She hurried forward to meet him. “Did you just come in from outside?”
“You wouldn’t believe how cold it is out there.” He gave an exaggerated shudder. “Then again, nothing can compare with the freezing temperatures in Belgium.”
This was it. Her heart pounded. “I’ll take that bet.”
“What bet?” His forehead creased, then cleared. He shook his head. “You want to wager on which winters were the worst? You’ll lose. I was in the army for three years. You’ve never experienced a Belgian winter. Despite the past few days, it’s always better in Mother England.”
“What do I get if I win?” she insisted.
He turned her around to begin lacing her stays. “How about this. If you win, you get to plan the day’s activities. If I win, there are no activities. You stay in the cottage. I shovel.”
Perfect. “I win.”
“How do you win?” He burst out laughing. “This is a silly wager. On what grounds can anyone win?”
“On the grounds that it’s not colder in Belgium. Mathematically, the historic average March temperatures are one degree warmer in Brussels than in Chelmsford.” She couldn’t hold back a grin. “I’m afraid Mother England has let you down. Essex is not only colder, but demonstrably more likely to be cloudier, foggier, and windier.”
His fingers moved from her stays to her gown. “Demonstrably how?”
“Almanacs,” she answered cheerfully. “You’ve the same ones in your library, if you don’t believe my numbers. And before you say they’re three years old, I kept up with more recent figures via newspapers. The pattern holds.”
“England has certainly changed while I’ve been away.” His voice was droll. “Bluestockings memorize historic climate data on every major city in Europe now?”
“Not every city. I’ve no idea what winters are like in Prague or Rome. I only looked up places I knew you’d fought in or lived in.” She bit her lip. “I wasn’t trying to learn weather patterns. I was trying to get to know you.”
He finished buttoning her gown in silence, then turned her to face him. His eyes were unfathomable. “When did you do this?”
“Study Belgium? When you and the others returned from war.” Her cheeks burned. “I learned of your home in Chelmsford more recently. That’s why the slight discrepancy was fresh in my mind.”
His gaze was soft as he brushed the pad of his thumb across her cheekbone and cupped the side of her face. “All right. You win. What are our plans for the day?”
Chapter 14
A tendril of sweet-smelling smoke curled up from the cheroot clutched between her teeth as Xavier’s ever-surprising houseguest slapped triple aces onto the table and reached for the pile of betting fish.
Again.
He didn’t know what was worse—that his nightmare of contributing to a proper young lady’s descent into total debauchery was playing out in lurid color, or that he was secretly enjoying the constant upheaval of having Jane in his life. She knew scotch from whisky, had no trouble counting markers, and almost certainly dealt her cards from the bottom of the deck.
She was absolutely shameless.
He hadn’t had this much fun in years.
More precisely, he hadn’t had fun in years. He tossed down his own trio of aces and scooped the chips right out of Jane’s hands. Between war and shutting himself off from society upon his return, he’d quite forgotten how delightful an evening of poor sportsmanship and raucous laughter could be.
He’d never expected to relive that feeling again, much less here, tonight. With her.
Her lush mouth fell open when she saw his cards. “You can’t have three aces!”
“Why not?” He gave her an innocent gaze as he raked in his winnings. “You do.”
She spluttered, then collapsed into laughter. “I thought I was the only one with a spare deck. Two of yours are the ace of spades!”
“Never underestimate a soldier,” he warned her gravely. “We always carry spades.”
She threw a handful of cards at him. “I’ll give you an extra one, right through the heart.”
“You wound me, madam.” He pushed all the cards to the far side of the table and shook a new set from a fresh deck. “Double stakes?”
“Hmm.” She twirled her glass of port. “All or nothing?”
“You’re on.” He began to deal.
Her hair was loose about her shoulders. She’d lost the pins right about the time he’d poured her port. The long, soft chestnut waves fell down her back and caressed every curve. It took all of his strength not to shove his fingers into that beautiful hair and kiss her until he drowned.
She had enchanted him. It was impossible to keep fighting it. Over the past few days, he had slowly realized that although Jane was a wallflower and a bluestocking and a virgin, she wasn’t just those things.
Anyone this diverting didn’t have to be a wallflower. She’d already admitted to being a bluestocking by choice. And her presence on his doorstep hadn’t been by accident.
Everything she did, she did because she wished to. If she was here with him, it was because she meant to be.
He felt oddly proud at having been the one to catch her attention. She made him feel like he was the only man who mattered. “I find it hard to believe that you don’t have a dozen beaux at any one time.”
She wiggled her eyebrows. “Because of the seductive way I light a cigar?”
“That,” he admitted with a rakish grin, “and everything else. You’re smart, you’re beautiful, and you cheat at cards. Why aren’t you married?”
The easy laughter faded from her eyes. She stubbed out her cheroot in its dish. “You mean, why don’t I throw myself on the tender mercies of the Marriage Mart? You’re right. Isaac could find someone interested enough in me or my dowry to make the march to the altar. But I refuse to marry someone I don’t want. Why should I?”
“Lots of people do.”
