That Despicable Rogue (7 page)

The knowing stare he gave her through half-hooded eyes did make her feel a tad nervous. It was as if he was fully aware of the effect his ministrations were having on her.

‘Come now, Prim. As your employer I am more than happy to allow you to sleep in, should you need to. I do believe that you might have other duties to attend to tonight that are far more pressing.’

Hannah could not quite believe her ears, even though her pulse quickened at the suggestion. Had he
really
just made completely improper and outrageous advances towards her?

She stiffened her spine in outrage and roughly snatched her wrist away. ‘How dare you? You are drunk, sir. This is
not
the way a gentleman behaves towards a member of his household.’

She swiftly spun round and marched to the door in righteous indignation. She did not care if her words
did
threaten to compromise her employment here. In fact she did not care if he dismissed her on the spot—she would not allow him to treat her as if she were some lightskirt. Even if society believed that about her she would never demean herself by allowing another man to treat her that way.

As soon as she got to the door he was behind her. ‘Not so fast, Prim,’ he whispered, close to the back of her head, planting his arms upon the wood on either side of her, preventing her from leaving.

Despite the drink he was unbelievably swift and light on his feet. She had not even heard him rise from the bed, let alone dash across the floor of his bedchamber. That made her feel even more nervous and exposed. Even in the state he was in he was a force to be reckoned with.

She turned in the confines of his arms and folded her own arms across her chest in defiance. It would not do to let him see that she was rattled. ‘What do you intend to do, sir? Keep me here against my will? Force yourself upon me?’

Her chin lifted as she stared up at him. Goodness, he was tall—and imposing at such close quarters. Her eyes barely came level with his chin. And he smelled so...
masculine
.

A low, intimate chuckle emanated from somewhere deep in his chest and resonated through her body. ‘Dear Prim, I can assure you that I have never,
ever
had to force myself upon a woman. They all come quite willingly, in my experience—so your precious virtue is quite safe. I merely want a proper answer to my question. Why do you dislike me so very much?’

He was so close to her that she could feel his warm breath brush across her face. The unmistakable smell of brandy was surprisingly faint, but the heady aroma of bay and spice from his cologne was more prominent—and far from unpleasant.

‘I don’t dislike you,’ she finally said cautiously, and then realised that those words were not so very far from the truth. She
wanted
to dislike him. She was desperately trying to find the evidence to do so. ‘I disapprove of the great majority of your morals and behaviour.’

‘Give me examples,’ he whispered, quite lucidly, and he stared covetously at her mouth in a way that made her lips warm with awareness. ‘What do I do, specifically, that you so thoroughly disapprove of?’

Hannah involuntarily licked her lips and saw his expression turn a little smug as she did so. He knew she was not completely immune to his charms, the devil, and he leaned a little closer in an attempt to fluster her further. Their faces were inches apart and his braced arms still formed a cage around her.

‘I disapprove of your shameless flirting!’ she spat, and positively glared at him. ‘And I disapprove of your drinking, gambling and whor...’

Hannah allowed her angry outburst to trail off, too embarrassed to accuse him of whoring as well. Oh, how she hated that word.

‘Most gentleman drink, gamble and fraternise with women, Prim. I am not unique in that respect.’

He lifted one finger and used it to loosen a tendril of hair at the side of her face. When it refused to budge from her severe coiffure he plucked out the hairpin that prevented it and smiled as the curl bounced to her jaw. Lazily, and to her great consternation, he wound it around his index finger possessively. It felt wonderful.

‘You are no gentleman, sir. That fact is well reported.’ It was a spiteful thing to say, but the truth none the less. She needed him to give her space. His close proximity was scattering her wits.

Unfortunately her insult amused him more than it offended. ‘I have never claimed to be a gentleman, Prim. And you are right. That fact
has
been widely reported—you do seem to love the gossip columns, don’t you? But the newspapers do not know the half of it. My background is far worse than even they realise. I am the son of a forger and a tavern maid. There is not a single drop of aristocratic blood in my common veins. We lived in one room next to a brothel when we could afford it. Once or twice we slept on the streets. Do not let my ruthlessly trained accent fool you. I come from the gutter, Prim. That is certainly not the background of a gentleman. Why on earth would you expect me to behave like a one?’

His tone was reasonable, as if she were expecting the impossible.

