Hart bit out instructions for his sister and Acton and strode into the hall, intent on following Mercy. He looked around. She was already gone. Her very absence in the hundred-foot-long corridor confirmed his suspicions; her demeanor had been nine tenths bravado. As soon as she’d left the room she’d run. For sanctuary.
She wasn’t going to find any. Not from him. Not yet. They had to talk. When earlier this morning he’d found Annabelle closeted with Lady Acton, he’d demanded Mercy be sent for. Lady Acton had understood his intent. And though she’d obviously hated it, she been honor bound to support his proposal. Annabelle, however, had been dumbstruck.
He trotted down the hallway and up the stairs, ignoring the curious glances of the other guests. If only he had been able to cling to the notion that what he felt for Mercy was simple lust. But last night had shattered any hopes of that. She’d ferreted out what little was left of his soul. She’d made him … feel things.…
She’d told him he was not mad. She’d touched his shivering body, his face. God, she’d looked at him. Into him. And she hadn’t shrunk away.
His fingers clenched convulsively. Before, he’d hungered for her body—a constant state to which he’d become accustomed over the short week—but now, now he wanted the impossible. He wanted her heart.
His lips curled. How tenderly he’d demonstrated his regard. He’d fallen on her like a starving man on a feast, brutal in his rapaciousness. He’d taken her as though by forcing himself into her body he could absorb a part of her soul. And then, not content with that violation, he’d lashed her spent body to his side all night long, imprisoning her in his embrace, keeping her with him … until they’d been discovered.
It would be easy to tell himself he’d simply fallen asleep, but he knew it for a convenient lie. He hadn’t “simply fallen asleep” in eight years. No, he’d willed himself to unconsciousness. At some deep, insidious level he’d done everything in his power to bind her to him.
Because he must have her. He’d had to have her since he’d seen her across the room, since she’d recalled to him the sound of his own laughter, had seared his cold heart with her passion, had believed in him. How sweetly he’d repaid her faith, he thought as he approached her suite.
He did not pause outside. There were too many who’d crack their doors to see whether she allowed him entry and, if she refused him entry, too many witnesses to Acton’s door being kicked down.
He was amazed to find her door not only unbolted but unlatched. He entered silently, stopping as his vision adjusted to the sunlight-flooded room. He spied her sitting in front of a huge, ornate vanity. He froze.
She had unknotted her heavy chignon and was untangling the dark red hair as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. How could she be casual—how could anyone be casual—about something so exotic, so pretty?
He could not move. Unexpectedly confronted with her femininity, he was confounded by it. He stood in the shadowed doorway, oppressed and floundering in the purloined intimacy. In his entire life he had never seen a woman comb her hair.
Her fingers held the comb as delicately as a violinist would a bow. Each graceful movement, each smooth pass of the ivory teeth, each second she sat gazing heedlessly at her reflection, overwhelmed him.
She was artlessly, carelessly, exquisitely feminine. He could only watch, dumb, wrung wordless by the simple act, separated by the welling hunger—
“What?” She caught him off-guard. Her reflected gaze met his shadowed countenance in the mirror. He moved into the light, up behind her. Their gazes tangled in the silvered glass.
“If you’ve come to apologize, I will kill you,” she said. “Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but someday, somehow, I’ll shoot you.”
Strangely, it was her very fierceness that lifted some of the darkness from him. “Then I won’t apologize,” he said, “as I have no intention of patting down your wedding dress searching for that damned pistol of yours.”
“I doubt that will be necessary.” How could she sound so calm? The blood was pounding in his ears. He wanted to sink to his knees and twist his fists in her hair and breathe in the womanly sweet-warm scent that played across her skin. Didn’t she know what she did to him?
No. She wouldn’t be staring at him so expectantly if she did. Little fool. Hadn’t he proven what he was capable of?
“Why is that?” he asked hoarsely.
“I wasn’t in my proper phase.”
“Phase.”
“Yes. You know. Phase. The timing. The—Don’t look at me as though you haven’t any idea what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t,” he replied honestly, watching in amazement as her face turned a bright shade of pink.
“I’m most sorry to offend,” she grated out, “and I’m sure you’ll just hitch your impressive aristocratic nose higher in the air, but I don’t know what a lady calls being in season so I can only assure you I wasn’t it last night!”
“Aristocratic nose?” he repeated.
She sighed with exasperation. “Why is it men are incapable of dealing with the crux of a conversation?”
“You’re the one who mentioned my nose.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” she said in the tone of one capitulating to a demanding child. “Your nose; a great, bold brute of a nose it is. Most decidedly aristocratic and most decidedly it was elevated to aristocratic heights some few minutes ago. But, as I have been trying to point out, you needn’t worry about bequeathing such a magnificent specimen to my unworthy descendants, as I do not believe I am breeding!”
“Oh.” She didn’t like his nose. He quelled the impulse to lean over her shoulder and examine it in the mirror. True, it was large but it hadn’t any unsightly crooks or—Damn and blast! How had he gone from self-castigation to dry-mouthed lust to fretting over his nose?
