Her Wicked Proposal: The League of Rogues, Book 3 (4 page)

“Yes.” Her voice was a little broken. She felt her eyes welling with tears. He’d remembered her gray eyes and the odd way they reflected colors. For some reason that alone put her on the verge of crying.

“Shall I put it on for you?” Cedric offered.

“Please.” She put her hand on top of one of his and he took it, his thumb stroking the length of each of her fingers, as though counting them before he reached her ring finger. Then he plucked the ring from the velvet box and slid it on her finger. It fit perfectly, she noted with a shy happiness.

“I…” Cedric shrugged off his words and Anne had the feeling he wanted to say something more, but they were not friends, not lovers and not married. They were mere acquaintances, which felt enough like strangers for all intents and purposes, and she supposed he didn’t feel comfortable speaking freely with her yet.

“Thank you for the ring, my lord.”

“Anne, we’re about to get married…please call me Cedric.” The plaintive note in his voice made her agree.

She tried the name aloud. “Cedric.” She’d said it often enough around Emily but never in Cedric’s presence. She liked the sound of it almost as much as she liked the sound of her own name on his lips. It brought unbidden desires to her mind. Would he whisper her name hoarsely in the darkness as he came to claim her? Would he roar it like a lion? After her only experience of intimacy with a man, she’d been hurt and frightened, but now she was intrigued and excited. She was physically responding to the mere thought of Cedric bedding her.

Cedric seemed to reconsider his silence and opened his mouth to speak when a footman at the parlor door interrupted him.

“There’s an invitation for you, madam, and I have a message for Lord Sheridan from Lord Lennox. He regrets that he must take the carriage and see to a personal matter immediately.”

“He what?” The look of panic on Cedric’s face was startling. Anne realized the dread he must have felt at being forced to travel the city alone. It must be dangerous too.

“Thank you, John. I’ll take the message.” Anne quickly rose and took the offered note and the footman left.

“Is everything all right?” Anne asked Cedric as he got to his feet. His eyes stared vaguely in the direction of the door, anxiety plain on his face.

“He left me…” Cedric’s voice, although a low masculine timbre, still held the frightened waver of a little boy.

Anne’s chest tightened at the sight of him, the mighty rake fallen so low. Rather than revel in Cedric’s plight as she might have once, she felt only compassion. He’d agreed to rescue her from her situation, and it was only fair that she do the same for him. But she would have to do it in a manner that was less obvious. Anne knew enough about men to know that they hated being taken care of like children.

“If Lord Lennox does not return with your coach in a few hours, I would be most appreciative if you would accompany me in mine to the St. Laurent house for dinner. It would be most convenient. I don’t wish to trouble my lady’s maid to accompany me just for the brief duration of a carriage ride.”

Cedric looked calmer, her suggestion working wonders on his anxiety. His shoulders, which had been bunched up tight, dropped back down and he took a deep breath.

“I would be delighted, but as you can see…I am not in my evening clothes. I need to return to my house to change.”

“I do not take long to prepare. I could be ready in an hour, and we could take my carriage to your house before we continue.” Anne prayed he could hear the hope in her tone.

“That would be…acceptable,” he answered after a moment.

“I appreciate that you can offer me an escort. Now would you care to wait here in the parlor while I go and get dressed for this evening?”

“Is that the proper thing? I must confess I’m dreadful at following the rules of propriety. I would much rather stand in your bedchamber listening to the sounds of silk rustling against your skin as you slip the gown on…but I am certain that you would not allow that.” Cedric chuckled. “You might think I’ve faked my blindness these past few months just for that opportunity.” His sensual lips were parted for his laughter, and Anne could feel herself blushing madly. Thank goodness he couldn’t see her face.

“I’ve struck my fair lady speechless!” he teased as Anne scowled at him. His lady? Not yet. Lucky for him he could not see her, otherwise he would have realized he was in trouble.

“Are you always going to be so…” Anne trailed off, lacking a word that could encompass his behavior.

“Wicked?” he suggested with a cocky grin.

“Yes,” Anne replied as she started to walk past him. Cedric’s hand reached out and bumped her forearm before his hand anchored itself to her wrist.

