Vixen (40 page)

“My room,” he instructed as she reached the head of the stairs.

That sounded more promising, as if there would be a satisfactory conclusion to what had become an uncomfortable situation. Chloe reached Hugo’s room at the end of the corridor and put herself on the other side of the door with a sigh of relief. Running naked through the house was not an experience she would choose to repeat.

Hugo followed her in and closed the door. Leaning his shoulders against it, he regarded her with no hint of his inner amusement. She seemed satisfactorily uncertain, he decided, but he had no intention of letting her off lightly. By the time she went to bed, his ward was
going to be thoroughly focused on the heed to behave with discretion in the future.

He pushed himself off the door and strolled over to a chair by the fire. Sitting down, he beckoned her. “Come here, Chloe.”

She approached tentatively, realizing that she had no idea what to expect. In any other circumstances, his awareness of her nakedness would be evident, at least in his eyes, but his expression was now unreadable. She cast a swift secret glance down his body, but there were no overt indications of arousal. Earlier, she had sensed his desire, but now she could feel no stirring of the air between them, and its lack made her more uncomfortable than anything else.

When she reached him, he put his hands on her hips and drew her between his knees. His thighs pressed hard against her bare legs, the buckskin of his britches smooth and supple against her skin.

Leaning back in his chair, Hugo looked up at her, still maintaining his hold on her hips. “Where have you been?”

“To Billingsgate for oysters.” It was a relief to be able to give an honest answer. His fingers were curled warm and firm into the flesh of her hips, and her skin began to prickle. The fire spurted and she could feel its heat on her right side. Her nipples hardened and warmth spread slowly through her with the familiar sinking sensation in her lower belly and the moistening of her loins.

It occurred to her with a little jolt that she was becoming aroused by her own nakedness, made all the more aware of it by Hugo’s clothed presence. His hands slid around her, kneading the satin curve of her backside, slipping down the backs of her thighs. She shivered.

“And who took you to Billingsgate?” His hands retraced their path in slow, suggestive strokes.

“I don’t think I want to tell you that,” she said, her voice sounding thick.

Holding her hips again, he leaned forward and kissed her belly, his tongue darting into her navel. “But I think you must,” he said, blowing softly, wickedly against her stomach so that she squirmed and he tightened his hold.

“But it’s not relevant,” she protested weakly. “And it wouldn’t be fair for you to be vexed with them. It was my responsibility.”

“Oh, I’m aware of that,” he said, flicking the pointy hipbones with the tip of his tongue. “Your responsiblity, lass, and your consequences. Nevertheless, I wish to know.”

A flat palm slipped sideways between her thighs and she shivered again. What did he mean by consequences? But her mind wouldn’t hold the thought as her thighs squeezed on his hand. In an almost distant voice she told him who had been with her.

“I see.” A hot tongue stroke seared her belly. “And which of your cavaliers provided you with that indecent costume?”

“I won’t tell you that,” she said with as much conviction as she could muster. “It can’t matter to you.” She gasped, biting her lip hard as his fingers moved inside her and his thumb teased the supreme throbbing sensitivity of her sex.

“I suppose it doesn’t,” he said equably. “You may keep that secret, then.”

Something wasn’t right. Even through her swiftly mounting passion, Chloe knew it. It was in his voice, so calm and level, even while he was doing the most wonderful things to her, even as he must feel the liquid arousal of her body.

And then as the spiral of delight tightened, Hugo withdrew his hands from her body. “It’s time you were
in bed,” he said matter-of-factly. “After racketing around Billingsgate at such an ungodly hour, you need your sleep.” He pushed her away from him as he rose to his feet.

Chloe just stood and stared at him, her eyes wide with dismay.

Hugo scooped her easily into his arms and without further ado carried her back to her room. Chloe was speechless with shock, struggling to make sense of what was happening.

He set her on her feet inside her room and said cheerfully, “Good night, Chloe. I’ll leave you to contemplate the consequences of behaving like a wanton hoyden.”

