by Mary Brendan
Violet eyes flew to his rigid, dark profile as he strode determinedly towards the door. He was going to make her leave, empty-handed. She could sense exasperation in him beneath that icy courtesy and guessed that it sprang from having been denied early access to her money. She had no time to further ponder its cause: he was reaching for the door handle. Instinctively she pursued him, raised a hand to detain him, fearful he might dismiss her right now. ‘No, you don’t understand. I want…that is…I hoped that you would let me have back my necklace.’
‘So I shall, when settlement is reached,’ he growled, his eyes riveted on the slender, white hand straddling the breadth of his forearm.
‘No…tonight. I must have back my necklace tonight…’
‘Why?’
Elizabeth’s timid violet gaze floundered beneath the narrowed hawk’s eyes just visible between those long black lashes. A gleam of curiosity was darkening into something else. Something that alarmed yet oddly reassured her. She swallowed and stared fixedly at his abrasive chin. He might want her out of his house…but he did still want her. Her hand slipped unobtrusively from his shirt-sleeve, as though she hoped he might never have noticed it spreadeagled there. ‘I have come here specifically to collect my necklace…please don’t make me leave without it. I swear to you I can persuade Edwina to give you back your money, if you will only be patient a while longer.’ Her voice was light and breathy. Only the colour creeping beneath her skin betrayed her desperate uneasiness.
‘That’s not good enough. I want a firm contract before I’ll let you have it. You can’t expect me to give you back what little collateral I hold,’ he reasoned in a voice of gravelly velvet. ‘I only have your word that there is anything at all of value in a bank vault.’
‘You’ve had time enough to find out. I would have imagined a grasping opportunist would already have done so,’ she sniped, uncontrollable frustration making her insolent.
‘I’ve been too busy grasping other opportunities,’ he returned silkily.
The small space between them seemed to throb with tension yet she couldn’t seem to withdraw. When she finally managed a step back, she knew before his hands moved that he would bring her close again. His touch felt warm, firm, yet not callous as he swung her about, stranding her between his body and the door.
Her heart seemed to have jumped to her throat; she could sense the wild pulse there. Her tongue tip wet her lower lip, then hid. She peeked up into his thick-lashed watching eyes, wishing he’d say something. He did, and she immediately wished he’d not.
‘Tell me why you came here tonight.’
‘I’ve already told you: to collect my necklace.’
‘And you imagined this hard-hearted villain would simply hand it over? I don’t think so. What did you plan offering me in exchange?’
‘A sincere promise that I would extract your payment from Edwina,’ she whispered, frowning at the onyx stone set in his snowy cravat.
‘You could have written that in a note. Besides, it’s not much of an incentive for a hardened rake. I’m afraid I still don’t think so,’ he purred. A tanned hand spanned her ivory chin, jerking it up. ‘Shall I tell you my theory?’ He shifted his fingers so their length caressed a cheek as she nodded.
‘I think, my lady,’ he said softly, ‘that you came here, in person, with every intention of tempting me to take a few liberties with you. And you would allow me to take just a few, wouldn’t you? Whet my appetite and my trust that you’d deliver what I wanted another night…so long as I delivered what you wanted tonight. You seem desperate to get back home with that necklace, which gives me quite a bargaining stake. So, promise me something else…something convincing, and we’ll play it from there. Perhaps we might both end up satisfied.’
She jerked back, clattering her heels against the door. But her face burned where he’d touched it. Burned, too, because he’d put into words something she’d not allowed herself to acknowledge. From the first moment she’d scrambled into fine clothes, prettified her hair, misted her body with her favourite perfume, she’d been…primping in his honour…before quitting the house. ‘You’re despicable,’ she whispered in a shaking voice.
‘You’ve never believed me anything else. Have you?’
