Wicked Little Game

by Christine Wells

  He released her, and with a shock, she saw that for him the stake was not just money, it was personal.

  He sneered. “Because something tells me, my lady, your precious pride is about to fall.”

  VANE burst into his Mayfair house, sent for his groom, and continued straight to the ballroom, stripping as he went. A pair of startled footmen hurried to light candles, and soon the salon blazed.

  The cavernous space echoed with his footsteps as he paced, clenching his teeth against the cold. His reflection paced with him along the mirrored wall. His black superfine coat, white cravat, lawn shirt, and green-striped waistcoat lay in a puddle of fabric on the waxed wood floor.

  “Will you require a fire, my lord?” Rivers, his butler, retrieved the heap of clothing and folded each garment neatly over a chair.

  Vane shook his head. “I’ll be warm soon enough.” Once I pound the stuffing out of that groom of mine. “Where the hell is Gordon?”

  “I sent a lad to fetch him from the mews, my lord. He will be here directly.”

  Vane met the butler’s troubled gaze with a curt nod of dismissal. Rivers bowed and withdrew.

  Vane sat on a gilt and white love seat to yank off his boots. The operation required concentrated effort. That was a good thing. As long as he did not think, all would be well. He plunked the second boot on the floor, cursed, and dropped his head in his hands.

  He must be mad. Surely, he had never made such an ass of himself about a woman before. It had been years since that cold rebuff she’d dealt him. Years since he’d exchanged more than idle social chatter with her, and that had been infrequent enough. He didn’t even know her, not really. Yet she seeped into his thoughts when he wasn’t paying attention, curled under his skin in the darkest hours of the night.

  A cheerful voice boomed from the doorway. “Ready for a pummeling, m’lud?” Six feet and three inches of solid Yorkshire brawn strolled in, ripped off his shirt, flexed his meaty fingers, and rolled his massive shoulders.

  Vane surged to his stocking feet. “Let’s cut the small talk, shall we? Nothing below the waist, nothing above the neck.” He raised his brows at Gordon’s scornful expression. “Can’t give the ladies nightmares with a black eye, now, can I?”

  The burly groom chuckled deep in his barrel chest. “Nay. Wouldn’t want yon pretty face of yours to tek a beatin’, would we, lad? Right, then?”

  Breathing deeply, Vane emptied his mind, brought himself in hand. He wanted to pound solid flesh until he dropped from exhaustion, but to fight Gordon, he must use his mind, not just his fists. He nodded.

  They jabbed, blocked, clinched, circled, landed few punches at first. As his muscles warmed, as the sweat gathered on his brow and trickled down between his bare shoulder blades, as his ears filled with the smack of fist on flesh, the squeak of feet on floorboards, sporadic grunts and rhythmic, deep breathing, a strange calm settled over him. Nothing existed but his wits and his fists and this bull-necked ex-champion from Leeds. Nothing existed but the fight.

  So when a voice spoke from the doorway he heard it, but on a different plane from his conscious state. A stagecoach could have thundered through that ballroom and he would not have paid any heed, his mind was so focused on seeking an opening, a gap in Gordon’s guard.

  Suddenly, he found it, bore in with a wrestling move and threw the big man a cross-buttock, sent him crashing to the floor.

  Gordon shook his bald head and lifted himself on his elbows. His fearsome fighting glare split in a huge grin. With a hoot, Gordon leaped to his feet and bounded over to grip Vane’s hand. “Don’t know what has yer steamed up tonight, lad, but that were some right crackin’ work.” He clapped Vane on the back and turned to pick up his shirt.

  Laughing for what seemed the first time in years, Vane stood for a moment, savoring his victory. Raw energy coursed through his body. He would never sleep now, but his mind felt at peace, under control. The night was still young; he thought it not much past midnight. He would have a wash and then stroll down to his club.

  A cough sounded from the doorway, and his head snapped around. He saw a lady, heavily veiled, but he’d know that woman anywhere.

  Only years of training kept his expression neutral. After a slight hesitation, he bowed.

