She didn’t want to believe Davenport was capable of condemning those young boys and yet, he’d broken the basic rules of the mill and likely had broken others. All for money. And then he’d proposed to buy her mill with money that was probably hers, embezzled somehow from the books and money earned from human trafficking. His ‘savings’ were nothing more than blood money.
Hayden would be pleased though. She might have come up with a clue for him. Davenport had made a mistake with his answer when he’d offered to send personal belongings to the missing boys’ parents. Boys who were dissatisfied with their work would not have slipped away without taking their belongings with them. Leaving their few belongings behind seemed to be proof that they had been spirited away quickly and against their will. It was time to seek out Hayden, as awkward as that may be. There was still business between them if nothing else. Perhaps this clue could be used as a peace offering.
It had been two days since… well, just since. They’d needed space to cool their tempers and their passions. He’d sent no note, made no move of rapprochement though, and she supposed it would be up to her to make the next move. She hoped that was what he was waiting for. She hoped she hadn’t alienated him entirely. She’d regretted her words at the inn immediately but she hadn’t known how to make it better and she’d been hurting. She still didn’t know but perhaps they could simply just go on from here, the mistake behind them.
Only it wasn’t a mistake. Not in the sense that mistakes were things one regretted. What they had done had been unorthodox. That didn’t mean she wished it hadn’t happened. Nor did it mean she didn’t want it to happen again, only with a better outcome. She’d been aching to see him since yesterday even if she didn’t know what to say.
Enough! If she wanted to see him, she would see him. She could use her business as a pretense. It would at least start the conversation and they could take things from there as they wished. Jenna was up and out of the office before she could re-think her decision. Her cloak and gloves were in the foyer. She snatched them up and called a quick farewell to Andrews.
She tried the stables first. Guerre was in his stall but there was no Hayden, or Logan or Carrick. She tried the King’s Arms next only to find it was quiet at midday at midweek in midwinter. The taproom boasted one patron today. She asked the innkeeper, who shook his head. “Islington and his crew have gone to Derwentwater.”
Gone. For the second time in as many hours, the force of that word hit her. Her workers were gone. Hayden was gone. She hadn’t realized how much she was counting on Hayden being there. The distress must have shown on her face.
“I’m sorry, Miss Priess. I thought he would have told you.” The innkeeper left off the last bit as he dried glasses behind the bar, unable to directly meet her eye: seeing as how the two of you are together.
“Did he say when he’d be back?” At least she knew he was coming back. Guerre was in the stables and Hayden wouldn’t leave him. It was a little depressing to know she ranked below his horse. Then again, his horse hadn’t asked him for sex and not told him why. Perhaps it was what she deserved.
The innkeeper took pity on her. “Later today if the roads hold or the next if they don’t.” He nodded towards the windows. “We’ve had a fair bit of weather this week. Can’t say it isn’t welcome. Gives a man hope winter won’t last forever.” Normally she would have thought so too. But now it just brought regret. Warm weather meant melted ice.
She smiled at the innkeeper. “I’ll just leave him a note.”
The sneaky bitch! Allerton Davenport crossed his arms and faded into the interior of the inn across the street. She’d dismissed him and his generous offer of help and run straight to that no account ice racer, Hayden Islington. They’d been together at the assembly and looking quite comfortable with one another. He knew, of course, that Islington called on her. But her calling on him? That was beyond the pale of decency, businesswoman or not.
No decent woman would go seeking a man let alone go seeking him in a public house without a chaperone, but Jenna Priess was as brazen as they came. Oh, not with her favors, as he knew all too well, but with her behaviors as if there was a place for her in a man’s world. She drove around town, walked around town, visited the mill, as if she were a man. Why shouldn’t she think she had a right to tromp on into a public house? Next thing, she’d be drinking ale with the men too.
It was quite an insult to him. He’d made a decent offer and she’d dismissed him as if he were a lesser being. She’d dismissed him with a lie too. Islington must be quite the lover if he could distract her from the books. Davenport didn’t mind that part. He could use a little distraction. He was heartily tired of her prying at the mill with her unannounced visits. Davenport ordered a hot rum. He was here, he might as well take advantage of it and drown his proverbial sorrows while he plotted how Jenna Priess could pay for her duplicity.
Chapter Thirteen
Hayden crumpled the note in his hand. It had been a hell of a time to be away. Two more workers gone and both of them young men. He could hear Jenna’s despair in the note. Not necessarily from the words, the note itself had been fairly terse, but from the mere fact that she’d left a note at all. Fiercely independent, strong-willed Jenna had come here looking for him and he’d been gone.
He exchanged a hard look with Logan. They’d just seen to the horses after a full day of riding. The weather had been clear and they’d made fairly good time but it had still taken most of the day to make the second part of the trip. It was a two day journey from Derwentwater and they’d had to make a late start this morning to accommodate the roads. “It looks to be as bad we thought. All the signs are there.” Hayden glanced out the inn door. He could be at her home in fifteen minutes at the most.
