The Naked Viscount

by Sally MacKenzie

  “You must be exhausted.” Lord Motton’s Aunt Winifred—Miss Winifred Smyth—grasped Jane’s hand and patted it in a comforting fashion. Miss Smyth had just accompanied Jane to a lovely bedroom painted a very restful shade of blue. It could have been painted bright orange; restfulness was not a state Jane was going to achieve anytime soon.

  “I don’t know what I am.” Jane gently detached herself. She was too agitated to be comforted; she was too agitated to stand still. She wandered over to the dressing table. Lily, the maid she and her mother shared when they came to Town, had dumped all Jane’s things in a mish-mash there, complaining vociferously all the while how London was such a heathen place that ruffians would break in to a gentleman’s house.

  Clarence’s study had looked horrible—books torn and scattered everywhere, the drawers of his desk pulled out and thrown on the floor, anything breakable smashed into hundreds of pieces. “How could anyone be so destructive?”

  “They were obviously looking for something, my dear, and had little time to find it. They had to choose the most expedient method. And of course they did not care about Clarence’s things. They might even have enjoyed destroying them, I suppose.” Miss Smyth shrugged. “I can understand how men who live in desperate situations, in the darker parts of London, might have little patience for such fripperies as books.”

  “Books aren’t fripperies.”

  “They are if you’ve no money for food or shelter.”

  Miss Smyth was right, of course. And Jane wasn’t naïve. She might come up to London only for the Season, and travel only in the wealthy parts of Town, but she knew there was plenty of poverty and despair here. She’d just never encountered its existence so forcefully.

  She shuddered. She did not wish to encounter it again. What would have happened if she’d been in the house when the men had broken in? True, no one was hurt, but that thought wasn’t very reassuring. If she’d come upon these men in the same way she’d stumbled upon Lord Motton…well, the outcome would have been vastly different.

  Perhaps she was wrong to insist Edmund include her in the search. Perhaps she only wanted an adventure when it was in a novel and she could skip to the last page to be sure all ended well.

  No, she was not so poor spirited…was she?

  Miss Smyth was by her side again, putting a hand on her arm this time. “Don’t worry, Jane—I may call you Jane, mayn’t I?”

  “Yes, of course.” At this particular moment, Miss Smyth could call her the Queen of Sheba for all she cared.

  “Please don’t worry. You are very safe here, you know. Edmund will take good care of you.” She smiled. “And the villains weren’t after you, were they? They were after something of Clarence’s.” She patted Jane’s arm. “I don’t mean to offend your mother—I know Clarence’s sister, Cleopatra, is her friend and I think Cleopatra seems perfectly nice—but Clarence…” Miss Smyth shook her head. “I always felt there was something not quite right about Clarence.” She shrugged. “With luck, the miscreants found whatever they were looking for and are done bothering anyone.”

  “Mmm.” Jane nodded noncommittally. The housebreakers had not found what they’d been searching for—the newest piece of that puzzle was still poking into the underside of her breast. Given the interest she and Lord Motton had provoked at the ball this evening, she’d say her safety was very much in question.

  “But in an excess of caution,” Miss Smyth was saying, “and because we truly are full-up, what with all the aunts in residence and now you and your mother, I’ve put you right next to Edmund”—Miss Smyth gestured toward a door that obviously connected this room with its neighbor—“so if you become alarmed or…upset during the night, you need only call out and he can be in to help in an instant.” She gave Jane a rather sly grin. Jane would swear Miss Smyth had more than a touch of mischief in her eyes. “Doesn’t that make you feel more secure?”

  “Ah.” It certainly made her feel more…something. She stared at the connecting door. Edmund’s bed was on the other side. And tonight Edmund would be in that bed.

  Did he sleep naked?

  Damn. She squeezed her eyes shut. Where had that thought come from?

  “I’ll take you down to Edmund’s study, shall I? I’m sure you could stand to have a nice glass of brandy, and Edmund did say he needed to speak with you as soon as you were settled.”

  “Oh.” The thought of seeing Lord Motton in the flesh—no, not in the flesh—made her stomach flop around like a dying fish. “I should see how Mama—”

  “Your mother is fine. She’s not easily upset—she did raise six children, didn’t she? Though I suppose the two youngest girls can’t be considered raised quite yet, and Nicholas is still at Oxford.”

  “Y—yes. When he isn’t being sent down.”

  “Precisely.” Miss Smyth tugged on Jane’s arm and directed her toward the door to the corridor. “I must tell you, Jane, that I’ve always admired your mother’s strength of character.” She grinned as they stepped out of Jane’s room. “And I should also tell you at the moment she is down in the drawing room with all the other aunts. I can assure you most sincerely you do not want to subject yourself to the aunts right now. Edmund is definitely the better choice.”

  “Oh.” Yes, she would agree with that. Lord Motton’s aunts—especially en masse—would be very intimidating. Stephen had obviously thought so. He’d fled as soon as he’d seen her and Mama safely moved in.

