No Marriage of Convenience (24 page)

How had he ever thought himself in love with Riley St. Clair?

The mystery about his newfound love was more intoxicating than his father’s entire cache of French brandy, yet there was also something very familiar about her.

As if he’d known her all his life.

Who the devil was she?

For the first time in years, Del ignored his mother’s complaints, her demands that the girl be brought back immediately, and a hundred other allegations, and strode back to the ballroom determined to be at this girl’s side before midnight.

As he leaned against the doorway and surveyed the crush of the ballroom beyond, he wondered how many times he had stood right next to her and not seen the fire in her eyes or realized that the woman of his dreams was within arm’s reach.

Well, he wouldn’t make that mistake again.

But first he had to find her and unmask his bride-to-be.

The gardens behind the Duke’s residence appeared as crowded as the rest of his house.

But in contrast to the carefully orchestrated notes inside, the refrain filling the air out here was the sounds of soft sighs and ardent kisses. Fine manners and the careful watchful eyes of mothers and chaperones forgotten, the guests outside displayed little reserve.

Couples, tucked away behind statues and rose bushes and cuddled up on benches dotting the gardens, flaunted propriety. Besides, with the combination of masks and darkness, it was hard to discern anyone’s identity.

Riley turned to her two unwilling wards. “Find your sister—and find her fast, before anyone sees her.”

Bea went in one direction, Maggie the other, while Ri
ley went down the main path. Not caring a whit for propriety, she started tapping on shoulders.

“Excuse me,” she murmured time and again as she interrupted countless couples. Her only relief was not finding Mason and his simpering Dahlia joined in some passionate embrace.

Just as she was about to give up, she heard Roderick’s all too familiar voice—and his lines.

“Aveline, sweet Aveline, I care not for the disparateness of our situation or our upbringing, only that we remain together.”

Riley wanted to groan. Mason had been right: the line did make Geoffroi sound like a simpering fool.

She parted the branches of the foliage before her and found Louisa enfolded in Roderick’s arms.

She caught the errant girl by the back of her gown and tugged her free. Settling a sputtering Louisa behind her, she turned to Roderick, who came bounding out of the greenery looking for a fight.

“I demand satisfaction,” he sputtered, before coming face to face with his employer. “Oh, Riley, it’s you.”

“Yes, it’s me. Remind me to cut that line from the scene tomorrow—along with all your other ones.”

“But Riley—” Louisa began to protest, trying to cut around her and return to her lover.

Riley was too quick. She held the anxious girl fast. “That is quite enough out of you! What were you thinking?”

The girl’s face told the entire story—one Riley knew only too well. Louisa’s heart had been lost.

She softened her features and smiled at her. “We’ll discuss this when we get home.” She turned to Roderick. “As for you—you will stay away from Louisa. If I find you’ve done anything that has compromised her beyond
this thoughtless display, then you are fired and I will see you never work in London again.”

The young man drew himself up. “Now see here, I mean to offer for Louisa.”

Riley shuddered. Oh, this was far worse than she suspected. “And you think your offer would be seriously considered? Roderick, I don’t know where you come from, but actors do not marry the daughters of earls.” She shook her head and started down the path with a squirming and protesting Louisa in tow.

Roderick glowered as Riley dragged his beloved away. “We’ll just see who is so unworthy, Madame Fontaine. We’ll just see.”

Maggie followed dutifully after Riley and her sisters, more than a little sad to be leaving so early. After years of dreaming about attending fashionable events, she would have liked the evening to last forever.

For the first time in her life she’d been elegant, and best of all, desired. She’d had suitors! Men asking her to dance, asking for an introduction, begging for a hint as to her identity.

She sighed. If only, like Louisa and Bea, she could have found her own true love this night.

Maggie knew exactly what he looked like—dark and mysterious. Perhaps even an eye patch covering an injury he’d suffered in battle or in a duel of honor. She would have danced in his arms, beaten his mother at cards, or done whatever it was Louisa had done in the garden that had her blushing a deep scarlet and Riley looking grim and determined to get them home as quickly as possible.