Logan gave a brief nod and put a restraining hand on his arm. “Don’t do it. I see what you’re thinking. You’ve just come in from a two day journey and from being gone for five days, and now you think to hare off to her side on the recommendation of this note. Wait,” Logan counseled. “Have a hot meal, drink a few ales in the taproom, listen to conversation. See what else you can learn. Have her come to you when you’re ready.”
It was the sensible option but every fiber in him rebelled against it. He didn’t need to go to her. The note had been delivered two days ago and nothing further had come from her. Clearly, she was weathering this latest development without him. “I want to go to her,” For reasons that had nothing to do with being hired by her, nothing to do with the reward of two hundred pounds dangling at the end of his contract.
The practical investigator would see the logic of Logan’s advice. But Hayden had not been that man for years now and that man had nothing to do with any of decisions he’d made in regards to Jenna Priess since he’d met her. He’d taken her case because he’d been attracted to her and that had been the reason for everything between them that followed. Cool professional objectivity had no role in what he was doing with her no matter how he tried to argue to the contrary. Last week’s table session was proof enough that all objectivity had vanished.
Logan had him firmly by the arm now and was tugging him toward a table. Carrick was already there, waiting to hear their news. “Don’t give her that kind of control.” Logan said in low tones. “You aren’t her dog, so don’t act like one.”
“I completely understand why you’re so often unattached.” Hayden growled back. “Your advice is so damn sentimental.” The trouble was, he couldn’t see Jenna coming when he called either. He’d send a note immediately anyway but he already knew she would see it as a high-handed command, especially with the business of the parlor table still unfinished between them. Power was such a tricky tool to wield, it so easily became a weapon instead.
He didn’t want to admit it, but Logan was right. A hot meal, a few drinks and good conversation was what his tired body needed to refresh itself. Carrick was already full of news from the stables, the taproom was full of news about weather, about the missing men.
He pushed open the door to his room and halted. And stared. The decision wouldn’t be his to make, after all.
“Hello, Hayden.”
Jenna was here. More precisely, she was on his bed, in his dressing robe, her hair hanging in a thick rope over one shoulder while she read a book. She looked up at him and put the book aside.
“What are you doing here?” Hayden managed once he recovered the power of speech. Lucifer’s balls, she was stunning in his dressing robe, the way it veed low over the swell of her breasts and curved over her hips.
“You summoned me.” She rose from the bed, her hand tugging the belted sash at her waist. “I assumed this was what you wanted.” Her tone was coy but her eyes were sharp. She was mad, about the summons, about the parlor, maybe more. Perhaps she was even angry he hadn’t been here when she’d needed her investigator most. She was playing with him and this little drama had Tantalus and his forbidden drink written all over it.
“If you think to tease me with that robe and that body and then deny me a taste in the end, you might be unpleasantly surprised by the outcome.” Hayden shrugged out of his coat, keeping some distance between them, and some darkness. Only the fireplace lit the room which suited him just fine. It would do his cause no good if his rather obvious erection was obvious to them both. The best way to resist temptation was to remove its ability to tempt.
She drew a hand down the exposed valley between her breasts. “You don’t want me? I misunderstood the tenor of your note.” Hers was the whiskey voice of a siren. There was no pretense of innocence.
“I intended to call on you tomorrow, during daylight.” Hayden tugged at his boots. He was tired, perhaps too tired to play this sharp-edged game tonight. Goodness knew he wanted nothing more than to take her to bed, slake his need and fall into the deep sleep that accompanied post-coital release. She’d haunted his thoughts quite prominently in Derwentwater. If she hadn’t left the note, he would still have tried to fabricate another reason to see her tomorrow.
“Are you still playing the suitor? I would have thought that game was over after the parlor. The parlor was most unsuitor-like.” She came towards him, hips swaying beneath the folds of his robe. His erection hardened. Apparently, he hadn’t been as fully aroused as possible before. There was no question of it now. He was going to lose this fight; how could he manage it with some aplomb so that his defeat wouldn’t be quite so evident?
He locked eyes with her, concentrating on that shrewd green gaze as she drew a finger down his shirt front. That gaze did not waiver when she undid the buttons of his waistcoat or when those hands pulled his shirt from his waistband or even when those warm hands slid beneath his shirt and up his chest, moving over his ribs, over the nubs of his nipples, thumbs caressing bare skin, coaxing desire.
This was a delight to rival Tantalus, to stand stock still while this woman ran her hands over him, while he vainly willed his body not to respond; his arms not to wrap about her, his hands not to part that robe in its entirety and take her breasts in them, his mouth not to devour hers when she was mere inches away. It was too late for his cock of course, but they hadn’t got there yet. That was the last secret he possessed tonight and he meant to keep it.
Her hand dropped, his own closed about her wrist in a lightning fast reflex. “Stop it, Jenna.” His voice was hoarse.
“Stop what?” There was no guile in those words, only challenge. Lord, how his body wanted to take that challenge and throw it on the bed but he had a point to make before that could happen.
