What a Rogue Desires (18 page)

“I can’t think what you’ll ask next,” she said, even as he unfastened the front of her bodice to slide his hand inside. “You’re a demanding one.”

He laughed softly at that. “You have no idea.” Her bodice fell open; he had undone the front and now spread the sides apart, exposing her shift. “Untie it,” he said in a low, wicked voice. Her fingers trembling, Vivian untied the string holding her shift closed. It loosened above her corset, revealing the handkerchief she had tucked deep between her breasts.

“Tsk, tsk,” he murmured. “I’ve caught you with stolen property, madam.”

Vivian blushed. “I suppose you’ll want it back.”

His eyes darkened as he examined the handkerchief, and its surroundings, closely. “No, I think it’s well situated for the moment.” With leisurely movements, he unfastened the dress and peeled it from her shoulders to send it to the floor in a puddle around her feet. He untied her corset, loosening it enough to free her breasts. Finally he pulled his handkerchief out, and Vivian shuddered as his fine linen whisked across her skin.

“Thieves must make retribution,” he said, winding the kerchief around her wrists, joining them together and knotting the ends just below her thumbs. “Let us see how you can repay me for my lost kerchief.”

“It’s not lost,” she protested. “You had it in your hands.”

His smile was slow and dangerous. “Let’s see to that, then.” He lifted her hands and ducked his head through them, so that her arms were caught around his neck, held in place by the kerchief tying her hands together. He was so much taller than she, he had to stoop, and even then Vivian felt stretched, almost on her toes.

“Are you going to hang me, then?” she asked breathlessly, as his breath on her exposed bosom turned all her skin to gooseflesh.

He chuckled. “Why, yes; I’ll hang you around my neck.”

Vivian couldn’t help laughing. Her heart skipped a beat. She tugged and pulled against the handkerchief, and only succeeded in losing her balance and stumbling against him.

“Mmm, yes, do that some more,” he said, watching her breasts as she twisted.

“Untie me,” she said.

Pure deviltry sparkled in his eyes. “Not yet. And don’t think you’ll get free on your own. I’m frightfully good at tying people up.”

“Oh? You’ve done this often, then?”

“No,” he said. “Not often enough.”

“I see. Now what, since you’ve got me at your mercy?” Vivian could see why he was a rake. Surely that roguish, wicked smile would tempt any woman to throw scruples to the wind and take whatever pleasures he offered. Here she was, standing in her shift and corset with her hands tied together, and her heart was pounding in anticipation of what he would do next.

“First, you shall be flogged.” He pulled up the back of her shift, exposing her bottom. Gently he slapped her with one hand, then the other. It didn’t hurt, but made her skin sting and tingle. “Do you repent?”

“You asked me to do it—ow!” she cried as he slapped her lightly again. “Stop that!”

He laughed under his breath. “Repent, fair sinner. Else you’ll be drawn and quartered.” He drew one finger firmly up the line of her spine, from between the curves of her bottom to the base of her neck, and then across her back. Vivian quivered. That also didn’t hurt, but it sent a shock through her whole body.

“I won’t,” she whispered. “I’m not sorry…”

“Are you not?” His hand was on her hip, now between her legs. She gave a soft sigh, her knees relaxing to allow him. “Are you sorry?” he asked, probing with his fingertips.

“Nay,” she said. “Not a bit.”

“Wicked wench,” he breathed, his lips grazing hers before settling over them.

His kiss was like a drug. Vivian threw herself against him, shamelessly allowing him to pull up her shift and caress her bared bottom and stomach. He was her own Blue Ruin, she thought. When he held her like this and touched her like this, she wasn’t herself. Under his spell, she was neither alert, nor wary, nor suspicious. Bad things happened to girls who didn’t keep their wits about them at all times, in Vivian’s experience, but when David kissed her, the world around her could come to a fiery end and she wouldn’t notice. Nor even care.

Oh, but who could blame her? Surely there wasn’t a woman in the country who wouldn’t lose her head when his clever hands were there, just so, moving over her belly and her ribs, her hips and her bottom, between her legs. She was barely balancing on her tiptoes as he ran his fingertips down the back of her thigh and raised her knee to his hip, exposing her completely.

“Are you sorry yet?” he murmured, sliding one long finger inside her.

