Third Son's a Charm

by Shana Galen

  They reached the supper room, and Ewan searched for the man with whom she’d been dancing. It took a moment for him to locate the lord. He looked very much like every other man she ever danced with. While he scanned the room, he felt her hand reach into his coat. If they hadn’t been in full view of the entire room, he would have caught the offending hand in his and demanded to know if she was attempting to pick his pocket.

  “What the devil are you about?” he asked, jaw clenched.

  “You will see. Open it when you have a moment alone.”

  Then, apparently spotting the man she wanted, she released his arm and made her way to Lord Drake’s table.

  Ewan did not move for a long moment, even though he knew he was blocking the door. Finally, he stepped aside and reached inside his coat. He could feel the slip of paper inside the pocket. What scheme had she concocted now? Did she mean to force him to admit he could not read? As he’d said, he was not stupid. He would ask one of the servants to read it for him or conveniently lose the missive.

  He should drop it in the fire right away, but instead he left the supper room and withdrew the letter. No words were written on the front. It was merely folded over once and unsealed. He flipped it open and stared not at words but at a drawing. Ewan could only assume she had drawn the illustration. On the left side of the paper were two figures. One was clearly a woman. She wore a dress and her hair was in a coiffure on top of her head. The other was a man. No, the other was him. No other man would have been drawn so tall and muscular, his cheekbones so stark and his hair so short. Did that mean the woman was Lady Lorraine?

  To the right of the figures was an arrow and on the opposite side of the arrow was a shelf of books, beneath which was a desk and two chairs.

  Ewan understood what she wanted immediately. She wanted him to meet her in her father’s library. She hadn’t indicated when this meeting was to occur, but knowing the lady as he did, he could only assume it was to take place after the household had gone to sleep.

  What the devil did she have planned now?

  Ewan didn’t intend to find out. When they’d arrived home from the ball, he’d gone to his room, tore off the offending neckcloth, and drank down a glass of wine. Meeting her in the library was a bad idea. A child would have known that much. It was one thing to kiss her by the topiaries at the Carlton House conservatory and quite another to do such a thing under her father’s roof.

  And even if Ewan went to the library with every intention of not kissing her, he was aware she tempted him in that regard more than any other woman he had ever encountered.

  But very possibly this meeting was not about kisses at all. She hadn’t forgotten the conversation in the parlor, and he wanted to continue it even less than he wanted to kiss her.

  And so he would not go.

  And if he didn’t go, what would she do then? Come to his room? Draw him even more pictures? What would her father think if he knew she slipped him secret illustrations asking for private meetings? Ewan would then be forced to admit to yet another person he could not read, not to mention explain why Lady Lorraine wanted to meet with him in private.

  Ewan drank another glass of wine, knowing it would take an entire bottle before he felt any of its effects, and wishing he had time to drink the whole bottle. Instead, he listened for signs that the household had gone to sleep and then descended silently to the library.

  He wasn’t surprised to find Lady Lorraine there waiting for him. He did take a step back when he realized she was wearing a dressing gown, not the dress she’d worn to the ball. And her hair was a straight sheet of coffee down her back. She seemed to understand his reaction immediately.

  “I had to allow Nell to undress me else she would know something was amiss,” the lady explained, moving around her father’s desk. The fire in the hearth was low, but the light was enough that he could see her expression. “I cannot do it myself, so I had no excuse for sending her away. Did anyone see you?”

  “No.”

  “You looked at my drawing? Oh, but of course you did or you would not have known to come here. And now you are probably wondering what it is I want and worried I mean to pounce on you. I assure you I do not.”

  “Get to the point,” he said. The dressing gown was thick cotton, and for that he was grateful. He could detect no glimpse of what she wore underneath, and the collar was higher than any of the gowns she seemed to own. But seeing her with her hair down bothered him. Looking at her now, he experienced the same feeling he had just before an ambush. Did she mean to tempt him with that hair? He could not help but stare at it and wonder if it could possibly be as soft as it appeared.

  “Very well,” she said with a huff. “I want to help you.”

  “I don’t need help. Good night.”

  “You need help reading,” she returned. “I am a good teacher. Well, I am not exactly a teacher, but I have spent some time in the church’s school in Bedford, and I seemed to be able to impart some knowledge.”

  “The point,” he demanded.

  “I can teach you to read.”

  Ewan didn’t see any reason to pretend he could read. It would only make her talk longer. “No, you can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  He shook his head. He did not want to discuss this with her. With anyone.

  “Won’t you even let me try?”

  “No.” He turned to go, but she moved quickly to catch his arm. He shook her off. If anyone came in, he did not want to be discovered touching her. He took two steps back and felt the door against his spine. Trapped, that’s what he was. By a mere girl half his size.

  “Did you have someone read the letter your father sent yet? I thought not. At least let me read that to you.”

  “Why?”