“What are you doing?” Anne demanded as he reeled her into his embrace.

“I thought it was customary to seal an engagement with a kiss.”

Anne’s body flared treacherously to life at his words, but she resisted.

“You kissed me yesterday. Besides, kissing is only for the wedding,” Anne argued, jerking against the steely muscled arms that locked around her waist, securing her against him.

“Only the wedding? I don’t know who instructed you in the ways of desire, but they were either a fool or an idiot,” Cedric said in a husky voice.

Anne stared up at his brown eyes focused distantly on her face, as though he knew instinctively how tall she was. He shifted one of his hands from her waist and let it slide up along the black crepe gown she wore. The heel of his palm brushed the side of her left breast and she shivered.

Cedric’s eyes narrowed as he repeated the motion, moving his palm a few inches inward, stroking the crepe fabric only few inches away from the tip of her breast. To her mortified fascination her nipples hardened, as though desperate for his touch. Anne tried to pull away, but Cedric’s intense look held her in place as his hand resumed its original path up her side and along her shoulder. His fingertips ran a slow line up her throat and along the line of her jaw to reach her chin.

Anne felt as though she was an uncharted foreign land. Cedric’s fingertips were memorizing the contours of her country for his own private map. When he discovered her lips he traced them, and then parted them with the pad of his thumb. Anne reacted without thinking and nipped him with her teeth.

“Bite me anywhere, anytime, my little hellion,” he purred as his head descended toward hers.

Anne was only too aware that she was imprisoned by the strength of his arms. She was no tiny, delicate creature. Anne had a full figure with muscles and curves she’d often despised, but she’d never before taken for granted her natural strength. Being unable to escape Cedric was both infuriating and strangely arousing. He would never force her to his bed, he’d said, but it was obvious he wasn’t about to sit idly by and wait for her to come to him. He took her by surprise and established his dominance over her like a stud stallion with a broodmare. She knew he would not stop until he’d mated his body to hers. The dark turn of her thoughts was obliterated by the meeting of their mouths.

Cedric tasted her gently for the first few seconds, as though learning the shape of her mouth, before he let loose his rough passion. He dug a hand into her hair, fisting his fingers in her coiffure, and tugged, forcing her head to fall back and leave her mouth and neck at his mercy.

Anne’s hands were trapped at her sides, clenched into fists, then unclenched as Cedric’s mouth sucked on her earlobe, then moved to the sensitive skin just beneath it. She fought off a shiver as tingles shot down the length of her spine as his lips moved in slow, hot kisses.

“Melt for me, love,” he encouraged between breaths. Anne felt the instinctive need to obey, but her mind threw up a red flag in warning.

“Can’t.” Her voice was breathless as she fought the pleasure she could feel rising deep inside her.

“Yes, you can…be wicked with me, Anne.”

Cedric’s hands in her hair loosened and cupped her neck, holding her still so his mouth could wander back to hers.

“Open your mouth,” he commanded before slanting his mouth over hers again. She refused to open, and he slid his fingers around her left breast and pinched her nipple sharply. The sensation shot a fierce desire straight to her womb. She gasped. Cedric swallowed the sound of her shock with a deep growl of satisfaction as his tongue invaded her newly opened lips.

Anne jerked in his grasp, but he refused to surrender his control of her. He kneaded her breast, cupping it, shaping it with his strong hand. Anne’s knees buckled rebelliously.

Cedric released her as abruptly as he’d captured her. “I will tame you yet.”

Anne pulled away, putting several feet of distance between them. Once they were married she would have to be careful; she couldn’t allow him to paw at her and control her with her own passions. She’d vowed to come to his bed willingly, but now she feared she’d been too brave to assume she could manage it without losing herself. When Cedric kissed her it seemed to undo her from the inside out. When his lips meshed with hers she felt time rewind itself to that first night she’d seen him.

She’d been so young and foolish then, ready for love and marriage and a sweet life. Anne shook her head to clear it of sad memories and noticed Cedric flash her a mocking smile full of satisfaction.

