Catch a Falling Heiress: An American Heiress in London (31 page)

“As much as I’d love to lie here with you all night and all day, too,” he murmured, “we can’t. You have to go back to your own room now, while it’s still pitch-black. Scullery maids will be up to build the fires in a couple of hours, and we can’t risk anyone’s seeing you.”

She nodded, knowing he was right. Her legs relaxed, opened, and he lifted his hips, slipping free of her. She grimaced, feeling a hint of soreness and what seemed an abundant amount of moisture between her legs.

“We’ll discuss wedding plans after breakfast,” he told her, then he kissed her one more time, rolled off the bed, and stood up, holding out his hands to her.

She rose, and as she did, he held her hands in his. Smiling, he looked at her, his gaze drifting down over her naked body. No one but her maid and her mother had ever seen her unclothed before, and she felt shy and flustered, and yet, rather wonderful, too, standing naked before his heated gaze.

“You’re so lovely,” he muttered, reaching up to tuck a tendril of her loosened hair behind her ear. “So, so lovely.”

She couldn’t quite enjoy the compliment at this moment. “I’d feel lovelier if I could wash a bit before I go,” she said with a grimace.

“You can. We have a bit of time. I’ll fetch you some fresh water.”

He bent to reach for his discarded trousers, and as he slipped them on, she took a peek at his body, at the part of him that had been so intimately joined with her moments ago. It was only the barest glimpse, for he was buttoning the trousers before she could manage a better look, but what she saw was enough to surprise her. That part of him seemed to have been tamed by their coupling.

What extraordinary creatures men were, she thought, smiling a little.

His hands stilled at his waistband, and she looked up to find he was smiling, too. “After the wedding,” he told her firmly.

With that, he turned away and walked to the washstand, where he picked up the basin. He left the bedroom to get water for her spit bath, but she didn’t like the sticky residue on her legs, and she turned, remembering the towel he’d laid on the bed earlier. But her hand stilled as she reached for it, seeing the red smears that marked the white cotton. She’d bled? Another surprise in a night full of surprises.

She picked up the towel, folded it again, and used it to wipe the wetness from her legs. As she straightened, her attention was caught by the slip of paper on the desk beside the bed where she stood. A telegram, she realized, and thought at once of bad news.

It wasn’t her business, though, and she started to turn away, but not before she saw the initials at the bottom.

ERH.

She froze, and the floor seemed to rock beneath her feet. Without even taking time to think, she lifted her gaze to the top of the missive, ignored any inconvenient pricks of her conscience, and read every word.

ARRIVING SEPT 26 STOP HOPE ENGAGEMENT YOU AND LINNET CONFIRMED STOP WILL GIVE YOUR SHARE OF FUNDS FOR OUR INVESTMENT WITH MARGRAVE RIGHT AFTER WEDDING STOP EXPECT OUR DEAL WILL MAKE US MILLIONS STOP ERH

She stared at the words, dumbfounded, numb, and disbelieving.

Deal? What deal? Jack and her father. A business deal made over her.

You have to marry me now.

Of course she did. She and his father had a deal. Lots of money to be made. Of course.

Pain shimmered through her, the pain of betrayal, a pain with which she was becoming quite familiar. Tears stung her eyes. With every man in her life, it always came down to the money.

His footstep sounded, a soft creak on ancient floorboards, and she jerked, moving away from the desk and back toward the bed just as he reentered the room. She tried to hide her shock, her pain, but some of it must have shown in her face, for he frowned as he kicked the door gently closed behind him.

“Linnet?” He came toward her, the basin of water and a fresh towel in his hand. “What’s wrong?”

She wanted to confront him, throw the telegram and his deals with her father in his face, but she couldn’t, not now, not when she still had the result of their pleasure between her legs, and shock, rage, and pain were erupting inside her, and her pride and her innocence were as ruined as her reputation. She tried to paste on a smile. “Nothing.”

She must not have sounded convincing, for the frown on his face deepened. But the towel in his hand reminded her of the one in hers, and she seized on it as an excuse.

“Now I see what this was for,” she murmured, looking down, her face puckering as the stains of her lost virtue blurred before her eyes, and she fought to keep tears back.

He set the basin on the floor, dropped the fresh towel beside it, and pulled the stained one from her grasp. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll wash it myself in the bath. The servants won’t know.”

She nodded, and when he cupped her cheek, she endured it. When he guided her to sit on the bed, she complied, and when he dipped the fresh towel in the water and washed the traces of what they’d done away from her thighs, she gritted her teeth and stared at the ceiling in order to bear the tender, solicitous sham of it.

