The Last Hellion (35 page)

He was a magnificent man, long and leanly muscled.

The broad chest tapered to a tautly slim waist and hips. She drew her hand over the dark, silky hair feathering his chest, and down where it arrowed to his pelvis, lighter and tinged with red. "I hadn't the presence of mind last night to look," she said huskily as her fingers stole down , to that forbidden place.

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

"Look, touch," he said with a choked laugh. !

She grasped his rod, swollen and hot. It pulsed in her hand. He made a low, aching sound.

"You said I could touch," she told him.

"Yes, I
like
torture."

She bent and touched her tongue to it.

"
Jesus
." He pulled her hand away, pulled her on top of him. He found the opening of her drawers, slid his fingers in, and cupped her.

The climax took her unawares. She was quivering under the strokes of his fingers when it speared through her, one sharp shock of joy that set off rippling aftershocks.

Another came, and another… and then he pushed in, and she lifted instinctively, and came down to take him inside, deep.

"
Yes
." A ragged cry of triumph she couldn't keep back.

He pulled her down to him. She took his mouth, and stroked with her tongue, shamelessly mimicking his quickening thrusts.

He rolled her onto her back and, breaking her greedy kiss, wrenched her hands from his neck and held them down on the carpet. He held her so, and she watched him, watching her, while the last stormy strokes spasmed through her body. Her eyes closed and she saw firebursts behind them. And one long, shuddering moment later, she heard a choked sound that was her name as he sank down, spent, on top of her.

At half past ten the following morning, Her Grace met in Vere's study with Mrs.

Clay.

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

At half past eleven, pandemonium erupted.

What seemed like thousands of maids and footmen spilled out of baize doors, all armed with cloths, dusters, mops, brooms, pails, and some fearful implements Vere could not identify.

He fled to the billiard room, only to be ambushed by another lot of servants.

He escaped to the library, only to find yet more close on his heels.

He went from room to room, looking for refuge, only to meet invasion time and time again.

At last he skulked into his study, closed the door, and shoved a chair against it.

"Oh, my dear," came his wife's amused voice behind him. "That isn't necessary."

He swung toward the sound, his face hot. She was sitting at the desk, trying very hard not to laugh.

"They're
everywhere
," he reproached.

"They won't come in here today," she said. "I told Mrs. Clay I needed to work."

"Work?" he cried. "They're tearing the house to pieces. Thousands of them. They tear rugs out from under your feet. They pull the drapery—rods and all—down on your head. They—"

"Do they?" She smiled. "Mrs. Clay means to make a thorough job of it. I thought she would." She set down her pen and folded her hands upon the desk.

"And you're mightily pleased with yourself," he grumbled. He started to move the chair from the door, then changed his mind and left it as it was. He advanced to the desk, pushed aside a tray piled with correspondence—his, neglected—and perched on the corner, half turned toward her. "They're so terrified of you that they scarcely know I'm there."

"Why
are
you there? Or here, rather. I'd thought you'd have run screaming from Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

the house long since."

"I couldn't decide where to go," he said. "China seemed far enough away. But then, New South Wales may be more appropriate, being a penal colony and all."

"May I suggest Bedfordshire?" she said.

He didn't move, by not so much as a muscle twitch. His gaze remained fixed upon the untidy pile of letters and cards, while in his mind's eye images played, of how they'd made lazy, sleepy love this morning, while the rain softly pattered at the windows… and of how she'd left the bed before he did, and he'd dozed, and wakened to her scent—in the pillows, the bedclothes, on his skin—and the musky scent of their coupling.

"Yes, well, I did not expect you to leap eagerly at the suggestion," she said. "But I cannot walk on eggshells about the topic. I am your wife. The proper thing to do is take me to meet my new family. This house is in turmoil and will be for some days. I had thought we might kill two birds with one stone: escape the upheaval and induct me into the family."

"You've work to do," he said, very quietly, very calmly, while he remembered last night, and evilly feminine underthings, and how he'd gone dry-mouthed, like a boy seeing his first naked female—he, who'd seen hundreds.

