The Brooding Earl's Proposition

by Laura Martin

  ‘Not dull,’ he said, his eyes skimming over her. ‘Never dull.’

  Matthew felt a bubble of desire starting somewhere deep inside of him and working its way past his common sense to the surface. He wanted to reach across and unlace the oversized nightgown, to push it from her creamy shoulders and reveal the body underneath. With a hand on the rough wooden counter to steady himself he felt his body shift imperceptibly closer.

  ‘I’m sure this is a little different from the life you were leading a few years ago, too,’ he said.

  She smiled. ‘Just a little. Sometimes, looking back, I can’t believe I’m the same person.’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean.’

  Miss Salinger gave him a questioning look, tilting her head to one side as if to encourage him to go on.

  ‘I was a very different man the last time I was in residence at Manresa House. It feels like a lifetime has passed between then and now.’

  ‘Surely just the same man, with a different perspective on life?’

  ‘I hope not,’ he murmured. He paused, knowing he should say no more. Miss Salinger didn’t need to know about his marriage and she certainly didn’t need to know about the weakness of his character that had allowed the marriage to go ahead when he knew it was wrong. There was something calm about her that urged him to spill his secrets and he found himself leaning in a little more as if about to take her into his confidence. ‘When I was a young man my father and brother wanted me to do something I knew was wrong,’ he said slowly, thinking back to the day his father had declared he would be wed within the month.

  Miss Salinger leaned forward, too, her fingers nearly touching his on the scarred wood of the bar.

  ‘They told me it was for the good of the family and I let them convince me.’ He shook his head. He’d been so desperate for their approval he had lost sight of his moral compass. ‘Because of my actions someone was unhappy. I’d known it might be the case, but I allowed it to happen anyway.’

  ‘It can be hard to stand up to family when you’re young and unsure of yourself,’ Miss Salinger said, her eyes glinting in the darkness.

  ‘I didn’t like the man I was, how easily I’d been convinced to do something I’d known was wrong. That was when I decided to make my own way in life, to make my own decisions, to be responsible for them.’ He’d left Manresa House and hadn’t returned for over a decade. ‘I think I did become a different man in the years I was away.’

  ‘Away from the influences of your father and brother?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘And who are you now, Lord Westcroft?’ Miss Salinger asked quietly. It was a loaded question, filled with curiosity and a hint of desire.

  ‘Who do you think I am?’

  She regarded him. ‘I think like everyone you have two sides. There’s your public face, the successful businessman who likes order and discipline. Then there’s your private face, the one that allows himself to jump from the waves on the beach and play hide and seek with his nieces. The man the world sees is a mixture of the two.’

  ‘Which do you prefer, Miss Salinger?’

  ‘Even I know, inexperienced as I am, not to answer that question from my employer.’

  He smiled, wondering not for the first time why she had agreed to come and have a drink with him. The right thing to do, the safe thing, would have been to politely decline when he invited her downstairs. Instead she’d allowed herself to be persuaded. And now here she was, looking at him with a mix of apprehension and anticipation, as if half-hoping he would take her in his arms.

  * * *

  Selina felt her head spinning. She knew she was playing a dangerous game, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. Carefully she swirled the remnants of her brandy around in the glass, trying to distract herself from Lord Westcroft’s dark eyes that she knew were just waiting for her to look up.

  ‘What is your name, Miss Salinger?’ He spoke suddenly, his voice low but his tone insistent.

  ‘My name?’

  ‘I’d like to know.’

  She imagined her name slipping from his lips and felt a shiver run through her body.

  ‘Selina.’

  ‘Selina,’ he murmured. ‘It suits you.’

  She’d always thought it was a little too exotic for her.

  ‘It’s unusual, exotic,’ he said.

  ‘I always worried people expected more from someone with a name like that. More than plain little me.’

  ‘Plain?’ he asked, incredulous.

