Irresistible

by ROBARDS, KAREN

  “Besides being an utter cad, a churlish lout, a mannerless oaf, and a conscienceless blackguard, you are also possessed of a truly remarkable degree of conceit, I perceive. I did not miss you.” She said it almost pleasantly, with a little pitying smile of which she was pardonably proud. Then her anger got the best of her and she added with considerable heat, “In fact, I have just been reflecting on what a great pity it is that the French didn’t shoot you.”

  “Believe me, they tried.” His eyes twinkled at her. He caught her hands, holding them so that she stood directly in front of him with their linked hands between them. “I missed you, angel eyes. More than I ever would have believed possible. James is quite outdone with me over it. You’ve intruded on my thoughts a dozen times a day and haunted my dreams at night. No other woman has ever done as much, I assure you. Thus I left Boney to the tender mercies of another operative as soon as I conceivably could and hurried to your side.”

  He lifted one gloved hand to his mouth, then the other, kissing the backs of her fingers even as he watched her over them.

  Their gazes met. The warmth in his eyes touched a chord deep inside her that was quite out of the control of any rational part of her mind. Despite herself, Claire could not help the sudden quickening of her pulse. That she had been in his thoughts and in his dreams was music to her ears. He had been in hers, too, almost unceasingly since they had parted. She had missed him, oh, she had! When she’d thought that she would never see him again, the pain had been almost unbearable. Had he felt the same . . . ? No, of course he hadn’t, she concluded acerbically. He had known all along that they would meet again, and probably precisely where and when. He could have saved her all that misery with a word. The thought made her fury boil over.

  “You, sir, are a lying dog,” she said through her teeth.

  He straightened, but kept his grip on her hands as he studied her face through the darkness.

  “You’re beautiful when you’re angry.” The merest hint of a teasing smile curled the corners of his mouth as he took in her rigid stance and deepening scowl. “Actually, you’re beautiful any way at all. When you’re soaked to the skin. When you’re green with seasickness. When you’re dressed in naught but my valet’s second-best shirt and curled up snug in my arms. When you’re not dressed in anything at all. Especially when you’re not dressed in anything at all. Come, Claire, quit shooting dagger looks at me and cry friends. I’ve traveled halfway across two continents to find you again, after all.”

  Claire narrowed her eyes at him. “I can’t tell you how flattered I am—or at least how flattered I would be if I truly believed that you had left behind a life of skullduggery with its threat of constant death to return to a luxurious, pampered existence in your own London home solely to reunite with me. Which I don’t. Why should I? All you’ve done is lie to me from the beginning.”

  “I did not lie to you.”

  “Indeed, Your Grace?” She purposefully put heavy emphasis on the honorific as she tugged at her hands, which he obstinately refused to release. “I seem to recall being held prisoner by a terrifying brigand who, when he was quite through threatening and brutalizing me, eventually introduced himself as Colonel Hugh Battancourt. Not as the Duke of Richmond, whose family name, as I happen to know from my own personal use of it, is Lynes. And I would be very much surprised if your given name is even Hugh. I’ve heard your given name—the duke’s given name—and while I can’t quite recall what it is, it isn’t Hugh, I am almost certain.”

  “Richard.” He did, at least, have the grace to sound slightly abashed. “Richard Phillip Arthur William Hugh Battancourt Lynes, to be precise about it. But I’ve always gone by Hugh among my friends and family.”

  “In other words, you lied.” Despite being hushed, her voice was sharp.

  “Well,” he conceded without batting so much as an eyelash in shame. “Maybe a little, but no more than I had to. Be reasonable, Claire. You really could not expect me to go around introducing myself as the Duke of Richmond to all and sundry when I’m operating in a foreign country as a British intelligence officer. I thought you were working for the French as a spy, for God’s sake. Why would I tell you who I am?”

  On the surface, that excuse sounded almost legitimate. There was just one slight flaw in his argument. She opened her mouth to give furious voice to it, but paused to take a long, prudent look around to make certain that they were still quite alone in their dark corner of the garden before she did so.