You liar,
she wanted to shout, her heart breaking.
You manipulative, fortune-hunting bastard.

“Are you certain you’re all right?” he asked.

The tenderness in his voice was almost her undoing, and she wondered how a man could be so tender and also be such a scoundrel.

You and my father made a business deal over me. A business deal.

Linnet curled her fingers into the rumpled sheets on either side of her hips, steeled herself, and lifted her head, but she couldn’t quite meet his eyes. “Of course. I’m tired, and . . .” She had to pause for a deep breath. “It’s been quite an evening.”

“Yes.” He leaned forward to kiss her, but she jerked back, unable to bear it.

“Jack, I have to go.”

“Of course.” He sat back on his heels as she rose, and though she saw there was still a tiny frown between his brows, she knew she wasn’t a good enough actress to stay here any longer and keep pretending everything was fine. All she wanted was to get away and go back to her own room before she debased herself further.

He set the towel in the basin, then stood up, stepping back so she could move past him. She walked to where her nightgown and robe lay on the floor, picked up the former, and slipped into it, and forced away recollections of how tenderly he’d removed it from her body such a short time ago. She started to do up the buttons, but she couldn’t, for her hands were shaking.

“I’ll do it,” he said, coming to help her.

“No.” Once again, she jerked away. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll just put my robe over it anyway.”

He scooped the robe up from the floor and held it open for her so that she could slip it on.

“Can you find your way alone in the dark?” he asked, following her to the door.

“Of course,” she whispered, opening it before he could. “I got here that way, didn’t I?”

Without waiting for an answer, she started down the dark corridor and didn’t look back. Instead, she navigated her way through the silent house, blinking to keep tears at bay until she could get to her room. Once there, she’d let the tears fall. She’d cry all night, until every bit of the pain she felt at his betrayal was out of her. The rage, though, was different. She intended to hang on to that, because tomorrow, she was going to kill him. And when her father arrived, she’d kill him, too.

Chapter 17

Jack frowned as he watched Linnet’s white-sheathed form slip away down the dark corridor like a ghost, shimmers of disquiet rippling through him. Something was very wrong.

She’d seemed well enough until she saw the stained towel, and he prayed she wasn’t feeling regret. The consequences of what they’d done were enormous, of course. Even now, he wasn’t certain she understood just what the result of tonight could be. But as he’d told her, there was no undoing it now.

The white glimmers of her nightdress vanished as she rounded the corner and disappeared, and he stepped back into his room to fetch the basin.

He took the blue delft bowl and the stained towel to the bathroom and poured the used water down the sink drain, then he scooped soap out of the jar, added fresh water to the sink, and scrubbed the soiled towel until every trace of Linnet’s blood was gone. He draped the wet towel over the bar on the side of the washstand and returned with the basin to his own room, where he put it back on his own washstand. He nestled the matching pitcher inside it, returned his shaving equipment to his dressing case, and walked to the side of the bed.

Perhaps she was just tired, he thought as he unbuttoned his trousers. Tired and overwrought. Any girl would be, he supposed. One’s first sexual experience was always quite shattering.

Almost, but not quite satisfied by that explanation, Jack stripped off his trousers and tossed them aside. He started to reach for the counterpane to pull it back, then his gaze caught on the writing desk nearby and the slip of paper that lay unfolded on top of it. Holland’s telegram.

He swore.

I was just another business deal.

He rubbed his hands over his face and swore again.

J
ACK DIDN’T SLEEP
a wink. He spent the remainder of the night in bed, but as he’d been wont to do many nights of late, he didn’t sleep. Instead, he pictured Linnet stretched out naked beside him, with her golden hair loose and tumbled across his pillows. The agony of it was harder to bear this time than it had ever been before, for it wasn’t a picture borne of his imagination now; it was a picture formed from reality.

Hot, sweet thoughts of touching her beautiful skin, of hearing her passionate cries, of her face as he’d brought her to the first climax of her life—these were memories that haunted him, and tortured him, and made him more certain than ever about his chosen course.

Winning Linnet had never been a choice, not from the moment he’d kissed her. Now, however, he began to fear that his certainty and his determination might not be enough. He didn’t have her trust, and now, he didn’t know if he’d ever have it.

