The Bride Price (17 page)

“I won’t. I just don’t want Sarah to be like…” She trailed off, not looking at William.

“I’ve heard about your first marriage.” Sympathy laced his voice.

“You are well informed.” She tried to keep the smile on her face as she looked at the backs of the couple fifteen paces in front of them.

“I see that I’m traversing into unwanted territory. I will end with repeating my caution on Deville. Guard your heart.”

She smiled overly brightly. “I don’t see that to be a problem. Perhaps we could head to the refreshment table for a spot of lemonade? I’m terribly parched.”

William gave her a soft smile and led her that way. She didn’t feel much better after one glass of wine. Or two.

People started drifting away from the party. Some retiring to their own rooms—others retiring to other’s rooms. Caroline drifted around the edges, wondering why she had chosen to remain. Sarah had turned in thirty minutes past, a tightness to her eyes that hadn’t been there at the beginning of the night. William’s expression had also looked more strained, and he had slipped from the room a few minutes after Sarah. They had obviously exchanged words, and neither one, Sarah most frustratingly, was telling her a thing.

She remembered Sarah’s strained smile after she had asked her if she was well.

“Yes. Do not worry about me. London should pick my spirits right up.”

“Who has upset you? Everly?”

“No, not Everly. No one. Please, just let it be, Caro.” She smiled brightly, a little too brightly. “My father says that I’m doing quite well.”

Caroline had returned the overly bright smile, as false as the mirrored expression. She was well within her right to go home now that Sarah had
retired. But yet here she was, aimlessly wandering with her jumbled thoughts.

Deville lounged in the corner, hot eyes on her. She held his eyes for a moment, then turned away and deliberately moved into a more crowded area.

“Mrs. Martin, isn’t it?”

She looked to her right to see Mr. Bateman shadowing her in her circuit.

“John Bateman.” He smiled, but despite his intent, she didn’t find it at all charming.

She tipped her head and continued walking. She had seen him try his
charms
on more than one of the women. His reputation among them was not kind.

“I’ve noticed that you seem to have an in with the heiress.”

“We are friends,” she said in a clipped manner and attempted to increase her pace as a hint, the crowded space making it more difficult.

“That means you and I will be right cozy soon.”

“I sincerely doubt that.” Frost blew from her lips.

He just smiled in a more mocking manner. “I like spirited fillies. Much more fun to break.”

Here was a man with the same background as Deville, and yet where Deville’s mocking smile made him appear somewhat untouchable and the more appealing for it, Bateman just seemed…menacing. There was an inherent sense of danger about both men, but Deville’s compelled, whereas Bateman’s repelled. Maybe it was the overriding feel that Deville didn’t need to use force to get what he desired.

That his prey would willingly surrender.

“Too bad there aren’t any horses here for you then, Mr. Bateman. If you’ll excuse me.”

She caught sight of Deville again and decided that he was by far the better option and headed in his direction. He wore the same hot smile, but when his eyes skirted to the right of her, they turned frigid. She lost sight of him again in the shifting crowd.

“He’s not going to win.”

She gritted her teeth, but smiled at a passing widow who was amiably chatting with another guest. “I do not know of what you speak, Mr. Bateman.”

“Deville. I saw you making eyes at each other.”

She looked for an unattached guest that she might join, but all of a sudden everyone seemed paired off, with Bateman left as her match.

“Is that what it is called when you chance upon a person looking at you?”

“Hardly just looking. It is obvious to anyone with eyes that he has marked you.”

“Marked me? You make it sound like an archery tournament, and I remember Mr. Deville not winning that portion of the competition.” She brushed by another couple, trying to shake him off, but he determinedly stayed by her side. “And now that I think on it, I do not remember you doing well at it either.”

Hardly a nice thing to say, but he was beyond the pale in rudeness, and she was safe enough inside the crowd.

She chanced a look over to see his eyes turn
cold. “So much fun to break. I see why Deville accepted the challenge. He’s after you for one thing only. And when he gets it, you’ll be left in the dust.”

“Oh, and what is that? My witty repartee?”

“I can hardly reveal what he is after. The code denies me.” Somehow from the slice of his smile she doubted the “code” would matter to someone like Bateman other than as a useful tool at times. “But be assured that Deville has little true desire for you. I, on the other hand, do not have such limits.”

“How very fortunate for you.”

“You should pick a winner, Mrs. Martin. It would be in your best interests.”

“I hardly think you know my best interests. And I think you are confusing me with Mrs. Noke.”

He laughed, a brittle sound that reminded her a bit of Deville’s laugh when annoyed. She looked at Bateman, looking for any of the hidden depths that she had missed with Deville, but could see nothing.

“You seem a bit more circumspect than her ilk. But one bird is much like another.”

“How clever.” She steered in another direction, but he continued to shadow her. “I think perhaps we should pursue different walks now, Mr. Bateman.”

