The Viscount's Counterfeit Wife (11 page)

Tally leaned down to
arrange his pillow. Her glance collided with his scorching stare. She
tried to avert hers, but he was exerting some powerful force that
wouldn’t let her glance away.

Mesmerized, she didn’t
resist when his hand reached up to gently grasp her neck and draw her
down closer for him to drop a little angel kiss on her nose. But it
didn’t end there. He trailed his lips along her cheek to place a
soft kiss on her ear.

She breathed in
noisily.
Heavens! What was he
doing?

He blew softly into the
opening.

A moan escaped from
between her pursed lips. She wasn’t sure if her shaking legs would
hold her up for much longer.

He pulled harder and
she ended up lying fully on top of him. She scrambled to get off, but
he held her there, saying, “No. Don’t move. Feels good. Just lie
with me for a few minutes.” He raised his head to look into her
eyes and added, with a wicked twinkle, “You never know, it might
help me get my memory back.”

Did he think his kisses
would distract her so much she’d believe such drivel? As if lying
on top of him or kissing could help him recover his lost memories! In
any case, she didn’t think it was wise to be this close to him
should he suddenly recover that conveniently lost memory.

“At the very least,
we’ll make new ones,” he murmured softly in her ear.

That’s what she was
afraid of. Would the new memories bury the old ones? She didn’t
want to be responsible for ruining his chances of getting his life
back. But more importantly, should those new memories spark a return
of his old ones, might they not remind him that he’d meant to kill
her?

One of his hands was at
the back of her head now, holding it steady allowing him to anoint
her lips with another devastatingly thorough kiss.

She had to stop this
now. While she was still able! His attentions were becoming more and
more difficult to deny. Her hands, palms flat, were against his
chest. She stiffened them and pushed herself up and twisted free of
his hold.

He winced.

His wound! She might
cause the stitches to break.

She sat up, her feet
over the side of the bed, and told herself to think of the
consequences — both the physical and the mental.

Focus
on him wanting to kill you, Tally. That should cool your ardor.

He looked at her,
silently questioning why she’d want to stop. Fighting her
inclinations was not easy, but she shook her head and said, “The
doctor said no excitement.” Her legs felt too weak to hold her so
she remained seated. “You should close your eyes and get some rest
now. I’ll be in to wake you for supper.”

“But I want the
excitement. I’m sick to death of not knowing who I am. Perhaps if
I… we... get back to normal, my mind will heal faster.” His arm
snagged her waist and pulled her body back against his. His mouth was
level with her chest and she was stunned into shocked silence when he
covered one of her breasts, clothes and all, with his mouth.

Lord
above heaven!
Her hands came up instinctively to his head.
She was certain she had meant to pull him away, but her own body
betrayed her and she clasped him snugly to her chest, instead. His
hot, humid mouth wet the light muslin fabric of her dress all the way
through to her chemise. Thank goodness she wasn’t wearing a corset.
To save her life, she couldn’t have stopped herself from turning
into his embrace and wrapping both arms around him. His mouth moved
to her other breast, only this time he undid the buttons of her dress
and pulled down the top of her chemise to suckle her bare skin.

Gasping and groaning at
every lap of his tongue on her sensitive breasts, her hands threaded
through his thick, dark curls, tensing on his skull when he nibbled
gently on her erect nipple. Tremors quaked through her turning her
into a quivering mass of nerve ends. Nothing penetrated her
single-minded concentration on his touch. She was lost to everything.
All she wanted, needed, was to be part of him.

He caressed down the
side of her body over her hip, sliding her skirts up with a warm hand
gliding up her thigh. Her breath snagged. This was a new, totally
foreign experience. Where was his hand going? The answer came
swiftly. His fingers edged under her chemise to seek flesh that,
hitherto, had never been touched by any one but herself.

A loud noise began
downstairs, penetrating Reed’s concentration on pleasuring his
wife. He hesitated. The noise had transformed into feet stomping,
slowly making their way toward the stairway.

“Not again!” He
groaned.

