A Little Scandal (38 page)

Shocking. Pathetic, was more like it.

Well, she wasn’t going to let it happen again. In fact, she could nip it in the bud right now if she could only be up and dressed before he was … and before the nausea hit. It never lasted long, and if she could only dress without waking him ….

Too late. She had merely pushed the blanket back and set one bare foot on the icy cold floor. But that small action had roused him. Suddenly, the furred chest she’d been admiring was on top of her, his weight pinning her to the bed. Both her wrists, engulfed in just one of his hands, were secured to the pillow above her head while he regarded her, his face just a few inches away from hers.

“Going somewhere?” he inquired quite casually, as if they were back in the town house on Park Lane, and they were passing one another in the hallway.

She said, her tongue feeling as if it had turned to lead in her mouth, “Um. No.”

“I’m pleased to hear that,” he said. “Because it occurs to me that this is quite a pleasant way to wake up. Don’t you think so?”

Kate could hardly say no. Not with his heavy warmth pressing against her … especially between her legs, which he’d easily pried apart with his knee.

“In fact,” Burke said, his voice a lazy drawl. “I think this is the way I want to wake up every morning.” With the thumb of his free hand, he was tracing the outline of her lips, the rest of his fingers curled around her neck. “With you beneath me, I mean.”

“That,” Kate said, her own voice a husky shell of itself, “might be ….” He moved a little, and she was surprised tofeel that he was already hard. Surprised and, to be strictly truthful, pleased.

“Uncomfortable,” she finished.

“Uncomfortable?” Now he was kissing her where his thumb had been, the corners of her mouth, the place where her upper lips dipped in the middle, to form the shape of a hunter’s bow. What’s uncomfortable about it?”

“Well,” she said. “You do weigh a lot.”

“Ah,” he said. Now he was kissing her on the eyelids. “I can take care of that for you, actually.”

A second later, he was beneath her, with Kate straddling his hips, and not having a very clear idea how she’d gotten there. When she pushed her hair out of her eyes, however, she could see that he was looking enormously pleased with himself.

“How about,” he said, with a crooked grin, “we wake like this every morning? With me beneath you?”

She could feel his erection beneath her, prodding urgently at the soft furrow between her legs. And, much to her shame, her body reacted to his touch, sending a rush of warmth to her loins, and making it easy—oh, so very easy—for him simply to slide inside her, without her having to move an inch.

She sucked in her breath, and looked down at him with wide, reproachful eyes. But it was hard to be indignant when what he was doing felt so very right.

“Or better yet,” he said, grinning up at her, “waking up inside you. Now that’s”—on the word “that,” he raised his hips, burying himself even more deeply within her—”more like it.”

It was on the tip of Kate’s tongue to remind him that this wasn’t what they were here for. No, they were here to find Isabel. Weren’t they?

But it was extremely difficult for Kate to think of anything else but Burke when he was inside her—about as difficult as it was for Burke to think of anything but Kate when she was anywhere near.

She certainly couldn’t think of anything but him when his hands, as they were just then, were on her breasts, cupping them, caressing them. And she certainly couldn’t think of anything but him when he was moving—with a slowness that was causing her toes to curl—in and then out of her. And when he slipped one of his hands beneath the fall of her hair, and around the back of her neck, and brought her face down until it was level with his, how was she supposed to remember anything but the way his lips felt on her mouth?

Then he was kissing her, his tongue forcing her mouth to open to him, just as he’d forced her legs to open to him. The tips of her breasts were skimming the thick forest of his chest hair. Suddenly, and in spite of her best intentions, she was moving a little on top of him. Not much, and certainly not consciously. But enough so that his hands slipped around eagerly to cup her buttocks, and bring her down harder against him.

This was not how she’d intended to start the day. She would have thought, after last night … Was the man insatiable?

Apparently so.

And apparently she was, too, since she was clinging to him in a disgraceful manner, not just with her lips and hands, but gripping him with her thighs, as well, as if he were a horse she’d mounted.