“You will not use me for sex again, or for anything else without telling me why.” Hayden growled. As enjoyable as this seduction might be, he had his principles after all, all the rarer perhaps for there being so few to begin with.
Her eyes widened. “I used you? It seemed quite the other way around at the time.”
Hayden’s temper flared. How dare she imply he’d taken advantage of her. “You asked me to bed you and then you refused to offer a reason why. If that was not using, I don’t know what is.”
Her eyes were smoldering now. “I asked you to bed me, not table me. Bedding implies the presence of a certain piece of furniture.”
“You enjoyed it plenty, bed or not. It was clear to me, you got precisely what you were looking for.”
“And what was that?” She shot back.
“How should I know? You wouldn’t tell me, but whatever it was, you looked pretty pleased when we were done, so pleased, you’ve come back for more. Perhaps you have some additional curiosity to satisfy.”
This was a ridiculous quarrel. He wasn’t even sure he knew what they were fighting over. It was like fighting with Logan, only far more arousing and far less satisfying. He stepped back from her, the desire for hot words leaving him, replaced by another sort of hot desire. He held his hands wide at his sides. “If you’ve come for revenge, you’ve got it. I’ll go to bed aching and unrelieved and I’ll spend a miserable, sleepless night. If I’m lucky I’ll fall asleep around dawn, oversleep well into the morning and have to rush off to my afternoon lesson, after which I’ll have to listen to Logan prose about how irresponsible I am with my time. Happy?”
She wasn’t happy at all. This was what happened when temper got the better of her. She’d been furious when the note had come in the middle of her dinner with Daniel. She turned away from Hayden, fingering the tassel on the sash of his robe. What a mess this had become. She’d been angry over so much more than he knew and she’d focused all that anger on him undeservedly so. He could not be held responsible for what she didn’t tell him; her father, the mill, her choices being taken from her without her consent, Davenport’s offer. All of it. But that didn’t excuse making him feel exploited.
“You thought I was using you? Truly?” She’d been so wrapped up in her own needs she’d not thought what that incident might look like from his perspective; a celebrity of sorts, a man who was sought after, a handsome man wanted by many women. “I didn’t mean to make your feel… cheap, that day.” I was looking for solace just as I am looking for it tonight if I’m honest with myself. Why couldn’t she come out and say that to him? Why couldn’t she say the days had passed slowly waiting and wondering when he’d be back? Why couldn’t she admit she’d missed him?
She felt him move up behind her, his hands framing her shoulders, one hand moving to sweep aside her hair, his mouth dropping a kiss at the curve between shoulder and neck. His tone lacked its earlier harshness. “I’m not sure ‘used’ is the right word. I felt left out, you wanted me to give you something but you offered nothing in return, you wouldn’t tell me why.” He pressed a kiss to the back of her neck, sending shivers of pleasure down her spine. She was in trouble. Her plan to exact revenge, to vent her anger, was backfiring. She was the one being aroused.
“I should not have come here, not then and not tonight. I should not have made you my whipping boy.” She wasn’t going to win this fight now that it wasn’t a fight at all. Now, she was just fighting herself and she had no compelling reason not to succumb to what Hayden offered. This is what she got for letting temper get the better of her. “I should go; it’s been a difficult day.” Her father had had a bad time of it, almost frighteningly so and there’d been more devastating discoveries in the ledgers. She’d read Hayden’s note through the lens of it being a high handed command, and as such it had been the last straw. She’d wanted to lash out.
“Perhaps if you stay, I can make it better.” he whispered his seduction, his hands moving around her, lifting her breasts in his palms, caressing their tips through the silk of the robe
with the pads of his thumbs. That was what she wanted, wasn’t it? Someone, something to make it better, to take away the burdens for a while.
“I want to, Hayden, but I can’t give you what you’re asking for.” Even so, her head went back to lay on his shoulder, her body sinking into his, back to chest, buttocks to groin — a very hard, very aroused, groin.
“I’m not asking for that. Just give me your body and I will give you mine.” He gave a warm chuckle, his voice playful at her ear. “We even have a bed this time. Just think of the possibilities, no strings attached unless you want them.” The innuendo was neatly done and she laughed. It was so hard to resist him like this, and why should she?
She could do this; Sex in a bed, mutual consent in the pursuit of pleasure, nothing more. They would make no demands of each other save the physical ones and for a little while she could forget her troubles. He’d already proven he could temporarily obliterate them under other less favorable conditions, consider what he could do to those burdens with a bed, a fire and all night at his disposal? Of course, there were limits. He couldn’t really obliterate her troubles. They would return. Still, after the day she had, she’d take it.
Jenna whet her lips and stepped back, taking a seat in the chair beside the fire. She crossed her legs and arranged the robe over them, settling in for the duration. She fixed him with a commanding stare. “Well, then, when you put it like that, you’d better take the rest of your clothes off.”
Reckless Rakes - Hayden Islington Page 12