“What’s wrong?”
she whispered.

Her confused question
had him leaning closer, more intent on bringing joy to her before
their idyll was once again interrupted.

But it was too late.
With that slight pause, he’d ruined it for both of them.

Her eyes blinked
several times, then widened in realization of where they were and
what they were doing.

“Damn it to hell!”
he muttered. “That old codger must have some way of knowing what’s
going on in this room.”

He saw her sudden
understanding of what he was talking about and tried in vain to
prevent her from scrambling out of his arms. He reached for her but
she was on her feet and retreating rapidly from the bed, hastily
buttoning her dress and straightening her clothes.

“How?” he demanded.

“How what?”

“How does he know
every time we so much as make eyes at each other? There must be a
peep hole into this room!”

“Don’t be silly,”
she said. “He’s coming up from downstairs. Do you think he’s
perched on a ladder looking through a hole in the floor?”

Put like that, it did
sound rather ridiculous. “Maybe he has Joseph as his lookout and,
once alerted, up he marches.”

She gave him an
are-you-serious look. “It’s more likely that he notices it’s
too quiet up here and we’re in this room together.”

He saw her realize what
she’d said and knew she was wishing she could take it back. Too
late, my dear wife, he thought. “Why would that bother him? We’re
married, after all. Isn’t that what married couples do?”

An embarrassed flush
flooded her face. She stammered and looked ready to abandon the
effort of replying, when a relieved gleam crept into her gaze. “He
knows the doctor said you were to get lots of rest and no
excitement,” she blurted.

Ah… that he could
accept. “Well I can’t deny that being with you like this is very
exciting.” He waggled his eyebrows and gave her his best wicked
grin. No sooner had he said that, when his bravado collapsed like a
balloon losing air. “Perhaps he’s right. For now!” he hastened
to add. “I feel like I’ve been run over by the Royal Mail coach!
You pack a powerful wallop, my dear.”

“I… I…”

He had to laugh at her
mortified look. His laugh faded when she averted her face and almost
ran from the room. “Hey! Don’t go!”

But if she heard him,
she didn’t listen.

“So much for my
lady-luring skills!” he grumbled aloud.

“Finally, a note!”
Tally retrieved a slip of paper from the space between Monsieur’s
studio door and the door jam. “What an odd way to leave a message.
I’d have posted it on the door, for all to see.”

“Mebbe that’s just
what they don’t want.”

Trust Foster to see the
suspicious side of things.

“Quick, we mustn’t
linger.” She urged him to hurry back to the carriage. “We don’t
want any more strange occurrences.” They got back into the waiting
hackney and soon were headed home. “This must mean Monsieur knows
I’ve been looking for him. Right?”

“Humph!” Foster
gave her, what Great Aunt Ida would have called, ‘his speaking
look’. He’d been dead set against her coming back here again this
morning, after their close call several days ago. But she wouldn’t
hear of him coming alone. So they took precautions, leaving by the
back door, going at a different time than was their habit, and they’d
brought along her pistols.

“Here, I’ll sit
beside you so we can read it together.” She moved across the
carriage to sit beside her faithful retainer and unfolded the note
they’d found at the door. “Maybe I should have read it and left
it there for others. Oh no! I’m so selfish! I thought only of
myself!”

“Don’t fret. I’ll
send Joseph to return the note.”

“Will it be safe for
him to do that, do you think?”

He looked at her in
exasperation. “Why would they harm a child?”

“You’d think so,
but then why hurt me?” There was no reply to that but she didn’t
want to worry him more than he already was, so she said, “I’m
sure he’ll be all right.” She smiled at him and patted his
shoulder. “I can always count on you to come up with a solution.”
She finished unfolding the note. “That’s curious. It’s not in
Monsieur’s handwriting.” She started to read it aloud to him. She
wasn’t sure how good his eyesight was anymore.

‘
Attention:
Monsieur Antoine Moreau will be away for an indefinite amount of time
due to–
’ a loud crash halted her in mid-sentence. She
instinctively ducked and threw herself across Foster to shield him.

