Third Son's a Charm

by Shana Galen

  “Where?”

  Everywhere. “Go to bed.”

  “Would you push me back on the desk and stand between my parted legs?”

  “No.”

  “No?” The disappointment practically dripped from her lips. What the hell sort of virgin was she to speak so shamelessly?

  “Why not?” she demanded.

  “Because I’d rather take you from behind.”

  “Behind?” Her brow furrowed in that way he could not seem to cease finding adorable.

  “Like this.” He spun her around and cupped a hand around her neck. He shoved her none too gently toward the desk and pushed her down until her round bottom was level with his cock. This would scare her back to sense. He pressed his hard member against that soft flesh and leaned close to her ear. “Is this what you want?”

  “Yes. Oh yes.” She wriggled her bottom against him.

  That was the wrong answer and the wrong action. He clenched his hands to stop them from sliding under her nightgown and touching the ripe flesh he knew would be waiting.

  He pushed harder against her, making sure she felt his length. “Last chance to run to your chamber.”

  “I’ll stay right here. Take me.”

  Ewan released her and with a curse turned away. He slammed a hand against the marble of the fireplace, letting the pain wash over him until he could think of something besides his aching arousal. Why the hell did she have to be so perfectly wanton?

  “Why did you stop?” she asked. The roaring in his ears and the throbbing of his hand made her sound miles away. “Did I say something wrong? I’m too forward.”

  “You are too forbidden.”

  She waved a hand. “Everything is forbidden. The long list of do nots makes me weary.”

  “This is at the top of the list.”

  “Of course it is. Anything enjoyable is always forbidden.”

  “If we were discovered—”

  She held up a hand. “I know. I would be ruined. My family would be disgraced. It would be the scandal of the year. Well, not the year, but the Season. Someone else is bound to do something worse before the end of 1816. I know all of this, and yet”—she looked up at him—“I still want to kiss you.”

  He held out a hand to keep her at bay. “No.”

  She blinked at him. “I won’t attack you. I’m not that desperate…yet,” she murmured. “But I won’t promise not to try and see Francis again. I don’t want to be ruined—I mean, I do want that, but that’s in theory. In fact, I am really quite opposed to ruin and scandal and—”

  “Is this a long speech?”

  She sighed. “I must marry, and sooner rather than later. Before I do something I regret.”

  “You will not elope with Francis.”

  “And the fact that I love him?”

  “You don’t love him.” He’d expected her to argue, but she seemed to accept the statement. Had she finally realized she did not love the man or had she given up trying to convince Ewan that she did?

  “I won’t elope with him.”

  He heard the condition even before she spoke.

  “But I want something from you in return.”

  “No.”

  She shook her head at him in exasperation. “You haven’t even heard what it is.”

  “No.”

  “I want to teach you to read,” she said as though he hadn’t spoken at all.

  “No.”

  “We meet here every other night or so—”

  “No.”

  “—and I will teach you to read. In the meantime, you will be able to keep an eye on me and be certain I do not attempt to elope.”

  “No.”

  Her hands settled on her hips. “That is a perfectly reasonable plan. Why do you reject it? Is it because we have no chaperone? I’ll bring Welly. He can chaperone us.”

  “No.”

  “I will sit on this side of the desk.” She pointed to her father’s chair. “And you will sit on this side. Nothing can happen when we’re separated by a desk. If anyone walks in, we’ll say we met by accident and are reading. It will look perfectly innocent because it will be innocent.”

  “No.”

  “Stop saying no. It’s a perfectly good plan. Don’t you want to be able to read the next letter your father sends you? You can’t like being ignorant.”

  He didn’t like it at all, but she couldn’t help him.

  “Then why won’t you allow me to try?”

  “Others have tried. I cannot read. I’m too—”

  She stepped close, cutting him off. “Don’t say stupid. You are not that. I will figure out a way to help you. I’m amazingly resourceful, you know. Have you noticed that yet?”

  He thought it better not to comment.

  “And I’m tenacious. We won’t give up. Mr. Mostyn, you are really doing me a favor. I need something to focus on besides the banality of what to wear for this ball or that, and if I don’t have anything to keep me occupied, then I will only begin planning my elopement. You may have cut the tree limb, but there are other ways I could make my escape. For example—”

  “No examples.” Dear God. He would kiss her just to make her stop talking. “Fine.”

  He started for the door. She was right on his heels. “Fine? Does that mean yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, I will tutor you or yes to something else I said? I confess I can’t remember everything I said. Did I ask another question?”

  Ewan turned around and did the only thing he could think of—other than kissing her into silence. He put his hand over her mouth. “Teach me to read.”

  She mumbled something under his hand.

  He frowned for a moment. “Yes, tomorrow night. After the…whatever it is we must attend tomorrow night.”

  She mumbled something else, but Ewan, who had gagged his fair share of the enemy, had no trouble understanding. “Fine. An hour after they go to bed, though. Take no chances.”

  Another mumble. He sighed. “Fine.” She might as well bring the damn dog. She had more chance of teaching the dog to read than she did Ewan learning anything.

