The Marquess Who Kissed Me: (The Valiant Love Regency Romance) (A Historical Romance Book)

by Deborah Wilson

  This way, both men won.

  When Nick turned to Leo, Noel said something Oliver and the two men began to look in the book together.

  Oliver was more than just a trained killer. He was also a lord and a very wise one at that.

  Then Noel said something that made Oliver’s head jerked up. He looked at Belle again and then grinned. She knew that grin. They were speaking about her and whatever was said was something she wouldn’t like.

  She made her way toward them immediately.

  Noel struggled to meet her eyes as she approached. That was not good.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  Oliver’s smile was far too superior for her liking. “The young men Noel recently spoke to would rather come with me and sleep on twigs than on your comfy cotton mattresses.”

  “Impossible.” No one preferred twigs to cotton. She looked at Noel. “What is he talking about?”

  Noel scratched his head. “Well, I mentioned my time at Venmont Hill to some of the older lads, and they’re interested in learning the things Oliver is good at, like fashioning your own weapons out of trees, holding your breath underwater for great lengths of time, and making traps.” As Noel went on, he was unable to hide his excitement.

  Belle frowned. “But why would anyone need to know those things? There are shops that sell weapons and traps. Why would you need to hold your breath?” She was so confused.

  Noel and Oliver shared a look that spoke volumes.

  It said she didn’t understand and likely never would.

  Noel sighed as he turned back to her. “It’s fun.”

  “Fun.” She tested the word and thought perhaps he meant something else. “There is nothing fun about sleeping on leaves.”

  Oliver’s expression was condescending. “It’s a man thing, Belle.”

  “But they’re just boys.” She didn’t want her boys doing man things. She wanted her boys doing boy things. They’d already missed so much of their childhood. She wanted to give them the childhood and the nurturing they’d not received.

  “They’re not boys,” Noel said. “We’re not boys.” He said that all the time to anyone who hinted otherwise.

  She cupped Noel’s cheek. “I know you’re a man, dear.”

  Noel blushed as usual under her touch.

  “Noel, go find your uncle and see how long the horse change will take,” Oliver growled.

  Noel was smiling as he walked away.

  Nick and Leo had gone elsewhere, which gave Belle and Oliver some privacy.

  “I see you’re back to your usual self,” Oliver said. “Does your flirting have no limits? Clearly, any man will do?”

  Belle gasped. “I don’t sleep with or want every man I smile at.”

  “Yet he wants you.”

  Belle prayed her words didn’t sound too prideful. “Most men want me, Oliver.” It was something they fought about all the time.

  He hated the way she flirted, but honestly, it came naturally to her. After years of being told to do exactly that, she couldn’t cut it off as easily as one would blow out a candle.

  His eyes were cold. “Not every man wants you.” Not him, he meant.

  Well, that answered her thoughts about their kiss. He hadn’t done it because he wanted her. He’d done it for some other reason, and that reason didn’t much matter since it would never be the reason she wanted most.

  Maybe it was curiosity, but whatever the reason, she found herself enraged in a way she’d never felt before with him. “You’re not taking my boys up to that insufferable house of yours. It’s as dark and ominous as you.”

  He lifted a brow. “Don’t worry. I won’t be taking your precious boys anywhere. I’ll simply open my doors. Whoever comes may come, but it will be their choice.”

  She groaned and balled her fist. “They need structure.”

  “I’ve plenty of structure.” He narrowed his gaze. “You’re the destructive one. You might have had quite a different experience with Lord Dunst if you…” Realizing what he’d been bound to say, he shut his mouth.

  But it was too late.

  Her stomach fell.

  The words he’d prepared in his mind stood between them.

  Was that truly what he believed? That she was to blame for Dunst’s cruelty?

  Had Dunst not said the very same?

  Oliver didn’t apologize, and she was glad.

  It seemed they were both back to their usual selves. She’d been the receiver of his indifference for nearly five years. It was the way things were meant to be.

