Just as she felt it begin to shatter, Harry fell to his elbows, sliding his arms beneath her to hold her tightly while he drove into her again and again as he kissed her everywhere. He slipped one hand beneath her bottom and lifted, tilting and holding her so his every movement set off that lightning, sharper and brighter every time. Mariah gripped his arms and pushed against his every thrust until he sucked in his breath and froze, holding himself deep within her while she clung to him and cried a little as her body shuddered in time with his.
Neither moved for a while as they lay tangled together in exhausted satisfaction. So this was ruin. Mariah smiled sleepily, thinking that she enjoyed it very much, from the feel of Harry’s arms around her to the weight of his body atop hers.
“Tell me your plan now,” he murmured, pressing his lips to the sweat-dampened hair at her temple.
Mariah turned her head, giving him better access to her neck, where his kisses sent tingles through her. He obliged, nipping lightly at her skin until she shivered. “We can’t be married in London. It would take too long to have the banns read.”
He mumbled something agreeable, still kissing her neck.
“But a license would also be too difficult to procure, not to mention expensive.”
Harry laughed, nuzzling her ear. “I’m not destitute, darling.”
She smiled. “Good. Although I have saved my pin money and borrowed Joan’s besides, so I am not destitute, either. But I thought the best way would be for us to go to your parents.” Harry didn’t say anything. “Unless you think they wouldn’t approve,” she added hesitantly.
He kissed her once more, then rolled onto his back. “They’ll approve mightily of you.”
“Then why do you hesitate?”
He sighed, gathering her closer in his arms and resting his cheek against her hair. “They might not approve of my actions.” There was an understatement, he thought. He could just imagine what his parents would say if they knew how he had pursued Mariah, with no real hope of an honorable conclusion to the business. He didn’t want to think what they would say if they knew he’d just made love to her, in her family’s home, knowing full well her father would never approve of the match. Of all the questionable things he had done in his life, he suddenly felt the weight of this sin more than any other. So much for saying he didn’t want to condemn Mariah to his poor life; now she had little choice, since he’d compromised her in the eyes of her own society.
“To Birmingham we go, then,” he said to banish the thought. “What if your father follows us?”
She wiggled her shoulders, her fingers skating in swirls and loops across his chest. “Does it matter now?”
Harry closed his eyes. Christ. No, he had seen to that.
“It didn’t matter before, either,” Mariah added in the same unconcerned tone.
Perhaps not, but before, there had been no permanent harm. Before, she had still been a virgin and could have walked away from her entanglement with him and no one would have been the wiser. Abruptly, he sat up. “Do you have your things packed?” Looking startled, she nodded. “We’d best be off, then,” he said quietly, his spy’s instincts returning. “The sooner we’re out of London, the better.”
“All right.”
She followed him off the bed, and in silence they retrieved discarded clothing and dressed. Mariah was not used to dressing herself; Harry had to fasten the corset, then the dress. She flashed him a brilliant smile as she wound her glossy dark hair into a knot at her neck, and Harry helplessly smiled back. This was utter madness, he thought, contrary to every logical, sensible course of action, and yet his blood hummed and his heart leaped every time she looked at him that way. She pulled a small valise from under her bed as he replaced his weapons and pulled on his coat.
“Ready?”
She nodded once at his whisper, catching up a long dark cloak from the chaise. Harry watched with a measuring look. Mariah couldn’t climb down the ivy, not in her long skirts and without a single experience to aid her. They would have to go out through the house, no matter how little he liked the idea. “Which way is the servants’ stair?”
“To the left, at the end of the corridor.”
Harry leaned down to press a soft, silent kiss on her mouth. Putting one finger to his lips to indicate quiet, he took the valise and quietly opened the door.
And looked right into the barrel of a pistol.
