My Surrender

by Connie Brockway

  Only Dand Ross seemed to come from nowhere, having been found on the road by Father Tarkin. The boy had established himself as a rascal but an amiably aloof one. As was only natural, scuffles broke out in the dormitory that determined the dormitory’s pecking order, but none ever involved Dand Ross. He stood separate, the well-liked outsider, a bit of trouble incarnate waiting to be indulged.

  Until Christian MacNeill had arrived. And then, strangely, all the parts that had been needed to make a complete whole seemed to have found one another. Douglas and Dand and Ramsey and Kit, the four individuals had overnight coalesced into a brotherhood.

  “Is that all, Brother Toussaint?” Dand asked, glancing longingly at the door.

  “Almost, boy. Where did you come from? Where were you before you came to St. Bride’s?”

  The boy’s face twisted in exasperation. “I dunno. Here and there. I don’t remember any town names. But they were far away.”

  “Your parents?”

  “Got none. I’ve been on me own forever,” he said.

  “I see. One last question. The other boys. You are all so close.”

  “Aye. They’re like my own brothers,” Dand said staunchly.

  “Brothers can sometimes encourage each other to antics and feats of bravery that may be dangerous or foolhardy.”

  Dand waited.

  “For their own good, if I were to ask you to report to me their conversations and deeds, would you?”

  “No, Brother Toussaint, I would not.” He spoke without hesitation.

  “Not even if I threatened you with punishment?”

  Dand smiled then. It was a most grown-up smile. Most disconcerting in that thin, impish face. “If you did that, I might agree.”

  “I see.” So the boy’s loyalty was not so deep after all. Perhaps his potential was not so formidable as Father Tarkin—

  “But then,” Dand added with an unmistakable glint in his soft, brown eyes, “I might only tell you what I thought you wanted to hear.”

  Toussaint regarded him with shock.

  Then again, maybe Dand Ross would end up being even more formidable than any of them had imagined.

  Hyde Park, London

  Afternoon, July 19, 1806

  The afternoon was bright, and the air warm and the park filled with members of the ton enjoying the fine weather. Charlotte felt particularly stylish in a gown of cream batiste sprigged with tiny green leaves. Stylish and self-assured.

  “Good Lord, Lottie,” Dand said with an air of patient frustration, “you are as stiff as a bishop’s mitre. Whatever has gotten into you, my girl?”

  All right. Mostly self-assured. But only because she was unused to being shown off as a piece of property and she hadn’t mastered the knack of it yet.

  Dand held the rented horses’ reins in one hand, expertly guiding them at a leisurely pace along Hyde Park’s most popular boulevard. His free arm lay across the back of the carriage seat, not quite touching her, but from any spectator’s vantage declaring his uncontested ownership. No one had ever “owned” her before. Was it any wonder that she was a trifle tense?

  And he had the gall to ask what was wrong.

  Compounding her unease was the lowering notion that she amused him. Each time he looked at her she saw the humor lurking behind the pretended warmth, the flicker of some thought he would not share. Worse, no matter what her misgivings, it did not do one whit to dampen her reaction to him.

  Each time he touched her, no matter how insignificant or unintentional, cascades of pleasure raced along the surface of her skin. Each time he spoke she was required to look at him and thus see the contours of his lips and recall how they had felt moving over her own.

  “Nothing is wrong with me,” she declared, knowing she sounded even stiffer than her posture. “Whatever would be the matter with me? I am fine.”

  “I am relieved to hear it. Perhaps my concern stems from the fact that you don’t much present the aspect of a lady so smitten with desire that she is willing to throw away her good name to be with a man. And that is why we are here, is it not? To satisfy Mrs. Mulgrew’s doubtless well-intentioned instructions to convince society you are run amuck with uncontrolled passion?

  “It would help if you did not continue to shy away every time I look at you or touch you.” His smile became complacent and predatory at the same time. “And I will be looking at you. And touching you. So, do be a good sport and try to fall in with the spirit of the thing.”