  She turned away and marched over to join the other women, equally glad and hurt when he didn’t stop her.

  For years, she’d been fine, knowing that she could not have him. Yet in the last week, she’d allowed her heart to feel. She’d allowed hope to take root and spring forth.

  She buried it now, never to allow its release again.

  It seemed his kindness would only come when he felt pity for her. Well, if that were the case, Belle didn’t need it or him. She let her anger harden in her chest and artfully put on a smile.

  ∫ ∫ ∫

  1 3

  * * *

  Oliver swore and stood as Belle’s laugh reached his ears again. She sat at a table in the inn’s dining hall behind him. Some of the soldiers surrounded her and though Oliver had positioned himself so he wouldn’t have to look in her direction, her voice carried.

  He couldn’t hear every word, but her tone was enough. She was flirting, charming the men as though they shouldn’t all be alert and ready to handle any danger that should come their way.

  His brothers frowned in confusion and left. He’d hardly touched his meal. He could barely eat with Belle in the same room. He’d likely lost a stone through the years for all the meals he’d skipped because of her presence.

  He went outside and to the prison cart that was transporting Lord Dunst.

  He nodded at a soldier as he took the lantern from the exterior and shined it through the opening.

  Dunst’s face came into view. His mouth was bound. His cheeks and an eye bore the marks from Oliver’s hand.

  Every time Oliver looked at the man, his anger spiked again.

  Anger was good. It distracted him from so much else.

  The earl’s expression was resigned. He’d been told where he was going, though not the exact location. Though Oliver still questioned why men like him had the right to live, another part of him was glad that he would.

  He would suffer for his crimes. Laboring in the dark mines would do him some good.

  “You’re thinking of doing anything foolish, aren’t you?” Remy asked as he came to stand by him.

  Oliver looked the general over and then turned back to Dunst. “No, I’ve accepted the unpleasant fact that he’ll never experience the full magnitude of my rage.”

  Dunst didn’t react.

  “I think he knows you’re upset. Walk with me.”

  Oliver put the lantern back on the cart and followed Remy toward a lit path back to the inn.

  “You spoke to Husher,” Remy said. “He said someone hired him to kill Belle.”

  Oliver’s stomach tightened. Though he often wanted to turn Belle on his knee, Oliver would let no true harm come to her. “Belle will be protected.”

  “Yet, Raven oversees the prison,” Remy said. “And it was never any secret that Raven and Husher were allies long before they came to work for Van Dero.”

  Raven and Husher were assassins who might as well have been brothers for how much one stood by the other. They’d been fighters in the war who’d answered to Remy. All three had known one another for some time.

  Oliver stopped. “You think Raven will pick up where Husher left off? You think this is a trap?”

  “I don’t know what to believe, but once we get to Gavellorp, it would be good to keep our eyes open. We’re still uncertain who wants her dead.”

  He remembered the moment Belle ran into his arms and then had the audacity to a
sk if he was going to kill her. He’d never do such a thing, yet she’d believed it possible.

  That had added to his anger, yet now that he looked over their past, he could see why she’d believe such a thing. He had hated her. He still struggled with that. They were best apart, yet until the man who wanted her gone was caught, he had no choice but to remain near her.

  “The woman enjoys attention,” Oliver said. “She’s got every soldier's eye on her as we speak. Nothing will happen to her.”

  Remy smiled. “I’m sure you’re right. Shepard has been assigned as her personal guard once we arrived at Gavellorp.”

  “Shepard?” Oliver thought about the young officer. He was strong, quick on his feet, but not deadly. He wouldn’t go the lengths Oliver would to protect her. “No, I’ll do it myself.”

  “Belle requested him, and Shepard agreed to it.”

  He grunted. “Belle can request many things, but she asked my permission to come on this journey, therefore she’ll do as I say.”

  Remy whistled and then chuckled. “Your permission? Don’t let Belle hear you speak that way.”

