“Pah. It didn’t work. But I reckon you’re right. We’re apt to get caught. Louisa is talking about carrying a gun! I ask you, where can I conceal a gun in her evening gown? She wants pockets sewn into all her dresses! They’ll spoil the lines, and if Mr. Worth weren’t dead already, he’d kill himself when I mutilate his clothes. Maybe she should just marry this man in reality—I hear he gave Grace and Hugh terrific set-downs today.”
“‘Grace and Hugh’?” he mimicked. “Aren’t you a cheeky girl. Where’s your respect?”
She sniffed. Damn, her nose was just an adorable little button, covered with golden spots. Robbie stuck his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t give in to tweaking it.
“I don’t have any for the likes of them. So anyway, Robbie, I’m calling off our plan. We’ll just have to trust that Mrs. Evensong knows her business and the captain is a good man. After all, she brought you here to me, didn’t she? Cooper must have passed muster with her. She’s very thorough.”
“Aye, she is that.” And the woman knew a great deal about automobiles, too, for someone so elderly.
“So kiss me, then.”
Robbie had no objection. Some men might find Kathleen a bit too bossy, but when she ordered him to do what he wanted to do anyway, what was the difficulty?
She tasted of tea and peppermint. He’d skipped his own tea with the grooms and Hathorn, afraid to meet anyone’s eye. The stable was in an uproar over the screws, and Robbie felt some guilt, though it had all been for a good cause.
But Kathleen had abandoned it, and Robbie was perfectly willing to follow wherever she led him, as long as her next scheme was not as harebrained. He was a peaceful fellow at heart, and it was a relief not to be required to hit Captain Cooper anywhere else ever again. The man had suffered enough, losing an eye and being damned watchful with the one he had left. There was a weight to the man—oh, not physically, as Cooper was whippet-thin, but something rested heavily on his shoulders that was obvious to the grandson of a Scottish witch. Not that Robbie believed his old gran was really a witch, but she knew things and sometimes he thought he did, too.
Robbie knew, for example, that now that Mr. Hugh was home it was just as well Mrs. Lang was coming back tonight to lock the maids in. Robbie didn’t trust the man an inch. Kathleen had never said anything to confirm his suspicions, but he’d bet his next quarter’s salary that Hugh would try to interfere with one of the girls—or more than one—before too long.
Hugh might have an easy time of it. Robbie had turned down several offers while Kathleen was away. Some of the girls were no better than they should be, but he’d made a promise and he intended to keep it.
He held Kathleen tight against him, protecting her from the damp wind that swooped between the rocks. She could always count on him to protect her. The sooner they married, the better, because kisses like this were the beginning to his end. Robbie would go mad when she pranced off to the house to attend Louisa in her Worth gowns when she should be attending him—fixing his dinner on his little stove, sharing it, looking across the candlelit table with her hazel eyes twinkling at him. He’d help her wash up and take her straight to bed, though she’d probably want to read one of her romance books first. Robbie wasn’t against reading per se, but he could think of things he’d much rather do of an evening than read about imaginary people and their plights. Why waste time reading three hundred pages when the hero and the heroine were going to get into bed by the end anyway? Real people he knew had enough to contend with without borrowing fictional trouble.
Och, God. Her hand was slowly moving down his front and she would know how lost he was to her in about four more inches—ah. He felt her lips curl up in triumph under his, the little wench. He was just a man, a randy one at that. Robbie could get hard just thinking about her. Having her wiggling in his arms was pure torture when there wasn’t the time or the place to finish the job. Well, there was, for he probably wouldn’t last above a minute, but he wasn’t about to take her outside up against a cold, rough rock, no matter how tempted he was.
He took a couple steps backward and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “You’ve got to go before I forget myself.”
She grinned. “I can remember for the both of us.”
“Kat, don’t tease me so. You’ve got your duties, and I’ve got to pick up the old hag.”
“Mrs. Lang is in mourning, mind. Be nice.”
