“I won’t,” she raged back at him, equally angry now. “I want to marry Aubrey. You must give your consent.”
“I must?” the marquess bellowed in fury. He strode forward, using his sheer size to intimidate as he glowered at her, but Aubrey stepped forward, guiding her behind him.
“I think that is quite enough,” he said, his voice soft, though his anger was evident enough as he stared at her brother with contempt. “Lady Violette, I think perhaps we have had answer enough from your brother. It is clear he will not change his mind on this matter today.”
“Nor any day!” Lord Winterbourne growled, glaring back at Aubrey, his fists clenched.
Violette clutched at Aubrey’s hand and wondered if he would keep his promise to her. “Don’t forget what I said, Aubrey,” she whispered to him, fear in her heart he would give up, as she realised that Edward would take her away now. He would bury her in the country as far from Aubrey as it was possible to get. “Promise,” she pleaded.
He gave her a slight nod, a reassuring smile at his lips, but his eyes were full of anguish. With this, she had to be satisfied, and she left the room, pausing only to cast her brother a venomous look of fury on her way. They had grown distant in the years before he’d left, it was true, but she’d never believed he would ever go out of his way to make her unhappy. Perhaps she had never really known him at all.
Chapter 18
“Wherein Violette takes matters, and Aubrey, into her own hands.”
Alex stalked down the wide corridor that led to the back parlour, drawn by the harsh sound of angry male voices. He paused as Violette ran from the parlour, weeping openly as she rushed past him and up the stairs.
“What the devil,” he muttered, though somehow, he had a fair enough idea. His heart sank as he approached and found Lord Winterbourne’s large and imposing frame filling the doorway.
“You go too far, sir,” Aubrey’s furious voice rang out over the man’s shoulder as Alex stood beside him.
“Winterbourne,” he said, his voice hard. “I do hope you are not abusing my hospitality by being rude to my cousin?”
Lord Winterbourne spun around, his green eyes flashing. “I am more than grateful to you, Falmouth,” the man barked, looking anything but. “I have a debt to you which I will find a way to repay, but that payment will not be made by selling off my sister!”
“I don’t believe any such arrangement was ever asked of you?” Alex replied, his voice dripping ice. He moved to see Aubrey over the man’s shoulder. He was white-faced with rage, his stance taut and on-edge, and Alex could well imagine what they had been discussing.
“Your cousin,” Winterbourne said, biting out the words as though they offended him, “has just had the audacity to ask me for my sister’s hand in marriage,” he roared. “Which would be bad enough, even if he wasn’t doing his best to compromise the girl under your roof!”
Alex held the man’s gaze and wondered at the anger he saw there. If he didn’t know better, he would have said the man had been born angry. Yet going on the accounts of his friends, Edward Greyston had always been a smiling, hail fellow, a well-met kind of man. The war and whatever injuries the man had suffered had obviously taken their toll.
“She could do a great deal worse,” he replied, his tone even. “But perhaps we could discuss this in my study, rather than standing in the corridor for the entertainment of the servants?”
“She could do a great deal better, and you damn well know it,” Winterbourne replied in disgust, ignoring the invitation. “He’s nothing but a damned fortune-hunter!”
Alex moved as Aubrey lunged forward with murder in his eyes, forcing himself between the two angry men and shouting at Aubrey to keep his head.
“Did you hear what he just said?” Aubrey raged, struggling to get free of Alex’s iron grasp.
“I heard,” Alex bit out. “And under my roof you’ll damned-well apologise for that, Winterbourne.”
Winterbourne stared at Aubrey with contempt and loathing, but he owed Alex a great deal, and he knew it.
“I apologise for my comment, Mr Russell,” he said, his handsome face pulled into a sneer. “But you will marry my sister over my dead body.” Winterbourne glanced at Alex, his green eyes as cold and unwelcoming as the North Sea. “There is nothing further to discuss. You will keep the man out of the house and away from Lady Violette until we have had time enough to vacate it.”
