“It’s from Morelands.” She used the back of her wrist to draw a stray lock of hair up over her brow. “We have good stewards in Kent, and there’s a neighbor there with whom I correspond on agricultural matters. He gave me the idea of investing in pigs.”
A very small disclosure, but he treasured it. His Maggie was a swine nabob.
She lifted the pot. “More tea?”
“Please.”
He let her finish the meal in silence, but what he’d found was bouncing around in his brain, making the food sit uneasily in his gut. She’d be upset and scared. Those things would help him get some answers from her, which did not please him in the least.
“Maggie.”
She put the pot down, her gaze meeting his. “Just say it, Mr. Hazlit. You’ve been suspiciously solicitous since I found you in my kitchen. You’re trying to spare me something.” The warmth in her gaze cooled as she spoke. She was manning the garrison, securing her cannon.
“Is it such a bad thing that I’m trying to respect your sensibilities?”
He wanted to grasp her hand, but she rose, taking the remains of their meal with her to the counter.
“It is tiresome to always be accounted incapable of dealing with life’s realities. Bastardy is such a great, defining reality; it provides one a sort of fortitude.” She turned to rest her hips against the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “I would rather know, Mr. Hazlit, than be pampered and cosseted and treated like a child. What did you find?”
He rose, bringing the tea tray back to the counter, and kept advancing on her once he’d set it aside.
“Benjamin.” He enunciated clearly and slowly for her. “Benjamin Braithwaite Holloway Portmaine… Hazlit is a name I’ve assumed to ensure my sisters are never associated with my present profession, but to you I would be myself: Benjamin Portmaine.” She swallowed as he came to a halt half a pace before her. “It’s my name. I ask you to use it.”
“Speak the truth to me, and I will.”
Ah, that pleased him. She hadn’t dithered or hesitated. She wanted to call him by name. He slid his arms around her waist and bent his mouth very near her ear.
“Somebody has been trying to gain surreptitious access to your house, repeatedly, and they have succeeded.”
He settled his mouth on the soft, fragrant skin of her neck, gathered her close with one arm, and used his free hand to destroy the tidy bun at her nape.
***
Damn him, damn him… Maggie could not think, could not form a single sentence in reaction as Hazlit’s lips traveled along the column of her throat. Such soft, warm, knowing lips, lips without hurry or hesitation.
“Somebody has broken into my house?”
Lips that settled over hers gently, even as she felt his hand sinking into her hair at the back of her head. He held her still for his kiss, held her steady.
And she wanted him to kiss her. The ugly realities never went away, but sometimes they could be held at arm’s length for a few moments. Right now, she needed such moments more than she needed to ponder who had been searching repeatedly for what in her personal domain.
She wrapped her arms around him and tilted her head, the better to receive his kiss. His mouth left hers, and she was summarily hoisted to sit on the counter.
“Mr. Hazlit?” She was at eye level with him, a novel and pleasing arrangement.
He leaned into her while he said, “Benjamin,” against her mouth. His tongue seamed her lips, sweet with the taste of tea and ardent male interest.
“Benjamin.” She said it against his mouth, too, proving one could almost talk and kiss at the same time. Sitting on the counter, she could get a proper hold of his silky dark hair and do some exploring of her own.
Somewhere in the mental distance, her common sense was lamenting and hurling questions at her: What was this in aid of? How did kissing address the topic of housebreakers? Where was this leading, for gracious God’s sake?
Her body knew where it was leading, for she’d spread her knees to wrap her legs around his flanks, locking her ankles at the small of his back. For the first time in thirty years, Maggie Windham understood the ladies who said they’d been carried away by passion.
“Stop thinking, Maggie mine.” He gathered her closer, wedging himself in tightly to her body. His tongue set up a rhythm, slow and naughty, while Maggie’s womb leapt and heat poured into her veins.
“I don’t want…” She squirmed against him, her body seeking relief or greater arousal, she wasn’t sure which.