Chapter 26
Harry stopped dead, throwing wide his arms, reflexively shielding Mariah behind him. The pistol in the earl’s hand trembled just enough to threaten a random shot. Harry had every confidence he could avoid that shot. If he wished, he could have the pistol in his own hand and at Doncaster’s throat before the earl could stop him. He had done it before, disarmed a wild-eyed Luddite out smashing weavers’ frames and drunken sailors bent on mischief in Wapping. When he started in Stafford’s employ, he had learned how to defend himself and turn the tables on an attacker, and an unprepared older gentleman like the earl would pose no problem.
But instead he slowly raised his hands, holding the valise to one side. He never took his eyes off the pistol, just in case.
Behind him, Mariah grew impatient. Harry was blocking the door, not moving, and she couldn’t see around him. She couldn’t see anything, having put out all the lamps he’d lit. “What is it?” she whispered, clutching his arm and trying to peek over his shoulder.
To her horror, her father stepped around Harry. He was holding a pistol, pointed right at the two of them. “I thought I heard a rat,” he said in a deadly furious voice. “I see I was right.”
She gasped. “Papa, no!” She tried to push past Harry, but he wouldn’t move; indeed, it seemed he deliberately blocked her way and held her back. “Let me by!”
“No,” Papa said sharply. “Stay in your room, Mariah. Close and bar the door. I will speak with you directly.” He motioned at Harry with the gun. “You. Walk this way, with your hands where they are.”
Without a word of protest Harry turned and slowly moved down the hall in the direction he had indicated, the valise still in his hand. As soon as he moved, Mariah burst out of her room and threw herself on her father’s arm. “Papa, put the gun away! Let me explain.”
He shook her off, glaring at Harry, who had an eerie calmness about him. Out of nowhere Mariah recalled how he had overpowered Lord Dexter with his bare hands, and remembered as well the weapons hidden on his person. She had a strong suspicion Harry was obeying because he wanted to, not because he felt compelled. She tried again with her father. “Papa, please—”
“What is going on, Charles?” Behind them in the hall, her mother gasped. “Charles!”
“Return to our chamber, Cassandra,” he said grimly. “Take Mariah with you.”
White-faced, her mother reached for her. Mariah dodged her and scurried toward Harry. So much for a quiet elopement and presenting her parents with a fait accompli. “No! I am going with him!”
Her mother gave a little shriek. Her father’s lips turned white. “Mariah, come here at once—”
“Put away your pistol, Papa!” She stepped up beside Harry and curled her hands around his upheld arm.
“Silly chit,” her lover murmured. “What the devil are you doing?”
She looked him straight in the face. “I am saving you from my father so you can marry me like a proper gentleman and not have to break your neck on the ivy to see me. Or get shot.”
“Ah. Carry on, then,” he said, making her want to laugh. She beamed at him, then turned back to her father.
“Please don’t let Papa shoot me, Mama.” The countess lunged forward then with a cry, clutching the earl’s arm. With a curse, her father uncocked his pistol and lowered his arm.
“What is going on?” her mother cried, bewildered and terrified.
“Mama, I am running away to be married.” Mariah smiled brightly even though her words made her mother turn pale and sway on her feet. “May I present Mr. Henry Sinclair.”
“But I love him, Papa, and if I must be scandalous and disowned to be with him, I shall be.” Her mother moaned, covering her face with both hands. Mariah, calculating at once which parent was more vulnerable, added solemnly, “I shall miss you terribly, Mama, if you mean to disown me, but I shall not change my mind.”
It worked. The countess dropped her hands, then drew herself up and tightened the sash of her dressing gown. “In that case,” she said with regal tragedy, “good-bye, Charles.”
“Eh? What?” Startled, Papa turned to her. “What do you mean?”
“I shall not be deprived of my only child. I am going with them.” She gestured to the maid hovering in horrified silence at the back of the hall. “Fetch my cloak, Frances.”
“Cassandra,” said Papa, flummoxed.
“She is just like you, Charles, just as stubborn and determined. I have long since learned I can never deter either of you, once you set your mind on something.” She turned to Harry. “You there, young man—what is your name? Where is your carriage?”
