Scandal And The Duchess (7 page)

“He suggested we ask Eleanor,” Steven said without looking at her. “Hart Mackenzie’s wife. They have plenty of room and more money than God.”

“Really? I wasn’t aware God had any money. A stash of gold bars in one of His back rooms, do you think?” Rose tried to smile, tried to joke, but she found it difficult even to breathe. “Probably comes in handy when He needs to repave His streets.”

Steven flashed a grin over his shoulder. “I promise you, if God has a stash of gold bars, Hart lent them to Him.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

Steven held out his hand to her. Why did Rose not hesitate to walk to him and take it?

“Keep the cabinet,” he said. Rose couldn’t hear much over the pounding of her heart, but that’s what she thought he said. “You love it, and if Collins is as good as he claims, you won’t need to sell it.”

“I have to ask you again why you’re helping me, Steven.” The words were not the ones Rose wanted to come out of her mouth, but they did anyway.

Steven switched his gaze to her, losing his smile. He stood too close to her—she could see the dark ring around his pale gray irises.

“Did you want me to leave you hanging with the pesky newspapermen waiting to pounce?” he asked. “Journalists can shred a person, break them, ruin their lives, and then go home and pour tea. Congratulating themselves on a job well done. Rumor, gossip, scandal—they dish it out and don’t care who they leave in the gutter. I’m not letting that happen to
you
.”

Steven’s brows were drawn, his anger raw. Rose watched him in surprise. She drew a breath to ask him if he spoke of an experience in particular, when Steven wrapped his arm around Rose and dragged her to him for a savage kiss.

The breath she’d started to draw didn’t reach her lungs. Rose couldn’t move. Her world narrowed to Steven, his strength, his lips on hers.

The kiss was fierce, not loving. He scraped her mouth open, invading. The room was hot, the fire stoked high, and Rose went hotter still.

Steven tasted of anger, powerfully so, his hands on her back just as powerful. Rose knew she was surrendering to him, and she didn’t care one whit.

Steven lifted her off her feet. As the kiss broke, he deposited her on the smooth top of the chest.

Rose’s hands landed on the cool wood, her heart pounding. Steven’s knee pushed through her skirts, parting her legs, giving him room to step between them and against her. Rose’s throat went dry, her slippered feet sliding to Steven’s legs before she told them to

She felt his arousal through the wool of his kilt, through her volume of skirts. He surrounded her with his warmth, with himself.

He ran a strong hand through her hair, letting curls tumble free. “You should nae be all buttoned and pinned like this,” he said. “You were meant to have your hair down, your clothes loose. No reason to hide your beauty.”

“But . . . I . . .” Only syllables came out, and those in a stammer.

Steven’s fingers undid the first button under her chin. “You’re so beautiful, Rosie. Do as you like, and damn them all.”

Rose should protest that she was a lady, a respectable widow, that she was buttoned up and prim to keep others from talking about her more than they already did.

She couldn’t say anything.
Do as you like, and damn them all.

He was tempting her. She shouldn’t let him. Rose should be adamant, become the prudish, haughty duchess and tell him what she thought of his liberties.

She could only sit still while Steven unfastened another button, and another. His fingers were hot, his fingertips rough. The backs of his hands were crisscrossed with scars, and each of his fingers had been broken at some time and healed—a fighting man’s hands.

Steven left off with the buttons and traced her now-exposed throat. “You have the sweetest skin, my Rose. I want to kiss it.” He leaned closer. “I want to kiss every inch of it.”

Please do,
she wanted to answer, but again, her words choked off.

Steven undid more buttons, then pulled her placket apart.

The top of Rose’s bodice opened, revealing her breasts swelling over her corset. Rose thought her heart would be leaping out of her chest, but no, everything was whole and smooth, as it should be.

Steven’s gaze raked down her, his glance admiring. “I knew you’d be a beauty.”

Rose swallowed, and Steven traced the swallow with his fingertips to her breasts. His touch was caressing, smoothing, but left streaks of fire in its wake.

Just as Rose thought she’d never breathe again, Steven took his fingers away, leaned down, and pressed his lips to where his touch had been.

Rose’s chest lifted with a sudden intake of air. Steven’s mouth was hot, wicked, teasing. She dragged in another breath as he pressed kisses to her exposed skin.

She stretched her legs, her feet flexing of their own accord, while Steven kissed between her breasts, licked, played. He moved his hands down her back to her hips, cupping her there.

Rose was shameless, and she didn’t care. The world already thought her a fallen woman—what did she have to lose?

“Rosie,” Steven whispered, his Scots accent thick. “Ye taste like heaven. What are ye doing to me?”

His words burned against her skin. Rose felt a sharp pull on her flesh, the bite of Steven’s teeth.

