All's Fair in Love & Seduction (The Elusive Lords, Novella)

by Beverley Kendall

  “But of course we must become properly acquainted,” she agreed, pulling her thoughts back to the conversation at hand. Nervously, she ran the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip.

  Lord Creswell tracked the movement with a searing gaze. Abruptly, he cleared his throat and shot a glance at the clock on the fireplace mantel.

  “I have taken up enough of your morning. I will call on the morrow. Good day, Miss Smith.”

  “Good day, Lord Creswell,” she said, her voice hardly loud enough to be heard.

  With that, he gave a nod and went on his way.

  This didn’t precisely put her in the clear. Elizabeth was well aware of that. There was another hurdle yet to clear. And to dull the impact the truth of their past connection would have—a connection she now resented for it stood in the way of her future happiness—she knew she had to get him to care for her.

  Quite literally, she would have to wage a war of seduction. But not seduction in its most commonly used context. Although it would be far easier to get him into her bed but that wouldn’t be enough to sustain of happy marriage. At least not ‘til death do they part. No, she’d seduce him without the use of her body and at the same time capture his heart.

  Chapter Five

  By midmorning the next day, unseasonably cold temperatures had Londoners dragging out wool pelisses and heavy greatcoats. That the air remained dry was the day’s one saving grace.

  Derek observed Miss Smith from across his barouche. She looked good. Better than good if one admired silky skin, red lips that begged to be kissed and a figure that curved in and out in all the right places. He resented her; resented that a wave of lust had all but assaulted him when he’d arrived at Laurel House to collect her for their morning drive. And had yet to abate.

  He could detect no yield to her spine as she sat, hands clasped tightly on her lap buried in the voluminous folds of her peach and gray skirts. She’d looked at him once, very briefly, then proceeded to focus all her attention on trying not to look at him. She was currently studying the interior with greater a scrutiny than he’d given it upon its purchase.

  Derek tapped the roof twice. The carriage immediately jolted into motion.

  She looked at him then, eyes wide as if startled that they were moving as conveyances often do.

  “You are well?” he asked courteously.

  Her mouth curved in a strained smile. “I suppose I am well given the circumstances.”

  Her chin quivered the barest little bit. Fright? Nerves? Perhaps a bit of both. Her hands had not been still since she’d taken her seat.

  Lord above, he didn’t want to incite fear in her. He wanted—wanted his life back to the way it was before he’d kissed her. But he wanted the memory of the kiss. He wanted to kiss her again. Hell, he wanted to do a sight more than that. But he couldn’t have both.

  “And you?”

  Derek wondered if she really cared or was simply being polite. He wondered how she’d react if he told her precisely where his thoughts lay. He decided to ignore her question altogether and asked instead, “Miss Smith, I imagine that if I was able to arrange things so that you could retain your reputation without us being forced to wed, you would be relieved?”

  Her answer should have been an instantaneous, But of course, my lord. But that was not how she reacted. Her shoulders jumped and her eyes were now two enormous orbs in her sweet oval face.

  She recovered quickly but had it been from shock or something else? Disappointment? He mulled over which reaction he preferred.

  “But of course, my lord,” she replied.

  Derek forced a smile. Of course. Not the response of a woman trapped in circumstances under which she had no control and she would gladly extricate herself from if she could.

  “Although, I can’t imagine how you would manage it. While I’m positive Mrs. Abernathy would never breathe a word of it to anyone, the dowager is another matter. I believe she’s eager to see me ruined.”

  She adjusted her bonnet as if it rested uncomfortably on her head. “Why, have you figured a way out?”

  “No.” Although he did have his man of business working on something. But it would take a bit of time. Ten days he’d been told.

  She looked down at her hands tightly clasped in her lap and now her brim obscured her face from view. He wished she’d take the damn thing off.

  She laughed but it was a fragile and thin sound. “Am I that bad a prospect?”

  Derek swallowed hard and shifted in his seat. For a reason he couldn’t fathom, he wanted to put a smile back on her face. To see the same light passion had ignited in her eyes those moments in the garden.

  “That’s not it at all. I’m certain there are more men than I could count who would be proud to call you their wife.” It was only after he’d uttered the words and tested them in his ears that he realized what ill a fit it was, well-meaning though they were.

  “But not you.” she said, but looked up at him as if expecting an answer.

  Her gaze struck him. Those eyes. Had he ever seen a color quite like it? Brown liberally peppered with light flecks of gold. Not one dash of green in them. Beautiful. While he may not want her as his wife, he could imagine other positions he’d enjoy having her in. He grew hard, his cock responding to his thought as if it’d received a physical stroke.

  “I don’t know you well enough to say.” His voice was graveled in large part because he couldn’t control his reaction to her.

  “That didn’t prevent you from kissing me.”

  “Miss Smith, if I were to wed every woman I kissed, I would have been a husband many times over.” He would have been wed at the age of twelve.

  A soft blush suffused her face and she fell silent.

  As passionate as her response to him had been, Derek could clearly see she was an innocent. A virgin. And virgins wanted everything proper: the courtship, the wedding, and the bedding. Everything in its rightful order.