“Deville is land hungry,” he scoffed, completely ignoring her request. “Not something a clever woman would find attractive, as it completely ties up one’s funds. I doubt he has a crown to his name, though he pretends otherwise.”

“Your commentary makes little sense, Mr. Bateman.” She switched paths again, only to find him still clinging like a creeping vine.

“If he has as much money as people say he does, he could buy any property, instead of that pitiful bit of land he wants.”

“Hardly pitiful. Roseford Grange is quite attractive in many ways.” She didn’t know why she was defending him, but the beautiful lines of the sketch lingered in her memory. “And it’s his family land—”

“Stupid. It’s worthless property. And he’s not the sentimental type. I’m sure he hasn’t a groat.”

She stopped, observing him with a tilt to her nose. “You sound jealous.”

“Jealous of Deville?” He snorted. “The man doesn’t have a thing I want. Thinks he is high and mighty because he is the son of a duke.”

“Then I daresay you should spend less time thinking of him.”

His gaze raked her. “I suppose he has
one
thing I want.”

She stopped, her fists forming tight balls. “You are all alike. It’s madness. But at least Deville has depth. Something beneath.” She thought about the look on Deville’s face when his last swing ejected that man from the competition. Then of Bateman’s. “He may be arrogant and demanding and entirely frustrating to deal with, but at least he has a soul. What do you have?”

Bateman’s mouth opened, and she turned to switch direction once again, this time bumping into a firm chest.

“My defender,” Deville drawled.

She looked up and growled at his handsome face. His eyes briefly checked her over, as if she might have been scarred, and then turned to Bateman, cold and menacing.

Inexplicably enraged, she stomped on Deville’s foot, her slipper doing little damage to his boot, and stormed out of the room with every intention of heading back home. She should have done so an hour past. She shouldn’t have paid attention to the silly, lingering thoughts that William had planted.

Deville caught up to her halfway across the back courtyard. The moon was on the rise, half full and shining.

“Caroline,” he called.

“Go away,” she called back over her shoulder.

He stopped her with a hand on her arm. “At least you should have asked one of the footmen to accompany you home.”

She should have, but she’d been too angry to ask. “I know the way to my own cottage. And there are hardly any rampaging Vikings waiting to spirit me away.”

Amusement broke across his eyes. “That is good to know. There are a lot of drunken men though.” His eyes turned serious. “Or men like Bateman.”

“And you?”

“I have hardly had a thing to drink tonight,” he said, completely ignoring the real thrust of her question.

“Well, you are hardly safe.” She shook off his hand and continued toward the trees.

“Thank you.”

She spun, hands on her hips. “What is the matter with all of you? Desperate for attention, or affection, I’m not sure which.”

“Perhaps neither?”

She turned to continue walking and spun again, his natural grace the only thing saving them from a collision.

“And the arrogance! You fight tooth and nail for some prize, yet all of you seem to think yourselves derided.”

He raised a silky brow. “I think you are throwing a tantrum.”

She poked a finger against his chest. “I don’t throw tantrums. I am dignified.”

She threw back her shoulders and walked through the small forest to her cottage grove, her legs stretching to stay ahead of his.

“You attribute feelings to us that I’m not sure we possess.”

“Feelings you do not possess? Like pain, loss, agony?”

He frowned. “What are you—”

“Like those men ejected from the competition? I know you empathized.”

His eyes narrowed. The crickets chirped in the bushes surrounding her door as her chest heaved. “You found the sketch.”

Something in her eyes must have given her away.

“You
took
the sketch.” His assessing gaze shifted to her lips. “Tut, tut, Caroline. A saboteur
and
a thief. What lengths you will go to in order to win my regard.”

“As if I need to win your regard. You strut like a peacock for me already.”

“It must be working. Look at you.”

She turned and opened her door with fumbling fingers. His hand covered hers on the knob.

“The sketch. Retrieve and return it to me.”

Her breath met the oak of the door as he pressed against her. “I will return it if you promise to renounce your blackmail.”

His hand dropped, though he didn’t move otherwise. “A bargain?”

“Yes,” she said firmly.

“No.”

“No?” She turned, trapped between his body and the door. “But don’t you want your sketch back?”

“There are others.” The shadows shifted on his face, so close to hers.

She scrambled for purchase. “What if I tell the guests?”

“That I draw?” He lifted a brow. “It’s part of a gentleman’s routine. No one will care.”

But that wasn’t quite true. She could see it in his eyes. She narrowed hers. “You don’t want anyone to see that sketch. It shows too much.”

“Really. And what does it show?” His mouth moved toward hers.

“That you are vulnerable,” she whispered. “That you want the prize too much.”

He had the temerity to laugh, lips pulling to within a hairbreadth of hers. “That is what everyone feels and wants that is entered into this competition. Little harm that knowledge will do to me.”