Ross observed raw emotion tightening her lovely features. He could tell she was torn between stamping and demanding he give her what she wanted, or ceding and giving him a taste of what he wanted. She was favouring trying just a little flirtatiousness, but didn’t know if it would work. What made him smile so wryly was that he knew. And he’d settle for that, because it was a game at which he excelled. If he chose to, he could lead her from one kiss to heaven…or hell. He could make that soft, silky skin that had shivered beneath his palms burn with passion, turn her choked little insults into moans of pleasure. Maybe…he mocked himself, as his eyes wandered her fragile, stony face, her eyes alight with purple fire. Tonight, for his ego’s sake, he would take just one kiss, then take his future wife home. Those were his terms, his only terms.
‘One kiss,’ Elizabeth bit out. ‘One kiss only and then you give me the necklace.’
‘One kiss?’ Ross echoed scornfully. ‘I thought I said be credible…’
‘One kiss!’ Elizabeth wailed, a sob of panic in her voice.
‘Very well, if you insist.’ There was barely a hint of triumph in his eyes as he drew her forward.
Her eyes were closed tight by the time she was against him. After a heart-stopping moment, when there was nothing other than the sensation of being held against a warm, male body, they fluttered open again.
‘Put your arms around me,’ he said as she met the hot golden glow in his eyes.
She hesitated for a moment, then her arms rose to rest woodenly against the sides of his broad torso.
‘Not there. About my neck,’ Ross instructed with all the ardour of a man tutoring a pupil in combat skills.
Elizabeth obediently moved her hands to slide up the front of his muscled chest and hover on his shoulders. But her mouth clamped in a hard, mutinous little line.
‘About my neck…’
‘You’re too tall, I can’t reach,’ she snapped.
‘I’ve had no complaints before…’
‘Well, now you have mine…’ she commented icily.
‘Perhaps if we sat down…’
‘No!’ Elizabeth cried, flustered, fretting he might lead her to the sofa set back against the wall. It was long enough to take someone supine. She guessed it might be her. With that disturbing knowledge motivating them, her hands shot up past his powerful shoulders and linked behind his nape. She felt the stroke of his long thick hair against her quivering fingers.
‘See how easy it can be, Elizabeth,’ Ross murmured. ‘Now you’ve learned to curb that temper, and take a little good advice, you’ll make me an excellent, dutiful wife…’
Her violet eyes flew open, her jaw dropped in absolute astonishment. He smiled crookedly at the unwitting invitation of her soft, slack mouth. ‘Just a joke…I’ll take you the way you are,’ he murmured before his lips swooped to cover hers.
This isn’t right, was all that paraded back and forth through her head as her knees buckled. No one had kissed her like this before. She had been infatuated with Randolph Havering for two months, and he had never kissed her with such tenderness, such devotion that her bones began melting. Never before had she deliciously shivered beneath male fingers trailing her nape, her collarbone, her ears, every available exposed part of skin, while a careful onslaught of caressing lips and teasing tongue on her mouth made her sigh at its seductive sweetness. Never before had any gentleman during her short debut taken a liberty and made her feel as though her body was swirling in such honeyed pleasure she might die if it stopped. She was losing her mind. And that’s why she drew a shuddering breath from his mouth and made it stop.
Working her lips back and forth, she endeavoured to break free from the dangerous magic, while her head chanted, It’s seduction…just sly seduc
tion… For a moment she was sure he would let her go. The long fingers lost in her hair withdrew to curve over her fragile shoulders. Their mouths unsealed, his tongue tip lightly trailing her lower lip as though in parting salutation…then it was plunging back. This time she wanted it to stop at once; fought to make it stop. His mouth was hot and hard and hurting. This was no subtle wooing. This was selfish lechery: savage and punishing, and the more she twisted her face to free it, the more cruel the assault became. Finally she stood rigid in his arms and within a moment he lifted his dark head.
Two small palms flattened against the rock-like wall of his chest, then pushed. He remained unmoving but, unanchored, the momentum sent her back against the door. A hand went to soothe her throbbing mouth. Her eyes glittered odium. But all she could lash him with, was, ‘I said just one kiss.’
‘It was one; one for you and one for me.’
His expression was hard, sardonic. He was unmoved by either kiss, she knew. He’d gained little satisfaction from pleasing her or himself. It was all just an exercise, a lesson for her benefit: be amenable and I will be too. Show your claws and that suits me equally.
‘Fetch my necklace, at once,’ she commanded.
