She left early so the others could relax and finish their dinner without the tension she’d raised. After such a gloomy day, thoughts and weather both, she wanted a nice hot bath to while away in for an hour or so. At least her plan had worked, and Sebastian now had his “reason” to request his own room. He should have done so sooner, the dratted man.
Bubbles were in order, lots of them. And some scented oil. Edna knew her well and had packed the “essentials,” as Margaret called them, even for such a short stay.
Actually, they seemed to have come to a dead end as far as Sebastian’s strategy was concerned. Of course, it would probably take a little time to arrange an “accident” for him, if Juliette thought to go that route. Margaret really didn’t like him setting himself up for that. Of course, he’d be expecting it, would have the advantage, but still…
Maybe it was time for some bluntness instead of strategies. Juliette might open up more with her—no, she’d see Margaret as being in the enemy camp now. Denton? Now there was a thought. Not having known before that he’d like to divorce his wife, she’d never asked him about it herself. If she could approach the subject carefully with him…She’d have to give that some thought.
The bathwater was perfect. Edna had seen to that before she’d left. Margaret slid slowly into the water, letting the oil and bubbles caress her skin before she lay back in the tub, closed her eyes, and relaxed, with only her head and arms out of the water.
A brazier in the corner kept the room toasty warm. There were no drafts to disturb the tranquil mood she sought—and then there was.
She opened her eyes to see if Edna had come back for something. No indeed. Sebastian was standing halfway between the tub and the door he’d just opened. He was already removing his coat.
She didn’t gasp or dive under the water as she’d done the last time he’d intruded on her privacy while bathing, but she did point a stiff finger at the door. “I gave you the perfect excuse to ask for your own room,” she reminded him. “What the devil are you doing in here again?”
“You set up the story, m’dear. I’m going to finish it for you,” he told her. “This is the part where we make up.”
She didn’t need further explanation. It was in his eyes, which were locked with hers, containing enough heat to sear her. It was in his movements as he sensually seduced her as he undressed. Tell him to get out. Tell him now! The words wouldn’t come out. She’d had her chance but lost it as she became transfixed, watching him remove his clothes, piece by piece.
The play of light across his muscles and skin was hypnotic. He was so bloody strong, just how much was in every line of his body. She didn’t mind that, rather liked it. Her eyes moved over him at her leisure. There was so much to admire, so much to thrill her, too. He wasn’t undressing in a rush this time, he was letting her have her fill of him.
When he was finally naked, she realized, incredulously, that he wasn’t going to take her out of the tub, he was going to join her in it. He did just that, and she only just managed to get her feet out of the way in time before he sat down at the other end of the tub. The water rose accordingly, some even lapped over the side while he positioned himself, then taking her hands, he slid her forward until she was almost touching his chest.
She looked at her scrunched knees, quite in the way, and asked, “Do you think this is wise?”
“Good God, yes!” he said as he grasped her head and brought her mouth to his for a searing kiss.
She didn’t much care about strange positions after that, but he went on to promise her, “We’ll manage, Maggie,” and he proceeded to show her how.
And they did manage quite splendidly. It certainly wasn’t how she, with her small bit of experience, would have imagined making love in a bathtub, but after he slid down a little and sat her in his lap, it didn’t seem so strange. He even cushioned her knees against his shoulders to make her more comfortable, not that she would have noticed much discomfort when her anticipation was so high.
He gave her his queue to hang on to and she laughed. He licked bubbles off her nipples. She laughed again. But she stopped laughing when he ran his hands up her legs from the backs of her knees to her thighs, and then higher. She gasped and shivered from the delicious sensations.
“Cold, Maggie?” Sebastian asked in a husky voice. “Let me warm you up.” He leaned forward and kissed her hotly, plunging his tongue into her mouth. When he entered her completely, all she felt was exquisite pleasure. So deeply did he penetrate her, and with such ease, that she let out a cry. Gripping her hips with both hands, he rocked her against him. The water lapped against them and she let her head fall back as she moaned with pleasure. He caught one of her nipples carefully between his teeth. She gasped and climaxed immediately with a tiny scream. A few more hard thrusts later, which sent water flying everywhere, and he joined her in that supreme pleasure.
She smiled down at him with a depth of feeling she’d rarely experienced. Water dripped from his brow. She leaned forward and licked it off, not even wondering at her own boldness. The look he returned wasn’t just filled with his own satisfaction. She saw it clearly this time—there was tenderness in his eyes. For her. And, as she sighed with happiness, she couldn’t begin to describe how wonderful that made her feel.
Chapter 37
S EBASTIAN WOULDN’T LET HER TOUCH A TOWEL. He dried her off himself, every inch of her. Margaret didn’t object. When he picked her up and carried her to bed she might have told him it was unnecessary, but she rather liked his arms around her, so she didn’t say a word.
He didn’t join her in the bed, though. He actually went back to clean up the mess they’d made in the bathroom. He might have thought she’d be asleep before he finished. Perhaps he’d hoped so. But she wasn’t. She wasn’t the least bit tired, and she managed to keep all thoughts of his imminent departure far from her mind.
