Portrait of My Heart (17 page)

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Authors: Patricia Cabot

Tags: #Romance, #Adult, #Historical

BOOK: Portrait of My Heart
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“Jeremy,” Maggie said when he finally let her come up for air.
“What?” He bent his head and began to kiss her long throat, starting where her pulse was beating as rapidly as his own, and moving inexorably toward the back of her right ear.
“What if someone comes in?” she asked breathlessly, even as she turned her head so that he could reach his target more easily.
“I’ll ask them”—he nuzzled her ear—“to leave.”
Maggie gasped at the sensations he was evoking. She wasn’t sure what had happened. One minute, she’d been furiously angry with him. She had, in fact, wanted to kill him. She had prepared herself mentally for his eventual homecoming—for she knew he’d return. He
had
to. He was the Duke of Rawlings, after all. She had rehearsed what she’d say to him, how she’d behave … .
But never, in all of her imaginings, had she supposed that, within twenty-four hours of his return, she’d be lying in his arms, letting him kiss her behind her ear.
And that wasn’t all he was doing, either. He’d released her wrists, and now both of his hands were on her breasts, eagerly canvassing territory only he had ever touched before. She couldn’t help the fact that the feel of his callused fingers on her petal-soft skin was causing her back to arch. She couldn’t help the fact that her arms had risen to circle his
neck, and that she’d moved her head to intercept his lips once more. It wasn’t her fault that once his mouth was on hers, her lips fell open. Could she help it if she let out a little moan as his tongue met hers? And so what if that little moan caused him, in his excitement, to press down on her nipples, which had gone hard as stones, both from desire and the chill in the air, with his palms?
This is
Jeremy,
was all she could think.
This is Jeremy.
And somehow, that made it all right.
It wasn’t like it had been before. It wasn’t like that at all. Before, she’d been a girl. She hadn’t understood what was happening to her. She understood it only a little better now—she was, after all, still completely inexperienced—but at least she knew, from what Berangère had told her, that the tightening sensation she felt between her legs was perfectly normal. When Jeremy bent his head to taste one of her firm nipples, she knew the purpose of the corresponding rush of wetness she felt at the jointure of her thighs. And she was no longer so ignorant as to think that the very firm object pressing so insistently against her abdomen was a knife handle. She knew precisely what it was, and even felt a thrill at knowing that
she
had caused it,
she
had made it that way. So intoxicating was the idea that she couldn’t help reaching down, tentatively, to brush his erection with her fingertips, just to reassure herself that it was there … and that it was hers.
Imagine her surprise when Jeremy, who’d caught his breath raggedly at the first pass she made with her hand, followed suit, touching her between her own legs!
Maggie hadn’t the slightest idea how he’d done it, but he managed to insinuate his hand under the hem of her gown and over the waistband of her pantaloons. For the first time ever, she appreciated his vast prior experience with women. Never in her life had she ever felt anything quite as nice as Jeremy’s fingers as they gently opened, and then caressed, her. She didn’t even blush when he lifted his head to watch her face as he slipped a finger along the rim of her tight, wet sheath. She gasped maybe, a little—it was such an odd sensation! —but she didn’t blush. Not even when he pressed his
hand—now slick with her own moisture—against her pubic bone, and began to gently massage her there, causing her back to arch even more as she pressed hungrily against him.
She didn’t know it, but she’d answered a question that had been plaguing Jeremy since he’d received Pegeen’s letter informing him of Maggie’s engagement. For months, he’d been torturing himself with the thought that someone else might actually have chartered this territory that he had claimed for himself all those years before. But Maggie’s gasp when he first touched the hot furrow between her legs settled that question definitively: She was a virgin still. He’d have staked his life on it. And yet she was more eager, more giving than any of the more experienced women he’d been with … .
It was then that he whispered, in an unsteady voice, “Touch me, too.”
