Cheryl Holt (4 page)

Melissa glowered as if he’d invited the annoying interloper, her scowl apprising him that their rendezvous was over and he shouldn’t depend on it resuming any time soon. Then she jumped up and raced to the safety of the patio, vanishing so quickly that she might never have been there, at all.

His temper raging, he counted to ten, then to twenty.

What should he say? What should he do?

His private life wasn’t any of Miss Drake’s business! He’d commanded her to desist, but she hadn’t heeded his edict. Had she no concept of his supremacy over her? Of his authority and influence? With a snap of his fingers, he could ruin her.

Not that he would. But still . . .

He stood and whirled around.

“Miss Drake, how in Hades did you find me? And why would you presume it was appropriate for you to look?”

“You have the worst language,” she retorted. “You forget that you are in the presence of a lady.”

“A
lady
! A tyrant is more like.”

He stomped over, not sure what he intended. To shout at her? To paddle her? To . . . to . . . send her to bed without supper? What—precisely—was his plan?

He hadn’t a clue, but he had to take action.

He went behind her chair, boxing her in, and he bent down, a palm braced on either side so that she couldn’t slink away.

She shifted to gaze at him over her shoulder, and suddenly their positions were much too intimate. An arm was pressed to his chest; a wayward curl tickled his ear. Her lips were mere inches from his own, and he was forced to note what he’d been too aggravated to perceive the night before.

She was stunning.

Her hair was blond, a sort of golden wheat, with strands of auburn. Her skin was creamy, her cheeks rosy, her nose pert, her face heart shaped and pleasing. She was slender and willowy, thin where a woman should be, but rounded where a woman should be, too.

She stared at him, her fabulous blue eyes wide and intrigued. They were a strange hue, a sapphire that seemed almost purple against the lavender fabric of her dress. Those devious eyes delved and probed, digging deep, burrowing down to his petty, depraved core.

It was a bizarre, charged encounter, where he felt as if any incredible thing might happen. He could confide any secret, confess any sin, pose any question, and she would comprehend exactly what he was saying.

When he started fantasizing about her bosom, speculating as to what it would be like to stroke her cleavage, the peculiar instant was broken. He leapt away and out of range, but he couldn’t escape. She stood, too, not cowed in the least.

“Have you no decency?” she demanded. “No shame? Rebecca is down the hall in the ballroom, hoping someone asks her to dance.”

“She is not.”

“She is. We arrived a short time ago. What if she’d strolled in and caught you?”

A vein throbbed at his temple. His jaws ached from clenching his teeth. “Miss Drake . . . Ellen . . .”

“It’s
Miss
Drake to you.”

“Ellen, I. . . I. . .”
I what?

He hadn’t any notion how to finish the sentence. She’d driven him to speechlessness. He wasn’t about to debate his conduct, nor would he parlay over Rebecca’s abrupt appearance at a location where he’d never expected her to be.

What was left to discuss? Nothing.

“How many lovers do you have?” she queried.

“How many?”

“Yes. Is it a dozen? A hundred? A thousand?”

He laughed. “A thousand? You certainly have an elevated opinion of my prowess.”

“I swear you have a woman hiding around every corner.”

“Why, you sassy minx! You’ve been in London what? A day and a half? How could you possibly level such an accusation?”

“I may have been here briefly, but I’ve already stumbled on you in two compromising situations. And I haven’t even been trying! I shudder to think what I’d discover if I set my mind to the task.”

“I am not a scoundrel!” he felt honor bound to contend.

“You couldn’t prove it by me.” She frowned and
sobered. “I like Rebecca very much. I don’t want her hurt.”

“You assume I do?”

“I
assume
you’re a pompous scalawag and you’ll do whatever you wish, despite the consequences.”

She was too near the mark, too proficient at reading his character. Regardless of his protestations, he was an unrepentant cad who thrived on pleasure. His reputation was so disgusting that he’d always been glad Rebecca and Lydia resided in the country, where they’d never overhear any risqué stories.

He glanced away, hating to witness her condemnation, hating to acknowledge that she’d so validly assessed his base nature. Praying for guidance, for patience, he conjectured over the best course, though he couldn’t believe that he’d expend an ounce of energy worrying about what she thought.

In his world, people acted out of selfishness, with veiled motive and purpose, so he couldn’t fathom why she was in such a dither.

“Why does any of this matter to you?” he inquired. “You can’t tell me you have any loyalty to Lydia, and your tenure with Rebecca will end with the wedding. If you keep irritating me, I’ll have you fired—sooner rather than later—so why hound me?”

“Rebecca loves you,” she bluntly claimed.

The idiotic statement was like a punch to the gut. His marriage was being made for accepted reasons—money, property, family—and sentiment wouldn’t be a factor. Any ludicrous feminine views Rebecca had to the contrary were stupid.

“Then Rebecca is a fool,” he responded.

“She thinks you walk on water.”

“She’s mad.”

“Dreams die hard, Lord Stanton,” she said. “I won’t stand idly by while hers are dashed.”

There was a lengthy silence, and they tarried in the candlelit room, the noises of the ball scarcely discernible, and he was surprised at how close he felt to her. He sensed that she’d known trauma, had struggled with many ordeals, but had fought her way through, so that she was tough and resilient. What heartbreak had made her so strong?