He was suckling her, she realized, taking the soft skin of her breast into his mouth. The small pain set her ablaze. Rose hadn’t known her body could flush with such need, her nipples tightening until they ached. She was surrounded by Steven’s warmth, strength, scent.

She wound her arms around him, holding him while he licked, kissed, suckled. His arousal pressed to the join of her legs, wanting undisguised.

Steven raised his head, his mouth wet, his short hair mussed. He brushed one finger over the mark he’d made on her breast. “You’re mine now, Rosie. I’ve claimed you.”

Why did that statement make her all the more excited? “Yes,” she managed.

“You are the loveliest lass I’ve ever had the fortune to meet.”

Rose clung to every word. “Yes,” she whispered again.

Steven chuckled, his breath warming her. “They don’t deserve you.
I
don’t deserve you. But I promise you my fidelity, lass. My everything.”

Rose had no idea what he was talking about, but hearing him say it in his growling Scots was enough.

Steven hands were on her hips once more, his mouth again opening hers. Rose daringly ran her fingers down his back, finding the tightness of his buttocks through the wool of his kilt. She tentatively caressed his hard, tight hip.

Steven broke the kiss and gave her a swift smile. “Rosie, lass, you’re dancing with the devil.”

“I am?”

“Doesn’t matter though, does it?” Steven brushed another kiss to her mouth. She was pressed so tightly against him that his shirt and waistcoat warmed her bare skin. “I’m going to marry you, after all.”

Rose returned his smile. “Yes, I forgot we were betrothed.”

“Forgot, did you?” Something hot flickered in his eyes. “Then I’ll have to remind ye.”

The next kiss showed Rose he’d been holding himself back until now. His mouth burned, his hands were strong, his body hard under her touch. The fact that she was able to hold this virile, amazing, athletic man took her breath away.

Something moved under her buttocks, but it had nothing to do with Steven. She shifted her weight and something well and truly pinched her.

Rose gasped, breaking the kiss, sliding forward into Steven’s arms. Steven, surprised, caught her, then he started to laugh.

“Look at that, Rosie,” he said, his gaze drawn to the cabinet behind her. “I think we’ve discovered the first secret compartment opened by ardor.”

***

As Rose turned to look, Steven struggled to catch his breath. He never thought he’d damn a piece of furniture, but he was damning this one. His need shouted at him to forget about the bloody cabinet and drag Rose to the carpet and finish this.

With any other woman, he’d have done it. Steven would have coaxed her to the floor by now and had her clothes off, her cabinet and her settlements be damned.

Rose was delectable with her bodice unbuttoned as she gazed in curiosity at the piece of inlay that had slid aside beneath her hips. A small drawer had popped up, right against her backside, lucky drawer.

“There’s something in it.” Rose reached an eager hand for it, but Steven caught her wrist.

He’d lived in Africa too long, he decided—a man never thrust his hand into a shadowy opening or lifted a rock without being very careful. All manner of things could be living there. Even in England, ticks, spiders, and other nasties could exist in a drawer closed for so long inside a wooden cabinet.

Steven moved her hand and then gingerly tugged out the papers she’d spied. Rose leaned to look, forgetting to be modest in her curiosity, and Steven clenched the pages to keep from dropping them. Her open bodice bared her to the waist, her plump breasts filling her corset. A dark red love bite marked the pale skin of her breast. She was beautiful, decadent, and innocent, all at the same time.

“They’re drawings,” Rose said in surprise.

Of furniture. Of course, more bloody furniture. Five sketches in all, done in colored pencils, depicting pieces from the same period as the cabinet.

One was of another cabinet with small drawers, this one shaped like an obelisk whose point had been sawn off. The artist had noted that it was mahogany with silver inlay, in the latest “Egyptian” style. Two pictures showed chairs with gilded arms, the arms of each capped with carved, gilded Egyptian-looking heads like those found on canopic jars. One picture showed a pair of large candelabras, each base in the form of a stele covered with hieroglyphic-like writing. A figure of a woman, carved in ebony, knelt on the top of each stele, holding the gold curlicues of the candelabra on her head.

The last drawing was of a settee. Its green and gold striped cushion rested atop a boxlike structure made of ebony and studded with gold. Scenes from ancient Egypt were carved into the settee’s arms and burnished with gold, and a sphinx—half lion, half woman—capped each corner.

The settee was a masterpiece. And hideously ugly.

Rose started to laugh. “I always hated this settee. It brought over from Paris by one of Charles’s ancestors after the war with Napoleon. Ancient Egypt was all the rage then, even though they didn’t yet know much about it.”

