“I’m afraid so, Chastity.”
“Aow.” The woman shut her dropping jaw. “Well, missus, I means moi-lady. We didn’t do nuthin’. I knows that maybe ain’t whot it—”
“Good, because then there will be nothing to tell anyone about, will there?”
Why had Brittany said that? As if it mattered to her whether the woman broadcast it from the church tower. All that mattered was that she kiss him. Whether Christian got wind of this indiscretion, that he’d a mistress here he sometimes visited, wasn’t anything to her. So what was that little pang? Guilt that if she’d been nicer he might not be here, throwing his chance of inheritance down a rat-hole? She might even be home. Why hadn’t she said, ‘I find that hard to believe?’ He was a rake after all.
“No, missus. I means my lips are—”
“And you can just . . . go.”
“Yes, missus.”
Brittany glanced behind her. Chastity smoothed her skirts. It did no harm to hurry her along.
“Foine then, I will.”
Brittany averted her eyes as the woman pattered across the stone flags, fastening her bodice. Brittany could have looked. should have looked, frozen the woman with her boldest stare. It didn’t seem right somehow. She stood aside, relinquishing the latch. The door shut.
“So, Brittany?”
He sprawled in the slant of sunlight from the tiny window, no intention of apologising. A rake to his very bones. He set his foot back on the floor, bent his head. His eyes were shadowed.
“What do you want? Why are you here?”
“Why do you think, darling? Your son, who is outside told—”
“I don’t think.” He raised his head, looked at her squarely. “But for my behavior, I do apologize.”
She froze, her eyes widening. “I’m sure I—I don’t know what fo—”
“I was just very distracted.”
Was that how he worked on women? So they might be stupid enough to believe he was distracted by them and them alone? Had he glimpsed some kind of vulnerability he could use? Knew what she was really after here? Or was it that in that second, Fleming’s words floated through her head.
He needs saving from himself.
She drew herself up. Perhaps he had gone through her things, the other night, was she meant to forget the cool hand on her forehead? Was it right to take what she needed right at this moment in order to get what she wanted? It wasn’t as if she couldn’t have it. Just, perhaps not right now. Right now might be a mistake. Or was the mistake to wait?
“Mitchell . . .”
“I see you don’t ask me by what.”
“Oh, I’m not much one for questions. Answers either, before you start. Whether you’re distracted, or not and I admit, she’s pretty, I don’t want you here with some other woman.”
“Why’s that?”
“I thought we had an agreement. And that’s why I’m here.”
And yet her throat dried to a husk as she spoke. Her heart pounded too. Still, if more than her heart pounded, if he read all sorts into her words, just think how easy that would make this for her. Fame. Success. Riches. It was what she wanted even if he looked like the kind of man she might take home in that second.
“Yes. If you’re going to be with any woman, then I’d prefer that to be me. So yes, it’s why I’ve come here. To take you home before you do something really stupid that Christian finds out about.”
~ ~ ~
Dainty reached across the table for the hairbrush and Brittany put out her hand.
“Thank you, Dainty. I know you’re disappointed, but I think tonight, we’ll leave the hair.”
Dainty bit her lip. If Brittany didn’t know better she’d swear that Dainty was starting to like doing her hair. Whether she was or not, now evening had come with its irrevocable force, it was time for Dainty to hand her the brush and go.
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry. Here.”
“Oh, don’t be sorry.” Brittany set the hairbrush down on the table. “We all make mistakes.”
Even she wasn’t immune. If it hadn’t mattered a damn whether, or not Mitchell Killgower backed her, or apologized about his behavior, would she have opened her obviously gargantuan mouth, making a mistake to rival pressing a nuclear button? But she had.
She glanced sideways. In her defense, the dressing room door was open tonight. Throughout the walk home from the Swan she’d managed to keep her astonishment at what she’d said, under wraps. Although he kept looking at her with a great deal more interest than previously, interest that made her want to fidget with the hairbrush, the hairpins, the busts of the Greek gods on the mantelpiece, anything that was to hand, he had kept his astonishment under the same wraps. Furthermore, she intended using this situation to her advantage.
When it came to stupidity, the moon was only ever at a certain angle in the sky, in broad daylight, if you let it be.
“Good night, then ma’am.”
“Goodnight, Dainty.”
Brittany waited till the door shut. When she had this as perfectly as she did, there was no need to rush. The anticipation climbing like ivy up her veins, sucking the flame from the lavender scented air, was to be expected. Mitchell Killgower wasn’t a bad man. On a sliding scale he veered towards the much more decent, than she had given him credit for. He was a lot more layered than any man she’d ever met too.
But saving him from himself wasn’t a choice for her. So much else beckoned and she didn’t belong here. She hadn’t gone to the trouble all day of bolting down any sideways glances, any straying thoughts about him, the way he’d looked at her in the Swan and the things he’d said. The morality of what she was about to do either.