  But she’d see that tomorrow night.

  Eleven

  The fete seemed interminable. Lorrie generally enjoyed balls and musicales and routs and the theater—as long as it was not opera—but tonight she could think of nothing but returning home and seeing the Viking again.

  Alone.

  Oh, she’d promised not to attack him, and she would not, but just the thought of being with him made the skin all along her spine tingle with anticipation. She glanced over her shoulder and caught him looking at her. He was always looking at her. That was his job, but she rather liked finding his cool blue gaze on her right now. In fact, she liked it so much, she blew him a kiss.

  The line between his brows deepened, and he gave her what she liked to think of as his warning look. And then a dark-haired lady—Lorrie had noticed quite a few ladies had been brave enough to approach him lately—touched his arm, and he was obliged to look down at her. The lady was at least ten years older than Lorrie, but no less lovely, and it did not take a bluestocking to deduce what she talked to the Viking about.

  His service with Lieutenant Colonel Draven. The Viking was more than a former soldier. He was a war hero. Now that Society had become used to seeing him about, stories about him had begun to circulate. He’d once killed a dozen men with his bare hands. He’d carried Lord Jasper out of a burning building and ten miles to safety, all the while pursued by enemy soldiers. He’d been shot three times and had removed the balls and sewn himself up without so much as a whimper.

  Ewan Mostyn was a veritable Goliath to Napoleon’s scared Israelites.

  It was no wonder the ladies sought him out. He was handsome—in that dangerous sort of way—and eligible and a he
ro. But Lorrie did not have to like it.

  “I’ve been waiting all evening for an opportunity to speak to you.”

  Lorrie glanced over her shoulder, and Francis stood before her.

  “Francis!” She was genuinely pleased to see him, but she was also aware of a vague sense of annoyance that she could no longer see the Viking and the lady commanding his attention.

  “Shall we take a turn about the room?” Francis asked, offering his arm.

  Lorrie stared at his arm, hesitating. And then with a shake of her head at her own foolishness, she slid her gloved hand into the crook of Francis’s arm. What was wrong with her? This was what she had been waiting for—the chance to speak to her intended alone.

  “How have you been?” Francis asked as he led her along the wall, away from the Viking. He walked with his head held high, his gaze moving from one corner to another as they walked.

  “Very well, and you?”

  He paused in his perusal of the room to glance directly at her. “Horrible. I pine for you every minute we are apart.”

  “Oh.” Lorrie’s mouth suddenly felt too dry. Why hadn’t she thought to say something similar? Now Francis would think she hadn’t missed him at all.

  “I’ve missed you too,” she said quickly. “I tried to write to you, but my father must have threatened the servants with dismissal if they delivered any more letters for me. I had hoped you might write.”

  “Oh, but I did,” he said, his gaze flitting about the room again. “I wrote you a dozen letters, at least. You didn’t receive them?”

  “No. My father must have intercepted them.” Except that her father was often away at his club or the Lords when mail arrived. Lorrie frequently leafed through the letters and invitations before anyone else. Her father might have intercepted some correspondence, but a dozen letters? It did not seem possible.

  “Your father or my damned cousin.” Francis peered over his shoulder at the Viking. Lorrie looked as well. He was still in conversation with the dark-haired woman. Well, he was not talking, but he was listening as she spoke.

  “He hasn’t let you out of his sight. I’m certain he’d like to thwart our marriage so he might have you.”

  Lorrie almost laughed, until she realized Francis was in earnest. “Darling, Mr. Mostyn has no designs on me, I assure you.” Exactly the opposite, unfortunately. “He is merely doing his duty, the one my father hired him to perform.”

  “The son of an earl, hiring out his services like a common tradesman. It’s embarrassing to the family. And surely he can keep you safe without filching my letters.”

  Lorrie opened her mouth to argue that the Viking couldn’t be taking Francis’s letters to her because he couldn’t read well enough to know to whom the letters were directed. But she closed her mouth again. The Viking had not instructed her to keep it secret that he could not read, but she felt as though she was entrusted with a confidence she should not share. But surely Francis knew or at least suspected his cousin was illiterate. If the two had spent their boyhoods together and had been taught in the same schoolrooms until Francis was sent away to school, then wouldn’t Francis know his cousin couldn’t read?

  It hadn’t taken Lorrie very long to puzzle it out. And if Francis knew this, had he merely forgotten, or did he think making the Viking a villain in her eyes was to his advantage? For the first time, Lorrie wondered if perhaps Francis had not been altogether truthful with her. He always claimed to write her letters, but she did not receive half so many as he supposedly sent. He’d told her his cousin was a bully as well. But the letter the Earl of Pembroke had sent on his nephew’s behalf was more in the spirit of bullying that she had ever seen from the Viking.

  “You don’t like your cousin, do you?” Lorrie asked. A few weeks before she would have immediately turned the conversation to elopement, but now it was a topic she was not so eager to broach.

  “Why would I? He’s a big brute, dumb as an ox. When we were children, his favorite pastime was using his fists on my siblings and me. He didn’t think we were good enough to live under the roof of the Earl of Pembroke.”