  ‘I’m not angling for a compliment,’ she said hurriedly.

  ‘You are many things, Selina, but you’re not plain.’

  Self-consciously she brushed her dark hair back from her face. As the daughter of a viscount she’d always been told she was beautiful, elegant, desirable. It was easy to be all those things when you had a maid dedicated to styling your hair and an unlimited budget for buying beautiful gowns. She’d bathed every couple of days, rubbed her hair with the finest soaps, applied creams to her skin each night before bed.

  Since her dramatic change in circumstances her hair had lost some of its shine, her skin some of its healthy glow. Her clothes were plain and functional, her hair swept back into a simple bun most of the time. When she looked in the mirror she saw herself as she truly was, without all the trappings of wealth and privilege, and it was decidedly unsettling.

  ‘I don’t necessarily mind being plain.’ It had its advantages. She hadn’t found it hard to blend in which had been important in her new life.

  ‘You’re not plain.’

  ‘It really—’

  ‘You’re not plain,’ he said forcefully.

  Selina looked up, her eyes meeting his.

  ‘I have sailed around half the world, mixed with women from almost every continent. I know what plain looks like, Selina, and it does not look like you.’

  ‘I think...’

  He leaned forward, shaking his head, a rueful smile on his face. ‘Trust me, Selina, I can’t stop thinking about you. You are not plain.’ His voice was low and dangerous and his eyes fixed on hers.

  Selina felt her heart begin to hammer in her chest and the warm flush as the blood raced to her skin.

  ‘That would be questioning my judgement. And I can assure you over the last few years I’ve honed my judgement to perfection.’

  This was the point where she should walk away, where she should slip from the stool and run as fast as she could. Staying would be dangerous. Staying meant acknowledging she wanted him to kiss her again, that she wanted him to trail those fingers of his across her skin as he explored every inch of her body.

  ‘You’re deciding whether to leave?’ he asked, his voice soft, a smile playing on his lips.

  ‘It would be the sensible thing to do.’

  ‘Do you know what I think, Selina?’ He waited until she shook her head to continue. ‘I think you’ve had far too long where you’ve had to be sensible. I think you want to be a little reckless.’

  ‘Would it be reckless?’ she asked. Every part of her skin felt as though it were on fire and he hadn’t even touched her yet.

  ‘It already is. Alone, in a dark room, drinking with a man who finds you exquisitely attractive.’

  Selina swallowed. This was a new experience for her. Never had she wanted to be kissed before Lord Westcroft, never had she wanted to throw caution to the wind and find out how it would feel to have a man take her in his arms and explore the places only she had ever touched.

  ‘Decision time,’ he murmured. ‘Will you stay or will you go?’

  Despite the circumstances, despite being alone in the dark with a man who was physically much stronger than her Selina knew she didn’t have to worry about her safety. If she walked away, he wouldn’t chase after her.

  ‘I’m quite comfortable here, thank you very much,’ sh
e said, trying to inject a lightness to her voice, but hearing the words rasp out, betraying the dryness of her mouth and the roil of apprehension inside her.

  He smiled and she half-expected him to reach out for her there and then, but he didn’t move more than his fingers, brushing his fingertips against hers as they lay on the counter. It was enough to send little jolts through her body, to make her arch her back ever so slightly as if anticipating what was to come.

  ‘You never asked my name,’ he said.

  ‘I know your name. Lord Westcroft.’

  ‘That’s my title. Not my name.’

  ‘You want me to know your name?’ She felt her head begin to spin. She’d heard him say his full name earlier on, when they had first come into the inn, but she wasn’t about to break the moment by reminding him of that now.

  He leaned in, his lips almost brushing her ear. ‘I want you to moan my name when you can’t think of anything else but my lips on your skin. I want you to say Matthew, not Lord Westcroft.’