She knew what he meant. She knew exactly what he meant. And she didn’t hesitate. Instead, she reached for the front of his trousers. They unbuttoned easily beneath her trembling fingers. And then all at once, she was holding his thick manhood in her hand, wondering at its alien hardness, feeling it throb against her palm, as he pressed his hand, more urgently now, against her core, causing an ache to grow within her, a feeling of emptiness that she suddenly knew only he could fill … .
It was at that moment that the door to the library was thrown open, and above the strains of the orchestra and shrill, feminine laughter, a man’s voice called,
“Marguerethe? Est-ce que êtes vous ici
?”
Maggie moved so fast, all Jeremy saw was a sparkling white blur. One second, it seemed, she was trembling on the brink of orgasm beneath him, her sweet hand closed tightly around him, and the next, she was standing a few feet away, fully dressed, but her breasts rising and falling as quickly as if she’d run to get there.
“Oh, hello, Augustin,” she said, her voice betraying no emotion whatsoever. “Yes, I’m here. I’m sorry, were you looking for me?”
Jeremy, on the couch, began to button his trousers slowly,
feeling something hot beginning to burn somewhere deep within his chest. It was, unfortunately, a familiar sensation. It was how he generally felt right before he killed someone.
He stared over the back of the couch at the man standing in the open doorway, silhouetted against the bright light from the ballroom. All Jeremy could tell about the Frenchman was that he was tall. And that he didn’t pronounce Maggie’s name correctly.
“But why are you hiding in here,
ma chérie,
in the cold and dark?” de Veygoux inquired in a gently chastising manner. “I have the Marchioness of Lynne out here. She wants to speak to you about doing a portrait of her grandchildren … .” His voice trailed off as Jeremy stood up. The Frenchman had noticed him at last. “Ah, but who is that with you,
chérie
?”
Maggie threw a hasty glance over her bare shoulder, as if becoming aware of Jeremy’s presence for the first time. “Him?” she asked. She was stalling for time, fervently hoping this was a bad dream from which she was going to awaken at any moment. “Um, well, he’s …”
Sensing that Maggie was going to muff the introduction, or simply prevaricate, Jeremy said, “The name is Rawlings.” Carefully, knowing what he was going to have to do, Jeremy circled the couch. “Lieutenant Colonel Rawlings, Her Majesty’s Horse Guard.”
“Really?” The Frenchman slipped into the room, closing the door a little behind him, to shut out some of the light and noise. “How curious!
Marguerethe,
doesn’t your father serve as the Duke of Rawlings’s solicitor?”
Maggie could only nod mutely. All ability to speak had apparently been lost to her.
“Tell me, Colonel,” Augustin went on. “Are you one of the duke’s relations? I have met his aunt and uncle, but haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting the duke himself—”
“Well, we’ll have to rectify that situation, won’t we?” Now that de Veygoux had closed the door, Jeremy could see that Maggie’s fiancé was nearly his own height, and close to his own age. He had, however, red hair.
Very
red hair. He was, in fact, the red-haired man who’d been staring so at
him, back on the dance floor. Yet another reason to dislike him. “I could most likely secure an introduction for you.”
“Ah, well, how wonderful!” de Veygoux exclaimed. He strode forward, his right hand extended toward Jeremy. “Allow me to introduce myself, Colonel. I am Augustin de Veygoux, Mademoiselle Herbert’s fiancé—”
Things couldn’t have turned out more to Jeremy’s liking than if he’d actually succeeded in deflowering her on Althorpe’s leather couch. Whirling toward her as if thunderstruck, Jeremy cried, “
What
? You’re
engaged,
Maggie?”
Maggie closed her eyes, hoping that when she opened them again, she’d wake up in her own bed back in Herbert Park, far, far away from London. No such luck, however. When she opened her eyes again, Augustin and Jeremy were both still staring at her, one confused, and the other, apparently, outraged.
“Jerry,” she sighed. “I meant to tell you. Only I—”
But Augustin interrupted.
“Jerry,”
he echoed, casting a suspicious look in Jeremy’s direction. “But isn’t that the name of your little dog,
ma
—”
“She is
not
,” Jeremy cut him off tersely, “your
chérie,
you French bastard.”
