The Heart of a Scoundrel

by Christi Caldwell

  He stepped inside and immediately located her. His body was attuned to her body’s nearness, as it had been from their exchange that moment beside her Captain Cook’s exhibit. She stood with her shoulder angled to him, pressed alongside the window with the curtain peeled back. For a moment he suspected she’d not heard his entry, but then she spoke in a tired tone that indicated she’d heard, and worse, didn’t care. “What do you want?”

  He shifted on his feet, feeling like a boy who’d been caught nipping some gent’s purse of coin. You. I want you. Only you.

  At his silence, her narrow shoulders stiffened, but she still did not turn to face him. “I suspect you’ve come to consummate our marriage.”

  One time, that would have been the most important, nay the only important, aspect of their relationship. He would rut himself to ecstasy between her sweet thighs. She would take him keening and crying with desire. They would have been sated. Now that was no longer enough. He wanted more of her than that quick coupling in Lord Essex’s garden. In ways he still did not fully understand, nor could piece together with his sullied spirit. No, despite her otherwise apt opinion, it was not what brought him here.

  Edmund tried to form words, but for some reason he could not coordinate the blasted movement between his brain, his mouth, and his heart. His fingers tightened reflexively about the edge of the tray. “I am sorry.” The words burst from him, explosive and harsh.

  At his gruff apology, Phoebe stiffened, but otherwise gave no indication that she cared. And why should she? The man he was, who’d never humbled himself after Margaret Dunn had made a fool of him on a field of honor, wanted to turn and run at being flayed open before Phoebe now.

  He tried again, gentling his tone. “I am sorry.” The man he was now would not let him leave. Those words still emerged gravelly and hardened, but then that is who he’d been for the better part of his life. He could not change who he was in all the ways he wished he could, not even for Phoebe.

  She wheeled slowly around to face him, but still she remained silent torturing him with the quiet. He slid his gaze to a point beyond her shoulder. “There have been women before you.” Lonely, miserable ladies as cynical and jaded as himself. Women trying to fill their own empty, meaningless lives. Edmund returned his gaze to her heart-shaped face. How had he once thought her plain? How had he not seen the fire of her spirit or the luxuriant auburn tresses that marked her as a very real Athena? “But I have not been with a woman since the moment I met you.” Initially, he’d been so preoccupied with his scheme involving Margaret Dunn’s niece and his quest for revenge. Now, he barely remembered there had been a woman named Margaret in his past. “And right now, all I know is I want you.” Only you. At his admission, Phoebe remained frozen, unblinking; those eyes that had once been a window into her soul and thoughts, this time blank. Her gaze alighted on the tray in his hands and then flew back to his face. Surprise lit her blue irises.

  He hastily set down the burden, feeling exposed by her silent scrutiny. To give his hands something to do with purpose, he picked up the book and held it aloft. “I brought you a book. For our wedding.” He winced, as the words left his mouth at how ineffectual a gift this was. An old book taken from his already existing library.

  She fluttered a hand about her breast and just touched the tips of her fingers to her chest.

  “It is merely a book that was already a part of my collection,” he felt compelled to point out. There were enough lies that he, at the very least, owed her the truth of this book’s origins. Edmund studied the gold lettering a moment and then held it out to her. “I thought you might like it.”

  They remained like that. He with his hand outstretched with the damned book in his hands, and she with her hand clasped to her chest. When she made no move to accept the offering, he forced his hand back to his side. He tossed the book down upon the tray where it landed with a thump. The silver clattered noisily, rattling the porcelain plate and silverware arranged by Cook. He dug deep and worked at hastily reconstructing the broken walls she’d shattered with her presence in his life. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said stiffly and made to go.

  “Don’t!” she called out. He stopped and shot a backward glance at her.

  Phoebe’s chest rose and fell with her slow, deliberate breaths. His gaze wandered lower and he proved himself the selfish bastard he’d always been, for he took in the exposed cream of her décolletage. A hungering to possess her slapped at him once more. When he forced his gaze away from the generous mounds of her flesh, he found her bold stare trained on him.