‘I expect it, sir, because you pretend to be one. You rub shoulders with them, dress like one of them—that is when you can be bothered to put on a coat—and now you live like one. As owner of this house you should at least attempt to act like one.’

At some point during her lecture she had begun to point her finger into the solid wall of his ribcage.

‘And what about
you
, madam?’ he replied as he simultaneously removed her accusing finger from his breastbone and laced his own through her wayward hand.

The motion seemed to make their position even more intimate—if such a thing were possible when they already stood touching from chest to thigh.

‘You have such great expectations of me but make no effort to comport
yourself
properly. A good servant, I am told, should be seen and not heard.
You
throw around your lofty opinions as if you have a right to be so high and mighty. Get off your high horse, Prim. Need I remind you that you are no lady either?’

Hannah bristled at that charge, because it had been said before—and worse. ‘I am more of a lady than you will ever be a gentleman! At least
I
have enough decency to know that it is quite wrong to make advances to the staff.’

He had the audacity to smirk. ‘Stop acting so shocked. A woman as lovely as you should be used to the improper advances of men. And I suspect that you are not truly as prim and proper as you would have me believe. In fact, I believe all the little lies you have told me are only the tip of the iceberg. You have already been caught out in one deception. I wonder what other rebellious traits you hide under that sensible, drab dress?’

Something about the way his eyes devoured her after those words made her blush involuntarily, as if he could see through the fabric of the garment. Goosebumps sprang up all over her body at the thought, and the urge to get away doubled, but he was not finished.

‘Perhaps I should keep a very close eye on you—just to check that you are not up to no good. Would you like that, Prim?’ One hand curled around her waist possessively, then made a slow journey down the curve of her hip.

Hannah had never been handled so...so intimately. The twin emotions of outrage and excitement at being desired by this shameless man warred within her. How long had it been since any man had looked at her with anything other than disgust? How many times had she dreamed about such things in her lonely bed? Of a faceless saviour who would want her regardless? A man who would love her regardless?

His eyes held such forbidden promise...

Common sense won out. ‘You are drunk, sir, and will no doubt regret this behaviour tomorrow. Now, unhand me if you please.’ Again she stared defiantly at him, ignoring the fierce attraction she felt.

For the merest second he paused, and then he grinned wickedly. ‘As you have quite rightly pointed out, Prim, I am no gentleman.’

Before she fully understood his intent, his dark head had dipped and his mouth fastened on hers boldly and feasted.

Her initial response was to flatten her hands against his chest in order to push him away. She clamped her lips firmly shut at the impertinent onslaught. But then her rebellious body rejoiced at the contact. His mouth moved sensually over hers with such skill and tenderness that she forgot her outrage and began to soften against him and her own better judgement. It had been so many years since anybody had stolen a kiss from her that she had forgotten quite how pleasant it could be.

This kiss was more than simply pleasant, though. It lit a fire within her that she had not known existed, and for a few moments she let it to burn unchecked, allowed herself simply to feel rather than think. Oh, how she had yearned for someone to want her again. It felt so very,
very
good.

In a second she would stop this silly experiment. She was overcome, that was all, and surprised to have been kissed. Nothing more.

But one second turned to two, then two turned to five.

Under her splayed hands she felt his heartbeat, sure and steady under the warm, silky skin of his chest. It felt decadent to touch a man like that, and without knowing it her fingers began to feel the shape of the muscles and ribs under her palms. When one of his hands gently cupped the side of her face she forgot that she hated him and kissed him back. Just once. Just because it felt so wonderful.

It was all the encouragement he needed. He trailed hot kisses down her cheek until he reached the place where her jaw met her neck. Then he used his teeth and tongue to nuzzle the tender pulse that beat there, before nipping and licking his way back to her ready mouth.

When he kissed her again she welcomed it like a starving man welcomed food, and moaned when his tongue tasted her mouth in the most scandalous joining of lips she had ever experienced. Her fiancé had never kissed her like this. And still she allowed him liberties with her person, let the passion build inside her. It made the tips of her breasts throb, and a dull ache began to form deep between her legs. Her breathing became unsteady. Uneven.

The powerful sensations and her needy reaction to them made her panic, and that emotion brought her crashing back to reality with a thud. She was kissing the man who had stolen her home and pushed her brother to suicide. What the
hell
was she thinking?

That, she realised with a jolt of disgust, was the problem. She had not been thinking at all. Only feeling.