Without another word, Jeremy pulled back a fist and then thrust it, with all of his strength, into Augustin de Veygoux’s face.
“Dat, I take it,” Augustin said, his voice muffled beneath the blood-soaked linen of Maggie’s handkerchief, “was de Duke of Rawlings?”
Maggie, hardly able to stay in her seat in the brougham, she was still so angry, said, exasperatedly, “Well, of course it was! Who
else
would have the gall to walk up to my fiancé and punch him in the face?”
Augustin blinked sadly at what he could see of the gaslit, fog-shrouded street through the glass of the brougham’s window. “I wasn’t aware dat de nature of your relationship wid de Duke of Rawlings was such dat he might feel compelled to punch your fiance in de face,” he observed, his broken nose making correct pronunciation of
th
, always problematic for a Frenchman, impossible. “I feel dat dere is someding, perhaps, you have neglected to tell me,
chérie.
”
Maggie just shook her head impatiently, the diamond ear bobs that her mother had left her swaying pendulously. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel sorry for Augustin—the poor man had had his nose broken, after all, and it was all her fault!—but she was simply too furious to speak. She wanted to see Augustin safely home, and then return home herself … where she intended to have a confrontation with Jeremy of such unpleasantness that he just might find himself with a broken nose of his own before she was through with him.
Good God, he had
mortified
her at the cotillion! Mortified
her, first by very nearly seducing her in Lord Althorpe’s library, and then by striking her escort. His violent display had been completely unprovoked. Augustin had been far too surprised even to attempt to defend himself. Not that Jeremy had followed his first blow with any others. No, one had been enough to send Augustin reeling back into the sideboard, where he’d upset a number of bell jars that had been resting over some stuffed birds and dried flower arrangements. The resulting crash had, of course, brought everyone running, including Lord Althorpe. And even though Jeremy had been standing there, goading Augustin into standing up and fighting like a man—Lord, Maggie blushed to remember it!—no one had a said a word of rebuke to him,
no one.
Because, after all, he
was
a duke.
Well, duke or not, Maggie had a few choice words for him, but unfortunately, not a one of them could be said within the hearing of Lord and Lady Althorpe’s other guests—guests from whom Maggie had fostered hopes of gaining a few commissions. Well, no use hoping for that now. Oh, no. Who wanted a portrait painter who might engender a fight and consequently smash up a sideboard? All her hard work that night, all the socializing, all the smiling … and for what? For
nothing,
because Jeremy Rawlings, that scoundrel, that popinjay, that damned son of a bitch—yes, that’s what he was, a son of
a bitch
—had ruined it for her!
And why? Why? Because of his stupid, abominable pride. Jeremy Rawlings didn’t want her. Oh, he
wanted
her, but only because he hadn’t had her yet. How dare he, how dare he feign indignation over the fact that after
five years
of not having heard from him, she’d gotten engaged to someone else? Had she been supposed to wait around indefinitely for him? For what? To become his mistress? Because Maggie had certainly never heard that attempting to seduce one’s future wife on the divan in a complete stranger’s house was an accepted courtship ritual of modern-day England … .
He’d rue the day, though. Oh, Maggie would see that he would. Lord Althorpe might slap him on the shoulder and offer him a cigar and say placatingly, “Oh, well, boys will
be boys,” while his servants mopped up the blood and swept away the broken glass, but Maggie was not about to let him off that easy. She wasn’t about to let him off at all. When he got home, she was going to light into him like nothing he’d ever seen before. He thought the tigers in India were bad? He’d never seen Maggie when she was in a temper as fine as this one.
“Dere was someding between you two, once, I dink.”
Augustin’s soft voice broke into Maggie’s dark meditations. She turned, startled, to look at him in the misty light from the brougham’s oil lamp.
“Yes,” Augustin said studying her face in the fine spray of ermine that framed it. “Yes, dere was. Don’t deny it,
chérie
.”
