Penny stepped behind him, following his gaze down the deserted hallway, the only thing remaining Raine’s teasing scent. That, and the images racing like feral dogs through his mind. Some of them lewd, he’d admit.
How soon could he make that reality, he wondered?
“That gorgeous creature is our bluestocking?” Penny asked in dazed incredulity. “Remind me to consider the brainy ones in the future.”
“My bluestocking,” Christian corrected.
Penny jammed his broad shoulder against the doorjamb. “So that’s the way of it? Soft heart like yours, I knew it was coming at some point.” He sighed, the sound genuinely mournful. “Well, now we’re doomed.”
Christian looked away before his face betrayed him. His severe upbringing and everything he’d had to do to succeed had beaten any sense of benevolence out of him.
He didn’t have a soft heart. A generous heart.
Slightly more generous than Penny’s perhaps.
But for the girl on the veranda, he was willing to expose his—even if he lost it in the process.
Chapter 3
Christian was waiting for her the next morning, lounging in the doorway of the duke’s study like a panther stalking his prey. Teacup in hand, he took a leisurely sip and let his gaze roam the length of her and back. His calculated study was the most erotic thing she’d ever experienced—and all without being touched. She kept her expression placid, she hoped, as her chest flushed beneath starched cotton.
My, what would being kissed by the man, which she’d spent half the night contemplating, be like if his straightforward but pointed scrutiny scorched?
Most likely, it would be a disappointment, as the two careless kisses Raine had experienced to date had been.
“Are we ready to proceed with the project?” She halted before him, amazed her voice sounded steady with such wild anticipation seizing her. A stunned breath struck as she looked into his eyes and understood she felt much more than she should have. This was dreadful, an attraction between them a breach of an elemental tenet of servitude. A domestic did not, could not, foster feelings for a guest. A guest in a ducal home. A man notorious enough to be written about in the gossip sheets. A man known for his profligate lifestyle and his magnificent timepieces. A man well above her station.
A man who would break her heart into a thousand pieces if she let him.
He raised a dark eyebrow and sipped from his teacup. “Are you done?” he asked and turned to move into the study.
She tilted her head in question. “Done?”
“Your face, just then, was like one of my watches when I crack open the casing. A lot of moving parts.” His deep voice drew her into the room, where he added with a cunning look thrown over his shoulder, “I apprenticed with a very brilliant horologist who once told me, deliberation can arrest innovation.”
She settled in the armchair before the desk, her stack of translation materials where she’d left them the day before. Christian’s tools were perfectly placed, as well. A precise row, an exact arrangement from largest to smallest. Interesting. A conscientious man with the things he cared for. “Go with your gut. Is that what you were supposed to take from that charming bit of horological wisdom? For a man, I’m certain that’s excellent advice. Women are not often afforded the opportunity to rise to such a challenge, Mister Bainbridge.”
His burst of laugher had her glancing up from the letter she’d spread across glossy mahogany, another opportunity to dive into the blasted blue of his eyes. Another opportunity to note the wicked dimple denting his cheek. “Let’s agree,” he said, sliding a cup of tea across the desk when a man had never poured tea for her in her life, “that within the walls of Devon’s exhaustively regal study, you’re afforded every opportunity to rise to such a challenge.”
She pressed her lips together to hold back a smile. “So I’m to speak freely. And this benefits you how?”
Christian popped the loupe into place against his left eye, picked up a small screwdriver, and turned his attention to the metal parts spread before him. “That, Miss Mowbray, is still to be determined.”
The hour passed quickly, quietly, contentedly. There was an ease in being around Christian Bainbridge, which Raine understood was not customary or conventional. His regard warmed her, brief strikes when he stretched or took a sip of tea, that made her feel like a thick, woolen shawl had been placed about her shoulders rather than a sharp blade edged along her skin, as masculine attention usually brought. She was attractive, and men were weak. Indeed, her appearance was a drawback rather than a source of good fortune, as beauty was for a woman of highborn birth. Thinking of the times she’d had to push the scuffed bureau in front of the attic door at Tavistock House suddenly came to her, and she frowned. Placed her quill on the desk and leaned back in her chair to watch Christian work.
