Deirdre advanced to the center of the small room and turned to face him. There was no fire in the grate and the chill on her bare arms and shoulders brought an involuntary shiver to ripple along nerve ends already taut with something bordering on alarm. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the grotesque flicker of her shadow which was cast by the glow of a brace of candles which stood behind her on the marble mantel. Deirdre forced herself to breathe slowly and deeply.
“If you are going to scream like a fishwife,” he said with a calm that provoked her to renewed anger, “we had better be private.”
Deirdre steadied herself to answer him in reasonable tones. She would not get angry, she would not raise her voice, she would not lose control whatever the provocation.
He pushed himself from the door and took a step toward her. “You were discussing me with Maria. What did she tell you?”
Deirdre stood her ground. “Nothing of interest,” she answered lightly, trying to match his air of nonchalance. “She seems to think that your charm is irresistible.” A touch of flippancy shaded her voice. “I offered to give her the cure for her unfortunate malady, but sad to say, I don’t think she was persuaded to try my remedy.”
His eyes mocked her. “Instruct her by all means. I wish you success with the lady. But don’t think for a minute that I have any intentions of permitting you to practice what you preach.”
It took a moment or two before Deirdre could grasp the full import of his words. When his meaning finally penetrated, her green eyes, brilliant with fire, slanted up at him.
“As I recall, the last time you overstepped yourself, Rathbourne,” she taunted, “I gave you something to remember me by. I would have thought that one scar marring the perfection of your handsome face would have been enough for you.”
There was an awful moment of silence, and if Deirdre had not known better, she might have believed that a look of pain crossed the Earl’s face. But it was gone in an instant and a mask of bitter contempt settled on his hard features.
“My God, Landron is right. You are a vindictive bitch, and I the sorriest fool in Christendom.”
He jerked the door open and strode from the room without a backward glance, leaving Deirdre shaken and strangely remorseful in his wake. That she had the power to wound him had never crossed her mind. She had supposed that the Earl was toying with her, taking a sadistic pleasure in mocking her prudish ways as he pursued some game of his own. It did not seem likely that a man of his notoriety, an accomplished seducer of women, could be reached by the shafts of an inexperienced chit. Yet there had been something in his eyes in that one unguarded moment that told her she had cut him to the quick.
She sighed inaudibly and turned back into the room, taking a few moments to compose herself before she braved the scrutiny of the curious stares she knew would be waiting for her in the reception rooms. The sting of tears burned her eyes and she gave a watery sniff. She hadn’t allowed herself to cry in years, yet a few skirmishes with Rathbourne and she was behaving like a green girl just out of the schoolroom. It was positively ludicrous, this effect he had on her. In the space of one evening, her feelings had run the gamut of every known emotion—all inspired by the whimsy of one solitary man. It was no wonder that she felt like a piece of laundry which had just been through the mangle.
She heard a quick tread at the door and turned aside to examine the mantel with feigned interest, embarrassed to be found by a servant in such a sorry state and in a part of the house she had no business to be in. Warm hands closed over her shoulders and she knew that it was he.
“My God, Deirdre,” she heard Rathbourne’s voice racked with strain at her back, “I don’t know why I allow you to do this to me.”
She leaned into him and his hands tightened on her shoulders. A soft sob of relief escaped her lips, and he wrapped her in his arms, cradling her against his chest with a fierce tenderness that she had never expected to find in him. It was this small gesture which unleashed her tears and they coursed unhindered down her cheeks.
He turned her to face him and she stood impassive in the shelter of his arms.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said gently as he traced the path of her errant tears with one finger. “I want only to love you. I am going to kiss you now. Don’t fight me. For once in your life, Deirdre, just bow to the inevitable.”
His eyes, warm and compelling, dared her to resist.
“Only a kiss, Deirdre. After a famine of five years, is that so much to ask?”