With one decisive push she broke the contact and slipped out from under his arms, more than a little dazed and confused. To be fair, judging by the way his breathing was also laboured, he appeared as shocked as she by how quickly their brief kiss had turned to sheer carnal desire.

He stared at her dumbly for several moments, with a startled expression on his face. Then he finally stepped away from the door with a gloating smirk and folded his arms across his annoyingly distracting bare chest.

‘As I suspected,’ he drawled. ‘Not as prim and proper as you would have me believe. And, despite your disapproval, you are clearly not as averse to me as you pretend to be either. I know that you thoroughly enjoyed what I just did—didn’t you, Prim?’

‘You flatter yourself,’ she hissed, ashamed that he was correct, and grabbed the door handle forcefully.

After wrenching it open she turned and fled to her own bedroom, not caring that he could clearly see that she was running as fast as she could to get away—both from him and the inconvenient passion that had bubbled so unexpectedly between them.

When she got to her room she bolted the door—just in case. He had been right—damn him—she
had
thoroughly enjoyed what he had just done to her.

And that would not do at all.

Chapter Seven

H
annah spent the entire morning worrying. Fortunately nobody else was aware of the outrageously improper kiss they had shared last night. Just thinking about it made her blush to the tips of her toes. It had not been her finest moment. One minute she had been happily disgusted at his behaviour, and the next she had been swept away in the throes of unwanted passion. Clearly she had been too deprived of male contact in the last few years if her traitorous body could respond with such uncharacteristic fervour.

He had taken advantage of her, she reasoned self-righteously. If she had not been taken so completely by surprise she would have slapped him for his impertinence and admonished him for abusing his position. Surely?

That was the problem, however. In the cold light of day Hannah knew that the only reason she had ended the kiss was out of fear. Her intense, needy reaction to Jameson had frightened her, and all she’d been able to do in response was flee. Worse, all night she had not been able to forget about how glorious it had felt. Her mind kept flitting back and remembering the unfamiliar sensations he had elicited.

He had been deliciously solid under her fingers. Her body had rejoiced at the pleasure of being held in his arms, and her lips had tingled with need hours afterwards. Even now her body craved more of the same, and appeared to be oblivious to the stark warnings from her head. She had been positively wanton—after accusing
him
of living his life in pursuit of carnal pleasure. How on earth was she ever going to face the man again without dying from embarrassment?

Feeling very silly, Hannah had hidden away upstairs, instructing Reggie and a particularly timid footman on which pieces of furniture needed consigning to the attic. Worn down by Reggie’s complaining, she had finally relented and broken for tea. Now the pair of them were sitting around the kitchen table, cooling off.

‘Can I ask you a personal question, Reggie?’ she said carefully as she sipped the cold lemonade Cook had pressed into her hand.

‘Ask away, mum,’ he replied cheerfully, through a mouthful of bread and cheese. It was quite staggering the amount of food he could consume in a single day.

‘Mr Jameson told me that he inherited you when he bought a building. Is that true?’

Reggie laughed and sent a fine spray of crumbs shooting across the table. ‘Sort of, I suppose. He does have a funny way of explaining things. Ross bought out a warehouse at the docks—lock, stock and barrel—and as I lived there he said I could stay. Been with him ever since.’

‘You lived in a warehouse?’ Such a prospect sounded terrible. ‘Why did you live in a warehouse?’

Reggie’s eyebrows drew together as he thought about the question and she sat quietly while he did so. In the short time she had known him she had learned that his memory was better if he had time to recall things. If put on the spot, he remembered nothing.

After almost a full minute he smiled in recollection. ‘I was a fighter. ’Course, them sorts of fights is illegal, so they happen on the quiet. The guvnor had the warehouse because it was a good venue, with plenty of space for the Fancy.’ He popped another chunk of cheese into his mouth.

‘The Fancy? What is that?’

‘Well, that’s the name we give to the punters who come to watch and bet on a fight. Some of them are from the gentry, and dress right posh, so we call them the Fancy.’

‘You used to engage in illegal boxing matches in a warehouse and you lived there as well?’

Reggie nodded and began to carve off another slice of bread from the loaf that had been left on the table. His explanation raised more questions for Hannah than answers.

‘Men go to Gentleman Jackson’s all the time—what was different about the boxing matches you took part in at that warehouse that made them illegal?’