“Yes,” she choked. “No! Not a bit…not yet…”

He laughed softly, pushing another finger into her, his thumb teasing that too-sensitive spot until she gasped. “You will be. Put your legs around my waist,” he commanded in that low growl, releasing her and unfastening his trousers. Vivian lifted her shaking legs one at a time, and he caught her under the knees, pulling her up until her legs were snug around his waist and she was looking down at him. David’s expression turned almost fierce as he slowly lowered her, one arm under her bottom, the other beneath her, guiding his rigid sex into her.

“That’s it, hold on to me,” he told her as he slid inside her. Vivian moaned, clinging to his neck. “Ride me as you wish…”

“I don’t know how,” she managed to say. He chuckled again, his palms cupping the curves of her bottom, and lifted her. He took a few steps, and Vivian felt the wall at her back.

“You’ll learn,” he said. “Like…this.” He slipped his forearms under her thighs, bracing his hands against the wall. Vivian clung to his neck and flexed her legs, trying not to fall, and succeeded in raising herself a few inches. “Now relax,” he said into her ear, and Vivian understood what he meant.

She took up the movement, slowly at first and then with enthusiasm, up and down again and again as he whispered wicked things in her ear. He told she was beautiful. He told her she drove him mad. He told her to go faster, he told her to go slower, and he told her to talk back to him and tell him what she wanted. Vivian wasn’t sure if she did what he asked or not. All she was aware of was him, large and strong and beautiful, and the way she felt in his arms.

Abruptly he squeezed her around the waist, lifting her away from him and putting her back on her own feet. “Turn around.” His voice was rough and he sounded out of breath. He ducked out of the circle of her arms and ripped the kerchief from her wrists. “Turn around.” Unsteady, Vivian let him turn her around and press her to the wall. David pushed his knee between hers, his hands at her waist holding her up against him. Within a second he thrust into her again, and Vivian’s stomach contracted; it felt different this time, deep inside her. He nudged her feet wider apart, his hands gripping her hips to hold her in place, and then he began to move, long hard driving thrusts that rocked Vivian onto her toes and made her feel lightheaded. She spread her hands flat on the wall and pushed against him, driving her body down onto his.

“Touch,” he rasped in her ear, touching her earlobe with the tip of his tongue. His fingers wrapped around one of her wrists, dragged her hand down her belly. “Yourself. Me. Touch me.” He pressed her fingers to the place where his body joined hers. Vivian felt the thick hot slide of him inside her, and spread her fingers, so that he thrust between them. David groaned in her ear. Again and again he moved, harder and faster, deeper and deeper until Vivian felt tears running down her face and realized she was sobbing. Her bones seemed to be vibrating with the pleasure. She thought she might faint, at any second—he pushed her hand out of the way then and replaced it with his own, his fingers finding that perfect spot with unerring accuracy. In the space of a heartbeat, he sent her over the edge, moaning, bucking, and crying with release. He pushed deeper inside her than ever, pinning her to the wall with his weight, and went still with a harsh exhalation.

Vivian felt shattered. How could he do this to her, so easily? She had never been a trollop. She had fended off the boys and men for years. Now she was completely undone by a sly sideways glance from him, this fine gentleman who seemed to know the deepest secrets of how her body worked. What had come over her?

The one thing she knew was that she was happy. Blissfully, recklessly, happy, in a way she had never before known in her life.

“Good Lord,” she said faintly. “Never thought that would happen over a picked pocket.”

He laughed, a deep rumble in his chest that made Vivian feel warm with contentment. His arms were still around her, one around her hips, the other around her chest, his fingers curved around her breast. She rested her cheek against the wall and smiled dreamily as he nuzzled the back of her neck. Never in all her life had she felt so at ease. So safe. So…peaceful.

David breathed deeply, his face pressed against her hair. His mind felt scrubbed clean. His body felt blissfully exhausted. His soul felt at ease. And his heart…

His heart, he knew, was no longer his own. The sharp-witted little thief in his arms had plucked it right out of his chest. She understood him; they were alike, in more ways than David had ever thought possible. And he understood her. David couldn’t say that his life would have turned out any differently than hers, if he had been in her place and she in his, although he was quite certain she would have made a more respectable lady than he made a gentleman. She recognized the wilder side of him, and wasn’t repulsed by it. She had compassion for his failings, and a tolerance for his mad impulses. She drove him wild, and made him laugh, and excited protective instincts he never knew he had. David wasn’t certain he would ever meet another woman with all those characteristics.