If he had laid a hand on her in anger, or tried to force her in any way, she would have fought him tooth and nail. But she was caught by the devastating tenderness of his hands and lips as they moved upon her with inexpressible yearning, dispelling her doubts and fears. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to relax against him and seek the promised solace of his embrace. The reverence of his caress was like a balm to wounds that had festered too long, exorcising that malevolent demon that seemed always to flare between them. The benediction of mutual apology and forgiveness was in that one, sweet kiss, a catharsis for every wrong and imagined wrong they had ever inflicted upon each other. For Deirdre, the bliss was almost too much to bear.
Rathbourne took a swift step backward and sank into the chair flanking the empty grate and Deirdre found herself tumbling into his lap. It broke the spell. She strained against the hard sinew of his muscled chest, struggling to free herself.
“Be still,” he warned as he wrapped her closer, compelling her obedience with arms as powerful as bands of iron.
When she quieted against him, he brought his mouth down to cover hers, savoring her surrender with a slow sensuality. He gently coaxed her lips to open, pleasuring her with the slick invasion of his tongue, and Deirdre could almost taste the rising hunger which he kept in check. She stirred uneasily. It was all so achingly familiar, this quickening of the senses, the race of heartbeats, and the raging fever which would soon consume them. She felt his hand slip to her breast and she wrenched her head away.
“Don’t spoil it,” she entreated.
His head came up and he noted her alarmed expression with mingled exasperation and concern.
He cupped her face in his hands. “Spoil what?” he asked with strained patience. “Your maiden’s dream of chastity inviolate? I don’t intend to spoil what is between us. I want to make a woman of you.” He felt her tense in his arms. “A kiss, only a kiss, Deirdre,” he soothed.
She was burning, she was freezing; she wanted to resist him, she wanted to yield to him; she hoped he would stop, she willed him to go on; she hated him, she loved him. The fervor of his kisses threatened her sanity. Rathbourne sensed her weakening and pressed his advantage.
His hand slipped under the hem of her gown and brushed in a slow sweep along the smooth length of one silk-stockinged calf, languidly caressing, patiently stoking her ardor to a steady flame. When he felt her response, he shifted her in his arms. His hand parted her knees and moved higher.
Deirdre pressed her thighs together and grasped his wrist with both hands.
“Don’t!”
Rathbourne resisted the pull on his hand. He could feel the rising heat of her desire, so close, so tantalizingly close. If he breached her defenses, he would soon rob her of the will to resist him. The ache to claim her fully went beyond the carnal need to slake his raging lust in her woman’s body. He wanted nothing less than her unequivocal acceptance of his title to who and what she was. Let her try to disavow him, and he would soon teach her the error of her logic.
“A kiss, only a kiss, you promised,” she hissed at him.
Still he hesitated. A few moments longer, that was all that he required, and by God, he would compel her to accept that she was destined for his full possession sooner or later. Wordlessly, his eyes locked on Deirdre’s. He brought his free hand up and pried her fingers from his wrist.
“Gareth!”
It was a plea for his protection. And she had at long last given him his name.
It touched something, some hidden spring within him. He growled deep in his throat, but he removed the offending hand and drew back his head, his half-hooded gaze lazily appraising. Passion was in her eyes but tempered, he knew, by her damnable caution. His hands grasped her head and brought her lips to within inches of his mouth. He spoke roughly.
“If a kiss is the limit of your generosity, girl, you had better make it memorable, or I swear I’ll take what I want from you, and to hell with your blushes.”
She held nothing back. He would not have allowed it. And when he had finished with her, she would have allowed him anything.
Chapter Nine
The weather turned unseasonably cold once again with flurries of wet snow turning to a dismal slush, a circumstance which inevitably curtailed the afternoon outings of the ladies of Portman Square. Warm outer garments which had been pushed to the back of the clothes press only the week before were now shaken out and hung on padded hangers at the front where they were easily accessible.