  They were.

  “Because I never would have—would have—you know—if I’d known the truth,” she hissed. “And you know it. Knew it.”

  “I couldn’t tell you,” he said. “What if you’d been captured by the French? They would have tortured everything you knew out of you within twenty-four hours, believe me. Once they learned my identity, my effectiveness as an intelligence officer would have been over. The operation I was engaged in would have been compromised. Besides, does the fact that I’m the Duke of Richmond rather than just plain Hugh Battancourt really make that much difference? Wasn’t it Shakespeare who said something to the tune of, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet?”

  “Or a skunk stink as badly?” Claire snapped back, as a prelude to a blistering indictment of his manners and morals. But she was abruptly silenced when another couple appeared around a bend in the path, walking slowly toward them, seeming so absorbed in each other that Claire doubted they were even aware that she and Hugh were present on the other side of the lilac. Still, it wouldn’t do for the Duke of Richmond to be discovered in his dark garden with his cousin’s supposedly newly met wife. Even as she had the thought, Hugh apparently reached the same conclusion, because his hands tightened on hers and he drew her off the path and onto the grass, pulling her behind a clump of ornamental hollies that had the felicitous property of staying in full foliage all year round.

  “Rose or skunk, I’m the same man you invited into bed with you in that farmhouse in France.”

  With that galling whisper, Hugh pulled her into his arms. Too mindful of the approaching couple to object with anything like the vociferousness such a highhanded act called for, Claire ignored the sensations ignited by the crushing of her breasts against the warm resilience of his chest and shoved at his shoulders in a silent demand to be released.

  “I did not invite you into bed with me.” Whispering, she glared up at him in hopes that her eyes would convey all the explosive sentiments that she dared not give voice to just at the moment.

  “Shh.” He shot a warning look in the direction of the path, then grinned down at her teasingly. She was still glaring up at him when he bent his head and kissed her.

  The feel of his warm, hard lips covering her mouth was as devastating as it was unexpected. Claire’s breath caught. Her heart leaped and began to pound. For a moment, just a moment, she forgot everything except the way he made her feel. Her lids fluttered down, and she swayed against him. Her blood heated. Her pulse raced. Her knees went weak. Then, even as she started to kiss him back, she remembered—everything. Her eyes flew open, and she tore her mouth from his, shoving furiously at his shoulders at the same time. He lifted his head, looking down at her with a dark, sensuous gleam in his eyes that under different conditions would have caused her to dissolve into a steaming puddle at his feet. But tonight, under these conditions, she primmed up her lips into a thin, tight line that dared him to kiss them again. Her eyes shot bullets of pure fire at him. Her hands clenched into fists.

  “How dare you?” she began furiously, doing her level best to wrench herself from his arms. Then she heard the murmuring voices of the approaching pair—Miss Bentley, she thought, and the youngest son of Lord Chester—along with the soft fall of their footsteps on the brick walk, and went both still and silent. She stood, mute but quivering with anger, trapped in the iron circle of Hugh’s arms as she waited for the intruders to pass.

  Like the reprobate she now knew him for, he took full advantage of their position
to try to kiss her again. This time, prepared, she turned her face sharply away, so that his mouth found her cheek instead. Undeterred, he slid his mouth across her smooth skin, then pressed his lips to the sensitive spot beneath her ear. Pushing against his shoulders, doing her level best not to respond, not to feel, Claire was nonetheless supremely conscious of the warm pressure of his mouth, the rasp of the stubble already beginning to roughen his jaw against her skin, the clean soap smell of him, his sheer size and muscular strength. Despite her determined attempt to feel nothing, a quickening began deep inside her, tiny at first but turning fierce and wild so quickly that it made her dizzy, reminding her against her will of the pleasure he could give her, of the sizzling ecstasy only he had ever made her feel.

  “Stop it,” she hissed.