“Her mother must have been a hundred. Mrs. Lang is well past seventy.”
Kathleen straightened her lace-edged cap. “And she’s spent all her working years here at Rosemont. Imagine being in one place for your whole lifetime.”
“That’s not for me, Kathleen. I told you I want to better myself. Someday we’ll see the back of this place.”
“And what will we do?”
Robbie took her arm and they retraced their footsteps in the wet sand. “I’ll have my own garage. You’ll be home with the babies.”
Kathleen stopped. “The babies?”
“Aye. We’ll have as many as I can afford, and as I’m planning on being a very successful man, shall we say eight? But we’ll take what the good Lord gives us.”
“Eight children?” Kathleen shrieked over the wind. “Are you daft? I’ll be dead or deranged! No more than three, and then you’ll keep your trousers fastened if you know what’s good for you.”
Something went very still within him. “You’d deny me my rights?”
“You’d deny me mine? I don’t want eight babies. Or six. Or four. My mother had a dozen children. Only seven of them lived for any worthwhile length of time, and I saw what happened to her. Her hair was white at thirty, and she was dead by thirty-five.”
Robbie swallowed. He’d been careful, or as careful as he could be the too few times they’d done the deed. The thought of Kathleen’s glorious red hair white before its time was not a happy one. “There are ways—”
“Aye, and we’ll use them, every one. I’ve been to France and heard things, you know. I won’t wind up like my mother, no use to anyone. And if it means we have to exert some self-control when we marry, we’ll manage.”
“Kathleen, I’ve spent the last year managing.”
She gave him a saucy look. “See? Your hand hasn’t grown hair or fallen off.”
“Brat.” He supposed she made sense. What did he want eight children for? He wasn’t a farmer with fields to cultivate. But he’d spent the past year dreaming of spilling inside her as a man was supposed to do to avoid sin. As his church insisted, although he guessed the church wanted them married first. Damn, sin was everywhere and most inconvenient. “All right. But talk to Miss Louisa. I want to marry you. Soon.”
Kathleen stood up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I will. Thank you, Robbie, for understanding. You’re a good man.”
I’m an idiot, he thought as he watched her skip up the steps to the lawn.
But he was Kathleen’s idiot, and he didn’t think that was going to change.
Chapter
24
“Ch-Charles?”
Charles snatched his hand away and willed his pending orgasm away. It was a very, very near thing. He slapped a sea sponge over his penis and sat up, sloshing water on the tiles.
“Do you have need of the toilet? I’ll be out of the tub in a moment,” he said gruffly.
“I’m sorry I disturbed you. I didn’t know—the door wasn’t locked.”
“I must remember to lock it in the future.” God, how embarrassing was this, to be caught with his hand around his cock like some adolescent schoolboy. How long had she been standing there anyway? Long enough, judging from her bright pink cheeks. Even through his visual fog, he saw her well enough. She wore a wrinkled linen nightgown banded at the neckline and cuffs with lace. It was a modest garment, but she was as tempting to him as if she’d entered the room naked.
He’d imagined her nappin
g barefoot in her riding breeches, but this was better. She looked rested, the lavender smudges under her eyes fading. Charles wished he’d chosen to sleep rather than read or bathe. He was bone-weary and in agony thinking too much of what was not to be. For Christ’s sake, he’d asked this girl to marry him this afternoon! The blow to his head must have done more damage than he realized.
She was still standing there, making puffy little bunches in the fabric of her nightgown with her fingertips.
“Oh, what the hell,” she mumbled, then pulled the nightgown over her head.
“Louisa!” He was so shocked her name came out a croak. He closed his bad eye and gazed at her in open-mouthed wonder.
“I lied. I knew you were in here—I heard you splashing about. Moaning, too. You are rather noisy when you seek your satisfaction. It—it excited me. I couldn’t go back to sleep.”
Charles knew he must look like a landed fish, even though most of him was still underwater.
