The Defiant One (5 page)

He heard the low murmur of Lucien's voice somewhere downstairs.  The duke slept no more than four hours per night.  Of course
he'd
be up.

Sure enough, the anticipated knock on his door came moments later.

It was James, his valet.  "My lord?  His Grace asked me to inform you that you have visitors.  Lady Celsiana Blake and her brother, Earl Somerfield, are here.  Your presence is requested downstairs."

Andrew flipped onto his side, pulled the coverlet up over his shoulders, and shutting his eyes, burrowed more deeply beneath the blankets.  "My presence be damned.  Tell His bloody Grace that
he
can deal with her ladyship.  I'm of no mind to ruin my day by starting it off in an argument with some irritating female."

"As you wish, my lord."

Andrew waited until he heard the servant retreating down the hall, then, stretching lazily, went back to sleep.

Or tried to.

Moments later, he was jolted rudely awake by a blinding light hitting him in the face.  Lucien was at the windows, yanking the heavy drapes back and letting in the ruthless morning sunshine.

"Really, Andrew.  It is frightfully ill mannered to keep guests waiting."

"It is also frightfully ill mannered to get a fellow out of bed only to throw him to a damned carnivore," retorted Andrew.  The harsh light seemed to drive through his eyeballs and straight through his head into the pillow beneath him.  He sat up, knuckling his eyes and squinting against the flooding brightness.  "What the deuce is she doing here, anyhow?"

"Why, I invited her, of course."

"You invited her?"

"You seemed rather upset that I . . . shall we say, stretched the truth about your experiments, so I took it upon myself to issue her an invitation to Blackheath just to set the record straight."

"Lucien," gritted Andrew from between clenched teeth, "I am perfectly capable of handling Lady Celsiana Blake without your assistance."

"Yes, why don't you?  Handle her, that is.  She and her brother are in the Gold Drawing Room awaiting you."

"
Gerald
is in the Gold Drawing Room awaiting him," snapped a tart female voice from the doorway.  "I am not."

"What are
you
doing here?!" shouted Andrew, bolting straight up in bed, which, given the fact that he slept without a nightshirt, without a cap, without anything, in fact, save for the auburn hair that curled crisply on his chest, was a mistake.  Lady Celsiana Blake got an eyeful of bare skin, sinewy arms, and a lean, flat belly laddered with hard muscle.

"A servant brought me up!" she cried, staring at his chest and blushing furiously.

"Here?"

"The duke
said
I was being taken to your laboratory!"

"Damn you, Lucien!" roared Andrew.  "What the bloody
hell
is the meaning of this?"

Lucien's casual cross-armed stance, his innocent expression, never changed.  "Really, Andrew.  I do wish you'd watch your language.  There is a lady present."

"Not anymore there's not!" Celsie raged, and jerking her chin up, turned on her heel and marched down the hall in a rustling fury of agitated skirts and petticoats.

"Ought to go after her, I think," mused Lucien.  "She's probably heading for your laboratory . . . Wouldn't want her to find any animal experiments going on, now, would we?"

"You cursed
bastard
!"  Leaping out of bed, Andrew swept up a blanket, wrapped it around his hips, and ran barefooted down the hall in pursuit of his visitor.

Celsie was halfway down the hall when she heard him pounding after her.  She picked up her pace, turned a corner, and whirled, her face flushed with fury and embarrassment as she confronted the source of her distress.  "Don't your servants even know the way around your house?" she howled.  "Your brother said the servant would bring me to your laboratory!  That was no laboratory, that was your — your —"

"
Bedroom
!" Andrew shouted, equally furious.

"I have never been so humiliated in my life!"

"Well, don't look at me,
I
wasn't the one who invited you into my blasted apartments!"

"Had I known they were your blasted apartments, I would never have set foot in them!"

"And yet you would have set foot in my laboratory?  Without my express invitation?"

"Your
brother
said I could inspect it!"

"My brother be damned!  I don't want you or any other nosy, annoying, interfering,
female
in my laboratory!"

