Cheryl Holt (9 page)

“You’re a veritable slattern,” he joked.

“Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not.”

“You can’t stay. Be gone! At once!”

He ignored her edict and yanked the cloth away. She squealed with affront and struggled to fold her arms across her chest, but he wouldn’t let her hide herself. He gripped her wrists and pulled them away so that he could study her.

Her breasts were perfectly formed, neither too big nor too little, and the appropriate size to fill a man’s hands. She was breathing fast, terrified by what he intended, and the elevated respiration had hardened her nipples so that they jutted out.

“You’re very beautiful,” he murmured, and he reached out and caressed one of the soft mounds.

“Please don’t,” she implored.

“I won’t hurt you,” he vowed.

“I can’t imagine you’ll do anything else.”

As he leaned down to kiss her, she turned away, so he grazed her cheek instead. Continuing on, he nuzzled down her neck, to her cleavage, across her breast, and he toyed with the inflamed tip, licking it over and over.

He couldn’t believe what he’d started, couldn’t understand his strange urge to be with her. The cost of seducing a chaste female was much too high, so he never dabbled with innocents. There were many wicked, amenable trollops who would execute any deed for a price, so he couldn’t figure out what was motivating him.

She was a maiden, a spinster—Rebecca’s companion, for God’s sake—and he wasn’t some violent roué who would force himself on a woman. Yet none of it signified.

He’d leapt across any acceptable boundary of propriety, but his behavior didn’t seem wrong. His feelings for her were convoluted and perplexing, and he couldn’t sort them out. Though he barely knew her and they hadn’t spoken more than a few words, he felt as if she belonged to him, and thus his conduct was permissible, an extension of what had gone before and what would come after.

He trailed up her bosom, to her chin, to her mouth. His lips teased hers, but she was trying not to react. He could perceive her confusion, her uncertainty as to whether she should participate. She desperately wanted to—he could sense her eagerness, her yearning—but she was conflicted over her lusty nature and resisting it with all her might.

“Kiss me back, Ellen.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

Ultimately, she relented, and cad that he was, he took full advantage. She tasted so sweet, so dear. He nibbled across her skin. It was moist and warm from her ablutions, and she smelled like soap and flowers. The invigorating aroma called to his primitive side, which was begging to have her for his own.

He clasped her buttocks, drawing her loins to his, his cock needing him to press, needing him to flex. Though mentally she didn’t comprehend what the gesture indicated, her body recognized what was required, and her hips responded, meeting his in a slow rhythm.

There was no predicting what might have transpired, but footsteps sounded in the hall, and they froze. He held her close, her face wedged to his chest, her pulse hammering with fear like a captured bird’s.

They listened, as the strides neared, then passed by and into the stairwell.

“It was merely a servant,” he whispered.

“And you think that makes it all right?”

They tarried a few seconds more, but the intimate spell was shattered, and the fiendishness of his actions swept over them like a poisonous cloud. He was chagrined, while she was shocked and appalled, and she lurched away to grab her robe from the end of the bed. With trembling hands, she jerked it on and tied the belt; then she went to the window and stared out at the stars. It was obvious she was hoping he’d leave without humiliating either of them further, but when he was around her he couldn’t behave rationally.

He walked up behind her and rested his palms on her shoulders.

“I won’t say I’m sorry,” he told her.

“I will then. Just go.”

“I can’t. Not yet.”

He played with her hair, sifting through the silky strands. It was the kind of hair a mermaid might have, or a magical siren who lured sailors to crash on the rocks, and after what had occurred with her he grasped how cheerfully those poor fellows had traveled to their dooms.

He felt as if he were on a ship at sea, that the rudder had broken and he was careening toward a perilous shore.

“What’s happening to us?” she queried.

“We’re attracted to one another, in an extreme manner that’s impossible to fight.”

“But I don’t even like you, so how could that be?”

She chuckled miserably, and he did, too, and he snuggled himself to her backside.

“I want to visit you again,” he declared. “I want to come to you every night.”

“Absolutely not.”

“I have to know you this way.”

“You’re daft to ask it of me. I’d never agree.”

“I’m not asking.”

She shifted and peered up at him. “You’re ordering me to consent?”

“I guess I am.”

“You’d ravish me? Against my will?”

“Of course I would,” he boasted, not having the faintest idea from where such a falsehood had sprung. “It’s the type of man I am—which can’t be any surprise to you.”

She evaluated him, her keen assessment digging deep. He tried to look stern and sinister but failed, and she shook her head. “You shouldn’t lie to me. I can tell when you are.”

He bent down and kissed her, once more. For an instant, she allowed the advance and reveled with him, but sanity swiftly returned, and she yanked away.

“Where are you from, Ellen?”

“Nowhere.”

He laughed. “Everyone’s from somewhere.”

“Not me.”

“Where is your family located?”

“I have no family. That’s why I work for Lydia. I must support myself.”

It was a sad confession that tugged at his conscience, that made him want to voice offers he wasn’t
prepared to tender. “Then who is to prevent you from dallying with me?”

“
I
am the one. It’s wrong.”

“According to whom?”

“You mean besides God?”

He grinned, sinful but not repentant. “Yes, besides Him.”

“It would hurt Rebecca—if she learned of it.”