Alex kept a tight grip on his cousin as the marquess turned on his heel and strode away.
“Bastard,” Aubrey muttered, his fists clenched.
“Quite,” Alex replied, feeling suddenly rather tired. “Come along,” he said to Aubrey, giving him a gentle shove towards his study.
“Didn’t you ought to throw me in the street to avoid my corrupting influence contaminating Lady Violette any further?” he demanded, the words bitter and harsh and so unlike Aubrey that Alex felt a swell of regret. His cousin was going to be badly hurt by this ill-fated affair, and there was damn all he could do about it.
“Don’t be a fool, Aubrey,” Alex said with a sigh as he opened the study door and headed directly for the decanter.
“You mean any more of a fool, surely?”
Alex levelled a cool stare at him and Aubrey snorted, sitting heavily in a leather arm chair by the fire and putting his head in his hands.
“Oh, God, Alex. I love her. What am I to do?”
Alex pressed a glass of cognac into his hand with a sympathetic smile. “Well, drink that, for starters,” he said, his voice low, before leaning on the edge of his desk and looking at the desperation in his cousin’s eyes with pity.
“And after that?” Aubrey said, staring into the bottom of the glass, his face the picture of misery.
But that was a question Alex did not know how to answer.
***
Aubrey lay on his bed, fully dressed and stared at the ceiling. There were any number of places he could be at this time of the afternoon, but he didn’t care to move and didn’t want to speak to anyone or see another living soul.
He’d been a damn fool.
Though a fool, he could not regret meeting Violette. Aubrey wondered how long the ache in his heart would take to mend, if indeed it would ever mend ... and yet he still didn’t regret it. He pictured her in his mind’s eye, remembering the green of her eyes, a darker and more vivacious green than her brother’s. They sparkled with mischief and adventure, and despite himself, a smile tugged at his mouth as he wondered what trouble she’d get herself into next. And there would be trouble.
He knew she would expect him to do something, expect him to find a way for them to be together, but there were no respectable ways for him to achieve that. She would be ruined, cut off from everything she knew. After having seen the fury in her brother’s eyes, he believed the man wouldn’t hesitate to cut ties with her and to withhold her dowry.
Not that Aubrey cared for that, but he cared that she would be forced to live a life she was unprepared for. She would come to resent him, he felt sure of that. For she would be forced to live her life at the fringes of a world that should have been at her feet. How could he take that from her?
A sharp knock at the door sounded, and Aubrey willed his valet to send whoever it was away. Closing his eyes, he waited, and as the rap was repeated, sounding a little more impatient now, he remembered with a curse it was the valet’s afternoon off.
Damn and blast.
He toyed with the idea of simply not answering, but good manners won out and he hauled himself to his feet, straightening his cravat and cuffs en route.
Pulling the door open, he simply stared in disbelief for a moment before he reacted. Reaching out, he grasped Violette’s hand and pulled her inside, sparing a moment to look around and check she’d not been notice before slamming the door.
“What the devil ...” he began, but the words were lost as her warm mouth pressed against his, her arms sliding around his neck as she moulded her soft body against his. He gr
oaned, swept away on a rising tide as his arms went around her. Her mouth opened to him and he didn’t hesitate to take what was on offer, tangling their tongues together. Their breath mingled, hot and urgent until some tenuous grasp on sanity grabbed hold of his attention and clung on for dear life.
He pushed her back, away from him, aching to do the complete opposite and get as close as it was possible for them to be.
“This is madness, Violette,” he said, his eyes pleading for her to have mercy and take control because he wasn’t sure he was strong enough to do it for her. “You’ll be ruined,” he shouted, feeling really rather angry now.
“Good,” she replied, her green eyes glittering with excitement. She crooked her finger at him and took a step closer. “Come and ruin me, Mr Russell,” she whispered, sounding far more self-assured and seductive than any virginal girl who hadn’t even come out yet had a right to.
“What?” he demanded in alarm, taking a hasty step away as she advanced on him. Desire stalked him, too, his blood running hot and urgent in his veins, the fall on his fashionably tight breeches now uncomfortably constricting. “Have you run mad?”