“May I join you in the bath? I’m not sure what can be accomplished, but I mean to try.”
“Louisa!” Monsieur Grenouille was still present, croaking away. Fish, frogs, and his own mermaid, with her rippled golden hair fresh from its braid.
“It is a large tub. I think my parents sometimes bathed together, shocking as it is to imagine one’s parents in flagrante delicto. They were very—spirited—together. Perhaps that’s why Aunt Grace disliked them so. I can’t see her bathing with my uncle, but they must have had intercourse at least once—there is Hugh to consider.”
Even croaking was beyond him now. Charles watched as she lifted a long white leg over the side of the tub. “Scoot back a bit, won’t you?”
Like a mindless drone, he slid back as far as he could go. The sun was setting, but he’d lit the lamps in the bathroom so he could shave off his afternoon stubble properly. Every smooth bit of her skin was visible. What he’d imagined last night in the firelit room could not even begin to compare with Louisa in the fading daylight. She had a faint sheen of silver-gilt hair on her arms and legs, the triangle between her legs a little darker. She sank down into the tub and they were knee to knee.
“I think there are hairpins in the soap dish. Could you pass them to me? My hair will never dry in time for dinner and Kathleen will be irritated with me.”
Hairpins? Soap dish? Did that mean he’d have to stop staring at her? He glanced down to the metal basket that was fixed to the lip of the tub. Sure enough, there were a few long hairpins in it. He fumbled at picking them up, then watched as she wound her waist-length hair into a loose coil and pinned it up.
No more mermaid. But her neck was long and elegant, marred only by the livid kiss he’d inflicted on her last night. He leaned toward her and swept his thumb across it. “Does it hurt?”
“Oh, no. But Kathleen was furious when she saw it. She seems to have taken against you.”
Charles had been perfectly polite to the redheaded maid as far as he could recall. He’d have to try harder to be as charming as Maximillian Norwich.
“What will she think when she comes up to help you dress for dinner and finds us in the tub together?”
“I’ve locked the door. Besides, I think she’s busy with Robertson. They really should get married.”
So should we. But he kept those unwanted words to himself. He’d only known her a couple of days, for God’s sake.
“Well, now what?” Louisa asked brightly.
“Wh-what do you mean?”
“I had trouble falling asleep, but once I made my decision, I slept well for the first time in ages.”
Charles’s heart gave an erratic lurch. Did this mean she accepted his proposal after all? “What decision?”
“I’ve decided it’s stupid not to make full use of you while you’re here. Who knows when I shall ever encounter such an honorable, attractive man again? I’m determined to be a spinster, you know. Isn’t that the awfulest word? One pictures crooked spectacles, the scent of mothballs, and bad hats. But there’s no reason I shouldn’t enjoy myself where I can. The rest of Rosemont can go hang, but I’ve got you for the month.”
“Awfulest is not a word,” Charles said repressively. So, she thought to “make full use” of him, did she? He was not a stud, nor was she a mare to be covered. He might want to lift her up from the water and plunge her down on his still rock-hard cock, but he had standards. He was hired to do a theatrical job, not to fornicate. She made him sound like some sort of male prostitute.
“Don’t talk grammar to me when we have so little time.”
Charles squashed the sponge more firmly on his aching cock. “Louisa, this is most unwise. Not to mention one would have to be very acrobatic to have intercourse in a bathtub.”
“I’m sure it can be done if we expend a little effort. Why, you need do nothing but sit there. I can climb on top of you and—”
“Louisa!”
She didn’t bat an eye or blanch, when any of his recruits would have recognized that tone and acted accordingly terrified. Louisa Stratton was not terrified. She gave him a seductive smile and actually batted her eyelashes at him. Had she been practicing in a mirror?
She was impossible. And irresistible. Hadn’t he been thinking of just such a thing when she waltzed in in her virginal nightgown? Of course in his fantasy, her hair was down, but she was right to be practical. One wouldn’t want to annoy one’s maid now, would one?