"What, do you have something to
hide
?" she challenged.

They stood glaring at each other, Celsie quivering with rage, Andrew's fists clenched and his eyes blazing.  Celsie tore her gaze from his face.  But instead of landing on a place of safety, it fell to his magnificent chest, rising in a perfect inverted triangle of lean muscle and male strength from the blanket wrapped around his hips.  Appalled, she jerked her gaze up, and saw instead a clenched jaw cloaked with dark auburn bristle; a set, angry mouth; and rich, sleep-tousled hair that gleamed like burnished chestnuts in the light coming in from the window.

"
Oh!
" she cried, and ripped her gaze from his face.

Instead, it dropped to his feet.  His bare feet, with their bare toes and their bare ankles and their bare calves, which were, like that splendid, oh-so-manly chest, sparsely cloaked with auburn hair.

"I'm leaving," she announced, doing an about-face and storming off down the hall.

Andrew marched right after her, his long shadow completely dwarfing her and the path ahead of her so that she could not escape it no matter how fast she walked.  "Good."

"I knew I should never have come here in the first place!"

"You are entirely correct, you never
should
have come here in the first place, and at such an ungodly hour, besides."

She spun around so fast that he collided with her chest.  She shoved him away. "What do you mean, ungodly hour?  It's nearly noon!  How was I to know that you sleep the days away?  Do you practice your evil experiments by light of the moon, then, so God himself can't see the wickedness that you're up to? 
Do you?
"

"I practice my evil experiments at all times of the day, except, of course, when I'm being harassed by meddling females."

"So now I'm a meddling female!"

"You've been a meddling female since the moment I met you."

"And you've been a surly, arrogant recluse who's nothing short of
strange
!  Look at you," she spat, tossing her head and letting her contemptuous gaze rake his body.  "Standing there before me, a lady, wearing nothing but a blanket!"

She struck a nerve with the word
strange
, knocking him mentally off balance.  Andrew drew back, his eyes narrowing.

"Would you prefer I slip it off, then?" he taunted.

"I'm
leaving
!"

He held himself still as she stormed off down the hall. 
Nothing short of strange.
  Her remark had shaken him.  Infuriated him.  Frightened him, for it showed that certain aspects of his behavior had not gone unnoticed.  Emotion boiled up inside him as she marched away from him, her little rump swaying beneath yards of shimmering green satin, her shoulders stiff, her nape white and elegant beneath the pinned-up piles of shiny, tawny-brown hair.  He felt an insane desire to call out, to let the damned blanket fall and
really
unsettle her.  But no.  He was unsettling her enough just the way he was, and, given her unprecedented attacks on him, he was determined to enjoy what revenge he could take.

She was about to round the corner.  In another moment she'd be on her way downstairs.  Andrew couldn't let her leave without having the last word.  He waited until she was nearly to the stairs before he rashly, recklessly, tossed out a challenge that would change the course of his life.

"I say, Lady Celsiana," he called out, mockingly.

She kept walking, her back as stiff as if someone had poured starch down her spine.

"I say, madam, would you like to see the
evil experiment
I'm working on now?"

That
brought her to a stop.

She spun around.

"I thought you didn't want nosy, interfering females in your precious laboratory," she blazed.

"You forgot annoying."

"That's because I don't consider my efforts on behalf of suffering animals
annoying
, though I suppose dog haters like yourself would be inclined to disagree!"

"Oh, I am entirely inclined to disagree.  You are by far the most annoying female I've encountered all year."

Celsie bit back an angry retort and turned her head, refusing to look at him.  His near-nakedness was having an effect on her that she didn't quite understand, a hot, short-of-breath feeling that partnered her thumping heart.  She wished she could stop thinking about his naked chest.  Wished she could keep her thoughts off what must be concealed by the blanket.  Wished she could think — at all.

"So," he taunted.  "D'you want to see my laboratory or not?"

"No, I don't want to see your stupid laboratory after all.  It will only upset me. 
You
upset me.  I was a fool to even come here in the first place."