  “Don’t leave.” She wet her lips and then said, “Stay.”

  Chapter 19

  Stay. What madness was this in asking him to stay? He, the unrelenting, unforgiving Marquess of Rutland had come with an apology and a gift? She eyed him suspiciously. “Is this another of your games, Edmund?”

  He gave his head a brusque shake. “No game,” he said, the words a terse statement of fact.

  Phoebe took several tentative steps toward this stranger she was now wed to; a man she’d loved in error and folly. She came to a stop beside him and the tray he’d brought and glanced down at his offering. Her heart turned over. Which was really quite odd, when her heart had been so thoroughly broken and shattered, destroyed beyond repair. And yet, in this instance, staring down at John Britton’s Beauties of England and Wales, her heart felt very much alive. With hesitant fingers, she scooped up the book and ran them over the gilt lettering.

  “It is about England and Wales.” His gruff statement filled the silence.

  She lifted her eyes from the small volume. “I see that,” she murmured.

  “You’d spoken of traveling to Wales and—” He dragged a hand through his dark, unfashionably long locks. There was a faint tremble there hinting at his unease; this stoic, unflappable man became, just then, very human. “It is not new,” he rambled on. “As you can see. It should have been new,” he said under his breath. “At the very least it—”

  “It doesn’t have to be new and shiny and perfect to be a worthy gift, Edmund,” she said, pulling his offering close to her chest. He still did not understand. “It is not the outer piece that matters, but rather what is underneath. That is what matters.”

  A flush stained his cheeks as he clearly interpreted the words she meant for him to hear. Then he tugged at his lapels. “Yes, well—I will leave you to attend your meal and your reading, my lady.” My lady? She cocked her head while he backed away from her as though she were a viper poised to strike Then, on the heel of that was his earlier talk of women and their ties and ropes, and an ugly niggling played at the edges of her mind. “Are you going to one of your ladies?” She should be glad if he did and yet unwelcome jealousy twisted at her insides. Phoebe folded her arms close and tried to dull the pain of his inevitable betrayal. To no avail.

  Her words brought him to a slow halt. Edmund lowered his eyebrows and with slow, languid steps closed the distance he’d placed between them. “Would you like that?” There was a clipped harshness to his question that hinted at the truth—her words mattered to him in some way.

  Phoebe wanted to strike out at him. A flippant response formed, but then stuck in her throat. For all the lies and deception between them, it would break her in ways her mother had never been broken the day Edmund took a lover. Not for the shame that would come with that, but for what that said of the end of a dream she’d once had for them. She gave her head a jerky shake. “No. I would not like that.”

  With his open palm, he caressed her cheek. “You still do not know,” he whispered.

  She leaned into his touch, hating herself for her weakness, and hating him more for this hold he had upon her. “Kn-know what?”

  Edmund leaned down, so their lips were a hairsbreadth apart. The faintest trace of coffee and mint clung to him and she inhaled deeply of that sweet and potent scent and allowed it to fill her senses. He brushed his lips faintly over hers and she wanted to cry out at the fleetingness of
that exchange as he drew back. He folded his large hand over the nape of her neck and angled her head. “I only want you,” he said, his tone harsh, as though angry with himself and her for that admission.

  Her heart flipped unto itself and then he claimed her mouth under his in a hard, punishing kiss. Passion exploded between them as he slanted his lips over hers again and again. She moaned and with that slight parting of her lips, he thrust his tongue deep into her mouth. Her legs weakened, but he easily caught her to the hard wall of his chest, anchoring her against him, preventing her from dissolving into a puddle of nothing but hot sensation at his feet. He stroked her tongue with his and she met that determined movement, returning his kiss. There would be time enough for regrets later for surrendering to this—to him. For now, there were only this moment and them.

  Edmund swept her up and with long, quick strides carried her to the bed. As he laid her down, he broke contact with her lips, and she cried out, aching for his kiss. His thick, smoky black lashes swept low, but not before she saw the hot flare of desire in his chocolate brown eyes—desire for her. For everything that had come to pass between them, she exulted in this small sliver of power she had over him. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it to the floor where it landed with a noisy thump. Next came his snow white cravat. Phoebe propped herself up on her elbows. She should look away. Any polite, proper, and decent young lady would avert her gaze from the sight of man disrobing before her.