  If everything went as he firmly expected it would, there would be no need for a marriage. Which meant there wouldn’t be a bedding. His cock twitched as if in protest. But if circumstances concluded they did have to wed, he wondered if she had any real comprehension of just what she was letting herself in for. He was a man of healthy sexual appetites and in regard to her, his appetite had grown. What would she say to being kept in bed for days, for that’s how long it might take to sate his initial hunger for her.

  “And you are quite certain you have no objection to marrying me?” This wasn’t a fishing expedition, more a subtle warning.

  She laughed and the sound caught him square in the gut. The word delightful came to mind.

  “You ask as if you’re some horrible ogre, which you certainly are not.”

  Derek sat back against the squab as he tried to decipher the puzzle that was Elizabeth Smith. She was forthright…to a point. But still so naïve when it came to men.

  Had she indeed set out to trap him? He’d pondered that question all night. The part of him that wanted to shag her senseless was inclined to believe her. But the other part of him had long decided that most women couldn’t be trusted.

  If his man returned with the information Derek needed, the plan could only work if Miss Smith didn’t sow the seeds of scandal herself. Given her recent response, he couldn’t trust that she would. What he needed was that she find him less than desirous as a prospective husband.

  “You do realize that as your husband I will have certain rights?”

  Finely arched brows met above the bridge of her nose. She appeared to puzzle over his question. Realization dawned swiftly, her eyes going wide, her lips parting in a silent oh.

  Derek abandoned his seat and took the one next to her, which caused her to slide across the leather seat and practically hug the door.

  “Watch that you don’t tumble from the carriage,” he said in mock warning. “Come closer, there is enough room for both of us here. Remember, you will have to suffer me much much closer.”

  Miss S
mith eased from the door to turn wary eyes to him. “I’m well aware of what will be required of me in marriage.”

  Derek lifted a brow. “Then tell me. I am particularly interested as it relates to our marriage bed.”

  Elizabeth let out a gasp. A glance at him revealed even, white teeth between a crooked smile and hooded eyes. But he didn’t appear the least bit amused. His direct stare demanded an answer.

  “Pardon?” She couldn’t help the squeak in her voice as the word emerged.

  “Was I faulty in my speech?”

  Elizabeth marveled that he could keep his expression deadpan.

  “I would like you to tell me what it is you must do in the marriage bed.”

  His question was-was so beyond the realm of social acceptability when it came to conversations between an unmarried man and woman, Elizabeth would not be surprised if the Gentleman’s Handbook didn’t fall from the sky and knock him senseless.

  “My lord, I have no intention—”

  “I hope you will not lie under me as stiff as a board. I like my bed partners engaged and enthusiastic.”

  Elizabeth could only stare at him in mute horror. She’d admit to being only slightly aroused.

  His mouth curved but it could not be considered a smile. He made a soft clicking sound with his tongue. “If I’m to be your husband, Miss Smith, you will have to grow accustomed to my frankness.”

  Before she could so much as utter a word, he closed the distance between them with a swiftness that transfixed her.

  “You must also grow accustomed to my touch, to my kiss,” he murmured, sharing a breath with her before he took her mouth in a kiss that stole the air from her lungs.

  Dizzying was the only way she could describe the touch of his lips on hers, the skillful way his tongue stroked hers. For several seconds she did nothing but feel while another kind of heat warmed her from inside to out.

  In no time at all, he released her from the shackles of her pelisse, freeing him to stroke her from her waist to just below her breast. Thoughts of stopping him came and then vanished on a wave of pleasure too intense to be denied.

  Dropping her head back against the squab, Elizabeth returned his kiss with a reckless abandonment that surprised her. With his facile tongue, he showed her how to use hers with the same devastating effect. She mimicked his slow thrust, their tongues entwined, sliding, stroking. He emitted a groan that sent a myriad of tremors through her body as he dragged her onto his lap.

  His hand took another tortuous tour of her torso until it once again rested lightly beneath her aching breasts. She wanted him to touch her there. Her back bowed, her breast offered up to him like a banquet.

  “Tell me what you want,” he urged, breaking the kiss.

  Even with lust fogging her senses, Elizabeth could not. She could never bring herself to be so bold.

  At her pause, his hand traveled up and stroked her hard nipple through the silk of her day dress.

  “Yes,” she said, panting.

  He kissed that so sensitive place where her neck joined her shoulder. His lips then went onto explore her jaw, her chin, her cheeks until he reached her bottom lip where he took her mouth in one last deep and drugging kiss. Slowly, as if trying not to startle her, he set her from his lap, straightened her bonnet that had become askew in their embrace and took his place on the seat facing her.

  “We have arrived,” he said in way of explanation.

  Elizabeth immediately pushed aside the curtain of the window closest and saw they were back at her cousin’s residence. She couldn’t even remember if they’d actually gone to the park. But yet here they were.

  Derek did not deal well with thwarted desire. But as he hadn’t been about to take the delectable Miss Smith in the carriage, that was precisely the state he found himself in when they returned to the house. A footman met them at the door. In silence, they followed him into the foyer.