Reggie did not need to think about his answer. ‘Jackson’s has proper rules and things. We didn’t. When you fought at the warehouse you had to keep going till you either won or was knocked unconscious. Especially if the fight was fixed—which it usually was. The Guvnor would tell me to keep going for as long as I could as the punters bet more money on the fight then. ’Course, I was one of his favourites because I could take a punch. Sometimes I could go for twenty or thirty rounds before I was knocked out.’

This went a long way to explaining why Reggie’s mind was damaged. ‘Did you ever win, Reggie?’

‘In me prime, I did. But as I got older I had to throw the fights. With me being so big the punters always bet on me to win—but I let the other fella win, the Guvnor raked in the cash and I got me board and lodgings for free.’

And his skull battered for the privilege.

The reality of what he had endured was awful. Reggie had been grossly taken advantage of because he’d lacked the intelligence to know better or the power to do anything about it.

‘And Mr Jameson bought the illegal boxing ring and you with it?’ Poor Reggie had been a means of making money for Jameson as well. The man had the morals of an alley cat.

‘Yes, he did,’ Reggie confirmed happily. ‘I was part of the deal because Ross said he needed my services. I thought he meant as a fighter, though, so I was a bit surprised when he stripped the place out and turned it into a proper warehouse.’

The last piece of bread disappeared down Reggie’s gullet and he sat back in the chair with his hands resting comfortably on his now full stomach.

‘What do you mean? Did he close down the boxing ring or simply move it?’ Surely he’d moved it. Such a spectacle would have created an easy source of revenue for a person who fed off others like carrion.

Reggie chuckled and sighed. ‘Ross ain’t got no appetite for boxing. He closed it completely and put me in charge of guarding the warehouse.’

Hannah sat forward in her chair, staggered by this news until she realised that there was obviously something even more lucrative and illegal than bare-knuckle boxing going on there.

‘What sort of things did you have to guard in that warehouse, Reggie?’

He had to think about that, and she had to hide her impatience while he did so.

‘Mostly silk,’ he said after an interminable age, ‘although sometimes there was fancy pottery as well. Ross gets a lot of things from the Orient, and quality ladies do love nice frocks.’

This information could not have been more disappointing, and Hannah felt her spirits plunge. If Reggie was to be believed—and he really did not have the intelligence to lie convincingly—then Jameson had saved him from a life of extreme violence and potential death, closed down a lucrative underground gambling den and instead traded in fine silks for the gentry.

That made him sound almost noble!

‘Does Mr Jameson ever need your fighting skills for other things, Reggie? For example, have you ever had to threaten people for him, or collect debts owed to him?’ Surely he had to do that at least?

The big man shook his shaggy head. ‘I ain’t thrown a punch in five years, mum—honest. Now I just look after Ross, on account of him needing someone to fetch and carry for him, so I moved out of the warehouse a few winters ago and moved in with him. Mind you, it was proper cold that year, so I can’t say that I minded.’

With a sinking feeling Hannah just knew that the cold winter had had a great deal to do with Reggie’s promotion. ‘Does Mr Jameson pay you well, Reggie?’

Not that Reggie had any need for money—he was fed at the master’s table and slept in one of the best family bedrooms in the house—but it would give her some consolation to know that he treated his personal servant badly in at least that respect.

‘I ain’t got no need of money!’ Reggie exclaimed in outrage. ‘I keep telling him that, but he don’t listen. Ross puts me wages into investments. He says money makes money. Do you know, I get yearly dividends on it? I must have close to five hundred quid in the bank.’

Hannah’s spirts sank further. To listen to Reggie, Jameson was a candidate for sainthood. Depressed, and more than a little confused, Hannah finished her lemonade. At this rate she would be a very old lady and still merely a housekeeper in her own house.

* * *

Ross felt the first sign of a headache beginning to form behind his eyes and realised he had been staring at his ledgers for hours. Not that he minded the work. The columns of numbers were his friends. They made perfect sense to him, and he loved to see his profits rise exactly as he had predicted they would. However, the headaches were always a sign that he had done too much and needed some air and a change of scenery.

He should have stopped when the tea tray had magically arrived. It did that a great deal of late, he had noticed, thanks to Prim, and it was always timed to break up his work—as if she realised he was doing too much.

The woman appeared to have clairvoyant tendencies at times. Ever since the day she had shed her disguise she had taken the trouble to fuss over him a bit. More often than not she bustled in with her usual disapproving expression on her face, yet she brought him fresh fruit in the mornings and his favourite cakes in the afternoons. If he worked late in the evenings she would bring in a light snack with the tray, and then wordlessly go about the study lighting all the lamps and admonishing him for squinting in the dark and potentially ruining his eyesight.

