A Little Scandal (21 page)

She took her hand from his arm, and reached for the wheeled ladder, which someone had left conveniently close at hand. Passing Lord Wingate his copy of
Last of the Mohicans
with a polite, “Will you hold this a moment, please,” Kate lifted the hem of her nightdress and began to climb the bottom rungs without further consultation.

“Miss Mayhew,” Lord Wingate said, in some alarm, hastily tossing the book away and reaching for her elbow. “Miss Mayhew, I assure you, I am perfectly capable of finding my own reading material—”

“Oh, I don’t mind, my lord,” Kate said. From her new, lofty position, she sent a furtive glance through the arched window above the French doors, and saw, to her relief, that Mr. Saunders had pulled his boot back on, and was currently occupied in adjusting his hat. Stupid man. She turned back to the books before her. “I’m not a bit afraid of heights,” she assured her employer.

“I can see that,” Lord Wingate said, very dryly. He had not let go of her elbow, only she was so high up now that he could only hold on to it with some effort. “Nevertheless, I would feel a good deal better if you would allow me to—”

“Ah.” Kate found what she was looking for, and pulled it from its place on one of the higher shelves. “Here we are.” She held the book at an angle so that he could see the title from where he stood upon the ground. “
Ivanhoe
,” she said. “Sir Walter Scott. Guaranteed to put anyone to sleep. The bits with Rebecca are good, but everything in between is just one terrific yawn.”

“Yes,” Lord Wingate said, a bit impatiently. “I’ve read it, Miss Mayhew. Now come down from there, before you fall down.”

Kate glanced once more toward the garden. Mr. Saunders, she saw, was gone at last. She sighed with relief. Why she should have tried to protect that silly boy, she hadn’t the slightest idea. But if it got about that the Marquis of Wingate had shot his daughter’s lover in his London garden, she knew better than anyone how the gossip-mongers would never stop wagging their tongues, and there was enough tongue-wagging about the marquis already ….

Not, of course, that Kate cared a whit what anyone said about her employer. It was his daughter she was thinking of. Whatever wrongs her father may have committed, Isabel should not have to suffer for them. It wasn’t Lord Wingate’s welfare Kate was thinking about at all.

Or so she told herself.

“All the better,” she said, beginning to climb back down the ladder. “That you’ve read it before, I mean. It will put you to sleep the sooner that way.”

“Thanks very much for your concern,” Lord Wingate .said. His grip on her elbow tightened. “Do watch your step, Miss Mayhew, you nearly trod upon your … er … robe just then—”

“Oh, but I didn’t,” Kate assured him lightly.

And then she very promptly did, and completely lost her footing.

She made a grab for the upper rungs, but since she didn’t want to drop the book, which looked to her like an original edition, and therefore quite expensive, she could not reach out with both hands, and missed. Her heart flew into her throat, and she had just time enough to think, Well, this is embarrassing. I do hope I don’t land with my nightdress up over my head, since of course she wasn’t wearing anything beneath it, before she fell.

Only she didn’t fall. Because at the last possible minute, Lord Wingate thrust aside the candelabrum, and caught her.

The silver candleholder fell, with a loud clatter, to the parquet. The impact doused the flames. Plunged suddenly into darkness, Kate had to wait a moment for her vision to adjust to the much subtler moonlight filtering in from the windows. Not that there was much to see. After all, her face was pressed up against Lord Wingate’s chest—the same chest that, some hours before, she’d stood dumbly admiring when she’d seen it reflected in a mirror. Now, up close, it proved ten times as interesting. True, she couldn’t see, but she was all too capable of feeling, and what she felt was every bit as appealing as what she’d seen.

Lord Wingate was wearing a dressing gown, it was true, of a rather sturdy satin. And beneath it, he appeared to be wearing some sort of shirt of an equally soft fabric. Neither garment was particularly thick, however, and Kate could feel through them the hair which she’d seen carpeted the marquis’s chest.

And it was every bit as crisp as it had looked in the mirror. Not only that, but beneath it, she could feel the steady beat of his heart. It was slamming against the wall of warm muscle she could also feel beneath her cheek, muscle that was every bit as hard as it had looked. The arms that she’d been revering for so long were around her, keeping her aloft, but also proving with the restrictiveness of their embrace that they were every bit as strong as she’d suspected. Why, he was holding on to her as if she weighed no more than an eiderdown.

