A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (15 page)

His bride’s huge eyes never left
him.

The act of pacing only made her appear
more nervous. If he ever intended to calm her, he had to sit—even
if it meant he’d never find a way to slow the frenetic pulse
pounding through his veins. He took a step toward the empty seat
beside Aurora.

And nearly lost his thin grasp on
sanity when she flinched and shielded her face with her delicate
hands. “No!” she cried out, eyes closed, falling back against the
divan.

Devil take it, she thought he would
hit her.

Quin couldn’t remember the last time
he was so angry. Perhaps when his father was still alive—still
delivering beatings to both Quin and his mother, still drinking
himself into a muddle-headed stupor.

With every fiber of patience he could
manage, he forced his arms to hang at his sides. It took every
ounce of self-control he could muster to refrain from grabbing hold
of the minx and shaking some sense into her.

Finally, she opened her eyes to peek
through the dark fringe of her lashes, then slowly, painstakingly,
lowered her arms to her lap.

Quin counted to ten. Better make it
twenty. “I do not strike women, Aurora. It would behoove you to
remember that in future.”

“
But you were so angry, I
thought”

“
Do
not
make me repeat myself.” His voice
was sharper, held more bite, than he intended, though he managed to
keep it at just slightly above a whisper. He crossed his arms over
his chest and stared her down. “Now I’d like you to tell me why you
were so indiscreet as to run away from our wedding, when remaining
unmarried will leave you ruined in the eyes of society? Why you
chose to leave me standing at the altar, waiting for you, while you
rode through all of Mayfair to stop for an ice at Gunter’s, with
your legs showing all the way up to your knees, of all things. Why
you felt it prudent to toss aside the one opportunity you had at
salvaging your reputation.”

Her expression melted from fearful to
haughty over the course of his demands. Aurora’s jaw fell slack,
only to be snapped closed a moment later.

“
I’m waiting,” Quin bit
off, and took another menacing step toward her.

Aurora scowled up at him. “Lud!
Perhaps you would care to inform me why you felt the need to stop
kissing me so suddenly yesterday.”

“
That,” he said, “is hardly
relevant to the discussion at hand.”

“
On the contrary, my lord,”
she said with no small amount of heat, her light, clear eyes
flashing at him, “it is entirely relevant, since the answer to that
question plays into my answers to your questions.”

“
Can you not answer a
simple question?” Quin barked at her.

“
I’ll
answer
a simple question when
you
ask
a simple
question.”

He tossed his hands in the air. “What
is so bloody difficult about telling me why you don’t want to marry
me all of a sudden?”

“
What is so bloody wrong
with me that you don’t enjoy kissing me?” she shot back.

Don’t enjoy kissing her? If he hadn’t
had to spend nearly every blasted waking minute since he met her
making arrangements to marry her on a moment’s notice, he likely
would have spent them all in just that pursuit—if not finding a way
to bed her before the wedding. The minx consumed him.

Good God, she was enticing when she
was mad. Quin might have to anger her more often, because she
looked like a Siren rising up out of the sea. He’d show her just
how much he wanted to kiss her.

Quin closed the meager gap between
them in a flash, gripping her upper arms and pulling her up before
him. His mouth came down upon hers, hard and hot and
hungry.

He kissed her so thoroughly it was as
though he was branding her, marking her as his own. Any thought of
gentleness or tenderness for her fled like the tide rushing back
out to sea.

A low half-sigh, half-moan came from
deep in her throat.

He plundered her mouth, stroking and
plunging and searing with his tongue, until she trembled beneath
him and her hands reached out to his middle for support. Quin
didn’t stop until he was drunk and lightheaded on her
sweetness.

When he finally came up, her eyes were
lidded and her lips were swollen and pink. His already hard
erection throbbed at the sight. Slipping his arms around Aurora’s
back, he pulled her close—close enough she could feel how very
badly he needed her.

She jumped at the contact.

“
This,” he drawled, “should
be proof enough of just how much I want to kiss you, and so very
much more.”

Her eyes widened and she pressed her
body more fully into him. “What is that? I want you to
teach”

Quin put a hand over her mouth to stop
her. Damnation, she was so innocent. He’d always avoided innocents.
How the devil was he supposed to accomplish anything, with her
curiosity threatening to rob him of reason? He wanted desperately
to toss her over his shoulder again, carry her above stairs, and
teach her everything she wanted to know (and much, much more) right
then and there.

With the need filling her eyes at the
moment, he doubted she’d have any objections to just such an
arrangement.

But they had to get back to the damned
church and get married first. So instead, he settled her back on
the divan and placed some distance between them—as protection
against following through with just such a plan.

“
There will be plenty of
time for instruction later,” he said. “
After
we marry.” If he could survive
that long.

A wounded expression flooded her eyes.
Could she not understand that he was trying to protect her? To do
things the right way? Her innocence would be the death of
him.

“
That will not happen,” she
said. “I will not marry you. Which should have been plenty clear
enough when I did not meet you before the altar. You bloody,
insufferable brute. What makes you think you can drag me off my
horse and order me about?”

“
Your
horse? The one you stole from the mews? Is that the horse you
mean? Aurora, you’ll marry me and be happy about it, by God, if I
have to toss you over my shoulder and carry you the whole way
there.”

“
Why should I marry you?”
she demanded. “Why should I feel badly about changing my mind and
jilting you, when you did the very same thing to Lady
Phoebe?”

What bastard had told her about
Phoebe? If it was Griffin, Quin would be more than happy to settle
matters once and for all. But that would have to wait. It all had
to wait.