“You do, too, and God knows I want, as well.” His hand was on her knee where it rested above his hip. “You’ll let me do this, Maggie Windham, or I’ll go mad. We’ll both go mad.”
Do this? Do this?
He shifted his hips away a little, and Maggie moaned in frustration. His tongue in her mouth wasn’t enough, and she was about to climb off the counter and knock him out flat on the kitchen floor, so desperately did she crave greater closeness with him.
“Benjamin…”
God help her, she’d just growled at him. She felt him smile at her frustration, and then he took his mouth from hers to cradle her face against his throat. “Let me touch you, Maggie. Just touch you.”
While she was trying to locate vocabulary sufficient to form an answer, she felt her skirts being dragged slowly up over her thighs. He was touching her, probing against the slit in her silk drawers, when a bolt of lightning shot up Maggie’s spine.
“It’s only my hand, just a little touch. Let me.”
The air left her lungs as she felt the smallest breeze on her damp sex, then he did it again—a delicate brush of his thumb, and all of Maggie’s focus riveted on that touch. She wanted to bite something. She opened her mouth on his throat and struggled for breath as her heart kicked against her ribs.
“What are you…?” A little more pressure, this time in a rhythm that sent pleasure cascading through her. Speech having deserted her, she moaned against his neck then slipped her tongue along his jaw.
“Let it happen. Let me give you this.” He had one hand under her skirts. Maggie felt the other slide up her rib cage and settle over her breast while she gripped him to her with both arms and legs.
“Give me…” She arched into his hand, shamelessly, greedily. This wasn’t coitus; she didn’t even have her clothes off.
She wanted them off. She wanted his clothes off of him even more desperately, but that little touch of his made it impossible to think or maneuver beyond arching into his hand.
“Benjamin Hazlit…” From where he touched her, heat and wanting were coalescing into some unnameable longing. She was dizzy with it, burning and mad for him to make it better.
And he did. Oh, he did. With a gentle pressure to her breast and a slower, firmer touch against her sex, he sent her off into exquisite, shuddering pleasure. Drenched her in it, held her under until she was making a sound against his throat between a moan and a sigh and a prayer. And when she could no longer stand what was happening in her own body, his touch shifted, gentled, and became soothing and every bit as necessary to her.
He kissed her, and she needed that, too. Needed to cling to his mouth and his broad shoulders, needed to feel the heat and strength of him in her arms.
“Gracious God.” She rested her forehead against his collarbone and let her legs slide down his flanks. “Sweet, merciful, gracious…”
Her hair was completely undone, and he swept it back over her shoulders to cascade down her back. She wished again that she were naked so she could enjoy his hands on her skin. Foolish thought. His cheek was against her crown, and though she could also feel his erection rock hard and ready between them, his embrace felt… safe.
It felt dear, which was worse.
What had she done?
“Why the sigh, Maggie Windham?”
She shook her head, resenting that he could speak clearly at such a time. She kissed his throat, letting her tongue trace the spot where his pulse beat—rather rapidl
y, she was pleased to note.
“Tell me you’re all right, my dear.”
She managed a nod. He kissed her temple, stepped away, and turned his back to her. She saw him withdraw a handkerchief from his pocket then rearrange his clothing, and she knew what he was doing.
She watched anyway, though only from the back of him. As he stroked himself, his spine curved, his head came up and then fell back as bliss claimed him. She wanted to see his face, see him, watch as pleasure overcame him, though even this much, just knowing he’d do this in the same room with her, was shockingly intimate.
A gesture of trust?
She scooted back farther on the counter, letting her skirts fall over her knees. When he turned to face her again, she met his gaze squarely. For the first time in her experience, his hair was disheveled, his clothing rumpled, and in his eyes she spied something… flustered. Wary. Vulnerable, maybe.
She smiled at him and held out a hand.
“My hair is a worse fright than yours, Benjamin.”
