Three Little Secrets (6 page)

“Not if we care for one another,” he whispered.

“But you scarcely know me.”

There was a stubborn glint in his eye. “I know you well enough,” he said. “Well enough to know you’re the woman for me. And well enough to know you want me.”

“Has anyone ever mentioned that you are a little presumptuous, Mr. MacLachlan?”

The hint of a grin tugged at his mouth. “Do you deny it, lass? Say it plain, and I’ll walk awa’”

She licked her lips uncertainly. “No. No, I cannot say it.”

The black, sinfully long lashes dropped shut once more, and somehow, they were kissing again. Deeper. More intently. His skillful hands roamed over her body, honing her need to a sharp, keening ache. Her skin was afire, and she yearned for…oh, for something!

When he stopped, she could scarcely get her breath. “Mr. MacLachlan!” she managed to say. “You are taking liberties which you oughtn’t.”

He looked at her with deadly seriousness. “Aye, but I mean to mend that soon enough,” he vowed. “I mean to marry you.”

Madeleine tried to look at him chidingly. “You are a shockingly arrogant man.”

“Och, no,” he said. “Just a determined one.”

She lifted her chin. “And if I’ve no wish to marry you?”

“Aye, perhaps you willna’,” he acknowledged softly. “For I’ve no beautiful words tae charm you. And I’ve little tae give, save the strength of my back and the talent in my hands—but enough of both tae keep a roof o’er your head.”

His earnestness impressed her. “And that’s all, is it?”

He held her gaze steadily. “Aye, that’s all,” he said, his grip on her shoulders tightening. “Is it enough, lass, to win you?”

She looked up at him coyly. “I am not perfectly sure, Mr. MacLachlan,” she teased. “Perhaps you ought to kiss me again, and help me decide?”

His eyes warmed. “A kiss bedamned,” he said, grinning. “I want you in my bed.”

“Another of your strengths, I take it?” she murmured. “Or would that be a talent?”

“Tormenting wench!” he said, dragging her against his chest. “Just take me tae bed and judge for yourself.”

“I—I dare not,” she whispered.

Something in his eyes commanded her. “Tonight,” he said. “Dare. I’ll come tae your window.”

“Oh, God!” Madeleine squeezed her eyes shut. “My father will kill you if he finds out.”

“Then I’ll die a happy man,” he said solemnly. “I need to see you. We can just talk, Maddie, if that’s all you want.”

Dear God, it was not all she wanted. “But we won’t just talk,” she rasped. “It—it isn’t like that with us, is it? Even I know it.”

He hugged her tightly to him. “I shall throw a pebble against the glass. Will you let me in, lass?”

Madeleine swallowed hard, and almost against her will, nodded. And then his mouth came crushing down again, leaving her weak-kneed and feverish…

“Just who is she, Merrick, anyway?” Wynwood asked, some two hours later. His booted feet were propped on Merrick’s desk, and he cradled a glass of dark, rich whisky in his hands. “Or rather, who
was
she? I never did hear, you know.”

Merrick rose from his desk and went to the sideboard. Amongst his family and close friends, the rash marriage of his youth was not precisely a secret. But as if by some unspoken agreement, it was never mentioned.

Merrick did not especially wish to speak of it now, but Wynwood had been put in a dashed awkward position. And Wynwood was some years younger than he. It was as well he did not know who Madeleine was, for his ignorance suggested there had been little gossip over the years. Idle talk was a treacherous thing. It could affect a man’s business in ways which were unpredictable.

“Are you evading my question, old friend?” Wynwood’s voice recalled him to the present. “Feel free to tell me to go to the devil. My feelings are not easily wounded.”

Merrick yanked the stopper from the crystal decanter. “Lady Madeleine Howard,” he replied, his voice flat as he refilled his glass. “She is the daughter of the Earl of Jessup—or was.”

Wynwood’s brow furrowed, then cleared. “What, that old ramrod-stiff conservative?” he asked. “Called him ‘the Sword of Sheffield,’ didn’t they?”

“Aye, because he cut his enemies off at the knees,” Merrick answered.

“Can’t say as I ever followed political intrigue,” Wynwood admitted. “And yet the name is known, even to me. A nasty piece of work, I always heard. Dead now, isn’t he?”

“He died in his sleep some years past.”