He crossed his arms, one downbent hand anchoring the blanket low on his hip.  "Coward."

Her head whipped around.  "I beg your pardon?"

"You profess to be some savior of animals, yet look at you, bolting because you just might see something distressing.  Some dog defender
you
make."

Her chin snapped up with renewed pique.  She trembled with the urge to fling something at him.  And then she saw the challenge in his far-too-intelligent eyes, and what looked like a teasing smirk dancing about his mouth.

Celsie folded her arms and unflinchingly met his mocking stare, her eyes narrowing.

"Fine then.  Since you're so eager to show off your hideous experiments, you can just lead the way!"

Chapter 5

He offered his arm.

Stiffly, Celsie accepted it.

And wished that he would put on some clothes.  Any clothes.  Lord, even a coat would have done wonders.

Stop thinking about what lies beneath that blanket!

But she couldn't.  Any more than she could will away this annoying, hot-and-prickly feeling that had so unexpectedly come over her.  And as she walked mutely beside him, the air between them stiff with tension, she was disturbingly aware of how tall he was.  How refreshing — no, how strange — it felt to find someone whose height surpassed her own, whose very stature made her feel as tiny as she wished she actually were, who made her feel less of a . . .

Well, less of a gawky freak.

Was his — she glanced furtively at the blanket cloaking his hips — anatomy of full stature as well?

She blushed furiously.

"I don't think this is such a good idea after all," she snapped, all too aware of the way her body was responding to her handsome, dog-abusing escort and not liking it one bit.

"It is a brilliant idea."

"What, you clad in nothing but a blanket, me without my maid or suitable escort, and you leading me to God-only-knows-where?  I am not sure it is quite so brilliant at
all
."

"It is brilliant because it is obviously not in Lucien's plans."

"What on earth do Lucien's plans have to do with anything?"

He marched her out of the main house and through the doors to another wing.  "Really, madam.  Do you honestly believe that the servant who brought you to my bedroom didn't do so on purpose?"

"Perhaps he got lost whilst trying to find your laboratory."

"Rubbish.  That servant has been working for us for the last twenty years, and his father worked for us before that.  He knew perfectly well where he was taking you.  I would bet everything I own that he was merely following orders.  Lucien's orders.  After all, my brother invited you out here, didn't he?"

"No, I took it upon myself to come.  I wanted to see for myself what evil cruelty you practice in your laboratory."

His lips thinned in an unamused smile.  "I see."

"Well, I'm glad
you
do, because I'm feeling very confused right about now . . . Why do you say your brother invited me here?  And why would he direct the servant to bring me to your apartments when it was obvious you were in no state to receive visitors?"

"Because he's a troublemaking monster who delights in making me miserable, that's why."  He shoved open a set of carved oak doors.  "Here we are.  Watch where you step."

Celsie pulled away from him and came up short.  She found herself in a grand chamber, with bookcases built into the walls, a high, plastered ceiling, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a lovely floor of gleaming teak.  A huge worktable, crowded with bottles, jars, notebooks, burned-down candles, crumpled-up papers, open books, and a discarded coat, dominated the room.  An easel, upon which were scribbled some mathematical or chemical formulas — Celsie had not a clue which — was pulled up beside a high stool.  The room smelled predominantly of new paint, new floor, new everything, though Celsie could detect the underlying scents of sulfur, vinegar, and something that had been recently burned.

There was not an animal in sight.

Not a cage, not a leash, not a dead dog anywhere to be found.

"But . . ."  She looked up at him in helpless confusion.  "Where are the animals you are experimenting on?"

"I do not experiment on animals."

"But you said at the ball that —"

"No, those were my brother's words, and after you attacked me as you did, and in such an embarrassingly public way, I was so angry that I chose to let you believe them.  But I never confirmed such codswallop, did I?"

Celsie could only stand there staring at him with her mouth hanging open.  Then she blushed and looked away.

"Oh," she said, in a little voice.  "Oh — I am so sorry . . ."