Tempting the Scoundrel (Private Arrangements Book 2)

by Katrina Kendrick

  He laughed bitterly. “What fucking luck,” he murmured.

  A movement in the trees made him look up, and his breath caught. Had this woman been fashioned at birth just for him, she couldn’t have awed him more. It was the way she moved about in this world—with a gaze as sharp and pointed as a dagger’s edge. But she was not nearly so delicate, for blades could blunt without proper care. They could be broken or rusted. No, he could only describe her in the terms of a summer storm: powerful and disorienting.

  And storms always made Thorne feel alive.

  “You’re late,” he said, smiling as she approached.

  She wore her usual wardrobe to their lessons: a loose dress that covered her bathing costume, her hair plaited. She looked as wild as a sea siren. “Yes.” Her answer was clipped. “I have som—” Their eyes met and she hesitated, frowning.

  His smile faded. She wore a strange look on her face, as if she were making some important, unspoken decision. “What’s the matter?”

  The space between their breaths felt like an eternity. Alex abruptly looked away. “Nothing.” During that small expanse of time, she had made a choice. She started unbuttoning the dress over her bathing costume. “It’s nothing at all.”

  “Alex.”

  She shucked the dress and tossed it into the grass. Even the thick, nun-like material of her bathing costume didn’t hide the agitated rise and fall of her chest. Soon her boots joined the dress in the grass.

  “Swim with me,” she said, starting to wade into the water. “I don’t want to talk.”

  “No. Not until—” His answer was cut off as she dove in. “Damn it! Alex.”

  But she was already swimming away from him, her strokes strong and fast. Nick muttered a swear, tore off the clothes covering his own bathing costume, and went in after her. Alex was a fast swimmer. He’d watched her once, on the bank of the lake, as she sliced through the water. The graceful line of her body made him think once more of sirens—her natural element was water.

  His chest heaved with the effort of catching up to her. Sheer desperation drove him—what choice had she made? What had happened? Why was she late?—and perhaps some emotion slowed her.

  Or, perhaps, she wished to be caught.

  With a strong lunge, Thorne grasped Alex around the waist and hauled her against him. Her chest was heaving, hair plastered to her cheeks. A siren caught in a fisherman’s net. He had a wild urge to kiss her and tamped down the urge. He was no fisherman, and she was no fey creature at his mercy. She was human and he cared for her.

  And she was upset.

  Thorne released her and drew back in the water, placing distance between their bodies. Tell me, he wanted to say. Give me your burden, if that’s the issue. Let me share it.

  Before he could question her, she spoke. “You won,” she said.

  Thorne’s eyes roved over her face. Never had he desired anyone this much, wanting to understand her every thought and every emotion. He wanted her like an open book, bare pages and stark words written in black ink. He was a fucking hypocrite. “Yes, I won. But that’s not why you’re upset.”

  She ignored his remark. “What now?” she whispered. She lifted her chin, almost challenging him. “Am I to be your prize?”

  Was this a test? Her tone had taken on some strange emotion that he couldn’t place: anger, yes, but something else. Was she upset with him? What had he done to draw her ire?

  Thorne reached for her. He couldn’t help it anymore; touching Alex was like an instinct. It was necessary. Her breath caught as his thumb slid across her cheek and stroked the water from her skin. No, she was not unmoved by him. Not angry at him, but at something else, and he wondered at the cause.

  “I’ve never given the impression you were something to win, have I?” he murmured. “That’s not how we got here.”

  “Then how did we?”

  He brushed her lip with the pad of his thumb now. “You taught me how to catch you.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” Her words were a low whisper, and when her tongue darted out to lick his finger, Thorne bit back a groan. “Are you to take no reward?”

  Thorne lowered his hand. “Tell me why you’re upset.”

  Alex’s laugh was dry as she looked away. “I was asking you to kiss me, Nick.” She turned and swam to shallower water, where she began her walk to shore.

  “Alex.” Nick went after her, grasping her hand. “Wait.”

  Her eyes met his, but she made no move to draw away. “Are we friends or more? Tell me now before I speak further.”