  Rivers hovered anxiously behind her, bleating excuses for the interruption. Vane waved the butler away, dismissed Gordon with a nod.

  When they were alone, she lifted her veil and regarded him steadily across the vast space. Vane stared back at her. Drank her in.

  Jade green eyes dominated her face. They tilted slightly at the corners, accented by a sweep of black lashes and strong, fine brows. Men wished to believe those eyes invited them to intimacy with the rest of her slender, full-breasted body; he’d learned they were more likely to slice him in two. Her hair was not quite ebony, but close enough as made no difference, dressed simply, without embellishment. Her skin was cream and roses, her lips too full, too lush for beauty, or so the connoisseurs said. He gazed at them, wondered how they might taste, how they might feel drifting over his skin.

  “Do put a shirt on, Vane, and stop gaping at me like a zany,” those lips commanded.

  His brows snapped together. He had been about to do just that, but now, with the sweat rapidly chilling his back, he wondered what right she had to tell him to wear clothes if he did not wish to.

  “This is my house. I’ll wear what I damned well please.”

  Why was she here? Simply to torment him with that sensuous mouth? She muddied the waters of his mind, when he’d fought so hard—literally fought—to clear them. He needed time to think, to consider the ramifications of her presence before he faced her again.

  He headed toward her, intending to brush past. “I’m going upstairs to bathe. Rivers will show you to the drawing room to wait.”

  She squared up to him, all five and a half feet of her, and if he hadn’t already pegged Lady Sarah as a far more formidable adversary than Gordon, he might have smiled at the contrast.

  “Rivers,” she replied, “will do nothing of the sort. I came to speak with you, and I wish to do so now, not wait until you deign to accommodate me.”

  He folded his arms and saw her steady gaze flicker, follow his movement. “My lady, I am sweating like a blacksmith. I need a wash. You can go home, or wait downstairs, I don’t care, but I shall have my bath.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” The luscious lips set in a line.

  Vane snorted. “You wish to join me upstairs, do you?”

  Her gaze locked with his. Between gritted teeth, she said, “Thank you, my lord. I will.”

  A torrent of lust swept over him, so strong it nearly knocked him sideways, a force more powerful than any of Gordon’s blows. The struggle to stop himself from reaching for her then and there nearly killed him, but he managed to keep his hands fisted at his sides. Without a word, he strode past her into the corridor.

  As Vane led the way to the stairs, Sarah paused and closed her eyes. Spite had fueled Brinsley’s parting words about her freezing disdain, but there was enough truth in them to stab at her heart.

  He was wrong about one thing, though. No amount of money was worth sacrificing her pride. Pride had seen her through ten soul-destroying years of marriage. And pride would rescue her tonight, no matter how much she wanted Vane.

  With a renewed sense of purpose, she lifted her chin and marched after him.

  Coming to Vane’s house in defiance of all precepts of good conduct, she’d set herself a test. She had not, however, expected it would be quite so difficult to pass. Seeing the marquis half-naked, sweating, and cursing as he fought that giant northern bully had fired her blood to an alarming degree. She had always disliked big men; they made her feel powerless and fragile. She preferred fine-boned types like Brinsley. She supposed she had not seen many men without their shirts.

  Vane was big and overwhelmingly male, muscular as a farm laborer. His tailor must be a talented artist to transform that brawn to Vane�
�s customary suave elegance. She’d never noticed before how very large he was.

  But nothing could have been further from his usual demeanor than the sight that met her eyes in his ballroom tonight: a wild, primitive display of masculine aggression. She ought to be disgusted. She’d never seen anything more magnificent in her life.

  He mounted the stairs without looking back. Sarah followed, and watched with unwilling fascination as all those muscles worked in glorious unison. His cropped dark hair spiked damply at his nape and perspiration shone on his shoulders and back. There was not an ounce of spare flesh on him. He was all muscle and bone and sinew, all strength and power. An angry red bruise bloomed on his right side, beneath his rib cage. She had the strongest urge to touch it, to smooth away the pain.