  He turned to her. She had taken an inordinate interest in the marble floors, unable or unwilling—he wasn’t sure which—to meet his gaze. A hasty goodbye and mumbled excuses trailed in her wake as she escaped up the stairs, hands trembling, skirts flying.

  She was shaken; completely unnerved by the intensity of their passion. She should be. The very same thing had given him reason to question whether he wanted a way out. The desire between them crackled and hissed like a fire that threatened to blaze out of control unless they fought to keep it contained.

  But did he want it contained? He was even less certain he wanted all that passion unleashed on another man.

  Another man? Is that how he now saw her potential suitors in the span of only one day of actually meeting her?

  “Lord Creswell, may I have a word before you leave?”

  Ready to make his departure, Derek halted and turned, his hat and gloves still in hand. A glance behind him, revealed Millicent Rutherford, the Countess of Windmere, standing in the middle of the foyer. He’d thought her lovely when she’d come out six years before and after three years of marriage and two children, she was even lovelier, tall and slim with the most beautiful, expressive eyes. At the moment they appeared concerned.

  “Lady Windmere,” he said in greeting, and made his way toward her.

  “I pray you had a pleasant drive?” she said, when he reached her side. They turned and as if by tacit agreement, entered the drawing room.

  “I did.”

  “And things are well between you and Elizabeth?” A subtle, ladylike probe into his private affairs.

  He gave a rueful smile. Her concern for her cousin was expected. No doubt Rutherford had told her his edict of marriage had been met with something less than joy.

  “I wager we will muddle through this well enough.” One way or another.

  “You are a true gentleman. Thank you.” Lady Windmere took his hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze. “Things have not been easy for Cousin Margaret these last several years. That’s Elizabeth’s mother. I don’t know how she would handle such a scandal.”

  “Where is she from, your cousin?” he asked. He knew practically nothing of her except the taste of her lips, the firm softness of her breasts, how she felt pressed up against him.

  “Penkridge. It’s a tiny village in Staffordshire. I’m sure you’ve never heard of it.”

  Derek stilled. Not only had he heard of the town but he’d had cause to go there six winters ago. That’s when the past rose up to sully the present. Margaret. That had been the name of the mother. The bank draft had been made out to Mr. Joseph Smith, a local solicitor of meager means and three daughters. He knew only the name of the eldest—the calamity had given him good cause to never forget it—Madeline.

  “Her father, what is his occupation?” He strived to keep the urgency from his voice.

  The countess shot him a surprised look. She knew him well enough to know he wasn’t the sort to stand on ceremony and was a man who would never judge another by his station in life. “Cousin Joseph is a solicitor. But I don’t believe he retained his practice since he came into the barony.”

  For several seconds Derek remained silent, schooling his features as he endeavored not to give any indication of how great an impact what she’d just revealed had on him.

  He’d been duped, played for the veriest fool. And the irony did not escape him that he’d been nearly caught in the same trap he’d helped his brother escape years before.

  Now the younger sister had him on the hooks and thought to reel him in with the ease of an accomplished fisherman. She told him she’d be ruined if he did not marry her, her family’s name dragged through the gutter that was the ton’s gossip mill.

  Ruined. For a kiss.

  By God, if she was to be ruined, it shouldn’t be over a paltry kiss. No, he’d show her the true meaning of ruin.

  Chapter Six

  The following day, when Lord Creswell asked her if she’d like to visit Kensington Gardens, Elizabeth was surprised. Flowers, trees and acres upon acres of lush greenery were not the
sort of things she’d thought would interest him. But upon their arrival, Missy and James firmly in tow, she’d immediately understood why the viscount had chosen that particular venue.

  This was the sort of public place that offered privacy in the midst of a thriving metropolitan city like London. It made one think of the country.

  Large elms surrounded a picturesque flower garden directly in front of the palace where a good two dozen people strolled, the ladies holding their parasols in a death-like grip as if fearing mere word of the sun shining high in the sky would wreak havoc on their pristine white skin.

  Elizabeth peeked up at the viscount. They’d separated from Missy and James a minute ago and he’d been excessively quiet, not that she knew him well enough to make the observation, but somehow she just knew.

  “Are you, by any chance trying to read me, Miss Smith?” He spoke quietly enough to soothe a child to sleep or quite contrarily cause a woman to abandon every last one of her inhibitions to hear him speak to her again and again.

  She did not have the luxury of abandoning anything. With her reputation hovering on the precipice of respectability, mistakes would not be afforded her. Lady Danvers had seen to that.

  “You have been quiet. I was pondering at the cause.” She could be frank about this.

  The white of his teeth glinted like a pearl catching the ray of the sun as a smile tugged the corners of his mouth upward.

  Elizabeth was immediately short of breath. She wanted to remove her gloves. It had grown overly warm in the past minute.

  “And I was pondering the exact same thought about you.”

  He was right in that.

  “So tell me, Miss Smith, where is it you hail from? Cartwright has told me your father recently came into a barony and this is your first Season.”

  Personal questions, as inevitable as her next shaky breath, but how forthcoming could she be with him without him guessing the truth? This was a minefield she had to cross with pinpoint precision. One wrong step…