Lost in this bout of woolgathering, she didn’t realize they’d gained the steps down to the street, and she stumbled on the first one.

And into the arms of a stranger.

The book she’d borrowed from her uncle’s library and used as part of her costume went clattering down the steps, along with the gentleman’s hat.

His steely embrace steadied her and kept her from plunging headlong into the street below. The spicy, tangy scent of cologne, bay rum, she thought, enveloped her.

And when she looked up, she discovered her hero and didn’t mind so much her first clumsy step of the evening.

“Are you all right, miss?” he asked. He held her for a moment longer than was proper before setting her on her own feet. “There you are. Are you sure you are well?”

Maggie could only nod, afraid to say anything that might awaken her from this unbelievable dream.

“I fear your book and my hat didn’t fare as well,” he laughed, taking the steps down two at a time and retrieving her battered book and his flattened hat.

This gave her a moment to study her savior. He wore a naval uniform—not some costume, but his own uniform, of that she was sure from the way it fit his body. And after he picked up their belongings at the bottom of the steps and turned back to her, he paused and stared up at her as if she were the most enchanting creature he’d ever beheld.

Maggie was positive he was the most handsome man she’d ever seen—dark, mysterious, albeit missing a pirate’s patch; it was a minor detail she could overlook if it meant she could spend the rest of her life enveloped in his sure embrace.

He made an elegant bow and reached for her hand. “My name is—” he began to say.

She had her hand out in double time but found it taken not by her newfound love, but by Bea.

“Sorry to interrupt,
Athena
,” Bea said, shooting an apol
ogetic smile at the man. “But we must leave. Now.”

With that, her sister dragged her away.

Maggie tried for a moment to pull out of Bea’s grip, but her sister had the advantage of height and a good stone in weight—she might as well be fighting against Mr. Hashim.

Captain Westley Hardy watched the shy little creature be dragged away by the other girl, feeling as if he had just spent eight hours in battle rather than a few short moments in the presence of a mere slip of a thing.

Who was she?

Before he could follow, her party gained their carriage and were off, the horses jumping forward in their traces at the snap of the coachman’s whip. The conveyance and its delightful occupants were gone into the night before he could stop them.

Damnation, he didn’t even know her name.

Just then, another man came racing past him. The fellow, dressed in some outrageous highwayman’s outfit, turned toward him. “Have you seen a quartet of goddesses?”

In any other circumstances, Captain Hardy would have thought the man a complete nodcock, but given what he’d just witnessed, he nodded.

The man cursed. “How ever am I going to find her now?”

Despite the costume and the mask, Hardy recognized the voice. “Delander?”

“Hardy!” Del said back, reaching out and shaking his hand vigorously. “I’d heard you were in town. Glad to see you. The Saint will be beside himself to hear you’re about. The three of us, together again.”

“St. Clair’s in town?” Hardy asked.

“Ashlin now. Inherited his brother’s title last year.”

“Then one of you must know who those creatures were,” Hardy asked. “The ones done up like goddesses.”

“You saw them?” Del asked. “You’ve got the devil’s own timing—whyever didn’t you order a round fired over that carriage, or whatever it is you do in the Navy to see an enemy ship stopped? You’ve just lost treasure worth more than any of the prizes I heard tell you’ve taken in the last few years.”

Hardy, though glad to see his boyhood friend, felt a moment of jealousy. “Athena?”

To his relief, Del shook his head. “No, Artemis. Did you see her? Divine.”

“Yes, well I had similar thoughts about the other one,” Hardy said, holding up the book the girl had left behind.

“At least you have a memento.” Del settled down in a dejected heap on the steps, and stared moodily out into the night. “So what is it goddesses are reading these days?” he asked over his shoulder.

Hardy glanced down at his prize, taken aback by the title.

The Battle Tactics of Alexander the Great
. He handed it down to Del.

“Not exactly the
Elysian Times
,” Del joked, as he glanced over the book. “Who the devil would ever want to read such a boring tome?” He flipped open the first page and stared down at it. Then a wide grin spread over his face.

