DD-Michaels-END.rtf (14 page)

He lightly rubbed one hand up and
down the smooth curve of her back. "And damn me if I'm not proud to hear you say that," he said, then gently pushed her away from him, looked down at her, smiled. "We're going to have to keep your face hidden as we pass Harold out there if we're not to corrupt the lad."

"Why?" Morgan asked, smoothing his neck cloth with her fingers, just to be touching him. She needed to keep touching him. She would never tire of touching him.

"Because, sweetings, you look well and truly kissed
,
" Ethan told her, running a fingertip over her adorably pink and slightly swollen lower lip, "and only a blind man wouldn't notice, or know what we've been doing."

"Oh, God, really?" Morgan broke away, her hand to her mouth now as she walked across the stall, then turned to look at him. "Chance isn't blind."

"Neither, I suspect, is his dear wife." Ethan retrieved Morgan's gloves and bonnet, picking bits of straw from the latter before approaching her and carefully placing the bonnet on her head. "That's unfortunate. The brim is too short, and really doesn't conceal anything."

Morgan giggled, feeling very much like the naughty child she'd been, but now naughty for quite a new reason. A rather delicious reason. She threaded her arms up and around his neck once more. "You know. Ethan, as long as the damage has already been don
e
..."

"Imp," he said, and pulled her close for yet another kiss. His mind might have been running ahead of him, composing exactly what he'd say to Chance Becket, but the words fled as a different hunger overtook him. Not to have her, which he most certainly wanted, but just to hold her, to kiss her. To never, never ever, let her go.

They stopped, kissed, several more times as they slowly made their way through the dim length of the stables, Ethan pulling her close one last time just as there was a mighty boom of thunder that seemed to shake the ground beneath their feet.

Morgan went up on tiptoe for yet another kiss. She'd been near tears, which was immensely silly, but just the thought of going back to Upper Brook Street, being without Ethan even for a moment, threatened to tear a hole in her heart.

It was madness. Needing someone so much, someone she hadn't until yesterday known existed. That one someone who made her complete, when she'd never known she'd been incomplete.

"Listen. It's raining," Ethan said, then kissed the tip of her nose as a wild inspiration struck him. "In fact, it's pouring. A wonderful, beautiful, drenching downpour. The weather gods are smiling on us, Morgan, if you're willing."

She frowned, looking out at the cobblestone alleyway, where rain was coming down so straight and so hard that it seemed to bounce a good foot into the air after it hit. "Harold's putting up the hood, but I'm sure the seat is already thoroughly wet. The weather gods smile when they get us wet?"

"They do if they're trying to help us. Morgan, how do you feel about arriving back in Upper Brook Street looking as if you'd been dunked in the Thames?"

"What? And why are you grinning like that?"

"It's simple. The rain came suddenly, without warning. I made a valiant attempt to raise the hood, but the damn thing's broken, so that we had to make a
dash for Upper Brook Street, entirely unprotected. Why, with the crush of other vehicles racing for cover, by the time we reached your brother's residence, we were both soaked to the skin."

"And I'd, of course, race inside and straight up the stairs, calling for a hot bat
h
—
a
nd unseen by either Chance or Juli
a
—
w
hile you, also quite naturally, have no choice but to come back here for a tub and change of clothes for yourself, as well." Morgan grinned in turn, delighting in the plan. "By the time we're both again presentable, my mouth will not look so..
.
kissed. You're right, Ethan. The weather gods are smiling on
u
s."

"Only if you promise you won't melt away in the rain, or mind ruining your gown," Ethan reminded her, taking her hand.

"I love the rain, love how it feels when I walk in it," she assured him. "As for this gown? I have others. More than I'll ever need." She squeezed his hand. "Are you ready?"

"In a moment." He kissed her again. God, would he ever have enough of kissing her? Then he headed out into the downpour, calling to his groom. "Harold, don't bother. The hood is broken."

Harold scrubbed at his face in an attempt to rid it of rain, and said, "Oh, no, milord. It works just fine."

Ethan held up two gold coins. "I say it's broken."

Harold grinned, showing a large gap between his top front teeth. "And it's truly sorry I am, milord, that
it
is. Couldn't get that there hood up iffen yer was to put a barkin' iron to me head."

"Definitely destined for great things," Ethan said, tossing the coins to the groom, then grinning himself as Morgan came running out into the rain.

She laughed as she held up her skirts, which instantly became drenched, and Ethan helped her onto the wet seat, vaulting up after her, his curly brimmed beaver at a jaunty tilt on his head.

He took the reins, blinking water out of his eyes. It was as if all the rain in the world had concentrated itself over Mayfair and was determined to fall in one huge torrent, even as the sun remained visible, high in the sky.

Morgan turned her face up to the flood, then pointed into the distance. "Look, a rainbow! Isn't it magnificent?'

Her straw bonnet had already given up the fight against the elements, and the brim now drooped over her face. Her thick black lashes were spiky around her laughing gray eyes, which shone with her delight. She was the most splendid, most
alive
person he'd ever met, even when soaking wet. Because she didn't care how she looked, not if she was enjoying herself.

"You're
magnificent
,
" he
told
her, meaning every word.

She playfully wiped at the rain dripping off his nose. "And you're very wet. One more kiss. Please? I want to taste the rain on you."

Ethan's gut tightened. He'd think he was being bewitched, but he doubted that. Or, if he was, he was a willing victim. "We'll corrupt Harold."