He was laughing at her, she realized, as fury rushed into the void created by unfulfilled desire. “You … you … how could you do that to me!” She flew at him, her fists pummeling his chest, her bare feet kicking against his iron-hard calves.

Hugo caught her hands and clipped them behind her back, holding her wrists with one hand. With his other, he cupped her chin and turned up her furious face. Deliberately, he lowered his head and kissed her, pressing her against his body. He kissed her until the fight left her and she was as soft and pliable as putty. Then he raised his head and released his hold on her wrists.

“Good night, Chloe,” he repeated as calmly as before.

Her eyes were dazed, her skin flushed, her lips swollen. She shook her head in bewilderment, unable to recapture her earlier fury, recognizing dimly that Hugo had utterly routed her, winning an engagement she’d intended as her own triumph. How could she ever have imagined she was a match for him? He’d exacted a fiendish penalty for her provocative adventure, leaving her miserably uncomfortable and utterly mortified. How could he possibly have remained so cool and unmoved
while reducing her to quivering, desperately wanting jelly?

The door closed behind him and she heard his soft laugh. Picking up a slipper, she threw it at the paneling in impotent frustration, before thumping into bed and pulling the covers over her head.

H
UGO BEHAVED THE
following morning as if the night’s confrontation had never taken place. He greeted his ward cheerfully when she appeared somewhat heavy-eyed in the breakfast parlor, and asked her if she’d like to ride with him in Richmond Park.

Chloe regarded him warily, on the watch for some sign of gloating, but his smile was warm, his eyes calm, his posture relaxed as he leaned back in his chair, one booted leg crossed over the other, the
Gazette
open on his lap.

“I have other plans,” she said, turning to the chafing dishes on the sideboard.

“May I be a party to them?” Hugo folded back the newspaper, skimming the contents of the page.

“Is that a question or an order?” She turned back to the table and put down her laden plate as she sat down.

Hugo cast an amused glance at her plate. Chagrin and annoyance hadn’t affected her appetite, it seemed. “I would like to know,” he said neutrally.

“Well, I haven’t decided yet. I’ll be sure to inform you when I do.” She took a forkful of bacon and carried it to her mouth, not caring that she sounded petulant at best, uncivil at worst. She had passed the most wretchedly uncomfortable night of her life and had no intention of making peace without some statement of protest.

“I’d be glad if you would,” he said with careful courtesy, refusing to rise to the challenge. “Where’s your duenna this morning?”

“Breakfasting in bed on tea and toast … although I
think there’s a platter of sirloin in case she should recover her appetite later. She feels a touch of gout and thinks it’s because the air’s damp.” Despite herself, the old mischief appeared in her previously frosty eyes and her voice caught on a bubble of laughter. “Do you think she can be a … a … oh, what do you call it? A valetudinarian, that’s it?”

“I think it’s quite likely,” Hugo said with a solemnity belied by the laughter in his own eyes. He pushed back his chair and rose. “Are you sure you won’t ride with me, lass?” He came around to her chair and lightly tipped her chin. “Since your plans don’t appear to be written in stone.” He flicked a toast crumb from the corner of her mouth with a fingertip, and smiled.

It was a smile to melt the most obdurate desire to punish. Her lip trembled in response and she tried to hang on to her justifiable grievance, but it was feathers on the wind. “I don’t know whether I like you enough to ride with you,” she said in a last-ditch attempt, but her eyes spoke other words.

Hugo laughed. “Cry peace, Chloe. You were in the wrong and you know it. I won’t ask you to admit it, but I’ll happily put it behind us if you will.”

Not even with the best will in the world could she do anything else. Apart from the fact that she couldn’t bear to be at odds with him, a peevish withdrawal from him would surely make him only too glad to see the back of her.

She reached up and clasped his wrist, her eyes darkening. “We could ride … but then again, we could ride.”

“In broad daylight?” he mocked, trying to disguise the turbulent resurgence of the desire he’d fought so successfully to keep in check last night.

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“No, but this is London, not Lancashire; it’s Mount
Street with a house full of servants, not Denholm Manor and Samuel.”