  Then, her wild abandon in Lord Essex’s gardens was proof that there was nothing polite, proper, or decent about her. Phoebe could no sooner tear her gaze away from Edmund as he pulled the white lawn shirt over his head, than she could slice off her smallest left finger. She was a wanton. There was nothing else for it. Edmund tossed his shirt atop the rapidly growing pile of clothes and climbed on the bed, prowling forward much like that sleek, black panther, forever frozen at the oddities shop, back when the world had been right for her and Edmund. Except this man, who now guided her up and set to work unfastening each tiny button along the length of her back. would never be so weak as to be trapped. Not like that poor panther. Edmund, with his strength and power, could reign over even the strongest of those jungle creatures. He slid button after button free of its delicate eyehole. Then the cool air slapped her back through the thin, flimsy fabric of her chemise.

  “So beautiful,” he whispered, placing his lips to each inch of skin he exposed.

  Tingling shivers of awareness shot down her spine and she arched her neck. “N-no,” she managed to rasp out. “Th-there doesn’t have to be lies in this. Let this be the one h-honest thing between us.” She at the very least wanted this of him. He dragged her hand to his lips and pressed a firm kiss to her wrist, and then placed it on his chest. The rapid pounding beat of his heart thumped beneath her fingers; a testament to his need for her. “My heart does not lie.” Not in this. Just in the ways that mattered. As though sensing the bitter path her thoughts had pulled her down, he claimed her lips once more. There was nothing gentle or apologetic about this kiss. It was a man branding a woman as his, and she pressed herself against him, taking his mouth with an equal intensity, marking him as hers. If just for this moment.

  A breathless moan escaped her as he expertly slid the gown downward, moving it past her legs, and leaving her in nothing but her undergarments. That moan became a sharp cry when, through the fabric of her chemise, he cupped her right breast. As he weighed that round flesh in his palm, her head fell back and she gave herself up to the sensation. He captured the swollen peak between his thumb and forefinger and teased the sensitive flesh. Pleasure ran through her and she shot her quaking fingers to his head and gripped his long, dark hair and held him to her. Edmund continued to tease at the tip until a scorching heat spiraled through her and pooled at the juncture of her thighs, filling her with such hunger she’d go mad if he didn’t alleviate the empty ache within.

  Phoebe groaned in protest when he pulled away. The tense set of his mouth and the agony reflected in his eyes might as well have been a mirror into this desperate hunger she herself now knew. “From the moment I met you, I longed to have you naked, with your hair draped about our entwined limbs,” he whispered, and disentangled one hair comb from her intricately arranged hair.

  “S-surely not the first moment.” After all, their first meeting had been born on the wings of a lie.

  “Yes, the first.” He tossed it to the nightstand and then paused to run his gaze over her face. “I just didn’t realize it.” He reached for the other gold comb and freed her hair.

  Yet this was not the first time they’d join their bodies as one. “B-but you already had me.”

  “Not like this, Phoebe,” he said, his gravelly voice, harsh with desire? Regret? Surely he was incapable of that sentiment.

  *

  She’d deserved her first moment to be made more than that quick coupling in Lord Essex’s gardens. Edmund swept his lashes low. Yes, that time could not be undone… but he would take his time loving her and learning every contour of her delicate frame.

  Phoebe’s auburn tresses tumbled in a shimmering cascade about her naked shoulders and the sight of her, an olive-skinned, lithe beauty to rival those spiteful Greek goddesses, stirred his emotions. Never before and never again would he hunger for a woman more than he did her. His ears filled with the raggedness of his own breath and hers as they joined their hands as one.

  With an almost physical pain at his body’s surging awareness of her, he ran a hand down the satiny smoothness of her forearm, lower and lower. With sure movements, he enfolded her hand in his and slid his fingers into hers so they were joined in unison—interlocked in ways he’d never before been. His vision was transfixed by the sight of the union of their hands, her fingers graceful, long, and delicate and his hard, dark, and scarred—an unlikely pairing—and somehow all the more perfect for it.

