Despite his misgivings about her, he was attracted to her. Very well— he was ridiculously attracted to her. There was no denying it. There was something about the mixture of how she was so certain of herself and astute, yet vulnerable at the same time, that he’d never encountered in a woman before.
However, his attraction to her didn’t change the fact that he was in the middle of a mission, and he needed to keep his mind on his work. It was inconvenient to be attracted to her, but it didn’t change anything. He needed to focus on getting closer to the other valets and asking them questions. Ever since Copperpot, Hightower, and Cunningham’s talk in the study, there’d been no other inkling of contact between them. He doubted he’d learn much from the men themselves.
A knock at his door startled Beau from his thoughts. He pushed himself off the bed to stand and answer it.
“Good to see you, Bell. Still playacting at being a valet?” It was Clayton. The man asked the question from the corridor in what seemed to Beau to be a booming voice.
“Get in here, Clayton,” Beau replied in a much quieter tone, quickly ushering his friend into his room. “And keep your bloody voice down. Clearly, you’re not cut out to be a spy.”
As he stood aside to let Clayton enter, Beau tried to ignore the disappointment blooming in his chest. For some reason he’d hoped it would be Marianne at the door. Of course, she wouldn’t knock on his bedchamber door, bold-as-you-please, at this hour of the night—but he couldn’t keep himself from wishing it.
Clayton tiptoed into the room as if that action would make up for his loud pronouncement moments earlier. “Apologies, old boy,” Clayton said. “I clearly had a bit too much wine at dinner.”
Beau shut the door behind him and turned to face him. “Why are you here?”
“I’ve come with another letter.” Clayton patted his jacket and spoke in a much quieter tone this time. “It just arrived before dinner. I assumed you wouldn’t want to wait till morning to read it.”
Clayton pulled the letter from his inside coat pocket and Beau grabbed it and ripped it open. He wasn’t about to wait this time. Just like the last one, this letter was from the Home Office. He could only hope they’d uncovered something useful at last. His eyes quickly scanned the single page.
* * *
Baxter,
We’ve uncovered two bits of information you may find useful. First, Mr. August Wilson has been under suspicion for being part of a club that is known to discuss treasonous plots; and second, we have found no record of a Miss Marianne Notley of Brighton. Before the record of employment with Lady Courtney, no such person exists.
We continue to research Mr. Thomas Broomsley, and hope to have more information for you soon.
* * *
“Well?” Clayton prompted, waggling his eyebrows.
Beau took two steps over toward the candle that still flickered on the desk and began burning the letter. “You know I can’t tell you anything.”
Clayton sighed and shrugged. “That’s what I expected you to say, but I still had to ask.” The viscount grinned at him.
“Thank you for bringing this to me right away.” Beau gestured to the letter that continued to burn, the little black ashes floating into the brass candleholder.
“My pleasure,” Clayton replied. “Don’t worry, I’ll see myself out.” He turned, opened the door, and slipped outside, at least leaving much more quietly than he’d arrived, thank Christ.
Beau finished burning the letter. He stared into the flame, contemplating the contents of the missive. The news about Wilson didn’t surprise him at all. He’d already suspected the valet. But no such person as Marianne Notley? Was the Home Office mistaken?
He quickly discarded the notion. The Home Office rarely made mistakes when it came to such things. It had to be true. Whomever the young woman he’d been spending time with was, her name wasn’t Marianne Notley. Was anything about her what it appeared to be?
He was just about to blow out the candle and climb back into his cot when another knock sounded at the door. He reached the door in two strides and ripped it open. “Look, Clayton, I’m trying to—”
Beau stopped short. Standing in front of him was none other than Marianne (or whatever her name was). She was wearing her blue gown, but the apron was gone and a few tendrils of hair had fallen from her usually tidy bun. He poked his head into the corridor and looked both ways. No one was there, and all the doors appeared shut. Decision made. He pulled her directly into his room and shut the door.
He caught her in his arms, steadied her, and stepped back. Her eyes were wide with surprise.
“What are you doing here?” he asked in a voice that was more curt than he’d meant it to be.
She smoothed her hands down her skirts and lifted her chin. “I…I…wanted ta talk ta ye.”
“About what?” His arms were crossed in front of him and his bare foot tapped on the wooden floorboards.
“Are ye…angry?” she began, carefully searching his features.
“Perhaps I am. What did you want to speak to me about, Marianne?” He emphasized her name as if to mock it.
She turned toward the door. “I think I’ll jest go. It was a mistake ta come here.”
He clenched his jaw. “I’m in no mood for games tonight.”
“Games?” She turned back toward him and furrowed her brow. “What are ye talkin’ about?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. And you can stop with that accent, at least in front of me.”
She swiveled and yanked open the door. His hand slammed against it, closing it again. “Tell the truth for once,” he growled in her ear.
Still facing the door, her chest rose and fell as she took a deep breath. “What do you want from me, Nicholas?”
There. At least she’d spoken in her true accent at last. Her words were carefully cultured. If he didn’t know better, he might even believe she was of the Quality. “You came to my room,” he barked. “The question is, what do you want from me?”
“You’re speaking in riddles.” She turned her face to the side, away from him.
