Dangerous to Kiss (28 page)

This came from Meg, of course. The girl was jealous. Deborah tried to brush it off as a triviality. “Yes, I know him. Well, one meets so many young gentlemen when one is out riding. Stephen is very knowledgeable about horses.”

“Stephen?”

She saw her blunder and tried to correct it. “That’s what I heard Meg call him.” Her eyes were as clear as crystal.

He pondered that look that was just a shade too innocent for his liking, and in an instant the tiny seed of doubt Meg had planted in his mind began to grow. He spoke harshly. “I’ll not see you take up with someone like Leathe. You had better make up your mind to it. He is a wastrel. If you knew his family’s history, you would not encourage him.”

She’d already heard about Leathe and his notorious family from Nick and the others before they had started for home. She had listened in silence as they poured contempt not only on her brother but on the whole tribe of Montagues. It had hurt her, but not half as much as this.

The heedless words spilled over as though a dam had burst. It was more than his contempt for her family. The jealousy she had diligently suppressed since his mother’s scandalous revelations found an opening and erupted in full spate. “You’re a fine one to talk! What makes you think you are better than he is? Has he abducted innocent young women and tried your filthy tricks on them? And who gave you the right to judge what is best for me? You are not my guardian. If I wish to take up with Viscount Leathe, or … or take a lover, or whatever, it has nothing to do with you, just as your lovers have nothing to do with me.”

She knew he could move fast when the occasion demanded it, but she was taken by surprise when he reached out, seized her by the shoulders, and dragged her to kneel like some suppliant at his feet. His fingers were like iron talons in her soft flesh, but she was too stunned to protest.

“How much do you think I will take from you?” His voice was deep and rough. His breathing was ragged.
“Stay away from Leathe, or by God, you’ll have a lover, but that lover will be me, whether you want me or not.”

She slapped him before she knew she was going to, before she had time to think through the wisdom of such an act. His eyes leapt with answering fire, then his head lowered to hers and she could feel the brush of his breath against her skin. Fear rose in her throat and she began to tremble.

“Deborah,” he said softly, “when will you learn it’s not wise to provoke me?” And he brought his message home with the kiss he forced on her.

Frustrated passion and naked jealousy poured out of him as his lips took hers. His mouth was hot and hard, and his arms wrapped around her in savage possession. He was glad that she had given him this excuse to release the rage that boiled inside him, glad that he could prove to her he was not the gelding she seemed to think him. For weeks past she had ignored him as though he were nothing, reserving her soft words and flirtatious smiles for a set of fribbles who fluttered attendance on her. It didn’t matter that those fribbles had come to his house at his invitation. He was a man, more of a man than she had ever known, and he would be damned if he would let her forget it. In one wrenching movement, he lifted her to lie across his lap.

The kiss was a mistake. He knew it as soon as he felt her lips begin to soften beneath his, felt the arms that restrained him begin to draw him closer. Because he was ravenous for the touch and taste of her, he was caught in his own trap. He didn’t want to let her go, not when he knew she was his for the taking. For one moment more, he struggled to hold on to his scruples, but he knew it was hopeless. Already he was giving himself permission, promising himself that afterward he would make everything right.

He unbuttoned the back of her frock and pulled it down, then her chemise, baring her breasts. His thumb rubbed her nipple into a tight peak and he felt her body clench in pleasure. He drank her small whimpers of arousal like a castaway dying for lack of fresh water. It was happening again. He had hardly touched her and he
was desperate to get at her, desperate to pin her beneath him and bury himself inside her. It had never been like this with another woman. He shifted her in his arms, giving him freer access to her body. As his mouth closed over one hard nipple, one hand slipped beneath her skirts, and began a slow sweep from her ankle to her thigh.

Deborah’s thoughts were not unlike Gray’s. It was happening again. He had only to touch her and she became like potter’s clay in his hands. He could do with her whatever he wanted, make her whatever he wished. He was powerful, virile and demanding, and reckless with it. She should be terrified. She reveled in it.

She wanted, desperately wanted to hold on to him. It could never be. He hated the name Montague, her name. But it was more than that. One day soon, she would have to leave his house and sink into obscurity. She had thought of little else since arriving in London. Everything was changing. There was no place for her with Quentin or with Gray. She didn’t know what the future might hold, except grief and pain and a longing for what she had lost. She should live for the moment, take what she could before there was nothing left to take. Memories, that’s all that would be left to her. She tugged on his hair, bringing his head up for her kiss.

He tasted her tears on his tongue, and he pulled back to look down at her. He read reproach in the eyes that stared back at him.

“Gray?” She didn’t know why he had stopped.

“Don’t say a word.” His eyes stayed on hers for a long time. He knew that he could have her, but he didn’t want a reluctant lover. Swearing, he rose and pushed her into the chair.

He waited until he had control of his breathing, then said, “I mean what I say. Stay away from Leathe. If you encourage him, then I shall know you are any man’s for the taking. Then nothing will save you from me, Deborah. Nothing.”

And with that infuriating insult, he turned and left
her. Hurt and shock held her speechless as he shut the door on his way out. Fearing she would weep, she fell back on pride, and she bared her teeth at the empty room and thought of a dozen insults she could have flung at him, each one more cutting than the last.

Deborah’s attempts to arrange a meeting with her brother were frustrated at every turn. In the three days before they left for Channings, she was guarded zealously, and not only by grooms and footmen. If she went riding, Gray was sure to go with her. The same applied when she went shopping, or to the circulating library to change her books. Occasionally, she caught a glimpse of Leathe on his huge black stallion, but if he saw her, he gave no sign of it, and she was thankful for his prudence. It seemed that he was as aware as she of Gray’s watchful eye. When, however, she heard that Gray was to accompany them to Channings and stay with them for the duration, she broke the rule she had imposed on herself since the night he had almost made love to her. She spoke to him first.

