Then the man moved toward her, and she recognized him. Relief flowed through her. Stepping forward, she took his hands. “Ian! I have been blessed in my cousin once more. Won’t you direct me to the west wing? I’m abashed to say I’m lost.”
She smiled up at him, this nice cousin of hers, but for once, he didn’t smile back. He just stood, head cocked, and watched her with all the astringency of seawater.
“Ian?”
“I thought I told you not to let anyone know about your housekeeping.”
“I haven’t told anyone,” she protested.
Freeing his hand, he jerked the mobcap from her head and held it in front of her face. “This is as good as a confessional. And your hair!” He started snatching pins out of the bun at the back. “What a monstrous coiffure for one of the devastating Fairchilds.”
For a moment she didn’t understand why he was acting so brusquely. Then she realized—he was teasing her. Just so had Hadden behaved when they were younger and more carefree. With a light laugh, she grabbed his wrist. “Stop! You’ll make me look like a serving maid coming back from an assignation in the stables.”
“Yes.” He stared at her with those big brown eyes and dropped the pins on the floor. “Better. But there’s still this.”
Putting his hands on her waist, he pulled her toward him. She didn’t struggle immediately, because she didn’t comprehend immediately. When he put his lips on hers, she yanked her head away. “Ian, what do you think you’re doing?” In her tone, she heard the echo of her housekeeping authority.
“Shh.” He wrapped one arm around her. “I’m debauching you.”
He kissed her again. It should have been a nice kiss, she supposed, coming from a nice man, but he didn’t know what he was doing. He fumbled with the buttons at the front of her gown, and she heard the pops as thread broke. He made stupid little noises in the back of his throat—they reminded her of a whimpering puppy—and he ground his lips on hers too roughly.
She bit his tongue to get his attention.
He jerked back, hand over his own mouth this time, and his outraged expression made her sputter with condescending laughter. “Well, really, Ian, what did you expect? I’m your cousin!”
He brought his hand down and stared at it. “Blood. You drew blood.”
“And likely to do it again if you don’t release me.”
This time she didn’t use her housekeeperly tone. This time she used her sharpest big-sister tone, and he dropped his hands away so quickly, she might have announced she had the galloping clap.
Exasperated, she put her hands on her hips. “What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing.” His face turned a dull red, and he mumbled just like Hadden when he was hiding something.
“Your sanity seemed intact last night, so I can’t believe you’ve run mad. Are you ill?”
“No.”
He tried to wiggle away from her, but she placed her palm flat on his forehead. “You are a little warm.”
“I’m well.” He was still mumbling, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“You go to bed right now. I’ll send Jill down to the kitchen to order you a posset. You drink it and sleep, and see if you don’t feel better when you wake.” She shook her head. “You young men are always trying to push your endurance to the limits.”
Ian straightened. “I’m older than you are!”
“Then act like it!” She seized her mobcap off the floor. “Now, how do I get to the west wing?”
He couldn’t wait to tell her, and she couldn’t wait to go. As she strode toward her room, she vacillated between wanting to box Ian’s ears and demanding just what he thought he was doing.
Every man who’d stuck his nose into her business lately—and barring this brief event, that man had been Sebastian—every man had been demanding something. Something like loyalty. Honor. Integrity.
Or else he’d been intent on teaching her something. Desire. Passion. Emotion. Any kind of emotion.
Well, Mary had taught herself loyalty, honor, and integrity in the past ten years, and no one had had to teach her emotion. She was Guinevere Fairchild, too, and Guinevere understood emotion in a way that cold, imperious Sebastian could never comprehend.
Right now, emotion roiled through her. Frustration at not discovering the diary thief. Disdain for Ian’s audacity in thinking he could use her as a substitute because he’d failed in some romantic tryst. And fury at Sebastian because…because he was Sebastian.
“Miss Fairchild.” Jill waved frantically at her from an open door.