Deirdre and her friend, Mrs. Serena Kinnaird, had made plans to do a little shopping, but in view of the inclement weather, they had chosen instead to while away the hours of a dreary afternoon by sorting Deirdre’s plethora of gowns which were spread out on every available flat surface of her comfortable chamber on the third floor. A fire crackled invitingly in the open grate and Deirdre was seated on a straight-backed chair close to the only source of warmth in the commodious room, a pencil poised between her slim fingers, ready to make notes. She looked at her friend expectantly.
“Well, what do you think?” she queried.
“You’ve done a remarkable job, considering you’re such a skinflint,” responded Serena as she regarded Deirdre’s storehouse of treasures with a practiced eye. “Restrained colors, simple lines, and not a spare furbelow or ribbon to make your gowns memorable.”
“I can’t afford to be seen in memorable garments. There aren’t enough of them to go round and I have no wish for snide jibes on the paucity of my wardrobe from the tongues of venomous dowagers.”
“Deirdre! People would not be so unkind!”
“Oh wouldn’t they? What would you know about it? Your case and mine are entirely different. You like to cut a dash in the higher reaches of polite society. My ambitions, like my purse, are more modest. I’m happy to merely pass muster. Now give me the benefit of your experience since you make it your business to keep abreast of the latest fashions.”
“For a start, I suggest you have the skirts shortened a smidgen. We’re showing a little more ankle this Season. And you could do with a few livelier colors. It’s not as though you’re a debutante who is obliged to wear pastels. I like the gold.” She fingered the dress which Deirdre had worn to Lady Caro’s party.
“In its former life it was a dusty rose.”
“You had it dyed?”
“Of course. It’s four years old, and even the vicar was beginning to remark that it was his very favorite frock of my entire wardrobe.”
Serena looked to be impressed. “You are a resourceful chit, as I should have remembered. Very well then, if you want my advice, I’d get myself a gown in sea foam. The color is all the crack at present, and if anybody can wear such a vapid green, you can. It will do wonders for your eyes and fair complexion. It’s not flattering to everybody, of course, although every lady and her dog seems to be wearing it this Season. Oh, and have it made up with long sleeves. They’re coming back into fashion, even for ball gowns.”
Deirdre plied her pencil. “And you?” she asked. “Do you sport this color?”
“Goodness no. With my mousy hair and sallow complexion, it would make me look like a sick monkey.”
Although Serena Kinnaird was not a beauty in the current idiom, her square shoulders and athletic build being a trifle boyish for fashionable taste, she was a striking young woman who had learned how to make the most of her attributes. She would never by any stretch of the imagination be deemed a pretty girl, but she had heard herself called “handsome” often enough so that she no longer repined for the impossible. Since her early years had been somewhat dampened by the epithet “ugly,” she was more than satisfied with the universal acknowledgment that she was an arbiter of taste and, in her own right, an “original.” Her long, slim hands, one of her best features, smoothed the folds of her scarlet kerseymere walking dress, which she surveyed with obvious pleasure.
Deirdre caught the gesture. “Actually,” she mused, her voice taking on a wistful cast, “what I lust after in my heart is something in scarlet satin. But that’s out of the question, more’s the pity.”
“Why do you say so?”
“Scarlet on me would not be flattering. I’d look like one of those vulgar beauties displaying her wares bold as brass at Vauxhall Gardens. Of course,” she hastened to add, “on you it looks perfect.”
“Scarlet suits almost everyone, if it’s not overdone. Think of all those dashing young officers in their scarlet uniforms.” She eyed her friend critically. “But you’re right. On you, scarlet satin would be vulgar. Still, if you lust after it, don’t deny yourself. Something restrained, claret velvet, might do. It wouldn’t hurt to be a little more adventurous, Dee.”
“I can’t afford to be. Such a dress would be bound to be noticed, and I’d be obliged to wear it only occasionally.”
“Suit yourself. Personally, I think you would look stunning in black. You don’t by any chance have a doddering old uncle who’s about to kick the bucket?”
A laugh was startled out of Deirdre. “Serena, where do you pick up such vile expressions?”
