by Dare, Tessa
“I could have told you this outing wouldn’t work the way you hoped.”
“Since I hired you, Miss Mountbatten, nothing has gone the way I hoped.”
“Try to see the positives. Rosamund and Daisy are bold, clever, resourceful girls. Even if the mischief could be beaten out of them—and I suspect there’s a solid chance the rod would splinter first—their spirits would be broken, too. What a tragedy that would be.”
“Oh, yes. A tragedy indeed.”
His ironic tone didn’t fool her. Alex was coming to see the fondness he harbored for his wards. If he didn’t care about them, he wouldn’t bother to try.
“They’re children. They have a natural curiosity about the world, and a desire to learn. They merely need the encouragement and opportunity. The freedom to pursue their own interests. Aren’t you concerned with the improvement of their minds?”
“I’m chiefly concerned with the improvement of their behavior. They must learn to move in society. My duty as guardian is to provide Rosamund and Daisy with a secure, comfortable future. A young woman’s best hope at such is to marry, and marry well.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “The same way your parents married well?”
“Oh, I’ll make certain they do better than my father. They could scarcely do worse. But in general, yes. That is how the English aristocracy works.”
“Perhaps the English aristocracy needs to do better.”
He made a derisive sound. “I’m flattered you think I’ve the power to change the world.”
“I don’t think you have the power to change the world,” she replied. “I think Rosamund and Daisy do. If given the chance.”
“Is that so.” He drew closer. “And how are you planning to change the world, Miss Mountbatten?”
“I couldn’t tell you, Mr. Reynaud. At the moment, I’m too busy changing the sky.”
After staring into her eyes for an eon or two, he sighed dramatically. “You are the worst example of false advertising. I was led to believe I was hiring a prim scold. Then I learn you’re remarkable and bold and interesting.”
Well, Alex thought, that stupid song in her brain had four words now.
She stammered, “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”
“I wish you didn’t make me think things like that. So we’re square.”
“We should go after the girls.”
“Yes, we should.”
Neither of them moved.
Alex bit her lip. “We’re going to kiss instead, aren’t we.”
He caught her in his arms. “You’re goddamned right, we are.”
Chapter Fourteen
Chase kissed her with the desperate fervor of a man going to the gallows. Grappling and moaning, pressing her into the wall at her back.
He palmed her breast—the warm, gentle swell he’d felt melting against him last night. She’d made him so damned hard then, and his cock seemed determined to outdo itself today. Her leg wrapped over his. He kissed his way down her neck—her impossibly delicate, lovely neck—until the collar of her jacket halted his progress.
He felt a twinge of conscience. Most people would think he didn’t have a conscience, but he did. It surfaced about as often as the lost island of Atlantis, but he did possess one, down deep.
And it was bellowing at him now.
Then she arched her back, pressing her breast into his hand, and made a soft, pleading moan.
Conscience? What conscience? Lock the prison bars and throw away the key.
God, this place did something to him.
The infamy of centuries swirled in the air. Imprisoned ghosts rattled their chains. He felt the echoes of suffering ages past. The weight of guilt. Crushing regret. Hunger, and yearning, and loneliness. All the same miserable emotions that held him captive, late at night.
Chase had spent years locked away inside himself. And all too often, holding a woman in his arms felt like his only escape.
But this . . . this was different. Alexandra was different. This wasn’t a moment he’d be wishing to erase from his memory later. On the contrary. He yearned to etch the shape of their entwined bodies into the stone, amid all the names and dates and Bible verses, and leave a mark that time couldn’t erase.
What was it she’d said? We all want to be remembered? Well, Chase wouldn’t be inventing a steam-powered phaeton. No monument would be raised to his heroics, and he’d vowed not to father any children of his own. But even if all that survived of him was this embrace, that would be a legacy he could reflect on with pride.
On this site in 1817, Mr. Chase Reynaud gave Miss Alexandra Mountbatten the most passionate, erotic, bone-melting kiss in recorded history.
As he kissed her deeply, he lifted her, parting her slippers from the floor and pinning her hips to the wall with his own. She stared at him, her lungs working for breath, eyes glassy. He reached between their bodies, finding the buttons of her jacket.
He began to undo them, slipping them free one by one. The task was easily done, and he knew the reason why. She had only the one jacket, and she’d worn it so many times that the buttonholes had gone slack. This tangible evidence of her poverty was convenient, he supposed. Many men of his station would view it as permission to make free with her favors. However, it didn’t strike Chase that way. As he slipped the final button loose, he felt resentful and protective.
She deserved better. A young, unmarried woman of her class lived with the specter of danger, and a threadbare jacket made for a pitiful shield. He wanted to peel the garment from her, cast it aside, and offer himself instead.
Chase wasn’t good for much, but he could stand between her body and the world.
He cupped her breast through the light muslin of her day dress. He found her nipple and rolled it beneath his thumb, teasing it to a hard peak.
“Chase.”
The pleading note in her voice made him wild. He stole inside her open jacket, shoving aside the virginal white fichu, then worked his fingers beneath the muslin of her frock. He knew the layers of a woman’s clothing as well as he knew his own. Better than his own, truthfully, since he had a valet to assist with his own attire.