  Slowly she moved her head around, letting out an involuntary little sigh as he laced a hand through her loose hair and kissed her. They came together hard, body against body, lips against lips, and he kissed her as though they were both drowning. Selina could think of nothing else but the pleasure that raced through her body, the pucker of her skin as he brushed against her, the deep yearning for more even as he pressed her tighter to him.

  ‘Selina,’ he whispered into the skin of her neck as he broke away to pepper kisses down the velvety skin to her collarbone. It felt wonderful to have someone say her name again, to hear it come from this man’s lips and, as he came back to kiss her again, she felt more whole than she had in a long time.

  As they kissed again Selina realised she wanted more. She wanted everything. Her common sense would stop her from that, but she wanted just a tiny bit longer to be caught up in the moment. Tentatively she dipped her hands under the hem of Matthew’s shirt, trailing her fingers up his back and feeling him react, pulling her ever closer. Their bodies were entwined now and Selina had a hard time working out where she ended and he began.

  Matthew pulled away slightly, toying with the edge of her oversized nightdress, looking her in the eye as he tugged at the neckline, pulling it down over her shoulders. Once it had slipped from her shoulders, due to its size, there was nothing to hold it up before her waist and the thin cotton pooled on her hips. Selina looked down, watched as Matthew trailed his fingers over her chest, grazing over the soft skin of her breasts. She felt her back arch, begging for more, subconsciously asking for his hands to move lower.

  ‘And you think you’re plain,’ he murmured as he smiled at her, then dipped his head to catch one of her nipples in his mouth. She cried out, clutching his head, letting her neck arch and her head fall back. For a moment she felt as though she were taken out of her body, then as his teeth grazed her she came crashing back, a jolt of pleasure shooting through her.

  Selina lost all concept of time as he nipped and kissed her, aware of nothing but his lips on her skin, his body pressed to hers. Only when he straightened and kissed her did she remember who and where she was. And even that wasn’t enough for her to push him away. How could anything that felt this good, this right, be wrong?

  Matthew’s hands were trailing lower, down over her waist and hips, and Selina knew very soon she would have to make a decision as to how far she could allow this to go. Her body screamed at her to let it continue, to take every moment of pleasure. The more sensible voice in her head seemed to be being drowned out, suppressed by the part that was enjoying this so much.

  The decision was taken out of her hands when they both stiffened, hearing the creak of the floorboards on the landing above followed by footsteps on the stairs. With her heart pounding Selina hurriedly pulled at her nightgown, slipping her arms back into the sleeves and adjusting the front before perching back on the stool at the bar. She glanced across at Matthew, noted his tousled hair, but nothing else was out of place. He looked calm and serene, not as if he’d just been ravishing his wards’ governess in the public rooms of a tavern.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ Mr Ruthers, the landlord, said, letting the long wooden stick he was carrying fall to his side. ‘I heard noises and thought someone had broken in.’

  ‘I’m sorry we disturbed you,’ Lord Westcroft said. ‘After the ordeal of the accident neither Miss Salinger nor I could sleep. We helped ourselves to some brandy, I hope you don’t mind. Add the bottle to my bill.’

  ‘Of course, my lord. I’ll be going back to bed then.’ Mr Ruthers turned and swiftly retreated up the stairs.

  ‘Where were we?’ Lord Westcroft murmured as they heard the landlord’s bedroom door close somewhere above them.

  ‘I was just about to go to bed myself,’ Selina said, slipping from her stool.

  He inclined his head, not pressing the matter. Selina wondered if this was a regular occurrence for him, seducing women who should really know better.

  Before she could change her mind she hurried to the stairs and climbed back to the first floor, only stopping once she’d closed her bedroom door behind her. Silently she slipped between the sheets and closed her eyes, knowing sleep would not come. There were far too many warring thoughts circling in her head and far too many wonderful echoes of the pleasure she’d felt only a few minutes before.