His answering smile was crooked and beamish as he helped her down from the counter. “Your hair is gorgeous. I could make love—”
She put two fingers over his lips. “None of that. We strayed from our topic, and while I appreciate that you felt the need to distract me, it was only that: a distraction.”
She spoke gently, for she wasn’t lecturing him. She was putting as constructive a face on things as she possibly could and reminding herself of their proper agenda. She would castigate herself for this lapse just as soon as her body stopped humming with satisfaction.
And desire.
He held her against his body a moment longer then let her step away.
“We will talk about this, Maggie Windham. This business that draws us to each other isn’t simply a distraction. Whether you like it or not, it’s more than that.”
He ran a hand through his hair, suggesting he might be as rattled as she.
“A very nice distraction, then,” she said, a ringing understatement if ever she’d uttered one. “Let’s use my office. It has no windows on the street, and I think a change of scene is in order.”
He muttered something about a horse trough and followed her up the stairs.
***
“Abby Norcross is a very confused tramp.”
Hazlit made no reply as Archer settled on the sofa beside him, brandy in hand. Confusion seemed to be the order of the day—or night, more accurately—the sort of confusion that could not distinguish between the urge to possess and the urge to protect.
One of Archer’s bare, elegant feet appeared on the low table, then the other. “You aren’t drinking?”
“Not yet. The night is young.”
Archer peered at him. “It’s two bloody hours after midnight, Benjamin. I left you sitting, staring at the fire, better than six hours ago, and you’re still staring at it, and you’re not even drinking. Have a sip of mine.”
Archer nudged his elbow, managing to not slosh a drop. Hazlit took a sip lest he be pestered the livelong night.
“Which case is it?” Archer accepted the drink back and slouched lower on the cushions. “It’s always a case when you go broody on me like this. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what dear Lady Norcross is up to. She did that coach-switching thing again tonight, got into Hammerschmidt’s conveyance, but only Mrs. Hammerschmidt was in it.”
“That makes no sense.” Which was also consistent with his day so far. Like needing to swive Maggie Windham until they were too weak to breathe made no sense.
“Maybe the ladies had a pleasant chat, like we’re not having.” Archer took another sip, and Hazlit roused himself to take the bait.
“I suspect somebody is blackmailing Maggie Windham, but it’s somebody she’s trying desperately to protect.”
Beside him, Archer perched the drink on his flat stomach. “She’s the adopted daughter of a duke. It would have to be somebody in a very high place to have leverage over her.”
Archer was a good sounding board, for all he liked to needle and tease, and hours of staring at the fire had yielded no stirring insights—excepting, of course, the stirrings in places low and unmentionable.
“I’m thinking it’s one of her brothers,” Hazlit said, appropriating another sip of Archer’s drink. “The musical one had a left-handed look to him until recently.”
“Lord Valentine.” Archer smiled at the now-empty glass. He rose and crossed to the decanter. “He had no such tendencies when I knew him in Rome, and what manner of left-handed fellow spends much of his time in a high-class brothel?”
“The kind who’s trying to keep his inclinations unknown.”
“A dandy does not a nancy boy make. If a duke’s spare preferred men, it would be all over Town.”
“Maybe. He’s out in Oxfordshire now, duly married to the former Baroness Roxbury. By all accounts, it’s a love match.”
“How unfashionable.” Archer passed Hazlit a drink and resumed his spot on the sofa. “You could ask the brothers what dark secrets their sister might be keeping.”
“In which case, my will leaves all the unentailed property in a trust for my sisters, to be administered by your sweet self.”
“Much obliged. Two comely wenches and a trust fund.”
He didn’t mention the title, which was typical of Archer’s sense of loyalty.
Hazlit blew out a breath and put his better theory into words. “What if Maggie is protecting her father?”
“Percy Windham was a noted hellion in his youth, and he cuts a wide swath in the Lords. You think he’s crossed some lines, politically or otherwise?”
“He schemes and plots for pleasure, can’t seem to help himself. I don’t know as he’d stoop to outright bullying or bribery, but I’m precluded from investigating too closely.”
