He might decide to turn in at any moment. She had to get out, before he caught her and exploded with temper. But quietly. She’d already exercised less caution than she ought.
She backed away, setting one foot precisely behind the other. Her breathing sounded loud in her ears, over the rush of her pulse. Surely he must hear it on the other side of the door. Why he hadn’t come bursting through to confront her by now, she couldn’t understand.
She backed into a solid surface, and her breath rushed from her lungs in a gasp. Blast. For a heart-stopping second, she stared at the door, expecting him at any moment, but the panel remained obstinately closed. She turned and nearly bumped into a spindly table strewn with glass boxes of various sizes. All you’re missing is to knock that over.
Thank heavens she’d spotted it in time.
She suppressed the urge to run back to the sitting room. As it was, her strides lengthened with every footfall until she stood in the passage once again. Now to pull the door to and she was safe.
Her hand had just fallen away from the handle when a door farther along the passage whipped open. “Who’s out there?”
Blast it all. Lind. She shrank back, but the wall lacked any convenient hiding spots. No niches, no statues, not even a painting interrupted the flat surface along this side of the corridor. Only the entrance to Lydia’s chamber, and she could hardly go back in there.
She turned for the stairs once more, mindful not to make a sound. If she was careful, she still might extricate herself without being caught.
Lind leaned against his doorjamb and crossed his arms, one brow raised in question. “And what has you abroad at this time of night? Nothing wrong with the boy, I hope.”
His tone conveyed skepticism as much as his expression. He knew quite well there was nothing wrong with Jeremy, and if she attempted to use him as an excuse Lind would see straight through the ploy.
“No, not at all.”
“You wouldn’t have been considering poking your nose into places it doesn’t belong, by any chance?”
“Of course not.”
The case clock in the hall downstairs struck three times.
“Rather late for you to be abroad, wouldn’t you say?” He wore a banyan over shirtsleeves and trousers. Good heavens, he hadn’t even gone to bed yet.
“I couldn’t sleep.” That much was true, but she’d have to invent a plausible reason why. “My supper doesn’t seem to have agreed with me, my apologies to your cook. I was just making my way down to the kitchens to see if I might find a remedy for an upset stomach.”
“You were going back upstairs,” he pointed out. “Rather a circuitous route you’re taking.”
Blast him. And how was she to get out of this situation if not the usual way? Boldly and brazenly. Like a well-worn gown, she adopted a long-familiar role and closed the distance between them.
“Perhaps I hoped to find you still awake.” She let herself smile. She didn’t have to reach to produce a husky tone. Somehow in his presence, her voice dropped naturally, the same way her body reacted all on its own. With him, she didn’t even have to try. “Perhaps I couldn’t get our last encounter out of my mind. And you weren’t in the library.”
He did not uncross his arms, and his expression was hardly what anyone would term inviting, but neither did he step away from her. And he ought to have, if he wasn’t tempted. She reached out and touched his cheek.
“Aren’t you carrying things a bit too far?” he asked, but his voice was affected. In the dim light, she could see the flare of his nostrils.
“Not at all.”
“And here I thought I was supposed to be the one to seduce you. Isn’t that how the old scandals all go? The lord of the manor seduces the governess?”
“Is that what this is? A seduction?”
“It bloody well could be, if I let you.”
Heavens, there was a challenge if she ever heard one. She let her fingers trail down his neck and into the open collar of his shirt. “You’ll let me.”
She pressed her lips to his jaw, breathing in a lungful of earthy, male scent. He stood rigid, but just beneath the surface, he wavered. She sensed the want, the need, the hunger. Oh, yes, he desired her.
And she desired him. Wanted him for the tenderness he’d accept from her. And wasn’t that an odd notion? No one had ever wanted her for the tenderness and pleasure she offered, but she could give this to Lind. He needed it so badly.
He’d been alone so long, just as she had.
She trailed soft kisses down his neck, and his breath released in a gust of air. His arms dropped, and he held himself rigid against the door. She slipped in front of him, her body flush with his. Spearing her fingers into his hair, she offered her lips in invitation, slightly parted, inches from his, her entire being aware that his bed lay just beyond, waiting for them to set it ablaze.
If he took her mouth, he’d be hers. She watched him from beneath lowered lids, challenging, while he wrestled with himself. His inner turmoil, his fight against temptation, was palpable in a barely perceptible trembling beneath her fingers. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue in anticipation of his yielding.
With a groan he gave in and took her offering. His arms wrapped about her, crushing her against his chest, his lips mobile over hers. Their tongues tangled, pushing against each other, vying for mastery. After a struggle, she surrendered and allowed him to take over the kiss, basking in his unleashed passion. It washed over them both like a dark wave, deep and heavy and compelling.
When he leaned into her and pressed with his full body, she took a step back. He was walking her into his chambers, toward a bed she’d never seen, but she imagined it was massive and wide. She savored the prospect of warming every inch of that broad mattress.
His hands came up to frame her face, and he tore his lips away, his chest heaving against hers as if he’d just run a race, and he rested his forehead against hers. He was grappling for control, steeling himself to stop. She could not allow that.
