Thornton approached him, his expression unreadable. “I wouldn’t like for my house party to become a den of scandal, Devonshire. I’ve done enough to cause tongues to wag on my own, and I’m now doing penance for my wife’s sake. Penworth and all who are guests here must be above reproach.”
Jesus. He was far too old, far too intelligent to be receiving a lesson on propriety from a fellow peer of the realm. He inclined his head, inwardly cursing himself and his stupid cock. “I understand, my lord. You have my word that I have no intention to sully your reputation during my stay here. Indeed, I’ve always prided myself on possessing a reputation that is above reproach as well.”
“I’m well aware of that,” the marquis said, giving him an assessing look. “That’s what makes this so damn bewildering.”
At least Heath wasn’t the only one mystified by his sudden reaction to Tia. “I agree.” He shook his head, wondering at the state of his sanity. “Trust me, Thornton, I wholeheartedly agree.”
His host nodded. “And trust me on this: if you upset Lady Stokey in any way, I will be forced to answer for it.”
He understood well enough what Thornton threatened. A sound drubbing. Perhaps it was exactly what he needed to cure what ailed him.
Tia pled a headache and skipped her sister’s evening musical entertainments. The last thing she wanted to endure was the sight of Heath paired with Miss Whitney, especially not with her emotions in such horrid tumult. Instead, she remained in her chamber, taking a late tea alone and trying to figure out what in the name of all the heavens was wrong with her.
She had allowed him to kiss her again when she had sworn she would not. Had allowed him to once more shake her composure and undo her buttons. Damn it all. Although she’d always been the sort to follow her heart rather than her head, she wasn’t ordinarily so reckless when others were concerned.
With a sigh, she took a sip of her tea only to discover that it had gone cold during her prolonged musings. She detested tea that wasn’t perfectly hot. Tia returned her cup to its saucer and stood to pace the length of her chamber.
How was she to carry on for the remainder of the house party? She wasn’t certain she could keep her distance from the duke as she’d vowed she must. Wasn’t certain that she even wanted to do so. If only she could leave, it would all be so much simpler. But she had committed to chaperoning Miss Whitney, and she was firmly mired in East Anglia for the duration.
Her chamber door flew open without so much as a warning knock. Cleo sailed inside, looking formidable in a navy gown, her black curls piled artfully atop her head. Her blue eyes flashed with her annoyance.
“Tia, what were you thinking?” she demanded after the door slammed closed at her back.
Oh dear. She supposed her sister’s ire wasn’t merely caused by her lack of desire to listen to duets. But she decided to play innocent all the same. “I was thinking that my head was pounding dreadfully,” she said.
“I’m not referring to your decision to eschew my entertainments,” her sister snapped, planting her hands on her wasp waist. “Is there something you wish to tell me?”
“Thank you for looking after Miss Whitney in my absence,” she tried.
“You’re most welcome, but that wasn’t what I had in mind either. I’m speaking of you being alone with Devonshire earlier. What were you about?”
Drat. “I was—”
“No,” Cleo interrupted. “I’ve thought better of it. Don’t tell me. I’m sure I don’t want to know.”
A telltale flush crept over Tia’s cheeks. “How did you hear of it?” She’d thought she’d been discreet. She should have known that her sister would have eyes and ears everywhere at Penworth.
“Thornton saw you leaving the yellow drawing room, and when he entered, he found Devonshire within looking wholly guilty.” Cleo raised a brow. “What can you have been thinking of, Tia?”
Well that was quite simple. She had been thinking of the lovely way the man kissed her, how he set her at sixes and sevens with a simple touch, how she wanted to be in his bed again. She winced, knowing she very well couldn’t share that with the disapproving sister before her.
“I’m not certain,” she said lamely. “I meant to tell him that we needed to stay as far away from each other as possible for the duration of the house party. And instead, I allowed him to kiss me.”
“Thank heavens that is all the liberty you allowed him.”
Tia studiously avoided her sister’s probing gaze. “Yes, thank heavens.”
“Tia?”