But this wasn’t like riding. Well, not your average horse, anyway. Maybe … maybe a winged horse. Because she certainly felt as if she were flying—or rather, being flown, higher and higher. Not toward the burning sun, which would have been thoroughly unpleasant. And not toward the moon, either, ice-cold and distant. But instead toward the stars, sparkling in a sky of velvet black. She could reach out, it seemed, and if she stretched far enough, touch those stars ….

And then it was if she’d flown a little too high, and bumped her head into that velvet sky, because suddenly, all the stars were tumbling down around her, as if it were raining stars. She was trapped in a shower of diamonds. But she didn’t mind. She held out her arms, trying to catch as many as she could, laughing, delighted ….

And then she opened her eyes, and realized she had collapsed against Burke’s chest, and he was laughing at her. Well, not really laughing. He was having too much trouble catching his own breath for that. Plus his heart was thundering with unnatural speed against her breasts. But he definitely looked smug.

“Are you all right?” he asked, between pants.

She moved a little against him. Had he—oh, yes, he most assuredly had. She pushed her hair back from her eyes and looked at him, trying to assume a blank expression.

“Of course I’m all right,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I be all right?”

He looked so self-satisfied, she thought it was a wonder his head didn’t burst. “Well, with all that screaming, I’m afraid we’re probably going to have people banging on the door, thinking I’ve murdered you.”

Indignant, Kate slid from him.

“Careful,” he warned. “You’ll endanger our chances at a family.”

“I don’t think,” she said, dryly, pulling the sheets back up to her chin, “that’s going to be something we need to worry about.”

But he still didn’t understand. He obviously thought she was referring to their future together—or lack thereof—and reacted accordingly, leaning over to grip her by the shoulders.

“You can’t mean,” he said, glaring down at her, “that you still don’t intend to marry me? After that? And last night?”

It had to be getting close to eight. Kate could feel the first warning signs of impending nausea.

“Don’t you think,” she said, swallowing hard, “that you ought to be concerning yourself with finding your daughter, and not whether or not I want to marry you?”

He opened his mouth, but seemed unable to find an adequate retort. Instead, he let go of her, and rolled away, his disgust evident.

Still, even disgusted, the Marquis of Wingate, sans apparel, was something to look at. And Kate did look, despite how ill she was beginning to feel. He stormed about the room, throwing on his trousers, and then his shirt. He wouldn’t look at her.

Which was fine. She didn’t want him to look at her. The more he ignored her, the easier it would be, in the end ….

It was a half hour later—it had to be, because Kate was well into her nausea—when Burke came back into the room he’d left in such a huff. He carried with him an enormous tray, from which the odors of bacon and coffee drifted. Pleasant enough odors under normal circumstances. But in the present one, deadly.

“Here, Kate,” Burke said, closing the door with his foot. “I took this off the maid in the hallway. I didn’t figure you’d be up yet. Funny, I never pegged you for a laze-about. Well, get up now, and come eat some breakfast.”

Kate could only pull the sheet up over her head.

Burke was not amused. “Come along, Kate,” he said. “We haven’t all day, you know. I’m going to have a devil of a time finding Craven. Do you know how many places they could be hiding? This isn’t a big town, it’s true, but—”

It was too much for her. The smell, the sight of that bacon … Suddenly, she threw the sheet back, sat up, and leaned over the side of the bed.

She hadn’t anything inside of her to vomit up, of course. She hadn’t eaten any supper the night before. Nevertheless, she retched and retched. As she retched, she cried. She couldn’t help it. She was completely humiliated, the more so because he’d rushed toward her, and laid a cool hand upon her forehead, twisting her hair out of her face with his other hand. Now he was holding her, whispering tender endearments to her as she retched.

“Shhh,” he said, when she tried, unsuccessfully, to make her feelings for him, which were not very friendly just then, known. “It’s all right. I’m sorry, Kate. I didn’t know.”

He tugged strands of hair from her damp forehead, picking it up off her neck, letting air, sweet, cold air, cool her. After a while—a long while, it seemed, but probably no longer than five or ten minutes—she began to feel better. She made a movement, and he let go of her. She sank back against the pillows, and looked everywhere but at him.

But manlike, he didn’t notice. He sat beside her, his green eyes soft with concern. “Why, Kate?” he asked, reaching out to push more hair from her sweaty face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She could only shake her head.