And that wasn’t all she felt, either. Because if she moved her leg—ever so slightly—she could feel, through the thin material of her peignoir, the long line of the marquis’s thigh—just as hard and unyielding as it had looked to her in the mirror. But just beyond that thigh, slightly farther to the left, was something that wasn’t anywhere near as hard as the rest of him. She knew because she’d accidentally brushed her leg against it when she’d been struggling to find a foothold, not yet aware that the marquis had a firm hold on her.

And yet this soft thing gave off an amount of heat that was astonishing, since she could feel it all the way through the material of both their nightclothes. The only thing hotter, really, than this appendage, was Lord Wingate’s breath, which she could feel on her forehead. She looked up, finding that she could see better than she’d thought. So well, in fact, that she was rather startled to find the marquis’s lips not even an inch or two from hers.

No sooner had she made this realization than she made another, which was that it was quite light enough in the room for her to look up into Lord Wingate’s eyes.

And the moment she did that, she was lost.

Quite thoroughly lost. Because she became convinced then that he was going to kiss her. He was holding her in his arms, after all, and their bodies were pressed together quite as closely as two bodies could be. All she had to do, really, was lift up her legs and wrap them around his waist, and it would be precisely like her dream, only they weren’t yet naked ….

Good Lord! What was she thinking? She felt heat rush into her face, and hoped the moonlight wasn’t bright enough to reveal the fact that she was blushing. How could she have remembered that wretched dream at a time like this? She had to think. He was going to kiss her. She was perfectly convinced he was going to kiss her. Should she let him? There weren’t any atlases about, and he knew it. He had to kiss her. He just had to.

Even as she was thinking this, a curious thing began to happen. That mysterious throbbing sensation she’d felt between her legs when she’d first wakened from her dream returned, all in a rush. Such a rash, in fact, that she felt damp there, again.

And she was not the only one affected in such a manner. The heat emanating from that area of Lord Wingate that had most attracted her suddenly rose a few degrees … and the temperature wasn’t all that was rising. He seemed to swell against her, that part of him that seconds before she’d thought the only soft area on a body otherwise hard as rock. Now she could feel his arousal pressing solidly against her hip.

Suddenly, it appeared to Kate as if her dream had every likelihood of coming true, and for a moment, she could not decide whether or not this was something she wanted. A part of her—that traitorous part between her legs—wanted it very much. But …

But then it became a moot issue when Lord Wingate, without a word, set her down upon her feet and released her.

“Are you quite all right, Miss Mayhew?” he asked politely.

Quite all right? Kate’s brain fuzzily sorted through the words. Quite all right? Her body, everywhere that it had come into contact with his, seemed to be aching. Quite all right? You were going to kiss me. You were going to kiss me, and then you didn’t. No, I am not all right!

“Yes,” Kate replied. “Perfectly all right, thank you.”

“You really oughtn’t,” Lord Wingate said, “go about climbing ladders in such an ensemble.”

Kate could only blink at him. “No,” she said. “I really oughtn’t.”

“Well.” He plucked the book she was still clutching out of her fingers, then stooped to lift the fallen candelabrum. “I thank you for the reading suggestion. And now I think we had both better be getting back to our rooms. It’s very late. Or early, as the case may be.”

Kate could only nod dumbly, then move along when he gestured for her to go ahead. She made her way back to her room, although she didn’t know how. Lord Wingate, it appeared to her, made small talk the entire way, complimenting her on the improvements he’d seen in his daughter’s behavior, and asking her how she liked the house, and if there was anything she needed.

Yes, Kate replied, in her head. You.

“No,” she replied, out loud. “Thank you.”

And then she was in her own room, with the door shut, and he was gone. She was alone—well, except for Lady Babbie, who lay curled in a ball at the end of her bed.

Moving mechanically, Kate untied her peignoir, and let it slip off her shoulders. Then she made her way back to bed, shedding her nightdress, too, along the way. Climbing back between the cool sheets, she lay there for a moment, wondering what on earth—what on earth—had come over her. How could she have so forgotten herself? How had she stood there—or rather, lain there, because, after all, she’d been completely supported by Lord Wingate’s arms—and wanted him so very badly? He was a profligate bounder who thought nothing of breaking women’s hearts. Hadn’t Freddy assured her of that?

