by Julia Keaton
Nick lifted one dark brow. “Did you?”
Darcy’s frown deepened. “I believe I did.”
Nick studied the amber liquid in his glass for several moments. “It didn’t occur to you, I suppose, that I might tell you it was none of your damned business?”
They assessed one another for several moments. “It did, but I think I’m making it my business,” Darcy finally responded.
“Or that I might ask you the same question?” Nick queried pensively.
Darcy dragged his fingers through his hair. “You know I always had a soft spot for Bronte, poor little mite.”
“Homely little mite, I believe you phrased it,” Nick said tightly. He took a sip from his glass.
Darcy flushed. “She was, but I was fond of her anyway.”
Nick’s eyes narrowed. After a moment, he leaned forward and refilled his own glass. “She wasn’t, but that’s a matter of opinion.”
Darcy stared at him in surprise. “You didn’t think so?”
“No.”
Darcy frowned, obviously casting his mind back. Finally, he smiled. “She was cute, wasn’t she? Pesky as hell, but cute.” He was silent for a while, chasing some errant memory. “Isaac was the one that used to call her names.”
Nick’s lips tightened in response. “He did. I found her crying her eyes out over it more than once.”
“That’s why you beat the living hell out of him that time?”
Nick grimaced. “For all the good it did.” He studied the liquid in his glass thoughtfully. “I always had an uneasy feeling that Isaac had a cruel streak in him.”
Darcy’s eyes widened. “Hell!” he exclaimed, surging to his feet and beginning to pace back and forth agitatedly. “I’d forgotten that! That’s what she meant. I thought she was saying she’d never gotten over Isaac, but that wasn’t what she meant at all!
“That little weasel! If I’d known that at the time, I’m not so sure I’d have taken a bullet trying to save his hide.”
“I took two, but I don’t bemoan the fact constantly,” Nick reminded him wryly. “I damn well wouldn’t have if not for Bronte. I never did understand what she saw in him, if you want the truth of it.”
Darcy shrugged. “He was a pain in the ass, but I figured it was just because he was younger than us. I might have known it was his damned fault!”
Nick sighed. “I wish you would sit down and stop trying to wear a hole in my rug.”
He studied Darcy irritably for several moments after he’d finally sprawled in his chair once more, his eyes narrowed. “Do you mean to tell me that you and Bronte were talking?”
Darcy didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Of course we were. If you didn’t have a nasty, suspicious mind you would’ve known that.”
“If I didn’t know you as well as I do I might have guessed that,” Nick retorted tartly.
Darcy flushed. “All right, so I did have it in mind to test the waters when I took her out onto the balcony. I’d said something stupid and thoughtless, though, and she had this look in her eyes. And I started wondering just what was going through her mind.”
“What, precisely, did you say to her?”
“I don’t recall,” Darcy said evasively. He met Nick’s penetrating gaze and finally shrugged irritably. “I called her a heartless baggage, but I was only teasing. I’ve said the same thing to plenty of others and they didn’t take it to heart. In fact, I got the impression they were rather pleased about it.”
“But Bronte wasn’t?”
“She gave me this wounded look and told me she’d acquired it from growing up with heedless young men, which I took to mean the three of us. Which I thought was grossly unjust when we let her tag along with us most of the time, when most guys wouldn’t have considering she was a girl and nearly half our age to boot! It was what she said after that, though, that bothered me.”
“You weren’t the least perturbed about being accused of tormenting her?
“I never did!” Darcy said indignantly. “You know damned well that was Isaac. I used to tease her, but she knew I was teasing.” He thought it over. “I thought she knew it, anyway.”
“I suppose I thought so, too, but apparently it looked differently from her perspective. In any case, as someone who has had a brotherly interest in her for more than half her life, I should be asking you what you’re intentions are.”
Darcy gaped at him in outrage. “You’re not going to sit there and tell me that was a brotherly kiss I witnessed at the Sheffield’s ‘do’ the other night?”
Nick flushed faintly. “Call it … curiosity.”
“I call it a damned outrage!” Darcy snarled. “At least I had the good sense to take her onto the balcony!”
“You damned well know that your judgment wasn’t the least whit better than my own,” Nick retorted sharply.
“Well, at least you admit yours wasn’t!”
Nick studied him through narrowed eyes for several moments. “As it happens I’ve been giving some thought to settling.”
“Well, if you’ve set your sights on Bronte, you can just unset them! In the first place, Bronte informed me that once was enough. In the second, I’ve more than half a mind to settle myself, and I’m thinking I might have a try at changing her mind.”
“She said that?” Nick asked sharply.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you. And what’s more, she said even if she decided to marry again, it wouldn’t be an Englishman. She’s determined to go back to America.”