  The muscles of his throat moved in a reflexive swallow. Until Phoebe, he’d never bothered to hold a woman’s hand in bed. There had been no need. Nothing but a mindless, soulless desire had driven his past. Until now. Until her hand. Her fingers.

  “What is it?” Phoebe’s hoarse question brought him to the moment.

  He gave his head a shake and raised her fingertips to his lips. “You are perfect,” he said again. With swift, sure movements he removed her chemise and the remainder of her undergarments. For every woman who’d come before her melted away into a faceless, nebulous shape so all he saw, all he wanted to see, was Phoebe.

  Her cheeks pinkened under his stare. “You no doubt say that to ev—”

  Edmund crushed her lips under his once more, swallowing those words, willing her to feel the truth, when her mind could not believe it. In one fluid movement, he laid her down and came over her. He reached between them and teased the damp auburn curls that shielded her womanhood.

  Her hips arched off the bed. “Edmund,” she gasped and bucked into his touch.

  She might despise him for his crimes against her, but her body hungered for his. That would be enough. It had to be. “Do you want this, Phoebe?” he reveled in her panting, raspy moans of desire. He teased her pleasure nub until she cried out. “Tell me,” he demanded harshly, pressing the heel of his hand into her. “I do,” she moaned, her hips arching back, seeking, searching.

  Edmund drew his hand back to her sharp cry of protestation, but moved slowly down her body. He dragged his mouth over hers, trailing kisses down her neck, lower.

  Phoebe shot her hands out and clasped her fingers in his hair. With a wanton urging that sent blood racing to his shaft, she dragged his head to her right breast. He hovered with his mouth poised over her soft skin, gleaming with moisture. “Do you want my mouth on you here, Phoebe?” he whispered and brushed a faint kiss over her nipple.

  Her thick lashes fluttered open. “I do,” she rasped.

  Masculine triumph ran through him and he darted his tongue out teasingly and, to her cry of protest, he continued lower. He lowered his face b
etween her thighs.

  She came up on her elbows. “Wh-what are you doing—?” Her words ended on a shattered scream and she fell back on the bed, as he pressed his mouth to her core.

  Edmund slipped his tongue inside and caressed her, laving her hot, throbbing center until she thrashed her head wildly upon the pillow. The taste of her sweet and more potent than any spirit he’d consumed drove him to the edge of madness. He pushed his tongue deep inside, working her until she pumped her hips toward his mouth in swift, jerky movements that indicated she was nearing that point of her body’s surrender. Edmund drew back. “Please,” she begged and ran her fingers down his back in a bid to pull him close, but in a frantic need to free himself, he shoved off his breeches and kicked them over the bed.

  Her lips parted on a soft moue and with that softening, he drew her up, flush to his frame. A harsh groan escaped him, broken and shattered at the burn of her satiny soft skin against his. With an ache to feel her hand upon him, he drew her small palm to his chest.

  She toyed with the mat of hair on his chest and then the same bold woman who’d danced away from Society’s reach at Lord Essex’s rubbed the flat circle of his nipple.

  He hissed and she picked her head up. “Did I hurt you?” Several lines creased her brow.

  In response, Edmund took her hand and brought it lower, guided it down to the burgeoning member that stood out in reach for her. He paused and studied her; aching to know her touch on his naked flesh, without the barrier of cloth between them this time. But he’d not take his own pleasure at the expense of her uncertainty.

  The air left him on a swift exhale as Phoebe stroked the head of his shaft. She looked up quickly, as though to ascertain whether she’d caused him more than this pleasure-pain, and then swiftly returned her attention to exploring the size and feel of him. She ran the tip of her index finger up and down the length of him; that feathery, light caress an exotic torture he’d have given his entire landholdings, his title, and every material possession to forever know. And since he’d already consigned himself to Hell for many sins before this, with his hand, he guided hers about his hardened member and showed her the slow, up and down rhythm.