And it was a far better death than the bastard had deserved, too. Merrick returned to his chair and sipped slowly at his whisky. Very slowly. Neither Lady Madeleine Howard nor her pompous prick of a father was worth rushing a fine bottle of Finlaggan. Indeed,
she
was not even worth the rage and lust which had been churning in his stomach just two hours past. And so he had cut it off, as one might cut off the head of a snake: quickly and cleanly, lest it bite.

He felt nothing now but the slow burn of the whisky, and his usual impatience to be on with something—his next meeting, his next project, anything that might take him out of himself, and into the world of the practical and the rational. But he could scarcely throw his friend out, particularly when he had, in fact, come to do business.

Wynwood continued to probe, but tentatively. “Your marriage to the chit was not commonly known, I take it?”

Merrick shook his head, and stared into the depths of his office. “We eloped,” he answered. “Near the end of her first season. Did Alasdair never tell you that tale?”

“No. Should he have done?”

Merrick gave a bark of bitter laughter. “It was pathetic, really,” he said. “I pinched Alasdair’s gig, and we bolted for Gretna Green with all of thirty pounds in our pockets.”

“The deuce!” Wynwood’s bootheels hit the floor. “I never knew anyone who actually pulled that off. How in God’s name did you do it?”

Desperately. Passionately. And with the devil’s breath on his heels.

“Oh, the usual way.” Merrick gave a hard, muted smile. “Fervent messages from maid to footman. A pair of portmanteaus and a ladder to the window. Then a midnight getaway, of course. No elopement would be complete were one to leave at a reasonable hour, would it?”

Wynwood grinned. “And the old man did not catch you?”

“Not soon enough.”

“And then?”

Merrick lifted one brow. This had gone far enough, even between friends. “And then what, Quinten?” he murmured. “Old gossip does not line my pockets, you know. Do you not have a house to buy?”

Wynwood regarded him strangely. “Well, if you mean to be—”

His words were interrupted by a sharp knock at the door. Phipps, Merrick’s butler-cum-valet came in. “A Miss Bromley is here for a four o’clock appointment.”

A woman stood in the shadows beyond Phipps’s shoulder. She was dressed head to toe in black silk, wearing a beaded black veil which obscured her eyes and teased at her wide, thin mouth. A small bandbox swung from one wrist, and a vast amount of creamy white cleavage swelled from the neckline of her gown. Miss Bromley definitely had not come to discuss real estate.

Wynwood lifted both eyebrows this time and shot Merrick an appraising look as he came to his feet. “I shall return tomorrow,” he said quietly, “and leave you to your—er, your
appointment
, old chap.”

Merrick casually lifted one shoulder, and polished off his whisky. “Stay on if you wish,” he murmured. “I am feeling generous today.”

Wynwood’s eyes flared with alarm. “Afraid I gave that up, old fellow.” His glass hit the desk with an abrupt
clunk
. “I’d best be off. I shall speak to the wife, and call tomorrow, all right?”

Phipps had already vanished. Miss Bromley observed Wynwood’s departure with obvious amusement, her mouth turned up in an odd half smile.

“Your friend is newly wed, is he not?” Her voice was soft, yet somehow raspy.

Merrick did not answer. “You are from Mrs. Farnham’s?”

“I’m Bess,” she said, lifting back the veil to reveal a pair of cold, dark eyes.
Perfect
, he thought. He was not in the mood for warmth. He was very glad indeed he’d got rid of Kitty and her good-humored, almost childlike, smile.

He locked the office door and crossed the room. The woman followed him into the parlor which he had converted to a bedchamber so that he might remain as close to his office as was possible.

He stood by the window and regarded her for a moment, his arms crossed thoughtfully over his chest. He had quite forgotten that this was Thursday. She was beautiful, if a man liked his women dark, bold, and voluptuous. He did, sometimes. But today, he was half-tempted to send the woman away. He was not in the mood.

Or was he?

He thought again of Madeleine, of what a blow to the gut it had been to see her again after so many empty years. But what had he expected? In thirteen years, there had been not so much as a hint of regret from the woman. Inexplicably, the black, burning rage began to threaten again, licking like a nascent flame at the edges of his mind.

Bess Bromley seemed to feel his wrath. Her eyes flicked up at him, dark and knowing.