  She huffed out an exasperated sigh. “I already told you. I want to help.”

  “If I allow you to read the letter, then our meeting is over. You go to your bed, and I go to mine.”

  “But—”

  “Not negotiable.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She stuck her hand out, and he withdrew the letter still residing in his coat. He placed it in her hand, and she broke the seal. She scanned the words with an ease and quickness Ewan envied.

  And then her green eyes met his. “Oh dear.”

  Ten

  “What does ‘oh dear’ mean?” he asked.

  Lorrie cringed. She had not meant to say that aloud. “It means this is the sort of letter my father would write to me.”

  “That bad?”

  She gave him a wan smile. “It’s not good, at any rate.” She laid the letter on her father’s desk, where she had lit a candle. Using her finger to help him follow along, she read:

  “To Mr. Mostyn.”

  There she looked up. “I think it always a bad sign when a parent does not use a child’s Christian name.”

  The Viking showed no reaction to her observation. Lorrie cleared her throat.

  “I send you no regards and dispense with any and all pleasantries. I write on behalf of your cousin, my nephew, Francis Mostyn.”

  The Viking muttered something under his breath that sounded very much like “The bastard.” Lorrie pretended she had not heard.

  “Francis informs me that he has, for some time, had strong feelings for a certain lady of unsurpassed beauty, grace, and elegance.”

  She paused. “Do you think he means me?”

  The Viking gave her a long stare, and she looked back at the letter. “Ah, yes, here we were: ‘a lady of unsurpassed beauty, grace, and elegance.’”

  “You read that already.”

  “Did I?” She gave him her best innocent look, the one that had worked with her parents for at least the first seven or eight years of her life.

  “The lady has assured your cousin she returns his affections, and Francis tells me he has made
certain promises to this lady. Much to your cousin’s dismay—and I must confess, mine as well—he reports that you, sir, have attempted to—”

  She glanced up at the Viking, who was watching her, not looking at her finger on the paper. “Go on,” he said in a tone of voice she could not quite decipher.

  “—have attempted to steal the lady’s affections and prevent your cousin from seeing the lady in social settings. Furthermore, Francis accuses you of intercepting letters he has written to the lady so she will believe his affections for her have waned.”

  “Is that true?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so.” He hadn’t even been able to read the letter directed to him. How would he have known which letters arrived at the house directed to her?

  But her father knew.

  “Is that all?” the Viking asked.

  “Er…no.”

  “What else?”

  She looked down at the vellum.

  “With regard to the other matter we spoke of recently, it has been over a sennight since I sent and you took receipt of the accounts we discussed and in that time I have had no communication from you as regards Mr. de los Santos—”

  She looked up at him. “Is that correct? The name is smudged.”

  “That’s enough.” The Viking took the paper. “I know the rest.”

  “What accounts does he mean?”

  “I agreed to look into a financial matter for my father. But apparently that is of less concern than your affections.”

  “I must admit I am surprised your father has taken an interest in my little love affair.”

  The Viking raised an eyebrow.

  “Surely Francis would not have asked him to write to you. He is his own man, after all.”

  The look he gave her was full of pity. Lorrie straightened her back. “You imply Francis…tattled to your father?”

  “I wasn’t implying it.”

  “But Francis would never behave so childishly.”

  The Viking lifted the letter and threw it in the fire. “Then why does my father believe I have attempted to steal your affections? Everyone knows I’ve been hired to protect you from unwise elopements”—she made a face at him—“and abduction plots.”

  “But your father chooses to listen to Francis rather than believe your interest in me is purely professional.”

  “He always has.”

  “And I suppose now you will tell me that Francis bullied you when you were children, not the other way round.”

  One corner of his mouth rose as though he were the instructor and his pupil had just stumbled upon the answer to a difficult lesson. His mouth looked softer when he gave that half smile, almost kissable.

  “But the idea is there.” She pointed to her head. “Lodged in my brain box.”

  “Believe what you want, my lady. I don’t give a damn.” He started for the door, ending their meeting and conversation as he’d stated he would do when the letter was read.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said. “What people think of you matters more than you want to admit. Just this morning you told me you were not stupid.”

  He spun around and crossed the room in two steps. If Lorrie hadn’t been so surprised at the quick movement, she would have dashed for the door. The expression on the Viking’s face was pure rage. Paralyzed by the crackle of danger surrounding him, she didn’t resist when he backed her up against the desk, placing one hand on either side of her waist. “I am not stupid.”

  “And Francis said you were,” she whispered, her voice refusing to cooperate and leave her some semblance of pride. He’d bent low to look her in the eye, and she couldn’t help but notice his eyes were pretty this close. They looked warmer.

  “Francis said a lot of things, most of them no more true than what my so-called father vomited up in that letter.”