Since she’d decided on this way of assuaging her conscience, giving him the time of his life and having the time of hers, anticipation had built. She’d no doubt he was waiting, the same as she was. Why else would that door be open? Her only real wonder was why he was being so gentlemanly when she’d made him that offer in the Swan.
She rose, smoothed the front of the peignoir. If she was never going to kiss anyone again, have sex again—and she couldn’t, or she’d be back here—she couldn’t think of anyone better to do that with than him here tonight. Not a single man she’d dated looked like Mitchell. Not a single one she’d known. The sex had been interestingly hot and basic. She wasn’t complaining. It had held a mirror to something she hadn’t noticed.
But he could probably do better though. He’d been with a lot of women. Don’t tell her basic was all he knew. She could do better too. Basic had probably become a way of life.
She paused at the dressing room door. Everything she did tonight was for one aim. She could now afford to feast her eyes over the soft dark hair the candlelight cast a sheen over, as he stood by the wardrobe, dragging his cravat off, the set of his shoulders, his height. She could acknowledge there was something attractive about a man who stood as defiant, refusing to let life beat him down, giving two fingers to its dwarfing shadow.
If she’d known him in the present day she’d probably have been quite happy. She didn’t. If he existed in the present day he wouldn’t be anything like this. He tossed the cravat on the chaise longue, glanced in the mirror on the washstand, smoothed his hair, much the same as she’d done. Had he also doused himself in cologne? Scrubbed his teeth with that God-awful, Trotter’s Oriental Dentifrice powder, which fortunately was made from baking soda not trotters, although if it had been it wouldn’t have been the least surprising. She gathered herself. Stand too long and she might forget what she was here for. If he had done these things, then it was a sign he meant to take her up on her word. Fame. Success. Riches. She needed to progress this, not stand gaping.
“It’s all right. Dainty’s gone, you can come out now, you know. That’s if you want to.”
He glanced round. “Oh, I want to. I just want to be sure you do.”
“Well, I see I just must convince you.”
A kiss. If he wouldn’t, then she would. She swept forward, pressed her mouth to his, offering the pink fullness of her lower lip and the evocative tang of her breath. He grasped the sides of her face, widened the kiss. She swore they breathed together, so the kiss became something hotter, darker, more intense. As if he wanted to suck the life’s blood out of her body. He couldn’t but if this was to be one of her last kisses ever, it was certainly a good start.
He let go of her face and moved his arms, one across her back, the other beneath her legs, so he could pick her up, when no man ever had. Certainly not successfully, without hitting her head off the dressing room door, they now passed through. Except for himself carrying her the other night that was. But she’d been too drunk then to remember. Her heart thudded against her ribcage, thudded in her throat. How right she’d been to choose him. Her last night to ever have sex? She needed to celebrate in style. She’d waited almost all day for this. Now came the night of her life.
She traced her fingers through the short ends of his hair down his shoulder, looked him in his magnetic eyes.
“Just tell me one thing,” she whispered
“What?”
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“All the bad things that are said about you?”
“What do you want to know for?” His voice was a deep grind. His eyes held hers.
“I just do.”
He surely didn’t think she asked because she was afraid, did he? She left that for her heroines who always got their knickers in knots because the heroes had shagged them stupid. She was going to take this through the sky.
“No, they’re not.”
“Oh.”
“The truth is I’m far worse.”
“Then, I can’t wait.”
She’d have fainted on the floor but fortunately he was carrying her, strong, definite, assured. Things that made her heart pound louder. Only she wished she could stop looking into his eyes, that he wouldn’t stare as if she meant something. This was only sex. She didn’t want to feel any emotional connection to him. What had happened earlier was bad enough.
The mattress sank beneath her and he tugged off his waistcoat, hauled his shirt over his head. Again the whole thing slowed, the room, the world, him, even her rasp of breath was endless. What was happening here? She removed her gaze from his face, tawny in the candlelight, his eyes holding hers with a strange glitter. The shirt flumped onto the floor. His chest was magnificently sculpted. And it was going to be hers. All hers. She almost boiled over. In fact her only worry was that she wound up back in her own time before she’d had the chance to enjoy herself.
“Now then, Miss Carter.”
“Wait.”
The breeches must be next. She wasn’t doing this by halves. The buttons, one, two three, sprung open beneath her fingers. What was under them was probably a criminal offense. His eyes certainly were—carnal blue. In fact, now he was naked above her, all of him was. Look at the toned, sculpted lines of his biceps, his chest, his stomach. The molten, musky lines, the sensuous mouth, that were hard silk beneath her fingertips. She thought she’d choke on her heart the way it was leaping about her chest, when she’d promised herself to stay calm, make this a night to remember.
“You see?” Somehow she found her voice, her enigmatic expression too. “There’s no need to rush.”
“Who says I was?”
“Not me, darling. Then kiss me.”
