The Geek Girl and the Scandalous Earl (22 page)

Only a minute later, he pulled away from her. Her “what’s wrong?” was cut off by him pushing her back onto the bed.

“I want to taste you in return, Jamie.” Mike crawled up between her spread legs. Her already throbbing core grew even hotter as his breath blew against the damp folds. “May I?”

She nodded.

His tongue in her mouth had been magic. His tongue on her breasts had been incredible. But when he pressed that same tongue against that tiny nub that screamed out for him she thought she’d lose her ever-lovin’ mind.

“Mike,” she gasped, hands tangling in his dark hair. “Oh God, don’t stop.”

He licked his way from top to bottom, suckling her, nipping gently, caressing her with his mouth. If she’d been wearing her stays, she would definitely have passed out because all available blood in her body was rushing downstairs to greet him.

She couldn’t take it. If he stayed there much longer, she’d never last.

She pulled at his shoulders, and he lifted his head.

“I want you inside me.” She held her arms out to him.

He rose on his arms, positioning his body above hers. He probed at the entrance to her body. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she said, rubbing her hands along his back. “Please, Mike.”

He slid into her gently, his hardness filling her, stretching her inner walls. She moaned, lifting her hips to meet his.

His hips snaked against hers, a sensuous rhythm that stole her consciousness, burning it away in a haze of passion. The motion rubbed against her most sensitive areas, heightening her pleasure immeasurably.

She cried out as he quickened his pace. “Oh God, please don’t stop.”

His movements were frantic against her as his body plundered hers. She met each of his thrusts, bringing him deeper, farther into her body. With one hand, he cupped her breast, and with the other, he gripped her ass. Her hands clenched his hips, desperately trying to bring him farther into her.

When sweat covered their bodies and his erection pulsed hot and hard into her, she screamed with pleasure, hiding her face in his shoulder to cover the sound. Hot jets of passion flowed onto her stomach as he pulled out at the last second. She was momentarily disappointed to be robbed of the delicious feeling, but only for a second. It had been the smart thing to do, after all.

Mike pressed soft kisses against her cheek, her brow, her lips, and then rose to clean her up again. He was so gentle, his hands moving smoothly as he cared for her. She relaxed and enjoyed feeling like a princess.

“Thank you,” she whispered when he crawled back into bed next to her.

“For what?” he whispered back, pulling her into his arms.

“For being you.”

He dropped a kiss on her nose and they both went to sleep.

Despite the beautiful feeling of sleeping in his arms, tension and worry overtook her. She had dark dreams that night.

A raucous horde of ladies and gentlemen, headed by Miss Lyons, chased Jamie through the pitch darkness of the Wentworths’ garden. Their angry cries ripped through her heart like jagged arrows. Her slippers were made for dancing, not running through the woods. She couldn’t outrun them for long.

She yelled Mike’s name as she ran, begging him for help, but he didn’t answer. There wasn’t a friendly face anywhere that she could see. Bushes and brambles tore at her beautiful gown, slowing her even further. She chanced a look over her shoulder. They were gaining on her, Miss Lyons’s eyes glowing red like a demon’s.

Jamie’s breath came in burning gasps as she rounded a huge oak. She stopped short. A huge stone wall extended for miles in either direction. She jumped, digging her nails into the smooth stone. The ledges weren’t large enough to give her purchase. She couldn’t climb it in jeans, much less this frilly gown. She whirled, pressing her back against the cold stone barrier. She watched, helpless, as they came for her.

As they ran closer, shrieking in evil joy, they began to disappear, one by one. By the time the red-eyed Felicity was within ten feet of Jamie, she was the only pursuer left. Felicity stopped her headlong sprint, smiled with her too-thin lips, and sauntered to Jamie, walking hips first, like a slutty supermodel.

“Leave me alone,” Jamie yelled, cold tears tracking down her cheeks. She tried to leap at Felicity, to attack her, but her body was frozen with fear. “I didn’t do anything to you.”

“Oh, but you did,” Felicity purred, her golden curls turning the jet-black of an oil slick. Her figure became fuller, her lips grew into a sensual pout, and then Collette Dubois was cupping Jamie’s chin, eyes still burning like hellfire.