She busied herself with adjusting her skirts. “Yes?”
“You look guilty as a thief holding a sack of the family silver.”
Tia swallowed and glanced back at Cleo. “I acted with great foolishness, I’m afraid.”
Cleo’s gaze narrowed. “Just how foolish were you?”
She didn’t want to reveal all to her sister, but she’d already revealed too much. And she’d always been abysmal at prevarication. “As foolish as a woman can possibly be.”
“Oh dear God.” Cleo’s hand fluttered to her brow, quite reminding Tia of their mother in that moment. “Hypatia. How could you?”
Tia loathed her full name. No one ever called her by it other than her sisters and her mother. Its use was reserved for august tones of disappointment, and sadly she’d heard them far too many times in her life. “It was a moment of weakness,” she defended. Or rather, many long, profound moments. But no need to stoke the flames of her sister’s angry fire.
“Indeed it was. I trust it won’t be repeated?”
Heath’s passionate kisses of earlier rose to her mind, tempting her all over again. Dear, sweet heavens. “Of course it won’t.” And it wouldn’t. Just as long as she could keep at least several hundred miles between herself and the duke at all times.
Cleo appeared to soften a bit. “It cannot, Tia. You know that as well as I. Beyond your responsibility to Miss Whitney, there is something else to consider. It’s common knowledge that the duke is hunting for a wife, not just the pheasants he’s come here to shoot. I should hate to see you hurt.”
Heath was seeking a wife? The revelation struck Tia in the region of her heart as surely as Cupid’s arrow. She knew as well as anyone that gentlemen didn’t dally with women they wanted to wed. If he had come to East Anglia looking for a suitable mate, he certainly hadn’t found one in Tia.
“I hadn’t realized,” she murmured. He’d told her he wasn’t looking for a lover, and she supposed that much had been true. But he had been looking for someone else. Someone who was not a widow willing to follow him to bed for a night of passion.
Cleo patted her arm. “You see why no good can come of this?”
“Of course.” And Tia did, now more than ever. The trouble was, she still wasn’t certain if it would be enough.
The morning sun shone bright as Heath returned to Penworth the next day. The shoot, ordinarily a sport he enjoyed, had left him with the same nagging sense of incompletion that had been plaguing him ever since Tia had left him in the drawing room the day before. She had been avoiding him, bowing out of the evening entertainments. At dinner, she’d been seated far away from him, a situation no doubt owed to the glares Lady Thornton kept directing his way. It would seem the marquis had shared his discovery with his wife, and she wasn’t pleased.
As he entered the main hall with his fellow shooters, Lady Thornton herself swished into their midst. She looked to be in high dudgeon, and Heath hoped like hell he wasn’t the source of her ire this time.
“Lord Thornton, I hate to bombard you so soon after your return from the shoot, but I need your aid,” she said, her voice colored with worry. “Lady Stokey went for a ride hours ago, and she still hasn’t returned. Her mount did, however. Without her.”
Jesus. Real fear unfurled in Heath’s gut. There was only one reason why her mount would have returned to the stables without her. Tia had been thrown. And if she’d been thrown, she could very well be lying out in the c
hill autumn air, injured.
Or perhaps worse.
“I’ll ride out to find her,” he volunteered, not even bothering to think twice. To hell with propriety and repercussions and their mutual vows to stay away from each other. If Tia was out there somewhere, he was bloody well going to scour every bit of Thornton’s estate until he located her.
“You?” Lady Thornton looked at him as if he’d just suggested he saddle up and ride to the moon.
“Yes.” He dared her to naysay him. “Me.”
“Thank you,” the marquis interrupted. “The more men we have out there, the greater our chances of finding her.”
He inclined his head. It would seem that Thornton was at least a man of reason, warnings about drubbings or no. “We shouldn’t waste any time.”
“The sooner we get to her, the better,” his host agreed, turning to the other members of their shooting party. “Gentlemen? Are you with us?”