All around the room were little feminine touches that had her name written all over them. He knew that the vase of fragrant roses on the mantel, for instance, were refreshed every few days because he had casually mentioned that he enjoyed the smell of the ones she had put in the hall.

It was those little thoughtful, personal touches that had him baffled. On the one hand she could be brusque and formal, but apparently she could not stop herself from doing little things that made him feel happy. She could be as cold and brittle as a brisk north wind one minute, then burn hot with fiery passion the next. Last night had proved that.

She exuded so much confidence sometimes that she could be a little intimidating, and then she would retreat into herself like a timid mouse as she had today. He had expected her to come and give him a sound telling off for kissing her yesterday evening, but she had avoided him quite deftly instead, as if she were embarrassed rather than outraged. Everything about her was so conflicting he found her oddly intriguing. He had certainly never encountered another woman quite like her.

With a contented sigh he closed the big leather book and stretched, before heading towards the convenient French doors that connected his study with the garden. His new gardener had already begun to clear the flowerbeds from the choking weeds that had overtaken them. Next year there would be flowers everywhere, he promised himself, and cheerful new benches would be set in secluded parts of the gardens, so that he could sit and think in tranquil peace—master of all he surveyed and at the mercy of no one.

That thought made him smile as he stuffed his hands in his pockets and headed outside. The early-evening air was less oppressive, and he traipsed towards the wooded area at the back of the formal gardens and found a suitably sturdy tree to sit against...

Ross must have nodded off, he realised with a start, because he was no longer alone. A very skinny, pathetic excuse for a dog had plonked itself on the ground next to him and was watching him with interest. The animal was of no discernible breed, and was neither large nor small for a hound. Its fur was a dull shade of beige, but his eyes, ears and tail were ringed with black. Ross stared back at the ugly canine and then tentatively reached out a hand to stroke it. The dog stood and pushed his knobbly head into his open palm, and let out a small doggy sigh of contentment when he scratched behind one of its flea-bitten pointed ears.

A quick glance to the left confirmed its sex. ‘Hello, boy,’ Ross whispered. ‘Where is your owner?’

There was not a single person in sight. The creature panted in response and the sour aroma of dank dog wafted up Ross’s nostrils and made him pull a face.

‘Pardon my forthrightness, Dog, but you stink.’

His hand felt decidedly unpleasant, and he immediately regretted petting the mangy thing. He wiped it on the grass and then hoisted himself to his feet. The dog sidled up next to him and looked up hopefully.

‘Shoo! Go away!’ He started to walk towards the house and the dog trotted alongside. Just what he needed—another stray to blight his life. ‘I mean it, dog—
go away
!’

The animal paused and Ross made a break for it. Decisively he marched out of the woods, and did his best to ignore the sound of the mongrel’s panting as it continued to trot behind his heels. The blasted animal had latched on to him. Annoyed, he stopped dead and turned to face it, with his hands planted on his hips. But then he saw something else move through the edge of the trees in the distance and forgot about the mutt. If he was not mistaken that was Prim he had just spotted—no doubt she was still fuming about the kiss.

A smile crept over his face as he remembered how enthusiastically she had kissed him back. Kissing Prim had been a bit of a revelation. Usually, kissing was a bit of a means to an end—a way of getting a woman into bed. Kissing Prim had been a wholly enjoyable activity in itself. Ross could have carried on and on. When she had abruptly ended it he had felt bereft—and more than a little bit stunned. He had certainly never experienced that before—and certainly not from just a kiss. Would it have the same effect on him again? he wondered.

There was only one way to find out.

Quickly, he slipped back into the woods. She was walking at some speed in the opposite direction to the house and was clutching a bouquet of freshly picked wild flowers. Curious, he kept in the cover of the trees and followed her. Soon she had inadvertently led him to a part of the grounds he had not yet seen. There was a small area enclosed by a low wall that had been almost completely obscured by weeds and meadow grass. From a distance it appeared to be a small cemetery. He could just make out the tops of one or two of the headstones.

Prim opened the gate and let herself in, then he watched her separate the flowers into three small bunches, which she placed next to the stones. Oblivious to his hiding place, she knelt down and began pulling up the weeds.