  He lifted his head to look down at her rather mockingly. “Your heart’s beating like a stoat’s. So fast that I fear it quite gives you away.”

  “Hush.” Her sudden, urgent warning was scarcely louder than a breath, uttered as Miss Bentley and her swain suddenly rounded another curve in the path and came into full view. Their pace was slow, the unhurried gait of a courting couple, and they were still so wrapped up in each other that they seemed aware of nothing else. A dozen steps would bring them less than two yards from where Claire and Hugh stood entwined, with only the rustling branches of the hollies and the shifting shadows to provide them concealment. Any movement to free herself, any sound of protest, was now too risky. All it would take would be a sideways glance by the approaching couple and they would be discovered, and the hue and cry of scandal would begin.

  Claire deliberately averted her eyes from them, afraid they might sense they were being watched and look around. For a moment she found herself staring at her slender white fingers splayed against the rich black velvet of Hugh’s coat. The softness of the cloth atop his hard muscles made for an intriguing contrast, she thought, instinctively savoring it. Suddenly she was very aware of the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, and the tantalizing width of his shoulders above it. The arms that were holding her were strong and hard. But she did not wish to be aware of those things, she told herself fiercely, and so she averted her eyes with a quiet exhalation of the breath that she discovered, to her annoyance, she had been holding.

  The moon was the narrowest of silver slivers overhead, blinking coyly down as it played hide and seek behind a screen of shifting gray clouds. By its light, Hugh’s skin looked almost the color of mahogany against the white of his shirt, while his eyes seemed almost as black as his hair. His lean jaw appeared clean-shaven, although she knew that it was already faintly prickly to the touch. His mouth was unsmiling as, she saw, he watched her watching him. Dear Lord, she realized, catching herself in the act of looking at his mouth, she was doing exactly what she had deliberately set out not to do! Redirecting her gaze again, she focused on her surroundings. The carefully nurtured bushes, the ornamental trees with their rustling branches, the tall sundial that formed the garden’s centerpiece, all cast shadows that shifted and danced in eerie time to the music that drifted out from the ballroom. Claire felt the caress of the breeze against her bare arms and shoulders, warm and gentle as a breath. She shivered, but not from cold. Rather from the loneliness of the night, and—she might as well face it—the proximity of the man.

  Incredible as it seemed, Hugh was back in her life. The arms around her were his; the chest that was not quite brushing her breasts belonged to him. At the thought, her loins tightened, and heat began to pulse with increasing urgency through her veins. Her body was quickening quite independently of her mind, and the realization appalled her. The pain that had been her constant companion for the past three months had no more reason to exist, and was already splintering into dozens of conflicting emotions that could very well take her the rest of her life to sort out. While she might feel hurt and used and furiously angry at him, her body simply rejoiced because he was so near. With its own atavistic memory, it hungered for what he had given it before. Frank about its needs, it wanted him quite openly, even while she was assuring herself that she did not. But perhaps, if he apologized, no, groveled, she might . . .

  No. She could not. Whether she wanted Hugh or not, whether she was angry at him or not, paid no toll. The fact of the matter was that she was married beyond redemption, no matter how little affection she felt for her husband, or he for her. The only relationship she could have with Hugh was an illicit one, as he was certainly fully aware. The role he intended her to play in his life became suddenly all too obvious. The question she had to ask herself was: Was she prepared to be his mistress?

  The answer was both hard and easy, but it was perfectly clear: No. No. No.

  The very word made her wince: mistress. She could not lower herself to that. It was not even a matter of social class. There were plenty of married women of good ton who would consider it an honor to be the mistress of so high-ranking a nobleman as the Duke of Richmond. Throw into the pot the facts that he was young, rich, and devastatingly attractive, and the numbers would swell amazingly fast.

  She had lain with him once. That was a sin, morally wrong, and personally shameful. But to embark on an extended affair with him—that would be far worse. That would be to cheapen what she had felt for him on that never-to-be-forgotten night, and what she had believed he had felt for her in return. That would be to cheapen herself.