“Rebecca would never know,” he arrogantly contended.

“You can’t promise that with any conviction. Secrets have an annoying habit of leaking out.”

“But you’re almost finished at your position with her.” As they chatted, he was caressing her, smoothing his hands over her stomach, her thighs, her breasts, to vividly remind her of how wonderful they were together. “You’ll move on to another job. I understand you feel a loyalty to her—”

“As you clearly don’t!”

Declining to be goaded into a discussion of his faults, he disregarded the taunt. “—so how can it matter?”

“It matters to me.” She whirled around, a fist clutched over her heart. “I don’t have much left that’s my own, but I have my integrity and my scruples. She’s been a friend to me—when no one else has been in a very long while. If I betrayed her, I couldn’t live with myself.”

He was curious as to what had wreaked such disaster in her short life, but he was too conceited to inquire, too set on seduction to care. “What’s between us, it’s unique and exceptional. A person could search for all of eternity but never stumble on such bliss. You’re crazy to deny yourself.”

“Then call me mad, for I will never yield to ardor. I’m not that sort of woman.”

“You’re
exactly
that sort of woman.”

“Talking to you is like talking to the furniture.” She pointed to the door. “Why don’t you go?”

He thought about refusing, about staying and tempting her to mischief again, which he was sure he could do without much effort. She was so vibrant, so impatient for what he could bestow. It would be simple to entice her, but she was confused by her physical desires, by her willingness to take part in carnal games.

He wanted her aroused and pining away. She wasn’t aware of how unrequited passion could smolder, how it could gnaw away at one’s best intentions, but she was about to find out. At their next rendezvous—which would be soon—she’d be much more disposed.

“I’ll be here tomorrow night,” he advised. “At midnight. Be ready to welcome me.”

“No!”

“I’m not giving you a choice.”

“I’ll lock my door. I won’t let you in.”

“I have a key,” he warned. “I’ll use it.”

He strolled out, and as he stepped into the quiet corridor she muttered a very unladylike epithet and hurled an object after him. It banged the wall and fell with a muted thump.

He smiled, tickled to note that she was in a disturbed state, and he had to admit that he was in no better condition. He was hard and aching, and he burned with a strange yearning as he speculated on how he’d manage until he could be with her, once again.

He couldn’t wait, and just from contemplating their
pending meeting a burst of gladness raced over him. For ages, his world had been so dreary, so uneventful; then she’d barged in and changed everything. She made him happy, made him anxious to proceed. It was a novel sensation, a type of joy mixed with lust, and he couldn’t remember ever feeling quite so peculiar.

Excited and eager, he took the stairs two at a time.

  6  

“You’re dressed like a bloody duke. What are your plans for the evening?”

“I’m off to con a lady.”

“Out of what?”

James chuckled and peeked out the carriage window as it rumbled to a stop in front of a grand mansion. The windows were open and aglow with the flickering of thousands of candles, and the sounds of an expensive orchestra wafted out on the night air.

“Out of her drawers,” he answered, “and her money, and whatever else I can convince her to give me.”

“Lucky boy,” his partner, Willie Westmoreland, replied. He glanced out, too, taking special note of the bejeweled women who were parading into the house. “Have you need of any help?”

“The idea is to be inconspicuous,” James remarked, “so no thank you.”

There was nothing ordinary about Willie. Not his height, not his looks, not his bearing. Though he’d been born a bastard, he claimed that his father actually was a
duke—so perhaps Willie knew how they dressed—but if he had exalted bloodlines, they hadn’t been of much benefit when he was transported with James. He’d been a common criminal and treated just as brutally.

They’d suffered indignities no man could describe, had endured humiliations no man could forget or forgive, and it had forged a bond between them that could never be broken.

James hopped out, grinning as he went. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Have you an invitation to this affair?”

“What are you? My social secretary?”

“They won’t let you in without one. The rich are fussy that way.”

“Don’t worry. There isn’t a building in London that can keep me out.”

“No, there isn’t. You had a good teacher.”

“Yes, I did,” James responded, Willie being that teacher.

James ambled into the crowd, then continued down the walk. In a few seconds, he was over the hedge and strolling in the rear garden. A few seconds more, and he was in the ballroom, sipping on champagne and nibbling on a pastry.

He had the clothes to masquerade as a member of the Quality, had received a suitable education and upbringing, and the old habits quickly returned. His father had scrimped and sacrificed to send him to schools they couldn’t afford, so James understood these people, how they acted, how they talked. He’d hobnobbed with their sons, had played with them at their summer homes in Surrey.

The guests wouldn’t speculate over him, and if he
stumbled upon any prior associates, he wouldn’t fret about detection. They’d never recognize him. He was too changed.

When he initially observed Rebecca Burton, she was dancing, though he couldn’t locate Ellen, and he was glad. The less Ellen knew of his scheme, the better.

He watched from a corner, tracking Burton’s every move. By being engaged, she had too much liberty, which was convenient. He’d be able to approach her without being questioned, and she’d be free to exit without others noticing.

He thought about signing her dance card—when he was an adolescent, dancing had been his favorite amusement—but after much deliberation, he decided he couldn’t. As a newcomer, he’d be too visible. Plus, his ruined ankle couldn’t take the strain.