“Get off me!” He
pushed her up, but she was already sitting up and had her pocket
pistol out ready to shoot any body breaking into the hackney that
was, even now, jerking to an abrupt stop.

They heard the driver
yell, “Catch that man!”

A commotion was buzzing
outside.

The carriage creaked
and swayed as the driver climbed down. He called out, “You there,
lad, I’ll give you this coin if you hold the horses steady.” Next
thing, he was opening the carriage door.

“You folks awright?”
He backed off rapidly at the sight of her pistol aimed at him.

“I beg your pardon.”
Tally swiftly lowered it and slipped it back into her pocket.

Keeping a wary eye on
her, he leaned inside to look around.

She looked at the
broken glass strewn across the floor of the vehicle. “What
happened?” Spotting a large lumpy object, she bent down and picked
it up.

“Look at the size of
this rock!” She raised it up to show them. “Someone threw this in
the window?”

“Devil’s spawn!”
The driver cursed. “That’s never happened before in all my years
of driving, I can promise you that.”

Foster crouched down by
the broken window to look out. “Must have thrown it, and then run
off. Coward!”

The driver nodded in
agreement. “If you folks are fine, I’ll get back to driving you
to where you want to go. I’m gonna have to bring her in to have
that quarter light fixed.” He backed out and they heard him
speaking to the crowd that had gathered. “Did any of you catch that
ruffian?”

The negative chorus was
disappointing.

“You can all move
along now. No one’s hurt.”

The vehicle rocked as
he climbed back up to settle onto his bench. Then came “Hyah!”
followed by a clucking sound to spur the horses to move and the
carriage began to roll slowly onward.

“Why?” If she had
been inclined to take Foster’s warnings lightly in the beginning,
she was now fully in agreement. Someone was indeed out to get her.
Had she not moved, the rock would have hit her square on the head.
Maybe killed her.

Foster’s eyebrows
rose in query.

“Why is someone
trying to hurt me? What have I ever done to anybody to make them hate
me so much?”

“I don’t know,
Missy. I don’t know.” He looked shaken. “Might be a case of
mistaken identity, I suppose.”

“You mean they think
I’m someone else, someone they want dead?”

“Or that you’ve
unknowingly gotten in someone’s way,” he said.

“I think it’s time
we call in a Bow Street Runner, like you suggested.” She hated to
bring a stranger into her private life, especially since she was
using an assumed name to conceal her real reason for being in London,
but what other choice did she have?

“I’ve already done
that.” He avoided looking at her. She had vetoed it when he’d
recommended it a week ago.

But that was before the
intruder climbed into the house and before someone tried to break
into her carriage the other day. And it was before this rock-throwing
episode.

“And…?”

“They have no men
available to help us.”

“Oh.” Just when she
decided to agree with him and hire an investigator, there were none
available. “There must be a lot of crime in London to keep them
that busy.”

“They offered to send
someone over as soon as they were able, but I told them that wouldn’t
do, we needed someone immediately.”

Viewing the set of his
pugnacious chin, she was certain he’d had much more to say than
that, the old dear.

“I asked ’em if
they knew of somebody who did such work, private like, and they gave
me the name of a man, Phillip Mason. I sent him a note and we met
yesterday…” At her look of surprise, he retorted, “While you
were busy with yon Gordon.” He flushed a little at her raised
eyebrow. “And I hired him, I did. He begins tomorrow.”

She stared at him
silently. He wriggled, a little shamefaced, but mainly it was a
belligerent look she got back.

“And when were you
planning on telling me? When he sat down to eat with us?” she
complained. “And how are we to afford him?”

“We can’t afford
not to hire him!
I
am
going to pay for him.”

At her splutter of
outrage, he talked over her protests, “Yer Great Auntie Ida left me
well provided for, Missy, and I haven’t had the time or the chance
to spend any of it before now. She asked me to take care of you until
ye were well settled.” A gruffness entered his voice. “She’d
expect me to do this for you.”

“But you can’t–”