Gently he lowered her back to the floor, holding her as she swayed a bit on her feet. She gave him a look full of lazy amusement, without a trace of outrage or dismay that he had just made love to her up against the drawing room wall, and David knew he was lost. Unable to speak, he stepped away from her and put his clothes to rights as she did the same for hers. He scooped up her dress from the floor and helped her back into it. It was rather a plain dress; he much preferred her in the blue silk gown. She did the buttons on the front and brushed off the skirt, back to normal to all appearances, except for the color in her face and the brilliant sparkle in her eyes.

“Well.” She flashed a saucy grin. “There’d be a lot more crime, if all thieves were punished so.”

David made himself laugh. A thief. She was a thief, and he kept forgetting it in wild flights of fancy. As she crossed the room, a light bounce to her step, David felt unmanned. He had unwittingly taken her from that life, but he couldn’t send her back to it. He couldn’t bear to think of her starving…getting caught with her fingers slipping into someone’s pocket…catching a pistol ball in a highway robbery gone awry. He couldn’t do that to her.

He just didn’t know what he
could
do.

The end of the idyll came suddenly and without warning.

“My lord, the duke of Ware to see you.” David frowned, and Hobbs extended his silver tray with Ware’s card on it. Ware? They had once been friends, years ago, but he hadn’t spoken to the man in years. Perhaps he did business with Marcus. “There are some men with him,” added the butler then, his voice ever-so-slightly distasteful, and David felt a premonition of dread. “Some men” probably did not refer to bankers and solicitors calling to negotiate profitable business. “Some men” generally referred to ruffians, moneylenders, and Runners.

“Show them in,” he said warily. Hobbs bowed and left, and David got to his feet. Which sort of men would they turn out to be? He went to the cabinet and got out a bottle of the whiskey he’d taken from Exeter House, poured a generous finger, and tossed it back. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck, feeling the familiar defensiveness creeping over him. It was like being summoned to his father’s study all over again, even though—for the first time in years—he honestly had no idea what he could have done wrong. He’d cheated no one, wasn’t in anyone’s debt, and hadn’t so much as flirted with another man’s wife. There was just something, something he couldn’t put into words, that gave him a bad feeling about this visit.

“The duke of Ware, my lord,” Hobbs announced. His voice dropped a level. “And some other…gentlemen.” It was clear from his tone that they weren’t any sort of gentlemen at all, something David could clearly see for himself. They weren’t gentlemen; if David had to lay money on it, he’d wager they were from Bow Street.

“Ware.” He bowed his head, and Ware nodded back. No trace of expression betrayed his thoughts, but it was always that way with Ware now.

“Reece. I trust all is well with your brother.”

David gave a faint smile. “Yes. I’ve never seen him happier.”

Ware nodded again. “No man in London deserves it more.”

“No,” David agreed. The two other men hovered just at the edge of his vision. So far, David had avoided them, but now he cast a brief glance their way. Yes, most certainly legal authorities, and grim ones, too. He steeled himself to a coming disaster, wishing he had an inkling what it would be. “Won’t you be seated?”

Ware took the seat closest to the desk, and his two companions crowded onto the tiny sofa behind it. “Care for a drink?” asked David, keeping up the unconcerned air. One of the strangers opened his mouth as Ware flicked his fingers in dismissal.

“Thank you, no.” The man behind him closed his mouth with a distinct huff. Ware paid him no mind. “I have come on a mission of some delicacy. Some questions have arisen…” He paused. “Some distasteful questions,” he amended. A clear rebuke to the men behind him. “I have offered my assistance in answering them.”

The man who had wanted a drink reached the end of his patience. He lurched to his feet. “My lord,” he began respectfully but forcefully, “we’re charged with investigating some serious crimes.”

David arched a brow. “Indeed.”

“Yes, sir,” the man charged ahead. “It’s come to our attention that certain thieves have been stopping coaches and committing outrages against the passengers.”

“Thieves committing outrages. Indeed.”

“My lord, this is serious business we’re about,” retorted the man. “One of these thieves, the leader of the gang, is quite a distinctive fellow. He wears a large plumed hat and a gold ring. He calls himself the Black Duke.”

Even though David’s heart had fallen at the mention of a ring, he kept his face impassive. He waited without moving as the men peered closely at him, knowing they were expecting a guilty start of sorts. “And?” he drawled in his best imitation of Marcus. “Do you require my assistance in catching the fellow?”

The man’s mouth thinned. “No, your lordship,” he replied. “We’ve come to let you know that Bow Street is aware of his doings. Highway robbery, my lord, is a hanging offense.”

“I should hope so,” said David.