He ignored her demands. Reaching past her, he opened the door. ‘As liberties go, my lady, I’ve taken better,’ was all he said.
Elizabeth flung her petite frame back against the door, slamming it shut. ‘My necklace!’ she squeaked, almost incoherent with fury at his louche, insulting attitude. A small foot stamped down on polished mahogany. ‘Fetch it now! You lying…cheating…bastard! You said I might have it. I swear I won’t leave without it!’ Tears of frustration sparkled in her night-blue eyes, her graceful, slender body a-quiver with temper.
Ross leaned a hand against the door, moved the other to touch her cheek, pursuing her evasive headflicks with idle doggedness until she gave in and allowed the caress. ‘I don’t recall ever being held hostage in my own home before. It’s something I’ve always fancied: being held captive by a beautiful, belligerent woman. There…we’ve shared one pathetic fantasy already.’
Elizabeth shook free of his fingers, glared at him through misty eyes.
‘If you’re determined to wreck my reputation and remain here the night, the least you can do is make an honest man of me.’ His thumb caught a sprinkling of tears sliding towards her mouth. ‘Come,’ he soothed, ‘be sensible. I want to return your jewellery. In truth, I’d rather not have the trouble of selling it. But I also want back what I’m owed,’ he added reasonably. ‘Your dowry is what Edwina wants me to have. I’m not too proud to take it.’
‘But you know it won’t come unconditionally,’ Elizabeth jeered on a watery choke. ‘I’m surprised at you, my lord. You’ll stoop to take a sullied woman to wife just to lay hands on her money. For a short while this evening, when I saw how well you live, I deemed you a gentleman of some standing.’ She paused to sniff. ‘’Tis all show, is it not? I doubt you can call one candle your own. Now you want to procure my portion to squander!’
‘Will you marry me, Elizabeth?’ Ross asked quietly.
He watched the conflict on her face. Watched her large, luminous eyes raise upwards, slide sideways away from him as she delved deep to find a way to outwit him. She was weighing up whether to feed him false promises again; tell him whatever he wanted to hear, then rescind it all tomorrow. Would he be gullible enough to let her leave with her necklace on those terms?
‘I should be pleased to accept your marriage proposal,’ she finally ground out, in a voice throbbing with bitterness.
There was such resentment in her tone that it seemed natural to conclude she had decided against chicanery in the morning. ‘I’m greatly honoured,’ he said softly. ‘I shall call tomorrow and speak with Edwina about the financial implications. But now, it’s high time I took you home.’
‘I shall return as I came: in a hackney cab, accompanied by my maid. I wouldn’t dream of imposing on you. Fetch my necklace now,’ was all she deigned to answer him.
‘No.’
‘No?’ she gasped. ‘No?’ Her small fists flew up. Immediately they were covered by two large hands. She tried to jerk them free, crying, ‘If you think I will let you treat me like this…’
‘How am I treating you? Far better than you deserve, I think, Elizabeth. Do you really imagine I’ll allow my fiancée to travel at night in a hired rig with a valuable gem in her possession and a maid for protection? I’ll bring the necklace with me tomorrow when I meet with your grandmother.’ He watched her eyes, saw the confliction of reason and vexation. ‘You’ll just have to trust me to do it. Come, I’ll take you home.’
She opened her mouth to fling his courteous offer to escort her back in his face. She managed to bite that back, but not the note of sourness in her voice. ‘If you are to kindly escort us, then I trust such a renowned warrior is man enough to protect me and the jewellery?’
Something in the amused twist to his mouth told her he was anticipating the barb. ‘It’s nearly eleven o’clock at night, Elizabeth. What are you planning to do with it at such an hour? Wear it to a ball? Stake it at the tables? Pawn it?’
Elizabeth spontaneously coloured, yanked at her hands within his. A dawning comprehension in his eyes had them hardening, as were his fingers on hers. Abruptly he flung her hands aside with a muttered oath.
Once more at liberty, Elizabeth was soon out in the corridor and hastening towards the brightly lit vestibule. Although he let her alone, she knew he was following behind on the thick carpet. He had won, was all that beat repetitively in her aching head. She had come here to get something valuable and leave nothing but empty promises in her wake.