"I am merely completing obligations to Macgowan and the
Argus
," she said.

"My new position is Duchess of Ainswood. I accepted it intending to carry out all of its responsibilities. One of us, you see, did consider the consequences."

"Then do what you like." He left the desk and headed to the door. Quietly and calmly he moved the chair away. "I'm not going to Bedfordshire."

He opened the door and walked out.

Lydia quickly pulled off her shoes and hurried out into the hall. He was moving Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

swiftly toward the vestibule.

She hurried noiselessly after him, ignoring the startled gazes of the servants working in the hall.

She grabbed a bucket and flung its contents at him, just as he opened the front door.

She heard a chorus of gasps.

Then the hall became utterly still.

Ainswood stood for a moment, unmoving, while dirty, soapy water streamed from his head over his neck and shoulders, and dribbled down his coat to plop on the threshold.

Then, very slowly, he turned.

"Oops," she said.

His green glance swept over the servants—maids covering their mouths with their hands, footmen gaping—a tableau of paralytic shock.

He looked down at his sopping garments, then up again, at Lydia.

Then his mouth opened and laughter cracked out, sharp as a pistol shot. And more spilled out, great guffaws that reverberated through the carpetless hall. He leaned against the doorframe, shoulders shaking, and kept trying to say something, only to go off into whoops.

Then finally, "Th-thank you, m'dear," he choked out. "M-most refreshing." He straightened, and his glance took in the servants, who had recovered their wits sufficiently to cast perplexed looks at one another.

"Yes, that settled the dust nicely, I think," he said. "I believe I'll change."

And,
Yes, I believe you will
, Lydia thought as she watched him saunter, dripping, past her and down the hall, to the stairs, and up them.

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

This afternoon, the Duke of Ainswood bore his valet's grumblings and sarcasms with a suspiciously angelic meekness.

After he was freshly bathed and dressed, His Grace spent a very long while examining his reflection in the glass. "I shouldn't have put you to so much work," he said. "They're only going to get spoiled when I climb out the window."

"If I may be so bold as to offer a suggestion, Your Grace?" said Jaynes. "The front door is in excellent working order."

"I was lucky to get away with merely a dousing," said the master. "I'd rather not imagine what she'll try the next time."

"If I may venture an opinion sir, I strongly doubt Her Grace entertains any objections to your exiting the house."

"Then why did she stop me?"

"She was not trying to stop you. She was expressing exasperation."

The duke gave him a dubious glance, clasped his hands behind his back, and walked to the window.

"If I may speak plainly sir,"—Jaynes generally did—"you are exasperating."

"I know."

"If she murders you in your sleep, no one will be in the least surprised, and there is no jury in all of Great Britain that would not instantly acquit her. On the contrary, she would likely be awarded the kingdom's highest honors."

"I know."

Jaynes waited for a clue to what had triggered the expression of exasperation.

His master simply continued looking out the window.

Swallowing a sigh, Jaynes left him and went into the dressing room to collect the Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

duke's pocket watch and the small box containing the assorted oddities the master carried about, to the detriment of his finely sewn pockets.

When Jaynes returned to the bedchamber but two minutes later, the window was open and the master was gone.

Leaning out, Jaynes caught a glimpse of chestnut hair among the tall shrubbery.

"No hat, as usual," Jaynes muttered. "Just as well, I suppose. He'll only lose it."

He set down the box and pocket watch to one side of the wide sill and closed the window, for the day was chill and damp, promising more rain. "And it'll be a miracle, I daresay, if
wet's
the worst of his condition when he comes home."

Preoccupied with an array of uniformly appalling scenarios, Jaynes exited the bedchamber, altogether forgetting the items he'd left upon the windowsill.

The eminent firm of Rundell and Bridge having considerable experience with the upper orders—including the uppermost, His Majesty the King—its shop clerks manifested no signs of dismay or alarm at the entrance of an alarmingly large nobleman towing a black mastiff the size of a young elephant.