Collette put her head against Jamie’s cheek, and whispered, soft as a kiss, “You took what’s mine. Now you will pay.”

Jamie woke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright in Mike’s bed. He grunted softly in his sleep but didn’t wake fully. Weak fingers of dawn poked through the glass of the window. A shiver that had nothing to do with her nudity raced down her spine.
I’d better get back to my room
.

Swiftly and silently, she dressed. With a last longing look at Mike, she shut the door softly behind her.

***

The quiet knock on his bedchamber door barely roused Micah. He imagined that he dreamt it and reached to his side to touch Jamie. She wasn’t there. A second knock, louder than the first, pried his eyes open.

“Enter,” he called, pulling the sheet up to his naked chest.

“My lord,” George, the footman, said from the crack in the door. “A messenger has come from His Grace, the Duke of Wellington.”

“The Duke of Wellington,” Micah said disbelievingly. “At this hour?”

“His Grace has requested your presence this morning, at nine of the clock. What shall I say to the messenger?”

Micah rubbed a hand through his hair, curling his lip in confusion. “Of course, I will attend His Grace promptly.”

“Yes, my lord.” George dipped his head and shut the door softly.

So much for a leisurely morning spent planning for Jamie’s departure to the country. They would need to postpone her journey until the morrow at the earliest. The Iron Duke, so famous for routing the Corsican upstart Napoleon, was not the sort of person one could ignore.

As Micah hastily went through his daily ablutions, he found it hard to keep his mind on business matters. Glimpses of Jamie kept flitting through his mind. It was enough to drive a man daft, and Micah quelled the small smile that was pasted on his lips at the thought of his intended bride. Remembering the threats that hung over them both did much to temper his pleasure.

The door to his bedchamber swung softly shut behind him as he descended to break his fast, determined to keep his brain fresh on business matters this morn. He’d attend to His Grace and then make arrangements to send his love to the country. The pleasure, and there would be much, would come later.

***

Jamie beat Muriel to the Lemon Room by a good half hour. Jamie had just drifted into an exhausted sleep when the thin maid woke her. She held a steaming cup of chocolate.

“Morning, miss,” she trilled, setting the cup on the bedside table. “Isn’t it a lovely day?”

Jamie stretched as she sat up and yawned. Leaning forward on the bed, she looked out the window. Overcast. “Yup. Gorgeous.”

“You must hurry if you wish to see his lordship this morning.” Muriel scooted over to the wardrobe, pulling out a pale-yellow gown. “I heard Mr. Thornton say that the earl must meet with the Duke of Wellington at nine of the clock.”

So
much
for
a
day
with
my
guy,
she thought as she threw back the covers. Not even time for a bath. Just great. Mike better not send her off to his country house without spending some time talking to her about it first. She needed to know that this wasn’t a life sentence before she agreed to it.

A quick scrub in the basin later, she was dressed and on her way to meet her earl for breakfast. She hadn’t taken that long to get ready, but Mike was pulling on his gloves at the door while Thornton held his greatcoat.

“Hey,” Jamie said as she walked down the last few steps into the foyer. “Are you leaving?”

“My apologies, Miss Marten,” Mike said, his frown wrinkling his forehead. “I have been called away by His Grace.”

“Oh. Okay.” She ran her fingernail across the banister as she looked at Mike, consternation furrowing her brow.

“I shall be back for dinner. We can discuss your journey to my country house then. I apologize for the delay, but I mustn’t keep His Grace waiting.”

Jamie wanted to give him a good-bye kiss or hug him or even squeeze his gloved hand briefly. She was feeling so weird after those creepy dreams. But none of that was allowed. Mrs. K said that even married couples didn’t touch each other in the presence of other people. So, instead, she gripped the banister hard, and said, “Be safe.”

She bit her lip as he put on his hat.

“Until this evening, Miss Marten.” He held a hand out to her. She took it, and he pressed his lips to her knuckles so softly.

“Bye.” She didn’t let her voice tremble.