  Oliver scoffed. “I’d say it all to her face. In fact, I’ll go speak to her right now.” Before Remy could stop him, Oliver marched back into the inn.

  He found her right where he left her, holding court with her back to him.

  He walked over and placed his hands on the table on either side of her, trapping her in.

  Her body went stiff, and every man at the table looked up at Oliver.

  Their expressions shifted from merriment to awareness. They were ready for instruction were Oliver to give it.

  Oliver’s gaze moved to Shepard, the handsome blond one. “Thank you for volunteering to protect Lady Cebele, but she is my responsibility and I will be acting as her personal guard once we arrive at Gavellorp.”

  Shepard bowed his head. “Yes, my lord—”

  “Actually.” Belle turned.

  Oliver lowered his head to meet her eyes a

  nd wished he hadn’t.

  From this position, he could see straight down her dress. The tops of her breasts were divine. He hadn’t been hungry before, but he was now.

  Were they alone, he’d toss her and all her many skirts onto the table before discarding every inch of her clothes and feasting on every part of her body.

  His fantasies of Belle hadn’t been this vivid in a long time. It was his recent taste of her that propelled his thoughts to dark places. The window to his desires that been cracking for years had shattered with her kiss, and the winds of need swirled around him in a storm of angry heat.

  Thankfully, he’d learned how to hide his savage thoughts, but with their kiss still in his mind, he could easily bring up her taste. That memory alone made him hard.

  Belle tilted her chin all the way back. Her brown eyes held a different sort of heat. “Shepard did not volunteer. I requested him.”

  And just as he’d told Remy he would, he said, “That’s not your decision to make. Take note for the future, you’ll be making very few decisions on this trip.” He owned her body. She was his.

  The men at the table had already been quiet, but now the silence seemed like its own presence.

  Belle’s mouth fell open, the pulse quickening in her throat. Her cheeks heated and that splash of delicious red spread down and even traveled up to her ears.

  “You seem to be confused, my lord. I am neither your wife nor your child. Therefore, I always make my own decisions. So, while I thank you for your efforts, you are not who I want.” She smiled coyly before she turned away and waved him off, swatting the air as though he were a flea. “You may return to… whatever it was you were doing. You are in no way needed here.”

  “Outside. Now.”

  “No.” Her body relaxed.

  Oliver bent down to her ear. “Now or else.”

  She looked at him. Her brown eyes were hard topaz stones. “I refuse and if you manhandle me, I’m certain any man at this table will fight for my honor.”

  Oliver didn’t even bother to look at the other men. “It seems you’ve chosen ‘else’. Very well. As you wish.” He grabbed both sides of the chair, tipped it back, and started out of the room.

  Belle gasped. Her hands clung to the wooden seat as she shouted her outrage. “Put me down! Are you mad!”

  He didn’t stop until they were a few yards away from the inn’s entrance. All the while, Belle shouted her outrage. No one stopped him.

  He stopped close to the stables, just within the lantern’s reach. There was still some shadow. “Lower your voice. You’ll wake the servants.”

  She shut her lips immediately. Stable boys usually slept in the stables.

  He put the chair down and she stood up.

  But he was quicker and jumped in front of her.

  Startled, she fell back down.

  He bent forward and rested one hand on the back of the chair. “You should know better than to fight me. I’ll always win.”

  “You’re a menace.”

  “Who made me this way?”

  She frowned. “No, I won’t be blamed for that.” She crossed her legs and spread her skirts like a queen on a throne. “I didn’t make you a bully.”

  “No, only a murderer for hire.”

  “You didn’t have to do it!” she cried. “I told you not to.”

  “As though I had a choice.”

  Her breath grew heavy. “Go away.”

  “I can’t. You asked if you could come and I allowed it. That makes you mine.” He meant she was his responsibility. He opened his mouth to correct himself, but she spoke first.

  “I’m not yours. I’ll never be yours. Now, return me and my chair to the table.” She crossed her arms.