Once again, she pressed herself against him, hips canted to cradle his erection. She slipped her lips down his neck, while she loosened his banyan. Soon, soon, she’d have her hands beneath that shirt. She’d have beneath her touch all that golden skin she recalled, muscles jumping beneath her fingertips. But he took her wrists and pressed her hands flat. Under her palms, his heart pounded out of control.
With a shudder, he tensed and stepped away. His fists clenched at his sides. He was still on the verge of giving in to the passion he kept locked inside. She could sense it in the very air that thickened and lowered like a storm gathering.
She ran a hand from his shoulder along his chest, and muscles rippled under her fingertips. At his trousers, she paused. He curled strong fingers about her wrist, his grip tight and forbidding.
“Why are you doing this?” His lips barely moved, his jaw was so firm, but somehow the words slid through.
“Because I want to.” She flicked one shoulder. Let him think his potential rejection mattered not at all. A few frantic beats of her heart ticked past before she captured his gaze. “Because I need it. Because I think you need it.”
“I? I need nothing.” His tone was harsh, but she didn’t miss the movement at his throat, the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed.
“You don’t scare me, as much as you’d like to. How long have you lived this sterile existence? How long have you yearned after a little affection? The touch of another person?” Her hand slipped an inch, and his fingers loosened to allow the movement. Boldly, she stroked him through his trousers. “And this puts the lie to your statement. It strikes me that your need is great.”
She kept her gaze pinned on his, while she measured his steely length with her palm.
He flinched, but he did not move away or make to stop her. Good. She just might win this round. He might let her in. If lust was the means of breaking through to his heart, she would take that path.
His eyes fluttered closed, and
his breathing quickened. “Who showed—”
“Hush. Let yourself go this once. Let yourself feel. Unless…” She reached for his falls and popped the first button free of its moorings. “Unless you prefer to relieve yourself with a cold dip in the pond.”
Without warning, he pounced. He grabbed her wrists and pulled them above her head, pinning her against the wall with his body. Sharp puffs of hot breath bathed her cheeks. “Who told you about that? How did you know?”
Her eyes widened, and a spear of cold apprehension pierced her through the belly. As hard as he’d made his voice before to dissuade her, his tone had now solidified to a density that rivaled a diamond.
“I…” Her cheeks heated. And when had she last blushed in front of a man? In fact, the most recent occasion may have occurred when she was fifteen.
The image of him emerging naked from the water, limned in the dawn light, flashed through her memory. She’d never stopped to consider why he’d gone for a swim at such an hour. At fifteen, she hadn’t the experience with men to make the connection, but now…
“I saw you. It was years ago, when you invited us to that house party.” The last social event she recalled him hosting, in fact. “I followed you one morning when you went for a swim. And who was the utter fool to turn you down?”
His eyes shuttered, and he eased away. “That is none of your affair.”
The harsh manner of his reply told her all she needed to know. Only one woman had turned his head then. Lydia Bowles. His future wife.
She pushed aside that ghost. Lydia was gone, but Cecelia could still have him, although her chance was fast slipping away. He was rebuilding the wall of his resistance with every breath.
She pressed her body against him, and his arousal probed at her belly. Thank God. She still had a chance. “I would never turn you away.”
He set his arms about her waist, but loosely. “We shouldn’t.”
“No one would need to know. I’m not…” She swallowed, unable to quite believe what she was about to reveal, but on the other hand, he had to have guessed by now she was no simpering little society miss looking to land the best marriage possible. “I’m not trying to trick you into anything. I won’t turn around in the morning and demand you make me an offer.”
“But your brother might.”
“He already has, for all the good it did him. He does not need to know about any of this.” She leaned in and pressed her lips to the side of his neck. “Please.”
He pulled away, setting his hands on her shoulders, holding her at arm’s length. “Some paths, once you go down them too far—there’s no going back.”
“Do you think I don’t know that already?” She nearly laughed out loud at the realization that he still believed in her purity.
He spluttered. “What do you know of such things?”
“More than an unmarried lady of my standing should know.”
His eyes searched hers, trying to pierce the shadows. “Who forced you?”
Drat. His fingers tightened about her shoulders. He sounded so sincere. So protective. And when was the last time a man truly wished to defend her? If she were at all conniving, she’d let him go on believing someone else had been the author of her fall from grace.
But simply because he believed her in need of a white knight, she owed him a measure of the truth. “Nobody,” she replied, pulling away. “And that’s the problem.”
Chapter Twelve
Cecelia ran a hand along the smooth curve of the wooden hoop. At her feet lay a pile of colorful grosgrain, the remnants of the ribbon decoration. Without such feminine accoutrements, she might convince Jeremy to try the game.
She didn’t even know why she’d kept her old plaything and the sticks used to toss and catch it. Like the ribbons, they were a vestige of a long-lost childhood. Yet she’d carried them with her to this job. It was almost as though she couldn’t bear to part with this last connection to a more innocent time.
Now to propose a small outing to Jeremy.
She took the hoop and sticks in hand and turned from her chamber, only to come face-to-face with Mrs. Carstairs. “My goodness, you gave me a fright.” She’d have put a hand over her heart, only both were full.
