Meet the Earl at Midnight (Midnight Meetings) (12 page)

“Is it a treasure map?” She gave all her attention to the map and clasped her hands on the table.

“Yes.” His hand flattened the square paper reverently. “The best kind.”

He took one book and used it as a paperweight on one curling edge, and smoothed his palm down the other. Glad to have the attention diverted from her blunder, Lydia stood a silent witness as his free hand grazed the page as one might stroke a beloved instrument.

“What you see here is my first effort as cartographer and botanist. The map represents my first and only scientific expedition to an uncharted island off Africa’s west coast. And this”—he tapped the
X
twice—“was my unusual find.” His bemused smile and faraway look morphed into something stony. “A treasure hard won by flesh and blood.”

Midday sunlight broke through the clouds. His skin made a dark contrast to his white shirt and the sudden brightness flooding the room. He eased the map from under the anchoring book.

“You say you want to learn more about me?” His lips twisted in a bitter, tight-lipped smile as he raised the parchment next to his scarred cheek. “Notice any similarities?”

She gasped, unable to drag her attention from his face. Lydia’s gaze levered from face to map, map to face, comparing the near-identical markings as stomach sickening horror set in. The map’s myriad lines and Lord Greenwich’s cheek shared the same awful pattern.

“Who would do such a thing?” she asked, though not expecting an answer. The question slipped out from shock.

What could one say to offer comfort? Words were trite and small compared to what he must have endured. Newfound admiration sprung as well. While all of England gossiped and guessed about his painful trials these past three years, Lord Edward soldiered on with tenacity. Lydia swallowed, searching his face, unable to voice even the plainest mumblings of comfort. He had half the visage and full vigor of a man in his prime years, but those glinting, topaz-brown eyes of his bored into her, reflecting a lifetime of—courage and depth? More of the unexpected revealed from this privileged nobleman.

Lord Greenwich sighed under her scrutiny and returned the map to the table, settling it with care.

“Barbary pirates attacked our ship. We were on a scientific expedition, and they thought to torture information out of me.” He tapped the yellowed paper with efficiency, but his voice was slow and rough. “They got hold of my map. So certain were they that it led to gold and silver…that I withheld information to protect my treasure. It didn’t help matters when they discovered I’d funded the expedition, and the treasure in question was plants.” His sardonic smile covered a flare of raw emotion. “Drunken, angry pirates make a bad combination.”

His brief explanation gave cursory facts, the telling was not denied her, but when Lydia searched his face for more, a wall slammed down around Lord Greenwich. A strange pressure moved up her chest and into her throat as the whole vast room fell away, disappearing. She would not lose that fragile connection with him. Lydia reached out to touch his arm, needful contact for a reassuring bond. But with his lordship’s rolled-up sleeve, her palm grazed his bare forearm.

Crisp, curling masculine hairs tickled her palm as her hand hovered over warm skin to finally settle, flesh to flesh. Tactile communication, a forward touch out of step with propriety, stilled him as much as it stirred her.

And she was alone with this man in his room. Again.

The earl’s dark gaze dropped to her slim hand resting on his arm.

A rush of schoolgirl awkwardness flooded her. She pulled her hand away. Cool air brushed her empty palm, but his clean smell became a welcome, heady scent. Lydia’s breathing notched up its effort to move air in and out, and thankfully, his lordship was equally affected. He crossed his arms, but his heavy-lidded gaze dropped to her mouth and lingered.

“I need to be clear: my room and my laboratory are forbidden territory. Keep out. I thought you understood this.” His commanding words held no bite, swimming as they both were in a sea of awareness.

Lydia tipped her head sideways, exposing a length of neck. The move was flirtatious, but worked. Her quarry gave his full attention to the column of her throat, half-hidden by unbound hair.

“Wouldn’t that make your plans for procreation a bit…
difficult
?” she asked, letting quiet, saucy challenge have its way. “If I’m not welcome in your room, that is.”

She was completely in the wrong here. The earl had every right to be incensed with her for this intrusive foray. She should take a more conciliatory tone, but something unsettled within her wouldn’t let things rest. Perhaps because she was a woman who knew very well the lustful underbelly that inhabited every man.

