In Search of Scandal (London Explorers #1)

by Susanne Lord

  He smoothed the floor with the toe of his boot in an oddly boyish fidget. “You don’t need to thank me.”

  Before she could protest, he scrubbed a hand through his hair and the collar of his shirt gaped open, revealing the start of a muscular chest and a dusting of light brown hair—effectively wiping every other thought from her head.

  “If no one comes, we’ll leave the wood as soon as the sun rises,” he said. “Perhaps we can avoid the houseguests knowing. I imagine you know a secret way into Windmere?”

  “Do you suggest I am experienced in sneaking in and out of the house?”

  He studied her seriously. “I think you might be, actually. Is there some lucky stable hand from your youth who dreams of your kisses?”

  She laughed. “You know very well I have no skill in kissing.”

  He looked at her until her cheeks flamed red and, for the first time, she was the first to drop her eyes.

  He cleared his throat. “We ought to separate as we near the house. You can claim an early morning walk, and let me in through an unused door.”

  Finding a deserted path into Windmere would be difficult as early as the servants rose, but let him make his plans. The man seemed the type who would not rest without one.

  “I do not care if the entire house sees us.” She lifted her chin. “We have done nothing wrong—you saved me from Hugh’s assault. If anyone dares whisper of impropriety, I will denounce them roundly and never speak to them again. Ever. And I will not allow anyone to speak against you.”

  He gave a nod as if the matter were easy and settled and fell squarely within the bounds of common sense. But her words were pure bravado. How scandalous the situation would appear if seen. Impending ruin was no light thing, so she was grateful of Mr. Repton’s inexperience in the ways of Society. Besides, what could be done?

  And at the moment, Mr. Repton—Will—was rubbing his thigh. “Your leg…?”

  “It’s fine, but”—he could not hide a wince as he stretched his leg experimentally—“I might need to rest it.”

  He started to sit on the ground and she leapt up, his coat tangling in her ankles. “Yes, indeed.” She tugged him toward the bed. “Lie down. This instant.”

  He tried to resist, but after looking into her determined face, he limped toward the bed. “Normally it’s fine.” He lay down, expelling a sigh of relief.

  “Is there something I can do? Shall I massage it?”

  “God no!” He chuckled, but she didn’t see what was funny about the suggestion.

  He slid nearer the wall. “You can…I’ll lie on this side.”

  He faced the wall. Would they not speak a moment or two longer?

  She had never lain beside anyone before. And of all the anyones in the world, it would be him. Gingerly, she sat and lifted her legs onto the wool blanket stretched over the straw mattress.

  Facing the fire with her back to Will, she arranged his coat atop her and shifted to get comfortable. Why had she not worn a weightier dress? The silk of her gown held the cold within its folds.

  And Will had given her his coat…

  Careful not to disturb him, she rolled to face his back, inching as close as she dared. Will’s breathing was even, he must be asleep. Was he cold? His linen shirt appeared fine and he had no waistcoat. Surely his coat would cover them both—

  “You do crowd me, Charlotte. The bed is little enough as it is.” Will’s voice was deep and loud in the tiny hovel.

  “Sorry,” she whispered. “Are you not cold?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “The first of June should not be this cold. You are cold, are you not?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I cannot take your coat,” she said, her voice muffled beneath the wool.

  He turned his head and lifted an amused brow at the sight of her, all but buried beneath the garment. “All right, then. Give it back.”

  She gasped, burrowing deeper under the coat. “I…well, I thought we might share?”

  In answer, he chuckled and presented his back to her again. “I’m not cold.”

  “Honestly, Will. You must be.”

  His shoulders hunched, as if that silent signal of irritation would dissuade her.

  “Will? We are sharing your coat or I’ll not use it at all. We are adults and nearly friends. Will?” She waited. “Will?”

  He sighed and mumbled something about relentless women.

  “Did you…did you agree? I think I heard you agree.”

  “All right, Charlotte. I’ll share the coat.” But he made no move to take his half.