He walked out the door into the now-drizzly morning.

***

Breakfast with Baron was lonely. Jamie let the dog have most of her ham and half of her eggs too. She wasn’t hungry. She was bored. She had no friends, other than Muriel and Mrs. K, who were both busy with their daily duties. She tried to beg Thornton to play cards with her, but the old butler was scandalized by the thought. George went mute when she tried to talk to him, only answering in nods and shakes of his head. One of the other maids shooed her out of the music room for its weekly cleaning session.

She paced down the length of the hallway, the rain keeping her from her usual thinking spot in the garden. Baron curled up by the front door, watching her.

She’d read everything of interest in the house three times. She was crap at embroidery and had no need to ever get better. She tried to teach Baron to howl after she said the word “ThunderCats,” but he lost interest and wandered into the kitchen. Typical male.

She flopped onto the settee and watched the raindrops roll down the glass of the window. Propping a cheek on her hand, she sighed. She really felt useless. She couldn’t go out and get a job, making friends there was something you apparently needed a college degree in societal relations for, and no one would even let her clean. She was stumped. Locked in a frozen computer screen, nowhere to go. And tomorrow she’d be dumped in a house that was even more lonely than this one. It was a hard pill to swallow.

When a knock came at the door, she nearly ran out to answer it herself, desperate for a new face to break the monotony. Just in time, she remembered Mrs. K’s warning: no one else must know she was living there. Period. At the moment, all society had was rumors from a jealous ex-lover, and the last thing they needed was cold hard evidence. Besides, with her luck, it’d probably turn out to be Collette. After that dream, she didn’t want to see her again if she could help it.

She hid behind the doorway and tried to listen, but the visitor’s voice was too quiet for her to decipher.

When the door shut, she went out into the hall, looking carefully to make sure there was no stranger there. “Hey, Thornton, who was that?”

“It was a shop boy.” Thornton turned to Jamie, a ribbon-wrapped box in his hands. “He said that his lordship had sent this package for you, Miss Marten.”

She smiled like a teenage girl who’s heard that her crush likes her back.
Mike
sent
me
a
present?
She bit her lip and skipped over to Thornton. “Really? It’s for me?”

The old man smiled fondly down at her as he handed her the package. “That is what the boy said, miss.”

She clasped the beribboned box to her chest. “Thanks.”

She flew into the sitting room, fingers picking at the knot before she’d even sat down. What had he gotten her? A book to keep her from going crazy with boredom? Jewelry because, well, they were engaged? Or maybe he’d talked to somebody about making her a toothbrush. Oooh, she’d murder for a toothbrush.

When the lavender ribbon finally melted apart, and she got the lid off the box, she realized it was none of those things.

It was candy.

They looked sort of like she’d imagined Turkish Delights would look. Like the White Witch gave to Edmond in the Narnia books. Little gumdroppy mounds of crystal sugarcoated color.

She smiled down at the box. She wasn’t a huge fan of candy, but since Mike had given them to her, she’d try one.

Reaching into the box, she picked one with a light dusting of powdered sugar. She sniffed it. A light citrus scent clung to the sweet. She parted her lips and delicately bit down into it. A strange mix of sweet and bitter filled her mouth.

“No!” Mrs. Knightsbridge flung open the door to the sitting room and flew across the room to Jamie. She knocked the rest of the candy from Jamie’s hand back into the box. “Spit it out, spit it out!”

Jamie spit the half-chewed bite into her hand. “What the hell is wrong?”

Mrs. K yanked the box from her lap and grabbed her arm. “That one too. Drop it in the box, quickly.”

Jamie did as she asked, completely confused. “Okay, mind telling me what the problem is?”

“We do not have time to lose.” Mrs. K grabbed her by the upper arm and dragged her toward the kitchen. “You have been poisoned.”

“What?” Jamie cried.

Mrs. K did not hesitate as she dragged Jamie from the room. “Collette has poisoned you. Come quickly!”

Fear sped Jamie’s heart and she followed the housekeeper as fast as she could. Mrs. K shoved the beribboned box at one of the kitchen maids.