Chapter Eight
The insidious thing about lust, Bronte reflected, was that it had no conscience and no master. She had certainly not forgiven either Darcy or Nick, not for the wounds that had never healed, and not for their assumption that she was easy pickings.
Unfortunately, she was. She didn’t delude herself that it had anything to do with a drought of sexual relations in general. Isaac had been gone many years, and she hadn’t suffered unduly for the lack of a bed companion. If she had, there were plenty willing and able to fill her needs.
She would’ve liked to think she hadn’t accepted because she was too good, too much a lady. She didn’t delude herself about that either. She hadn’t because she hadn’t been greatly tempted.
Now, she was. The devil sat upon her shoulder day and night--mostly at night, reminding her that there was really no reason why she shouldn’t indulge her private fantasies. She had no intention of remaining in England, so even if a scandal broke, and there was no saying that one would, it was immaterial to her. She wasn’t looking for a husband, had no intention of remarrying, so what difference did it make if her reputation did go down the drain?
She was barren. Regardless of what her mother seemed to think, she was convinced of it. Isaac might not have relished his duty, but he’d performed it. He’d had plenty of time to get a child on her if it was possible. She’d only gone to a doctor about it to confirm her suspicions.
It seemed fairly certain, even if there was still a remote chance of it, that she needn’t worry about bearing a child out of wedlock.
With no real obstacles, it was very difficult to figure out a good reason not to do as she pleased.
Her mother would die of shame if her reputation was ruined.
But her mother certainly wouldn’t die, and so long as she was discreet, that wasn’t a real obstacle either.
She hated them.
She’d repeated that phrase like a mantra every time her thoughts had strayed to either of them over the years, and it was obvious to her now that it hadn’t done the least bit of good. She was angry with them. She was hurt, but if she’d hated them as she honestly thought she did, she would be revolted at the very thought of either one of them touching her. She certainly wouldn’t have responded as she had. And there was no point in telling herself it was only lust. It simply wasn’t possible, not for her at least, to lust after someone she hated. She didn’t think she could even lust after a man she just plain disliked.
She manag
ed to avoid both Darcy and Nick for nearly a week, mostly because they seemed to be avoiding her. She discovered why when Darcy came to call.
Her mother had taken to her bed and she was alone in the parlor when the butler announced him. Treacherously, her heart began to flutter with anticipation even before he came in. One look at his face, however, was enough to make her gasp.
He reddened, grinning sheepishly. “That bad?”
Bronte put her hand over her wildly beating heart. “Uh … no,” she lied.
Darcy chuckled. “You never were a very good liar, Bronte. Don’t, whatever you do, take into your head to take up poker. Take my word for it, you’d lose your … purse.”
Her lips twitched. “I’d been considering taking it up. I think I’d be good at.”
He settled in the chair across from her. “You thought you’d be good at riding, too, but I’ve never seen anybody with a worse seat.”
“I ride very well now, thank you,” she said primly. “I hardly ever fall off.” She studied his face. “It looks painful. What happened?”
“Well, darlin’,” he drawled. “There were five of them as I recall....”
Bronte chuckled. “Don’t spin me one of your yarns.”
His eyes gleamed with repressed laughter. “But it’s so much more interesting than what actually happened.”
Bronte felt her throat close as she studied his face, remembering that look so well from her childhood. The laughter was directed mostly at himself, to hide a touch of guilt, a bit of embarrassment. He’d looked at her in just that way the time she’d caught him coming out of the barn on Isaac’s lands.
She’d heard giggles inside and known Isaac, and probably Nick, were both in the barn with some other girl. She’d been so hurt and angry that they hadn’t invited her to play with them when they had invited some other girl. She’d stalked off, but she hadn’t gone home. She’d hidden and waited until the others came out and then she’d caught up with Isaac and told him she would tell his mother about him being in the barn when none of them were supposed to play in the barn.
Isaac had been so furious with her he’d boxed her ears and told her he’d do something really nasty if she told.
She hadn’t. She hadn’t really intended to anyway. She’d only wanted to get even with them for excluding her by scaring them and making them think she would get them in trouble.
Afterwards, she’d been too upset to think about anything except what Isaac had done.
Realizing now why they wouldn’t let her ‘play’ she wondered how many other times she’d stumbled upon something similar, something she had been far too young to know about, or understand. She’d had no business following the boys around anyway. They were boys, and much older, even Isaac, who’d been younger than Nick and Darcy, but there’d been no girls near her age, and she’d been so lonesome for company, and much of the time Nick and Darcy had been good-natured enough to allow it.
Rising abruptly, she moved to Darcy and leaned toward him, catching his face between her palms. “Whatever happened,” she said smiling faintly, “I have an idea it’s something that shouldn’t have happened, but I’ll make it all better anyway.”
He stiffened when she touched her lips lightly to the bruise beneath his right eye.
