Wicked at Heart (15 page)

Rhiannon kicked
off a shoe and rubbed her bare toes through Mattie's warm, sunlit fur.  The dog
stretched and groaned in delight.  "You shouldn't let yourself get all hot
and bothered just because he took it upon himself to steal a simple kiss.  Why,
I think it's all rather romantic, don't you?  Besides, if His Lordship were to
learn he's upset you so, he would no doubt consider it a great victory."

The weeds that
dared to sprout amongst Gwyneth's flowers had no chance against her sudden
anger; up they came, roots and all, to land ingloriously in the wooden bucket. 
"Perhaps his Lordship
has
gained a victory," she conceded,
averting her flushed face as she attacked the weeds, "but that victory
will pale when he is faced with the consequences of my first
attack
."

"Ah yes,
the petition," Rhiannon said, referring to the signatures that she, her
sister, and the Ladies Committee on Prisoner Welfare had spent the morning
gathering after Gwyneth had called them all together and regaled them with
tales of conditions aboard the prison hulk.

"Among
other things.  Morninghall may ignore
my
pleas for compassion on the
part of those prisoners — for now — but there is no way that he can ignore the
pleas of several
hundred
."

"You said,
'Among other things.'  What
other
things are you planning, Gwyn?"

The weeds came
out with increased speed.  "I have already sent another letter to Richard
in the Transport Office, and tomorrow I shall start investigating the bills,
records, and receipts of the contractors who supply food and clothing to the
prisoners, as I have a suspicion they are as corrupt as the day is long.  No
doubt they're using inferior or insufficient provisions and pocketing the
extra, at the prisoners' expense."

"And
Morninghall?"

"Morninghall
shall be dealt with."

"He's going
to be a difficult man, Gwyn.  And if he is as disaffected and bitter as you say
he is . . ."

"I don't
care what his feelings are in the matter.  They are not the issue."

"Really,
Gwyn, such anger toward the man!  And all over a simple kiss!"

Gwyneth kept her
head down, using the brim of her hat to shield her face from her sister lest
Rhiannon see her face and pry even further.  Rhiannon, after all, was only
seventeen years old.

Innocent.

As Gwyneth
fancied herself something of a mother figure to her little sister, she would
not confide the truth in Rhiannon — that she had come dangerously close to
letting Morninghall have more than just a 'simple kiss.'  And she did not want
to admit — even to herself — that for the first time in her life she had
misjudged an adversary, that this time she was in waters over her head.  The
Marquess of Morninghall was no cowardly mine owner, no corrupt minister, no
easily threatened manager of an orphanage.  He was a powerful, intelligent, and
exceedingly dangerous man, and the memory alone of that kiss, and how it had
made her feel inside, was enough to make Gwyneth's cheeks blaze with heat.  The
mortification of it all . . .  She bent her hot brow to her sleeve, unable to
even stomach the thought of facing him again.

And yet, for the
sake of those poor souls aboard the hulk, she would
have
to face him.  And
she would have to hope, against that horrid, wanton part of her that had wanted
so much more than just a kiss, that she would be strong the next time he
launched his attack on her confused senses.

In the meantime
she would keep herself as busy as she possibly could.  She would focus her
energies on the prisoners and her passionate plight to ease their lot.  She
would collect signatures from the people of Portsmouth, she would drive the
Transport Office mad with her requests and suggestions, she would spread the
word about the appalling conditions aboard the hulk among her many friends and
acquaintances, and she would launch a campaign to collect food, clothing and
monetary donations for the needy unfortunates.  She would
not
think
about Morninghall, she would not think about the triumph in his wicked,
hard-as-slate eyes, the skill in his beautiful hands, the way his dark, tousled
curls might feel beneath her fingers and how, even now, her mind took her to
places she could only imagine with that . . . that devil incarnate.  William
had never done such things as she found herself imagining!  William had not
even made her a woman because he had preferred to worship her as a virgin, a
package forever unopened and caught in a state of maidenly innocence, as though
keeping her that way would halt his own inevitable aging.

Damn William,
for leaving out that vital part of her education, which would have prepared her
for dealing with and dispatching a devil of Morninghall's ilk!