“From Reggie, of course. And that’s the least offensive of my dear husband’s cant. Horrid, isn’t it? Grandmama is forever decrying the tone of my conversation, as she says, an odd mix of baby talk and masculine crudity. That’s what comes of eloping and acquiring a husband and two babies in quick succession.” Her brown eyes, usually calm and sensible, twinkled at Deirdre.
“As I remember,” Deirdre intoned with mock censure, “when we were at Miss Oliver’s Academy for Girls, you attributed your low vocabulary then to a propensity for lingering with the grooms in your grandmother’s stables.”
Serena’s eyes scanned the room for a chair. Not finding one unencumbered of garments, she finally decided to sit on the rug in front of the grate, and she brought her cold stockinged toes to rest on the brass fender, toasting them at the fire.
“So I did! Now I remember. Can I help it if I have the aptitude of a parrot? I should have been brilliant at languages. Why wasn’t I?”
“Because you were too lazy to bother. You always allowed me to answer for you, yes, and made notes from my copybooks as I recollect.”
“That demonstrates my prodigious intelligence. Why make the effort when you can find others to do the work for you? You, on the other hand, were always so eager to show off your bluestocking tendencies. Could I help it if you pandered to the streak of indolence in my nature and the streak of vanity in your own?”
“Serena, must you always flaunt your vices as if they were virtues? You haven’t changed a bit since our school days.”
After a comfortable silence, Deirdre slanted a glance at her pensive companion. “Do you remember,” she began at length, “how uncomfortable the other girls at Miss O’s used to become when we started to take each other down a peg or two?”
“Yes. Odd, wasn’t it? Some people have no sense of humor. If one has a talent for caustic wit, one should be free to exercise it. What else are friends for?”
“Within reason, of course. Brummel went too far when he called the Prince Regent his fat friend.”
“Oh quite. But that was malicious, and he forfeited the friendship for that piece of spite.”
“Serena?”
“Mm?”
“Do you know of any other girls who share our peculiar talent?”
“None whatsoever. We should have been men, you know.”
“I’ve made the acquaintance of one. She was introduced to me at Car
o Cavanaugh’s party.”
Serena stirred. “Now that’s interesting. Who was the lady? Perhaps, if she’s not too high in the instep, I can induce her to come to my dinner party.”
“It was Mrs. Dewinters.”
There was a moment of stunned silence.
“What was she doing there?”
“Looking over the competition. She heard that Rathbourne had a new interest and invited herself to his sister’s party. She told me so herself.”
Serena began to giggle. “I’ll wager that his mother, the old battle-ax, was fit to be tied.”
“You don’t care for Rathbourne’s mother?”
“Does anyone? Although the top lofty dame won’t lose any sleep over my despite, no, nor anybody else’s either. How did the old warhorse handle the presence of Rathbourne’s ladybird? Oh I wish I’d been there to see the sparks flying.”
Deirdre’s face wore an arrested expression. “Lady Rathbourne didn’t do anything. Perhaps she did look a bit granite-faced for most of the evening, but really, Mrs. Dewinters’s presence passed without comment.”
“What? No fireworks between the Earl and his hatchet-faced mother? Well, that does surprise me.”
“How so?”
“There’s no love lost between them. I thought you knew? It’s common knowledge.”
“Perhaps I did and I’ve just forgotten. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, after all, for parents to be at odds with their offspring.”
“Their aversion goes beyond what is natural, though. They say that Rathbourne joined up with Wellington just to escape the old harridan’s intolerable meddling.”
Deirdre’s lips compressed into a thin line. “I don’t doubt that the Countess had her work cut out for her with her delinquent son. But that doesn’t explain why you dislike her so.”
Serena’s amused laugh was a trifle self-conscious. “Always the clever one. Dee? You are right, of course. She cut me dead after I had eloped with Reggie. We were at some gala event for the Prince Regent. Others were not slow to follow her example.”
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