“Hardy, my good man—how are you at planning a siege?” With that, Del handed him back the book, opened to the first page.

Even in the torchlight, Hardy could read the handwritten note on the first page.

The property of Mason St. Clair, Merton College, Oxford.

M
ason walked home from the Everton masquerade, each pounding step filled with purpose and anger.

How dare she disobey him and endanger her life just so the girls could go to a foolish party?

Riley! Would she
ever
stop driving him to distraction?

Mason took a deep breath. Much to his chagrin, he had to admit he’d been relieved to see her. She’d stopped him from having to listen to Mrs. Pindar and her daughter’s vapid conversation for the entire evening.

As he continued walking the few blocks from Everton’s stylish town house to Ashlin Square, he considered the gist of his conversation with Mrs. Pindar, which had been more a series of veiled threats than polite hints.

Marry my daughter, or I will find another down-on-his-luck earl to make her a countess
.

With all that, she’d finished by saying her solicitor would call on him in the morning to see if they could settle matters.

He hadn’t liked the way the lady’s eyes had narrowed, like those of a weasel after a chicken, when she’d smiled and said, “You may find, my lord, that my solicitor is able to offer a convincing argument to ease your reluctance.”

Reluctance, indeed!
He had no doubts now who’d been buying up Freddie’s vowels and for what purpose. And with each step he grew more angry. Nudging loose a stone with his boot, he kicked it into the darkness.

What had he become?

Oh, he was a new kind of Ashlin, all right—just not anything close to the honorable and respected foundation he had envisioned rebuilding for his family.

So where had he gone wrong?

He knew. He’d lost his honor and self-respect when he’d decided on a marriage of convenience rather than one of love.

For when he’d decided to pursue the eminently wealthy Dahlia Pindar, he’d lost his heart.

And he knew who held it.

Riley
.

But how could he marry her?

He was penniless—actually, worse than penniless. He’d spent the last seven months going over and over Freddie’s investments, the account books, every scrap of paper, trying to find something that might give way to any last coin the family possessed so he could make a better show of it.

And he’d failed. There was nothing to be had. He had nothing but himself to offer the hard-working, dedicated lady.

Exactly the down-on-his-luck earl Mrs. Pindar eyed with such a mercantile gleam.

But Riley didn’t look at him like that. She cared not that he was an earl. In fact, he suspected his noble title made him less appealing to the unconventional lady.

As he entered Ashlin Square, he looked across the park to his house, where there glowed a single taper in the library.

She was waiting for him.

Mason knew what had to be done. He could live his life for love and lose everything, or he could see the ones he loved safe and secure by giving up what he wanted.

There really was no choice.

Riley waited in the library for Mason, resisting the urge to peek out the windows and watch for his approach.

She knew if she saw him stomping up the steps, she’d probably lose the nerve to do what she must.

She needed to say good-bye.

She’d done as she’d promised—refashioned the girls into Originals—if the storm of suitors that had plagued them all night was any evidence. And it shouldn’t be long before offers of marriage came flooding into Ashlin House.

At least the girls would find happiness, she thought.

And for one night, Riley mused, she too would find her own small piece of that elusive emotion.

Glancing around the room for something to occupy herself until Mason got home, she spied his spectacles sitting atop a book on the library table.

Her curiosity getting the better of her, she looked around to see if anyone was about. Satisfied she was alone, she picked them up and studied them.

They lent him such a stern air, and yet they seemed so innocuous when left by the wayside—still, if he had forgotten them, she wondered how he was to get on without them.

Perhaps he’d proposed to the wrong girl, considering how many shepherdesses had been wandering about tonight. Wouldn’t that make Mrs. Pindar see red! And serve the manipulative woman right.

Riley glanced down at the spectacles in her hand and then up at the mirror over the fireplace.

I wonder how he sees the world,
she thought…carrying them over to the mantel and closing her eyes as she placed them on her face.

When she opened her eyes, she made a startling discovery—the glass inside the frames was just that—glass.