  Lorrie’s gaze darted to the Viking, but he was no longer standing in his corner. She wondered if the brunette had lured him outside. “That does not sound like the Mr. Mostyn I know,” Lorrie said.

  “Yes, well, he’s a good pretender,” Francis said.

  Lorrie lapsed into silence as they continued their circuit. Francis was lying. She wasn’t sure where the truth ended and the lies began—it was very possible that the Viking had beat Francis when they were children—but she knew the man well enough now to know that he didn’t care a fig about being the son of an earl.

  He also didn’t pretend.

  But perhaps Francis did.

  “I couldn’t bear to wait another day for an opportunity to speak to you,” Francis said, finally turning to face her and give her his full attention.

  “We are fortunate an opportunity arose.”

  “Not fortunate. I paid that woman to distract my cousin.”

  Lorrie felt her jaw drop. “You what?”

  “I paid her. She’s the sister of my landlord, and I told her if she kept the big brute distracted for a half hour I’d take her to a ton fete and pay her two pounds.”

  Lorrie supposed there was nothing illegal about what Francis had done. Neither was the woman a tart from the nearest corner, but the very idea that he had paid a woman to lure the Viking away bothered her.

  “You must have been quite desperate to speak to me,” she said, her voice faint.

  “I didn’t know if you had received my letters.” Francis’s eyes scanned the room again. “And I want to be certain you know how much I still love and admire you.”

  Lorrie watched his face as he spoke. The words might have meant more to her if he had looked at her as he said them.

  Finally, his gaze flicked down to her. “Do I still hold your affections, my darling Lorrie?”

  “Of course,” she said as though by rote. “You know I want nothing more than to be with you, as husband and wife.”

  Francis’s mouth tightened as though he had heard this refrain one too many times. Lorrie’s chest felt tight. Was the Viking correct? Did Francis only want her money?

  “I want that too.” But his eyes were on the other people in the room again. “But we must wait for your father’s blessing.”

  “No.”

  Francis’s gaze snapped back to her with a satisfying intensity. “I beg your pardon?”

  “No,” she said again. The Viking spoke simply and directly all the time, and it seemed effective.

  “I must say, my lady, this new behavior of yours is quite unbecoming.”

  Lorrie couldn’t care less. If Francis really wanted to marry her, he would have to take the becoming with the unbecoming. And he would have to prove he really did want to marry her—not her money. “I don’t want to wait for my father’s blessing,” she said.

  Francis gave her a patronizing smile, as though she were a child. “It is hard to wait, darling, but I’m afraid we have no other choice.”

  “Of course we do. We can elope.”

  He sighed. “Not this again.”

  Lorrie clenched her fists. “I’m terribly sorry I annoy you with my constant demands for you to marry me. Perhaps I should cease making them.”

  Francis seemed to realize he had done something wrong. “I don’t understand what is wrong with you. This is a side of you I haven’t seen before, and I must say I don’t care for it much. Is it the influence of my cousin?”

  “The only thing your cousin has done is point out that you only want to marry me for my dowry. A statement I begin to believe.”

  “That’s not true. I love you.”

  Lorrie raised her brows. “Prove it.”

  “How am I supposed to prove it? Eloping and causing a s
candal and pain to both of our families will not prove anything except that I can behave rashly. I love you enough to wait for you.”

  “Do you love me enough to go to my father and beg for my hand?”

  “The duke agreed to consider my proposal.”

  “Because I begged and cried. Perhaps it is time the duke heard from you again. This time with more passion.”

  “You want me to beg for your hand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like some sort of dog?”

  “Like a man in love.”

  Francis merely stared at her.

  “Unless you aren’t in love.”

  “Good question,” came the voice to her right. The Viking stepped forward and Francis stepped back.

  “You.” Francis pointed a finger at his cousin. “Stay away from me.”

  “Stay away from Lady Lorraine. The next time you pay a woman to command my attention, choose a lady with more personality than a brick.”

  “You think to criticize her for dullness?”

  “I’d criticize you, but then I’d receive another scolding from my father. You should run and tattle to him now, like you did when we were children.”

  “I had to protect myself.”

  “I fear you hit your head one time too many when you were a child. You suffer from delusions.”

  Lorrie covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. Francis was not fooled. “And you? You do not defend me?”

  Lorrie shrugged. “I will fight for you when you fight for me.” She glanced up and up at the Viking. “I’m feeling rather parched. Would you escort me to the refreshments?”

  The Viking offered his arm as though he had escorted a thousand women in this manner. She put her arm through it and left Francis in her wake.

  * * *

  Ewan did not know why he should feel so on edge. It wasn’t nerves exactly. He knew what those felt like. He’d experienced the anxiety mixed with anticipation often enough under Draven’s command. The troop had been given the impossible missions. They were not expected to succeed, much less live. Ewan hadn’t expected to live, and he had a sense of peace and resignation about dying for King and country.

  But his body still feared death. Thus, the nerves.