She was a full six inches shorter than Madeleine, with hair as dark as a crow’s wing, and a mouth which was thin and wide, in sharp contrast to his wife’s pale blond hair and full, almost plump, lower lip. Indeed, the two could hardly have been more dissimilar. Good. That was very good indeed. He had given up bedding beautiful, long-legged blondes after the first two or three years had passed.

Bess Bromley tossed her hat and veil onto a chair, and dropped her bandbox in the middle of the narrow, roughly dressed cot which served as his bed. The box landed on its side with a bounce. The lid fell off, and a thin leather whip unfurled onto the bed. There were other things in the box, too. His quick gaze took them in. He was no fool; he knew the tools of her sort of trade.

As if to dare him, Bess closed the distance between them. She encircled his neck with one arm, drawing her breasts to his chest and gently cradling the back of his head in her palm. Her gaze ran down the scar on his face, then her lashes dropped half-shut. “Poor little Kitty!” she said in her dusky whisper. “She did not know quite how to handle a man like you.”

Merrick looked down at her. “Kitty managed well enough.”

Delicate as a butterfly, Bess Bromley stroked the tip of her tongue down the scar’s length. “Kitty thinks you might like it rough, MacLachlan,” she said suggestively. “Tell me, is she right?”

“Sometimes,” he admitted.

Without warning, Bess set her hot, open mouth against his throat, and sank her teeth hard into his flesh. His breath seized at the pain, but he did not flinch. “And what of you, my dear?” he whispered, he asked, filling his hand with her arse and pulling her body to his. “Do
you
like it rough?”

She made him no answer, but shuddered in his embrace.

As if it moved of its own volition, Merrick’s hand went to her shoulder, dragging the fabric down as stitches popped and silk tore. And why not? He was in a strange, black mood, the mood to tear something asunder, and if one thing was out of his reach, might not another do as well?

Beneath Bess’s gown, she wore no chemise—and likely no drawers, either. Instead, one round, bare breast poured from her black corset, which was cut in a fashion long out of style and laced tightly enough to impair her breathing.

Bess did not seem troubled by its restraint. Beneath his gaze, her nipple peaked, and hardened. The areola was large and dark. Merrick looked away. He wished that her breasts were not so lush. He wished that they were smaller, paler, and that he could trace the fine, blue veins beneath her flesh with his fingertip. Indeed, he wished she was someone else altogether. The thought served only to make him angrier.

He set her away a little abruptly. “Take off your clothes,” he gritted. “And lie down on the bed.”

“But what if I don’t wish to?” she whispered, a challenge lighting her eye. “What if you have to force me?”

A sneering smile curved his lips. “Aye, with that black leather whip of yours?” he suggested. “Is that what you want, my dear?”

Bess picked up the whip in one hand and drew the lash across the opposite palm almost erotically, as if she enjoyed every bump and twist of the braid. “Kitty says you’ve scars.” The words were but a raspy whisper. “Lots of them. Deep, wicked ones.”

“Kitty talks too damned much.”

Bess drew her tongue across her lower lip. “Take off your clothes,” she said, her eyes quick and greedy. “I like a man who’s marked. Let me see, MacLachlan, just how much you can take.”

More than you could dole out in a thousand years,
he thought. More than was humanly possible. But he was damned if he meant to discuss it with her. “I think you forget, my dear, just who is being paid to perform a service here.”

She took a step toward him, and made a moue with her brightly painted lips. “Poor Mr. MacLachlan,” she cooed. “You’ve been bedding that bland, boring Kitty for far too long. I know you. I know your type. I
know what you need.
I can smell the rage on your skin.”

He caught her wrist and jerked her hard against him, then crushed her mouth beneath his. Still holding the whip, she thrust her tongue deep into his mouth, then drew out again and viciously bit his lip.

Rage exploding in his head. He jerked back. “Why, you little bitch!”

Her eyes glittered dangerously. “That was very cruel of me, was it not?” she returned. “You are angry.”

MacLachlan touched the back of his hand gingerly to his bleeding lip and stepped back. “You’re goddamned right, I’m angry.”

Bess chuckled quietly. “You were angry the moment I walked into the room,” she returned. “I have merely given you a place to spend it.”

“Hush up, damn you.” Merrick kicked the bandbox into the floor. She was closer to the truth than he wished to admit. “Just be quiet and take off your clothes. I want a quick, hard fuck. Then I want you out of here.”