Because of her, he thought. Because this is what she always did to him. From the moment he’d seen her, she’d harried him from the cold, dark place to which he retreated, the stronghold from which he’d attempted to hold on to his sanity. But sanity, it appeared, was better served with fire and wit and passion.
She was regarding his reflection with a rueful twist to her plush lips. Only flushed cheeks betrayed that she was not as composed as she would have him believe.
“Oh?” she parroted. “I would think you’d be a bit more enthusiastic over your ‘stay of execution.’ And would you kindly leave off admiring yourself in the mirror and attend to me? You did barge in here.”
The accusation was a lie, she thought. He’d slipped into her room like a fire-limned shadow, haunting her dreams, her thoughts.…
“Certainly there is nothing I’d like better to do than attend you.” He smiled wolfishly.
“Why are you here?”
“I know the most pressing reason for you to marry me is to legitimize any offspring we might have made last night—”
“I told you; I don’t think it is a concern.” She dropped her gaze and began toying with the silver-backed brush. He reached over her shoulder, his hand grazing her collarbone. She might as well have been naked. His touch electrified her. Even through the staid layers of wool and cotton and batiste she could feel a jolting physical awareness. He didn’t appear to even notice.
He wrested the brush from her frozen fingers. With odd hesitancy—she would swear he held his breath—he began brushing her hair. She could only stare at her hands, her own breath shallow and uneven, afraid he would stop.
What did he want? She had been so sure he had come to regretfully inform her he was withdrawing his offer, that he would not be manipulated by Lady Acton.
“There are other matters to consider, though,” he said. His hands worked soothingly over her head, the bristles prickling her scalp before he pulled the brush firmly through each long tress.
His tenderness was hypnotizing and yet, and yet, he hadn’t said he wanted to marry her. “Nothing else matters,” she said.
“I know you don’t think so right now, Mer
cy.” His voice was soft, reasonable. “But you’re angry. And with every right to be. You are alone, vulnerable, and yet you were seduced and betrayed and now you are being driven toward a marriage you do not want. I’m amazed you haven’t used your pistol.” He smiled crookedly, and in spite of the fact that everything he said was true and damning of him, her heart felt wrung by the bleakness she glimpsed behind his calm facade.
“Don’t think I haven’t considered it,” she said gruffly to cover her confusion.
“Mercy, please listen to me. I swear I will try to act in your best interest. I will attempt to give you objective advice. There is a matter of honor at issue. I will be honest. Not only yours but mine. There are also reputations at stake, once again mine as well as yours. I know you don’t think mine is worth much, but to certain people … to my sisters … it is essential my reputation be unscathed.”
She’d expected it, so why did it hurt so damn, damn much? she thought. His hand touched her shoulder and she jerked away. No, not kindness. Not from him. He could save his thoughtfulness for those damned sisters of his.
“How eloquent. Too bad you didn’t listen to your own advice last night. Still, I am hopeful that your sisters will somehow recover from my downfall. Comfort them with the assurance that I shan’t taint the Perth bloodlines.”
“I’m afraid,” he said, “that our not wedding will create a far greater scandal than otherwise.”
“Come now,” she said, and he closed his eyes.
Bitterness had been replete in her words. He’d never heard bitterness in her tone. Such a fine betrothal gift, he thought.
She went on. “It’s quite clear that Lady Acton and Acton and your sisters look on a union between us with the same degree of relish as they would sitting down to dine with a talking dog. So why can we not just forget it happened?”
“Could you ‘just forget’?”
Her cheeks burned and she bit down on her lip. No. She could not forget. How could she? His body over hers, his muscles slipping beneath her palms, his skin sleek with heat and sweat, the urgency of his possession, the feeling of tumultuous pleasure building toward some unseen peak …
“I will try.”
His pallor became obvious, but he did not waver. “Well, my dear, unfortunately society lacks your purpose or your will. And as for hoping it goes unnoticed—I am sure that within the week half the guests will know where you spent last night.”
“How?”
“The chambermaid. She was with Annabelle. Belowstairs gossip quickly finds its way upstairs. No. I’m afraid the only course that will satisfy society is for us to wed.”
“I don’t give a damn for your society! And I meant what I said. Brenna will be in to pack my bags immediately. I’ve already sent for a carriage.”
“Don’t fool yourself, Mercy. English and American society grow closer each year. We trade money, merchandise, and aristocrats. You will eventually feel the consequences of last night. Or your family will.”
“My family now.” It was all too much. She did not know what to think anymore. With each reasonable statement he pressed her toward marrying him. His rationale was honorable and clear sighted and well thought out. “How droll,” she murmured.
“Mercy?”
“Here I am being offered a coronet and the only person who would find that gratifying is dead. She might finally have been proud of me.”
Abruptly, he ceased brushing her hair. She felt his hand hover an instant and then he bent over her, deliberately placing the brush beside its mate. “I would hate to disappoint you—and your dear, departed mother—but I’m afraid there may be no coronet.”
Chapter 25
“What do you mean?”
He turned and stood in profile to her, his strong-boned face and bold nose, the clean, sharp angle of his jaw and sensual lower lip, backlit against the window.
“I returned from Africa shortly after my mother had died,” he said offhandedly.