“The sketch shows a glimpse into you.”

“Do you believe that?” He laughed, but the lines near his eyes and mouth creased downward. “Go ahead, show everyone the sketch. See what they say.”

She watched him for a second. Mulled over calling his bluff. “No. Good night, Mr. Deville.”

She reached behind her and turned the knob, but instead of falling into the cottage, she was pulled into warm arms…

“I don’t believe I’m ready to call it a night.” Smooth lips captured hers in a kiss of passion, of promise, hinting at something more, some unplumbed depths, just as his picture had. Sweet, gentle, heady, taking her completely off guard.

…he pushed her inside.

What types of feat or scandal might be afoot tonight? The titillation as we head into the high heat of summer before the competition’s respite has us tipped forward in our chairs.

W
arm spice drifted around her limbs, curling and pulling.

Lips brushed her ear to the area where her hair met her neck.

He slid her hair to the side and attached lips there. Her breath hitched, the warmth invading her skin where his lips touched and then spreading in all directions. Down her throat, down her belly, down her legs, to her knees, which buckled.

“Shhh, Caro.” The pet name that slipped from his lips, delivered in a different way from how others said it, the vowels softer, like the Italian pet form instead of a shortened version of her own name. Nothing like the friendly, familiar way Sarah said it. More like a husky refrain of a prayer to a lover.

“We can’t—” Her breath caught as he nibbled.

“A lovely bite to claim you as mine? It won’t
take much.” The pressure of his lips built, pulled.

The drugging effect combined with terror and she pushed away. “No.”

His eyes were heavy, as if he were the one passion drugged and not she. “How devastating.”

She took a shaky breath and tried to calm the racing currents inside her. “Very well. Claim your kiss, your forfeit, and—”

A finger pulled along the exposed skin at the edge of her bodice. “You successfully make the others do your bidding—the women, the young boys, even that horrid hag Mrs. Francis. You have them all eating out of the palm of your lovely hand. I have to admit that it is a truly inviting hand and I’m tempted to sip from it, but too long have I pulled the strings myself. I will set the terms of your forfeits.”

Outrage overtook her, swift and sure. “You dare—”

His finger dipped below her bodice and the edge of her rigid corset, and the tip of his finger brushed her nipple, strangling anything that might have emerged from her mouth.

“You are such a sweet, ripe plum. All outrage and defiance. High color and heaving breasts. Did you really think that I would demand a mere kiss in return?” His finger pulled back along the same path, tweaking her nipple again and causing the raging heat and outrage to convert into wildfire. “Do you know what I do when I think about you on your back, straining toward my hand, bucking against my cock? Wild and wanton and altogether delectable?”

She couldn’t move, couldn’t respond.

His lips moved near her ear. “Do you know how many times I’ve taken myself in hand, thinking it was you that was smiling up at me, you that I was entering, you that was swallowing every last bit?”

A strangled sound was the only thing that emerged.

“You might try and convince yourself that it isn’t dreams of completion you are having night after night, but your body says something entirely different.” A hand moved down her back and around her backside. She moved into him without conscious thought, fit around his leg like a snug wrapper.

His other hand joined the first, cupping her, pulling her against his thigh in slow strokes, making her hot and heavy. The entryway of her cottage vanished, and she didn’t think she could even work up the outrage were one of the guests to open the door and peek inside. Everything coiled to the feel of his leg rubbing against her, to the heat and friction, the complete fire in his eyes.

“And that’s why I know I will have you. All of you.” His head dipped so that his cheek stroked hers. “And I cannot wait.”

She felt the press of the wall against her back, the press of his leg against her, the relentless stroking and pressure. His lips moved along her jaw, down her neck, to her throat. Her head tipped back against the wall as he continued the assault. The ceiling blurred, and if asked to describe her own decor, she wouldn’t have been able to give a
single detail. She pushed against him on the tips of her toes, the feeling of orgasm pushing up on her, building. The strength of the one approaching made her breath catch.

“You won’t let me outwardly brand you, but I think I can inwardly do so.”

A tongue reached under the frilly material lining her bodice. A hand pushed her breast up and the tip brushed against her clothing, up and over, freed to his touch, to his lips. He sucked once, twice, ground his thigh into her, and she was convulsing against him, sounds escaping that she couldn’t control. His lips covered hers, sucking the sounds greedily, just as he had done to another part of her a moment before. She shuddered and he slowly pulled his thigh away, let her gently drop to the floor, her feet finding purchase once more.

“You have played with more fire concerning me than you probably are aware of. And I have to admit”—he pulled a strand of hair around his first finger—“that it makes me want you even more, even though I know the games women play.”

“I have never entered the game,” she whispered, trying to calm her body and her mind.

“Which just makes you all the more sweet a fruit. I’ll see you in the morning, Caroline,” he whispered. “And then the morning after that, and each one following.”