"Dash it, Susan," said Vere, "you can move quickly enough when Trent's in the vicinity." He tugged on the leash and grumbling, Susan condescended to cross the threshold of Number 32, Ludgate Hill.

Then she sank down on her haunches, laid her big head on her forepaws, and let out a martyred sigh.

"I didn't force you to come with me," Vere said. "You were the one who started whimpering and making me feel sorry for you."

The dog had apparently arrived—presumably with Bess and Millie—sometime after Vere had gone upstairs to wash and change. He'd found her wandering in Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

the garden, the lead in her mouth. He'd petted her and headed for the gate. She'd followed. When he tried to shut the gate behind him, she'd commenced whimpering.

"You're blocking the door," he said now. "Get up, Susan. Up."

A chorus of male voices assured His Grace that the dog was not at all in the way.

"That's not the point," he said. "The point is, she's doing it on purpose to vex me.

You'd think she'd run all the way from St. James's Square, instead of covering the distance sound asleep, on my feet, in a hackney."

The youngest of the clerks stepped out from behind the counter. "That is Her Grace's mastiff, isn't it?" he said. "I've seen her before. I think she's guarding the door, that's all, sir. Protecting you."

Vere looked at the dog, then at the clerk.

The man bowed. "And if you will pardon the liberty, Your Grace, may I offer my heartiest felicitations upon your recent nuptials."

A murmuring chorus seconded this speech.

Vere's neckcloth felt much too tight, and the shop seemed much too warm. He mumbled a response—he wasn't sure what. Then, fixing his eye upon the one who knew all about the dog, Vere said, "I want to buy a gewgaw. For my lady."

If the term "gewgaw" was not as precise as could be wished, the clerk showed no signs of discontent.

"Certainly, Your Grace. If you would be so good as to come this way."

He ushered Vere into a private room.

Ten minutes later, Susan ambled in and collapsed on Vere's feet.

Two hours later, his toes numb, Vere exited the shop, a small parcel tucked into his waistcoat pocket.

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

He didn't see the female scurry away from the shop window and dart into an alley. He didn't know who Susan was growling at, or whether she was simply growling at everyone because she was cross again, at having to move after she'd finally got comfy.

He was unaware of Coralie Brees peering from the corner of the alley and staring, long after she could actually see him, and so he could have no inkling of the murderous fury churning in her breast while she imagined the sparkling baubles he'd bought, and what she'd do to the one he'd bought them for.

It was early evening when Lydia found the box.

By this time she was aware that Ainswood had gone out and taken the dog with him. Millie, who'd gone to the garden to try to coax Susan to eat—she was sulking again—had seen Ainswood come in the garden gate, pick up the leash, and depart with the mastiff.

It was Bess who brought up the dinner Lydia had elected to eat in the master bedchamber, since that was the only part of the house not under attack or still thick with grime. And it was Bess who passed on the information that His Grace had exited via his bedroom window.

"And Mr. Jaynes is ever so vexed, miss—mean to say, Your Grace—on account of it was a new coat, just come from the tailor's." Catching Lydia's frown, the girl added hurriedly, "Only he said it to me private-like, not in front of anybody, and said I might mention it to you, but nobody else, as it wasn't proper for him to tattle on the master, but you ought to know, in case His Grace comes back the same way and gives you a fright in the middle of the night."

After Bess left, Lydia went to the window. It was no easy climb, and she wondered where he'd found a foothold in the well-pointed brick. If it had been Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

raining when he left, he could have easily slipped and broken his neck.

That was when the box caught her attention, shiny lacquered black against the yellow paint of the windowsill.

She remembered the fuss Ainswood had made last night about his pocket contents.

She was a journalist, and prying into others' affairs was her stock-in-trade. She was also a woman.

She opened the box.

In it lay a stump of a pencil, a black button, a hairpin, and a splinter of ebony.

She snapped it shut, started to put it back where she'd found it, then took it up again and pressed it to her heart. "Oh, Ainswood," she cried softly. "You wicked, wicked man. Keepsakes."