She clasped her hands behind her, giving in to the perverse wish to tempt the reclusive Lord Greenwich. Truth be told, she still chafed at his absurd one-month waiting period, but Lydia held her tongue from going further on that score. She wasn’t in very good standing, what with her history with men, her snooping in his room, and that dreadful error with his scotch.

Lord Greenwich looked her up and down, as if taking measure of an unusual creature.

His lips quirked. “A bold statement from a woman in a precarious situation. Pushing the limits of my benefaction?”

She couldn’t answer why she wished to needle him about the privacy of his room and laboratory. In that short stare down of nobleman versus hoyden, the tanned V of his shirt and the earl’s noticeable breathing rhythm mesmerized Lydia. He was just as affected by the riot of attraction that bounced between them. For that was most definitely what was going on, however unexpected.

Lydia shook her head. “I think not, my lord. You need me as much I need you.” With a triumphant tilt of her chin, she finished quiet-voiced, “And I’ve just realized we’re on equal footing.”

“A dangerous assumption.” His eyes narrowed, but his tone met hers, equal in velvet softness. “I’m not letting you off that easily. We must deal with your intrusion here.”

“What? Are you going to bend me over your knee?” She laughed at the absurdity.

His mouth pulled in a harsh line, and Lydia’s vulnerability hit her. She blinked at him, and her jaw dropped.

“You aren’t sending me packing, are you?”

Eight

Deal with the faults of others as gently as with your own.

—Chinese Proverb

How could he?

They stood close enough that her neck craned in her effort to maintain eye contact. But it was his lips, well formed and attractive, that snared her. A sculptor could have taken his chisel and smoothed the slight plane on his lordship’s lower lip, leaving the rest of that brooding mouth alone. Pure fanciful thinking.

The earl was unreadable, but this much was clear: the tables had turned in her favor for a short space of time. The whole interchange turned informative, exciting even. Oh, yes, more revealing clues about this enigmatic man unfurled like large petals on a blossom.

But control was a fleeting thing. Lord Greenwich neatly turned the tables back to the error of her ways, and Lydia faced another startling fact:
she
wanted
to
stay…at least for a while.

The corners of his mouth played at a smile that failed to light his eyes.

“Logic dictates that I can’t send you packing when your things haven’t arrived yet, now can I?” his lordship said, picking up the near-empty glass.

He walked to the liquor cabinet across the room. Much of his hair had worked free of his black velvet queue. Daylight hit a few guinea-gold strands in the dark blond, yet, the hair at the nape of his neck was dark velvet brown. What would his hair feel like? As Lord Greenwich set the glass inside the cabinet, he spoke over his shoulder.

“I came looking for you because I was less than gallant in the greenhouse. I wanted to make amends. And then I found you violating the sanctity of my room.” He shut the cabinet doors with a click and turned to face her with both hands at his hips. “An appalling lack of good manners, wouldn’t you agree? In fact, twice now, you’ve entered my room uninvited. Do you have a habitual disregard for others? Or is my charm growing on you and you find me irresistible?”

He had the audacity to give her that brigand’s grin. Was he toying with her?

“I can assure you, no to the former, and I’m not knowledgeable enough on the latter to say.” She cleared her throat, trying for seriousness. “Today’s behavior, my lord, is most unusual for me. I am
not
a snoop.” She emphasized the
not
with all the starch of a proper nursemaid.

“Words, Miss Montgomery, mere words. You’ve been full of assurances and light on action since I met you last night.” He crossed his arms over his chest. Pale sunlight filtered through clouds and touched him everywhere.

Not
toying…flirting?
At least his version of flirtation.

“I’m in your home, aren’t I? Awaiting your pleasure.” The prim fold of her hands knocked any salaciousness from her words.

“True.” He nodded. “But there is an axiom in science, a law of nature, if you will, that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I think that applies here…call it a consequence to one’s behavior.” Then his gaze flicked over her head to toe. His eyebrows pressed together as if something bothersome came to mind.

“Is something wrong, milord?”

“Come here.” He spoke with his lordly, commanding tone.

Warning bells went off in her head.

Lydia rooted to the spot. “I…what do you want?”