  “Oh.” She saw how it had been then. She could picture the Viking’s childhood quite clearly now. He’d been a smaller version of himself, but still taller than the other boys and probably awkward in his skin. If he’d had trouble reading, the other children might have teased him. Had he fought back? Possibly, but he was bigger than the other boys and probably punished for what he saw as defending himself and what others might see as an unfair advantage.

  But the worst of it was that his own father hadn’t believed him. He’d taken the side of his nephew over that of his son. It would not be a difficult choice. The Viking could be stubborn and terse and so silent it might seem sullen. Francis was charming and amiable and quick to smile or make a room full of people laugh.

  “All of this happened when you were but children. Surely you and Francis have put all of that behind you.” She knew it wasn’t true even as she spoke the words. In her mind, she’d wanted to protect Francis by assuming his complaints to his uncle had been taken out of context or were made out of frustration because he was denied access to her.

  But this was nothing more than flattery. The same self-flattery that made her believe the Viking had desired her that night in the prince’s gardens. He’d kissed her because he wanted her to forget Francis. He’d taken this position with her family for revenge.

  “I won’t be put in the middle of this,” she said.

  “You seem to think you are the center of the universe.”

  Lorrie pushed back on his chest to no avail. “Are you saying I am conceited?”

  “No. I’m saying you think you’re the center of the universe.”

  “Mr. Mostyn—”

  “My quarrel with my cousin has nothing to do with you. You are that piece on the chessboard. He’s using you.”

  “The piece—a pawn?” Her cheeks flamed hot. “I am not a pawn, sir.”

  “You were even before I met you. He wants your dowry, so he makes you believe you are in love with him and, worse yet, that he loves you. Now he uses you to turn my father further against me.”

  She huffed out a breath. “I think you quite capable of turning people against you all by yourself.”

  He smiled slightly, and she found she liked it when he smiled. His lips looked so much more kissable when he did that.

  But she did not want to kiss him.

  Very well—that was a lie. Still, she would not kiss him again. And then she was speaking without thinking again. “Did you kiss me to exact revenge on your cousin?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t pretend, and I don’t lie. I kissed you because someone had to show you Francis Mostyn is not the only man in the world.”

  “I know that—”

  “And because I wanted to.”

  “You…” Her throat had gone dry. “You wanted to?”

  His hands moved in so his fingers brushed against the material of her night robe. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to do.”

  “And right now?” She swallowed. “What do you want to do?”

  “This.”

  * * *

  He yanked her against him and tilted her chin up with one hand. Even as his mouth lowered to meet hers, he knew this was a mistake. He was under her father’s roof. He might not be much of a gentleman, but he liked to think he had his own code of honor. Debauching virgin daughters under their fathers’ roofs was well out of the bounds of his code.

  Even knowing this, he didn’t stop. He’d wanted to kiss her again since the first dance of the evening. He’d watched her dance at least four dozen dances with half as many partners, and it had been all part of the position.

  Until tonight.

  Tonight he had hated the men dancing with her. He’d wanted to rip their hands from her shoulder or her arm, tear their heads from their bodies, and smash the men’s faces into the first blunt object he encountered. He’d tamped the urge down, but all the frustration of inaction had built up. And
now the foolish chit had put herself within his reach. How long could a man resist this sort of temptation?

  He was no longer content to stand on the outside and look in.

  His lips met hers, and the sensation was even better than it had been the first time. He’d thought he’d imagined the punch of arousal in his gut and the dimming of the world around them. But it was happening again. He wanted her so badly it hurt, and he could hardly remember where he was or why he must not take her.

  He was not a man of subtlety, and he did not tease her lips open. He took what he wanted, claiming her mouth as though it was a prize on the battlefield. If she’d only fought him or resisted, even slightly, he would have stopped. For all his size and strength, he was no brute.

  “Yes,” she moaned against his mouth. “This. This.”

  Ewan tore his lips from hers, his breath coming in heavy pants. “You should run.”

  She blinked eyes so dark green they reminded him of the deepest recesses of a forest glen. “Why?” Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, and he could feel her small, slim body press against him. He forced his hands to stay at her waist. He might have broken her in two with one quick movement.

  “The things I’m thinking right now should scare you.”

  Her eyes widened, but not with fear. “Tell me.”

  “Goddamn it!” He tried to move away from her, but she held on to his neck, and he didn’t have the will to remove her hands.

  “You might as well call me Lorrie.”

  “No. This is your father’s house. We cannot do this.”

  “Do what?”

  He held his hands out to indicate their embrace. “This.”

  “What if we weren’t here—”

  “You are a duke’s daughter.”

  “What if I wasn’t?” Her hands slid up his neck to tangle in his shorn hair. “What if I was a trollop? What would you do to me?”

  He shook his head. “That’s a dangerous conversation.”

  “Would you toss up my skirts?”

  “Yes.” He’d tear every stitch of clothing off her.

  “Would you touch me?”

  “Yes.”