by Shana Galen
What the duke really meant was that the staff and the family might be intimidated by him. Ewan was used to the reaction, and it would not be a problem. The only problem Ewan foresaw was with the Lady Lorraine. She was not intimidated by him.
That would have to change.
Three
Lorrie had barely had time to change her dress and brush all of the twigs from her hair when the summons came. Both Lorrie and Nell, her maid, looked up in surprise when the housekeeper knocked and then burst into Lorrie’s bedchamber.
“Forgive me, my lady,” Mrs. Davies said with a quick curtsy. Her pale brow wrinkled to see Nell styling Lorrie’s hair, as that was usually a task reserved for first thing in the morning and then again before dinner, but the housekeeper did not comment. She had served the family since before Lorrie had been born, and the older woman claimed more than one of her gray hairs came from Lady Lorraine. “Your father wishes to see you, my lady. In the library. Immediately.”
Lorrie sighed. “Of course. I will be there directly.” Dratted Viking. She should have known she could not trust him to help her. Now she would have to sit through another lecture about staying close to her chaperone. She would be fortunate if her father did not forbid her to take Welly on walks.
Mrs. Davies curtsied again and rushed back out of the chamber. Nell hurried to pin Lorrie’s hair into place. When she’d finished, Lorrie rose. “Nell, would you please bring Wellington to one of the footmen? He’d better go out before we have a mess to clean up.”
The two women glanced at the rug beside Lorrie’s bed, where the puppy was asleep on his back with his brown and white paws in the air.
“Yes, my lady.” Nell, who was young and pretty with round cheeks and bright red hair, put her hands on her hips and gave the dog a stern look.
Lorrie took a fortifying breath, then marched to the ground floor and tapped on the dark wooden library door.
“Come.” Her father’s voice was deep and brusque.
Lorrie opened the door enough to peek inside. Her father sat behind his desk, hands folded in front of him as though waiting for her. “Lorraine, please come inside.”
She slipped in and clasped her hands behind her back, every inch the dutiful daughter. She’d stood before him in this room many times. When she’d been young, she’d had to stand on tiptoe to see over his desk. She rather missed being able to use the large desk as protection from her father’s frosty stares. “Hello, Father. How are you?” she asked, hoping to disarm him.
“There is something we need to discuss.”
“I know, Father. And I am so, so very sorry. It won’t ever happen again.”
Her father’s dark eyes narrowed. “It won’t?”
“No. I have learned my lesson.” She nodded vigorously.
“What lesson is that?”
That was a good question. What lesson had she learned? Never trust a Viking? “I learned…the lesson you would have wanted me to learn. And in any case, it’s very possible that Viking was exaggerating. I really was not in any danger.”
Now her father rose to his feet. “Danger? What danger?”
Something was not quite right here. Lorrie began to explain, but closed her mouth when she heard the sound of a man clearing his throat behind her. She swung around and almost screamed in surprise.
The Viking stood in the back of the room, arms crossed. She had assumed he was gone and her father was alone. She hadn’t even checked to be certain her father was alone.
“Lorraine, what danger?” her father demanded.
She gave the Viking a glare as though to say this is your fault. But instead of looking smug or impassive, he merely shook his head slightly.
Oh, good Lord. He hadn’t told her father about their meeting the day before, and now she’d made her own noose. “The danger…of neglecting my…” She had to think of something. The Viking merely raised one brow. How did he do that? Lorrie spun around. “Neglecting my correspondence. I was just about to write to Aunt Agatha. I feel horrible that I haven’t replied to her letter from Christmas.” She curtsied. “Pray, excuse me.”
She started for the door, but her father was having none of it. “I do believe replying to a letter received almost six months ago can wait another few moments. There is someone I want you to meet, although I have the feeling you have already met.”
“Who?” Lorrie looked over her shoulder at the blond man. “The Viking? I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
Her father looked as though he was barely managing to keep a leash on his temper. “His name is Mr. Ewan Mostyn. That is correct,” he said with a nod when her brows rose. “Francis Mostyn’s cousin.”
Lorrie gaped at the Viking with new curiosity. How was it Francis had never mentioned having such a cousin? Of course, now that she looked, she could detect some slight resemblances. Francis, like his cousin, had blond hair, although Francis’s was more gilded. Francis was also handsome, but his face was soft and boyish, whereas the Viking’s was chiseled from an unforgiving stone. The eyes were different. Francis had soft brown eyes—doe eyes, as she thought of them—and the Viking had those piercing light blue eyes.
And their size. Francis was not but an inch or two taller than she, whereas the Viking was one of the taller men she had ever known.
“Mr. Mostyn, my daughter, Lady Lorraine.”
The Viking lowered his arms to his sides and gave her a curt bow.
Finally, remembering her manners, she curtsied. “How lovely to meet you for the first time, Mr. Mostyn.”
He issued her a flat look, but as he didn’t speak, she supposed she could at least count on him not to contradict her.
“You will be seeing Mr. Mostyn often, my dear,” her father was saying. He gestured to a chair near his desk, and Lorrie took it gratefully. Being offered a seat indicated her father did not intend to lecture her. And for some strange reason, her legs had begun to wobble.
