A Dangerous Man

by Janmarie Anello

  Yet the dam around his heart cracked. Feelings he'd denied for years surged through his blood. Do not be a fool, the bitter man inside his mind screamed. Leave this house. Leave this woman. Grab Alison and Geoffrey and never look back.

  But like a man possessed, he eased her down the length of his body, slid his arms around her waist. "Leah," he groaned, pushing his hands into her hair and covering her mouth with his.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Leah felt his desperation and clung to him just as fiercely, her fingers digging into the soft wool of his jacket.

  Her breasts were crushed against his chest, but she couldn't get close enough. What demons tormented this man? What anguish drove his despair? If only he would let her into his heart, she would wash away his past. She supposed she could be churlish and childish and punish him for his harsh words, but she could not dredge up the energy. She hurt for the man he used to be, before betrayal caused him to close off his heart, leaving him emotionally dead, needing no one save himself. His was a lonely life, full of responsibility, to family, to tenants, to needy souls dependent upon his charity, but without tenderness or love.

  Hers was a deceptively simple plan. She would show him her love with every breath, every touch, every deed, but she would not burden him with the words. Those she would keep wrapped within her heart. Only when he loved her as much as she loved him, would she say them again.

  She ran her hands over his back, feeling the powerful muscles bunching beneath his shoulders, the desire curling up within her, tightening her belly, clenching her thighs, building an ache within her deepest, most intimate flesh.

  The scent of leather and male and hot skin bronzed beneath the sun filled her senses as he pressed her back against the wall and slid one powerful leg between her thighs. The hard evidence of his desire ground against her hips. She pulled him closer, wanting to feel him, needing to feel him.

  His clothing was wilted, his hair streaked with road dust, but never had he looked more handsome. He pressed her back against the wall, then dropped to his knees. His hot breath whooshed through her cotton gown. Desire licked through Leah, setting her senses afire, her body tingling and aching for his touch.

  Air rushed in and out of her chest so swiftly, and still she felt breathless as his hands roamed down her sides, down her legs, under her dress. She tangled her fingers in his hair and closed her eyes, but she wanted to kiss him.

  She cradled his face between her palms, drew him to his feet, and brought his lips back to hers. She moved her tongue along his teeth, his mouth, hot and greedy beneath her gentle probing, and it was as if her touch set off a terrible storm.

  His hands roamed over her breasts, making them tingle and ache. His lips followed the path of his hands, mouthing a wet, hot, erotic path over the mounds of skin rising above her stays, his tongue delving between her cleavage, fingers slipping beneath the fabric, rubbing her nipples.

  She moaned, or perhaps it was him, she did not know as she clutched fistfuls of his coat. He dragged the cradle of her hips into close contact with his swollen flesh, hard beneath his form-fitting breeches, letting her know he wanted her as much as she wanted him. It was enough. For now.

  He might not love her, but in this they were equals.

  This desperate need, this undeniable, unquenchable ache.

  In some small part of her brain that still functioned, Leah heard Rachel's voice, somewhere in the distance, somewhere out in the hall, growing louder and closer. Richard dragged his lips from hers. He stared into her eyes, his own gaze, dark and stormy and filled with need, before possessing her lips once more in a demanding kiss that banished thought and reason.

  They separated, then came back together, as if neither could bear to part from the other. Tongues touching and stroking. Delving and tasting. Legs tangling, fingers searching, until it was all she could do not to beg him to drag her to bed.

  Finally, he propped one elbow on the wall behind her head, but he made no move to put a decorous distance between them.

  His bottomless eyes searched her features, then he smiled, a devil-may-care grin. "So, you missed me? I thought perhaps you meant to use the hammer sitting atop that ladder on my head"

  "No doubt you deserve it," she said. "But you seduced the notion right out of me, clever, wicked man that you are"

  He laughed, the sound deep and resonant and tingling along her nerve endings like chocolate over her tongue. And there, the awkwardness of their last parting buried in humor and lightness.