  Satisfied, she inched closer until her nose poked his back and she could arrange the coat over his shoulder and herself. It slipped off him, then her, until she had it placed just so. She was stiff and uncomfortable balancing on her side, but at least they were covered. Somewhat. In places.

  “Don’t move or—” The coat slipped off him. “You moved.”

  He grunted and flopped over, threading a strong arm under her neck to hug her and arrange the coat over them both. “There,” he breathed. “This works, doesn’t it?”

  She lay very still, assessing this new, exquisite embrace she found herself in. There was no seduction in his touch. No arms or fingers molding against her. Yet his body warmed her instantly and she dissolved against him like snowflakes on a hearth. A contented sigh escaped, and she peeked to see a muscle jerk in his cheek.

  “Comfortable?” Will murmured.

  “Yes.” Whatever emotion she heard in Will’s growl, she ignored. His strong arm was around her and despite his grudging tones, she felt safe. And strangely cherished by this man she loved.

  For one night, she would pretend he loved her, too.

  “Are you comfortable?” she whispered.

  He moved a curl of her hair an inch to the right. “Now I’m comfortable.”

  She smiled at this rare silliness. She was completely boneless, savoring the warmth of his body and the security of his arms. The sensation all the more acute after Hugh’s cold, grasping attack.

  Lying with Will was as natural as her next breath. It was an accomplishment, of a sort. For once, her heart didn’t race at his nearness. There was only the simple acceptance in what he must be to her—no longer her hero or her conquest. He was just a man. More special than most, but just a man. And despite their troubled start, he might even be her friend. If she could stop desiring to crawl inside his skin, she might be his friend in earnest.

  But for tonight, she ignored the hard, muscled length of him and sought only to give and receive comfort. The man was so wonderfully heated. “How did you stay warm in China?”

  “I didn’t snuggle with my crewmates if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “You wore animal skins, didn’t you?”

  “On the coldest days.” He paused. “My, uh…my mate, Cressey, had this fox-fur coat with the most godforsaken stench. He had no choice but to wear it, but he was always trying to negotiate a trade for anyone else’s.” He chuckled. “There were never any takers, but he never stopped trying. We made him walk in the rear when he had that mangy thing on.”

  “The poor man.”

  “He used to try to wager it in card games. He said he’d give his sister’s hand in marriage to any man who’d trade with him. Jack told him Helen of Troy couldn’t induce a man to wear it.”

  “Who are they? Cressey and Jack?”

  “Cressey was…Owen Cressman. A collector with East India, too. And Jack…the places we went because of him.”

  “Because of him?”

  “He was responsible for our passports.”

  She smoothed her hand up his back, wanting to comfort. “I suspect you had many happy moments amidst all that swashbuckling.”

  He drew in a deep breath. “We did. Many moments.”

  His breath grew shallow and uneven, his body tightening. “If I’d been wrong, Charlotte. If I’d not found you—”

  “But you weren’t wrong.”

  His
arms relaxed, but something told her not to question Will about his friends. Not now. “How did you know where to find me?”

  A moment passed before he spoke. “The house and outbuildings were already being searched and I felt…you said you kissed Spencer on the nature walk.” He paused. “You refused him. Why?”

  Because I love you. “We were not connected.”

  “He never brought you peonies.”

  All the wasted time with Hugh…all the false laughter and conversation and excusing his arrogance. “No. He never did, did he?”

  He snorted. “The simplest task.”

  “And there was the other incompatibility.”

  He tilted his head, his chin scraping her forehead, and she could almost feel the question rising in his throat.

  “Desire,” she blurted. “The lack of, that is.”

  He cleared his throat but said nothing.

  “Lucy and Ben are passionate. She has told me from the first they felt an overwhelming attraction to each other.”

  “Odd that, when they’re both so unfortunate-looking.”

  She laughed and Will’s chest quaked against her with his chuckle.

  “My mother and father”—a pained half-smile flit across his lips—“still feel passion. They feel it almost every night and every morning and, once that I’m aware of, they felt it in the conservatory behind the house. Thank God it was winter and the glass was frosted. Hearing them in the throes is difficult enough.”