“His lordship has asked me to inform you that you are not to come near his study unless summoned,” she pronounced. “He’s asked it to be locked at all times.”
The study was the least of it. Thank goodness Mrs. Carstairs didn’t warn her away from Lind’s private rooms. Cecelia’s pronouncement just before she returned to her quarters last night had left him slack-jawed, an expression she’d never seen on his face, but it was better than anger. His anger might yet boil over, though, if he decided she’d lied to him about her reputation. She really ought to have thought about her reply and schooled her tongue, but the truth had popped out before she could stop it.
“Indeed? And what makes him think I’ve been poking into it?” If he’d thought she was prying into his affairs last night, surely he’d have mentioned it personally.
“Why else would you have been wandering in the small hours if not for nefarious purposes?”
“My goodness, you seem to know a lot about my doings.”
Mrs. Carstairs narrowed her eyes. “I heard you.”
“I see.” The back of her neck prickled, and she dearly hoped any telltale blush confined itself to places below her neck. She couldn’t afford to show any sort of guilt, real or imagined. Not that she felt particularly guilty about snooping, since said snooping hadn’t led anywhere, but she’d rather Mrs. Carstairs didn’t find out Lind had invited her into his bedchamber. No matter what they’d done or not done, the housekeeper would draw her own conclusions. “And how would you know it was me you heard and not his lordship?”
An odd, pinched smile twitched about Mrs. Carstairs’s lips. “That only confirms my suspicions. If you know his lordship was up and about, it only proves you were, as well.”
“Suspicions, is it? A moment ago, it sounded like you were carrying orders directly from Lord Lindenhurst. So has this proscription come down from on high, or are you inventing tales?”
Mrs. Carstairs glanced away for a moment, but it was enough. Cecelia was an accomplished enough liar to pick up on the subtle clues others used when they were trying to hide a measure of the truth.
“And what is it to you if I enter his lordship’s study?” she asked quietly. “Why should you care what he’s hiding?”
“It isn’t what he’s hiding.” Her fleshy cheeks quivered. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
Cecelia carefully composed her features while her mind spun with memories of Lind’s kisses and touches. With the possibilities of what might have happened. “That has nothing to do with anything.”
“If you say so.” Mrs. Carstairs pressed her lips into a firm line, but Cecelia was an old hand at dealing with stubbornness.
She only had to wait the other woman out.
“I’ve already told you more than I ought,” the housekeeper said, the words coming low and rapid as the hoofbeats of a galloping horse. “If you find out things his lordship would rather keep quiet, the blame could fall on me, especially if you insinuate yourself into his good graces by means I no longer possess. I owe you a debt of gratitude for smoothing things over with him once, but I cannot count on it happening again. I know more than I’d like about thin ice—of all sorts.”
“You have told me what I needed to know about the boy. I swear I am not looking for any more information where he is concerned.”
Mrs. Carstairs leaned closer. “Please watch what you say in the corridors. The walls around here can have ears, you know.”
“Shall we move into my chamber, then?” Cecelia backed up a few steps toward her quarters. “I’d like to set you at ease,” she said once they’d closed the door. “I’m very grateful you told me what you could about Jeremy, and I assure you that any further information I’m looking for has nothing to do with the boy.”
&nbs
p; Mrs. Carstairs’s eyes narrowed. “What is it you wish to find out?”
Cecelia studied the older lady while she turned the possibilities over in her mind. On one hand the housekeeper might run straight to Lindenhurst, but on the other, Cecelia might discover what she needed to know and she wouldn’t have to attempt sneaking into Lind’s study again. And as Mrs. Carstairs had pointed out, she owed Cecelia. “Lord Lindenhurst is attempting to ruin an old friend of his, and I want to know why.”
“Which friend would this be?”
“You mean he’s trying to ruin more than one person?” Good heavens, what had happened to the man who used to be such close friends with her brother? When he left for India, Alexander might well have packed Lind’s moral compass among his trunks, the way he was acting. “I’m talking about Mr. Battencliffe.”
“Oh, him. His lordship has his reasons. Reasons, I might add, I’m in no way able to divulge.” Mrs. Carstairs paused and studied Cecelia, considering. “And you’re wrong when you say the whole sorry affair doesn’t involve the boy. It does. Closely.”
Cecelia opened her mouth, but Mrs. Carstairs held up a hand. “That is all I can say on the matter. And I hope my trust in you is not misplaced. Please do not endanger me by pursuing this matter any further.”
And with that, she sailed out of the room. Cecelia followed her, but not in protest. She went to the nursery to collect Jeremy.
He eyed her hoop and sticks with interest. “What are those for?”
“It’s a game, but we need to go out on the lawn to play it.”
He chewed on his lower lip for a moment. “Is it like the games Emmy was talking about?”
“Not quite. Her games are more fun with lots of children, but for this game you just need a partner. Come along, and I’ll show you.”
She led him down the stairs, noting how carefully he kept hold of the banister. She hoped he’d take to this game. Normally the activity was introduced to young girls to encourage gracefulness, but Jeremy might benefit from the coordination it required. Or so she prayed. If he was unable to master the movements, he might simply become frustrated.
What a Lady Demands Page 12