  This question ought to have brought Thorne relief. It was the culmination of weeks of deceit and uncertainty. Weeks of quiet moments where he thought of Whelan’s lads and wondered how they fared in his absence. Whether the protection money he had provided before his departure would be enough or if Whelan demanded more, knowing they couldn’t pay up. He thought of O’Sullivan, hidden away in that filthy flat in the rookeries, spending his nights boxing for coin.

  These were the thoughts that occupied his quiet moments, when his longing for this woman threatened to outweigh his judgement. When he found himself thinking, if only he were some former schoolmaster who had inherited a barony quite by accident. If only the estate that bordered Roseburn were his in truth. If only these were not lies. If only, if only.

  But these were lies—and the lives of his friends depended upon his response.

  Bastard, he thought to himself as he leaned forward and captured her lips with his. Fool. Her soft moan nearly had him forget his litany, for when he did not think of money and old enemies, he’d spend hours imagining what it would be like to kiss her. He’d thought of the texture of her lips, the sounds she’d make—but he did not expect this response: she came against him with a rough noise and scraped her fingers through his hair. For she was not demure, this woman. She was as wild as the seas his ma spoke of in Ireland. She kissed like the onslaught of a storm.

  She broke off, her breath hard against his lips. “More?”

  He knew she was not only asking if he wanted more of her lips, but an answer to her question. Are we friends or more?

  And he knew that one day she’d hate him for this response: “More.”

  Then he was kissing her again. She gave a soft gasp when his tongue touched hers, but Alex—bless her—was a quick learner. She pressed herself closer, those clever hands of hers sliding up his arms, coming to rest at his back.

  God, aye. Just like that. Her fingernails gripped his shirt and tugged. He felt the scratch of them through the wool of his bathing costume. Christ, how he wanted her. Roughly—there in the water. On the banks of the lake. Here under blue skies that were still so foreign to him after a life in a haze of coal smoke. He wanted to bury his face between her legs and lick her cunny until he tasted her release. He wanted to be inside her, buried as deep as he could go.

  Maybe then he’d be able to forget how he really got here: not because he won, but because he cheated.

  Thorne froze. Bastard, his mind whispered again. Cheat. Liar. Villain.

  “Nick?” Alexandra’s beautiful eyes opened. “What’s wrong?”

  It took everything in him to release her, to step back. He sank further into the cold water, just the bite of reality he needed. “You’re distracting me,” he said, forcing out a laugh as if he were amused by her. “Will you tell me now why you were angry before?”

  “I prefer kissing. It improved my day immensely.”

  “Alex.” She was quiet once more, and it had him worried. “Something happened. Yes?”

  She loosed a breath and grasped his hand in hers, holding it. “My father knows about us meeting here. He told me I’m not to see you again.”

  Alexandra won’t be able to resist something I’ve forbidden her from having.

  But how far had Kent gone with that plan? He had proven himself ruthless; hiring Thorne was proof of that. It was clear he extended no kindness to his daughter, not in any circumstances.

  A thought occ
urred to him, one he had not considered before. “Did he hurt you?” Thorne’s voice was even, and he was glad of it. Let her think him calm; that was easier than the truth: if that bastard hurt Alex, Thorne would fucking break him, deal or no.

  But Alex shook her head. “No. My father has never hit me. He finds it more satisfying to make my life miserable between months of outright ignoring my existence.”

  So Thorne wouldn’t have to murder an aristocrat—but there were other things he could do. “Then he threatened you.”

  “Yes.” Her hand tightened in his. “He vowed to marry me off to a man without the same qualms about striking a woman.”

  So Lord Kent’s plan to push her into Thorne’s arms involved intimidation and threats. Thorne hated thinking of how the earl must have spoken with Alex to upset her so. He’d spend the rest of his life making it up to her. He’d destroy her father if she wanted.

  Thorne looked down at their hands. She had laced their fingers together, an intimate touch. He savored this, knowing that once she discovered the truth, he’d never hold her hand again.

  “Is this the last time I see you, then?” he asked her.

  Alex’s eyes caught his. “Do you want it to be?”