He eased one of her frock’s sleeves down over her shoulder. The strategy gave him just enough space to reach beneath her stiffened stays and linen shift. With a deft, well-practiced motion, he lifted her breast, liberating it from her stays.
Her eyes fluttered closed. She bit her lip, sealing in a gasp. He would have liked to hear her moan and cry out with pleasure. But there was something about the silence that was just as erotic, if not more.
Breathless, he cradled the soft weight in his hand. Caressing, treasuring. She was so small and slightly built. Her heartbeat thrummed like a bird’s beneath his palm.
Holding her breast was like holding her heart in his hand.
And that scared the life out of him.
Guarding her body was just basic masculine impulse. But he couldn’t take responsibility for her heart.
He broke the embrace with uncharacteristic brusqueness, setting her back on her feet. A bewildered look moved over her face as he rearranged her clothing. He regretted causing her any confusion or disappointment, but this time he’d gone much too far.
More accurately, he’d drawn too close.
He cleared his throat. “Alexandra, this . . .”
“Never happened,” she finished. “I know.” Her lips curved in a smile, but her eyes weren’t in on the joke. She was hurt.
He felt small enough to disappear into a crack in the wall. Well, she couldn’t be surprised. She had no illusions about the sort of man he was. Not when it came to women, anyway. She’d had ample evidence of his rakish history from the start.
Apparently, it was Chase who needed the reminder.
Very well, then. He would go out on the town, find a sophisticated, beautiful, willing woman, bring her back to his retreat, put that new mattress to the test—and rid himself of the desire to paw at the governess like a slavering
hound.
And he would do it tonight.
Chapter Fifteen
“Come have a look at Mars.”
It was a clear, dark night, and Alexandra had invited the girls to join her for a bit of stargazing, well past their bedtime. A lesson in celestial navigation, she called it. In truth, it was a bribe to get them into their baths and nightclothes, then brush and neatly plait their hair. The girls’ hair smelled clean and fresh, and as she bent over Daisy’s shoulder to help her find the red planet, she drank in the innocent scent. A tender, warm emotion spread through her chest.
In just a few weeks’ time, she’d grown to care for these girls. Deeply. By helping them, it was as though she could reach back through time to her younger, newly orphaned self and clasp that girl in a hug laced with assurance. Don’t be afraid. I know it’s hard now. So very hard. But you’re stronger than you know, and it will all come right in the end.
But as she wrapped her arm round Daisy’s shoulders and pressed her nose to the girl’s sweet-smelling crown, Alex was a little bit afraid, herself. When the girls went away to school, would anyone be there to hug and soothe them then?
“I can’t make it out,” Daisy said. “It’s all muzzy.”
“Truly? Let me see.” Alex replaced her young charge at the eyepiece. “Perhaps I need to clean the lens.”
Before she could take a proper view, however, they heard the sounds of a carriage drawing up alongside the house.
A quick peek out the window confirmed Alexandra’s suspicions. Mr. Reynaud had rolled up to the house in his phaeton—and he wasn’t alone. Light, feminine laughter floated up through the night air and swooped through the open window, uninvited. Alex wanted to swat that laughter like a pesty gnat.
“Oh, Reynaud,” the lady said coyly. “You are a devil.”
Blech.
He handed the lady down from the high-sprung carriage. As she alighted, the woman “stumbled.” Mr. Reynaud caught her in his arms.
Alex rolled her eyes at the transparent ploy.
She was so distracted watching them, she hadn’t realized she wasn’t alone in her spying. Rosamund had swung the telescope to point down toward the street. “Enemy craft sighted to starboard. And la-di-da, isn’t she a fancy one.”
“Give that here.” Alex took control of the telescope and had a look for herself. Once she’d adjusted the instrument, she could make out the lady as well as if they were standing mere inches apart. The woman had golden hair tucked in an elegant upswept style, and she wore a gown of deep purple satin with matching elbow-length gloves. Jewels sparkled at her throat.
Daisy leaned over the window ledge. “She’s rather beautiful.”
“Take care, Daisy,” Rosamund murmured. “Or else Millicent might contract the pox.”
Alex was aghast. “You shouldn’t speak of such things,” she whispered. “You shouldn’t even know of such things.”
“I’ve chased away every governess and been sent down from three schools, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t had an education.” Rosamund smiled. “And you told us yourself, ten is old enough to be a ship’s boy. They see a great deal more.”
From the street below, Alex heard a deeply male murmur of seduction. She couldn’t make out distinct words, but their intended effect was plain.
She burned with indignation. The scoundrel. How dare he parade his paramours directly beneath the noses of two innocent children. Well, perhaps one innocent child and one Rosamund.
“That’s enough.” Alex closed the telescope. “To bed with you both.”
Both girls stamped and pleaded. “Not yet.”
“We’ll continue another evening.” Alex herded them to bed. “I can’t permit you to witness this, and—”
Another giggle from the street below.
Alex cringed at the sound. “I just can’t. To bed with you, then.”
“No.” Daisy stood firm. “Are we pirates, or aren’t we? Pirates don’t retreat.”