  Her throat ached with her pent-up emotions and the words she longed to say, but she would not regale him with her needs or demand from him that which he was not yet willing, or able, to give. At least not for the moment. She was patient. She would wait.

  He stepped back, just as Alison charged through the door.

  "It's my uncle, the duke," Alison said, leaping into his outstretched arms.

  He swung her around, clutched her against his chest, his features unguarded, his defenses down, as he smiled at the laughing child. The look in his eyes bespoke of deep affection, and something darker, a stark, desperate yearning.

  His rumbling voice came out softly soothing as he carried Alison to the settee. "I have missed you. Have you missed me?"

  "Ummhmm," Alison said, her black curls bouncing about her face. "But I went shopping with Aunt Leah."

  "Did you? Did you buy anything for me?"

  "No, silly. We bought fabric for dresses. Pink for me and green for Aunt Leah. Auntie gave me a dormouse, but Mama says it is dirty . . ."

  Richard smiled at the child laughing in his arms. Tiny handprints appeared on his coat to mingle with the road dust.

  When he looked up, his dark eyes meeting Leah's, the emotion blazing within was so stark, her breath caught in the back of her aching throat. Did he long for a child of his own?

  She rubbed her hands over her belly. Thanks to her father's stilted explanation, she knew how children were conceived and where they grew. The one thing she did not yet know was how to tell if she were with child. Perhaps his babe already grew within her. Oh, how she prayed it was true.

  For he would make the most wonderful father. And a child would help ease the pain of his past. She was desperate to know who had hurt him, what had happened to rip out his heart.

  Several times, she'd nearly given in to the temptation to ask Rachel, but she always regained her senses.

  She would wait to hear the truth from his lips, rather than the lies Rachel would no doubt throw out to hurt her.

  As the minutes passed, she became excruciatingly aware of Rachel's eyes upon her. No doubt she had committed a faux pas of the most grievous sort by allowing her husband to kiss her outside of the bedroom, but she did not care.

  Nor did she care if the flush on her cheeks proclaimed the extent of the passionate embrace upon which Rachel had intruded.

  She refused to cower beneath her sister-in-law's silent scrutiny. She walked to the settee and sat beside Richard.

  He brushed a curl from Alison's brow. "Would you like to see what I have brought for you? And then an outing in the park? Perhaps an ice for a treat?"

  "A present for me?" Alison bounced up and down on his lap. "Let me see, let me see."

  "I should very much like to go along with you, St. Austin," Rachel said, her voice a soft, delicate purr that narrowed Leah's eyes. Richard did not seem to notice, as Alison chose that moment to squeal in his ears.

  I would prefer to spend time alone with Alison," Richard retorted as he stood, the child clutched to his chest. Then he turned to Leah. "That is, if you have no objections, madam"

  "Of course not," Leah said. She had chores of her own, not the least of which was a trip to Mrs. Bristoll's to check on Tommy. Yesterday, his fever had returned for the third time in as many weeks. It was a baffling illness that recurred with no precise interval, but left the youth feeling perfectly fine in between bouts of shivering and sweating. The doctor they'd consulted had prescribed purgatives and emetics, a
cure which had left the boy much weaker than the illness that plagued him.

  Alison buried her face in Richard's neck. He raised Leah's hand to his lips. The calloused pads of his fingertips sent a shiver up her arm, chased quickly by a flash of heat as his mouth moved over the inside corner of her wrist, his lips smooth and soft against her tender skin.

  "Until later," he murmured, then turned and carried the child from the room

  "My, my, my," Rachel said. "That was quite a tender scene we interrupted. Of course, you realize gently bred ladies do not go about conducting such passionate displays in public."

  "I haven't seen my husband in three weeks," Leah said, rising from the settee. "I neither require nor request your approval to welcome him home in any manner I see fit."

  Rachel curled her hands around the arms of her chair as she watched the foolish chit stride from the room. The girl might appear quiet and shy, but through their recent skirmishes, Rachel had learned she also possessed a strongwilled, stubborn streak as treacherous as the ebbing tide on the Thames.