And then, from
out of nowhere, it came: the memory of Morninghall's unguarded compassion after
the guards had molested her, the gentleness in his embrace as he'd gathered her
protectively up against his chest, and this, after she'd knocked him senseless
with the telescope.

No.  She had
imagined it, surely.  Men like Morninghall did not feel compassion for others.

Rhiannon's voice
intruded upon her thoughts.  "Do you want to know what
I
think?"

"What?"

"
I
think you ought to search out the Black Wolf and join forces with
him
against Morninghall."

"Really,
Rhiannon, I wouldn't have the faintest idea where to begin looking for him."

"I would
think —"

"Lady
Simms?"

Sophie's hesitant
voice interrupted them.  Looking up, Gwyneth saw the maid standing in the
doorway that led from the back garden into the house, her face as white as the
late-afternoon clouds that drifted lazily overhead.  Her eyes were huge, and
she was wringing a dust rag as though it were the neck of a chicken destined
for the supper pot.

"What is
it, Sophie?"

"There's a
. . . gentleman 'ere to see you."  The girl sucked her lip between her
teeth and darted an anxious glance behind her.  "'E says 'is name is
L-Lord Morninghall."

Gwyneth froze. 
A clump of weeds slid through her fingers.  For a moment she could only stare
at the maid, her stomach bouncing from her abdomen to her throat. 
Morninghall!
 
She was in no mood for another confrontation with him, not when she was dressed
like a common peasant, not when she was still shaken from her last encounter with
him, not when her innocent little sister would be subject to his carnal
innuendos, not when she was still thinking about that kiss —

Rhiannon, her
eyes glinting, a conniving smile playing across her lips, turned her head to
address the maid.  "Oh, do show the marquess in, Sophie.  And stop acting
like a silly rabbit, would you?  He's only a man —"

"Oh, no,
ma'm, 'e's Lucifer himself, he is.  Those eyes, they're colder than a January
frost, they burn right through a body, they do.  Beggin' yer pardon, ma'm, I
don't think 'e ought to be allowed into the 'ouse, 'e's the very devil, 'e
is!"

"That will
be enough, Sophie," Gwyneth said sternly.

The maid stared
at her, her eyes swallowing up her face.  "So what shall I tell 'im, my
lady?"

Aware of her
sister's challenging grin, Gwyneth willed her queasy stomach to calmness and
drove her spade into the dirt.  She had a sudden burning wish that that moist
earth was Lord Morninghall's heart.

"My lady?

"Why, do
show him in, Sophie.  It is rude to keep a guest waiting, is it not?"

Chapter
9

He did not know
why he had come.

Damon stood on
the stone steps just outside the door of the tidy brick house, arms crossed
loosely over his chest, weight slung on one hip, eyes surly and annoyed.  To
all appearances he was a bored aristocrat, yet only he knew his heart was
pounding, his every instinct telling him to bolt before
she
could
humiliate him by turning him away.  He stared gloomily at the tubs of pink and
red flowers set on the edge of each step.  He stared at his hat, which he'd
politely taken off when the terrified maid had answered the door.  He stared at
a spider dropping from a silken thread beneath a flower box at the nearest
window, stared at his watch, stared at —

The door opened.

The maid stood
there, almost holding herself up by the door latch as she gazed up at him in
horrified fascination.  "Lady Simms will s-see you now, my lord."

His stomach
turned over.  He had not expected her to invite him in, had not really thought
she'd receive him.  He was not prepared for this; he didn't know what he'd say,
didn't know what he'd do —

Bloody hell,
just drop the damned notebook off and be done with it.

The maid was
holding the door open wide, using it like a barrier and all but hiding behind
it.  Despite the turmoil in his heart, Damon's face remained remote.  His hat
in his hand, he stepped inside the house.  It took a moment for his eyes to
adjust to its cool shadows after the bright sunlight outside, and as the
dancing spots faded, he saw that he was standing in an elegant little receiving
room, the walls painted in warm shades of peach and hung with watercolors of
songbirds and wildflowers. 
Charming.
  There was a collection of porcelain
birds in a china cabinet, a vase of white and mauve lilacs on a low table, a
delicate doily beneath it.  A gentle breeze wafted through the house, heady
with the scent of lilacs and making the gauzy white curtains whisper and curl
at the windows.