"Poor Harold," Morgan said, then pressed her smili
n
g lips to Ethan's as the matched pair stepped forward smartly, in perfect precision, their hooves sending up sprays of rainwater, the droplets catching the sunlight and forming small, dancing rainbows ahead of the curricle
......
and the couple oblivious to all of
it.

CHAPTER NINE

Chance refilled his glass at the drinks table, then rejoined his wife on the couch, lowering himself onto the cushions with a display of complete exhaustion. He felt like an old, a very old, man.

The earl had made his excuses shortly after their delayed dinner, begging a previous engagement that could not be ignored, and Morgan had then immediately made a great business of widely yawning and complaining that her hair was still damp inside its thick coil, so she'd like nothing more than to go upstairs and brush it in front of the fire, then have an early night.

Leaving Chance and Julia Becket alone in the drawing room.

"That," he said, lifting her hand to place a kiss in her palm
,
"was the
most uncomfortable evening of my life."

Julia snuggled against her husband as she began untying his neck cloth. "Oh, it wasn't that terrible. The earl is very polite and entertaining."

"The earl, my dear, kept looking at my sister as if he was going to
pounce
on her at any moment."

"Before she could pounce on him. Yes, I saw that. I kept thinking it a good thing that the dining table separated them."

Chance sat up, dislodging his wife, who braced herself against the cushions and smiled at him in amusement. He pulled off his neck cloth, its length making the gesture more prolonged than impressive, then tossed it onto the table.

"And that business with the hood of his curricle? I can swallow that, if I have to, but explain to me why he didn't realize it was coming on to rain. Everyone else did, anyone with a brain. Anyone who was outside, actually
in
the park. And yet the pair of them showed up here looking like they'd been keelhauled."

Julia was no longer smiling. "Are you suggesting that Morgan and the earl were
not
in the park? Then where were they?"

Chance turned on the cushions to look at his wife. "I'm not sure either of us wants to know that. The question, Julia, is what in bloody hell are we going to do about it?"

Julia bit the side of her knuckle. "Tying her to the bedpost probably wouldn't work," she said, cudgeling her brain for an answer that actually might work. "I had foreseen problems having Morgan here with us, Chance, but nothing like this. And certainly not so soon."

"And not with Aylesford, definitely. It's as if she looked around her and found the one man I wouldn't choose for her. And then made a dead run at him."

Julia rubbed at her husband's back, feeling the tenseness in his muscles. "I know he's considerably older than Morgan, but that could be just what she needs. Someone steady. A..
.
a sobering influence."

Chance, his shoulders hunched, swiveled his head sideways to grin at his wife. "Are we speaking of the same Earl of Aylesford, darling? The one I'm speaking of is said to have walked up behind Beau Bru
m
mell and picked a bit of li
n
t off his jacket, then held it up to the man as he suggested Brummell might take more care with his toilette."

Julia's eyes went wide. "He didn't do that. Beau Brummell is the most fashionable man in England. Everyone knows it."

"And the most fastidious, not to mention powerful, with the Prince Regent as his friend. Aylesford was deliberately tweaking Brummell, who, I'm also told, chose to laugh as if amuse
d
—
p
robably because he's deep in debt again, and Aylesford undoubtedly holds a few of his gaming markers."

"Gaming markers or not, Brummell could have chosen to cut him, and the earl would have been socially destroyed. Wouldn't he?"

"Yes. Maybe. Nobody understands Aylesford. It's as if he courts disaster, daring society to turn its back on his titl
e
—
a
nd his considerable fortune. I wouldn't say he's a bad man, a
mean
man. I think he simply enjoys his outrageous reputation, enjoys proving the gossips right. I'm fairly certain he delights in pointing out that society, in general, is embarrassingly shallow, as it takes all he can dish out to them. Not that I understand why Brummell or any man would want to spend half his life dressing and undressing, and the rest of it posturing and preening."

Julia looked at her husband. His neck cloth was gone, the collar of his shirt now open, his waistcoat undone. His darkly blond hair, which had been tied at his nape, was now missing its black grosgrain ribbon and fell forward, so she pushed a lock of it behind his ear as she leaned forward to kiss his cheek.

This was the man she loved, the man she'd married. The London gentleman was fine, and served a purpose, but the real Chance Becket was freer, wilder, more vitally male.

"No, darling. You don't understand that And yet I'd take you over a half-dozen Mr. Bru
m
mells."

He captured her hand and kissed her fingers, one by one, as he looked at her, and she felt the fire always simmering between them gaining strength. "You know, Julia, the more I think about it
,
the more I am beginning to believe you're right. Not about Aylesford being a sobering influence, because that, frankly, is insane, but about the rest of it. He might be exactly what Morgan needs."

"You don't mean that," Julia said, seeing the mischievous twinkle in her husband's eye
s
—
s
o like Alice's, when she was trying to wheedle another few minutes with her toys before bedtime. "What are you thinking?"

Chance leaned back against the cushions once more, suddenly relaxed, his worries gone. He put his arm up on the back of the couch, and Julia tucked herself in beside him. Their daughter upstairs, the two of them here, a second child growing inside his beloved wife... His entire world, all he needed, all he'd ever wanted, and so much more.

"I'm thinking, wife, that Morgan is going to have a very short Season. Perhaps a week."

Julia frowned. "That's all?"

"Let me finish. A week, yes, that's more than enough, if I'm any judge of what the earl believes he feels for my sister."

"He thinks he'
s
in love and that she's in love," Julia said rather sadly. "I can understand that from Morgan, but you'd think the earl would have more sense at his age. Love doesn't happen that quickly."

"No, but sometimes something else does," Chance said, "although the gentleman in me shouldn't remind you of our own beginnings."