“Mr. Mostyn?” The duke pointed to a chair near her. The Viking shook his head and stayed where he was, like some sort of frozen sentinel.
“What do you mean, Father?” Lorrie could think of no reason she should ever see Ewan Mostyn again. She couldn’t imagine her father had any use for a man like that. He looked as though he should be in the gladiator ring, not a duke’s library.
“I have hired Mr. Mostyn to serve as your bodyguard.”
Lorrie would have objected if her voice had not abandoned her.
“He is amply qualified. He served under Lieutenant Colonel Draven in the war. Special Forces. I’ve already introduced him to some of the staff, and he’s had a cursory tour of the town house. I wanted you to meet him before I gave him access to the private family chambers.”
“The private areas? Will he be allowed in my bedchamber?”
“I must be familiar with every room in the house, my lady,” the Viking answered, speaking slowly in that deep voice that seemed to make her skin tingle every time she heard it.
“Why?” She looked from him to her father.
“To keep you safe,” her father answered.
“Safe?” she all but screamed. “This is not about keeping me safe. You want to prevent me from marrying Francis.”
Her father merely looked down his nose at her. “I would like to prevent another elopement attempt, yes.”
“So you do not trust me? You asked me to look over the eligible bachelors this Season, and I agreed.”
“You never agreed,” the duke said evenly. “You said you would take it under advisement.”
“I said serious advisement.” She pointed a finger at him. “I don’t need some brute following me around.”
Behind her she heard a low growl.
“He is not a brute. Mr. Mostyn is the son of the Earl of Pembroke.”
Lorraine felt the blood drain from her face. Francis had told her many times o
f the abuses he’d suffered at the hands of the sons of the earl. He’d grown up with them and shared a tutor. The boys were always blaming him for their own misdeeds and seemed to enjoy seeing him punished.
Slowly, Lorrie turned and glared at the Viking. So this was one of the boys who had tormented Francis as a child. Did he think to torment his cousin further by keeping him from the woman who loved him?
“As the son of a peer,” her father continued, “Mr. Mostyn may accompany you to various functions where your attendance is required. His role is not to hamper your enjoyment or prevent you from meeting eligible suitors—”
“Only to keep me from seeing Francis.”
“—but to protect you from fortune hunters’ schemes and anyone who might attempt to possess you in order to gain access to my wealth,” her father continued as though she had never interrupted.
“This won’t work, you know,” she said. “In a year I will reach my majority, and I may marry whomever I please. You can surround me with a hundred bodyguards, but true love will overcome all adversity.”
“True love.” Her father gave her a thin smile. “You, dear daughter, do not know the first thing about it.” He walked out of the room, leaving her alone with the Viking.
“Your father is a patient man,” the Viking said.
“He’s a tyrant.”
“Then a benevolent tyrant. If you were my daughter, I would have taken you over my knee and spanked you until your bottom was red.”
Lorrie’s mouth dropped open. It was a scandalous thing to say, and it probably should have scared her. Instead, her face felt hot and flushed as the image of him tossing her skirts up and putting a hand on her bare bottom flashed in her mind. “I…think that is the longest sentence you have ever spoken to me,” she stammered, desperate to say something—anything—that would turn the conversation away from his hand on her bottom.
The corners of his mouth turned up in a slow grin. She caught her breath and fought her reaction by notching her head higher. “I know who you are now. Francis told me all about you.”
The Viking raised one brow. How did he manage to lift only one?
“Isn’t it bad enough that you tormented him as a child? Now you mean to ruin his—and my—chance at happiness?”
“No and yes,” he answered.
Lorrie had to think back to her questions, which she had intended rhetorically, and supply his answers. No, it was not bad enough to torment Francis as a child. Yes, the Viking did intend to ruin their chance at happiness.
“If you think I will merely stand by and allow you to wreck my life—”
“Take me to your bedchamber,” he said.
“What?” she spluttered. There was the image of his hand on her bottom again. “Absolutely not!”
“Now.” Obviously he would brook no argument. When she didn’t move to lead him toward it, he started on his own. Lorrie was forced to follow on his heels. It was her bedchamber, wasn’t it? She had a right to say who could and could not enter. And finally she resorted to running as his legs were longer than hers.
On the first floor, he opened the drawing room doors, surveyed it, then looked right and left. Finally, his gaze landed on hers—a clear question in his eyes. Which direction to her chamber?
She could refuse to lead him. He might take the left and find her brothers’ chambers first. But eventually he would find hers. There was no stopping him. Lorrie sighed. “This way.”
Her room was close to the servants’ stairs, and when she indicated the closed door, he made a sound of disapproval. Then he gestured for her to open the door. Gritting her teeth, she did so.
Welly didn’t bark or run toward her, so he must be out with a footman. Lorrie wished she had the dog so she would have something to do other than watch the Viking survey her chamber. She hadn’t really paid much attention to it in the past few years. Whereas her room at the duke’s country estate had been refurbished three years before, this one had not. It was done in powder blue and white. The dolls she had played with as a child still sat at a small table adorned with pretty blue-and-white china from her tea set. The lacy curtains, which she did like, had been tied back with large blue sashes, making them look like a child’s flounces.