  There could be no repeat, no second act. That one night was all of him fate was ever going to permit her to have. Given who he was, who she was, anything more was impossible. If he did not understand that—and he did not appear to—then he must be made to do so, however much pain she might thereby cause herself.

  Glancing around, she saw that Miss Bentley and her escort were almost out of sight. Taking a deep breath, she glanced up at Hugh, and, still constrained to silence by the fading voices, tried again to pull free of his hold. He shook his head at her, smiling faintly, holding her in place as if he feared she’d run away if he let her go. For all she knew, he might be in the right of it. She felt like running. She felt like crying. She felt like howling at the moon.

  Suddenly the voices were gone, vanished into the darkness, and Miss Bentley and her swain were gone too. She was all alone with Hugh again, with only the moon and the wind and the trees for witnesses.

  “This is no place to be having this conversation,” he said softly, his gaze moving to the place where the other couple had disappeared, and that most sensible observation caught her by surprise before she could take the offensive as she had meant to do. “Unless my memory fails me, I own a little house in Curzon Street where we can be quite alone.”

  As the implications of that sank in, Claire felt her stomach knot. There was no other route their relationship could take, of course, but to hear him confirm so casually the role he expected her to play in his life was like taking a knife to the heart.

  Straightening her spine, her hands pushing steadily against him to keep what space she could between them, she met his gaze.

  “You would take me to it?” Her voice was carefully neutral.

  He frowned, his expression turning rueful. “Not tonight. It would hardly do for you to disappear in the middle of your own party, after all. But tomorrow afternoon, perhaps, you could go shopping and meet me there, at whatever time suits you best.”

  “And we would talk.”

  A wicked smile just touched his mouth. “Indeed we would.”

  “Among other things.”

  “How you read my mind, puss.”

  Claire took a deep breath. “You make your expectations very clear.”

  Something in her manner must have alerted him, because the smile disappeared and he looked at her closely before answering.

  “And just what expectations are you referring to, pray?”

  “You intend for us to take up where we left off in France, do you not?”

  His lips twisted wryly. “And there is my plain-spoken Claire. Any other woman of my acquaintance
would prefer the matter left to the mood of the moment, the promptings of her heart, the igniting of that sweet flame of romance. Very well, my blunt little dove, if you would have the truth with no bark on it: Yes, I intend to love you. Do you find something to object to in that?”

  “Love!” She gave a scornful laugh and pushed at his shoulders again in a vain attempt to free herself from his hold. “Is that what you call it? Did you love me, you would never have lain with me as you did without first telling me the truth about who you are, and thus we would not now be caught in this coil.”

  “If you will cast your mind back, ’twas not I who invited you into my bed, but rather you who invited me into yours.” There was the faintest caustic note to that. “You’re angry with me, and with some justification, I’ll admit, but the blame is not all mine.”

  “I wouldn’t have invited you to my bed if you had told me the truth,” she said heatedly. “The only reason I did it is because I—all right, because I fancied you, and I thought you were getting ready to vanish from my life forever. An impression you could have corrected, if you would have. But for me to lie with you was wrong, and it can’t ever happen again. I’m married. To your cousin. Whether I like it or not. I won’t dishonor myself, or my family, by being your mistress.”

  “There’s no question of dishonor.” His voice was suddenly rough.

  “Oh, yes, there is.” The words throbbed with passion. Shoving at his shoulders again, she twisted at the same time, and at last managed to jerk free of his hold. When he would have retrieved her she whisked herself out of his reach, shaking her head at him. “That I did such a thing once is shameful enough. I won’t let it happen again. You will oblige me, please, by leaving me alone after this, and forgetting that we—that we ever met before tonight.”

  If there was a catch in her voice, there was iron determination too. Gathering up her skirts, she turned on her heel and, head held high, spine ramrod straight, started walking back along the path toward the house.