“No doubt when we marry you think to take up the habit of hiding from me, Anne, but know this—I may be blind, but my other senses leave me quite capable of finding you. Each move you make I’ll hear the rustle of your skirt, or catch the lingering scent of your perfume. I will make you mine all the more fiercely. Now go and change for dinner before I decide to scandalize you and follow you to your chambers.”

Anne needed no second warning. She was out of the parlor and rushing up to her room in seconds, but she couldn’t escape the echo of his laughter. They’d fought a battle of wills, and she only realized now that she had lost. Cedric was far more cunning than she’d assumed. He was not outwardly a scholarly type or a businessman, but he had a wealth of carnal knowledge that had put her at a disadvantage today.

I must always be on guard,
she told herself.

As Anne dressed in the sanctuary of her bedchamber, she selected a gown of russet brown that had golden embroidery on the puffed sleeves and hem. It was a gown more suited to autumn with its hues more pumpkin than like flowers, which fashion dictated during the spring. She knew she should have stayed in her mourning blacks, but the thought of a lovely evening wasted in that awful black crepe was an unpleasant one.

Her father wouldn’t have wanted her to wear black for long; he’d never approved of the conventions of mourning.

Grief attends to itself in its own time, in its own way,
her father had often said
. It neither expects nor desires formality
. The dinner at the St. Laurent townhouse was private in nature, and Anne felt confident that Emily would not demand she wear black.

After Anne dressed she called in her lady’s maid, Imogene, who looked briefly startled at Anne’s choice of gown, but knew better than to comment on it.

“What would you like for me to do with your hair?” Imogene asked as she eyed the tangled mess of Anne’s coiffure. Anne blushed.

“Something loose perhaps?”

“That would be wise. Since I foresee much mussing in your future.” Imogene winked. The pair, close in age, had been as close as servant and mistress could be for the last four years. Imogene teased her mercilessly whenever she thought she could get away with it.

“Is it that obvious?” Anne asked sullenly.

“That your fiancé sees through that wall of manners you put up? Yes. The staff are most excited about your upcoming nuptials, if I may be so bold to say.” Imogene smoothed a hand over her dark hair that was pulled back in a subdued but still fashionable knot before she set to work on Anne’s hair.

“Bold, yes, but please continue. What do they say? About my decision.” Anne was very close to her staff here; she’d known all of them since she was a child. And she was concerned that her haste in marriage might damage their opinion of her.

Imogene began pulling pins out of Anne’s hair and started brushing it with a silver-backed comb. “Well, we know you’re supposed to wait and all, but most of us have seen those vultures circling around the house, and none of us blame you one bit for speeding things up. You couldn’t have chosen a better man. We ladies like the viscount. He’s most appealing to the eye, with a fine pair of legs on him and a smile to melt butter…”

Imogene sighed dreamily, clearly performing for her benefit. Anne bit her lip to keep from laughing.

“And the young lads admire him for reasons I’d not like to say in front of your ladyship. The older men here recognize his influence and wealth. Your father could not have hoped for a better match, God rest his soul. The viscount will do well by you, treat you like the lady you are.”

Imogene’s hands worked their magic, twisting and twining until Anne’s hair was gathered at the back to keep it out of her face, but the light brown waves still made a lovely fall of bright rich color loose enough that Cedric could still thread his fingers through it without ruining the pins holding her hair up.

“Thank you, Imogene, it’s lovely as always.” Anne patted Imogene’s hand, which rested lightly on her right shoulder.

Imogene giggled. “Are you ready? I’m sure your young buck is eager to make off with you.”

Anne laughed, despite the furious blush Imogene’s words brought forth. “Imogene, I swear!”

* * * * *

Cedric cocked his head while he waited in the parlor, listening to the sound of Anne’s laughter. It was light yet slightly husky, a laugh better heard in bed after her lover had pleasured her until she was limp and sated.

Cedric smiled.
Soon I will be that man
. The kiss he’d given her today had been unplanned, but no less satisfying. She shouldn’t have bitten him. For some reason that had made him as hard as a marble statue, and it had taken all his strength to keep from throwing her onto the settee and showing her how much he liked to bite back. She wouldn’t have fought him for very long, but she was still too resistant to him. She would have used his actions to paint him the villain.