Wickeds Scandal (The Wickeds) (9 page)

“I am also
truly sorry for my unladylike display of temper.”  There, she
thought.  That should placate him. 

“Yes. 
Your very unladylike display of temper.” His brow wrinkled, and he frowned
slightly, as if it truly disturbed him.  The big body moved closer to
her. 

Alexandra
felt overly warm, as she had in the parlor.  Apparently, Cambourne House
was not well ventilated.  Surely, a maid or footman could open a window.
Besides being warm, her irritation returned at his manner.  He didn’t need
to sound so…
put out
.  If she recalled correctly, he’d called her an
educated, overgrown rat at their last meeting.  That was
much
worse
than being called a peacock.

“My Lord,”
Alexandra said through clenched teeth.  Her senses were reeling from his
closeness.  It felt as if she were being pushed up against a wall of warm,
hardened marble.  She thought of the green dragon tattoo again.  The
tail moved and reached out for her.  “If you will not accept my apology
then I bid you good day.”  The words came out in a slight stutter, and she
winced.  She sounded like an idiot. 

“Prickly,
aren’t you little Badger?  I did not find our meeting unfortunate.  I
found it precipitous.”  He stood so near she could clearly see the stubble
on his chin.  The green eyes danced under lashes longer than any man
should have.  His lips were full and sensuous.  She tried to focus on
the tiny jade figure in his ear.  It looked like a baby.   

  “Do
not call me that.  It is not flattering to be likened to a foul tempered
rodent.”

“No, it is
not, nor is it flattering to be likened to a strutting bird known for its
beauty and stupidity.” This time he grinned showing even white teeth.

Alexandra’s
heart began a dull thud as she looked up into those green eyes.  Her
breath stopped and she froze, mesmerized by Lord Reynolds.  Were he a
cobra about to strike, she would cheerfully stand still and allow the
bite.   Alexandra realized with growing trepidation that she was out of
her element with this man.   As mistress of Helmsby Abbey, she gave
orders to a group of ancient servants and farm hands.  Her intelligence
and authority were never questioned and no man, not a farm hand, a villager or
even the peddler that sometimes passed through ever dared flirt with her. 
The man before her was a dangerous, handsome Marquess with a scandalous
reputation.  His attraction to her was illogical and ridiculous.  She
was both frightened and thrilled by his apparent interest in her.

“Miss Dunforth,
I would love to further a discussion of animal husbandry with you. 
Perhaps you can give me pointers.  About my sheep.”  A mischievous
grin broke across the beautiful face.

He’s
flirting with me.  Teasing me.
  Her heart fluttered like a trapped butterfly.  “I would be
happy to.  The next time your grandmother invites me to tea.”  The
words came out sharply. She turned her back on him, anxious to escape to the
safety of the carriage and the dubious company of Tilda.  She took a step
forward.

A warm
finger slid along her neck and inserted itself in the back of her gown. 
The finger tugged her back, towards Lord Reynolds.  She could not move
forward without risking a tear in her gown.

“Stop
blustering for a moment, Badger. Even though it makes you
quite
delectable.” 

The words
fell over her in a caress.  He’d called her delectable.  Something
dark and dangerous twisted through her.  Her skin tingled.  The hall
grew even warmer.  Surely this was only a game to him.

“You are
unkind to toy with me in this fashion.”  She nearly wept the words. 
Every nerve in her body screamed. “Are you so jaded by life that you amuse
yourself by torturing your grandmother’s guests?” 

The finger
slid out of the back of her neck and was joined by his whole hand as it trailed
down the length of her spine.  Her back exploded at the warmth of his
touch.  A gasp escaped her mouth.  She prayed he hadn’t
noticed.    

“I would
enjoy torturing you
endlessly
.  In a most
kind
fashion.” 

The dragon’s
tail wrapped around her middle, sensuously winding around her.

“Alex.” His
breath, warm against the back of her neck, held a note of longing.

An odd ache
filled her chest.  “I did not give you leave to call me by that
name.”  She tried to sound harsh, but instead her reprimand sounded seductive.

“I did not
ask for it.” The words floated around her as he planted a kiss below her ear,
the skin sparking with flame at the touch of his lips.