Mary marched toward her. “Is this my chamber?”
“Yes, but I have to tell you—” Jill pointed inside, but when she got a good look at Mary, her eyes bulged. “Miss Fairchild, what happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your hair’s all down. Your dress is all jumbly.” Jill flicked a button and it fell off and rolled away. Now she sounded like the big sister. “Your lips…they’re swollen!” She put her hands on her hips. “Some man tried to force his attentions on you, didn’t he? I told you not to wander the halls by yourself. It’s not safe for an attractive heiress.”
Irritation bubbled in Mary. She shouldn’t be upset with Jill, the girl meant it all for the best, but right now she wasn’t in the mood to have her shortcomings cataloged. “It was just a mistake. Now, listen, Jill, I need you to go down to the kitchen and get a posset sent to Mr. Ian.”
Jill’s voice squeaked high and loud with indignation. “Mr. Ian did this?”
“Sh.” Mary glanced up and down the corridors. No one was in sight, but she’d rather this incident remain a secret. No good could come if Sebas—Mary stopped herself short.
Why should she care what Sebastian thought? She didn’t, but still…no good could come if word of Ian’s attempt became common knowledge. Some men, especially men who openly admitted to despising Fairchilds, might find this a suspicious incident.
“Mr. Ian’s ill,” Mary said quietly. “He’ll be better soon and we’ll be good friends again, but not until he—” She took a deep, exasperated breath. “Mr. Ian is a lovely man, just rather confused right now. And ill. I’m sure he’s ill. He needs that posset.”
Jill didn’t move off. Instead she stood, mouth working, until Mary made shooing gestures. “Go on. Do as you’re told.”
Mary pushed open the door of her bedchamber, and she heard the click of Jill’s teeth as her mouth snapped shut.
“But, Miss Fairchild, I have to tell you—”
Mary stepped inside the room, and the door slammed behind her. She whirled around, but she didn’t need to hear that deep voice or see his stolid form to know Sebastian stood there, arms folded.
“She wanted to tell you that I waited for you. And I want to tell you”—he stepped forward and picked up a lock of her loosened hair—“that you are, without a doubt, the most treacherous Fairchild ever born.”
Chapter 17
Mary had had a very difficult morning. She had been called a murderess and threatened with extortion. She had seen her plan to foil the diary’s thief ruined by the prospect of too many suspects. She had been roughly handled by the one cousin she held in great esteem. Now a seething, accusatory Sebastian leaned against the door in her bedchamber, glaring at her as if she were the lowest of vermin.
But she, who had so vigilantly maintained her calm against insolent servants and brazen noblemen, would remain in control.
“What are you doing in my chamber?” Her voice came out louder than she intended it to, and she took several deep breaths to calm herself.
“I came to tell you I trusted you enough to let you open the safe.” Sebastian laughed briefly, bitterly. “Instead, I discovered your uncle Leslie was right about you.”
She didn’t ask what Sebastian meant by that. She didn’t have to. Whatever Uncle Leslie had said, it had been slander. “You fool.”
He staggered as if she had put a bullet in him, and recovered immediately. “I am a fool.
I’ve watched the men circle you and comforted myself when you didn’t encourage them. I’ve brooded over your affection for your cousin and assured myself it was pure.” She’d left the key in the lock this morning, and he turned it with all the ceremony of a magician who had made the world disappear. “But even fools know how to find revenge.”
He paced toward her, and she discovered she had brought her fists up to her waist.
She tried to unclench them.
She couldn’t.
How long had this man stalked her? From the moment he’d seen her with the blood on her hands, he’d haunted her dreams. And on that evening in Lady Valéry’s study, she’d discovered her imagined dreads were not half as formidable as the reality of him.
Now he had the nerve to insinuate she was to blame for the men’s attentions, for Ian’s attack. And she, who had readily accepted blame for so much, knew herself innocent.
He reached out for her and she knocked his hands away with her knuckles. “Don’t you touch me!”