Mariah glanced up. Harry was staring at her mother with a strange mixture of admiration and astonishment. She could hardly blame him. She certainly hadn’t expected her mother to say that. Still, it had spiked her father’s guns and bought her some time to persuade both her parents.
“Where is your carriage?” Mama repeated as the maid came flying down the hall with a long cloak over her arm. “My daughter cannot elope in a hired hack.”
Harry finally managed to tear his eyes off her and glance at Mariah. Eloping with the Countess of Doncaster had not figured at all in his plans, even such plans as they were.
Mariah simply smiled as if she had anticipated this all along. “I told you they wouldn’t disown me.”
“It’s not quite a blessing, either,” he muttered back. “I beg pardon, my lady, I haven’t got a carriage.”
The countess sighed. “Frances, run down to the stable and wake John Coachman. He must prepare the traveling coach at once.”
“Cassandra, stop this foolishness.” The earl ran his hands through his hair as if he would rip it out. Harry half feared the man would shoot him now just because he couldn’t shoot his wife or daughter.
The countess faced her husband. “Then you stop your foolishness, Charles. Waving a pistol is not helping.”
Doncaster swore some more. He glared at Harry. He shoved the pistol into his dressing gown pocket. “I will see you in my study.”
Harry thought it was without doubt the oddest procession he had ever imagined as he followed the earl, with Mariah hanging on his arm. The countess followed, cloak over one arm. The maid, he assumed, took off like a rabbit for the servants’ quarters to spread the tale. He wondered if Brandon would still want to cut him down for this, and if he’d be waiting once the earl finished with him.
The earl’s study was the picture of quiet English elegance, the sort of room Harry had always fancied, paneled in dark oak and lined with bookshelves, with a large map of Europe on one wall. Deep leather chairs were arranged near the tall windows, now covered in dark green draperies. A thoroughly comfortable, masculine room, evidence of the wealth and stature of the owner. He felt at a distinct disadvantage.
The earl set down the lamp he had caught up from a table along the hall and turned to Harry. “Now, sir,” he said coldly. “Who are you, and what the bloody hell were you doing in my daughter’s bedroom?”
Harry had been thinking very hard about how he would answer those very questions. His business with Stafford wasn’t part of his reason for being in Mariah’s bedroom—nor in Doncaster House at all tonight—and he didn’t think it would help him anyway. He could still end the night in Newgate, and he knew no one who would or could get him out. He was on his own here. “My name is Henry Sinclair—” he began.
“Papa, I am in love with him!” Mariah burst out.
Doncaster put up one hand and shot her a stern glance. “And who is this man, Mariah? Not one of the eligible gentlemen who called on you”—his lip curled as he glared once more at Harry—“properly.”
“No,” Harry agreed, tired of lies. “No, I called on her most improperly.”
Mariah’s mother gasped. Mariah herself blushed and forced an uneasy smile. Doncaster’s eyes flashed; he took three steps across the room, drew back his fist, and punched Harry in the face. Harry made no effort to defend himself, but absorbed the blow in silence.
Mariah gasped. “Papa, stop!”
“How dare you,” said the earl in a venomous tone.
Harry held up one hand to stay Mariah, gingerly touching his jaw. He deserved that. A sad commentary on his life lately, that he felt people were entitled to assault him. “I should not have done it. But…” He glanced at Mariah, standing with her hands clapped over her mouth, her eyes as wide as saucers. “But I found myself utterly unable to obey my own sense and stay away. I have fallen completely in love with Lady Mariah.”
“I see.” There was pure contempt in the earl’s expression. “You are one of those vile fortune hunters, luring a respectable young woman away from her family and friends, seducing her out of her innocence.”
“Papa!”
“And who are you, sir?” Doncaster went on. His eyes raked over Harry, in his worn linen shirt and plain woolen coat. “Who are you to raise your eyes to her? You have the look of an adventurer about you, a rogue. Plotting to elope with my daughter! To steal her away from her family! I should have you arrested.”