  She hurriedly ushered the image from her mind, but a choked laugh escaped her. “That is rather wonderful, though.”

  Will shrugged, but his smile tickled her brow.

  “Spencer inspired no passion at all?”

  “Never. Which I cannot account as he is handsome and trim and manly—”

  “Yes, all right,” he muttered, idly twisting the buttons on the back of her gown. “You’ll begin again. Win back any of those besotted suitors. Hatfield seems agreeable, and he’d support you well. Matteson is a wealthy prospect. His teeth are unfortunate, but your children aren’t doomed to the same fate. Maybe—”

  “Thank you, but I would rather you not trot out the most eligible bachelors for my consideration. I would rather not think on it at all. All new suitors…all new tests.” She yawned.

  “No need to worry,” Will whispered as his arms snuggled her closer. “The perfect man is preparing as we speak. He’s just been busy. What with overseeing his kingdom and counting all his big bags of money. And I wonder how he’ll ever manage to leave the castle with all the ladies swooning in his path.”

  Breathing in the cloud of warm male skin and sun-dried linen, she smiled at the silly picture. “He will never make it to London. Too busy saving orphans and cast-off puppies.”

  “No, after the sculptors are done chiseling his likeness in marble, he’ll be free to find you.”

  “Well, they had better be quick about it.” She smiled. “Will…?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Thank you for finding me.”

  His chin settled atop her head. “You’re welcome.”

  And in the second before Charlotte succumbed to sleep, she wondered at how Will Repton had come to feel exactly like a friend.

  Eleven

  The gorgeous girl was under him. Charlotte’s soft, writhing body, undulating in rhythm to his thrusting hips, her legs parting for him to sink deep, deeper. A round swell of breasts overspilling his hands. Keep her…

  Dark hair caught and lifted in a warm wind at the hunting tower. A kiss in a midnight garden. Jasmine in her hair. So near.

  “Charlotte…” He heard a voice, his voice, grinding out her name. “Mine…so sweet…”

  Her perfume, her soft skin, so real. She sighed and he shuddered. Another kiss, another stroke…her breasts…her warm breath…hair through his fingers, slipping like silk…so real…

  All so real. Not like a dream.

  Not like—oh God! Not a dream! He was on top of her, his cock rock hard against the V of her legs, gripping her hips low against his. And she was awake.

  He pushed off her, his sluggish limbs clumsy. “What the—?” The back of his head cracked against a wall. Pain slammed and reverberated through his skull and he clutched his head.

  “Will, be careful!”

  Why was she in his bed? Where—?

  Charlotte was glued against him, thigh to thigh, stomach to stomach, and he shoved back against an unyielding wall. Her fingers spread over his scalp, soothing his head. He twisted away from the caress to see where he was, what he’d done, the revulsion in her eyes.

  Memory flooded back. The little hermitage. Still dark. Only the dying red embers from the fireplace gave the faintest glow.

  Charlotte, looking at him in the spellbound way she first looked at him, as if entranced by every movement of his face, every word from his lips. Her cheeks were flushed from sleep and her hair had come unpinned and lay in long, curling tresses over her breasts. He’d never seen her look so young and innocent.

  Innocent. And here he was wielding a cockstand. And she, fresh from an attack by that bastard Spencer. “God,” he groaned, clutching his head in his hands. No, God would not spare him this humiliation. “I’m sorry, I was…”

  “Dreaming.”

  She urged his hands down and he let her pull them away. The pupils of her eyes were wide in the faint light, leaving a narrow ring of blue. “Your poor head. Does it hurt?”

  Before he could answer, she kissed the crown of his head and her breasts pressed into his face, inflicting another sort of pain. “My head is fine,” he said into her warm bosom.

  “What were you dreaming?”

  “I…” Don’t answer that. “I don’t know.”

  “You said my name.”

  Those eyes were unrelenting.

  “Do you remember?” she asked.

  Yes, sweetheart. “It was a dream.”