“Fine then.” He leaned forward and whispered in her ear again. “Let me be clear. What if I told you that I’ve learned there is no such person as a ‘Miss Marianne Notley’ from Brighton?”
He felt her body freeze. Then she took a deep breath, turned, and met his gaze. There was a steely resolve in her bright blue eyes and a determination that matched his own. “If you told me that,” she replied simply, her eyes flashing blue fire, “then I’d have to ask you, who is ‘Bell,’ and why are you ‘playacting’ at being a valet in Lord Clayton’s home?”
Chapter Fourteen
Marianne hadn’t come to Nicholas’s door to threaten him, but the minute he’d brought up her assumed name, she’d known she had no other choice. She’d been in the hallway earlier when Lord Clayton came up. She had pressed her back to the wall and refused to breathe for the few moments it took for him to knock on Nicholas’s door and gain entry. She’d been astonished when she heard Clayton call him ‘Bell’ and ask him if he was still ‘playacting.’
She’d quickly returned to her room and peeked out her door, waiting until Lord Clayton left the floor. Then she’d quietly made her way down here. She hadn’t been entirely certain what she’d say to Nicholas. But after clearly being angry with her for some unknown reason, he’d given her the perfect opening.
The anger immediately drained from his handsome face. “You overheard?” He dropped his gaze to the floor, cursing under his breath.
She pressed her back against the door and crossed her arms over her chest. It was her turn to be angry. “Yes, and I must say that was quite a convincing job of being the aggrieved party instead of a hypocrite.”
“Hypocrite?” he echoed.
“Aren’t you accusing me of lying about my identity when you’re clearly lying about yours?”
A slight smile spread across his lips. He braced his right hand against the door at t
he side of her neck and stepped forward. He used his left forefinger to trace the soft skin along the side of her eye, her cheekbone, the side of her lips. “Who are you?” he whispered, in a voice that Marianne was convinced had been the downfall of a number of unsuspecting women.
She shuddered and let her eyes close for a moment. Oh, God. If he was going to try to seduce her, he just might succeed. She had to keep reminding herself that she didn’t know this man. He could be anyone. He could be dangerous. She already knew he could be dangerous to her heart.
When she opened her eyes again, she forced herself to meet his heavy-lidded gaze. He towered over her. Leaning down, he moved his right arm to brace against the door above her head. His index finger had made its way to her jaw, and then her neck, and was presently making tiny hot circles against her skin directly above the neckline of her gown.
“You tell me who you are first,” she demanded in a hot whisper.
His smile broadened and he slowly shook his head back and forth, his gaze never leaving hers. “Not. A. Chance.”
“Very well,” she breathed, wanting desperately for him to kiss her. “Then it seems our identities are to remain a mystery.”
Her breasts rose and fell with her deep breathing as she stared up into the icy blue pools of his eyes. His left hand continued to caress her neck and she leaned her head to the side to allow him to touch more.
He dipped his head. “Can I taste you?”
She couldn’t answer, could only nod. Her lips formed the word ‘yes,’ but she couldn’t get the sound to leave her throat. When his mouth lowered to the pulse in her neck, she nearly jumped from her skin. His hot tongue dipped against her collarbone and then traced its way up to the sensitive spot just behind her ear. Then he dipped it into the tender crevice of her lobe, and she shuddered.
“Shh,” he whispered.
Marianne tried to control her breathing, but it was too far gone. She was nearly panting with desire by the time his mouth traveled along the skin of her cheek and found her lips. The moment his lips met hers, she groaned. He pushed her up against the door and ground himself into her. His tongue dove into her mouth and she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back with all the pent-up passion she felt. She’d wanted this from the moment she’d seen him in Lord Copperpot’s bedchamber. Right now, nothing else mattered. Not their true identities, and not the lies they’d told each other. She simply wanted him the way a woman wants a man who has overwhelmed her with desire.
His kiss didn’t stop. Instead it went deeper, and his left hand slid down to her waist, riding her hip unmercifully through her gown. He leaned down and caught the bottom of her dress, letting his hand trace its way up along her ankle, up her leg, and along her bare thigh. She shuddered and wrapped her arms around his neck even tighter.
He picked her up and pressed her back hard against the door. Her thighs parted and she hugged his hips with her thighs. He held her by her waist and quickly turned her to the desk.. With one swipe of his arm, he sent the few articles atop the surface flying to the floor as he sat her atop it and settled his hips between her legs. He grabbed her back and pulled her against him, hard. She moaned and her head fell back. Due to his height, the level of the desk was perfect. No longer supporting her with his arms, his hands moved up under her skirts and caressed her knees, and then stroked the outside of her thighs.
Marianne was lost in a blissful world of desire. Her nipples hardened and beneath her skirts she was wet and ready for him. Oh, God. If he pulled out his member and made her his right now, she’d want it. She wouldn’t say no. She couldn’t say no at the moment. Didn’t want to, at any rate.
His left hand moved down to tug her gown away from one breast. His mouth soon followed. She glanced down. Seeing his head sucking at her breast was so erotic that Marianne wanted to cry out. His tongue flicked her nipple back and forth mercilessly, and when he sucked the hard little nub into his mouth and bit it softly, she clenched her jaw and arched her back.