“You can’t be feeling missish, can you,” he persisted, “because I didn’t guess? I admit I ought to have known when you had so much trouble getting up yesterday, but I’m afraid I wasn’t quite quick enough. But now …. Well, of course, now I know.” He looked down at her. There wasn’t much compassion in his expression anymore. “Which leads me back to the original question. Why didn’t you tell me, Kate?”

She rolled over, but he was sitting on the sheet. She tugged at it wearily. When he moved, with a sigh, she wrapped the cloth around her, and turned her back on him. It was the only way, she was convinced, she was going to survive this conversation, which she’d been dreading since he had appeared beside the washline back at White Cottage.

“I didn’t want to tell you,” she said to the wall.

“Why, Kate?” His deep voice was filled with perplexity.

She groaned. She couldn’t help it. She’d known this was going to happen. She’d known it. If only she hadn’t slept with him, this wouldn’t be happening now. Furious with herself, she reached up and swiped at the corners of her eyes with her wrists. “You don’t understand.”

“No,” he said. His voice was filled with the tenderest of concern, but coupled with incomprehension. He didn’t make another move to touch her, however, for which she was grateful. “No, I don’t understand. You’re pregnant with my child, and you weren’t even going to tell me. Were you ever going to tell me, Kate?”

She couldn’t speak. Not if she didn’t want to start sobbing.

“Were you?”

She inhaled. “I wanted to. Only I couldn’t. Because, you see, I can’t …”

Burke knit his eyebrows. “You can’t what?”

“I can’t marry you.” She said it in a rash, to get it over with. “I just can’t do it, Burke.”

Now his expression was not so much one of concern as one of total exasperation. “Why the devil not?”

“I can’t,” she said between gritted teeth, “go back.”

“Go back?” Burke shook his head. Her words were oddly familiar, and yet he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember where he’d heard them before. “Go back where?”

“To your world, the one … the one I used to live in.”

“My world? What are you talking about, my world?”

“London,” Kate explained. “You don’t know—you can’t know—what it was like, after my father was accused of having swindled all of those people.” Kate shook her head, her gaze far away. “They were our friends—at least, they’d professed to be. But every one of them—every last one—turned on us. No one believed in my father’s innocence. No one believed it was Daniel, and not my father, who—”

She broke off, choking back a sob. Burke, staring down at her in stunned silence, realized why her words had sounded familiar. Nanny Hinkle. Nanny Hinkle had tried to warn him. She won’t go back, the old woman had said. This, then, was what she’d meant.

He opened his mouth to say something, but she went on, in a ragged whisper. “And then when he died … when he died, even though the fire was ruled officially as accidental, everyone—everyone—believed the rumor that my father had set it on purpose, that he had deliberately tried to kill himself and my mother. They believed they’d driven him to it, you see. That he couldn’t bear the shame.”

She swung the gaze she’d fastened unseeingly onto the bedpost toward him. “But he didn’t do it,” she said fiercely. “He didn’t steal that money, and he didn’t set that fire. They hadn’t any right to say what they did. No right at all! Do you understand now, Burke? I can’t go back. I could hardly bring myself to do it before. You had to offer me three hundred pounds to do it. But now … now I’ve got the baby to think of. I won’t go back to that world. And I know I can’t ask you to leave it.”

He stared down at her. “Can’t you?”

“Don’t you see?” Kate shook her head wildly. “I’d rather raise this child on my own, in disgrace, than amongst the people who let Daniel Craven …”

“Let Daniel Craven what, Kate?” Burke asked carefully, when she did not go on.

This time, when she looked at him, there was nothing distant at all about her gaze. She was there, right there with him, and now there was an emotion other than angry sorrow in her eyes. If Burke wasn’t mistaken, there was fear there now, as well.

“Nothing,” Kate said quickly. Too quickly.

“Kate.” He reached out and laid a heavy hand across the fingers with which she was twisting the edge of the sheet that covered her. “Tell me. The people who let Daniel Craven what?”

Her voice, though it was no louder than a whisper, seemed to slice through the silence between them like a scream. “Get away,” she murmured, unable to meet his gaze, “with murder.”