  Her gaze lowered, and the blood rose to her cheeks as she studied the shift of his buttocks under skintight grey pantaloons. Her body thrummed with awareness, anticipated what might happen if she succumbed.

  But the man could be Adonis and Casanova rolled into one and she would not give in. To resist him, she need only remember that he’d sought to buy her favors as if she were a common streetwalker, a piece of merchandise, albeit an outrageously expensive one. She would show Brinsley, she would show herself, that she valued her honor and the marriage vows she’d made more highly than money or spurious pleasure.

  This might have been a lot easier to achieve had she agreed to await their discussion in the drawing room rather than conduct it in his bedchamber. But Vane had thrown down the gauntlet, never expecting her to pick it up.

  Sarah gave a grim smile. She almost welcomed the challenge.

  Vane’s heart thundered in his chest, and he knew it wasn’t from the fight. He barely made it to his door without ravishing her on the stairs. He was achingly aware that she studied him, painfully reminded of what he wanted—had always wanted—from her.

  But she was in his house to earn Brinsley his ten thousand pounds. She was not there because she desired him. If she desired him, she could have had him any time these seven years or more.

  Obviously, Brinsley had not given up on his contemptible scheme. Was she here to seduce Vane into changing his mind? The real question: Was he strong enough to resist her if it came to that? Did he even want to?

  Ten thousand pounds was nothing. A lot more than he’d ever needed to pay for his pleasure before, but a drop in the vast ocean of his wealth. He had, he reminded himself, paid for pleasure in the past. He did not make a habit of consorting with certain married women of the ton who granted their favors freely. Uncomplicated relationships with practiced courtesans were more his style.

  Until Lady Sarah Cole.

  They passed through a small sitting room and entered his private domain. He’d never taken a woman there before.

  He indicated an overstuffed armchair, displaced from its position beside the fire by the enormous, high-backed bathtub. She took off her bonnet and laid it on the table next to the chair. Then she sat, arranged her skirts, and folded her hands in her lap. She kept her gloves on, he noticed.

  Her eyes grew large in her fine, oval face as she contemplated the waiting bath, but when she caught him watching her, all sign of anxiety vanished. She smiled, regarding him with that amused contempt with which she always seemed to view Brinsley.

  Vane’s temper flared. His gaze gripped hers as he shucked his pantaloons, peeled off his stockings, and finally, undid the string of his drawers and pushed them down.

  He was aroused. He didn’t try to hide the fact. God help him, he relished the momentary dip of her eyes, the slight flush that crested her cheeks as she took in his size, then cut her gaze away.

  Hadn’t she believed he’d carry out his threat to bathe in front of her? Of course, she was accustomed to dealing with Brinsley. Perhaps now she’d realize the man standing before her was a different beast altogether from that spineless weasel she called husband.

  Vane stepped into the tub and lowered himself into the steaming water. Laying his head against the tub’s high back, he gave a throaty sigh that was supposed to signify contentment.

  It sounded more like a hungry growl.

  Three

  “WELL, this is . . . interesting.” Lady Sarah’s tone struck Vane’s ears as inappropriately calm and cordial. “What novel notions of hospitality you have, my lord.”

  Lazily, he stretched his legs, laid his arms along the edge of the tub, and smiled. “Perhaps I’ll start a fashion.”

  “Perhaps you will.”

  Her gaze roamed his bedchamber, looked everywhere but at him. The crackle of the fire and the faint slap of water on the sides of the tub as he moved were all that broke the silence. He narrowed his eyes, watched her appraise the rich gold and black furnishings as if she were an auctioneer itemizing them for sale.

  Why had she come? And what was he going to do about it? He tried to apply reason to the problem, set his mind apart from the physical, from his body’s rampant reaction to hers.

  Of course, the wild beast inside him didn’t care why she was there, finally, in his bedchamber, ready to lay her ravishing beauty at his feet.

  The beast licked its chops, slavered to devour every delicious, mouthwatering curve under that sturdy pelisse. Anticipated her wet heat, the pull and power of ultimate release. Raged to leap from the tub and throw her on his bed and plunge into her until she forgot everything she had ever known. Everything but him.