Alexandra
blinked, stunned that he would dare kiss her, here at Cambourne House, but did
not turn around to face him.  It was all she could do not to fall into a
puddle of adoration at his feet. She was a bookish, plain spinster from
Hampshire, more comfortable discussing the planting of crops than the
whispering seductive flirtations in the shadows. Notorious rakes did not desire
her.  Did they?

She pivoted
round, determined to confront him with the logic of her thoughts, but he was
gone, the elegant hallway of Cambourne House, quiet.  Lord Reynolds disappeared
as if he had never been there at all.

“My lord,
you have a guest awaiting you in your study.”  McMannish wrinkled his
enormous bushy black eyebrows and frowned as he saw the tear in Sutton’s jacket
and the scrape against Sutton’s cheek.  “My lord?  Have you been
teaching Viscount Lindley that Chinese fighting again?  Looks like he got
one off on you.” 

Sutton
nodded to McMannish but didn’t answer.  The man who attempted to slit
Sutton’s throat as he left the solicitor’s office decided to have his windpipe
crushed rather than tell Sutton who employed him.  Sutton was sure that
even without the man’s confession he knew who employed the would-be assassin.
Two attempts on his life in such a short time span, one prior to his departure
from Macao, the other just after his return to London, left Sutton little doubt
as to the identity.  She was the only one with much to gain by his death
and everything to lose if Sutton continued to live.

He shook his
shoulders, trying to force the dampness of London from his body.  He had
been back from Macao for nearly a year, but still he couldn’t get warm. 
Every fireplace in the townhouse was kept stoked day and night to banish the
cold.  Still Sutton shivered.  McMannish complained of slowly being
cooked to death and suggested his lordship wear wool undergarments.

“Can you be
more specific as to the guest?”  The two giant, black caterpillars over
McMannish’s eyes attempted to climb into the man’s hairline.  A sure sign
of trouble.   McMannish was a large man of Scottish extraction and
made quite an imposing butler.  Sutton found McMannish, drunk and surly in
a tavern on the wharf one evening. The man bemoaned his fate.  He came to
London to escape the poverty of his Scottish village only to be unable to find
work.  His imposing size, stern countenance and Scottish burr gave
potential employers pause. Sutton, knowing how it felt to be an outcast, hired
McMannish on the spot. The grateful Scotsman acted as butler and bodyguard to
Sutton.

“Robbins tried
to warn you.  He sent ‘round a note.”  McMannish lowered his tone. 

“A lady,
McMannish?”  Damn Robbins.  Sutton had found his erstwhile valet at a
house party held by the Earl of Lantham.  Robbins spilled out of an
upstairs window after being discovered with the Earl’s mistress.  The man
was a decent valet but could be distracted by a show of leg or a pretty
smile.  He was likely just now recalling he needed to get a note to
Sutton.

McMannish
sniffed.  “I’m sure some would call her that.  No lady I know would
show up at a gentleman’s home, unescorted in her widow’s weeds.”

Ah.  It
was Caro then and not his stepmother.  Thank God.  He really wasn’t
up for sparring with Jeanette this afternoon, especially since she was trying
to have him killed.  The morning at the solicitor’s had been quite
illuminating. Jeanette spent the Cambourne fortune at a furious pace.  Her
dressmaker’s bills alone boggled the mind.  She ordered jewels and
fripperies by the dozens.  Employed a servant just to hold a parasol over
her in the garden least the sun spoil her complexion. Her allowance, exceedingly
generous, seemed to disappear amongst the pile of gambling debt she
accumulated.  Sutton instructed the solicitor that the Marchioness no
longer had an open line of credit, anywhere.  Sutton alone controlled
Jeanette’s allowance. She was not going to bleed Cambourne any longer with her
excess.

“Cam,
darling?  Is that you?”  A feminine voice echoed down the hallway.

McMannish wiggled
his brows in distaste.  His lips pressed firmly into a grimace of
disapproval.  “It’s
that
Lady Fellowes.”

“So I see.”  Sutton
sighed in frustration.  Caro refused his polite brush off at Lady
Dobson’s.  He did not wish things to become nasty, but Caro wasn’t taking
the hint.