So much control. What sort of tyranny did he exercise over his emotions that he could speak so calmly of his mother’s death?
“Some months before I’d received word that my father had perished in a yachting accident off the coast of New Guinea. I cannot claim to have been overly affected by either loss. He was a libertine and a wastrel. And after he abandoned her, my mother stopped caring. About anything.”
“Hart …”
“I wouldn’t bore you with this, Mercy,” he said, “but since you must at least consider marrying me, even if under duress, you need to know.
“My homecoming was greeted with a mountain of papers from lawyers and tradesmen and my relatives’ creditors and—” He stopped. “Forgive the histrionics. It was all rather overwhelming and I was not feeling very well at the time.” He slanted a sardonic smile at her. “But then, you’ve seen the manifestations of my indisposition. Suffice it to say that at that time they were worse.”
She saw his nearly indiscernible flinch as he looked away. Worse? The thought that he’d had to endure so much, so young, wounded her. When he’d returned home had anyone held him when he shivered? Had any voice called him back from the haunted landscape of his imagination? No. There’d only been more responsibilities, more demands.
“The only thing of any value I was bequeathed was my great-uncle’s title. His estate was in ruin, as was the sordid little rubble pile my sisters had been reduced to living in. They’d been raised to think of themselves as ladies and I hadn’t the wherewithal even to buy them shoes. I didn’t know what to do.”
He turned his palm upward in a gesture of unconscious apology. She raised her hand to take his. He stared at her bleakly. His fingers curled into a fist and dropped to his side.
“I developed one skill during my tenure with the army. I learned that I was a very, very good shot. I’d heard from some of my comrades that a marksman—one without too much conscience or too much curiosity—could find lucrative work in the more lawless territories of your country. I had nothing to lose and I certainly met the criteria. And before you ask, no, the thought of killing men didn’t bother me. I’d killed plenty in the war … and they weren’t even men. If I could shoot a boy,”—his teeth clenched around the word—“why not a thief? Or murderer?”
“I didn’t ask,” she said. “But it sounds as though you have asked yourself that question. Scores of times.”
“Damn your pretty eyes,” he said dispassionately.
“Go on.”
“You know that part of the story. I was more than good. I was the best. I commanded an exorbitant wage for my services. Later, I became a partner in a few cattle operations. I grew rich. More than rich. I’ve thrice the wealth of your father, Mercy. So, if you agree to marry me, you won’t lack for material things.”
It did not entice her in the least. She flew to the point that did interest her. “What is the ‘other part’ of the story?”
He nodded as though something had been confirmed. “When I returned to England, I set about arranging my sisters’ entries into society. I was determined they would have every advantage my father’s desertion had ripped from them. Every family heirloom he’d pawned, I bought back. Every piece of my mother’s jewelry he’d sold, I found and purchased. Every bank account he’d drained, I filled ten times over. Every social chasm he’d created with his pandering and licentiousness, I spanned with my title and my wealth and my blameless reputation.”
“And then …?”
“And then, about a year after I returned, he wrote me a letter.”
“Your father.” The words fell between them and Hart nodded.
“Do you want to hear something amusing? He’d never even been on the damned yacht. He’d been in Africa and had only just learned of my inheritance and wasn’t it a grand joke, me having assumed a title that he had inherited?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t, but I did. Too bad, he wrote, that I had assumed the privileges as well as the title. I would doubtless be l
oath to give them up. But he was the legal heir to the title. I was the Earl of Perth only if he was dead.
“And as for my sisters! Think of the scandal! But then, they’d have their father back soon to guide them through society.” Hart’s words came too quickly, slurring over each other as though he could not expel them fast enough.
“My God.”
“Of course, perhaps it would be best if he just stayed in Africa. He was ill, you see, having contracted some tropical disease, and it would be very hard for him to travel. If he just had enough cash he’d just as soon put off his reappearance in society.” His tone was unemotional. “I sent him ten thousand pounds. Four months later I received a similar letter. Once more I sent money. I kept receiving letters and I kept paying him off until finally I grew so sick of his taunts and complaints and threats that I had an account set up. I wrote him, telling him that I would make a yearly deposit and nothing more. I have done so for the past four years.”
“And what does he say now?” Mercy asked.
Hart shrugged. “That was the last contact I’ve had with him. I don’t even know if he’s still alive or how or even if he uses the money I send. I don’t give a damn. So you see, Mercy, any day he may appear and demand his title, his estate, and his daughters. There may be no coronet.”
It suddenly made horrible sense. “That’s why you said you’d seen the like before.”
“Excuse me?”
“The letter from Will. You said that you’d seen its kind many times. You were speaking of your father. You thought Will was doing to me what your father had done to you. Extortion.”
He frowned at her and she could not ignore the pity she saw in his expression. “That’s what your Will is doing, Mercy.”
“No.” She stood up, needing to tell him he was wrong. She plucked at his arm. “Will isn’t like that.”
“He’s an opium addict, Mercy.” His tone was harsh.
“No,” she said, and hearing the frantic quality in her denial, she forced her voice to a more normal level. “He’s just experimenting. You said so yourself. Young men like to kick over—”
A Dangerous Man Page 21