“Here. Do not touch any of the sweets. They have been poisoned. Take that box as far away as you can and discard it.”

The maid’s face was as terrified as Jamie was sure hers was, but the young girl took off out the kitchen door at a dead run.

“Jean Philippe, I need soap, hot water, clean cloths. Quickly. Miss Marten’s life is in danger. Muriel, go and fetch her robe. Clara, bring the wooden box from beneath my bed. Now!”

The housekeeper sat Jamie down on a wooden stool and plunged their hands into the steamy bowl of water Jean Philippe set on the table in front of them. With a soapy stiff-bristled brush, she scrubbed at Jamie’s right hand, the one that had held the sweet Jamie thought Mike had sent her.

“How do you know?” Jamie asked through a terror-thickened throat. “How did you know to stop me?”

Mrs. K dipped their hands in the basin and started brushing again. The bristles scraped at Jamie’s skin, stinging with the strong soap. “My scrying bowl. The same one I saw you in. Collette. Louisa. The wine, the candy, the same violent shaking. It will happen again. I can only pray that we have caught it in time. Clara, set the box beside me, please.”

Jamie’s chest tightened, and she had trouble breathing. “Collette…poisoned me?”

Mrs. K nodded without looking up from her desperate task. “Jean Philippe, fresh water, now. Where is that robe, Muriel?”

After Jean Philippe delivered another bowl of hot water, he was banished from the kitchen. Jamie’s beautiful yellow gown was cut from her body and thrown straight into the fire, in case any stray particles of the poison had found their way into the folds of fabric. Muriel removed Jamie’s stays and petticoats, and dressed her in the nightgown. Muriel braided Jamie’s hair as Mrs. K scrubbed her hands and arms until the flesh was bright red and raw.

For the first few moments, Jamie was too terrified to move. She let them work on her, obeying when they told her to move, to sit, to bend, whatever they asked.

But then the skin of her face tightened. The taste of pennies and metal filled her mouth. She couldn’t sit anymore. She had to walk. To breathe. To run away. To shake off these small bugs crawling inside her skin. She had to get
out
.

“I…I’m sorry…Mrs. K…I can’t sit.” Jamie pulled away from Mrs. K as the housekeeper dried her arms. She needed to go. To move. Something.

She paced through the kitchen. Wringing her hands, she ignored the stares and worried voices of the maids around her. She was as juiced as she’d ever felt. More so than if she’d drunk a dozen Red Bulls. The room almost vibrated around her.

“Miss Jamie, drink this.” Mrs. K held out a small brown vial.

Jamie reached for it, but her hands trembled too much to grip the glass. Mrs. K held her head gently in the crook of an elbow and poured a dark brown liquid into her mouth. Jamie coughed but swallowed the woody-tasting brew.

“Now come. We must get you to your room.” Mrs. K laid a gentle arm around Jamie’s shoulders. Her head wobbled, almost like one of those little dashboard Chihuahuas, knocking against Mrs. K’s arm over and over. She couldn’t keep it still, no matter how hard she tried.

Flashes of light fringed her vision, and her heart ran faster than Baron after a handkerchief. Tears streamed out of the corners of her eyes as Muriel and Mrs. K helped her up the stairs. Her toes dragged on the carpet of the stairs, vibrating alien beings that no longer had any connection to her brain.

They reached the landing after a million years, but her legs gave out in front of Mike’s room. She collapsed to the cold wood, knocking the back of her head against the hall table.

“
Thornton, George
! We need your aid,
quickly
!” Mrs. K’s voice sounded shrilly, sort of far away.

Jamie’s heels drummed against the wooden floor. She tried to grab them, to stop them, but her hands were shaking too hard. Ice cold. Her limbs were freezing, but sweat broke out all over her body. Her teeth chattered.

A shock of pain skewered her chest, arching her back in agony.

This
is
it.

I’m going to die.

She didn’t have to choose between a future with Mike or a future at home.

I
have
no
future
at
all.

Several sets of hands picked her up. She wished she could have seen how they held her. She was flopping worse than a newly caught fish. But she couldn’t stop, no matter how hard she tried. Even after they laid her in her bed.