He smiled when he joined her in the bed and pulled her close to him, so she could snuggle with his arm around her. While she wasn’t going to castigate herself over her complete about-face, at least not yet, she did have something on her mind that he might not be pleased about.
“I have a confession to make,” she told him.
“Must you?” he asked dryly. “I’m damned pleased with you at the moment, Maggie. You aren’t going to change that, are you?”
“Possibly,” she said. “You see, I visited with Douglas this afternoon. We talked about you, well, that is to say, I talked about you.”
“You told him about The Raven?” he guessed.
She cringed. “Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t think you wanted to keep that secret, but then it occurred to me that you might, but well, I thought of that too late and—”
“You aren’t going to run on and on again, are you?” he cut in.
She pinched his side. “As it happens, yes I was. Are you very angry?”
“Not a’tall,” he replied. “I’m not proud of the name I’ve earned, but I’m not ashamed of it, either. It was never my intention to garner such a reputation. But I really don’t care if he knows or not. You didn’t mention our ‘marriage’ to him, did you?”
“Certainly not,” she said indignantly as she sat up. “I may become scatterbrained occasionally, but I don’t forget important conversations and decisions of that sort. If he hears of it, it won’t be from me. But you do realize that he won’t stay more’n another day or two in his bed, if even that? He’s regaining strength rapidly now, and his wound is mending.”
“And your point?”
She wondered if he said things like that just to annoy her. “You know very well what it is. I managed to tell him about my ‘husband’ without mentioning your name. And he hasn’t associated my bringing you back here with my having a husband now. But it’s bound to occur to him soon that he doesn’t know who I married and he’ll end up asking someone. And there’s the dowager duchess’s party tomorrow night, which is expressly to honor the ‘newlyweds.’ He might even be up to attending and—�
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He silenced her with a hard, demanding kiss. “You made your point admirably, m’dear. I’ll have to see what I can do about wrapping this up tomorrow to put your concerns to rest, which will end my job here. I’ll speak with him again in the morning, so I can be on my way before noon.”
She didn’t gasp. She wasn’t sure how she managed not to. Just like that? Here’s your answer, good-bye? And there wasn’t a single thing she could say to keep him here—nothing that he’d want to hear.
Somehow she hadn’t thought that would be his answer. It put a definite damper on her mood. She lay back down but turned on her side away from him. That caused him to lean up now and turn her back to face him.
“What?” he asked curiously.
“I—” She could have said that the thought of him leaving disturbed her, but he might read more into that than she wanted. She found her voice through the lump in her throat and was proud of how calm she sounded as she mentioned, “I haven’t paid you yet.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Maggie. I never intended to take your money.”
That jolted her out of her despair. “You didn’t? You had me agonizing over your suggestion of a trade when you—”
“It worked, didn’t it?” he cut in, giving her his devilish smile.
There was no holding back that gasp, or her retaliation as she shoved him out of her bed. “You’re not just an odious man, you’re a—a—a really odious man! And you can spend the night where you deserve to be,” she added, pointing a stiff finger at the bathroom.
He sighed. “Just as well. A man could get used to—”
“Don’t say it!” she warned furiously with heated cheeks.
He started to but must have changed his mind. But was that a wistful look she saw in his eyes as he glanced at the now empty spot in the bed beside her? He didn’t stay long enough for her to credit that possibility as more than her imagination.
Chapter 38
M ARGARET WAS SLEEPING SOUNDLY. Sebastian tried not to wake her as he dressed that morning. He’d found his trunk tucked into the corner. John likely hadn’t had the nerve to unpack it, or hadn’t been able to get past Edna to do so.
He stopped by her bed, shoved his hands in his pockets to temper the urge to touch her. He’d never had any trouble saying good-bye to women. He knew bloody well it was going to be different this time.
As soon as he’d realized he might be heading for the nearest ship today, he’d known he had to put some distance between himself and Margaret, emotional distance. Getting her angry at him again last night had been easy enough to do and had given him that distance. He regretted it, though, and not because he had a stiff back from sleeping on the bathroom floor again. The damned woman had gotten under his skin. He’d never felt so attracted to and intrigued by a woman, and yet so at ease with her. God, she certainly was beautiful and had a delectable body, but he also admired her spunk and her willingness to eschew the silly social conventions that kept so many women tied up in knots. Still, she was a lady through and through, sprung from the same world of traditional good manners, honor, and gentility that he’d once belonged to, but was no longer a part of, he reminded himself. He quickly walked out of the room before he ended up with even more regrets.
There was no sound coming from his father’s room as he passed it. He didn’t stop. He needed to talk to John before he confronted Douglas again. He found him in the kitchen, sharing a cup of tea with an old acquaintance.
The room had been quite noisy, since it was a natural gathering place for the servants, even those who didn’t work there. A collective hush descended as soon as Sebastian entered. John’s friend immediately departed. So did everyone else, except the cook who was too busy to notice the mass exodus.
