A Wicked Lord at the Wedding (7 page)

“Dear me,” he said quietly. “You have gotten yourself in trouble, haven’t you?”

“I realized that on my wedding day,” she said.

“Ah. It comes back to haunt me. I’d hoped you would forgive and forget.”

“Sebastien, please. We can discuss our ill-fated wedding at another time.”

He pulled off his mask and went down on one knee, running his hand from the captured appendage to the seat of her trousers.

“I think I perceive the problem.” He patted her rump consolingly. “Your tail is attached to your costume. One clearly goes with the other.”

“How astute of you.”

Her champagne-scented whiskers tickled his nape for several tortuous moments, and her breasts, whose shape he would never dream of describing as Anjou pears, pressed against his shoulder. Desire for her beat through every blood vessel of his body. She was his, and yet he was afraid he had lost her.

“What
are
you doing down there?” she asked in a hesitant voice.

He contemplated her hindquarters before glancing up again. “I was thinking how peculiar life is.”

“It’s hardly the time to turn philosophical,” she said with a frown.

He grinned.

This was the closest encounter they’d had in years. She was literally a captive audience, in a position he had dreamed about, and even though it wasn’t a situation conducive to lovemaking, he hadn’t come through hell to give her up without a fight.

He shook his head in bemusement. “In all the years we’ve been apart, I constantly wondered how you passed your time.”

“And now that your curiosity has been satisfied?”

He regarded her with a thin smile. “My curiosity hasn’t been satisfied at all. I have more questions than ever about your activities, although I’ll confess that during my worst moments I never pictured you in this situation.”

“No? Then how did you picture me?”

“I suppose I was afraid that I would have rivals for your affection. Gentlemen who considered an absent husband not a liability but a lure.”

She blinked as he slipped his hand around her bottom. “I’ve been at no man’s mercy until this moment,” she said. “Your imagination deceived you.”

“I’m relieved to hear that,” he said after a pause. “However, I never imagined that my wife was involved in any manner of subterfuge. Or that my rival was to be you.”

“But once you found out—”

“I rushed back to your side, alarmed for your safety.” He gave the length of wool a tug. “You’re free,” he said, tossing her squashed tail into her lap. “You can get up.”

She rose from her uncomfortable crouch, studying him in—well, he couldn’t decide what that look on her face meant. He decided he’d done a reasonable job of concealing his own thoughts considering that he’d not only wanted to liberate her tail but to remove the whole damned costume and have his way with her.

She settled back against the squabs. “Thank you,” she said guardedly.

He shrugged, staring out the window so that he wouldn’t be tempted to take her in his arms again until they got home. A man who couldn’t control himself in a moving carriage could hardly hope to assert control in more important matters. “It was nothing,” he said. “Any husband would have done the same.”

But he wasn’t any husband.

And she did not wish to be any wife.

Eleanor felt her heart pounding in countertime to the hoofbeats against the cobbles. She stole another peep at his angular profile. The night shadows suited his dark countenance. She had exerted all her willpower to keep from crumpling in his arms. She clasped her hands together, quickly looking away as he turned his head.

Too late.

His brooding glance met hers. A pleasant languor stole over her. She had not felt this helpless in years.

She forced herself to stare back into his fathomless blue eyes.

A flame of excitement caught in the air between them before he finally looked away.

She unclasped her hands, the blood flowing back stingingly through her veins. She had lived without him. She could do so again.

And yet she had seen desire in his eyes. What was he waiting for? How long could she continue to
pretend that while the wounded part of her wanted to order him out of her life, the other part simply wanted—him? Years of his unexplained absence, of hoping for word to assure her that he was even alive. She had been lonely and furious. She understood that he did not wish to admit what kind of work he had done.

But what kind of man had he become? What dark deeds
had
he committed in the Crown’s name?

Did it make a difference?

Could she resist him?

Cynicism had sculpted intriguing creases in his face. She couldn’t keep from staring at him at the ball tonight. Sebastien had never been a shy man. Nor one who kept secrets. Now she sensed something calculating about him. Even his laugh held an edge that had charged the evening with an unexpected thrill of anticipation. He had flirted with her, yet kept a distance.

His eyes studied her with uncompromising intimacy. His smile promised and denied at the same time. Sometimes she was positive he wanted her. At other times, she wasn’t sure who he even was. He wasn’t the man who had chased and caught her in Spain.

He was far more dangerous.

But then again, according to the London newspapers, so was she. But she wasn’t really. Her monstrosity was a myth. While certain people in Society might attribute dangerous motives to the Mayfair Masquer, the truth was that her other identity
balked at even swatting a fly. She fed stray cats in the street. Granted, she carried a pistol during her undertakings for the duchess. Heaven only knew what would happen if she needed to use it. She had never deliberately hurt anyone or anything in her life.

Sebastien had. But his actions had been such a protected secret that even the duchess’s contacts couldn’t uncover them.

Eleanor hadn’t tried to stop him when he’d accepted his nefarious assignment in France shortly after their wedding. It was obvious that he was relieved to be back in action and that he couldn’t stand feeling useless. What else could she do except let him go?

But since then, she often wondered what it had cost him to return to service. And as to the exact nature of his work, whenever she asked him, he replied, “I prefer not to talk about it.”

“Are you a spy, Sebastien?”

“Not exactly,” he would answer with a mordant laugh that made her think he was doing something worse.

“Well—are there other women involved?”

“Not in the manner you’re thinking.”

“What does
that
mean?”