There was just one option open to him. His original intention had been to wait until they were engaged before telling her about the deal with her father. In hindsight, of course, he appreciated that sort of reticence had been a serious mistake on his part, but there was nothing he could do about that now. And it was no longer an option. The thing to do was discuss the deal with her openly and completely, and hope he could find the words to keep her.

Such a discussion, however, could only take place if she were in the same room with him, and that, he soon discovered, wasn’t going to be an easy thing to arrange. She didn’t come down for breakfast or lunch, but instead stayed in her room, pleading a headache, and short of breaking down her bedroom door, an act that would put him forever beyond the pale in Belinda’s estimation and probably Linnet’s as well, there were very few options open to him. In a hasty consult with her mother after luncheon, he confirmed that he and Linnet had quarreled, and she confirmed that Linnet did intend to come down for dinner, and he seized on that as his only possibility. If Helen could somehow persuade her to a walk in the gardens half an hour before the dinner gong—perhaps with a suggestion that it would help her headache—and if Helen would then allow him a private consultation with her, he intended to ask her again to marry him. He felt sure, he told Helen with a confidence he didn’t feel in the least, that they would mend their quarrel, and he would at last obtain her consent to marry him.

It was with that assurance that Helen agreed to allow him the privacy with her that he needed.

Stuart and his duchess arrived on the afternoon train, and Jack took his friend aside the moment he arrived, for even though Holland wasn’t due in Kent for a week, he wanted to make the final preparations for their meeting with the American now, before he talked to Linnet in the garden.

Stuart, as he’d had no doubt his friend would do, agreed to all his plans for the venture and promised to have the appropriate documents drawn up by his attorneys. He also had several promising investment possibilities to present to Holland. Jack grinned at that. “Baiting the hook well, I hope?”

Stuart grinned back. “Damned straight. He’ll bite, trust me.”

At half past six, when the others were gathering for aperitifs in the drawing room, Jack went to the gardens, and found that Helen had done her part, for she and Linnet were walking the herbaceous border.

He waited until they had wandered into the rose garden to find some late roses before approaching them. Helen, who had been watching for his approach, saw him coming and managed to lead Linnet through an arbor and into a part of the garden where she had very few ways to escape. He paused beneath the arbor behind her.

“Out and about at last, I see,” he said. When she whirled around, her eyes seemed so vividly blue in the twilight that he caught his breath, but the appalled expression on her face was a painful indication of just how much persuasion he’d have to do in the next half hour. He took a deep breath. “Headache gone, I hope?”

“It just came back.” She tried to come through the arbor so that she could escape, but he moved forward, blocking her path.

“We have to talk, and you’re not going anywhere until we do,” he told her. “Helen?” he added to the woman behind her without taking his eyes from hers, “I fear Linnet still has a headache. Would you be so kind as to find a housemaid to fetch her a Beecham’s Powder? She and I will follow you shortly to the house.”

“Of course.” She moved at once toward the only other path of escape, and Linnet gave a huff of vexation as she turned her head and watched her go.

“Traitor,” she called after her parent. “This is conspiring with the enemy.”

Helen didn’t reply but waved a hand in dismissal of that accusation as she walked away.

Linnet’s gaze returned to him. “I can think of nothing you and I need to discuss,” she said, and since he was blocking the arbor where she stood, she turned to follow her parent down the only other available path.

He fell in step beside her. “We have plenty to discuss. That telegram, for one thing. What it means, and everything it represents, and every doubt and every fear it planted in your head.”

Her steps did not slow. “What telegram? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar. I know you read it, so don’t pretend you didn’t.”

That stopped her in her tracks, bringing him to a halt as well. “Oh, so pretending is wrong, is it?” she asked, turning to face him, and the glint of battle in her eyes told him the fight was on. “You seem to have quite a hypocritical set of ethics. Pretending seems a perfectly acceptable thing when you do it. Lying, too,” she added before he could respond. “And fortune-hunting . . . well, we know you think that’s wrong when other people do it—your brother, for instance—but when you do it, it’s just dandy. And then, there’s betrayal . . .” She stopped, swallowed hard, and resumed walking away, as quickly as she could in her evening gown of shimmering green silk.

He followed her, his long strides enabling him to be beside her in just a few seconds. “I didn’t betray you. I didn’t lie. I admit I did withhold certain facts from you—”

“You didn’t lie? So, that afternoon in the woods when you declared you’d give up the dowry, that was the truth?”

Had he said that? He frowned, vaguely remembering something desperate like that coming out of his mouth. “Damn.”