“
Matters between Lady
Phoebe and I are hardly pertinent to this discussion,” he
said.

Aurora’s eyes burned dark
and stormy. “Hardly? Indeed, they are the root cause of our
discussion
, as you so
politely termed it. Why have you not informed me of your previous
engagement?” she asked haughtily.

“
When in God’s name was I
supposed to have done that? Since the moment I met you, I’ve been
running around Town like a madman. Obtaining a special license.
Settling affairs with your father. Arranging for a townhome for our
use until we return to Quinton Abbey. Chasing after you, when you
behave like a hoyden that’s broken free of her leading
strings.”

“
Perhaps,” she said, rising
to stand toe-to-toe with him, “you realized I would never accept
you if I knew the truth—if I knew how entirely dishonorable a
scoundrel you are. So you hid it from me. Or
tried
to hide it from me. But you,
sir, are no gentleman, and I’ll die a happy old maid before I’ll
marry the despicable likes of you.”

She shoved him, but Quin refused to
budge. He planted his feet wide apart, crossing his arms before his
chest. Aurora scowled up at him. Then she stepped over and around
his leg, fleeing for the door.

Fiend seize it. He didn’t want to
resort to this. But what option did the minx leave him with? Quin
grabbed her arm and pulled her back into the room.

The chill in her eyes froze him to his
spot on the floor. “Unhand me.”

“
You will marry me, Aurora.
Because if you do not, you’ll find your journal published in its
entirety in tomorrow morning’s society papers.”

~ * ~

Aurora felt all of the blood drain
from her face, trickling its way down to pool in her toes. “My
journal? How do you know about my journal?”

Lord Quinton dragged a hand over his
face and through his hair, sighing loudly as he did. “I found it in
Hyde Park. And based on what I found inside, I knew you were a
scandal waiting to happen. If I didn’t marry you—give you the
protection of my name—I knew your ruin was waiting for you. So I
sought you out.”

Oh, good God. He’d read it.
He knew all the things she’d written of him—of
them
. “So you took care of ruining
me, just in case my journal didn’t manage it on its own? Terribly
heroic of you,
my lord
.”

“
Sarcasm does you no
favors, Aurora.”

“
Illusions of grandeur do
you none, either.”

“
Agreed,” he said. “But the
fact remains, I intend to ensure your reputation will fall into
tatters if you do not return to the church today and marry
me.”

What could he possibly gain from this
situation? There had to be a reason—something more plausible than
him hoping to rescue a lady he’d never met from ruin—for him to go
to such lengths.

It just didn’t make sense.

Regardless of his reasons for wanting
the match, Aurora really didn’t have any other option left open.
Father could never learn what was in her journal.

She couldn’t believe she was doing
this. After all these years, convincing herself she would never
accept a marriage with a man she didn’t love, who didn’t love
her…

~ * ~

Quin was a cur. A bloody despot. A
lecher and a thoroughly unredeemable scoundrel.

None of this was new.

So why did he feel so damnably
low?

Standing before the vicar with Aurora
by his side, he couldn’t concentrate on the blasted ceremony.
Within minutes, he’d be a married man, just as Rotheby had insisted
upon—just as he’d hoped for years to be able to avoid.

At thirty-two years of age, Quin was
becoming a man.

He ought to feel good about that—about
becoming responsible for more than just himself. Instead, he felt
more despicable than he’d ever felt in his life. Lord knew that was
saying something.

For every step forward, he took two
steps back. Yes, he was marrying Aurora Hyatt. But he’d forced her
hand once by kissing her in a blasted ballroom, and if that hadn’t
been enough, he’d forced it again by resorting to
blackmail.

It felt cheap.

When the vicar called upon him, he
said, “I do,” but took no pleasure in the act.

The process of arriving at that moment
made him realize that every day, he became more like the bastard
his father had always been.

~ * ~

The sparsely furnished townhome Lord
Quinton had arranged for sat at Number Fourteen, Oxford Street. The
lack of furnishings didn’t bother Aurora. Frankly, she didn’t care
about anything save ending the blasted day. A blinding headache had
assaulted her the moment her then-fiancée-now-husband mentioned her
journal, and had only intensified in the hours since.

She returned with him to the church.
She repeated her vows. She sat through the celebratory breakfast
and accepted the toasts and felicitations as graciously as she
could manage. She’d done everything that could be expected of
her.

Now, she wanted a bed. And since she
would no longer have her bed in her father’s home, any bed at all
would do.

Aurora said a silent prayer of thanks
when they arrived at their new London home, to be greeted by only a
tiny delegation of staff, waiting to be introduced to their new
mistress. Her lady’s maid, Rose, stood alongside a butler, a
housekeeper, two footmen, a cook, and a scullery maid.

“
I’ll endeavor to hire more
servants in the coming week,” Lord Quinton said as Mrs. Gaffee, the
housekeeper, led them on a brief tour. “We should have a full staff
before a fortnight is past.”

“
Very well,” was all Aurora
could manage.

They stopped to examine a room on the
lowest floor that might be either a gallery or a music room. He
placed his hand against her lower back, and it was all Aurora could
do not to flinch at the brief contact. “You may decorate the
drawing rooms and whatnot as you like.”

She nodded and immediately regretted
it. The pounding in her head magnified to epic proportions from the
slight movement. The hardwood floor beneath her feet seemed to
sway. Aurora reached an arm out to the side to steady herself, but
only managed to knock it against Lord Quinton’s expansive
chest.