  “No,” he breathed, and he meant that answer with his entire heart. He meant that answer knowing she’d come to hate him for it. “Do you?”

  “No.” Then she drew his hand up to her mouth and kissed his wrist. “After all, you’ve only just managed to catch me.”

  Chapter 15

  Alexandra couldn’t sleep.

  Rather than make a third attempt at shutting her eyes, she sat at the small desk in her room and attempted to write. Each sentence was more rubbish than the last, and her efforts were rewarded with little more than cramped fingers and an aching back.

  “Useless,” she muttered, rising from her desk to pace.

  Crumpled paper littered the floor—wasted sentences, wasted ink, wasted time. Suddenly the written word felt like a foul bargain. It took lives, hadn’t it? Three now, by her count. With the stroke of a pen, she’d sealed their fate.

  With a surge of anger, Alexandra began to write a letter to her publisher.

  Dear Mr. Allendale,

  After much consideration, I have decided this manuscript cannot be published. Please accept my—

  “Still working?”

  Alexandra looked over to see Nick leaning against the frame of their connecting door. After delivering her to the Brimstone, he left to patrol nearby streets for any sign of trouble. He had been gone for hours—another reason for Alexandra’s poor sleep.

  She had worried over his safety.

  Nick’s countenance was weary, his clothes stained with the mud of the streets. His hair was wind-mussed and damp. Small details that amounted to the same thing: her heart still ached at the sight of him.

  Alexandra turned back to the unfinished letter. “Quite the opposite,” she said, picking up her pen again. “I am writing a letter to my publisher and informing him of my intent to leave this work unfinished. Or perhaps I’ll burn it. I haven’t decided yet. I’ll have to come up with another way of dealing with Lord Seymour.”

  Clothing rustled. “Why?” His voice came from directly behind her. She felt his presence there like a stroke of fingertips across her shoulder blades. For a moment she imagined they were breathing together, a single set of lungs.

  Years of shared memories that hurt.

  Alexandra’s grip on the pen tightened. Ink stained her fingers. “Because I do not have the political influence to publicly accuse him, even with proof. And I am responsible for the deaths of three people—”

  “No.” His voice was firm. “You didn’t order their deaths, nor did you wield the blade that killed them.”

  Alexandra sighed. “I might as well have.”

  Nick’s hand closed over hers on the pen, warm and solid. His breath brushed across her nape. “Write your letter if you feel you ought,” he said softly. “But Seymour means to silence you. Will you let him?”

  “Would you judge me if I did?”

  How strange—how stupid—to value his opinion, even now. After all his critiques written in newspapers, saying in so many words that she was as deep as a puddle on the pavement, and here she was asking him to yield a verdict on her character. She had forgotten what his nearness could do, the power it could wield.

  And that meant he still had the ability to hurt her.

  She waited for his words, wishing she could take back the question. Wishing she was already on that traveling ship, post-divorce, miles away from England. Destination unknown. Far enough to forget him.

  “What would you have me judge you for?” he asked her. “Let me know what fault I’m meant to find in this letter.”

  “Cowardice, perhaps.”

  He made some small noise—a gusty laugh. “Alex.” He said her name like it was a secret. “There’s no cowardice in understanding that bravery always comes with a price.”

  She shut her eyes against the wild impulse to turn in his arms and kiss him, unclothe him. Let him pleasure her until she forgot everything—every worry, every memory. The words of intimacy, after all, were easy. They were single syllables, yes and no, or if their lovemaking were as good as last time: yes and yes and yes. If he kissed her now, she’d let him. She’d whisper her litany of assent.

  But this would fix nothing.

  “Then what would you have me do?” she asked him.

  “Burn his life to the ground,” Nick whispered, his lips ghosting across her skin. “And let this—” he tapped her pen—“be your match. I’ll be here for you whenever you need.”

  He withdrew his hand and left her holding the pen. The connecting door closed with a muffled click.

  Alexandra tossed the letter in the wastebasket.

  Alexandra woke to girlish voices. The bed jostled. Then a small voice whispered in her ear, “Mornin’, lady.”