A chorus of assents rose, and they passed off their guns to waiting servants, heading for the stables. With each step, worry ate at him. He couldn’t bear it if something had befallen Tia. He didn’t stop to contemplate why that was, simply got on his horse and rode as if the hounds of hell were at his heels.
It would seem that Tia’s luck had gone from bad to worse. She leaned against the trunk of a large old tree, trying her best to ignore the pain shooting from her ankle and her wrist and radiating through her body. Devil take it. She’d only meant to go for a nice head-clearing ride this morning.
And then her horse had been spooked by a fox. She’d been so consumed by her thoughts that she hadn’t been holding onto the reins properly. Sidesaddles were complete rubbish, in her opinion. But a necessary evil, and one that had caused her to go flying to the mud.
Though she’d done her best to catch her fall, her already sprained ankle and her wrist had caught the brunt of her weight. Her brutal landing had taken the breath straight from her lungs. By the time she’d gathered her wits and managed to wrangle herself into a standing position once more, her frightened horse was long gone.
To make matters worse, she’d ridden for so long and for so far that she wasn’t quite sure which direction she ought to head back in. Her ankle was horribly painful. And it had begun to rain.
Yes, if she wasn’t falling in the gardens and acting scandalously with a duke she scarcely knew, she was stranded in the wilds of East Anglia charged with the Sisyphean fate of limping back to Penworth, wherever that might be. At least it was the beginning of the day and not the end. Presumably, someone would notice her absence and come searching for her. She certainly hoped she wouldn’t be forced to spend the evening curled up at the base of a tree as if she were a common woodland creature.
She shivered at the thought, looking around her for some sign of civilization in the dense forest. Then she saw it, the silhouette of a small building almost hidden in the undergrowth. She guessed it to be a hunting hut of some sort. Whatever it was, it would definitely provide shelter from the cool rain pecking at her skin through the layers of her riding habit and dolman. She knew she couldn’t remain in the rain for much longer for fear a chill would set in.
Gritting her teeth against the pain, she pushed away from the tree and began limping her way to the building. The steady rain turned into a raging torrent as she made painstakingly slow progress. Her skirts were soaked. Her hat was a crumpled, dripping wreck and the chill in the air was cutting her straight to the bone. After what seemed like a century of miserable, laborious navigation through thickets and trees, she reached the door of the cabin.
From up close, it was a sad, tumbledown affair with a sagged roof and shrouded windows. She didn’t suppose it had been used in some time, but it would have to do. Anything was better than remaining in the cold and the downpour, hobbling about like an invalid.
Thankfully, it was unlocked. The door swung open with a lusty creak, the dark interior of the cabin scarcely lit by the gloomy light of the day. She hesitated only a moment before ducking inside. After all, what choice did she have? She only prayed that she wouldn’t get a face full of cobwebs or step on a mouse. She pulled back the drapery from a window, allowing meager light to filter inside and illuminate the contents of the cabin just a bit.
As her eyes gradually adjusted to the dim lighting, she could discern a fireplace with an open hearth and logs in the grate. A shiver swept over her then, the effect all those layers of sodden fabric clinging to her skin. Her teeth chattered. She prayed there would be a source of ignition somewhere, left behind along with the wood by the last hunter who’d made use of the shelter. Because if she didn’t soon get out of her wet clothes and into the heat of a fire, a swollen ankle and a painful wrist would be the least of her worries.
Heath almost rode straight by the old hunting shack tucked away in the woods. At the last moment, its dark silhouette caught his eye and he slowed his mount, wondering if perhaps Tia had found it as well and taken shelter inside. It was worth at least a cursory inspection, he decided. He and the other gentlemen in the shooting party had split up in all directions, the better to cover more ground and locate Tia.
Worry sat in his stomach as heavy as a rock and every bit as impenetrable. He hadn’t seen so much as a sign of her yet. The rain was giving him a lashing, and if she was stranded somewhere, it was no doubt chilling her to her core. The cold and the rain would make her terribly vulnerable to pneumonia.
And the last woman he’d known to contract pneumonia had died before he’d made it home from Italy.