  It was not her softly stated rebuke that urged Rachel to follow her and push her down the stairs. No, it was the deplorable state of her frock, the bodice crushed, the skirts wrinkled and covered in road dust from Richard's bold caressesin a public access room, no less. Rachel had even noticed a large, male handprint on her bodice, just above her right breast.

  Impotent rage tightened Rachel's jaw. She didn't know why she was so surprised. She had assumed Richard would bed the chit. After all, he was a man of lusty appetites, as well she knew from experience. But knowing in theory, and seeing this visual, undeniable evidence of his lust for another woman was as painful as having a ram-rod shoved up her spine.

  Not that he loved the girl, Rachel had no fear of that.

  Richard would love but once in his lifetime, and she was the woman he loved. She had only to convince him that she was as much a victim of their tortured past as he was. Then all would be well. He had loved her once. He would love her again.

  They were meant to be together.

  No, he certainly didn't love his wife. She was nothing more than a willing body in the night. But it had to end. And soon.

  The thought of Richard touching Leah, stroking her as he'd once stroked Rachel, pushed her out of her chair.

  She had to meet with Margaret. There was no time to lose.

  Rachel had firmly believed that Leah would want to flaunt herself before society as the Duchess of St. Austin, daughter of a merchant made good, but she couldn't have been more wrong.

  Leah had refused to go about in society without her husband.

  It hadn't helped that Richard had left so soon after the wedding. Now that he had finally returned, it was time to wage the war. The battle lines were clearly drawn, the enemy identified. Leah didn't stand a chance.

  "Did Alison enjoy her outing in the park?" Leah asked, hoping mundane conversation would still her rapidly beating heart as Richard strolled around her newly decorated rooms.

  His broad frame and powerful stride seemed as incongruous against the delicate Sheraton furnishings and mint green walls as would a panther prowling through Hyde Park. "Yes," he said. "Though she would have enjoyed it more were you with us ""

  He shot her a rueful grin. "You are quite accomplished at ducks and drakes, I understand, and can make your rock skip over the water at least five times before it sinks. I fear my own display came up sadly lacking."

  Leah laughed. His unguarded expression as he swung his head around to meet her gaze caused her breath to catch in her throat. The dark depths of his eyes revealed no clue to the secrets he kept hidden away, but she did not ply him with questions. She would learn all she needed to know slowly, as he came to trust her, to love her, to need her as she needed him.

  His hair had grown overlong while he was away and lay like black velvet against his blue superfine coat. The sun had bronzed his face, making him appear more Grecian god than underworld lord.

  As he fingered the ivory counterpane, it was all she could do not to fling herself against his chest and beg him to stroke his fingers over her flesh, right now, upon that bed.

  Good heavens, she wanted him to touch her everywhere.

  "I do like what you have done to this room," he said, staring at the bed, his chest heaving slightly, making her wonder if he were experiencing the same stark desire that was building an uncomfortable tension beneath her skin.

  Though spacious enough to sleep a dozen, the chamber suddenly seemed much too small, the air too thick to breathe.

  "Do you?" she said. She bit her lip to hide her smile, or perhaps it was to trap her moan of desire in her throat. "I was afraid you might object, but you were gone so long and I simply could not spend one more night with that horrid yellow and garish red blazing in my eyes"

  His low chuckle rumbled over her skin, deep like thunder and just as intriguing. "Garish red. An apt description, but it suited the previous duchess perfectly."

  He moved to the satinwood writing table centered between the floor-to-ceiling windows. A gilded cage was positioned atop it. A dormouse crouched in one corner of the cage. "I take it this is the offending rodent?"

  "I am afraid so" Leah sighed as she walked up beside him, so close, his scent of j asmine and amber filled her lungs. The heat of his skin burned through his coat and shivered over her arms. "I thought, perhaps, we could keep it in the conservatory. Then Alison could visit it whenever she wanted"

  "Yes, that is fine." A bowl of chopped fruits sat on the table. Richard picked up an apple chunk, held it out. Big, black eyes stared at his fingers before the animal scampered forward and snatched it away. "I had one once, as a child."