Jamie didn’t know how long she lay there, shivering, trembling, and shaking all over. Muriel and Mrs. K stayed right there with her. Mrs. K put cool cloths on her brow when her fever spiked higher.

The flashes didn’t stop. Whenever she moved her head, which was a lot because of the way her back continued to arch, another beam of light would skewer her. The pains in her chest continued, over and over and over again. She wondered how long it would take for this poison to kill her. She wished she could pass out and miss it. She was afraid. She didn’t want to die. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she fought the poison’s grip. It was too hard. She wasn’t going to be able to beat it. She’d die here in this Lemon Room, without the love of her life anywhere near.

“Mike,” she whispered hoarsely through the agonizing pain gripping her chest. “Mike.”

“Please, Jamie, oh please stay with us.” Mrs. K’s face was streaked with tears as she cupped Jamie’s trembling cheek.

***

Never in Micah’s life had he been such a slave to his own fear.

When the footman burst into His Grace’s estate room, all the gentlemen in it had stared at such a sudden intrusion. But Micah had leapt to his feet and followed George without so much as a by-your-leave to his host. Damn the consequences, for the look on the boy’s face could mean but one thing—his Jamie was in danger.

George caught him up on the wild ride back to the town home in Micah’s phaeton. When the words “poison” and “tremors” met the earl’s ears, cold terror closed his throat. He should never have left her. He whipped his horses into a gallop, tooling them expertly down the twining streets of Town.

After Micah pulled his team to a stop, he threw the reins to a surprised George and leapt to the ground, not stopping as he bolted into the house. Taking the steps two at a time, he hit the landing in a dead run. He rounded the corner of the hallway and skidded to a stop in the doorway of Jamie’s beloved Lemon Room.

Her limbs flopped and flailed, despite the restraining hands of both Muriel and Mrs. Knightsbridge. Her eyes rolled wildly, almost like an animal out of its mind with fear and pain. Anguished moans poured from her, and tears tracked down her reddened cheeks.

Micah slammed his lids closed and staggered backward. No. Not again. Not to Jamie.

“My lord,” Mrs. Knightsbridge called desperately. “Please. She’s called for you.”

The prison of his panic could not keep him from his love. Opening his eyes, he set his jaw and marched determinedly to her bedside. Muriel backed away in tearful deference, and he took the maid’s place at Jamie’s side.

“Jamie,” he said, ashamed at the naked pain in his voice. “Jamie, can you hear me?”

“Mike?” She focused on him for a moment, her head bobbing and trembling as she fought the poison.

“Yes, dearling, I am here. What has happened to you?” He laid his hand on her cheek, helping to steady her against the raging storm in her blood. Her teeth clacked together as her body fought. She didn’t answer him.

“Mrs. Knightsbridge, what can we do?” He had to keep himself composed. He could not afford to fall apart. Jamie needed strength, and by God he would give it to her.

“We’ve done all we can, my lord.” Mrs. Knightsbridge’s voice was clear, though her face was also tracked with tears. “Just be here with her, in case…”

“No.” He leapt to his feet, not releasing Jamie’s hand. His glare nearly skewered the housekeeper in half. “Do not invite tragedy here. She will survive. I refuse to accept any alternative. Is that clear?” She had to survive. He could not be responsible for the death of another woman, most especially the only woman he’d ever truly loved. And by leaving her, he was just as culpable as if he’d poured the poison down her throat himself.

“Yes, my lord.” The housekeeper turned away, busying herself with clean cloths and potions on the small table by the window.

“Mike?” Jamie’s voice was so faint he barely knew it was her.

He dropped to his knees by her bedside. “Yes, dearling.”

Her tremors worsened, and he fought them as best he could without bruising her, holding her shoulders lightly against the covers. “I…I…”

“Shh, love,” he said past the bitter lump in his throat. “Rest now. You can tell me when you feel better.”

With a sigh, she closed her eyes, and her body went limp under his hands.

His anguished cry echoed from the yellow walls she’d loved so. “Jamie!”