The Untamed Bride (12 page)

The fabric clung to every curve like paint. Man of the world that he was, that wouldn’t, normally, have affected him all that much.

She, in that gown, in a mood part anger, part reaction, and all challenge, did. She swished, she swanned, she glided and pirouetted. Played to the mirror, to her gaze, and his. Then, over her shoulder, she glanced at him and brazenly asked his opinion.

He met her gaze and equally brazenly gave it. “Revealing. You should definitely indulge in that one.” As he had no wish to shock Madame, he didn’t specify exactly what he was recommending she indulge in, yet Deliah comprehended his meaning.

Her eyes glittered, then she looked back at the mirror, shamelessly twirled some more. Then she nodded decisively. “Yes, I believe I will.”

With that, she swayed back behind the curtain.

Deliah let the silk gown slide down her body, felt its caress like a lover’s hands, and knew responding to his blatant interest was madness.

A madness she hadn’t felt for years. No—a madness beyond anything she’d felt before.

There was…something in the way he looked at her. Something that made her feel heated. Wicked. Wanton.

She’d known from her first sight of him that he was dangerous. That he could connect, draw forth, lure
her
—the real her—from the cavern she’d hidden in for seven long years. She hadn’t told him why she’d gone—been sent—to Jamaica, that an old scandal had been to blame. That she’d been seduced, then betrayed, by a viscount’s son on a repairing lease. That, innocent and wantonly passionate, she’d
given her heart as well as her body, only later to learn that for him it had all been merely a challenge, a way to fill the time.

Her parents had railed, her father especially, church elder that he was. She’d had it drummed into her, in so many ways, that her inner self was
bad
. That she had to hide it, subdue it, suppress it at all costs.

She’d been packed off to Jamaica, and she’d never felt that inner self stir again. She’d thought it had died—of shame, of rejection.

Of imprisonment without succor.

Thanks to Colonel Derek Delborough, she now knew otherwise.

But while part of her rejoiced, the wiser, more cautious side of her foretold disaster.

Yet she was sick, so sick, of being only half alive.

So she let Miss Jennings—Madame Latour as she’d styled herself—slip the next gown, the gold satin evening gown, over her head. It fell with a soft
swoosh
over her limbs. She surveyed the effect in the mirror, as Miss Jennings, with pins between her lips, nipped and tucked.

The particular shade of gold made her skin glow like the costliest pearl, made her hair appear more intensely garnet-red.

She looked…like a king’s ransom.

Lips curving, she turned and glided out to show Del, who sat like a pasha relaxed on the sofa, his eyes—richly dark and intent—locking on her, tracing her curves as, with flagrant disregard of his regard, she swept to the mirror. And performed.

Like a houri. A very English houri, yet a houri nonetheless. Del was finding it increasingly hard to catch his breath, to breathe freely. With effort he maintained his pose, his façade of relaxed ease, even though every muscle in his body had long ago tightened with sheer lust.

He was almost certain she knew.

Then she swirled, hips circling beneath the shimmering
satin, and let her gaze meet his in the mirror, sending a shot of heat straight to his groin…oh, yes, she knew. She definitely knew.

Teeth gritted behind his easy smile, he waited until she slipped behind the curtain to stand, to force himself to walk to the window—to ease his mounting discomfort and try to get his mind back on the game he was supposed to be playing.

Away from the game he’d rather be playing with her.

Standing to one side of the window, he looked down on the street. The two men in brown coats and the man in the shabby bowler had given up waiting separately. They were standing, pretending to be chatting, on the pavement opposite Madame Latour’s door. The occasional, surreptitious glances they cast toward the door foretold their plan.

Perfect.

Looking up the street, he saw a lounging figure chatting—with much greater success at projecting nonchalance—with two street sweepers. Tony.

And on the other side, the man leaning against the wall just this side of Bond Street and talking to two lads was Gervase.

Everyone was in place. It was time for action.

He turned from the window as Deliah swept back in.

In a pale green gown that nearly stopped his heart.

Deliah saw him by the window—instantly her need to tweak his nose fell away. “What is it?”