  Chapter Fourteen

  At dawn Selina gave up trying to sleep and rose, crossing to the curtains and pulling them open to let the soft light of the morning in through the window. The tavern was stirring, with footsteps padding backwards and forward along the corridor and the quiet clatter of pots below. She fingered her dress that Mrs Ruthers had hung by the fire in the kitchen the night before after washing off the worst of the mud. The hem was still a little damp, but the rest was dry and overall it was presentable, if not completely clean.

  Slowly she slipped the cotton nightgown from her shoulders, assailed with the memory of Lord Westcroft’s hands doing the same thing last night. She felt the heat rise up inside her as she remembered how his fingers had danced across her skin, how his lips had nipped and teased until she felt as though her whole world was spinning.

  ‘Enough,’ she said, pushing the nightgown down over her hips and stepping out of it, hastily beginning to pull on her functional woollen dress to combat the early morning chill in the air.

  Last night had been madness. Perhaps she could blame it on hysteria, a delayed reaction to the carriage accident.

  It hadn’t felt mad, though. It had felt right. Even though every lesson in how a young lady should conduct herself, in morality, told her it was wrong. If the landlord hadn’t interrupted them when he did, who knew how far things would have gone.

  ‘That would have been a bad idea,’ Selina told herself sternly, unable to ignore completely the residue of desire burning deep inside her. It would have been a bad idea. She knew how men of Lord Westcroft’s class treated women who were their social inferiors. It wasn’t that she thought Lord Westcroft a bad man, far from it, but he had been brought up to believe women of inferior social status were not worth the same considerations he would show his social equal.

  He’s not your father, she told herself. Even eighteen months on Selina still couldn’t quite believe the man who had doted on her had been capable of treating her mother so poorly, of treating his only daughter so poorly. Plus his total inconsideration of what life would be like for her when she had to hear she was illegitimate from her half-brother who had taken great pleasure in turning her from her home.

  Quickly she suppressed all thoughts of her father. Now her problem was Lord Westcroft, or more precisely her reaction to him. She couldn’t pretend she was the innocent party in a seduction. Lord Westcroft might be vastly more experienced than she, but she had been a willing participant each and every step of the way. She’d known what was going to happen the moment she had agreed to go downst
airs with him for a drink in the deserted tavern.

  ‘Everyone is allowed to make one little mistake,’ she told herself as she looked critically into the small mirror set on the dressing table. Her face was pale, her hair lacklustre, her eyes flat and tired and without any sparkle.

  One mistake. Perhaps two if you counted the kiss on the beach, but certainly no more. Lord Westcroft might make her body burn with desire, but no man was worth abandoning her principles for, not when those principles were solely there to protect her.

  ‘Head high, back straight, shoulders down,’ she instructed herself, looking into the mirror to check she looked suitably determined.

  Selina opened the door and stepped into the corridor, meaning to go and check on the girls. One step out of the door and she came crashing into Lord Westcroft, who was striding down the corridor, a frown on his face.

  They both stiffened, then took a couple of steps back. Selina had the ridiculous urge to curtsy, but instead looked resolutely at the worn wooden floorboards.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Salinger,’ Lord Westcroft said, his voice holding none of the tenderness of the night before. And gone was the intimate use of her first name.

  ‘I trust you slept well, Lord Westcroft,’ she forced herself to say.

  ‘No.’

  She looked up at his abrupt answer and saw the frown on his face deepen.

  ‘I did not.’

  Selina got the feeling he blamed her for his lack of sleep.

  ‘I was just about to check on Priscilla and Theodosia.’

  ‘I shall accompany you.’

  He motioned for her to go first, walking a pace behind her with his hands held straight down by his sides as if making sure no part of him inadvertently brushed against her.

  Selina risked a glance back at his face and felt all the muscles in her body tensing in response. It was an abrupt change—only a few hours ago he was kissing her as though they were the most intimate of lovers and now he could barely stand to be within a few feet of her.

  This was why it was a terrible idea to be seduced by your employer.