When his left hand moved under her shift, between her thighs, and he parted her intimately, her head fell forward. His kiss never left her lips. He was ravenous for her and when his finger found the nub of pleasure between her legs and began rubbing her in perfect little circles, she cried out again, but his mouth swallowed the noise.
“Shh,” he whispered. “You’re beautiful. Let me touch you.”
All she could do was weakly nod. His mouth found hers again, his tongue stroking deeper each time. Her hips became restless. She wanted to feel him inside her, but he’d made no move to take her to the bed.
Should she ask him to? No. First, she wanted to find out what else he could do to her body. The man was a virtuoso, and she was his instrument. His finger kept up its gentle assault at her core and when another of his fingers slipped inside of her, she lifted her hips from the desk and wrapped her legs tightly around his hips. Gently, he settled her back atop the wooden surface while his thumb continued to rub her in circles and his dexterous finger continued to slide in and out of her wet heat.
His mouth moved to her ear. “I want you to come,” he whispered. They were beyond names now. Beyond caring what either had done or said. All that mattered was the insistent throb between her legs and the ache that was about to explode within her.
Another moment and…explode it did. She shattered into a thousand pieces, her cry hitching in her throat. His mouth returned to swallow it and his tongue ravaged her mouth again. “God, yes,’ he whispered against her lips. “You’re every bit as passionate as I knew you would be.”
Her breathing came in hot, heavy pants. She couldn’t talk, could barely think as she settled back to Earth from the place she’d shot to among the stars.
He pulled his hands away and trailed kisses along her cheek.
She looked at him, her chest still heaving, nearly bereft. What had he just done to her? And why had he stopped there?
“I’m not…innocent,” she said, her breathing coming in hard pants. She hadn’t meant it to sound like a confession, but she feared that it had.
He pressed his forehead against hers and his sly smile returned. “That may be, sweetheart,” he said. “But I don’t bed women whose names I don’t know.”
He stepped away from her, leaving her stunned, and she barely had time to tug her bodice back into place over her chest before he opened the door to his room and glanced outside.
“All clear,” he announced, before scooping her up off the desk and setting her gently into the hallway. He dropped a kiss atop her head before saying. “If you want more, you’re going to have to tell me your real name.”
And then that dastardly blackguard had the unmitigated gall to shut his bedchamber door in her face.
Chapter Fifteen
Beau hadn’t been listening to a word his friends said. At present they were in Clayton’s study and Beau was staring out the window across the rainy meadow, thinking about how badly he had wanted to make love to Marianne last night.
He could think about little else but their unexpected encounter. Actually, unexpected didn’t cover it by half, but he could conjure no better word at the moment. The events of the entire evening had been unexpected, from his reading the letter from the Home Office, to her overhearing Clayton—and what had happened after that had been beyond unexpected. He couldn’t think about it without getting hard. Damn. He was hard right now. He had to get himself together.
He still didn’t know why the hell he had done what he’d done last night. Clearly the woman had been ready and willing to go to bed with him, and God knew it had been an age since he’d taken a woman to bed, let alone someone he wanted as much as he’d wanted Marianne last night. But something about the entire thing felt…wrong.
He’d woken up this morning and realized what it was. Guilt. He felt guilt. Actual, true, guilt. And for someone who lied for a living, guilt wasn’t an emotion with which he was terribly familiar.
Marianne was right. He had been a damn hypocrite las
t night. He’d been angry and accusatory toward her when he’d been guilty of the exact same things he’d accused her of: lying about one’s identity and having secrets. She’d pointed it out to him, and he’d been confronted with his own inconsistency, and behavior reminiscent of a horse’s arse. He should have kept his hands off her entirely last night. He hadn’t been able to.
It had been a damn miracle that he’d stopped when he had. But he’d opened his eyes at one point to see her freckles and her gorgeous face and had been struck with that damned guilt. He had no right to take advantage of her. She might be lying to him, but he was lying to her, too.
He’d never made love to a woman under false pretenses, and he wasn’t about to begin now. True, he’d seduced them, kissed them, got them to make promises, and pleasured them. But he could honestly say he’d never taken a woman to his bed who didn’t know who he truly was. Something about doing so felt absolutely wrong to him.
He wasn’t about to make that mistake with Marianne. She wasn’t some lonely politician’s wife he was attempting to charm in order to probe her for information. He might not know her real name, but he knew he had real feelings for the feisty redhead. Different from any he’d felt during a game like this. He was attracted to her. He was intrigued by her. But most importantly, he liked her, and he truly believed she was beginning to like him. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them to take advantage of that.
The look her face when he’d set her into the hall had been priceless. A smile curled his lips. He would never forget that look. But then he winced. Would she ever forgive him?
“You’re still in, Bell?” Worthington’s question finally pulled Beau from his thoughts.
He turned from the window with a start to face his friends. “What was that?”
“Good God, man. You aren’t paying attention at all. I asked if you’re still in. No one’s discovered you’re not a real valet, correct?” Worth repeated.
The Valet Who Loved Me Page 8