To Tempt a Saint (17 page)
Authors: Kate Moore
He was the one so far gone in desire that he was thinking of taking her into a closet. He was staring at his wife’s chest when the shift in her tone registered in his brain. She no longer doubted the existence of March’s spies.
“Your uncle’s spies are well paid,” he said, wondering, with the working part of his brain, what had changed her mind.
“A spy must grow cold standing about watching a house from the outside.”
“Better to be hired on and work from inside.”
“Oh. The extra servants?”
“At least one or two.”
She stiffened. “No wonder then that you’ve had your arm around me this quarter hour, and you just nuzzled my hair, a first. I thought perhaps the gown was having an effect.”
The last of the guest carriages rattled off into the night. Xander guided his wife from the door.
“Should we take a bow for our performance?”
“Not till the hired help leave,” he advised. He kept a hand on her arm above the elbow.
She halted. “Perhaps we should stage a dramatic conjugal onslaught for their notice.”
He turned her in his arms so they were front to front. Her unscented sweetness rose to fill his senses.
Just what I was thinking
. “Did you want me to drag you into a closet?”
Just what I was thinking
. “Did you want me to drag you into a closet?”
She cast a startled glance at the closet in question. He caught the hesitation, so brief it might have escaped his notice. He had just enough pride to want her to come to him out of desire for his person, as unlikely as that seemed.
He waited, letting her look at him and judge his intent. She hadn’t a notion of what he’d been thinking. Even for a virgin, she had peculiarly uninformed notions of sexual congress. Behind them a door closed quietly. They were alone. He watched those green eyes alive with doubt as she wrestled with the idea of the closet.
“No?” His voice was a rasp. “Not a closet for your first time?” She wanted her babe, her guarantee that March could not touch her, but she wanted to be in charge, and she had no clear notion of how completely she would have to yield herself to him. A little push and she would back down.
Just when he thought her resistance would crumble and she’d slip from his hold, she came up on her toes, leaning into his body, her mouth inches from his, the scent of her making his head swim. “Would a simple kiss for the spies be too much to ask?”
“A simple kiss?” Not really a possibility, but Xander would let her discover that. He pulled her up full against him and held her, letting her absorb the way they fit together. “You think you know desire because some lordling politely groped you in a garden, put his tongue in your mouth, and popped your stays.” He shook his head. “You don’t know the first thing about desire.”
He lowered his mouth to hers, just to show her how uncomprehending she was, or maybe just to nudge her onto that path where he was already leagues ahead of her.
She made a small sound in her throat as he joined their mouths. It was like the moment of joining in the church, only more intense. Without intending to, he was demanding entry, demanding that she acknowledge him wholly, fully, his real, substantial presence, his male-ness, as if penetrating her with this one kiss could undo all the messages of a lifetime that he should disappear.
A mindless moment followed until the demand of his body, hard and aching, made him cup her hips to meet his. Too many layers separated him from her sweetness. He wanted her breasts, and she, he knew, would yield them. A sound from above them caught his notice, and with a faint glimmer of his fading reason, he broke the connection and lifted his mouth from hers.
And felt a sharp prick against his belly through wool, silk, and linen. His brain cleared instantly. She had drawn her pig-sticking knife. The little moment when she’d reached for her shoe came back to him. But her angle was wrong; not much sticking experience, his bride. He lifted his head and met her gaze.
“You have a bad habit of abandoning your bride at night. Not tonight,” she whispered, her voice ragged, a fierce glitter in those green eyes.
He shook his head. Desire pumped furiously in his veins, but the voices of a lifetime whispered that it was not him she wanted but her own power.
“You don’t really want to introduce a pound of flesh into our bargain.” He leaned into the knife, deliberately pushing back, feeling the tip slice deeper into wool and silk. Her fist was against his groin, the knuckles pressing into his flesh inches above his aching erection, but the sharp bend in her wrist meant she had no leverage.
Her eyes went wide, determination and uncertainty at war in their depths.
“A charming conjugal moment.” Will’s dry voice interrupted.
They turned as one, and the move threw her off balance. She stumbled back, wrenching free of Xander’s hold, her knife catching and splitting the fabric of shirt and waistcoat, raking a thin scratch up his skin from the band of his trousers to his breastbone. He sucked in his breath as the white edges of his eveningwear fell loose. Cool air and his wife’s hot astonished gaze met his flesh, her green eyes wide with shock and discovery.
While she looked, he stood, an alabaster saint, enduring the gaze of a woman with no talent for concealing desire.
Then she fled.
Will tossed him a bundle of clothes. “Haven’t bedded your bride yet?”
“There’s some disagreement about how to proceed.” Xander loosened his cuffs and stripped off his ruined eveningwear, conscious of his brother’s amused regard.
“Apparently you’ve reduced her to pursuing you with a letter opener.”
“It’s her pig-sticking knife.”
“Oh, that makes much more sense.”
Xander shrugged into the loose, stinking jacket. “Where do you find this stuff?”
“My neighborhood has tailoring possibilities you’ve never dreamed of. Mother Greenslade will love it.”
“If we find her.”
“A bit testy, are you? Pity about your poor disappointed cock. If you weren’t such a bleeding saint, you’d have enjoyed your bride six ways to Sunday by now.” Will grinned. “And in case you think you can hold out for much longer, guess again. Once she discovers her real power over you, you’re done for.”
