Bridal Favors

by Connie Brockway

  Somehow his shirt had come off and her hands were pressed against a chest as satin-smooth as Italian marble. He pressed a kiss on her brow and slowly, tenderly, sweetly, trailed it down her cheek. He was going to kiss her lips. . . .

  A crash brought Evelyn rudely awake.

  She lurched to her feet as a man’s voice rained curses outside the room. Confused, still half asleep, she groped for the door handle and stumbled into the dark corridor. The library door swung open and a tall figure in a ghostly white shirt bowled straight into her. She cried out and he grabbed her arms, steadying her.

  “Evie, are you all right?” His voice was tense, having lost its usual insouciance. He gave her a little shake. “Are you all right? Evie!”

  She steadied herself with her hands splayed against his chest. “Yes, yes, of course I am.”

  His hands raced over her face and down her torso with even more outrageous impropriety than usual, but before she could react he stepped away and with a short, “Wait here,” he quickly disappeared out the front door.

  From outside she heard the sudden sound of a man’s shout followed by the thunder of a horse’s hooves. Her heart raced. Had the house been broken into? Had something been stolen? A second later, a dark figure reappeared beside her and Justin turned up the lights in the hall sconces. He peered at her intently. What he saw must have relieved him, for he released a deep breath.

  “Good heavens, Justin,” she whispered, pushing her spectacles up her nose. His hair fell over his brow and the top buttons of his shirt were missing, the throat gaping open well below the sternum. She tried, and failed, to keep her gaze from that wholly masculine expanse. “Were we robbed?” she whispered.

  “No.” He shook his head. “I came in and caught him before he got away with anything.”

  “But you’re not hurt?” she asked.

  “I’m fine. Absolutely fine.”

  Her relief gave way to a burgeoning awareness of him. His masculinity. His athleticism. Dark swirls of hair covered heavy shelves of pectoral muscle in a V, narrowing to a line that disappeared beneath the rest of his shirt. And he was dense and hard, like a well-toned animal, but not like stone. Nothing at all like stone.

  He took a step closer, gathering both of her wrists in one of his hands and pulling them flat against his heart. It thundered, vibrating through her palms, spurring her own pulse. Shivers trembled through her limbs.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” he demanded. “You’re shaking like a wet dog.”

  She couldn’t move her hands, so instead she patted him awkwardly with her fingertips. “Yes,” she said shakily. “I was dreaming and I thought I heard you cry out. . . .”

  He said, “I was in the library when the lights went off. I saw a figure run out of the room and ran after him, only it seems I ran into you. Did you see him?”

  “No.” She frowned. “Was it a burglar, do you think? Shouldn’t we alert Merry and Beverly and send for the—”

  “It’s all right, Evie,” Justin said soothingly. “I’ll get Beverly to join me in a look ’round but I doubt we’ll find our man had an accomplice. I saw the man mount a horse he’d obviously tied earlier to the bushes and ride off. There wasn’t another. Poor sort of chappie he’d be to make his cohort go afoot when he came astride.”

  “But shouldn’t we send for someone? Maybe they could track him to his . . . his lair?” Evelyn suggested, the idea of a culprit getting away offending her sense of justice.

  A gleam of amusement had entered Justin’s eyes. “In the dark? And him with a lead. I’m afraid he’s gotten away, Evie. For now. We’ll see what daylight brings.”

  He relaxed. “Probably some poor chap carrying more liquor than sense thought to pinch a bit of silver,” he said. He let go of one hand and reached up, capturing a lock of her hair and testing it between thumb and forefinger. It must have come down while she slept. It would look a fright, twisting about her shoulders like witch locks.

  He coiled it about his finger, then slid it free, releasing a perfect bouncing little corkscrew. “Pretty.”

  Awareness simmered along her nerve endings, pulsing in her lips and fingertips, working their way to other places, long-neglected places.

  Once awoken, dormant passions were not easily driven back into subjugation. But Evelyn tried. She couldn’t risk misreading the situation and looking like a pathetic fool.