He held her gaze, then, as Miss Jennings followed her through the curtain, reached into his pocket. Pulling out his fob watch, he glanced at it, then tucked it back. “Time’s getting on.”

For one long instant, he let his eyes—his hot gaze—slide, long and lingeringly, over her body, over the pale green silk that clung lovingly to her form…then he raised his eyes, captured hers. Nodded. “That’s my favorite. I’m going to go down and hail a hackney while you change.”

With that, he strode for the door.

She started after him. “
Wait
—” But he was already gone.

Beneath her breath, she swore, then turned to Miss Jennings. “Quickly. I have to get out of this and into my clothes.”

Miss Jennings fluttered after her as she strode back behind the curtain. “If you’re late, I can pack them and send them on—”

“I’ll be back in a few minutes to make my selection. Here, hurry—help me out of this!”

Miss Jennings jumped, then responded to the voice of one used to giving orders. With her help, Deliah climbed out of the green silk, flung it aside and scrabbled through the welter of gowns for her own. “Damn him! I should have guessed he’d do this.”

Miss Jennings was entirely at sea. “Has he left you?”

“No, of course not. He thinks…oh, never mind. Here—do up my laces.” As Miss Jennings’s shaking fingers complied, Deliah added, “And don’t worry—I’ll be taking the gowns.”

She heard the young modiste haul in a huge breath, then her fingers steadied.

The instant the laces were cinched and tied, Deliah reached for her pelisse. As she shrugged it on, she heard a distant shout.

Grabbing her reticule, she dashed out of the dressing room and hurried to the window. She looked out. The street seemed empty, but she couldn’t see the pavement directly before the shop; an awning obstructed her view. All she caught were glimpses of a shifting mass of arms and shoulders.

Turning, she flew out of the open doorway and onto the stairs. Clattering down as fast as she could, she tugged her pelisse properly on, fumbled with the buttons.

Heart racing—what was going on outside the door?—she was almost at the bottom of the stairs when the door opened.

Breath catching in her throat, she looked up.

Del filled the doorway.

She tried to halt her precipitous rush. Her heel snagged in her pelisse’s hem, jerking one shoulder—she twisted, lost her balance.

Pitched forward.

Straight into his arms.

Del stepped forward to catch her. Heard the door he’d sent swinging shut snick behind him just as she landed flush against him, and every sense he possessed focused, intent and hungry—suddenly ravenously hungry—on her.

On her long, tall, undeniably feminine form plastered to his.

On the warmth of her curves, on their lush promise.

On her face, jade eyes wide with shock.

Lips, rosy red and luscious, parted….

Because she’d been above him, they were face-to-face, those luscious lips level with his.

He saw them shift, form words.

“What happened? Are you all right?”

He felt her hands grip his arms. When he lifted his gaze to her eyes, hers searched, urgently, almost frantically. The emotion lighting the jade was simple, undisguised concern.

She cared.

No woman had for decades.

Her lips firmed, then parted again. Her fingers gripped, and she tried to shake him. “Are. You. Hurt?”

He’d been struck—that he knew—but not by any fist.

She drew breath, her luscious lips parted again—and he knew he had to answer. So he did. In the most appropriate way.

He bent his head, covered her ruby lips with his.

Kissed her, not as he might any gently bred young lady but as he’d longed to kiss the houri who’d taunted him for the last hour.

Her lips had been parted. He took her mouth with no by-your-leave. Simply waltzed in and laid claim…

And ended reeling. Sinking. Drowning.

Captive to an exchange too potent for excuses, too primitively powerful to ever be denied.

Too urgent to be brought to any quick and neat end.

His arms cinched tight, hauling her against him, locking her there—where she belonged. He felt her hands on his shoulders, then in his hair.

Felt—knew—when she succumbed to the compulsion, to the desire that suborned all reason, to the unrelenting thud of passion in his veins.

Their veins.

The sensation was so heady Deliah was helpless to resist. To pull away, retreat to safety, to step back. Instead, she plunged in.

Into the temptation of his hot demanding mouth, into the whirling vortex of desire that had seized the unlooked-for moment to manifest between them—the cumulative promise of the last hour’s teasing; the nascent passion they’d both been deliberately prodding flared to urgent life between them.