  “Unconvincing, am I?” She rose to the implicit challenge. This game she felt confident in playing. Even with Dand. “Might I suggest that you are unfamiliar with how a lady comports herself in such a situation? Doubtless your experience with barmaids and their ilk have led you to believe that unless a woman is wriggling in your lap she isn’t displaying the proper enthusiasm for your manly charms.”

  His eyes sparkled appreciatively. “I confess, being but an insecure and conceited male, I do require rather obvious indications that my efforts are appreciated.”

  Bedamned, she thought admiringly, but he was a good sport! “Piffle.”

  “Truly, I am delighted there is an easy explanation for your rigidity for I had begun to suspect that…” he trailed off, shrugging.

  “Suspect what?”

  He shook his head, expertly turning the coach onto a smaller though still well-traveled lane. “It doesn’t bear comment.”

  “No,” she said, determined to find out what he’d suspected. “I insist.”

  “Well,” he said reluctantly, “I had begun to suspect you were all aflutter because of our kiss last night and are sitting there anticipating another with all manner of maidenly trepidation.”

  Fire scalded her throat and clawed its way up into her cheeks. By heavens, she was blushing! She hadn’t blushed in years.

  She kept her gaze fixed on a sycamore tree farther down the lane. “Kiss?” she repeated in a determinedly bored voice. “What kiss? Was there a kiss?”

  “Yes,” he answered calmly. “In the Argyll gardens. I kissed you.”

  “Oh. That kiss. I’d nearly forgotten. I was so tired by the end of the evening, you understand.”

  “As I assumed.” He nodded. “I see now how ridiculous I was being. But then, that only goes to prove how misleading a lack of expertise can be.”

  At that, her head snapped around. He gazed blithely ahead. “Lack of expertise?”

  “Yes,” he answered easily. “I thought since you are clearly so unfamiliar with kissing, it may have disconcerted you.”

  “I am not unfamiliar with kissing!” she declared. “I have been kissed many times. Many, many times. Men are always kissing me.”

  He frowned, his brows drawing together in an expression of unquestionable pity. “Oh, my dear,” he said in a low voice, “I am so sorry.”

  “What?” she demanded. “Why?”

  How dare he think her inexperienced? she thought, giving scant pause to the notion that most young women, particularly those who were experienced, would very likely rather be thought not to be. How dare he judge her wanting?

  And how dare he drive without gloves? His hands, fingers twined in the leather reins, were calloused and rough enough. Sunlight glinted on the light smattering of gold-tinted hairs on their backs and wrists. Was the rest of him covered with that same glinting—? No. She would not wonder. She would only think that hands like that, masculine, strong, and hirsute, ought to be decently gloved. Clearly, he hadn’t any idea of what a gentleman did, how a gentleman acted. Or how a gentleman kissed.

  “Why do you say that?” she repeated.

  He glanced around and, seeing no one in the immediate vicinity, pulled the carriage off the path beneath the shelter of a tall, tricolored beech. There, he wrapped the reins loosely around the brake and turned to her, a grave expression on his lean, handsome face. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”

  “You didn’t insult me,” she snapped.

  “It is only that, well, from your tepid response t
o my kiss, I concluded that you were rather green at it, you see.”

  Tepid? He called that tepid? She recalled all too clearly that she’d nearly crawled up his body in her effort to prolong the experience. What, she would like to know, would he call “eager”?

  “But now…”

  “ ‘Now’ what?” she demanded.

  “I am mortified that my gender has given such a poor account of itself, the evidence being that your previous experiences have been so obviously brief and forgettable.”

  “They weren’t forgettable,” she denied hotly. “They were very nice.”

  “Nice.” He gave a delicate shudder—putting her much in mind of her brother-in-law Ram when he was most disgusted with something. “ ‘Nice’ isn’t the experience one is striving for when engaged in a passionate embrace. In fact, in the lexicon of passion ‘nice’ is a condemnation, an embarrassment. In short, a failure.”

  He was regarding her like a kindly tutor. A light breeze ruffled his freshly shorn hair. His razor had scraped the side of his throat. The raw mark made him look both vulnerable and strong, a contradiction that caused all sorts of odd, sensual bursts to go off in her stomach.