Clear and unground.

She stared at her reflection, wondering why the Earl chose to wear glasses, when he didn’t need them.

“Because when you are the son of the
ton
’s most notorious rake and you want to be taken as a serious academic, you try to distance yourself as far as you can from fashionable society,” Lord Ashlin said from the doorway, where he stood watching her.

She spun around and faced him. “Pardon?”

“You were wondering why I wear glasses which I don’t really need.” He stepped into the room. “They do work, though. You look quite the bluestocking.”

She plucked the evidence off her face, her cheeks burning at being caught. “I’m sorry,” she rushed to say, holding them out. “I saw them here and I don’t know what came over me.”

“Curiosity, perhaps,” he suggested, taking them from her and setting them back down on the table where he’d left them. “I don’t know why I still wear them. Habit, perhaps.”

Riley felt like the veriest ninny. She’d meant for him to find her like Aphrodite herself, reclined and awaiting her lover, such a seductive sight that he would fall at her feet and profess his undying love, disavowing Dahlia Pindar once and for all.

Instead, he’d come in and found her peering about like an old spinster!

Lost in her own musings, she didn’t realize he’d come up behind her until his hands caught her by the shoulders. His touch was different somehow. Stronger. More commanding. Perhaps it was just his anger at her, but she sensed something between them had changed.

“Riley, what were you thinking, disobeying my order?”

She glanced over at him. His mask was gone, but the face that stared at her shone with steely resolve, sending shivers down her spine with the intimacy of his gaze, the intensity of it. “Your order was wrong. I can hardly see what danger, if any, I would be in at the Duke’s.”

“The least you could have done was choose costumes that didn’t stand out. Greek goddesses, indeed!”

Tapping her finger to her lips, she considered this. “Yes, perhaps I should have done them up like shepherdesses, we could have hidden quite nicely with the flock.”

“That isn’t funny,” Mason said, continuing his severe tone, but Riley could see the desire to laugh twinkling in his eyes, at his lips.

“You find something wrong with this costume?” She stepped back from him and slowly turned in a circle. “A man of classical tastes, like yourself, I would think you’d find it quite intriguing.”

His jaw worked back and forth. “Yes, very intriguing. Too much so. I know finances are tight around here, but couldn’t you have found enough fabric to see that you were all decently clad?”

“Decently?” She smiled, then tipped her sandled foot out, so the slit in her gown fell away, exposing her leg up to her thigh. “I don’t see what is so indecent about this. Do you?”

She edged closer to him and took his hands, guiding them down the edge of her body so he could feel the line of her breasts, the curve of her hips.

“You have nothing on beneath this,” he said, in a voice filled with need.

“Maybe I do, and maybe I don’t,” she whispered back. “There really is only one way to find out.”

She didn’t need to encourage him any further. Mason caught her in his arms and crushed his lips to hers in a hungry kiss.

It made every tense moment since he’d entered the room flare up in a blaze of passion.

She opened her mouth to him, welcoming him.

If only they could kiss like this forever.

Mason seemed determined to give her that wish, for he continued plying her with his lips, teasing her to open up to him, until her senses whirled in a dizzy circle.

When he finally lifted his head, Riley gasped for air.

“Every day you remain in London, you are in danger,” he told her.

“Only from you,” she whispered back, tipping up on her toes and kissing him anew. She hadn’t thought it would be this easy to convince him that propriety and honor had no place in their relationship. She wanted, just for one night, to belong to the man she would never be able to have.

It was a selfish wish—to have this night always in her heart, when by tomorrow, he would be betrothed to someone else.

She didn’t blame him—not too much, for Dahlia Pindar’s fortune would forge the foundation for the honorable life he so valued.

Something Riley couldn’t give him. Her theatre could stave off the worst of his debts, but roofs for tenants and repairs to a tumble-down pile of venerable stones that made up the Abbey would never be possible.

So if there was no place for her to fit into that cozy
future of respectability, for tonight she would pretend that she was his heiress, his convenient bride, rich and in love with him.