“I won’t. Never again.” She reached for her cards. “Losing my fiancé was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Your what?” A white-hot streak of jealousy ripped through him. He forced his tone to modulate. “You were to wed? What happened?”
She picked through her cards without meeting his eyes. “It didn’t work out.”
“How in the world did being betrothed not work out?”
“Many ways.” She rubbed her temple. “Besides, it’s in the past.”
He narrowed his eyes at the evasion. “How far in the past?”
Her gaze slid away. She set down her cards and began sorting her markers. “I was almost seventeen. It would’ve been a small wedding.”
His stomach twisted. “A bride at sixteen? How old was he?”
“Five-and-thirty. It didn’t happen. Don’t look so thunderous. Isaac agreed I was too young for suitors and talked our guardian into letting me wait a few years. As soon as Isaac gained his majority, he got a town house and brought me to London to make my curtsey.”
His hands clenched and unclenched. “What happened to your ex-intended?”
She shrugged. “He was someone else’s suitor by then. Besides, I never intended to have him. That decision was made for me. My guardian didn’t want wards.”
Fury gnawed at him. A sixteen-year-old girl had no business being wed against her will. “Who is this paragon that wanted a young girl for his bride? And who the devil was your guardian at the time?”
“It doesn’t matter.” She pushed away her stacks of betting fish and shrugged. “That was then. I was young.”
“That’s exactly why it matters!”
“That’s exactly why it doesn’t. Eight years change a person. Besides, he probably doesn’t remember my name.”
“I wish I knew his.” Xavier cracked his knuckles.
“Why? He’s irrelevant. I haven’t seen him in years.” Her voice grew softer. “I stayed in the shadows for a long time, and by the time I wanted out, it was too late. I was invisible. No one noticed me, no matte
r how hard I tried. For years, I blamed everyone else. And then I thought—why not go after what I want?” She smiled up at him from beneath her lashes. “What I wanted was you. That’s why I’m here. No matter what happens, I won’t regret it. I got to know the man you really are.”
He stared back at her in consternation. If only her words were true. If only it were possible to know what kind of man he really was and not regret it. He shoved his fingers through his hair. He liked her, too. Despite himself. It had been easier to push her away, easier to say no, when all they’d shared was physical attraction.
Of course he desired her. That long, magnificent hair. The curve of her arse. The swell of her breasts. Her plump pout. Those incredible brown eyes. He longed to watch them darken with passion as she locked her legs around his hips and made love to him.
Except then there’d be an after. She deserved so much more than any of the afters he could give. He couldn’t marry her. Wouldn’t wish anyone the bad fortune to be leg-shackled to him for eternity. He was not a good man. He’d make a terrible husband.
Which left what? Giving in to her desire to be his lover? She didn’t deserve that either, no matter how much he wanted her. She deserved a man who would never let her walk away.
He picked up his cards and tried to focus. The suits blurred. Concentration was impossible. All he could think about was her.
From the moment she’d walked in his front door, it had just been a matter of time. And willpower. With every saucy little grin, every surprise, every ace up her sleeve, she dug herself a little deeper into his heart. He cared about her.
All the more reason to keep her safe, not seduced.
He drained his brandy. No matter what she thought about the prospects for her future, she would make some other man a wonderful wife. In fact, he couldn’t imagine a better partner.
At first, he’d assumed a woman like Jane Downing would be the last person he’d be able to talk to or relate to. He’d been wrong. Her very bluestockingness meant she was the only non-soldier of his acquaintance that was familiar with the geography of Belgium, who kept up with the war and its soldiers beyond the sightings of officer regimentals in the scandal sheets.
More than that, she knew her history. Not just Napoleon, but any major war, going back for centuries. She could put things into context in ways he’d never even considered.
All this, without having lost her innocence. She might think her books made her world weary, but her lack of personal experience with life’s horrors kept her innocent. She believed in the causes all those people died for. She believed in him.
It was almost enough to make him feel like it was possible. Like he could become a good person again, if he tried hard enough and wanted it bad enough.
The first step would be doing the right thing by Miss Downing.
Which meant as much as he liked her, as much as he ached to give in to desire and pull her close, the best thing he could do for them both was to keep his distance. Even if he had to drink himself into a stupor just to keep from touching her.
He gestured toward the table with another glass of brandy. “Your move, milady.”
Before either of them could play the first card, an ear-piercing screech filled the air. A gray blur flew across the table, sending cards and markers spraying into the air like so much confetti.
“Get him!” Jane leaped up and fled the room.
No problem. He was an ex-soldier.
He set down his brandy. As he lurched to his feet, his chair tumbled over backward and clattered to the floor. The cat jerked its head toward the sudden noise, which gave Xavier just enough time to launch himself atop and trap Egui in his arms.
The cat thanked him with a full set of claws.
Jane raced back into the room with the wicker basket she used as a cage. “We’ll need some new string. He chewed through the latch.”
“Hard to imagine,” Xavier gritted out whilst attempting to keep the beast immobile. “I hate to say it, but your cat is a menace.”
She knelt before him and opened the basket. “Egui isn’t my cat.”
He paused and tried to focus. “What?”