But whatever the Viking thought of her chamber, he didn’t voice it. Instead, he walked straight to the window and looked out. Whatever he saw there did not please him. He frowned and shook his head slightly. Then he walked the perimeter of the room, seeming to study the walls. “Secret passages?” he asked curtly.
She almost laughed, until she realized he was serious. “No.”
Beside her bed—which looked quite small to her now, especially with Ewan Mostyn next to it—he lay on the rug and peered underneath.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Not surprisingly, he didn’t answer before he stood again. Lorrie prayed she didn’t have dirty chemises and stockings under her bed. How mortifying if he should see her underclothing.
“How did you get out?” he asked.
“I use the door, of course.”
“Your father mentioned an attempted elopement. How did you get out?”
“Oh.” That. She was not inclined to answer that question.
“The door or the window?” he prompted.
“It won’t happen again,” she said, “so there is no need to worry over it. Francis is too much of a gentleman to marry me without my father’s blessing.”
At that, the Viking laughed. It was such an unexpected thing for him to do—she hadn’t even seen him smile—that she gasped in surprise. And then she had to take a very deep breath to calm the fluttering in her belly because, when the Viking smiled, he was easily the most intriguing man she had ever seen. Lorrie had the strangest urge to kiss his lips, which looked soft and quite inviting when not set firmly in a frown.
But the laughter died away and the frown returned. “Door or window?” he asked again.
She didn’t answer, and he took a step toward her. “Door or window?”
“I don’t have to tell you.” She took a step back, though she knew he would not hurt her. Her father would never allow it. But he had a way of looking at her that made her shiver—and not in a good way. Oh, very well. Some of the shivering was the good kind.
He stepped closer, the unanswered question still hanging between them. Lorrie stepped back again and abruptly collided with her bed. She sat down hard, and he towered over her. Since she couldn’t move any further away, she leaned back until she was flat on the bed. The Viking put his hands on either side of her and leaned over her. “One last chance—door or window?”
He smelled surprisingly pleasant for a man she was coming to consider an uncouth ogre. There was nothing civilized in his scent—no bergamot or hint of citrus—but there was a feral quality to it that spoke of wood fires and the Christmas greenery that overflowed at the house during the Yuletide.
“You can torture me all you want,” she whispered, a little unnerved at the breathless quality of her voice. “But I will not tell you.”
He stared at her, their gazes locked in battle. Lorrie could hardly breathe. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, and all she could think was that the Viking was close enough to kiss. She could reach up, twine her arms around his neck, and press her lips to his. But her body was rigid with fear, and the Viking made no move to take advantage of his position.
Finally, she closed her eyes, pressing them tightly together. That small capitulation was enough, apparently, because he straightened and moved away from her. When she opened her eyes again, he was walking toward the door.
“I will have words with my father about this!” she called out.
He looked over his shoulder and captured her gaze, held it. “Too late. You are mine.”
* * *
As Ewan assessed the rest of the town house, he admitted to himself he’d
developed a grudging admiration for the lady. It wasn’t the caliber of admiration he had for Neil Wraxall or Lieutenant Colonel Draven. He admired no man as much as he admired those two, but considering Ewan had never before admired any sort of female, the fact that he had even the remotest esteem for a silly chit like Ridlington’s daughter came as something of a surprise.
First of all, she was no great judge of character if she thought Francis Mostyn a desirable mate. Of course, Francis could be charming—very charming—and she was young and naive. One look at her bedchamber told him just what an innocent she was. He might have walked into a nursery, not the chamber of a woman.
That did not explain why he’d suddenly felt uncomfortable when he realized he had her trapped on her bed. He’d merely meant to intimidate her, but when he’d looked down at that sheet of tawny hair spread on the coverlet and the fast rise and fall of her chest, he’d felt more like a lecher.
Even worse, he hadn’t managed to force her to divulge her means of escape for the attempted elopement. Ewan really didn’t need her to confirm what he suspected, though it would have made informing the duke that the tree outside her window had to be cut down a bit easier. As it was, the duke was surprisingly amenable to all of Ewan’s recommendations—from bolting the door to the servants’ stairs to removing the tree limbs that had grown toward Lady Lorraine’s window—and did not even balk when Ewan suggested he be given a room in the town house.
“Certainly,” the duke said, making note of it on the paper before him. At least Ewan assumed that was what the man had written. “There will undoubtedly be nights when it is best to have you here. These balls early in the Season do tend to last until sunrise.”
Ewan was less worried about staying out past his bedtime than he was about what Francis would do when he realized Ewan was protecting the woman Francis had targeted for his latest scheme, but Ewan saw no reason to alarm the duke.
“Will you join us for dinner tonight?”
“You will eat dinner in?”
“We have no plans for tonight. Gladstone,” the duke called, and the library door opened immediately, revealing a small man in a dark coat.