  “There is nothing wrong with ‘nice,’ ” she declared firmly. “One doesn’t have to abandon oneself to one’s baser nature, to feel agitated and harassed and fraught with unseemly sensations in order to declare a kiss a triumph.”

  He grinned wickedly. “Well, yes, actually one does.”

  She turned away. “It is no use discussing this with you. You clearly have a completely different perspective than I. One taken from a very low angle, I might add.”

  He laughed. “Oh, you’d be surprised at the little bonuses we at the lower end of the social spectrum enjoy. Alas, it’s not a clean profession you’ve chosen to simulate, Lottie, me luv. And a kiss, a proper kiss, is a wet and heated, straining and urgent, affair.”

  “It sounds exhausting,” she intoned coolly before adding the ultimate condemnation. “And messy.”

  “Aye, that it is.” His burr, notably absent during his impersonation of her French lover, had returned, whiskey smooth and velvety soft. “A successful kiss clouds the thoughts of the clearest mind, makes fools of principles, wreaks havoc with intention, destroys all sense of self-preservation and substitutes yearning in its stead.”

  “I can’t imagine why anyone would fancy such a thing,” she said primly. He answered with a wolfish smile.

  “That is what I was afraid of. You’ll have to trust me in this, Lottie. There is something wondrous in being held captive by sensation, in losing control and giving rein to passion and instinct. In passionate surrender, one finds the ultimate freedom.”

  His words awoke a surge of longing and teased the adventuress in her soul into breathless anticipation.

  He tapped her playfully on the nose, breaking the hypnotic spell his words had cast over her. “Now, despite your personal preferences in the matter, your current attitude will never do. You simply don’t have the aura of a woman in the midst of a dangerous liaison. Luckily, we can remedy that.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked suspiciously.

  “What your former partners failed to supply, I can provide.”

  “And what would that be?” she asked tartly.

  “Experience. An experience that will decidedly not be ‘nice.’ ”

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  The corner of his mouth rose in a lopsided smile and he lifted the hand lying along the back of the carriage, his thumb skating just above the corner of her mouth. “What about it, Lottie? Ready to get a little messy?” His voice was low, suggestive, and irresistible.

  “No.”

  “What? Not even for God and country? Where is the tough, worldly temptress you claimed to be?” He was laughing at her. Charlotte hated being laughed at. No, that was not entirely correct. She was generally accounted a woman well able to laugh at her own follies. It was having Dand Ross laugh at her that she hated.

  She hesitated. Perhaps she did need a patina of…whatever it was Dand thought she so sorely lacked. Perhaps…for the right reason…

  “All right.”

  She’d surprised him. It was clear he hadn’t expected her to acquiesce.

  A thought occurred to her. It was as tempting as Dand’s wicked suggestion. She might teach Dand a thing or two, too.

  “What would you like me to do?” she asked serenely.

  “Relax.” His thumb swept gently along her lower lip. “This isn’t the Inquisition, you know. And just because we are aiming for something other than ‘nice,’ doesn’t mean it will be unpleasant.”

  “Promises, promises,” she murmured, eyeing him from beneath her lashes while remarking with satisfaction the tiniest start in his expression.

  For a short while there she’d forgotten who she was: Charlotte Nash, Society’s most coming chit, as fly to the time of day as a woman twice her age, a fluent temptress, a naughty wench, and an acknowledged heartbreaker. But now she’d remembered and she would make Dand remember, too, and if he hadn’t ever known her reputation was warranted, well, he would soon enough.

  He leaned forward and brushed his mouth gently over hers. It was a kiss quite unlike last night’s fevered entanglement, so soft a bit of down might have imparted as much pressure, so brief, a whispered word lingered longer. Yet, for all its brevity and lightness, it instantly teased to life a thousand rich sensations along the curve of her lip.

  Oh, my.

  He drew back and looked down. He smiled.

  “I don’t believe I have ever kissed a sacrificial virgin before. Will you require oil afterward, do you think, for the pyre?”