How bloody
charming.
  He felt the old anger, then a sense of being left out, alone, standing
on the fringe of a circle of firelight, the rest of the world gathered there
together while he was left to shiver in the cold beyond, a lone and hungry
wolf.

"R-right
this way, m' lord.  'Er Ladyship is out in the garden, she is."

He inclined his
head, allowing the girl to lead the way and thanking God no one could hear the
mad racing of his heart.  He gazed about as he walked, conveying an air of
faint disinterest, his hands behind his back and still holding the hat, his
footsteps echoing loudly on the polished hardwood floor.  He felt like a bull
in a china shop; out of place, uncomfortable, and on edge.  He shouldn't have
come.  He didn't know
why
he'd come.  He was a damned fool for coming,
and now there was no way out of it.

The maid
disappeared around a corner, glancing nervously over her shoulder to be sure he
was following.  Her timid behavior was starting to irritate him.  But then, it
was typical.  Women found him frightening, and he'd long since given up trying
to be anything but what the world thought him to be: a devil.  A monster.  After
all, his own mother had taught him he was something to be feared and loathed. 
She'd been terrified of him.

In his mind's
eye, he saw her hurling the wine bottle at him, felt it slamming into his back,
saw again the telescope, and Lady Simms's outstretched hand —

Damp heat broke
out beneath his clothes.  His heart started to pound and he suddenly felt short
of breath, slightly dizzy, as if someone had just punched him, hard, in the
head.  Still, he managed to keep his gaze perfectly impassive and fixed
straight ahead.

The maid opened
another door and, cowering back against it, indicated a colorful garden walled
with brick, where the cheerful warbling of a blackbird was the only sound.

Flowers were the
first thing Damon noticed.  Purple Aubrietia, covering the earth like the
bedclothes of a royal.  Pots of carved stone, bursting with red and white
tulips, heather, and some pinkish flower he didn't know.  The first blooms of
azalea and rhododendron, the last blooms of yellow forsythia, intertwined with
sprays of brilliant green leaves.  Rose bushes threading their thorny way up a
wooden lattice, ivy crawling the wall and sunning itself on the mossy, age-worn
top, lilacs waving in the mild breeze and pale purple wisteria draping the side
of the house above his head.  Brilliant red flowers in the window boxes, and in
the rectangular patch of lawn in the center of this dazzling display, daisies
scattered like stars and here and there the sunny head of a dandelion.

"I take it
that you are either unsociable, my lord, or you have never seen a garden
before."

He froze, then
turned and saw her.

"Lady
Simms," he murmured with an icy smile.  But beneath his chilly exterior
his insides were in turmoil.

She looked very
ill at ease.  "Lord Morninghall."

He let his gaze
rake insinuatingly over the gentle swell of her breasts and was rewarded with a
wash of color across her cheeks.  Aaah, she remembered, and remembered well. 
"It is indeed a . . . pleasure."

"Spare me
your sarcasm, Morninghall.  What do you want?"

She was near a
bed of aubrietia, her legs folded beneath her, her spine stiff as whalebone, and
a trowel clenched in one hand, which she was tapping against her knee as though
she wanted to murder him with it.  Her eyes were wary and uncertain, and a
straw hat ringed with a plum-colored ribbon threw her face into shadow.  Her
pale hair was a shining riot of curls down her back, reflecting the sunlight
like a sparkling waterfall, and smudges of earth and grass stained her simple
muslin dress.  He felt hardness beginning to tighten his loins.  God, she
looked sensual, desirable, charming, earthy, delicious . . . angry.

And, he thought
maliciously, perhaps a little nervous.

Another voice,
faintly amused, came from nearby.  "Really, Gwyneth, that's no way to
treat a guest. "

He turned his
head.  A lovely young woman, half-hidden by a lilac bush and accompanied by a
sleepy-looking dog, reclined in a chair, watching him.  She had soft, ginger
hair arranged in a loosely braided coronet atop her head, a laughing mouth, and
the same elegant neck, classic shoulders, and grace of movement displayed by
Lady Simms.  She smiled at Damon, innocently unaware that he could slay her
with one glance from his devil's eyes, and offered her hand.  "I fear I
must introduce myself to you, as my sister will not."  Her eyes sparkled. 
"I am Rhiannon Evans."