So what had she been doing, lifting her face like that, almost daring him to kiss her? Had she gone insane?

Most likely. Driven insane, actually. Driven mentally insane by the sight of his nude body. That was what had done it. She’d been perfectly all right up Until this afternoon. Then one glimpse at what lay beneath those satin waistcoats and trim-fitting trousers, and calm, cool Katherine Mayhew was now a quivering mass of feminine longing.

What’s more, she wasn’t even very sure she liked him.

Well, all right. She liked him. But she certainly wasn’t in love with him. She only wanted him.

With a disgusted sigh, Kate threw the sheet up over her head. Sleep, she knew, was going to be a long time in coming.

“She’s just lovely, my lord.” The baroness lifted her lorgnette, and peered through it. “Really, quite the loveliest girl in the room.”

Burke, looking in the same direction as the old woman, could only nod. It was true. She was quite the loveliest girl in the room. And it wasn’t just this room, either. It proved true wherever they went. Inevitably, she was always the loveliest girl in the room.

“Such grace,” the baroness said. “Such charm. She won’t stay unattached for long, mark my words, Lord Wingate.”

As if he didn’t know it.

“And you know,” the baroness said, “I can’t help thinking, my lord, that my son, Headley, might be just the right boy for her. To be perfectly honest, you cannot accuse either one of them of being intellectuals. I highly doubt either of them have opened a book since they left school.”

Burke threw the woman a startled glance, then realized, with a feeling of ridiculousness, that she had been talking about Isabel, and not Kate Mayhew. Well, and why not? Kate Mayhew, as she ought, was keeping to herself to one side of the room. A woman like Baroness Childress would hardly bother speculating over possible matches for a chaperone. It was Isabel, whirling away on the dance floor, about whomshe’d been speaking all along, Isabel, whom she’d declared the loveliest girl in the room.

The woman was evidently quite mad.

Not that Burke begrudged his daughter some degree of charm. But the baroness was blind—or else he himself was mad—if she could not see that the only woman in the room deserving of such accolades was his daughter’s chaperone.

“I think them,” the baroness was saying, “most eminently suited. And you needn’t worry, Lord Wingate, that I entertain the same old-fashioned notions as some of my less enlightened peers. I think divorce, in your case, was quite the sensible line of action.”

No. It was quite definitely he who was mad.

It had been coming on slowly, this madness, but it had taken quite a firm hold over him. Why else would he be at this dreadful soiree were it not for madness? He had hired Miss Mayhew, after all, to escort Isabel to functions of this sort. So what was he doing, trailing after the two of them? It was the madness, the madness which had begun that rainy night he’d first ventured out to make sure she was not being harassed by members of his set. A useless errand, because of course all he had learned from it was that he was not the first man to have admired her. Nor was he likely to be the last.

“My husband, of course, has other ideas, as I’m certain you are aware. I thought I would venture to let drop, however, the fact that I fully support Headley in all of his ventures, and that the baron will come around to my way of thinking presently.”

Burke would have thought that he’d have felt gratification that first night, upon finding his worst suspicions confirmed. After all, the entire reason he’d ventured out into that loathsome rain had been to assure himself that Miss Mayhew was not, in fact, in any danger of being taken advantage of by one of his peers.

The fact that his worst fears had been realized—that he’d had to stop not one, but two “gentlemen” from harassing her—was no reason, no reason at all, for him to have felt such unmitigated rage.

But there it had been, without question, that all too familiar sensation that if he didn’t strike someone, he might spontaneously combust. It was not simple gratification that, once again, he’d been right in supposing the worst of his fellow man. No, this had been white-hot rage, the sort he hadn’t felt in ages.

And why he should have happened to feel it upon finding that Miss Mayhew was every bit as attractive to the rest of his sex as she was to him, he did not venture to wonder. Not then. Then, he’d simply told himself he was angry because she was his daughter’s chaperone, and how much chaperoning could she possibly do, while she was being pursued by every randy buck in London?