She kissed him back, flagrantly demanding, joyously inciting, her inner self racing ahead, free of all restraint.

Wantonly enticing. Abandoned and eager.

Del sensed it, tasted her unleashed passion, and urgently wanted more.

But
…wrong time, wrong place.

Some distant spark of sanity assured him that was so. With regret, he forced himself to draw back; only by reminding himself of all he would eventually gain did he manage to rein in his hunger, soothing it with promises of ultimate gluttony. That she would, at some time—the right place and the right time—appease his hunger, feed it until he—it—was utterly sated was, to his mind, an engagement already inscribed in stone.

Easing back from the kiss, he lifted his head and looked down into dazed jade eyes, took in her oddly blank, faraway expression—and knew a moment of intense satisfaction.

At last he’d found a surefire way to manage the willful woman.

A way to tame her, to bring her to him, to his bed….

The sound of a throat clearing hauled his mind from that attractive track, from dwelling on the satisfaction having her beneath him would bring. Looking up, he saw Madame Latour and her assistant peering rather warily down.

“Pack up the gowns—all that were tried on—and send them to Miss Duncannon at Grillon’s. You may send your account to me there.”

Madame’s face lit. She bobbed a curtsy. “Thank you, Colonel. Miss Duncannon. You won’t be disappointed.”

He was sure he wouldn’t be. He had plans for that pale green dress.

Looking down at Deliah, he set her on her feet.

She opened her mouth, but before she could speak, he asked, “Are you ready to go on?”

She blinked, hearing, correctly, the latent triumph in his tone.

Remembering what had brought her rushing down the stairs, Deliah swallowed, nodded. She wasn’t yet sure she had command of her voice.

By the time he’d led her outside—where all appeared normal and utterly mundane—and she’d finished buttoning her pelisse against the increasingly biting wind, settling her reticule and gloves, then had taken his arm and begun strolling beside him, her wits had started to function again—enough to have her wondering if perhaps he’d kissed her, at least in part, because the modiste had been watching.

That didn’t seem convincing, not even to her, but if furthering their roles wasn’t his motive, she’d rather not think of what was.

Shouldn’t think of what was, or might be.

She was shocked enough by her own motives—by the reemergence of the wanton inner self she’d thought she’d buried, or at least bludgeoned into weakness, long ago.

With him, that side of her wasn’t weak at all. She was going to have to be on guard henceforth; she couldn’t return
to England after all these years, supposedly reformed, only to fall victim to her own desires with the first handsome man who crossed her path.

Admittedly, he was exceedingly handsome. But still….

He’d been the first man to kiss her, at least like that, in more years than she cared to count…actually, in all her life.

After a moment, she blinked, inwardly shook her head. She was looking ahead down the street—and seeing his lips.

She needed to concentrate on the here and now. Replaying his last words…she frowned. “I can’t accept gowns from you. It wouldn’t be proper.”

He glanced her way, but she didn’t meet his eyes.

“What do you imagine I’m going to do with them? The least you can do is take them off my hands. Better yet, consider them a perquisite of helping me pursue the Black Cobra. Believe me”—his tone hardened—“it’s a small price to pay.”

“In that case, you can let me pay for them—I’m more than flush enough to buy my own gowns.”

“That’s not the issue. I can’t countenance you paying for the necessaries to continue our ruse. This is my mission, not yours. My responsibility, not yours.”

Those last two points were ones Del felt sure he needed to stress—and often. In every possible way.

She grumbled, “I can’t see how those evening gowns could be deemed necessary.”

“Oh, they are. Believe me, they are.” They—and the visions of her in them—were going to keep him going through the coming days. His reward, as it were, for weathering the difficulties keeping her with him had already caused, and those yet to come.

“They’ll come to a pretty penny—you do realize that?”

“After all my years in India, I’m wealthy enough to rival Croesus, so your concern on that point, while appreciated, is unnecessary.”

She humphed. Eventually she said, by way of conceding, “Just be warned that that last evening gown alone will cost a small fortune. Madame may be young, but she values her work highly.”