Swift as a striking asp, he grabbed her wrists. “I’ll touch you as I please.”
She saw nothing more than an impression of tan skin, bared teeth, and flaming eyes. With the ugly bruises still marring his cheek, he looked like the Devil himself, but she’d feared this Devil for too long. Now she found herself responding with a blast of her own flame. “You have no right to judge me, either.”
“There is no one better to judge you.” He pulled her toward him. “And find you guilty and execute your sentence.”
Did he refer to Besseborough’s murder?
Did she care?
Shreds of self-control peeled away from her. She sensed them go; it almost felt like liberation. “Another injustice done to an English working woman.”
“You’re not a working woman.” He moved her arms behind her back, then stepped in close to her body.
Too much intimacy. Too much pure, physical awareness.
“Or at least—not at an honorable profession.”
But if she stood very still, perhaps she could retain her dignity. She knew what he thought. She also knew the truth. If she were angry enough to be stupid, she might fling his accusations back at him. She might defy him out of sheer stubbornness, but heat radiated off of him. Danger lurked in the thrust of his chin and the power of his muscles. She had to tell him what she’d been doing, and she had to make him listen, because if she didn’t, he’d be his usual ironheaded self and try to…to…
“I’ve been doing what you commanded me to do.” She didn’t sound conciliatory, but then, she didn’t feel conciliatory.
“I asked you to keep attention away from me while I searched for the diary.”
“You commanded me to help you find the diary.”
He snickered, quick and cruel. “I had heard you already knew where it was.”
“What are you talking about? In Scotland you demanded I help find the diary.” She twisted against his grip, ignoring the pain of wrenched joints in favor of bravado. “I’ve been doing that. I’ve been down in the kitchen questioning the servants.”
“Why? You already know where the diary resides.”
“You are insane.” She was sure of it now. “Every morning I’ve been rising before dawn and—”
“Meeting your cousin Ian for a quick romp.”
Incandescent with rage, she said, “You ass!”
“You called me an ass.” He mocked her. “Aren’t you going to pretend a spasm of guilt?”
At the ball, she hadn’t pretended guilt when she’d called him an ass. She’d experienced guilt. But now she exulted in her new freedom.
The event she had feared for so many years had just happened. Guinevere Fairchild had rejoined Mary Rottenson.
And she—Mary or Guinevere or whoever she was—didn’t care. “Two truths exist here in this chamber—the truth I speak, and the truth about what you are.”
He laughed.
The ass laughed. He didn’t act insulted. He even had the nerve to relax, as if she’d pleased him with her inappropriate, rude remark.
“You are everything I thought you could be.” Fiercely elated, he walked her backward, directing her with his body, his clasp on her arms. “Except honorable, of course, but right now your duplicity frees me to do as I please.”
“And when you find out you’re wrong?”
“I’m never wrong.” He sounded as if he believed it. “You just proved that with your wantonness.”
Her skin felt hot, like the time she’d thoughtlessly remained in the sun and it had blistered her, and she knew how red she must be. “Let go of my hands.”
“So you can hit me with another silver cover? If I were you, I wouldn’t hope for that.”
They reached the wall, and he pressed her against it, leaning on her as if he needed support. This intimacy brought a low burn in her belly, and she recognized it as wrath. “You’re hurting my arms,” she said craftily, and when he released her, she boxed his ears.
He staggered back, clutching his head.
She used a precious moment to taunt him. “I don’t need a silver cover.” She darted around him.
He grabbed her skirt and swung her in a circle, aiming her at the corner. Momentum propelled her. She caught herself against the wall before she could slam into it. He dove at her from behind and pushed. She found herself trapped in the corner. Her cheek and palms rested on the cool wall. Her breasts and stomach were pressed flat by the pressure of his body behind. She tried to wiggle away. He just leaned harder. She tried to collapse to the ground. He shoved his knee between hers. She tried to turn her head. It only moved so far.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him.
