should not have conducted it in public,” replied Jack.

Alessandra drew in a sharp breath. “That is the trouble with you Englishmen—you have such a rigid notion of honor.”

“You would prefer that we act as cads?” His temper, which was dangerously frayed to begin with, suddenly snapped. “Very well.”

Two quick strides covered the distance between them.

Her lips parted in shock, but before she could make a sound, his mouth crushed down upon hers.

For an instant Alessandra was too shocked to react. And then…

And then, though every brain cell was shouting at her to thrust him away, she found herself loath to listen. The taste of
his mouth was intoxicating—the sweetness of the wine, the salt of the nearby sea, the smoky spice of masculine desire. Drinking
it all in, she lay utterly limp in his arms, her senses overwhelmed with the different sensations.

In contrast to the searing heat of his kiss, his skin was cool and damp from the night mists. The stubbling of whiskers on
his jaw prickled against her flesh, while his hair was surprisingly silky beneath her fingertips—

Oh, Lud, were her hands really twining through the tangle of his sin-black hair?

Alessandra choked back a moan. She had nearly forgotten how good it was to feel chiseled muscle and whipcord sinew hard against
her body. The sloping stretch of Jack’s shoulders—so strong, so solid—seemed to go on forever, enveloping her in a musky warmth.

A tower of strength.

No, no, no.
What weak-willed delusion had taken hold of her? She could not be so stupid as to trust in the illusion of steadfast support.
A man to lean on?
She had been needy enough after her husband’s death to reach for comfort. Only a fool made the same mistake twice.

She inhaled to protest, only to find that the earthy scent of him made her a little dizzy. Sandalwood and tobacco mixed with
a dark spice that she could not quite define. Her knees buckled.

Diavolo
—every bone in her body was suddenly soft as spaghetti.

Tightening his hold, Jack braced her against one of the decorative columns that flanked the pathway.

The initial explosion of male anger had burned down to a gentler heat. His touch left a trail of warmth along her night-chilled
flesh.

Alessandra was woozily aware of his hands cupping the curves of her derriere. He pressed closer, and she felt her nipples
turn to points of fire as his chest slid slowly over the peaked flesh. She found the opening of his coat, her fingertips sliding
over the soft linen.

He was so big, and so… utterly masculine, from the darkly dangerous name—
Black Jack
—to the broad chest, tapered waist, and muscular legs that seemed to go on forever.

Desire.
Like a serpent, it slowly uncoiled and slithered up from its place of hiding. With a liquid sigh, she opened herself to Jack’s
embrace, twining her tongue with his. With a rumbled groan, he thrust in deeper, filling her with his hot, hungry need.

Her pulse was now pounding out of control, but somehow, above the din in her ears, she heard the voice of reason.

Dangerous.

As his mouth broke away to trail a line of lapping kisses along her throat, she finally got hold of her senses and shoved
him back a fraction. Now was the moment for a scathing set-down, but strangely enough, as she searched her brain for something
to say, her mind was a complete blank.

He, too, appeared paralyzed with shock. His dark lashes lay still against his olive skin, and aside from the harsh rasp of
his breathing, he might have been carved out of stone. Sharpened by the slanting moonlight, the strong, chiseled lines of
his face gave him the appearance of a Roman god.

Mars—the mighty, mythical warrior.

The only flaw was a tiny scar cutting just beneath his left eyebrow, a faint line nearly hidden by the raven-wing arch.
A chink in his lordly armor?
She felt an impulsive urge to trace it with her fingertip, and then touch it with her tongue…

A swirl of breeze tugged at the tails of his cravat, and the flutter of white finally dispelled her momentary surrender of
sanity.

Twisting free of his hold, Alessandra clutched at her cloak, drawing the folds in tight to cover her night rail.

“That was unforgivable,” he said softly. “I… I don’t know what came over me—”

Mortified by her own actions—and reactions—she cut off his halting apology. “The full moon is said to stir a certain madness.”

How else to explain the elemental force that had drawn them together? Without waiting for a reply, Alessandra plunged into
the pooling shadows, her slippered feet nearly tripping over the uneven ground in her haste to get away.

As if she could outrun her embarrassment.

To her relief, Black Jack Pierson made no move to follow her.

Where authors give you the inside scoop!

From the desk of Cara Elliott

Dear Readers,

Pssst.
Have you seen the morning newspaper yet? Oh, it’s too delicious for words. The infamous Lord H—yes, Mad, Bad Had-ley in the
flesh—has made yet another wicked splash in the gossip column. You remember last week, when his cavorting with a very luscious—and
very naked—ladybird ended with a midnight swim in the Grosvenor Square fountain? Well, that was just a drop in the bucket
compared to this latest
ondit
. Word has it that Hadley, the rakishly sexy hero of TO SIN WITH A SCOUNDREL (available now), has really fallen off the deep
end this time. He’s been spotted around Town with… the Wicked Widow of Pont Street.

Don’t bother cleaning your spectacles—you read that right. Hadley and Lady Sheffield! The same Lady Sheffield who stirred
such a scandal last year when it was whispered that she may have poisoned her husband. Yes, yes, at first blush it seems impossible.
After all, they are complete opposites. The fun-loving Lord Hadley is a devil-may-care rogue, and the reclusive Lady Sheffield
is a scholarly bluestocking. Why, the only thing they appear to have in common is the fact that their names show up so frequently
in all the gossip columns. But appearances can be deceiving, and a friend tells me that a fundamental law of physics states
that opposites attract.

Not that
I
would dare to wager on it. However, the betting books at all the London clubs are filled with speculation on why Hadley is
paying court to the lovely widow. Some say that it’s merely one of Hadley’s madcap pranks. Others think that he’s been bewitched
by one of the potent potions that the lady brews up in her laboratory. But I’ll let you in on a little secret: Whatever the
reason, the combination of a scoundrel and a scientist has passion and intrigue coming to a boil!

How do I know? I’ll let you in on another little secret—as the author of the book, I’m familiar with
all
the intimate details of their private lives.

So why did I choose to make my hero and heroine of TO SIN WITH A SCOUNDREL the subject of rumors and innuendos? In doing my
research, I discovered that our current fascination with gossip and scandal is nothing new. Regency England reveled in “tittle-tattle,”
and had its own colorful scandal sheets and “paparazzi.” Newspapers and pamphlets reported in lurid detail on the celebrity
bad boys—and bad girls—of high society. And like today, sex, money, and politics were hot topics. As for pictures, there were,
of course, no cameras, but the satirical artists of the Regency could be even more ruthless than modern-day photographers.

Hmmm, come to think of it, the hero and heroine of TO SURRENDER TO A ROGUE, the second book in the series (available June
’10), are likely to generate quite a bit of gossip too. Lady Sheffield’s fellow scholar, the lovely and enigmatic Lady Giamatti,
finds that someone is intent on digging up dirt on her past life in Italy while she is excavating Roman antiquities in the
town of Bath. That Black Jack Pierson is a member of the learned group stirs up trouble… Oh, but don’t let me spoil the fun.
You really ought to read all about it for yourself.