“It means there are certain government concerns of which a lady should not be aware.”

She had never been much of a lady, she wanted to shout. She was certainly strong enough to accept what ever the truth was.

How many ladies had held their bare hands over
the perforated intestines of a surgeon’s patient in a midnight emergency? Or had assisted in numerous bloodlettings? Or who loved to play with leeches?

Or, the very worst, who wanted to grab her husband by the shoulders and kiss the devil until he begged for mercy?

No, she had never been much of a lady in Society’s sense of the word.

She made a better gentleman.

“We’re almost home,” he said genially. “And about time, too. I’ve waited forever for this night.”

She narrowed her eyes at his cheerful announcement. He’d been back in London for three months and hadn’t spent more than an hour or so in their town house. The way he acted one would think that their attendance at the masquerade tonight signaled the resumption of wedded bliss.

“I think we ought to go straight to bed,” he added, in case she had misunderstood him.

“I
am
tired,” she admitted, lowering her eyes. “I could sleep for a week.”

“I found the evening to be invigorating.”

“But you just said that you—”

“Yes. I did.
We’re
going straight to bed. We’ve waited long enough. We’re reacquainted, partners in this mission of yours. It
is
time, don’t you agree?”

Her throat closed with a pleasant sense of panic. She wondered what he would do if she refused him outright. Had she deceived herself into thinking he would quietly accept a rejection?

Or that she would be able to deliver one?

His smile acknowledged her uncertainty.

Perhaps this wasn’t her husband at all. Perhaps he’d had an evil twin hidden away that no one knew about. He had brothers he’d never discussed. Maybe one of them had snuffed out Sebastien, stolen his title, and returned to London to wreak havoc.

The carriage wheels hit a rut. She cursed Will inwardly for his reckless driving, then bounced forward. Sebastien’s muscular arms enclosed her. He murmured soothing words in her ear. Before she could assure him she was fine, he seized the advantage. His mouth covered hers in a dizzying kiss.

Or had she kissed him first?

She suspected she had, which did not bode well for her planned revenge. Up until then, they had both shown remarkable control. She hadn’t wanted to break first.

Her thoughts dissolved. Male power dominated her. Not an evil twin. This
was
the man who had taught her everything she knew about love and loss. Wasn’t she supposed to teach him a lesson? Didn’t he need to know that he couldn’t pop in and out of her life with impunity?

The carriage rounded another corner. Sebastien’s body steadied hers while her senses spun; her pulses throbbed in painful need. He exploited her response. He drew her closer, crushing her breasts to his chest, kissing her shoulders, promising her she wouldn’t be sorry that he’d come home. Her head dropped back
as his hard mouth demanded more than she’d intended to give. At the very least he could tell her why he’d gone.

“We’re almost home,” she murmured.

“Thank God.”

His mouth captured her helpless moan. She melted into reflective submission, her hope for a forceful response less likely by the moment. With artful seduction he kept kissing her until it was torment not to ask for more. Finally she placed one hand around his neck and sank slowly back. He bent over her. His thick erection strained against her stomach. Her body responded eagerly to his potent sexuality.

He trailed his gloved fingertips across her collarbone, into her neckline, between her swollen breasts where her heart fluttered. A stinging flush rose to her skin, his caresses incendiary, a flagrant beguilement. She lifted her head to stare up into his strong-boned face.

No safety there. His eyes glittered down at her with an elemental desire that laid her heart bare. Her husband, a man she did not recognize, but hungered for all the same. He had hurt her.

“I have never kissed a woman with whiskers before,” he said softly.

She had to laugh. “And I’ve never kissed a rat.”

“Then we must be very desperate.”

“Or married,” she said, wriggling back into a sitting position.

He sat back, his expression watchful. “You’ll be glad to get out of that costume when we get home.”

“That depends,” she said after a pause.

His brow lifted. “On?”

“On what I shall be getting into.”

“We’ll find out soon enough.” His rich voice resonated in the dark confines of the carriage. “We’ve just turned off Brompton Road.”

She glanced over his shoulder to the window. That
was
the old tavern on the corner. Surely she could last a minute or so more. But she could not fend him off indefinitely as she had the past few weeks.

What to do? Engage? Escape? But to where? The marriage laws, as deeply rooted in Anglo-Saxon autocracy as he appeared to be, provided no feasible escape from living with her husband.

Why he had waited until tonight to pursue his marital rights seemed irrelevant. She suspected she’d given him more than a little encouragement. He slid back against her. She opened her mouth to object, then stopped at the naked longing in his look. Raise the drawbridge. Call out the guards.

His hand cupped her chin. “Elle,” he said gently, using his pet name for her. “You still want me.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “And I want a gold-wheeled carriage, a palace in India, a hundred servants at my beck and call. I want wine with every meal and—in my father’s words—things that are not always good for me.”

“I’ll be good for you.” He stared at her in conviction. “And good to you. Please say that you want me.”

The carriage slowed.

“Very well,” she said. “I want you in the way that you probably mean. But even more I want to know that you won’t walk in and out of my life again and expect me to wait, or to be the same.”

“I realize that now.” He paused. It seemed too easy. “Is that all?”

“Well, you have to prove it.”

“Can’t I have you now and offer proof later?”

She shook her head in exasperation. The carriage rocked to a stop. Her cousin’s footsteps scuffed against the cobbles. She and Sebastien sat for another moment, regarding each other in heated silence. Her every female instinct craved his hard-sculpted body in her bed again. But her heart sought retribution for his neglect.