She tilted her head back. She already knew that the feel of his tongue on hers was going to be delicious. Delicious didn’t even come close. Hot wires zinged all the way to her toes. Thank God he’d undone her gown. Was it possible she might actually be melting? Novel and utterly invigorating to be finally getting it on with a man who actually knew what he was doing as opposed to some pull, or a drunk like Sebastian, who pounded away to suit himself, Atholl who was always fussing about something, or other. The bed, the cover, the row he’d had earlier with his mother, the row he’d had earlier with Brittany, the one that had frightened his pet toy poodle, so she’d had to lower her voice which wasn’t even raised.
Although equally, what if this melting was through the bed and into her world? Then she’d be deprived of scraping together an orgasm. Shouldn’t she do something, like stop kissing him—according to Mort, a kiss after all, was what apparently zinged her back and forward—and cut to the chase? So, at least she zinged forward satisfied?
She bucked and jerked upright. So did Mitchell Killgower. “What . . .?”
“Straddling you, darling. Oh, don’t look so alarmed.”
He didn’t. In fact if the hungry way he raised his mouth to hers was anything to go by, then he was as desperate as a dog in heat. That if he died now there were worse ways than in this kind of heaven with ‘Mitchell Killgower, lucky bastard,’ written on his headstone. But maybe he hadn’t had a women who straddled him? She tore off her peignoir, kissed him with all the fire that was in her. Mouth. Chest. Stomach. Lower.
What was between his legs might be a criminal offense. There were mitigating circumstances. She was melting. Ready. Ready for him. She reached down and grasped him. He filled her. My God. Heaven. She began to move.
His breath was a low rasp.
“This is very kind of you.”
“But I am kind.” Her breath was a rasp too. “It’s the thing people don’t get about me.”
“But, let’s just say there’s a few things I’d like to prove to you.”
She’d have gulped as her back hit the mattress, but his mouth was on hers, his tongue halfway down her throat before she could. A kiss? She didn’t want a bloody kiss. Not right now. She wanted the whole night before her. This was her payment for being here, for going through all this shit.
She pressed her hands against his chest. “Then, hurry up.”
“If you say so,” he breathed.
“I do.”
What the hell did it matter how brazen it made her look? She liked sex. “You can be as bad as you want, make it last as long as you want, next time round. If . . .if there’s one. Right now though? Just . . . just . . . Unless you want me getting back on top if you’re going to be a slow coach.”
“You have places to go, have you? Or are you just so eager for me?”
“Without you I have nowhere.”
“A lie if ever I heard one but a lie that’s well told when it drips from lips as enchanting, as yours. A willing woman.” The smoky dark look in his eyes was melting but she was at the edge. What happened after didn’t matter. “Just what I like.”
“I’m so glad.”
~ ~ ~
As Brittany hugged the pillow closer, she must admit, she had seldom slept so well. The waistcoat was flumped in a sort of exotic heap on the marble floor, the birds and rooks tweeted and cawed through the cool glass. And heaven upon heaven, the sacred scent of a heavenly fag assailed her nostrils. This lovely, bountiful feeling flooding every pore of her body could only mean one thing. And that one thing after the most stupendous night of her life, certainly where sex and kissing was concerned? She was home. Oh bliss, oh heavenly bliss.
The waistcoat?
Brittany sighed. Had she brought it with her? Did it catch on her heel, the heels she’d donned at one point. A sort of souvenir of her inter-time adventure. A bit like that bar stool? She hadn’t zinged home straight away this time. That would have spoiled the fun. Her heroines now would have been in love, having ridden to heaven on Mitchell Killgower’s touch. Nice for them. Impractical for her. She stretched.
“So you’ve awakened, Brittany?”
Her eyelids froze. Open.
That smell, his arm crooked be
hind his head. What the hell was Mitchell Killgower doing smoking her fags? He must have helped himself to what was in her bag which meant she and her bag were still here. 1765.
Awakened? She was in deep, dark, frozen shock.
“M-Mitchell?”
She jerked up. She was awakened all right. Not just Mitchell, but Mitchell lying there, taking a sensuous drag, on her cigarette, his raking brows furrowed, his indecently gorgeous, naked hips just covered by the sheet.
“You sound surprised.”
“Well, I . . . I am surprised. Yes, you might say.”
Her tongue froze to match her scalp. How had this happened? Why wasn’t she in her time?
He took another drag. “You know these are rather good.”
“How kind of you to say so.”
“Here.”
“No, thank you. Your need seems greater.”
“Hmm.”
Despite what she’d said, she reached over and took the cigarette from between his fingertips. She hoped she did it nonchalantly, so it didn’t look as if her need was greater.
Under other circumstances, this might be very nice—he wasn’t just sexy lying here staring at the ornate ceiling roses as if his future was written there, the scent of his warm skin in her nostrils, he was sexy, period. He just wasn’t meant to be here. Neither was she. It was why she also prayed that the drag she took was a calm puff, that she didn’t suck on it as if it was a life-saving ventilator. Would he furrow his brows like that, unless she had though?
The Writer and the Rake Page 19