It was impossible. Chloe sighed and accepted reality. “Then it’ll have to be Petrarch and Richmond.”

They spent the morning in perfect amity and that night, when Chloe came to his bed, Hugo made love to her with a fierce need that met and matched her own and restored their equilibrium, obscuring the memories of his punishing self-control. It was a night Chloe remembered for many weeks afterward as the last occasion when they made love without constraint.

D
enis DeLacy seemed to be everywhere. His voice was always to be heard in the house on Mount Street, and wherever Chloe was, Denis was in attendance.

Hugo couldn’t decide what to make of the burgeoning relationship. Chloe seemed impervious first to his hints and then to his outright declaration that she was singling out DeLacy and that if she wasn’t to set tongues wagging, she should be a little less particular in her attentions. She had ignored his instructions, maintaining that Denis DeLacy would make a very good husband: rich enough, very well connected, amusing, easygoing, intelligent, and probably could be persuaded to accept the kind of equal partnership she had in mind. However, when her guardian pressed her to say whether she really wanted to marry Denis, she always managed to evade the issue.

But it wasn’t only because Chloe was making herself the talk of the town with the flirtation that Hugo couldn’t reconcile himself to the increasing intimacy. Every time he heard Chloe’s laugh, saw her brush Denis’s sleeve with that delicate airy gesture that he’d come to associate with their own liaison, his gut roiled.

Was he jealous of Denis DeLacy? Of course he was.

The knowledge was bitter and unpalatable, but irrefutable. At thirty-four, he was impossibly in love with an exquisite seventeen-year-old innocent, who was showing a distinct partiality for a young man of her own generation—the perfectly appropriate match he, as her guardian, had been advocating.

He had no choice but to withdraw completely from the field. For both their sakes. As long as their intimate liaison continued, he couldn’t help but hinder the progress of Denis’s suit. Maybe that was what lay behind Chloe’s reluctance to commit herself to the final step. And only by separating himself completely from Chloe could he gain some peace of mind. He was not going to repeat the past. He was not going to be devoured by another hopeless love.

Deliberately and joylessly he set about expanding his social circle. Night after night he stayed out until near dawn, returning to the house only after Chloe had finally yielded to sleep. During the day he was to be found in Jackson’s Saloon, or Manton’s Shooting Gallery, or Angelo’s Fencing Studio, or the Corinthian Club, where he exorcised passion in the sports that had always been his metier in the company of men, who, like himself, eschewed the insipid pursuits of the clubs on St. James’s. He grew fitter and stronger and grimmer by the day.

Samuel watched, understood, and waited for the outcome. He saw not only Hugo’s unhappiness but Chloe’s bewildered misery beneath the bright facade she offered the world. He heard the brittle quality to her ever-ready laughter, saw the fragility of her smile, saw the longing in her eyes as they followed Hugo whenever he was in her vicinity.

Samuel was not deceived by her flirtation with Denis DeLacy and couldn’t understand why Hugo seemed to be. These days, in a strange imitation of past bad times,
he listened for the sound of the piano in the library. But it was Chloe who played it, using the music to express her unhappiness in a way that words could not, and Samuel learned to recognize her mood from the choice of music, as he had done with Hugo.

Chloe couldn’t understand why her ploy had suddenly stopped working. For quite a while Hugo had shown satisfactory signs of disapproving of her flirtation with Denis. He had even become annoyed enough on one occasion to forbid her to dance more than one dance with him in an evening. She had defied this edict, hoping for an overt confrontation that would lead to a long and exciting night, only to find that Hugo dropped the subject abruptly as if it had lost all interest for him. Once he’d asked her if she intended to marry Denis and she’d had the feeling that her answer would matter to him; but now he no longer seemed to notice when she was in Denis’s company, and in general no longer frequented the social occasions to which his ward was invited. On the rare occasions he did, he was always to be found in the company of some sophisticated woman of his own age. It seemed to Chloe that he had developed a life of his own that completely excluded her.