Well, at least one part of that was true.

She did love him with all her heart.

He’d started kissing her neck, in that spot right behind her ear, the one that left her knees weak and her breath coming in short, ragged pants.

Her fingers worked open his coat, moving their way over his chest, tracing over the muscles, the strength, the wild, steely cadence of his heart beating beneath her palm.

Mason quickly shrugged off his coat and then his cravat. Riley helped him, pulling his shirt free of his breeches and pushing it up over his head.

Taking a moment just to look at him, she wondered if she’d ever seen a man more magnificently put together. Having grown up in the theatre, she’d seen men—in all states of undress as they switched between costumes in often crowded conditions—so the sight of a bare-chested man didn’t alarm her.

What stopped her breath was how beautiful his body was to her. She’d never beheld a man like this, anticipating what was to come, knowing that he would be holding her tightly to him, claiming her with his touch.

She stepped willingly into that irresistible realm.

He reached out and slid the single shoulder of her gown down and along her arm. Her breasts fell free, leaving them exposed to him.

Riley thought she should be embarrassed, but the gleam in his eyes told her not to be—Mason found her desirable. Very much so. He pulled her close, his arm cradling her waist. She arched as his lips trailed a heated path down the nape of her neck. He made the descent with agoniz
ingly deliberate indulgence, tasting each inch of her flesh as if it were his last morsel.

Her stomach tightened as his lips made a tender assault on her breast, touched her with a reverent sigh and whisper.

A soft moan escaped her when he closed his mouth over her nipple, teasing the peak to life. She’d never imagined that it would feel like this, this fluttering, hungry need.

Mason had tossed aside respectability the moment he’d walked in and found her wearing his spectacles.

A goddess in glasses.

He would have Riley in his life and only her—and damn the problems that would ensue. Ashlins forged their own unique path through life, and it was time he blazed his.

He would find a way to pay off Frederick’s debts and tell Mrs. Pindar and her greedy plans to go to hell. Then he would marry this woman whom he loved so much. It was easy to believe all that was possible when he stood here claiming Riley with his kiss.

In his arms, she wavered, pressing into his embrace. He glanced about—but there was really no place for them to make love, other than on the hard floor or the poor thin carpet.

That, he decided, would never do. But where to take her? He couldn’t very well carry her about the house in this state. There were some bits of propriety he would not shrug off.

“My room,” she whispered. “Let’s go to my room.”

He grinned, for she was right. Her suite was the only other room on this floor that had the one thing he wanted tonight. A bed with Riley in it. So, in a swift motion, he swept her into his arms and carried her down the hall.

Nudging the door open with his knee, he entered her room, and then shouldered the door shut.

Gently he laid her down on the simple bed. Her maid had left a fire kindled in the hearth, which lent the room a cozy, warm glow, but still she shivered.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

Riley shook her head, and caught his face with her hands and pulled him down to her, so she could kiss him again.

“Greedy girl,” he told her between languid kisses.

“Perhaps I should have gone as Avarice tonight,” she teased.

He laughed. “No, if ever there was an Aphrodite, you are her every embodiment.”

“Then I command you to give me your love.” She waved her hand with a regal motion.

“As you wish, my lady,” he said, happy to comply with her royal demands.

He eased off the rest of her dress. She now lay before him, her hair tousled about her shoulders and torso, the single coronet her only decoration. Her sleek body reclined in a sensual pose, inviting him to come closer.

Tugging off his breeches, he joined her in the bed. They rolled together, tangled in a deep kiss, their bodies growing used to the feel of the other.

Riley couldn’t believe this was happening. What was she thinking? She didn’t know anything about making love to a man! But at the same time, as her hands wandered over Mason’s body, she realized that perhaps she didn’t need that much experience, for her touch seemed to excite him.

She followed his lead, touching and kissing and exploring, until her hand brushed against his hardness.

Drawing back for a moment, she wondered what she should do, but as with the rest of the evening, she followed
her instincts and reached out for him, curling her fingers along his length.