“We’re also aware that the ring he wears bears your own family crest. Three witnesses described it.” The man’s jaw lifted in challenge.

David waited. He knew, from long experience, that simply being stared at did terrible things to one’s composure. Usually, though, he was the one being stared at in disapproval, and it seemed his stare didn’t have the same effect that Marcus’s did. The Bow Street men didn’t flinch or squirm. “How fascinating. Do you mean to accuse me?”

“It’s a topic of interest to Bow Street, my lord. We’d like to know what you have to say on the topic.”

Ware tilted his head back, as if admiring the ceiling. “Of course, you’ve substantial proof. Bow Street wouldn’t dare accuse the duke of Exeter’s brother of something so serious otherwise.”

The man hesitated. “We’ve a great deal of proof, Your Grace,” he said with a bit more deference. “We have several witnesses, all of whom saw the highwayman and his ring. Their descriptions of the ring agree quite closely. We know you, my lord, were yourself on a coach robbed quite recently in a manner very like the one employed by this villain. We know your finances are somewhat unsteady. We know you’ve not been out and about in town of late, as has been your habit.”

“In other words, you’ve nothing conclusive.” David leaned back in his chair. “My ring, bearing my family’s crest, was stolen in the robbery you mentioned earlier. Perhaps the methods are the same because the villains responsible are the same.”

“What we’ve come to ask, sir,” said the second man, breaking his silence at last, “is an accounting of your doings of late.” David let his eyebrows rise. “It’s our duty, sir,” added the man, respectfully but firmly. “The evidence is convincing. There is a great outcry for us to arrest this man at once. We have been most circumspect, sir, in calling on you. This villain wears a signet ring with your family crest. Your absence from certain places has been noted. And it is a well-known fact, sir, that your finances have been precarious for years, but of late they are greatly improved. In light of all these facts, sir, as well as others I’m not at liberty to disclose, we’ve a duty to inquire.”

“I have been here, at home, and at Exeter House,” David said.

“Is there anyone who might testify to that?”

“The staff,” replied David, his voice even colder than before. “What is your name?”

“Collins, sir,” said the man, unfazed. “Deputy to Mr. John Stafford of Bow Street.”

“Collins,” said David, “I would be the greatest fool in England were I to rob coaches on a public highway wearing a ring easily traced to me. Either you take me for a fool, or you are so desperate for any person to clap in irons you have leaped to conclusions which any barrister worth his periwig would tear to shreds. Which is it?”

Collins’s chest filled, then deflated. “Neither, my lord. We are merely making an inquiry.”

“Then you have had the answer to your inquiry.” David rang for Hobbs, getting to his feet in the same motion. “Good day.”

Collins and his companion bowed and left, followed out by Hobbs. Slowly, like a puppet being lowered to the ground, David sank back into his seat. Good God. Accused by Bow Street of highway robbery. This was a new low, even for him. “I hope you’ll take a drink now, Ware, for I need one quite badly.”

“Thank you, I will.”

David got up and poured two more glasses, his hands only slightly unsteady. He handed one to the duke and resumed his own seat. Bow Street, in his own house. David still couldn’t quite believe it, and sipped his drink without noticing.

“Someone is pressuring them,” Ware said in the ensuing silence. “The scandal rags are hardly full of the Black Duke. I daresay not one person in ten in London would recognize the name.”

“Trevenham,” said David.

Ware put his head to one side. “That is unlikely, if only because a man like Trevenham doesn’t invite scrutiny, public or private, from Bow Street. If I were to hazard a guess—based purely on conjecture, you understand—I would name old Percy.”

For a moment David was shocked; his good friend’s father? But of course it was a very good possibility. Sir James Percy detested David as a bad influence on his son, and always had. From the moment they had met and become friends at school, Sir James had advised Percy to avoid scoundrels and rogues like David. Percy had read the letters aloud to all his friends, and everyone had been highly amused that David was considered the worst of the lot. David had never been invited to the Percy estate on holiday from university, and Percy had never been allowed to accept an invitation to Ainsley Park. Even now, Sir James regularly scolded Percy for his association with David.

“He’s quite outspoken on the issue of prison reform,” Ware went on. “He takes a keen interest in the workings of Bow Street, and constantly proposes improvements and funding for them. A highwayman posing as nobility would be sure to excite Percy’s interest.”