“Papa!” Mariah slapped her hands on her hips. “He saved your life, and mine!”
“Mariah, be quiet. One of our own footmen shielded me from the blast—”
“And who protected me? Who alerted our footman there was a bomb?” A tense silence fell over the room. All eyes turned on Harry, who tightened his jaw but said nothing.
“But how did you meet him, dearest?” The countess joined the conversation at last, tactfully turning the talk away from any virtue Harry might have had.
“I—I met him at our ball, Mama.”
Her mother looked puzzled, then her face went blank. “The elusive Harry, I presume?”
Mariah’s cheeks were pink. “Er…yes.”
Lady Doncaster turned to inspect Harry with cool eyes. “You were not on our list.”
This time he met her gaze directly. “No, madam.”
“He was,” said Mariah at the same time. “But under a different name.”
Her comments were not helping, Harry realized. The countess had looked merely bewildered before; now her expression began to close up, a veil of hauteur coming down over her emotions. The best way to do this would have been to explain, delicately and carefully, from the beginning—and even then he thought the chances of success weren’t very good. Mariah’s frustration, born no doubt out of her belief that her parents would accept her decision with grace and calm, was making her hasty. She was blurting out facts he would have preferred to ease into the conversation as part of his entire story. Feeling defeat bite at his heels, he focused on her. “Mariah.”
She turned to him, impatience stamped on her face. He raised one brow and waited until her frown faded and her pinched mouth relaxed. Then he nodded once at her, for reassurance, before turning back to her father. “I should begin at the beginning, sir.”
The earl’s expression did not look inviting, to say the least, but before Harry could begin picking his way through the elaborate web of secret motives and hidden agendas, there was a knock on the door. Almost mid-knock it opened and a footman slipped into the room, a bareheaded footman wearing mismatched shoes, with his nightshirt stuffed into his breeches. A footman Harry recognized at once.
“Viscount Camden, sir,” Alec Brandon announced somewhat breathlessly.
Mariah heard her father’s growl of displeasure, saw the flicker of fury that passed over his face as he turned to dismiss the imperti
nent servant—perhaps even to sack the man—but Lord Camden was already standing in the doorway. It was past one in the morning; why on earth would Lord Camden be here now? Mariah took a closer look at the footman—Jameson, she realized, the one who had told her where to find Harry. And when she swung around to see Harry’s response, his still posture and expressionless face spoke volumes. He was the reason Camden was here.
“Sir.” Papa nodded curtly. Mariah could see his temper was on a very short leash.
Lord Camden entered the room slowly, his every movement deliberate. He was tall and gaunt, dressed all in black like a specter from a children’s tale, and had not the slightest expression on his hard-hewn face. He nodded back to her father, but his cold dark eyes flashed about the room until they landed, and rested, on Harry. There was nothing in his gaze, though, and after a moment he turned to her father.
“Doncaster, Lady Doncaster.” Camden drew off his gloves and bowed slightly to Mariah’s mother. “I hope I have not come at an inopportune moment.” Behind his back, Mariah noticed another, nondescript man slip silently into the room. The footman, Jameson, closed the door and stood with his back to it. No one remarked on the utter lunacy of receiving callers at this hour.
“Not at all, Camden.” Papa’s eyes flicked over Camden’s shoulder, taking in the other man. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
Mariah took advantage of his distraction to dart to Harry’s side. He hadn’t made a sound or a move since Jameson opened the door. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. He didn’t look at her. She slipped her hand into his, and his fingers closed around hers. “It will all come out well,” she added softly, “I know it will.” Although she didn’t.
The viscount must have heard her whispering, for he turned in her direction, slowly, ominously. That cold, flat glare landed on her for a moment, and she stood a little straighter and put up her chin. If it fell to her to defend Harry against both her father and Lord Camden, she would.
A View to a Kiss Page 29