Damn it all, he couldn’t bear to see that same fate befall anyone else. He urged his mare through the thicket and toward the building, dismounting when he spied a small lean-to. It wasn’t in the best shape, but it would do to keep his horse out of the rain. After tethering his mount, he hurried to the cabin, hoping Tia would be safe and sound within.
He opened the door and froze on the threshold.
She was within, all right. And she was bloody well half-naked, standing before a crackling fire in nothing but her corset and chemise. Her lovely hair was unbound, hanging to her waist, her delicious curves on full display from nipped waist to lush hips and bosom.
Her gaze caught his. “Heath,” she said softly. “I should have expected it would be you.”
He wasn’t certain if she meant that in a good sense or in a bad sense. Belatedly becoming aware of the wind and rain at his back, he stepped all the way into the cabin and closed the door behind him.
“Are you injured?” he demanded, closing the distance between them easily.
Relief coursed through him, banishing the very real fear that had taken up residence within him ever since learning of her disappearance. He wanted to take her in his arms, but after their last discussion, he hardly knew where they stood.
She caught her lower lip between her teeth in that way she had that he already found mesmerizing. “Once again, I landed with an appalling lack of grace. I’m afraid my bad ankle rather bore the brunt of it.”
She convulsed with a violent shiver then, her teeth chattering. To hell with the walls she wanted to build between them. “You’re cold.” He shucked his wet coat and wrapped his arms around her, drawing her into the warmth of his body. She didn’t protest, snuggling against him like a little kitten. He tucked her head beneath his chin, the sweet perfume of violets wafting up to tease him. “Better?”
“I suppose it depends upon one’s definition of the word,” she quipped.
He was grateful that she didn’t seem at all rattled. She was herself, with a rapier-sharp tongue always at the ready. He’d never met a woman quite like her, and he was increasingly drawn to her despite his every good intention. “Are you warmer?” he clarified.
“A bit.” Her teeth chattered again. “How did you find me?”
“Luck.” Or perhaps a lack thereof, because surely the fates were laughing at him now. How the hell was he to keep his wits about him when his cock was pressed against her tempting body? The gentleman in him had p
romised to keep his distance from her. But all he could think about was sliding inside her, taking them both to the edge of reason all over again. He knew it would be foolhardy. He knew he was compromising himself by even touching her. He couldn’t seem to stop. Devil take it all. Reason was an elusive thing when the woman he wanted more than any other was half-naked and pressed against him.
“I suppose I should thank you.”
A reluctant grin tugged at his lips. Her manner of expressing gratitude was peculiar as ever. “It’s nothing,” he dismissed easily. “The entire hunting party’s been searching for you ever since our return from the shoot. I was simply the first to stumble across your path.”
“The entire hunting party? Oh dear.” Another shiver racked her frame. “I feel the fool. I simply meant to go for a ride. The day looked clear when I left. Then my horse spooked and left me limping through the rain.”
He threw a glance around the dingy room, searching for a wingback chair and finding none. The sole pieces of furniture decorating the sparse one-room building were a table and a bed tucked into a corner. The bed would have to do. He released her and then scooped her up into his arms. He was beginning to think she belonged there.
“What in heaven’s name?” Her palms pressed against his chest. She stared up at him, her beauty sending a sharp pang of desire through him. “Why must you forever be carrying me about, Your Grace?”
Because he liked the way she felt. Because she was forever injuring herself in one way or another. Because he couldn’t seem to keep himself from touching her, no matter how much he knew he should.
“You shouldn’t be standing on that ankle,” he told her firmly as he stalked to the bed. It was covered with a quilt, which was no doubt dusty but better than nothing.
“Dear God, not the bed,” she protested, giving him pause.
Could she sense the tumult within him? The want warring with his sense of what was right? Good Christ, he hoped she didn’t think he would attempt to seduce her right here in the ramshackle cabin? Of course, he couldn’t really blame her if she did. He couldn’t deny that he’d had the thought more than once already.
Heart’s Temptation Books 1–3 Page 63