Five minutes at her leisure, she decided with a glance thrown at the mantel clock Christian had modified earlier, a device that had never before kept accurate time. Fascinated, she watched him adjust the wheel of a pocket watch, pause, then go in for another alteration.
“There’s nothing faulty with the piece. Just a loose hairspring.” One side of his mouth kicked up. “It’s aging, like skin that starts to sag. Springs lose their elasticity, as it were.”
“It’s lovely,” she murmured, unable to look away from the long, slim fingers manipulating the tool with true artistry. He was gifted. More talented than anyone she’d ever known. Foolish, to be this attracted to a man so far from her reach. To be compelled to know him better, to share the scant, uninteresting bits of her life with him.
“A Bainbridge open-face duplex chronometer, to be precise.” He removed the loupe, leaving a shallow dent where it had pressed into this skin, and slid the watch across to her. “Take a look. It’s a superb model. Probably the one I’m best known for.”
“The most accurate,” she said and grasped the watch, the metal casing warm from his touch.
He tilted his head, his lips curving in pleasure. “The chattering ninnies included that bit, did they? Sometimes gossip is as precise as my timepieces.”
She rotated the watch, the silver filigree chain sliding through her fingers. “This is beautiful. I’ve never seen the like.”
“A silversmith in France makes them. Unique to my pieces.”
“Gorgeous,” she murmured.
“Yes.”
She stared at the watch, unable to meet his gaze, wondering what he wanted from her. Her intuition told her it wasn’t what most men of her acquaintance had. Or not all. There was hunger in his attention, yes, but there was also an affectionate, enveloping kindness that even his sardonic banter couldn’t quell. He was a better man than he believed if she had her guess. It frightened her that she was beginning to trust him, to understand, like his timepieces, what made him tick.
“There’s a spare length of chain, slightly damaged, that has no home.” He nudged a length of filigree into her line of vision. “It would make an excellent bookmark.”
She shook her head. “No more gifts, Mister Bainbridge.”
“There’ve been no gifts. Miss Austen is returning to me, is she not? And the filigree has no use, consider it rubbish.”
She blew out an exasperated breath. Impossible man, she reasoned and reached for the chain. It glimmered against her skin, a flawless fragment, not an imperfection in sight.
“Rise to the challenge in our safe space, Miss Mowbray. Tell me what’s circling through your astute mind.”
“I’d rather serve as a maid my whole life than be beholden to anyone,” she said in a rush, the words tense, hard, shaded by a forlorn past and an uncertain future. She thrust the delicate silver across the desk. “That’s what I’m thinking.”
Christian cursed softly beneath his breath.
She looked up, startled to see how stunned he seemed by her words. “Sorry you asked? An honest woman isn’t always welcome.”
“No, God, no. I want to hear anything you wish to tel
l me.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. The eyes that met hers were apologetic, beseeching, an indigo sea she wanted to plunge into. “I imagined it would be days before we got to this topic. You see, I’m a devotee of actions over words, and if I speak before you’ve had time to see, I’m not sure you’ll believe me. I hadn’t planned on this, on ever meeting you. Of course, I had things I wanted to say should it ever occur, but life never goes the way you plan, does it?”
Her heart stuttered in her chest. Could her intuition have deceived her this appallingly? Was he a devious man, after all? “You’ve been withholding something from me. Something I should know.”
His beautiful lips parted, closed, parted again. “No, yes, partially.”
“You’re betrothed,” she whispered and rose shakily to her feet, the notion sending a dart of grief through her. Grief she had no right to feel. No place to feel. How many times had she seen aristocratic men take advantage? Was she going to betray herself and fall prey as well? Over a man who had the most arresting voice she’d ever heard, the sweetest smile, the gentlest laugh? A man who was intelligent and cunning and even a little shy? A man who seemed to know her, who she seemed to know right back.