He had turned the tables on her so completely! She had agreed to wed him! Now he had her dowry and her jewellery. He was also suspicious of why she wanted the necklace so desperately. She had nothing other than the word of a renowned rogue that tomorrow he would return it to her. She had utterly failed herself and, more importantly, Jane Selby and her little son. She was a fool! An incompetent fool!
Chapter Eight
‘I’ll see you safely within doors.’
‘There’s no need!’ Snatching her hand from his, Elizabeth swept disdainfully past and up the steps of Number Seven Connaught Street.
Ross signalled to his driver to wait and followed her to the base of the steps, where he braced a foot idly against the lowest. ‘Elizabeth,’ he called in a voice that was at one and the same time discreetly quiet yet authoritative.
An indefinable inflection accented her name, making her hesitate. Turning majestically by the door, she bestowed a quizzical look. Inwardly she felt piqued that she couldn’t continue to ignore him, as she had on the journey. She had felt childishly triumphant at not once having yielded to glancing his way, despite being very aware of his saturnine features facing her. She hadn’t thanked him for his escort, or for the use of his luxurious carriage, or even for his gallant assistance in handing her and Josie both in and out of it. She was not, by nature, unmannerly. The fact that he caused her to act so out of character just added to her sense of squirming exasperation.
His expression was concealed by shadow: the flickering coach and porch lamps did little to augment the glow misting about the street lanterns.
‘Come here.’
‘I’m tired.’
‘Come here.’
Grinding her teeth, and with her fingers flexing furiously on air, Elizabeth flounced down three steps, then stopped, so that her pearly complexion was level with his dark face.
‘I expect a little more gracious goodnight from my betrothed than the one I’ve just received. I think it as well to start as we mean to go on.’
Elizabeth’s eyes glittered pure disgust but, with a toss of her fair curls, she lilted, ‘And I, sir, will witness a cold day in hell before taking lessons in gentility from an upstart Vis—’
‘Scapegrace! Minx!’
The sudden sibilant screeching directly behind had Elizabeth jumping o
n the spot and only Ross, steadying her against his solid body, prevented her stumbling down the remaining steps.
‘Where have you been? What have you been doing? Do you know I have sent Pettifer twice along to the vicar to see if you had gone there?’ Ignoring Josie cowering by the door, Edwina flew out of the lighted hallway, night rail flapping about her stout legs, and peered down at her granddaughter’s back. ‘Where have you been? Don’t lie now. I shall know if you lie. Have you been to see that drab of a friend in the stews?’
It was at that point that Edwina’s myopic vision located a man’s muscular figure behind that of her granddaughter. She noticed, also, that the two of them seemed to be locked in some sort of embrace. With a scandalised gurgle, she thumped herself on the breast bone, a pudgy hand searching for support from the wrought iron balustrade. ‘Oh, my God! Now she really is ruined…’
‘Lady Elizabeth has been with me.’
‘Stratton?’ Edwina barked, astonished, recovering remarkably quickly. ‘What are you about? Have you seduced her? Oh, never mind. Come inside, all of you, before we give every nosey parker enough gossip to keep them up guessing all night.’ Without another word Edwina shuffled about on her slippered feet. She huffed back up the few steps she’d descended and disappeared into the honeyed glow behind the half-open door.
Gently, Ross put Elizabeth’s quaking form from him. With a hand lightly on her elbow, he urged her up the steps. Drained of further resistance by jangled nerves and dismay at the utter failure of the entire evening’s enterprise, Elizabeth allowed his assistance.
‘Thank Heavens it’s you she’s been with, Stratton! For a moment there I thought dearest Lizzie had taken leave of her senses and gone slumming at dead of night!’ Edwina burst out when they were all inside the drawing room. She managed a relieved little snort of laughter as she wrapped her thick, cord night rail snugly about her embonpoint.
Elizabeth glared at her grandmother. Personally, she deemed it preferable for a spinster to be discovered doing good works at close to midnight than clinging to a disreputable rogue’s neck on her own doorstep.