David nodded, fairly certain Ware knew why else old Percy might have pressed Bow Street to inquire into David’s actions, but thankful the duke didn’t say it. No doubt the latest gossip spread by Trevenham and others about David would enrage Sir James, particularly when his son continued to stand loyally at David’s side. “I should hope Bow Street would operate on more solid grounds than the urgings of one man.”

“No doubt they do. It was a rather polite invitation to confess. Had they any real proof, it would not have been so,” said Ware idly, examining his empty glass.

“They have the wrong man,” said David with an edge. Would no one believe him innocent? Of highway robbery, for God’s sake?

“Of course,” Ware agreed at once. “Still, men like Collins can be terribly…inconvenient. They are rather difficult to shake. I expect you’re being watched.”

That was probably true, he realized, and wondered what they’d seen. For the first time it occurred to him that he was not the only one who could be in danger. If they discovered Vivian, and linked her to the robberies—she, who was actually guilty of thieving—she would hang. There wouldn’t be much he could do to help her, especially not if he himself were under suspicion as well. A familiar surge of resentment rose inside him, that a man like Marcus or Ware could step in and control events with just a glance or a word while he…

David let out his breath slowly. While he was suspected of being up to his old habits. Perhaps he might have some of that power if he hadn’t wasted his life to date on drinking, gambling, womanizing, and other activities that were in fact illegal. He had no one to blame but himself for his situation, and no one to turn to for help but himself. Even if he wished to, Marcus was in Italy, more than a month’s travel away. David would have to see to it himself.

“Ware,” he said. “I am not the Black Duke.”

“I never thought you were,” said Ware. His voice was the same as before, but his gaze sharpened.

David leaned forward. “I want you to know. I am not the Black Duke. That ring was stolen from me weeks ago. I visited pawnbrokers all over London looking for it, but it never turned up. I had given it up for lost.”

“I see,” murmured Ware.

“I’ve not left London in weeks,” David went on. “I have been occupied with Marcus’s business as well as affairs of my own. Not only my servants but all Marcus’s staff can vouch for my presence at Exeter House nearly every day, from morning until evening. I want you to know this, in case events conspire to prevent me from sharing it. On my word of honor, I would never debase my family name in such a manner.”

“Of course not.” With a graceful nod, Ware got to his feet. “I shall see what I can do.”

David rose also. “My thanks.”

The duke bowed slightly, and left. David stared at the door. Right. Ware would do what he could to shake up and slow down Bow Street. Ware had influence, and could do that much. But David would have to do the rest.

His feet heavy, David went up the stairs in search of Vivian. He found her in her room, sitting in the window seat with her knees pulled up in front of her, holding a book to the light. At his entrance, a glorious smile bloomed on her face.

“Have you read this?” she demanded. “Oh, it’s marvelous—I never knew a man could write such lovely stuff, and about a woman, too! Listen:

Can you imagine a man saying such?” She laughed.

For a moment he couldn’t speak. The excitement on her face as she read aloud, slowly and carefully, had tightened his throat until he could hardly breathe, let alone speak. She was like a landscape grown hard and coarse from lack of care; a little tending, a little encouragement, and her mind and spirit blossomed and flourished. To see her smile, with her hair unbound and her bare toes peeping from beneath her skirts, he would count the damned signet ring a good loss.

If only that were all there was to it.

Vivian’s smile faded as the silence dragged on, and David simply stared at her, his eyes dark and bleak. “What is it?” she asked, pressing the little book closer to her chest as if to cling to its lovely words and funny characters and outrageous antics. “What’s wrong?”

Without answering he pulled a chair over and sat on the edge, bracing his hands on his knees. “Vivian,” he said in that low voice that made her skin tingle. “I’m in a spot of…trouble.”

“Trouble?” She didn’t like that word, not a bit.

He nodded once. “Someone, it seems…Someone has been robbing stages on Bromley Heath.” He gave her a level look. “He calls himself the Black Duke and wears a signet ring remarkably like the one I lost.”

Vivian felt her mouth fall open in dismay. “Flynn,” she managed to say. David nodded, looking more and more grim. “That black bastard!”

“No doubt. Did he ever sell stolen goods himself?”

She shook her head. “I did. All of it.”

He closed his eyes for a second. “Then he probably didn’t sell the ring. He must still have it.”

“Yes,” she said, growing angry. How dare that fool do something so flashy, so bold, so stupid? And Simon—her heart contracted with fear. Simon would have to go along with it, for she wasn’t there to shield him any longer. She put down the book and swung her feet to the floor. “That no-good rat-catcher’s been flirting with the rope for years,” she said. “Of all the—”