Was that what it took for her to fold? To fall?
Bracing his hands on the desk, he shoved from his chair, fury tightening his stubbled jaw. “If you think I would betray you in this manner after I’ve sat here for two days consuming you with my eyes, panting like a dog over a bone but holding my feelings inside for both of us, then there’s no chance. I’m a scoundrel, fine, admitted, but I don’t play with people’s happiness nor seek to increase their challenges. When I can see you’re challenged. And alone. But I’m alone, too, Raine. For years, centuries.” He yanked a hand that trembled through his hair and exhaled sharply. “This is coming out wrong. I’m not gifted in the art of sustaining relationships. Or fostering them.”
“Not according to the chattering ninnies,” she returned, realizing they were arguing. Although she had no idea about what. So what if he had a mistress? A fiancée? Or one of each. It should mean nothing to her. But, oh, it did.
“Bringing up the gossips rags? Really? The lady doesn’t fight fair.”
She leaned across the desk, closing in until the gray flecks in his eyes shot into view. “You’re mistaken. I’m not a lady. I’m a housemaid, and that’s all I’ll ever be. You’re here”—she held her hand high, then lowered it—“and I’m here.”
“I won’t let you evade this discussion that easily. As if the tiers of society mean a damned thing to me.” He grasped her hand, unfurled her clenched fist, and angrily dropped the length of chain into it. “As if they mean anything to you. I’d be very disheartened if they did.”
Miss Bruce’s high-pitched voice intruded, a strident call from the hallway.
Raine backed away from him, bumping into the armchair, her fingers closing around the filigree. “I have to go.”
“Meet me tonight. Ten o’clock. At the stone bridge over the pond. I’ve been walking every night to clear my mind. It’s quite lovely. And safe.” He held up his hands. “I won’t touch you. I’ll explain everything, though I’m sure I’ll muddle it up. Hopefully, I can figure out what to say between now and then.”
“The truth will do nicely.”
When Miss Bruce’s voice again flowed between them, he sighed and gave Raine a resigned wave toward the door. “That’s what we’ll go with then. I only ask for tolerance in advance. Men are, you must remember, simple, foolish creatures. We often stumble along doing the best we can.”
Raine strode from the study with Christian’s gaze stinging her back and his delicate filigree chain marking her palm, confused and agitated, thinking somewhat crossly that she’d never met a less simple, foolish creature in her life.
* * *
Christian hadn’t been lying when he told Raine he wasn’t very good with women.
Success had brought them to his Berkeley Square doorstep in droves, and he knew, after diligent practice, how to satisfy. For a night, a week or two. A month. He was skilled in transitory pleasure; the mechanics of tupping weren’t hard to perfect when one liked working parts and the microscopic details that accompanied them as much as he did. He was patient. Meticulous. Generous in bed, as his last mistress had shared with a level of surprise that let him know most men weren’t. A fast pace had its time and place. As did a slow one.
He liked both and everything in between.
But he knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about quiet conversations over tea. Intimate discussions about family and politics and art while thoughts of making someone happy out of bed swirled through his mind. Thoughts about love filling his heart. He’d only loved two people, his brother and mother, and they were both long gone. Maybe three, if he counted Penny, which he felt he could in a brotherly, best friend fashion.
Moonlight slithered across the boundless woodlands as choppy pianoforte chords, compliments of a regrettably untalented Devon guest, flowed over him. Christian sighed and kicked at a patch of overgrown grass. Raine was late, likely not coming. Reading Austen in her narrow bed in the servant’s quarters, tucked in and away from him. Or, maybe she’d taken the book and the length of entirely serviceable silver filigree he’d gifted her on a whim and shoved them under his door, a determined rebuke. A mild breeze ripped through the pitch night, the temperature, for a Yorkshire evening, balmy and ideal. A perfect night for—
Christian halted, flipping the worn compensating balance wheel he’d replaced on one of the duke’s watches from hand to hand. A perfect night for what?
Not an assignation.