Chase attempted to extricate himself from Lady Chawton’s arms. She’d had one or three too many glasses of champagne tonight, and her embrace was all gloves and no dignity.
“I,” she said in a breathy voice, “am going to do the most wicked things to your body. All. Night. Long.”
“All night?”
“Yes.”
Chase sighed. He didn’t have “all night” in him. His plan had been “some of the night.”
And as of this moment, he was leaning toward “none of the night.”
This wasn’t turning out the way he’d hoped. Winifred was beautiful, no question. Witty, too. They’d been flirting for years at balls and parties, bringing their sensual tension to a slow simmer. Yet he’d always held off on making an advance. On reflection, he supposed—and God, it was a worrisome thing to admit—he’d been saving her for a special occasion.
Or, in this case, an emergency. He had never been in such desperate need of a good, hard bout of bedsport.
Now he teetered on the brink of calling it off. He just wasn’t in the mood, for some reason.
No. For one reason.
A small reason, really. One with black hair and eyes that swallowed up rooms. A reason possessing the most tender touch he’d ever known and a voice that curled softly in the air, like smoke.
“Reynaud?”
He snapped to attention.
Winifred pouted. “Do let’s go inside.” She snuggled closer and gave a dramatic shiver. “It’s cold.”
The night was unseasonably warm, even for July.
“Perhaps you’re taking a chill, darling.” He motioned for the groom to remain, rather than leading the team back to the mews. “If you’re ill, I’d better see you home. We can do this another night.”
“Don’t be a bore.” She looped her arms around his neck and swayed like a pendulum in his arms. A pendulum on opiates. “You’ve kept me waiting a long time for this. Far too long.”
“Then what are a few days more? The waiting will make it all the sweeter.” He tried to peel her gloved fingers from the back of his neck, but just when he’d worked one hand free, the other clamped down. He began to wonder if her purple gloves were adorned with octopus suckers.
“What a cruel tease you are.” She leaned forward, falling against his chest, and whispered vampishly in his ear. “Be careful, or I’ll tease you back.” With a satin-gloved finger, she traced the whorls of his ear. A pleasant enough sensation, but it didn’t precisely send lust bolting to his groin. Then she slipped her finger in his ear. All the way to the knuckle. Probing and wiggling.
She murmured, “Do you like that, you naughty boy?”
Actually, no. No, he didn’t.
He batted her hand away, and her finger dislodged from his ear canal with a popping sound.
That was enough. The evening was over.
First, Winifred was drunk.
Second, her sexual overtures were decidedly strange. Chase didn’t mind strange. In other times and other places, he’d enjoyed far stranger. But not tonight.
Third, and most importantly, he couldn’t get Miss Mountbatten out of his mind. Oh, he could coax himself to try panting and sweating her out of his bloodstream. But that wasn’t his style. Chase liked to think he possessed too much respect for women to make love to one while thinking of another. He had too much pride, as well. Halfhearted encounters would tarnish his reputation—one he’d polished to a glossy sheen with hands and lips and tongue.
He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed, applying just enough force to put distance between them. “Listen, Winifred—”
She shushed him by putting a finger to his lips. The same finger that had mere moments ago been knuckle-deep in his ear. “Not another word until we’re inside, naked, and I have my mouth on your—”
Chase would never learn precisely where Winifred meant to place her mouth. Before the lady could finish her thought, she gave a shriek piercing enough to cut glass, and he found himself sputtering with shock.
Cold. That
was the first decipherable sensation.
And after cold, wet.
A deluge of water had sloshed over them both. He slicked his hair back with both hands and looked up. He spied Rosamund and Daisy hanging over the window sash far above. Each girl held an empty bucket in her hands.
“Ever so sorry!” Rosamund called down. “We needed to bail out the bilgewater.”
“Too many rats,” Daisy added, hand cupped around her mouth. “There’s plague aboard.”
“Oh, those little . . .” Chase completed the thought with a growl. They had better run and hide, or he would show them the meaning of plague.
Winifred hadn’t ceased shrieking. Her once-artfully arranged golden ringlets were now plastered to her face, obscuring her eyes. She swiped at them with gloved fingers, all the while vibrating with shock.
Chase saw his narrow window of advantage, and he took it. He shook his arms free of his topcoat and draped it over her shoulders, turning her to face the phaeton. To the groom, he said, “Lady Chawton will return home at once.”
What with the added weight of water, and her unwillingness or inability to assist, it took Chase and the groom several failed attempts and a final one-two-three-heave! to boost poor Winifred into the phaeton. Chase fought back clouds of purple satin and netting, stuffing them into the coach and slamming the door.
The groom took the driver’s seat, and Chase gave the lady’s address. “Lovely spending time with you,” he called out, raising a hand in farewell.
Then he turned on his heel and jerked open the door.
Four flights of stairs. Chase stomped on each riser with deliberate, ominous slowness, giving those hellions time to hear him coming and quake with mounting dread. “Rosamund and Daisy Fairfax!” he bellowed. “Pack your things for Malta!”
However, he never made it as far as the nursery. Just as he reached the third-floor landing, he found his march of doom intercepted.
By Miss Alexandra Mountbatten.