She stopped, causing him to stop as well. “Yes,” she said. “Damn. Shall we go on to the part about pretending?”

“Let’s discuss the lie first, shall we? I said I’d give up the dowry, yes. And yes, that was a lie. I have no intention of giving it up.” He sighed, raking a hand through his hair as he thought of that afternoon, knowing there was nothing to do but admit it. He looked into her eyes. “I have no excuses or explanations to offer. All I have is my reason for lying.”

That, understandably, made her laugh. “What makes you think I care two bits for your reason?”

He ignored that question. “Your father offered me half a million dollars as a personal settlement if I married you. He wants to do investments in Africa and use my connection to the Duke of Margrave to make money there. That’s the venture the telegram is talking about.”

Her lips parted in astonishment. Her face went pale. “Did you do what you did in the pagoda at his behest?”

“No, no,” he hastened to assure her. “No, this was afterward. You were already on your way to England. But he decided I’d be a better bet than the other chaps you had in mind because of Margrave. But he also felt that you wouldn’t marry me if I accepted a settlement, so when he made his offer, he suggested we keep it a secret from you until after we were married. His idea was that you’d never marry me if I took a personal settlement, so I was supposed to make the noble gesture and assure you I didn’t want anything for myself. As you know, I didn’t do that.”

“Until that afternoon in the woods.”

“Yes. You see . . .” He paused, taking a deep breath. “I was, as you may appreciate, in the throes of almost uncontainable lust. Not that’s any sort of excuse, mind you, but because I was in that rather vulnerable condition, I was trying to avoid you that afternoon. I was trying to keep a proper gentleman’s distance, and it was killing me. I wanted you, more than I’ve ever wanted anything or anyone in my life, and when you were standing there in front of me, I succumbed to your father’s idea and pretended to make the grand gesture.”

“Knowing all the while you had no intention of giving up the money.”

“Yes.” He swallowed hard. “I very much fear I’d have said anything, done anything, crawled on my knees to Lucifer in that moment, in order to make you mine.”

She pressed her lips together and looked away. “But it was still a lie, Jack. How can I marry a man who lies to me? Who betrays me? Who makes deals behind my back? No.”

She started to walk around him, but he stepped in front of her, blocking her way. When she stepped the other way, he blocked that, too, and she stilled, scowling up at him. “Honestly, what part of ‘no’ continues to elude you? It’s a simple word, really, one most people comprehend without much difficulty.”

“I’m extraordinarily obtuse about that word, at least when it comes to you. But Linnet, I’m going to make you listen to me, even if I have to chase you all over the grounds to do it. Because I love you.”

“More words. More explanations. But as you demonstrated so eloquently the other day, deeds are much more effective.”

He ignored that. “I also think you still love me.”

He got the look, narrowed eyes and uplifted chin. “So when deeds and explanations fail to impress, words of love are the next tactic? My answer is still no.”

He was getting desperate. Continuing to refuse to marry him was simply not an option now, and he didn’t think she quite understood that.

“It’s not a matter of persuasion at this point. It’s a matter of necessity. Linnet—” He broke off, grabbing her shoulders as she started to step around him again. He leaned closer, casting a quick glance around the garden to make doubly sure Helen had gone, and they were completely alone. “You might be carrying my child.”

She went still, dawning awareness and horror in her face. “Oh, God,” she whispered, her voice faint. “Oh, dear God.”

He watched her shake her head as if in denial, and he added, “What happened last night makes babies.” He winced at how late in the day it was to point that out. “You don’t go and find them under cabbage leaves.”

She scowled and jerked out of his hold. “I know that! My married friends explained all that business to me ages ago. But last night, I didn’t think it mattered. I thought . . .” Her voice faltered, fear sprang up in her eyes. “I was sure we were getting married.”

“So we are.”

She shook her head again, and he watched her take a step back. “Why should I marry you?” she cried. “How can I, when I still can’t trust you? You knew my father plotted behind my back for me to marry Davis MacKay as a business deal. You knew how that hurt me, how betrayed I felt, and yet you . . .” She stopped, her face twisting with pain. “You were prepared to do the exact same thing.”

“When I agreed to your father’s proposition, I didn’t know about the business deal with MacKay. I only found out about that when you told me.”

If he thought that was going to cut any ice with Linnet, he was mistaken. “And when I told you what he’d done, about how he plotted and worked on me all those months, and how much it hurt me to find out it was so he could marry me off to Davis MacKay and make a profit from it, I don’t suppose you could have mentioned your own little deal with him then?”