“For you to come here.” One side of his mouth slid up. “In fact, I’d find it refreshing if you did whatever I asked the first time I issued a command.”

“What?”

“Please,” he added, tipping his head in gentlemanly fashion.

His high and mighty lordliness had the upper hand, but he’d softened the advantage with that “please.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Why not come here and find out?” Eyes sparkling, he challenged her.

She gave in to the invisible pull, very much like a moth fluttering helplessly, perilously into a flame. Mesmerized, she held eye contact with him. Warm, swirling sensations built inside her body as she closed the distance to him. Lydia stopped a safe, respectable arm’s length from the earl, but the dangerous glint in his eye hypnotized.

What he did next astounded.

Lord Greenwich bent on one knee before her. He tipped his head and almost bumped her abdomen. His hands hovered close to her thighs. He put both hands on her skirt, grabbed the fabric—and gently pulled.

She looked down at her dress, horrified to see the faint outline of her thighs through her underskirt. The brief exposure was fleeting as Lord Greenwich lowered her dress skirt, a falling curtain to what was on display.

She moaned. Her skirt must have caught on her underskirt when she dried the map.

The earl knelt before her like a chivalrous knight of old and settled the hem around her ankles. His fingers skimmed the tops of her unshod feet as if testing the feel and shape of her. Heat grazed her, her lower body, her thighs and knees precisely where his hands had hovered, leaving a mark of warmth as he set her skirt to rights, shooting awareness everywhere.

“Your skirt was stuck above your knees,” he said, explaining the obvious with a mischievous glint. “I couldn’t let you go on with an unseemly display of undergarments.”

Oh, he was not bothered by her unseemly display of anything.

Parts of Lydia flushed hotly again as it dawned on her: they’d conversed with the cloth bunched and riding an indecent height, all while she was rather bold with him. Her underskirts hung the proper length, thank goodness, and covered her legs, though their silhouette was clearly visible.

Lydia shut her eyes and groaned again at the indignity. Lud, she could be a piece of work.

His lordship had pushed the edge of propriety, and well he knew it. What’s worse, her body had reacted—from his brigand’s smile or his hands on her skirt, she wasn’t sure. Lydia pressed a protective hand to her midsection.

“Thank you.” She stepped back, needing some distance.

Lord Greenwich stood up and towered over her, and on purpose, she was sure.

His thumb and forefinger tweaked her chin. “Don’t think you’re off the hook for this uninvited foray into my room. You need to atone for this grievous behavior, Miss Montgomery, and flashing your underskirts won’t suffice.” His eyes sparked with a dangerous, playful light. “Everything has its price.”

Her eyebrows shot up at his daring tone, and Lydia planted a hand at her hip. “Is this all some kind of game for you?”

“Game?” One side of his mouth, the scarred side, curved up. “If this is sport, then you’re the most diverting woman I’ve had the pleasure of sparring with in a very long time.”

Every nerve in her body shot to life again, sensitized, just when she’d calmed the riot inside her. Her quick inhale gave her away, telling him, she was sure, that he threw her off balance with his unusual compliment. Again. Lord Greenwich likely wasn’t the type to wax poetically about the gentler sex. A woman would have to make do with his brand of verbal surprise. His slow smile spread to the smooth, unscarred cheek with what she guessed was satisfaction at silencing her.

“I’ll give you ’til dinner to come up with three ways to make amends for coming in here uninvited.”

“What?” she asked, her eyes rounding. “You want some kind of atonement for my looking around your room?”

“Yes, three. That way I can choose whichever is most advantageous to me. This will give you a
sporting
chance to please me.” His brigand’s smile widened. “Perhaps I’ll choose all three. I never said I was a nice man, especially with women who don’t follow the rules.”

This situation had sped out of control like a horse galloping too fast. And what happened all too often with a rider who let a racehorse have his head? Disaster. She needed to rein in this maddening nobleman and this maddening situation. Lydia’s gaze dropped to his exposed neck and the exposed fraction of his chest. His pulse ticked a rapid cadence against the skin at the base of his neck. His lordship was not immune to the excitement either. She was about to give him a starch set down, when someone coughed from the doorway.