“There …” Maggie’s voice was rough, and she cleared her throat. “There wasn’t, Augustin,” she said quietly, and as she said it, she firmly believed it. “I was sixteen. He was … older. It was just one foolish afternoon.” Noticing Augustin’s expression, she added hastily, “Nothing happened. He went away, and so did I. That was all.” She turned her head to look out the window. She knew her eyes could betray her just as surely as the gusset of her pantaloons, which was still damp with the evidence of her arousal earlier in the evening.
Despite her efforts at hiding the truth, however, Augustin seemed to sense she was lying. “Dat was not all,” he said, in the same gentle voice he used when he advised her that she was employing too much gesso on her canvas. “Maybe to you, dat was all, but not to him,
Marguerethe
. I do not dink a man breaks de nose of your fiance if dat is all.”
Inside her fur muff, Maggie balled her fingers into fists. “You’re wrong, Augustin. He doesn’t feel anything for me. I was just a way to pass a spring afternoon. That’s all. Besides, he has someone else now.” Her voice didn’t even throb as she said it. “Surely you’ve read about it. A princess. An Indian princess.”
“Den why did he hit me?”
“Because,” Maggie said disgustedly. “Hitting is all he knows. He used to hit people all the time, when he was
younger. The only difference is that apparently, in India, people started hitting back.”
“Should I hit him back,
chérie
, next time I see him?”
Maggie swiveled her head around to stare at him in horror. “Good God, no! He’d kill you, Augustin!”
Augustin smiled bitterly, but she could not see it, since the bloody handkerchief covered the lower half of his face. “You have so little faid in my pugilistic abilities,
chérie
?”
Maggie, realizing her mistake, said quickly, “No, it isn’t that. It’s just that—”
But just then the brougham lurched to a halt, and one of Augustin’s footmen pulled open the door, anxious to get his master indoors, where a physician already waited, Maggie having sent word of Augustin’s “accident” ahead to the de Veygoux household. There was only one thing about which she could be grateful, and that was that Augustin’s mother was still in Paris. God only knew what Madame de Veygoux would have said had she known the sorry fate that had befallen her most beloved child.
“Make sure he does what the doctor tells him,” Maggie admonished the footmen, as they helped their master down. “Augustin, you do what the doctor tells you.”
“I don’t like dis,” Augustin said from the street. He struck a rather sad figure there, in the lightly falling snow, a tall man in a top hat, with a bloody kerchief to his nose. “I don’t like your going home alone. What if
he’s
dere, waiting for you?”
Maggie didn’t have to ask who
he
was. “Don’t you worry about me,” she said heartily. “Lord and Lady Edward should be back from Yorkshire by now, so you see, I shan’t be alone at all. Besides, I’m quite capable of taking care of myself, Augustin.”
Without waiting for the footmen to do it for her, Maggie slammed the brougham door shut and sank back upon the leather seat. Lord, what a night! And it was only going to get worse. Well, for one person, anyway.
But when Maggie returned to the house on Park Lane, she was informed by Evers that His Grace had not yet returned. Maggie wasn’t particularly surprised. He was probably still
enjoying some of Lord Althorpe’s excellent cigars. Undoubtedly the two men were playing at billiards. Jeremy had always been a fine billiard player. What kind of country was it, Maggie fumed to herself as she undid the ribbons to her cloak, where a man could strike a party guest and smash up a sideboard and be instantly forgiven for it, just because he was the seventeenth Duke of Rawlings? Disgusting, Maggie told herself. It was in every way disgusting.
“I want to be informed when His Grace returns,” Maggie said tersely to the butler as he took her wrap. “The
minute
he returns, Evers, no matter how late.”
“Yes, miss,” Evers said. “Of course, miss.”
“Only you needn’t,” Maggie added casually, “let Lord and Lady Edward know. About my asking to see His Grace so late at night, I mean.”
“Lord and Lady Edward have not yet returned from Yorkshire,” the butler replied mildly.
Maggie whirled to face him, her eyes wide. “
What
? But I thought they were expected back tonight!”