He
approached the study, swinging the door open.

“You should
shut the door, darling.  I wouldn’t want to catch cold.” Caro giggled.

Lady
Caroline Fellowes was spread across his leather coach in nothing but a lacy
chemise.  The filmy chemise hid nothing of her form beneath.  Her
flaming red hair trailed over the arm of the couch to pool on the floor below.

“Come warm
me up!”  Her arms opened wide to greet him, a seductive smile on her lips.

Sutton
quietly shut the door.  He would have to instruct McMannish that Lady
Fellowes was not to be let in the townhouse again.  A headache began
behind his eyes.  His near murder and the excess of his stepmother
exhausted him.  Sutton wanted a drink, a warm fire and to be left alone.

Her blue eyes
widened as they took in the scratches on his cheek and the torn jacket. “What
happened?  Did you fall off your horse?”

Anxiety and
worry suffused her lovely features.  He admitted that Caro probably
did
care something for him. She
loved
the jealous looks from other women
when he chanced to escort her out. 
Loved
his wealth.
Adored
his title.  So transparent, his dear Caro, but one had to admire her
tenacity.

“I stumbled
in the street.  It’s of no import.”

Rain
trickled down the study windows in rivulets, giving a wavering appearance to
the street outside.  Sutton shivered. Damn he was cold.  The flames
in the fireplace roared into a crescendo of heat.  Caro looked nice and
warm, even in her chemise.  No, it was England that chilled
him.   This cold, hard,island of his birth.  Did he even belong
here?

At night he dreamt
of a suffocating heat, a heat so wet with warmth a man had difficulty
breathing.  The kind of heat in which no cold, could live.  A man
woke every day with sweat already clinging to his brow. The dense, green
jungle, reeking of rotting vegetation mixed with the exotic, floral scents he
much preferred over the rotting refuse to be found in the streets of
London.  Mornings in Macao, he awoke to the sound of monkeys chattering in
the thick brush that surrounded his compound.  Well, he mused, he still heard
the chattering of monkeys, but here the monkeys were called the
ton
. 
Sutton chuckled.

“What’s so
funny?”  Caro sat up.  She lifted one ivory shoulder, allowing her
chemise to dip low, nearly exposing one round breast.

Sutton ran
his hand through his hair, determined not to bodily throw her out. “What are
you doing here, Caro?”  He didn’t bother to hide the irritation in his
voice.

Caro ignored
his tone. “Well, the other night,” she said, stretching like a cat, “you seemed
quite put out with me and I think I know why.” Her full lips pursed in apology
as she tossed a coppery strand over her shoulder.  The chemise rode up her
thighs.

Sutton
walked to the sideboard and poured himself a large glass of brandy.  Clearly
Caro was bent on seduction.  It was much too early in the day for brandy,
but Sutton didn’t care.   The brandy was from his father’s private
store, and quite expensive.  His father, he thought with a smile, enjoyed
a good brandy.  He sipped in the smoky warmth and wished his father still
alive.  He missed his father, Robert.  Sutton thanked God that Donata
forced Sutton home, even though the circumstances were not of Sutton’s
choosing.  He had been with Robert at the end. 

Caro gave a
puff of irritation.  She hated to be ignored. 

“You were
saying?”  He didn’t even bother looking interested, because he wasn’t, not
in the least.  He imagined the woman on his sofa to be smaller, but no
less voluptuous.  
Alex
.  The hair a profusion of
chestnut curls, not copper strands.  The eyes gray, not blue.  The
smell of tart, green apples filled his nose. An image of Alex, naked on his
lap, reading to him, her mass of hair trailing over his arms, as he turned the
pages of a book, flashed before him.  He took another sip of the brandy.

“Darling, I
sense you are cross with me.  Have I made you jealous?”  Caro batted
her eyes at him and tried to sound despondent. “Viscount Lindley may have
stolen a kiss in the gardens but I told you, it meant nothing.  I should
not
have taken a turn around the terrace with him. You aren’t going to
challenge
him, are you?”  Her face fairly beamed in delight at the thought of
two Wickeds fighting over her.  How Caro would enjoy the uproar.