He was overwhelmed by an outlandish desire to touch her, and he reached out and traced a finger across her bottom lip. The contact jolted him. Sparks shot down his arm, running from himself into her. The air around them was alive and unsettled, and he seriously pondered leaning down and kissing her. It seemed the normal conclusion.

She endured the intimate caress, holding perfectly still as he trailed across her chin, down her neck, but as he dipped lower, she lurched away.

He was shocked. What had been his intent? If she hadn’t moved, would he have gone farther? Might he have fondled her breast? Might he have slipped a hand inside her dress?

He’d insisted that Rebecca was mad, but perhaps
he
was the one who was deranged. He was no better than a rutting dog.

Miss Drake was embarrassed, and she fumbled with her deck of cards, stacking them and stuffing them into her purse.

“You’re always playing cards,” he murmured, unable to devise a more pithy observation.

“I’m often alone.” She shrugged. “It passes the time.”

As she voiced the admission, she looked so forlorn
and tragic, and he was near to comforting her by pulling her into his arms. He was so curious about her, about her past, when he couldn’t deduce why he would be. He didn’t even like her, so why the piqued interest?

“You
could be my paramour.” The scandalous proposal popped out before he realized he would utter it.

She gasped. “What did you say?”

“Despite how you beg and nag, I won’t stop philandering before the wedding. So why not entertain me yourself?”

The concept was ridiculous, but with an absurd urgency he was desperate for her to agree. He was outrageously attracted to her. They shared an unusual affinity, a type of strident connection about which most people could only dream.

Sex with her would be extraordinary, like naught he’d experienced prior, and preposterous as it sounded, he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything. Be it wrong, be it crazed, he yearned for it to transpire.

“No.” She chuckled wearily. “You insult me by asking.”

“Give me a good reason why you won’t.”

“Rebecca is my friend. It would be so wicked.”

“Ah . . . a loyal and moral soul.”

“I like to imagine that I am.”

“How refreshing.”

He stepped in, trapping her against the table. She was positioned so that the front of his body was pressed to her side, his waist to her hip, phallus to thigh. At the exciting proximity his boisterous rod leapt to attention, though she was too unschooled to comprehend how she’d affected him.

He nuzzled her nape, enchanted by the warmth of her skin, the hint of a subtle perfume, and he was tickled
when she shivered. She was as enthralled as he was, himself, their physical magnetism blatant and impossible to ignore.

“Do it for me,” he whispered, on some primal level recognizing that if she refused, he’d be losing out on something grand. “Do it for yourself.”

Her beautiful eyes troubled, she eased him away. “I met you once, years ago. You don’t recall, do you?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“What you just requested . . .” She halted, not possessing the terminology for salacious discussion. “Why did you suggest it?”

“Why not?” The comment was flip and cold, but he declined to explain, declined to furnish her with any intimation of how stunning he deemed her to be.

“Why not indeed?”

“An affair between us would be wonderful.”

“I doubt it,” she asserted. “I don’t even like you.”

“On that point”—he grinned—“we’re in complete accord.”

“Quit behaving so badly,” she pleaded.

Her appeal was sincere, and it tugged at his conscience. He considered relenting, letting her have her way, so he could see her smile, but he didn’t.

They could have engaged in a lengthy quarrel—about male needs and preferences, about aristocratic marriages and illicit liaisons—but he could talk until he was blue in the face and never make her understand.

“I can’t.”

“Do it for me.” She tossed his own words back at him. “Do it for yourself.”

“I won’t.”

Her temper flared. “Then we’re at loggerheads.”

“I expect that we are.”

An awkward silence ensued. She studied him, checking for flaws and finding too many; then she threatened, “I’ll be watching you.”

Regal as any queen, she turned and marched out.

  3  

Ellen was squashed into the corner of the packed, stifling ballroom when she observed Lord Stanton creeping toward the exit. At the same moment, a blond beauty slipped onto the verandah. The pair was likely departing for a tryst—Stanton seemed to prefer secluded libraries—and Ellen rippled with exasperation.

She couldn’t say why she was determined to spy on him, or why his conduct bothered her. Why should it? What was it to her if he acted like an ass?

The answer was beyond her. Normally, she was a rational, prudent person, who was versed in the peculiarities of the Quality, yet for obscure motives she couldn’t define, she was obsessed with him.

The explanation had to be rooted in her past. He and his friends had destroyed her family, and the ramifications of their perfidy went on and on. Though James had been sentenced to twenty years of hard labor, he’d recently escaped from captivity, with half his sentence served, and had returned to London.

She hadn’t seen him but had received several furtive
letters, which indicated he wasn’t the charming, innocent boy he’d been but a ruthless, cynical man who had too much money and no valid accounting for how he’d come by it. Every time she thought about his current perils, she panicked all over again.

From the morning of his arrest, her life had been a long string of disappointment and toil, and she was slowly realizing that unhealed wounds from that episode occasionally gripped her and ruled her actions.

She wanted to have something go right, wanted to be in control. Her need to manage a satisfactory conclusion for Rebecca had taken on absurd, monumental proportions. Plus, Stanton was just so annoying. He presumed he could perpetrate any vile atrocity and get away with it.

Which was true, but that didn’t mean she had to meekly accept his antics. He’d had the audacity to propose indecency to Ellen, herself. She was still reeling from the strange suggestion, and she’d spent many frenzied hours struggling to deduce why he’d done it.