“Precluded by what?” Archer’s eyes closed, giving him a deceptively angelic look.
“Honor, I suppose. Their Graces wouldn’t appreciate it if I took their coin and then turned around a year later and went nosing into His Grace’s dirty linen.”
“Dukes do not have dirty linen. This is an established fact. Look at Devonshire. Bastards and heirs raised under the same merry roof. No dirty linen, though. Not so much as a wrinkled handkerchief. He’s a dewk.”
There was merit in what Archer was saying. The royal dukes, in response to their dear papa’s Royal Marriages Act, had at least a dozen illegitimate offspring between them, though some put the estimates closer to twenty. William alone had an entire clutch, and with Princess Charlotte’s death, the man might well wear the crown one day.
Archer was right: it was common knowledge dukes were above dirty linen.
“What about duchesses?” Benjamin put the question slowly, because it had the feel of the right, most inconvenient line of inquiry. “Do duchesses have dirty linen?”
Archer was quiet for a moment. “I’m afraid they just might. And Esther Windham wouldn’t go running to His Grace to tidy up her messes. Dear Percy would likely skewer someone, and his sons would sharpen the sword for him. At least Rosecroft is rusticating in the North—he’s the worst of the lot.”
“I normally like puzzles.”
“You’re very good at them. Why is this one different?”
Uncomfortable question, and the answer likely had to do with what had happened in Maggie’s kitchen that very afternoon. Hazlit got up and brought the decanter to the table. “Maggie Windham has hired me to assist her in retrieving a reticule. I don’t know how to do that without first gaining her trust, which seems nigh impossible to do.”
“You’re good with the ladies, Benjamin. They like your broody good looks and broad shoulders.”
“They like your golden good looks just as much.”
“They do at that. You can’t charm your way into Miss Windham’s good graces—or her bed?”
“I have the sense if I could charm my way into her bed, once I’d served my purpose there, she’d simply show me the door and ask when I expe
cted to see her reticule again.” She’d all but done as much following the incident in the kitchen, at least to appearances.
Archer opened his eyes. “We do so hate it when the ladies treat us the way we treat them. You can’t bully her? Rattle some swords, threaten to tattle to Papa?”
“No, I cannot.” He was damnably sure he couldn’t threaten Maggie Windham. It wouldn’t work, and he hadn’t the will to do it. “She’d dismiss me without the proverbial character.”
“A determined woman. I like determined women.”
“You like them so much you try to get under their skirts.”
“I like them a very great deal. More brandy?”
Hazlit held out his glass and let Archer pour him two fingers. Archer did like the ladies, liked them practically every chance he got, which was a dangerous propensity, though useful in their line of work.
“Who’s the pretty little maid, Archer?”
“Which little maid? There are so many.”
“The one who distracted you from following the pair of swains home from Miss Windham’s. The one you stopped off to see tonight before you came home.”
Archer’s expression held a little genuine disgruntlement. “How could you tell?”
“Her scent.” Benjamin tapped the side of his own nose. “Floral, with a slight undertone of starch, and notes of cinnamon, lavender, and cedar, as well. A lady’s maid who spends hours in the dressing room with her mending and pressing. For good measure, she looks in on the laundresses to see that her ladyship’s gowns are getting proper handling.” The scent, in fact, bore a striking undertone of Maggie’s fragrance.
“Your nose ought to be outlawed. She’s just a maid.”
“You are my heir, Archer.”
This provoked the usual long-suffering sigh. “Lucky me. Shall we get out the cribbage board, or have you more brooding to do?”
Hazlit let Archer beat him several times at cribbage, though he did, indeed, have more brooding to do. He was going to have to do something about Maggie Windham, but he was damned if he knew what.
***
Maggie sanded the note she’d spent two hours crafting. Three sentences for two hours work, but then, how did a woman politely fire a man for being a delightful… kisser? How did she fire him, when his primary transgression was to be an irresistible source of simple animal comfort?
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