Chapter Eleven
I
N the morning Xander took his wife to the bank. It seemed the best way to turn her thoughts from seduction. On the way he reminded his squawking conscience that his plan of marrying Cleo Spencer had a symmetry that was fair and just—as long as he stayed out of her bed. Their bargain meant each got the money to save a brother. She would save hers from March, and he would release Kit from whatever monstrous thing in London’s darkest depths had got hold of him.
N the morning Xander took his wife to the bank. It seemed the best way to turn her thoughts from seduction. On the way he reminded his squawking conscience that his plan of marrying Cleo Spencer had a symmetry that was fair and just—as long as he stayed out of her bed. Their bargain meant each got the money to save a brother. She would save hers from March, and he would release Kit from whatever monstrous thing in London’s darkest depths had got hold of him.
March’s legal maneuvers would ultimately free them both, and meanwhile Norwood would tie March up in the courts long enough for Xander, with furious effort, to get the gasworks going, get his charters and permits, and get the support of the Metropolitan Works Group. He had no doubt he could repay any of the trust money he spent from gas company profits over the years. And once he and Cleo Spencer parted, he believed Norwood could help her break the clause in her trust that left her under March’s control.
Cleo had to admit that entering Evershot’s bank on Xander Jones’s arm was an entirely different experience from entering alone in her old cloak. This morning he had given her fur-trimmed silk to wear. She could ask for and receive her money in any amount she chose. Meese couldn’t touch her.
But the moment was not as satisfying as she had expected it to be. It was her husband’s power that inspired Meese’s deferential bow, not her own. Power in her own person eluded her. She was the one who had contributed piles of lovely money to their bargain, but Xander Jones didn’t feel the least bit like kneeling before her or giving in to her idea of how to defeat her uncle.
Last night she’d endured the humiliation of fighting for his attentions when, obviously, he was a man who found his pleasures elsewhere. To be discovered in that moment by her mocking brother-in-law had reduced her to tears. Her own response puzzled her. It was no part of her plan to desire her husband, but she had to admit that his kiss melted her brain. She had barely retained enough wit to press her knife against his belly when he pulled back from their embrace. Even then she hadn’t got it right. And it hadn’t helped her clarity of mind to find herself staring at such an intriguing bit of male flesh. There were definitely gaps in Miss Hester Britt’s explanation of sexual congress.
When he leaned into the knife, that moment, well, the whole kiss, if she were brutally honest with herself, said how confident he was of his power. She had not been as forceful as she’d intended to be, and once again he’d disappeared into his other life in which she had no part.
But once she had her own money in her hands, she was sure she would not care where he went or with whom he spent his nights.
Men of business who had ignored her weeks before parted to make way for them as they strolled across the marble floor. Meese bowed and hurried to open the door of Evershot’s office.
Evershot did not bow. He came forward awkwardly, smoothing the thin gray strands over his wide forehead. “Congratulations on your unexpected alliance.”
“We have you to thank, Evershot, for our fortunate chance meeting in your office,” Xander said.
“We could say that your bank brought us together,” Cleo added.
A pained look crossed Evershot’s round, bland face. He made a vigorous gesture of denial. “Oh no. We wouldn’t want to say that, nothing of the kind, a sheer accident your meeting here, the bank not involved at all.”
Cleo shot a quizzical glance at Xander. She wondered what he made of Evershot’s unease.
“You have drafts ready for us?” He led Cleo forward.
Evershot nodded. “I took the liberty, Sir Alexander and Miss . . . Lady Jones, of preparing your advances in a smaller amount, should you wish maintain prudent habits of spending.”
“Advances?” Xander Jones spoke quietly, politely even, but Evershot drew forth a large handkerchief to dab his brow.
“A mere precaution, Sir Alexander, recommended by Miss . . . Lady Jones’s other trustee, you understand.”
“Lady Jones no longer has trustees, Evershot.”
“Nevertheless, as your banker, I must advise caution. With the validity of the marriage in question before the London Consistory Court, surely you don’t want to draw down the fund beyond your power of repaying. The danger of bankruptcy from this lighting venture is quite real.”
Cleo watched her husband. She was coming to know the unbending way he responded to threats.
“Evershot, your bank need not be concerned about the state of our marriage. You may disperse all funds requested.”
“However, if the court—”
“Evershot, if you don’t give Lady Jones her money today, your bank will bleed funds.”
Evershot dabbed his brow again, plastering the thin strands to their damp, gleaming surface. He looked trapped.
Cleo felt sorry for him. “Mr. Evershot, while I might agree with you on the questionable profit to be gained from lighting London’s poorest streets, I do insist upon the full amount requested, for Charlie’s sake.”
“As you wish, Lady Jones.”
For the next half hour clerks scurried in and out of Evershot’s office, laying documents before Xander Jones. At last he nodded his satisfaction.
Cleo requested that they stop in Rose Street at Stanford’s so she could buy Charlie a gift with her own money.
The clerk was writing a receipt for a fine leather-bound copy of Franklin’s papers when her husband spoke. “You can’t stop buying him gifts, can you?”
Cleo felt the pricking accusation in his tone. It robbed the moment of pleasure. “You object? You think I spoil him?”
He seemed to consider what to say, his hand resting idly on the glass case next to hers. “Buy him all the gifts you like. But you should not call him ‘dearest’ any longer.”
“Why ever not? He is dear to me, and we have only each other.” She thanked the clerk and collected her package. They turned to leave.
“It makes him feel like a little boy, and he wants to be a man.”
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