John rolled his eyes at the door through which the servants had beat a hasty retreat and remarked with a chuckle, “I see you haven’t lost your touch.”
“Being treated like a pariah has its uses, but let’s go outside anyway.”
John nodded and followed him out the side door and around to the back lawn, past the hedged terrace and away from the gardeners. Edgewood had no fewer than five men who kept the grounds immaculate.
“I hope you’ve found out more than I have,” Sebastian began. “Some of these people have known me since I was a child and they still won’t open up.”
“That’s probably more the class difference, m—”
“If you say ‘m’lord’, I may sock you.”
John gave a short burst of laughter but allowed, “I have to admit it didn’t take long to revert to form, but I’ll try to restrain myself.”
“Thank you. So what have you found out?”
“Unfortunately, not much. No one I talked to thought any of the accidents were out of the ordinary.”
“Not even the number of them?”
“No. They were spread across too many months to draw notice. Not that any have been forgotten. I heard a number of different accidents described and with the usual remarks you might expect, that he was helped in, or limped in, or limped to his room under his own steam, or limped for a few days then was right as rain, or—”
“Why was he limping so frequently? Are you sure they were talking about my father and not Denton?”
“Yes,” John said, then shrugged. “I didn’t think much of it. People get hurt, they tend to limp around, even if there’s nothing wrong with their legs. I remember the time I cracked a rib. I limped in order to pamper that side. So did you when—”
“I get the point,” Sebastian said, then sighed. “You’ll notice I’m grasping at straws here. I need something, anything really, that I can allude to that will make my father think I know more than I do.”
John frowned thoughtfully, then perked up. “Damn me, I did forget one thing.”
“Thank God.”
John winced at that. “Well, it has nothing to do with the accidents, and it was from long ago, before your brother even married, but you will find it most interesting—”
“Not until you spit it out I won’t,” Sebastian interrupted impatiently.
John coughed, continuing, “The account is from one of the gardeners, chap named Peter. He was working off to the side of the front road when he noticed your brother coming down it, on his way home from Edgeford. Nothing unusual in that. Your brother was a frequent customer in the Edgeford tavern and everyone knew it.”
“So?”
“Peter then spotted another horse galloping toward your brother, tearing across the lawn on the other side from the direction of the Wemyss estate. Peter remembered he was annoyed, thinking he’d have to repair the lawn over there, so he was glaring at the rider until he recognized it was a lady. She shouted at Lord Denton to stop. He did, but only until she reached him, then he continued along the road as if he didn’t want to talk to her, forcing her to ride along with him. It was obvious they were having some sort of argument. Peter admitted it was Lady Juliette, though he didn’t know that at the time.”
“Fighting even before they married?” Sebastian said. “I’m not sure that’s relevant, nor does it even surprise me at this point that—”
“I wasn’t finished,” John cut in this time. “When they passed Peter, he heard Juliette say, and I quote, ‘I got rid of my brother for you. I got rid of your brother for you. You’ll damn well—’ ”
“What?”
“That was it. Unfortunately, he missed the rest of what was said when a bee got too close to him and he had to fight it off.”
“Bloody hell. Did he at least tell my father what he’d heard?”
“I did think to ask that, but you know how servants are. They don’t want to stir up any fuss that they might end up taking the blame for. He admitted he did give it some thought, that it preyed on his mind for a while. But then Juliette became a member of the family and that settled it in Peter’s mind to forget about it.”
Sebastian stopped, frowning. “So much for her ‘punishing Giles’ excuse.”
“
You’d already guessed that was a lie.”
“Yes, but it’s nice to have it confirmed. Not that I care anymore what her bloody motive was. I just want to get this wrapped up and be gone.”
“You don’t think her remarks implicate your brother?”
“Yes, they appear to, but I’m going with my gut instinct on this one, and that’s that Denton isn’t involved. I do think he’s guilty about something, and I wouldn’t mind finding out what, but not if it means staying here any longer.”
“Then I should begin packing?”
Sebastian paused only a moment. “Yes.”
Chapter 39
S EBASTIAN WASN’T EXPECTING MUCH COOPERATION on this second meeting with his father. He’d had the upper hand on the first go-round, the element of surprise, since Douglas hadn’t known he’d returned to England. His father’s condition, being barely recovered, had also made it easier to avoid any discussion of the past. Neither element was going to be present today.
He knocked. The maid didn’t let him in, Douglas’s call did. A quick glance about the room showed that his father was alone. And no longer in bed.
“Where’s the maid?” Sebastian asked.
“Don’t need a watchdog any longer. I can reach the bellpull m’self if necessary.”
“And your valet?”
Douglas was standing in front of the mirror, tying his own cravat. Even Sebastian didn’t attempt those fancy knots on his own, though it was rare that he dressed that formally anymore to need John’s expertise in the matter.
“Dismissed him years ago and never bothered to hire another. Found I prefer to dress m’self,” Douglas said before he turned away from the mirror to give Sebastian his attention. “Beating about the bush, are you?”
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