  “However,” she began, trying to sound like the sensible, unflappable Evelyn Cummings Whyte she knew herself to be. “However, if a London thief got wind of Mrs. Vandervoort’s wedding plans, he might see a trip here as potentially worthwhile.”

  “Very true,” Justin agreed distractedly. “You are, as always, entirely logical.”

  “I shall have to warn Mrs. Vandervoort. Perhaps she can hire some private guards.”

  The gaze that had been fixed thoughtfully on her hair snapped to meet hers. He really had the most beautiful eyes. “Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  “Oh?” she whispered. She was having a hard time attending to what he was saying with him standing so close, his gaze fixed on where her hands were spread against his bare chest.

  The shadows cast by the gaslight cut the contours of his face into sharp relief. He didn’t look like a dilettante or idler anymore. The angle of his jaw was too uncompromising, the shape of his nose too autocratic; even the hollows beneath his cheeks, hollows she never noted in daylight, looked worn bone-deep.

  “Why did you leave the army?” The question surprised her even more than him.

  He lifted one brow. “You’ve been talking to Beverly.”

  She wasn’t going to tattle on Beverly. “I remember when you were at our house for Verity’s coming-out, my mother wondered why you’d left Her Majesty’s service. And seeing you now . . . I was reminded of a soldier.”

  That brokered a laugh from him. “God help the country if I’m an example of what’s keeping our shores safe.”

  “I don’t know. You look capable to me.” At this, the corner of his mouth lifted. She flushed. “Why did you leave?”

  “I had a better offer.” He seemed amused.

  From Mrs. Underhill? It was only a few months after he’d left the army that she’d found him coming out of the diplomat’s wife’s bedroom. “But—”

  He tipped her chin up with his fingers and pressed his thumb to her lips. “No more questions. Not tonight. I can’t think how to answer them.”

  What an odd thing to say, and why was he looking at her like that, so rueful and apologetic? A gaze that was fixed on her mouth. Or was it hers that was fixed on his? The full curve, the small dark line of . . . blood.

  “What happened to your lip?” She glanced away, despising her knee-jerk aversion. But he saw it. And it was that, finally, that broke whatever strange spell held them. He released her wrists, stepped back, and wrenched his shirttails free, using the end to dab at his lip. “Gads, I am sorry, Evie. Forgot I had this.”

  Her eyes widened. In holding up his shirttails, he’d exposed his stomach. Oh, my! She’d never seen a man’s naked stomach before. It was beautiful. At least his was.

  A shallow valley separated the abductor muscles that bunched as he bent forward. The dark V of hair that had narrowed beneath his shirt grew even thicker before it disappeared under his waistband.

  Her breathing grew shallow. Fascinating. And provocative. Entirely. And mysteriously, wholly masculine.

  He shoved his shirttails back into his pants, casually fastening up a few of the undone buttons on his shirt. But not all of them. Happily.

  Stop it! She had to stop thinking in one-word sentences. She wasn’t an idiot. She was an intelligent woman, not some uncouth female operating on a sexually primordial level.

  Hopefully.

  “You are hurt!” She forced herself to look him in the eye. “And don’t tell me you cut your lip opening a crate. And why were you opening it so late at night?”

  She simply loved the way his smile started in his ey
es and turned up one corner of his lip before the other, making his smile a little lop-sided, a bit chagrinned, and entirely appealing.

  “Those lids are devils to get up.”

  “Yes?” she prompted.

  “Well, it’s not a very manly thing to admit, but after trying every other means, I finally stuck an old crowbar under the lid and heaved down on it. The drat lid splintered and I fell and, well, bit my lip.”

  He wasn’t going to admit the burglar and he had fought. He would hate to be fussed over. So, she let it go.

  “What is it with you and my crates, anyway?” she teased. She was relaxing now. The odd undercurrents she’d sensed must have been leftover bits of her dream, unsettling but essentially meaningless. She was all right now. “It seems every time a shipment comes, you’re the first to open them. Do you have a mania for all crates, Justin, or just mine?”