She leaned back a little. “Better?”
She heard him swallow and saw a muscle twitch in his hard jaw. He made a half-hearted attempt at one of his cocky grins. “I hurt my lip, too.”
She studied him a moment, feeling her heart speed up, and touched her lips to the corner of his mouth.
He caught her around the waist, pulling her onto his lap.
She lifted her brows, but she made no attempt to escape. “More?”
“God yes,” Darcy murmured hoarsely, slipping one hand behind her head as he closed the distance that separated them, molding his lips to hers briefly, then brushing them lightly along hers.
Her lips tingled at the contact. Desire surged through her with a vengeance, sucking the air from her lungs. Her lips parted as she dragged in a breath laced with the warmth and scent of his. Exhaling harshly, he opened his mouth over hers, pulling her more tightly against him as he raked his tongue along her lower lip and then plunged inside.
The moment his tongue caressed hers, it felt as if every cell in her body jerked, tensed, then melted as warmth spread through her. She felt a tremor run through his body. Her body answered with a quiver of its own, tightening with expectancy.
She settled closer. Finding her palms flattened against his upper chest, she began a slow exploration of the body beneath the layers of clothing, skating her palms up and across his broad shoulders, down along his arms and then back to his chest, following the contours of his chest from his shoulders to his hard belly. She hadn’t realized how truly immense he was until she found herself on his lap, dwarfed by his size, and it both surprised and delighted her.
Her desire burgeoned, urging her to search for more pleasurable contact. She ceased to be an accepting vessel and struck off on an exploration of her own, stroking her tongue along his, closing her mouth around his thrusting tongue and suckling. And as she did, she slid her hand lower, along his thigh, searching.
A jolt went through him as she discovered the turgid flesh she’d been seeking, cupped her hand over it, pressing down as she explored its length and breadth. Feeling the size of it made moisture seep into her slit with desire. Her muscles quivered with acute longing to have that broad length plunged deep inside her.
He tore his mouth from hers, gasping hoarsely, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. “God! Don’t!” He growled, grasping her wrist. “I’ll explode.” The words were no sooner out of his mouth than his eyes popped open. Color flooded his face. “My God, Bronte! I’m sorry, darlin’. I forgot myself.”
Bronte slipped one hand behind his head, squirming on his hard lap, teasing him and feeling her desire increase at his reaction. “Shut up, Darcy,” she murmured, pressing her lips to his once more, urging him to taste of her, longing to taste him again.
The invitation was too much for him. The floodgates he’d barely restrained broke. He ravaged her mouth with savage possession, running shaking hands over her body, pulling her tightly against him and then pushing her away to explore her with his hands again.
His hand skated over her hip and around her thigh, fingers curving into her mound just as she slid her tongue into his mouth. Bronte thrilled at his groan, the suction of his mouth, and the pressure of his fingers so close to where she needed them. She knew it would be exciting to kiss him, to hold him like this and be caressed in return, but fantasy hadn’t prepared her for actuality.
Touching him surged through her system with drugging effect, leaving her achy and feverish and longing for more. Her channel wept with need, preparing to accept his invasion if he would only cease to tease her with his fingers. The thin cloth of her day dress and chemise were far too thick in her mind. What she needed was to be free of the encumbrance so she could enjoy Darcy the way he was meant to be enjoyed.
She crowded her chest against his, crushing her breasts against his chest as she squirmed in his lap. The thought of standing so that she could shift around and straddle him occurred to her, tempting her beyond reason.
Abruptly, he tore his mouth from hers and surged to his feet, allowing her to slide down his length, steadying her briefly and then releasing her so abruptly she swayed unsteadily. He looked wildly around the room, raking a shaking hand through his hair and bringing it to total disorder. “My God! The front parlor no less! Hell and damnation. I have to go. NOW!”
Bronte placed a palm over his thundering heart, looking at him imploringly and feeling her kiss-swollen lips throb in time to her heart. “Wait.”
He grasped her shoulders almost painfully and set her away from him. “Before God, Bronte,” he said through gritted teeth. “If you touch me one more time I’m going to throw you down on the floor and fuck you senseless without a care who comes in and sees us.”
Bronte collapsed weakly in the chair he’d just vacated as he strode from the room like a man with the hounds of hell behind him.
Darcy stood in the street outside for ten minutes before he remembered he’d decided to walk to Bronte’s house. “God!” he growled abruptly, grimacing. “I said fuck.” He rubbed a shaking hand over his face, trying to decide whether he’d seen shock or anger on her face, but he couldn’t seem to remember anything except that she’d looked thoroughly kissed, her eyes still slumberous with desire.
He could smell her perfume all over his skin. Just smelling her made his blood boil all over again. He adjusted his decreasing erection, hoping it wasn’t too noticeable to anyone he passed by on the street.