“Indeed they were. I suppose they have been delayed.” Evers shook out her cloak before draping it over his arm. “A blizzard, I wouldn’t doubt. Or perhaps Lady Edward’s time has come—”
“Oh, dear!” Maggie brought both hands to her face, unable to hide her dismay. “Oh, Evers, if they don’t—I mean, I can hardly stay here alone with—”
Evers said—rather kindly, for him, Maggie thought—“I shouldn’t worry, Miss Margaret. It is most likely foul weather that has delayed them. Often, this time of year, trains from Yorkshire don’t arrive at the station until well after midnight. If you’d like, I’ll rouse you upon their return.”
Maggie bit her lip. Good Lord, what was she to do? If it were to get out that she’d spent the night unchaperoned in the Duke of Rawlings’s town house …
Then again, after that scene at Lord Althorpe’s, her reputation could hardly be more ruined than it already was.
Her glance falling upon the doors to the drawing room, Maggie was suddenly struck by an even worse thought. “Evers,” she gasped, then bit her lip.
“Yes, miss?”
She wasn’t certain how to broach the subject. “The, um, callers we had earlier this evening …”
Evers shuddered, very subtly. “You mean the, ahem, princess, miss?”
“Yes,” Maggie said. “The, um, princess. Where …”
“The princess and Mr. Sanjay returned to the Dorchester, where, I understand, the princess has taken a suite of rooms.”
Maggie hoped her relief didn’t show. “Oh,” she said. “Thank you, Evers.”
“Of course, miss.”
Despite that comforting information, a long, hot bath, and a soothing toddy supplied by Hill, Maggie still lay awake a long time, idly scratching Jerry’s ears and listening for the sound of a carriage. As the minutes crept into hours, and the church bell struck midnight, and then one, Maggie’s anxiety escalated. No sign of either the duke or his family. Where
were
they? She could understand Jeremy’s lateness, she supposed. He was no doubt afraid to come home, too ashamed to face her. The coward.
Then again, he
was
a decorated military hero. Would a decorated military hero really shy from a confrontation, any confrontation? Supposing he wasn’t avoiding her at all? Supposing he was merely having too good a time somewhere out there to come home. Supposing … supposing he was with the princess at her hotel! Maggie sat up, sleep completely evading her now, and squinted at her bedside clock in the dying light from the fire. Two o’clock in the morning. Where else could he have gone? Even in London, there were few places open this late, even to dukes. He
had
to be with the princess. Where else
could
he be?
And why not? The
princess
hadn’t thrown any fans at him, or punched him in the arm, or gotten herself engaged to another man. The
princess
hadn’t screamed at him like a fishwife, or sneered at him sarcastically, or in general comported herself as disagreeably as Maggie had since his return. What man
wouldn’t
have preferred the company of another
woman, any other woman, to that of Maggie’s, unpleasant as she’d made herself recently?
Oh, God! That
had
to be where he was! With Usha. The beautiful, almond-eyed Usha, with her jeweled slippers and pert little breasts and clever brown fingers … .
The subtle knock at her door did not wake her. She had decided long ago that sleep that night would be impossible. She was tearing open her bedroom door and blinking at the light from a candle flame, before she realized that that candle was held by
Evers,
of all people, Evers not looking at all as he did during the day, in his starched white cravat and black suit, but in a nightdress and robe, a bright red nightcap dangling down from his head.
“I’m sorry to wake you, Miss Margaret,” the butler whispered, an undertow of urgency beneath his polite apology. “But I’m simply at my wit’s end. Someone has got to reason with him … .”
Maggie blinked at the butler. “Reason with whom?” she asked, her voice hoarse from disuse. “What time is it?”
“Half three. With the duke, miss. I’m afraid he’s—”
“The duke?” Maggie shook her head bewilderedly. “He’s home?”
“Yes, miss. Only—”
Maggie was already reaching for her dressing gown. “Only what?” she asked, as she thrust her arms through the woolen sleeves of her robe. Then she froze, turning her face toward the butler’s. “Oh, my God. He isn’t sick, is he?”

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