  She followed his gaze. Her hands were clamped tightly in her lap. This would never do. She had been about to reestablish her reputation as a hoyden and a romp, not dissolve into breathless anticipation after one little kiss. He was the one who was supposed to dissolve.

  “I am being tepid again.” She managed to say with nothing more than mild regret. “Please. Let me have another go. I swear I will muster some enthusiasm.” She brightened at his look of amazement. “I am by all accounts a fine actress. But tell me,” she furrowed her brow in consternation, “just how much appreciation ought one evince for a gentleman’s efforts?”

  His look of surprise disappeared. Whatever momentary advantage she’d gained, vanished. He sank back against the carriage seat, seeming to give her query all due consideration. She couldn’t completely refrain from smiling.

  Lud, but she adored playing with Dand Ross! There was no more worthy an opponent.

  He scratched his chin with the edge of his thumb, squinting up at the sky. “As loath as I am to admit it,” he finally said, “we males are deplorably easy to control. Our self-esteem is transported or destroyed with the tiniest gesture. A well-timed sigh will make a man your slave, while a frown can cast him into an inferno of self-doubt.”

  “I rather fancy making you my slave, Dand,” she said in a husky undertone.

  He bent his head modestly. “Well, I was speaking more or less in general. Not all men are so predisposed.”

  “You, for instance? Being a superior specimen?” she asked.

  Again the modest smile. “Superior? Perhaps less susceptible. But, by all means, if you wish to test your skills, do have a go.”

  “I believe I shall.”

  With a confidence she was far from feeling, she leaned toward him and reached up, cupping his hard jaw in her palm. He hadn’t shaved since the morning and the stubble of his beard against her soft palm was uniquely, distinctly, and potently masculine.

  “I prefer a freshly shaven man,” she lied, fanning her fingers lightly open over his scarred cheek, her fingertips playing delicately over the silky sandpaper. He turned his head, deliberately rubbing his cheek into her hand, like a great tawny cat. “Smooth and civilized. But I approve the scent of your cologne. Sandalwood is my favorite of those gentlemen use.”

  With a little thrill she r
ealized that in spite of the amiable expression frozen on his face, his eyes had darkened and his breathing had grown a little too even.

  He shook his head and she noted for the first time, more by touch than sight, the slight cleft in his chin. “A mistake, that. No man wants to be told his lady has been in close enough proximity to another to note and approve his scent. No matter how innocent the reason.”

  “Oh,” she said naughtily, “there is nothing all that innocent about it. My brother-in-law is a most handsome man.”

  “Damn his pretty face anyway,” Dand said, and in spite of the smooth smile, there was a little tightness around his eyes. “Do you think you might get on with the kissing and enslaving bit? I have a lunch appointment.”

  She laughed. He could say what he liked, she’d seen the little flare of hunger in his gaze. He was not, after all, unsusceptible.

  “As you wish,” she purred. She shifted closer, closer…Her eyes locked on his. No sound but the susurration of their mingled breath disturbed the air. Boldly, she swept her index finger against his lower lip. Again. This time running the tip along the sleek inner lining.

  He caught it between his teeth and wet the sensitive tip with his tongue.

  She shivered. No one had ever done such a thing to her! ’Twas beyond bold. Beyond imagining. Sensation shot straight from that touch to the core of her, flooding her body with electrifying awareness, filling her low in the loins with a liquid fire.

  His eyes narrowed, the lids partially shielding his rich, brown eyes, shadowing them with a thicket of gold-tipped lash, making them darker and more luminous. Like a night predator’s. An amused night predator.

  He released her fingertip. “Breathe, Lottie, m’love! We haven’t even gotten to the kiss, yet! Perhaps we should postpone this little contest for some later time, when you have had a chance to study the field and can bring a bit more artillery to the battlegrounds, as it were?”

  More artillery? With an effort she swallowed the heated retort rising to her lips, but then his words sparked an association in her thoughts: battles, weaponry, her brother-in-law trying to teach her a few of the more rudimentary skills of swordsmanship one dreary afternoon.