He wasn’t smiling. She thought he would be. One of his cruel smiles, perhaps. Or a triumphant one. Certainly a mocking smile. Instead he looked serious, intent, as if he’d just been given a project and resolved to give it all his attention.
She would have preferred one of his smiles. Any of his smiles.
“You can’t do this.” Fatuous, she railed at herself. Inadequate.
He leaned very close. “I can. And I’ll do it well.” His breath warmed one of her cheeks. The paneled wall remained cool against the other. She could see the long, flat surface stretching beyond and the grain of the dark wood. She could see another corner, another wall, and somewhere along that wall she knew the door existed.
That exit might as well have been on the continent for all the good it did her.
“Let me go!” She tried to use her elbows on him, but they wouldn’t reach. Using all her weight, she dropped, trying to land on his intruding leg hard enough to break his constraint, but her petticoats protected both him and her from injury.
Instead, he said, “Do that again. You might come to like it.”
“Oh!” She slapped her palms against the wall in frustration.
“Really.” He tugged at her skirt. “I insist.”
Her petticoats slid upward along her stockings until they reached the garter tied at her knee. The ruffles tickled her skin as they slid up her thigh. She hoped, she prayed, that he would stop short of uncovering her to the light of day, for she wore nothing to cover her bareness. She’d heard some immodest females of the haut ton enticed men by hiding their privates under newfangled drawers, but Mary was a decent woman—and in a moment she was going to be indecently uncovered.
As the fresh air fanned her, she realized her hopes had come to naught. She was naked as a babe, and he sighed as he caressed her nether cheeks. “Lovely,” he whispered close to her ear.
She snapped her head back, hoping to smack his face, but he swayed sideways in time. She tried to skitter away while he was off-balance, but he thwarted her before she’d taken a step.
“You’ve taught me to respect your fighting skills.” He tugged at her waist as if he could rip the clothes off through her flesh. “I’m not a man who easily forgets such a lesson.”
She had a flash of wondering if madness had truly overtaken
him, but she should have known he would never be so irrational. Instead, her petticoats dropped to the floor, and she realized he’d worked to untie the tapes.
She burned with humiliation to have him see her in such a position. The back of her wool skirt frothed around her waist, spilling over to the front, and Mary tried to thrust it back into place, to take control of this out-of-control situation. He just ignored her, his hands molding her.
Infuriated, Guinevere cursed in outrage, using words Mary was sure she didn’t know.
“Such language.” Warm breath rushed across the nape of her neck. “You shock me, Guinevere Mary.”
So he recognized the foolish girl had returned. Mary feared he would use that advantage just as ruthlessly as he used the advantages of position and strength.
He moved his leg up, spreading her until she rode his thigh. “Lean forward.” He coaxed her with his voice and his hands. “Move with me.”
He seemed to understand her reflexes well, for he tilted her until the pressure of his leg created tremors in her nerves. In her nerves, in the nerves of Lady Valéry’s hitherto imperturbable housekeeper. She set her teeth. He rocked her, carefully, gently, handling her as if she were precious to him. Well, she wouldn’t beg him to stop, no matter how he annoyed her.
Nor would she give vent to the little snippets of sound that wanted to escape. She stood on her toes, trying to evade the inescapable responses, but tension began to build in the base of her belly.
“That feels good to you.” The man had the audacity to report her reactions. His fingers traveled beneath her skirt until they reached the front where the triangle of hair grew. “Do you like it if I do this, too?”
He pressed firmly.
She yelped.
“Too much?” He eased the pressure.
That didn’t help. She leaned her forehead against the wall to hide her incipit tears. He forced her to move until her knees shook; she glided fully onto his leg. He forced her to feel too much. He didn’t allow her to retreat, and now, now…Her hands curled against the wall, trying to grab something when there was nothing to grab. She shuddered, passion breaking from her in waves.
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