“Egui.” She positioned the basket like a box trap. “He’s not my cat. If I had a cat, it would be well behaved. And I’d name him something more sensible. Perhaps... Ambrose. Or Mr. Whiskers.”
Xavier shifted to one side. “What kind of name is Egui?”
“A Chinese one. It means ‘hungry ghost.’ That’s why he can’t resist eating linen.” She motioned for him to release the cat. “Gently. My brother will cry if anything happens to his precious fur demon.”
The cat shot out of his hold and straight into the basket. It was certainly as hard to catch as a ghost. And it spared no linens.
Xavier sat up and rubbed his new welts. “I don’t always know when you’re teasing.”
“I’m never teasing.” She tied down the basket lid with a ribbon of cloth that looked suspiciously like the lining of his new waistcoat.
“Do you and your brother speak Chinese?”
She finished tying the knot. “I do not.”
He blinked. “Then how did this cat get that kind of a name?”
“We don’t know. He already had that moniker when he came to us. Isaac is watching him for a friend.”
“A Chinese friend?” he guessed, feeling lost.
“Obviously.” She tested the knot’s hold. “How else would Egui get a Chinese name?”
“How did your brother get a Chinese friend?” Who was this family? Xavier felt like he was living in an Italian farce. Any minute now, dancers would burst onstage and put the whole situation to music. He was almost disappointed that they’d missed their cue.
Jane pushed the basket into the furthest corner of the room. “How would I know? I didn’t know Isaac had any friends until Egui showed up and demanded his rightful place as supreme ruler of our household.”
“How long ago was that?”
She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Nine years.”
His jaw fell open. Nine years. They’d been looking after a devil-possessed feline for nine long years. Just the thought made his skin tingle with dread.
He shook his head. “I’m afraid your brother doesn’t have a Chinese friend. He has a very clever Chinese enemy.”
“You’re bleeding.” She lifted his hands to inspect his shredded sleeves. “Come with me. I have a special salve in my valise.”
Of course she did. She was the keeper of a hungry cat demon.
And yet, it didn’t detract from her charms. If anything, it made her all the more surprising and mysterious. He could spend every moment of the rest of his life with this woman and never have a single boring day.
Or a single boring night. There was no better distraction from the scratches on his arms than the sway of her hips as she walked. All he had now was the familiar ache in his heart at the thought of her leaving.
This would be their last evening together.
As soon as they entered the bedchamber, she stripped him of his coat. His waistcoat. His shirtsleeves.
He’d foregone a cravat this morning because he couldn’t find any non-shredded ones. Now he wished he’d worn ten shirts, just to feel her fingers unbuttoning him, again and again.
Cool air met hot skin. His chest was naked, his arms bare.
She wasn’t looking at him like a field nurse inspecting a soldier for wounds. The catch in her throat and the jump in her pulse indicated she saw him for what he was. A man.
A half-naked one.
She held one of his forearms above the basin of water. He let her. She lifted a sponge from the basin with a trembling hand and daubed it gently along his arm.
He didn’t care about the scrapes. He couldn’t tear his eyes from hers. The dark curve of her eyelashes against the pale white of her cheeks. The way she nibbled her rosy lower lip. The sweet smell of her hair. How he yearned to take her in his arms and show her how much she meant to him.
She rea
ched for his other wrist. “Almost done. Then I’ll get the salve.”
“I don’t need salve.” His voice was husky and raw.
Her lips parted. She gazed up at him, eyes wide. “What do you need?”
“You.”
Chapter 15
The sponge fell from Jane’s hand, forgotten.
Yes. A thrill shot through her as Xavier’s mouth covered hers. At last, she could do with her fingers as she pleased. She splayed them against his bare chest and shivered at the feel of her naked palms against his hot male flesh.
She ran her hands up over his shoulders and clasped them about his neck. His warmth seeped through her clothes, heating her skin. An entire library of erotic sketches wouldn’t have prepared her for so many conflicting sensations.
Her stays were suddenly too tight, her shift suffocating. But all she could do was press even closer and lose herself in his kisses.
His lips against hers were firm, insistent. Her heart thudded. He wasn’t the only one who wanted more. She wanted everything. She wanted him. Her lips parted, demanding.
He swept his tongue into her mouth to toy with hers. Every touch was a teasing promise of what it might do, how it would feel, upon the rest of her body. Her breath came faster. She hadn’t forgotten the joy of his tongue against her breast. She longed for it.
His body was strong and hard beneath her fingertips, yet the hair at the nape of his neck was soft and silky. Desire began to coil deep within her. She wanted to explore the rest of his body. She wanted him to explore hers.
Her secret book of sketches was nothing compared to this. A mere hint of future pleasure. Some illustrations had depicted a man placing his open mouth upon his lover’s breast or betwixt her thighs. But the drawings had failed to show how dizzying it felt to have his open mouth on hers, to quake with delicious anticipation.
One of his hands traveled slowly down her spine to the small of her back. She held her breath, hoping he would loosen the buttons as he went. Her tongue became just as demanding as his.
“Feel me, Jane,” he murmured against her mouth. “I want you.”
My Favorite Rogue: 8 Wicked, Witty, and Swoon-worthy Heroes Page 138