  Alexandra eased her eyes open to find a child staring back at her. What time was it? Early, she supposed, since neither of these children were in school. Which meant she’d slept scant hours.

  No wonder she felt like the devil.

  “Lottie?” she asked with a sigh. “Or are you Fiona?”

  The little girl stared back seriously. “Lottie. Fi’s just behind you.”

  At her name, the other girl bounced on the bed and rested her chin on Alexandra’s shoulder. “Why’s your room covered in paper, lady?”

  Alexandra’s cursory scan of the environment around her bed yielded a similar observation. The maids respected her request not to touch her work, and now notes and discarded pages had accumulated across the floor. “My work involves paper,” she said, muffled against the pillow. “Excessive amounts of it.” The clock across the room read some ungodly hour. Were children always there this early? “Don’t you both have school?”

  “In a bit,” Fiona chirped. “Tried to get Mr. Thorne up, but he told us to go bovver Mr. O’Sullivan, but Mr. O’Sullivan is busy and I’m hungry, lady.”

  Nick got to sleep in? Sod him.

  Alexandra sighed. “Does your proprietress not feed you well?”

  “Nah, she’s a kind ‘un,” Lottie said, cuddling into the pillow. “Fi wants one of them pastries. Never had food like that afore we came to Mrs. Ainsley’s. Covered in crawlies, ours was. Ain’t it, Fi? Them swells sometimes dropped a treat or two on the main road, if they were in a rush. Ma used to brush the bugs off.”

  Alexandra tried not to let anything show in her expression. She was well aware of how many children in the East End lacked basic needs. These girls would have been considered lucky, in some quarters, that they’d had food at all. So many starved.

  Nick told her that was why many children had gone to Whelan, him included. Food, safety, shelter—these were things in the East End that did not come without some cost. Alexandra never wanted these children to pay a steep price.

  “Come, then,” she said, pushing the blankets off. Sleep, i
t seemed, would have to wait. She smiled at the girls. “We’ll have one of the maids ask Mr. Burke to bake a batch of pastries while I dress. Then we’ll take them with us to the orphanage.”

  Fiona squealed, and Lottie tentatively smiled back. “You’re a good ‘un, too, lady,” Lottie said, and her small dimple flashed.

  After dressing, Alexandra took the girls down to the kitchens, where she found Mr. O’Sullivan instructing the cook on that night’s menu.

  “Good morning, Mr. O’Sullivan, Mr. Burke.”

  Burke’s warm grin revealed one missing tooth. Mr. O’Sullivan returned her greeting with a brisk nod that showed friendlier progress from his frosty demeanor upon her arrival. Then he spotted the two girls behind her. “You two.” Mr. O’Sullivan gestured between them. “Isn’t school starting soon?”

  “Don’t scold the children, Mr. O’Sullivan. It’s my fault they’re still here,” Alexandra interrupted before the girls could reply. She smiled at Burke. “Pastries?”

  The cook reached for the basket on the table and handed it to her. “Fresh out of the oven, my lady.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She beamed at him, then turned to the larger man. “Mr. O’Sullivan, I’ve a favor to ask.”

  “I’m busy. You’ll have to ask Thorne.” The cook clicked his tongue, causing Mr. O’Sullivan to scowl. “Didn’t ask for your tutting, did I, Burke? Don’t you have a shipment to check?”

  Shaking his head, Burke disappeared out the side door, leaving Alexandra and Mr. O’Sullivan alone in the kitchens. She hated to tear the factotum away from his work, but . . . “Nick was out all night and only came home mere hours ago.”

  “He wouldn’t wake up, Mr. O’Sullivan,” Lottie chirped. “Said not to bovver him.”

  “That’s because you escape from Mrs. Ainsley’s and pick the locks on his door,” Mr. O’Sullivan said to Lottie. To Alexandra: “I recall seeing a light on in your room when he came in. Didn’t get much sleep either, did you?”

  He must have been one of the men Nick had guarding her bedchamber. “No. But I was not patrolling dark alleyways for hours.” When he still seemed reluctant, Alexandra said, “Please. Accompany us to the orphanage so I can give the other children pastries before school. Mr. Burke went to all the effort of making them.”