  "So did I," Leah said, trying to imagine him as a small boy, but failing miserably. He was so strong, so forceful, it was impossible for her to see him as anything but the magnificent man he was now. "Tell me of your childhood," she blurted out, despite her resolve to wait for him to discuss his past.

  His features darkened, his eyes narrowed, and she regretted her hasty words. They had years to learn all they needed to know about one another. She did not want anguished memories intruding upon this night, their first together in so long.

  The silence stretched out, the only sound was his rapid breathing and the breeze trembling against the window.

  "There is not much to tell," he finally murmured, but the harsh tone of his voice said his words were a lie. "Eric was the eldest son, Geoffrey and I, the surety the title would continue should Eric .. " He turned his gaze to the dormouse. "Should Eric perish before begetting a son of his own"

  She slid her hand into his. "I am so sorry. I did not mean to-"

  "Do not be concerned," he said, his fingers closing around hers. Good Lord, what was wrong with him?

  His eyes burned and his throat tightened painfully. He would have preferred she fling crockery at his head, that she rant and rail at his callous disregard for her feelings.

  Anything but this tender acceptance. This soft understanding for all he had suffered that threatened to unman him, and she knew not even the half of it. Nor could he ever tell her. Some secrets stained the soul too darkly.

  Some secrets could never be revealed.

  Shimmering tears darkened her eyes. "How did he die?"

  "A riding accident." He swallowed against the thickening in his throat. "Just over a year ago"

  He could not go there. His memories were still too bitter, still too raw. He turned his thoughts toward more pressing concerns. Since his return, he had yet to see Geoffrey and none of the servants seemed to know where he was. "When was the last time you saw Geoffrey?"

  "Two days ago," she said, her soft smile showing no hint of concern, or that all was not as it should be. "He went to stay with friends. A house party in Edinburgh, he said."

  Good Lord, he was a fool to think he could resist this woman, so quiet, yet so strong. Perhaps he should have remained in Yorkshire. "Did he mention with whom he was staying?"

&nbs
p; "Lord Egglestone and Lord Isherwood." A note of panic crept into her voice. Her fingers tightened around his. "Is any thing wrong? Should we be worried? I have no brothers to judge him by, but he does leave the house at all hours of the night and often stays away for days at a time. Rachel says that is perfectly normal for a gentleman of the ton, so I did not-"

  "No, nothing is wrong," he said, or so he hoped. He kissed her fingertips, breathed the familiar scent of her skin, roses and lotion and soft, feminine flesh. "But I thank you for your concern"

  The glare she sent him practically screamed, "Of course I'm concerned, I'm your wife, you idiot."

  He ran his hand over his mouth to hide his grin. The tension gripping his neck eased. Egglestone and Isherwood were young and foolish, to be sure, but not as reckless as many of Geoffrey's friends. Not excessively given to drinking and gaming. Hardly likely to lead Geoffrey into too much mischief. Richard would dispatch his man of affairs in the morning to make certain all was well and Geoffrey was where he said he would be.

  He could do no more this evening. His ability to think was quickly dissipating, his awareness overwhelmingly centered on his wife. She wore her golden hair loose and flowing over her shoulders. Her green eyes glowed in the candlelight.

  Her frivolous dress bared just enough of the swells of her breasts to entice him, to dare him to delve beneath the bodice and explore the beauty hidden from view.

  She sent him a shy smile. "I have made some other changes while you were away."

  He smothered his grin. "So I have heard"

  Her brows shot up. "I see. I suppose Rachel lost no time in complaining about me. I daresay I have vexed her sorely since I've been here"

  "I daresay you have, but do not be concerned. Everyone and everything vexes Rachel."

  "Why does she not have a home of her own?" She cov- Bred her mouth with her hands, as if she never meant to speak the words.