“Of course not,” she laughed, pausing to throw down her reticule and pull off her gloves, then gave him an arch look from under her thick eyelashes that made his breath catch. “I’m not the least bit mad, I assure you,” she replied, a wicked smile dimpling her cheeks as she unbuttoned her pelisse with dexterous fingers. He wondered what those fingers would feel like on his skin as she threw the pelisse to one side before getting his mind back on track.
“Then what are you?” he croaked, wondering if her brother knew she was missing yet. Surely this would be the first place he would come? Aubrey wondered vaguely if the man was better with a sword or pistol, and which would bring an end to Aubrey with the least fuss. Pistols, probably. He hoped it was a clean shot. He didn’t want to linger for days, burning with fever. Shuddering slightly, he forced the image from his mind.
“I’m practical,” she said, answering his question with a prosaic shrug. “And I mean to marry you, Aubrey Russell,” she said, and then paused, the first flickering of doubt and vulnerability visible in her eyes. “That is ... if ... if you still want me?” she asked, a breathless quality to her voice that made his heart feel it was stumbling about in his chest, crashing helplessly against his ribs.
“Of course I want to,” he said, quite defenceless against her charms, and unable to deny her the truth, though it would have served her better if he’d lied to her.
“Well, then. You’d best get on and ruin me,” she said with a bright smile, as if all their troubles would be over if only he would do so. “Then there’s no way my pig-headed brother can get in our way.”
“Violette!” Aubrey exclaimed, not sure if he was more shocked by the idea in general or the cool, matter-of-fact manner in which she spoke about it.
“Well, don’t you want to?” she asked, that slightly breathless, seductive quality to her voice again. Where the devil had she learned to sound like that, he wondered, and then cursed Celeste from here to Bordeaux and back again. The wretch.
She moved closer and he was frozen, caught between love and desire. He was captured and held prisoner between the longing to protect her from the world and malicious gossip and a life where he couldn’t give her everything she deserved - and the desperate need to make her his in every way.
“Violette,” he repeated, his voice low and rough, her name a plea upon his lips, begging her to have a care, to stop this now - while she still could - for he could not.
But she did not stop.
Violette moved until their bodies met, her hands sliding over the smooth silk of his waistcoat, one warm hand moving higher still, caressing his jaw as her fingers moved on and slid into his hair. She gave a slight, imperious tug and he obeyed, too lost in her toils to deny her anything, even her own destruction.
He turned her, backing her into the wall and relishing her gasp of surprise. Perhaps this, then, would shock her, if he pushed her too hard, too fast. Perhaps then she would slap his face and force him to move away and that would be for the best.
He angled his body hard against hers, his desire an explicit hardness against her softer flesh. His mouth claimed her with a hunger he did nothing to hold back now, one hand tugging at her blonde curls, forcing her to submit to this, his desire. Yet she met him at every turn, too blatantly eager in her willingness to consider retreat, and he began to forget why he’d even wanted her to.
With his free hand, he gathered the finely layered muslin of her skirts, fisting the material as he wrenched at it, exposing her legs to him, careless of damage to the delicate linens of her gown. Aubrey caught his breath, his mouth hovering over hers as he paused, savouring the feel of her soft skin beneath his hand as his fingers caressed the silk of her inner thigh.
Surely, this was too much, he reasoned. Surely this was enough to make her flee and think herself lucky to have escaped. But then he looked down into her eyes and knew that was a foolish idea. For this was the irrepressible Violette Greyston, the woman who had run away from her gilded cage to the filth of London, all alone. This was bold, brave Violette who would defy her powerful cousin Lord Gabriel Greyston and save her brother, even at the cost of her own ruin. What, then, might she do for the man she loved? The thought swelled his heart in his chest, the feeling so large and overpowering that he wondered how that feeble organ could contain it.