  Did she just press her body against his? She had to feel his heart trying to pound through his chest and, Christ, the other thing. Her lids lowered and he could not see where she focused—his heart, or his cock jutting into her stomach.

  He squirmed back but there was no room to retreat, and his body wasn’t ignoring the lush bounty of her breasts pressed against his chest or the long, slender strength of her legs tangled in his.

  “I need to stand, Charlotte.” His voice was hoarse, but that was the least of his concerns. “Will you move back?”

  “It’s still dark.”

  He swallowed, desperate to hide his humiliating lust, but his flesh only jerked more urgently. God, she would feel that, too. “Just a little ways, so I can—”

  “I don’t want you to.” Her fingers were still entwined in his hair and she hitched higher so their mouths were level.

  This was mad. Charlotte didn’t really want him. She’d kissed two men in her life and he was the less objectionable of the two. He caught her hands, but her lips kept advancing. And God…her eyes…

  “Before I met you, I dreamed you. Dreamed you dancing with me, kissing me, loving me. Then I met you and started to dream other things.”

  “Pushing me down a ravine? Holding me under the Serpentine?”

  She ignored his desperate attempt at humor and pressed her sweet mouth against his.

  Paralyzed with pleasure, he let her. Let her kiss him, let her explore him with her shy tongue.

  Damn me…damn me…she was perfect…

  With his mouth engaged, his attention arrowed to her breasts. His favorite breasts, hitching and heaving against him. Mindlessly, he matched the rhythm of her breathing. As if making love.

  Her hands traveled low on his back and he jerked as if singed with fire. His head reared back, desperate for air, for reason. “Don’t, Charlotte.”

  She slid her leg over his hip, hooking him close, teasing his cock with the release it sought. He clamped down on the craven urge to grind against her softness but—ah…dammit—she discovered the sensation herself. Her eyes widened as she
rubbed lightly against him, and her soft gasp made his body tighten all over. Christ, she felt so—

  Enough!

  He hurtled over her, falling to the ground stupidly and scrambling to stand. “That’s enough.” He kept his back to her, and his erection out of sight.

  “Will?”

  He staggered to the wall and leaned his dizzy head against the cool stone. The soft rustle of her skirt told him she was approaching and he braced. “I’m sorry, Charlotte—”

  Hands smoothed over his back and circled him, caressing the painfully rigid planes of his torso. Firm breasts pressed against his back, her body melding to his, and a groan rose in his throat.

  She pressed soft lips to his neck and wiped clean every thought in his brain.

  Charlotte was talking. Of course she was. But his blood raced in his veins, drowning all sound from his ears. There was only her lips, hot and wet on his skin. And deep, deeper than reason, his own primal voice grinding out…

  Keep her.

  Mindless, wild, he rounded on her and swung her onto the bed, her weight like nothing at all. Oblivious of his own brawn, he landed atop her. He chased the gasp from her mouth with a hard kiss, his body seizing with bliss at the feel of her beneath him.

  He bit, then soothed her lips with his tongue—he couldn’t stop. Some thread of sanity impelled him to check that she wasn’t afraid, but her glittering blue eyes darkened, misted, under her sleepy lids.

  Her tongue slicked a seductive arc over her upper lip, leaving it to glisten. “Will.”

  Tamed, mesmerized by the erotic sight, he didn’t resist when she pulled him down and melted his brain with her soft, wet kiss.

  He’d been warned. Charlotte charmed what she wanted from those she met and he had no defense against her. Deep down, he’d known that the second he’d set eyes on her. And what the dangerous woman wanted now was him.

  And not just his kiss.

  The thought jarred him. They had to stop. Addled and weak with lust, he grasped for control, for sanity. But she denied him both.

  She lured his tongue into her mouth and she was sucking on him, shredding his reason apart.

  Keep her…keep her, she’s yours…

  Charlotte…sweet, curious, Charlotte…let her know the weight of him. He settled full on her, reveling in the feel of her body, accepting him, cradling him. She gasped and spread her thighs, tilting to meet him. As if by instinct.