Steven studied the sketch, every gilded, overly ornate inch of it. “I’ve seen the wonders of the pyramids at Giza and the tombs at Thebes,” he said. “And I assure you, Rosie, that no Egyptian pharaoh ever sat on something like this.”

“Of course they didn’t. It was for French ladies in their salons. It’s horrible.”

Steven flipped through the sketches again. “This settee is in your husband’s house?”

“All those pieces are. His Egyptian collection, he called them. Been in the house for generations. They’re somewhere about.”

“Then why didn’t we see them? I’d have remembered
these
.”

“I don’t know.” Rose managed to look thoughtful and alluring at the same time. “We didn’t have time to do much more than the main floors. Albert might have had them removed to the attics to put them out of my reach. With all the gold on them, they must be worth something.”

Steven looked through the drawings again, then flipped the pages over. A few notes had been made on the back of each, in the original hand, describing upholstery or inlay. One had a tiny drawing, made by a pencil invented long after the Napoleonic period, of a single, full-blown rose.

Steven held it up to her, his thumb on the flower. “A message for you, I think.”

He saw the swallow move down Rose’s throat as she realized that her late husband must have sketched the flower. She turned the drawing over again and forced a smile. “On the ugly settee, no less.”

Steven ran his fingertips along the satinwood of the cabinet. “He knew you’d want this cabinet, because you raved about it. Maybe he left these pictures in it for you to find, guiding you to the settee as the second piece you were to take.”

“Possibly,” Rose said, sounding dubious. “Perhaps he wanted to give me one thing I’d love and one thing I could sell.” Her eyes were moist when she looked up at Steven. “If you can find someone to sell the settee for me, you could have a commission on the sale . . . a small one only, I’m afraid.” Rose smiled with the lush lips Steven wanted to kiss again.

“Keep your money.” He heard the tightness in his voice. “I don’t need it.”

Rose’s smile died. “Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean any insult—”

Steven stopped her words by threading his fingers through her loosened hair and giving her a too-brief kiss. “Not to worry, Rosie, I’ll scare up a buyer for you. Right now, in fact.”

“Right now?”

The disappointment in her eyes made Steven’s heart pound, but he stiffened his resolve. If he didn’t leave this room, the hardness of his cock would win over good intentions. “Sooner it’s done, the better.” And the sooner he went, the better for his sanity.

“I see.” Rose relinquished the sketches when he reached for them. “We’ll have to return to Sittford and look for the settee before Albert thinks to get rid of it. Tomorrow, if the weather holds.”

Steven shook his head. “Not tomorrow. I have another appointment.” One he’d give anything to miss, but at the same time, he knew he had to face it.

Rose looked curious and again disappointed, but she was too well-bred to ask for details. “I won’t bother you then. I can go to Sittford myself.”

“No.” The word was sharp. “Not alone. I don’t want you at that house without me. I don’t trust Albert at all.”

Rose grimaced. “Truth to tell, I’d feel better with you there.” Her worried look vanished, and she gave Steven an encouraging smile. “You go on then, and we’ll plan the trip later. If you’re going out, wrap up warm. It’s nippy out there.”

He stilled, startled, the papers and furniture forgotten. No woman in Steven’s history of women—and that history was a full one—had ever told him, concern in her eyes, to wrap up warm. Not one had mentioned the slightest concern for Steven’s well-being. They wanted him for what attention he could give them, and that was all.

Steven laid a hand on her shoulder, his heart full. “I will, lass. You rest now, and start making arrangements of your own.”

Rose didn’t reach to button her bodice, as many women would once they knew the encounter was over. She only sat, open and beautiful for Steven’s gaze.

“Arrangements for what? I should wait to see if we can find the settee first, shouldn’t I?”

Steven made himself step away from her, but it took every bit of his strength to do it. “Arrangements for our wedding,” he said, giving her a wink. “I’m marrying you, remember?”

As Rose gaped, Steven forced himself to turn around, walk across the room, pick up his greatcoat and hat, and wrench open the door. He deliberately did not glance at her one last time—if he did that, he’d never leave.

He heard her say,
Good afternoon
, still polite, though he’d more-or-less been ravishing her. Steven lifted his hand in acknowledgement but he strode out into the cool hall without looking back and shut the door.

Steven’s body thrummed with the heat of her all the way down the stairs and out of the hotel, and even the freezing winter rain slapping him in the face couldn’t cool him.

***

Steven stayed out the rest of the afternoon and into the darkness of evening. Rose couldn’t settle into any task—not mending or writing letters or reading. Steven hadn’t let the staff bring in any newspapers this morning, and it was just as well. No telling what the journalists had written about her since last night.

I’m marrying you, remember?
The words Steven had shot at her before he’d gone rang in her head.