As much as he wanted Raine beneath him on any available surface she’d agree to share, he wanted her friendship, her opinions, wishes, dreams, past, present, future, more. He wanted the one person in the universe he felt could ease his loneliness.
The one person he might have a chance to make happy in return. Why he imagined he could, he wasn’t able to explain; he only knew it to be true.
The wheel tumbled from his hand to the grass. With a growl, he went to one knee to retrieve it. This was trouble, even if he welcomed it. Dire and unpredictable. He was in love with the woman in the duke’s study, not only the girl he’d mooned over at his cousin’s estate.
The sound of a branch cracking had his gaze reaching into the night, his body flooding with anticipation.
She was late. But she’d come.
Strolling across the lawn, that unflattering dress whipping her long legs, flaxen hair unbound and flowing down her back, something he’d yet to see. He clenched his hands into fists and rose unsteadily to his feet. This is how she’d look in his bed. A little untamed, a little unsure.
All his.
She appeared nervous when she reached him, her cheeks ashen in the creamy moonlight, her bottom lip tucked firmly between her teeth. Tugging at her threadbare shawl, she gave him a cautious smile, a tilt of her head that said, I’m here, now what?
He extended his hand, watched in trepidation as she glanced at the offering, caught her breath in indecision, then slowly linked her fingers with his. It was a sweetly intimate gesture, and he was unable to remember holding hands with anyone except his mother.
With a smile but no conversation, not yet, he tugged her along, over the stone bridge to a secluded spot on the other side of the stream. The plink of the pianoforte rippled through the night, the only sound aside from their hushed breaths and the distant chirp of crickets.
Penny, a romantic at heart though he’d deny it to his death, had secured the blanket and the candles. Christian had charmed the bottle of wine from the cook, Mrs. Webster, who certainly suspected he planned to use it for nefarious purposes, which for the first time, he didn’t.
Raine moved ahead of him, halted, and he stumbled into her. Bloody hell, her body was warm, soft. He tucked his nose in her hair, his inhalation sending the scent of lavender through him.
“What’s this?” she asked with a searching backward glance.
>
Christian gave her a gentle nudge away from his body before it provided proof of her ardent effect on him. “A moonlit picnic among friends. I’ll sit on the far side of the blanket, not even the tip of my boot touching the hem of that most unflattering garment Devon has you wear. The candles add a certain sense of propriety, am I right? With those and a close-to-full moon, we’re as illuminated as we’d be in the duchess’s drawing room. You see, I remember my promise.”
A laugh burst from her, sending her shawl fluttering to the ground. “You think two tallow candles will style this a proper situation? Mister Bainbridge, I’m astounded by your lack of prudence and your optimism that the wind won’t blow them out. Also, a gentleman never tells a woman her clothing is unflattering, even if it’s the absolute truth.”
He dropped to his haunches to retrieve her shawl and gestured to the candles that had defied his will and indeed remained unlit. “Go on. Please. You’re ruining the most romantic undertaking of my life. And it’s Christian. Not sir, not mister. I’m neither of those things, not to you.”
“That’s just as well,” she said and wandered to his celebration beneath the stars, arranging herself on the blanket with all the grace of a queen, “because I prefer Kit.”
He hummed beneath his breath, unsure what to say. His nickname on her lips sent a jagged, desirous pulse spiraling through him. Of longing. And strangely, of loneliness. No one aside from his brother and Penny had ever called him Kit. He wouldn’t have allowed it if they had. The name brought too many painful memories, ones he’d sealed in a box and buried deep in his heart. This endeavor, he realized as he settled across from her, was going to test him.
Test that promise he’d so boldly made not to touch her.
Silent, he poured wine into the tumblers he’d guessed would make the trip more safely than wine glasses and handed her one. Rucking his knee high, he dropped his arm atop it and watched her tongue peek out to catch a drop of wine on the rim. His fingers clamped around the crystal as his body tightened. God, looking and not touching was torture.
Tempting the Scoundrel Page 3