“I thought,” she said, “there was a war going on.”

They were in Hatchard’s book shop, perusing the latest titles. Anyone seeing them would have taken them for strangers. It was only when they were in company that they unbent a little and made a pretense of being civil to each other. But since they were alone on this occasion, they had reverted to long, speaking silences and chilling stares.

“Meaning?” said Gray.

“Shouldn’t you be at the Foreign Office, doing whatever you people do?”

Not once did they look at each other. The books on the shelves absorbed all their attention.

“Contrary to what you may have read in the newspapers, Deborah, we are not yet ready to meet the French, nor are they ready to meet us. When that day approaches, you will be the first to know.”

“That’s not what Lord Denning says.”

“What does Denning say?”

“He says that the reason the war has been shelved is because it’s the hunting season. Parliament is in recess. The War Office, the Admiralty, the Foreign Office—they’ve all ground to a halt because English gentlemen would rather ride to hounds than anything.”

There was something in what she said, as Gray would have been the first to admit if he had not been sulking. This had nothing to do with Leathe. When he had calmed down and thought about it, he saw that Deborah had been doing her best to protect Meg. Deborah was so straitlaced she would never take up with someone like Leathe. It was the viscount’s motives he distrusted. He had been hovering around, like a hound on the scent, and Gray was determined to keep him at bay. No. What got his goat was that Deborah was punishing him for daring to lay his hands on her. She had liked what he had done to her, but she would never admit it.

“Lord Denning,” he declared, “is a blockhead, as anyone with an iota of intelligence would know within two minutes of meeting the man.”

Eyes flashed, locked together, and glared.

“Are you saying I lack intelligence?” demanded Deborah. It never occurred to her to defend Lord Denning.

Gray brought his nose so close to hers that she could see flecks of gold scattered on the rings of his irises. “If the cap fits, wear it,” he said.

With that, Deborah snapped the covers of her book together, turned on her heel, and stalked out of the shop. With a face like granite, Gray went after her and sailed straight into the path of a boy selling toffee apples
from his barrow. The barrow tipped, the apples went flying, and the irate boy was not appeased until Gray had tossed him a golden guinea for his losses. Deborah said nothing on the way home. Clutched in her hand was a note the boy’s companion had pressed on her during the confusion.

In the privacy of her bedchamber, she smoothed out the one-page epistle. It was from her brother, informing her that he knew of the projected trip to Channings, and that if she could slip away she would find him at the White Swan in Dartford, where he had reserved rooms for the following week. His rooms were right above the front portico and she could not miss them.

Channings was within walking distance of the village of Dartford.

Their welcome at Channings was exactly as Deborah expected. Before they had alighted from the carriage, Hart came out the front doors and pounced on them, kissing and hugging for the ladies, and back-slapping for Gray, and just when she was getting over it, Quentin and Jason came tearing around the corner of the house and launched themselves at the new arrivals.

Quentin was almost unrecognizable, and the same could have been said of Jason. Their breeches were out at the knees, and their jackets were spotted and stained. Their faces and hands matched their garments. Deborah stared at them hard, then something inside her seemed to dissolve, and she joined in the general laughter.

“We’ve been cleaning out the stables,” said Quentin. “Mr. Perch said we might.”

Hart elaborated. “Mr. Perch is my head groom. There is nothing he doesn’t know about horses and he has promised to teach the boys, as long as they are willing to pull their weight.”

“And we all know what that means,” said Gray, and there was more laughter.

She was righting her bonnet, talking and laughing on the same breath, when her eye was caught by Gray’s.
The coldness was gone, and the smile in his eyes was warm and intimate. She felt herself responding to that look, then her attention was diverted by a young man whom she had overlooked in the confusion of their welcome.

Gray made the introductions. Mr. Jervis was Quentin’s “tutor.” He seemed a pleasant enough young man who reminded Deborah of Gray’s secretary, Philip Standish. But Mr. Jervis possessed one proficiency that Mr. Standish did not. As Gray had put it, he was a good man to have in a fight.

“No,” said Gray, in answer to something Hart had asked him. “Nick will not be joining us. He is visiting friends in Hampshire.”

“Skirt-chasing, I don’t doubt,” said the dowager to Gussie in a stage whisper.

Quentin was hopping from foot to foot. There was something he was bursting to share with Deborah. “Deb, Charlie’s had pups. Would you like to see them? They’re in the stables, tiny little things with black spots on them. Or is it white spots? I can never remember. She is ever so good about letting strangers pet them.”

“Charlie?” said Deborah dubiously.

“Charlotte, our dalmatian,” said Jason.

“I can’t resist puppies,” said Deborah. “Give me half an hour and I’ll meet you there.”

The boys ran off, dragging Mr. Jervis with them. Deborah was thoughtful as she watched them go. She could see with her own eyes that Quentin was in the best of hands. The Graysons were good for him and good to him. Gray had been right about a lot of things. Then why did she feel like weeping?

Her gaze strayed involuntarily to Meg. Though the others wouldn’t notice it, Meg had withdrawn from her. The girl was confused and hurt, and Deborah did not know how to put things right. She could not tell her the truth. Besides, Gray would never allow Meg to marry Stephen. The sooner the girl got over him the better.

“Why so pensive?”

She jumped at Gray’s softly intoned question. The others were entering the house and she started after
them. “I like your family,” she said. “I like them a lot. It’s a pity that—”