  He stared at her blankly. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

  She shook her head. “Must be my imagination,” she said. “Now, bend down and let me look at that cut.”

  She nearly laughed at his reluctant expression. “I’m all right. I promise not to faint. It’s my blood I can’t stand to see.”

  “Most understandable.”

  Gently, she cupped his cheek, and as she touched him her heartbeat tripped over itself in its haste to mock her recent declaration of self-possession. His beard abraded her palm. The rise and fall of his chest fascinated and beguiled. He edged closer.

  “Will I live, do you think?” he asked. Though his voice had gone lazy and warm as melted candle wax, there was nothing in the least casual about his gaze. He looked hungry and cautious and determined, like a man approaching the enemy’s banquet table with a drawn sword in his hand.

  “Well?” His voice was a seductive lure, a low caress.

  She swallowed, retreating an inch. He followed three. “No one dies from a split lip.”

  She’d startled him, doused the fire that had been kindling in his eyes, and brought self-mockery flooding back into his expression. He laughed.

  “Are you always so truthful?”

  She should be relieved, not disappointed. “Mostly.”

  “Why are you?”

  “If you tell people the truth, they learn to be careful what questions they ask.”

  Once more he laughed. “Begads, you have more defenses than any woman I know.”

  “Defenses?” she asked indignantly. “That’s preposterous. What do I need to defend myself against?”

  “Me, I suppose,” he suggested, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Ha! I’m afraid this time you’ve outmatched your own vanity, Justin.” She sniffed. “Why, you probably think every woman you meet dreams about you.”

  His expression grew interested. “Do you? Did you?”

  “No!”

  He smiled lazily. “Liar.”

  “Peacock!”

  “Coward.”

  “Swaggerer!”

  “Owlet.”

  “Moose!”

  He burst into laughter, chucking her chin as if she were a crabby little girl who needed cajoling, and making her unaccountably irate. She slapped his hand away. Had she actually been thinking about kissing him? She’d rather kiss Mr. Blumfield’s pony.

  “That’s what I like most about you, Evie, your scintillating wit. A veritable tour de force of the English language. What descriptive term will you next grace me with? Cow dung?”

  Amazingly, she giggled. Her hand flew to cover her lips as if she weren’t sure where the sound had come from. And she wasn’t. She never giggled. Not since childhood.

  “Are you still angry with me?” Though he asked easily enough, his gaze was watchful.

  She sighed in overblown exasperation. “It’s too much trouble staying irritated with you, Justin Powell.”

  He sketched an overexaggerated court bow. “I am profoundly in your debt, madam.”

  “Again? I’m thrilled. Do you have any other abbeys I might put to use?”

  She smiled cheekily and heard him catch his breath. He took a single step toward her and then, as though recollecting himself, deposited a brief kiss on his fingertip and tapped it against her mouth.

  “Nope,” he said. “You’ve seen the extent of my ecclesiastical holdings. Now, you’d best find your bed, Evie, my dear. I’ll wait here a bit and see if our intruder returns, though I doubt he will.”

  “I’ll stay and keep you company, then.”

  “No,” he said quickly. “You need your sleep. Much to do around here yet, and Mrs. Vandervoort’s wedding celebration deserves your wakeful best. Besides, it’s late.”

  She frowned, unwilling to leave him. “It’s not that late.”

  He laughed, the sound a little mocking, and, turning her by the shoulders, gave her a gentle push. “Oh, my dear, not only is it that late, it’s too late.”

  At the far end of the hall, standing across from each other on opposite sides of the corridor, two figures dressed in night apparel peered at the unfolding tableau with equally interested eyes. They spotted one another at the same moment and withdrew to their respective corners, each listening until they’d heard Evelyn pass before peeking out again. A glance told them that Justin was gone too, leaving them to creep out and confront one another.

  Merry hadn’t had much to do with Beverly. Her province and his rarely overlapped. Likewise, Beverly had managed to avoid the Frenchwoman, certain she represented the worst of her gender. But now, a common thread brought them together.

  “Well, Mr. Beverly,” Merry said, crossing her arms under her large bosom. A silly puff of lace squatted atop her red curls like some fantastical, highly inbred roosting chicken.