  His eyes widened. “You expect me to carry you back?”

  She suddenly slipped out of the chair and stood. “I don’t understand why you brought me out here. I don’t understand why you insist on pretending that you care, and I don’t want to understand. All I want you to do is leave me alone.”

  “I can’t. You asked my permission to come on this trip—”

  She cut her hands through the air. “I relinquish you from all responsibility for me. From today and forevermore, you are free of me, Oliver. Now, I am going back inside. Shepard, who is a good soldier, will protect me in Gavellorp.”

  “Why Shepard?” He remembered it had been Belle who’d recommended him to Remy a year ago.

  “Shepard saved me before,” Belle said. “It was a long time ago. I trust him to protect me.”

  “And what else do you trust him to do for you while in Gavellorp?” Oliver could hardly believe he’d spoken the words until they were out.

  And like before, he didn’t take them back.

  “The answer to that wouldn’t matter, since according to you, I’d sleep with anyone. Goodnight.” She started for the inn.

  Oliver picked up the chair and followed. “Are you going to tell me that isn’t true?”

  “I’m not going to tell you anything except it’s none of your concern.” She kept her eyes straight ahead. “Allow me to tell you how that works. I want no more favors from you.” She sighed. “Don’t protect me. Don’t assist me, not even from a chair. I’m done.”

  Oliver didn’t know how to respond to that. He and Belle had had their fights in the past, but this felt different. For reasons he couldn’t explain, it all felt heightened. Paramount.

  There was a finality to her tone, which had never been there before.

  It bothered him even more than her flirting with half the men in the country did.

  She was done?

  Good, then so was he.

  ∫ ∫ ∫

  1 4

  * * *

  Belle had only been to Gavellorp Manor once before. It had been last year. She’d visited so that she could see just how Milly’s plan would work. The mines were located on the other side of town, but Belle had stayed in the manor, which was now owned by Cassius.

&nb
sp; The house was large, and Belle prayed it big enough to keep Oliver far away from her.

  She’d managed to avoid him since their fight outside the inn two days ago. She hadn’t planned to say the words she’d said, but she was glad it happened. It was time for her to move on. She needed to stop feeling the way she did for him, and that would only come with distance.

  The continued fighting wouldn’t help. What Belle needed to learn was indifference where the earl was concerned. She needed to be able to look at him and feel nothing and until she did, she’d decided not to look at him at all.

  She’d also decided to avoid the memories of their one month together so very long ago. Those memories meant nothing. The man she’d known no longer existed and while she blamed herself for where they were, blaming herself would change nothing.

  Their relationship was born of lies and sickness.

  It was never meant to be.

  As Cassius’ retinue of thirty men and women followed him to the ballroom, Belle admired the old Russian count’s taste. Boris might have been a terrible person, but he knew how to decorate a room. The calm colors were almost comical when compared to his volatile nature.

  Thankfully, Boris was back in his mother country and Cass had moved in.

  She was near the front when they stepped into the drawing-room.

  Sir Gabriel Raven was there, standing in the middle of the room.

  She hadn’t known him well when he’d been part of Cassius’ team, but when she’d come to Gavellorp that one time, he’d become a friend.

  She moved to hug him.

  Strangely, it was Cassius who held her back.

  His staff shot out and blocked her from taking another step.

  The duke never glanced in her direction. He spoke directly to the man who stood alone on the other side. “Sir Raven.”

  Raven’s eyes were gold, a shade close to Cassius’ hazel, but without a hint of any other color. He bowed his black head low. “Your Grace.”

  “I was told you were no longer in my employment and yet here you are in my home. What is to stop me from telling every man behind me to kill you now?”

  A prickle of apprehension swept through Belle’s body.

  “Cassius,” Milly whispered. She rarely interrupted her husband when he was dealing with business. Though he rarely made murderous threats in front of her either. “Don’t,” the duchess urged.