“The water is getting cold. We should be getting out.”
She swiveled behind her and turned on the tap.
“We’ll flood the house!”
“Don’t be such a worrywart. Rosemont must have fifty rooms. What’s one wet ceiling? Now, where were we?”
Charles grabbed hold of the edge of the tub and pulled himself up. “We were nowhere.” Unfortunately, he looked down at Louisa when he spoke, and saw that pink, pointed tongue at the corner of her lips through the blur of swirling black particles in his bad eye. Her mouth was almost at the level of his manhood, and every single one of his good intentions went down the bathtub drain.
Charles shut his eyes. “Louisa,” he begged.
He heard the squeak of the tap being turned off, then felt her hands grip his thighs. He caught himself before he fell back into the water. Gooseflesh now covered his body, but the cold didn’t seem to have any effect upon his rampant penis.
“I’m not sure I’m very good at this. I only tried it once and we were interrupted,” she said apologetically.
“Oh good Christ,” he growled. She never knew when to stop talking. The last thing he wanted to think of was Louisa Stratton pleasuring some other man with her luscious mouth.
She was his.
He shuddered at the first tentative lick, the blood in his groin alive with heat. She grew bolder and licked harder as he moaned all over again, taking him a little ways between her wide, expressive lips. Her mouth was warm, exquisite, and her unpracticed touches of tongue and teeth had him on knife-edge in seconds. Her lack of experience was the purest gift she could give him, but Charles simply could not spill like this no matter how generous she was.
“Louisa,” he rasped. He longed to be seated deep inside her, but that wouldn’t do, either. He pressed his fingers against her jaw and gently detached her. “You must let me keep some shredded semblance of being a gentleman. Give me the sponge, please.”
Her face showed no disgust, only innocent curiosity. Nodding, she fished the floating sponge out of the water and handed it to him. He slid down into the tub, protecting her from the spurt of his completion, the release so strong and swift it took his breath away.
Her brown eyes were wide, watchful, boring into the well-placed sponge. “Does it hurt when it—when it’s over? You look like you’re in agony.”
She was ridiculously adorable. For all that she had an alleged wicked reputation, it seemed she really knew very litt
le. “Did you not pay attention last night?”
“Not really.” Her blush deepened. “I was concentrating on myself. I think my eyes must have been closed. And it was dark.”
“It’s dark now.” The sky beyond the bathroom windows was slate gray, and Charles was pretty sure a star winked at him through the leaded glass. Was he in pain? Not physically, but his heart felt too big for his chest.
The water was getting cold again. Before he’d stepped into the tub, he’d lit the little brazier and arranged some towels on a nearby tufted bench, but the tiles held the chill. He reached for his eye patch atop the bath sheets and tied it back on, righting his world. Louisa sat across from him, her arms now crossed, depriving him of a clear view of her beautiful breasts.
“Let’s get out before we get into any more mischief. I’ll dry you off and you can face Kathleen.”
“That’s it?”
“Louisa, my dear, what would you have me do? I’ve disgraced myself and taken advantage of you. Kathleen is right to detest me.” He stood again and offered his hand.
She took it and climbed out of the tub. “No she isn’t.”
She stood still as he swathed her like a mummy. He squeezed her shoulders and brought her closer. “What you said. About us carrying on an affair while we’re here. I know you think it’s a good idea, an opportunity for discovery, if you like, but it may prove dangerous to us both.”
Louisa looked up at him. “Dangerous in what way?”
“For one thing, I could get you with child, even if we take precautions. Then we really would have to marry, and you say you don’t want that. And what kind of honor would I have to exchange sexual favors for money? For that’s what it comes down to, you know. I’m your employee. I’ve only just begun to make peace with myself. I—I haven’t liked myself in a very long while. If we continue this—whatever it is—I’ll be back in the dumps and grow to resent you.”
In the Arms of the Heiress (A LADIES UNLACED NOVEL) Page 18