  “Mademoiselle Molière.”

  “What do you make of that?” she asked, jerking her head toward the library.

  “Interesting.” He didn’t pretend to misunderstand.

  “And just what should we do about it, do you think?” she asked with that saucy French impertinence that some men found appealing. Not him, however.

  “Do about it?” he echoed. True, he had been considering what, if anything, ought to be done about it, but he certainly hadn’t intended to have an ally.

  “Yes, do about it. Sacré bleu! I know the English serving class is dull, but why must you all wear reticence like a virtue?”

  Beverly stiffened, attempting to look outraged, which was difficult in a tassled bed cap. Anyway, she ignored him. “Your master is much enamoured of Miss Evelyn. Miss Evelyn is not averse to his attention. And Lady Broughton, her good mother and my savior, is not averse to her daughter being not averse.”

  “And how do you know Lady Evelyn is not ‘averse’?”

  “Because,” Merry said, “I am much attuned to the quiet whispers of the female heart.”

  “Oh?” Beverly looked down his nose at her. “If the noise coming from the general vicinity of the rose arbor this afternoon was any indication, those ‘whispers’ aren’t all that quiet.”

  “Eavesdropper!”

  “Hardly, mademoiselle. A deaf man wearing cotton batting in his ears and seated in a padded room would have been hard pressed to ignore the sounds—”

  “Enough! We are not speaking of me, but of your louche master.”

  “Louche?” At this insult, Beverly grew rigid. “My master, Miss Molière, is one the finest gentleman in England.”

  She waved away his indignation. “Mais oui. What has that to do with being louche? To the Frenchwoman, a little experience, a few affairs, serve to refine the skills a man later brings as a gift to his true love.”

  She sighed, her eyes growing misty with recollection. Then her lips puckered. “In England, everyone must be, oh, so naive. No experience, no seasoning, no skills. Everyone must come to their first lovemaking like a fumbling teenager. If fumbling has appeal, it is only to the inexperienced. Or the very anxious.”

  She eyed him as if she thought he might very well fit in the latter category.

/>   Beverly closed his eyes, reminded again of why he detested females. “Is there a point to this lewd monologue, mademoiselle?”

  “Yes. Your master, is he truly reformed? Or will he break my Evelyn’s heart?”

  “Will he break her heart?” Good God, were women constitutionally incapable of understanding that a man might be as susceptible to being hurt as a woman? “Mademoiselle, Justin Powell is as decent, honorable, and worthy a man as you will find. Now, I might ask you the same? What of Miss Evelyn?”

  He felt a smidgen of guilt about asking. He wouldn’t be standing here if he hadn’t already determined that Miss Evelyn was in all likelihood the best the female gender had to offer. It was a deduction confirmed when she kept his indiscretion about the Brigadier General from Mr. Powell. She was bona fide, all right.

  In fact, if he hadn’t for some time now been convinced that Justin ought to have sons, he wouldn’t be standing here. That Lady Evelyn’s mother had had a similar thought, and had apparently enlisted this harridan to encourage any developing relationship, only made his job easier. But it did mean working with her.

  “Miss Evelyn is better than worthy and decent and honorable,” Merry mimicked his haughty tone. “She only awaits a man able to see beyond her terrible spectacles and stiff, ugly dresses, which would be easier if she ever donned the perfections that I have created for her—” Seeing Beverly’s bored expression, her lips snapped together. “Does your master possess the imagination to see what is beyond his eyes?”

  How dare she intimate that her mistress was better than his master! Beverly thought. He longed to tell her about Justin’s secret life, his espionage career, his intellect and cunning. “Don’t you worry about Mr. Powell’s vision. He sees everything just fine. Everything.”

  She suddenly smiled, as sunnily as if they were bosom mates. “So, we are agreed. They suit.”

  He eyed her warily, finally admitting, “They suit.”

  “Good. Now, the first thing we must do is this. . .” she began, and Beverly had the unhappy suspicion his life was about to be turned upside down.