  He sank down into the water, came up and raked his hands through his wet hair. Caught by the movement, her attention switched to him.

  Her dispassionate gaze wandered over his body, direct and palpable as touch. Heat washed through him, as if the steaming water flooded his veins, simmered in his blood. His erection had relaxed slightly, but under that contemplative scrutiny it hardened to an aching throb. The beast in him howled to be unleashed.

  And yet . . . he had smarted at her rejection years ago. He’d cursed himself for misreading the signs, believing she might one day be his in fact, if not in name. He’d vowed then and there he’d never let such primitive urges control him again. Never would a woman make him beg.

  Especially not Lady Sarah Cole.

  So, part of it was animal lust, and part of it was pride, this need for action at war with the temptation to sit back and let matters take their course. Part of it was curiosity, an itch to see how she would go about seducing him. She hadn’t tried very hard thus far.

  Another part of him—his intellect, perhaps—detested the idea that what had seemed such a foul, unthinkable act mere hours before had suddenly become a course he seriously considered pursuing. Paying a virtuous lady for the use of her body.

  Did her acquiescence make the difference? Or was it simply that she was there? Did Brinsley know all Vane had to do was see her, smell her, taste her perhaps, to thrust his honor, his pride, and his intellect aside, and lay his money on the table?

  Lady Sarah spoke. “I must say I find your methods of seduction quite . . . unusual, my lord.”

  His methods?

  She must have seen the question in his face. “You will not take no for an answer, it seems. My husband informed me of your discussion tonight.”

  “Did he?” He should have realized Brinsley would not give her the truth. What poison had that little snake dripped in her ear?

  He waited. A long pause ensued.

  In a low voice, she said, “I always believed you were a gentleman.”

  He raised his brows. “If you recall, Lady Sarah, you are the one who insisted on invading my bath time. You are the one who came to this house. With very little attempt at discretion, I might add.”

  She gave him back stare for stare. He had to admire her pluck.

  “Ten thousand pounds is a vast deal of money,” she observed. “I wonder if I am worth it.”

  Oh, she was worth it, all right. Still uncertain where he wanted this to lead, he continued to fence. “My lady, you are a diamond of the highest quality. No doubt you are aware of the fact.
”

  She gave a tight smile. Her gloved hands clenched in her lap. “Then Brinsley would be a fool to accept a paltry ten thousand. Wouldn’t he?”

  Vane scarcely believed his ears. The jade had the unmitigated gall to try to drive up that ridiculous price? Just how desperate did she think he was?

  Under Vane’s hard scrutiny, Sarah found it difficult to come to the point. Ordinarily, she was no coward, nor was she averse to plain speaking. She possessed a large and varied vocabulary, so why, when he stared at her with those dark, endless eyes, did her tongue roll over and play dead, refuse to assemble the words?

  She’d come here for a purpose, and that was not to watch Vane soak in his bathtub, however stimulating the activity might be. She’d come to throw his insulting offer in his face. Or at least, to discover whether he really intended to consign her to debtors’ prison if she did not do as he wished.

  And then throw his insulting offer in his face.

  She hated Brinsley for putting her in this position. Despite all their hardships, despite the humiliation of his public infidelities and his lies, she’d never felt powerless before. She’d never submitted to any man. Not Brinsley, and certainly not Vane.

  Now that she was here, she couldn’t bring herself to discuss any of it. She was all but convinced Brinsley had fabricated those threats Vane was supposed to have made. If not for them, she never would have darkened Vane’s door.

  Sarah caught her bottom lip between her teeth. But now she was here, and there was still the matter of that ten thousand pounds. Vane had bargained for her like a costermonger or some money-grubbing cit. He’d just admitted it, bold as brass.

  Yes, she owed Vane for that.

  “Would you mind handing me the soap, Lady Sarah?”

  She started. “Soap?”

  “On the counterpane, next to the towel. I forgot to bring it with me.”