She sighed, staring at him as a smile played over her lips, reddened and lush from his kisses. Her gaze was direct, unembarrassed, and full of trust, and he knew, then, that there would never be another. There would be no other woman to make his heart want to burst with joy, no other who would make him feel as though he could conquer the world - perhaps even take on the heroic Lord Winterbourne, and win.
“Aubrey,” she whispered, her eyes closing, thick eyelashes fanning out over her lovely skin. His fingers tickled the little thatch of curls at the apex of her thighs and he smiled as she sighed again, her breath fluttering against his mouth as she shifted, a little restless now, eager for what came next. Did she even know, he wondered?
Well, he would enjoy her discovery, he decided, as he let her skirts fall, for now, and chuckled at the look of reproach he was given.
“But ...” she began, the word the first attempt at her objection, but he tugged at the bodice of her dress, pulling it from one shoulder to expose her creamy, white breast. Her words died away to be replaced by a sharp intake of breath as his thumb circled her nipple. The delicate pink skin puckered beneath his touch, and he looked up to see her eyes darken with desire, dark like a fathomless pool in a cool green forest.
“Shall I kiss you here?” he asked, his voice soft and wicked, and he wondered if perhaps all those rumours about him weren’t as false as he’d claimed. Here he was, after all, a young rake seducing an innocent, sending her to her ruin, even if she had demanded he do it.
“Yes,” she replied, the word at once impatient and shocked. The sound she made as his mouth closed over her set fires beneath his skin. Toying with her, his tongue flicked at the tiny nub of flesh before circling around and closing his lips over her once more. Aubrey suckled at her flesh, in turn gentle and then demanding, as her hand buried in his hair and pulled him closer, holding him in place. He burned and ached and wanted with a fury that clawed at his sanity. Never had he felt anything like this in his life; not even in the heady excitement of his first amorous adventures had anything ever come close to this encompassing need.
“Oh, God, Violette,” he moaned, finding her mouth once again and taking it hard. He pulled back then, both of them breathing as though there was no air in the room. “I love you,” he murmured, trailing kisses down her neck. “I love you.”
“Yes, yes,” she murmured, her eyes hazy with desire. “I love you, too.”
He paused, then, staring down at her, marvelling that this beautiful, extraordinary creature should have chosen him; out of all the men
she could have, she wanted him!
The knock at the door was demanding and Aubrey sprang away from her as sanity reasserted itself - and the reality of what would happen if Violette was discovered here presented itself to him in all its stark colours.
He moved then, tugging Violette’s dress to rights and straightening his cravat. He was well aware he could do nothing about the pretty flush to her skin though, nor the indecent red of her lips that whispered of passionate kisses, or the fact she was here with him, alone.
“Aubrey, for God’s sake, it’s Alex, open up!”
“Oh, thank God,” Aubrey breathed out, only now realising he’d been holding his breath.
He pulled open the door and Alex strode in carrying a wriggling Bandit. Aubrey glanced up at him and wasn’t sure if irritation or amusement was what he saw in his cousin’s eyes. He suspected they were about to find out.
Chapter 19
“Wherein the Marquess of Winterbourne throws a stone.”
“Well, Lady Violette,” Alex said, his voice a touch reproachful as Violette raised her chin and stared openly at him, as though daring him to tell her she was a disgrace. Despite everything, Aubrey smiled at that. God, she was brave. “I discovered a gibbering footman waiting outside Hatchard’s with this wretched animal. Poor chap seemed to think he’d lost you and would be turned off without a character.”
Alex gave her an enquiring look and Violette flushed.
“I asked him to look after Bandit while I stepped inside the bookshop,” she said, with a shrug. “I assure you, I had no intention of allowing the man to take the blame for my behaviour.”
“Naturally,” Alex replied, his tone dry as he put the indignant spaniel down. Aubrey cursed as it immediately ran to him and began to jump up and bark, scrabbling at his ankles.
“Good God, Falmouth,” Aubrey exclaimed, trying to limit the damage to his boots. His valet had almost quit his post after the last time. “Can’t you get Celeste to train the little beast?”
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