  And she did need to talk to Lord Motton. She still had the sketch piece in her dress. She’d intended to remove it when she got to her room, but Miss Smyth had not given her the privacy to do so. It would have been very hard to explain why she was fishing around in her bodice or why she’d needed to hide the paper there in the first place. She would just have to attend to the matter when she reached Lord Motton’s study.

  Unless, of course, Miss Smyth was intending to stay and chaperone them, but surely Lord Motton would not permit that. He would want to discuss the sketch, and he couldn’t do that with his aunt present. No, Jane was sure to be quite alone with him—with all his aunts and her mother just a few rooms away.

  “I’m sure Edmund has worn a path in the carpet, Jane,” Miss Smyth said as she stopped in front of a door. “He is most anxious to see you. I wonder why.” She waggled her eyebrows.

  “Ah, er, we merely have some business to discuss.” Good heavens, did Miss Smyth think there was something of a romantic nature afoot?

  She did. She waggled her eyebrows some more and then winked. “I bet you do.”

  “No. Ah, that is, we have business. Things of a business nature. Important topics…” She couldn’t have Lord Motton’s aunt believing that she and he…that they…oh, blast. Her relationship with the viscount was odd, to be sure. Complicated. But romantic? No. Not romantic, though she wished…

  No, no, no. She did not wish…anything!

  Miss Smyth smirked at her, and then pushed open the door. “Miss Parker-Roth is here, Edmund.”

  Chapter 7

  “Do you have the paper?”

  Jane frowned at Lord Motton. A few pleasantries would have been nice, or at least a token show of concern. She had just had the house she’d been staying in ransacked. Well, not the entire house, of course—just Clarence’s study. It would have been much, much worse, now that she considered the matter, if the reprobates had invaded the room she’d been staying in, pawing through her clothing, throwing her books and sundries everywhere…

  Her fingers tingled; her palms felt clammy. She struggled to take a deep breath—

  “I’m sorry, Jane.” Edmund’s arm was around her shoulders. She leaned into his warm hold. He felt wonderfully solid in a world that was suddenly out of kilter. “I didn’t think. You’ve been so pluck to the backbone in all this, I forgot how upsetting the break-in must be for you.”

  His voice was gentle, kind, understanding—and it made her burst into tears. His other arm came up to pull her against him; his hand cradled her head as she
wept all over his waistcoat.

  How mortifying. She never fell apart like this. John and Stephen had taught her early on that tears were a disgustingly weak, girlish response to any problem, but try as she might, she could not stem the flow. Edmund must be completely appalled.

  “Shh,” he murmured by her ear. His hand massaged the back of her head. “Things will be all right, Jane. You’re safe here.”

  Damn. A fresh spate of tears overcame her. Was she ever going to stop these ridiculous waterworks? She—

  She felt his lips brush her cheek.

  Oh! Her tears dried up as if he’d found the spigot and turned it off. She sucked in her breath. His lips were moving from her cheek to her…She turned her head, so her face was no longer buried in his waistcoat. His lips touched her eyelids, moved down…

  She tilted her head back, and his mouth found hers.

  Ah! His lips were firm, warm, male—she felt surrounded by his strength. His tongue slid deep into her mouth, filling her slowly and thoroughly. He tasted of comfort and brandy.

  He smelled of brandy, too, and eau de cologne. She opened her mouth wider; his tongue moved leisurely through it, as if he had all the time in the world to discover every one of her secrets. She should be alarmed, but she was not. She wanted him to know her, just as she wanted to know him. She was happy to be kissed—and to kiss him—forever.

  Except she couldn’t. Sadly, her nose was still stuffy from her tears. Breathing was becoming a rather insistent need. She made a small sound of regret and pulled back.

  He let her go immediately, as if she had suddenly burst into flames. She did feel exceedingly heated, but not to the point of singeing anyone. She blinked up at him. He looked horrified.

  “Forgive me.” He stepped back so quickly she was afraid he might trip. “It was unconscionable of me to take advantage of you like that.”

  “Ah.” Her wits were too scattered for her to form a coherent reply. Saying he had not taken advantage of her—or that she wished him to take much more advantage—seemed too bold. Perhaps he had just kissed her out of pity and then been overtaken by his male instincts. Surely he would have expected a well-bred woman to have struggled or at least protested in some way. She felt herself flush. “Er, well, I am not usually such a watering pot.”

  He straightened his waistcoat and cleared his throat. Her gaze followed his hands and then dropped a little lower. Damn. Her heart sank. If he’d been moved by passion, he had clearly got over it. His breeches were as smooth as a lake’s surface on a windless day.

  He turned away abruptly and took refuge behind his desk. Oh, God, did he think she was going to attack him? This just got worse and worse.

  “No, of course you aren’t,” he said. “I am sure it was just the shock of all that has happened.” He cleared his throat again. “But about the sketch—I hate to be so single-minded, especially when you have suffered such a fright, but I do think the sooner we solve this mystery, the better. Do you have the paper with you?”

  “Yes, of course I do.” She could still feel it under her breast, only it seemed to have shifted a bit, perhaps due to the amorous gyrations of a moment ago.

  “Splendid.” Lord Motton extended his hand. “Let’s have a look.”

  “Ah, well, you see I haven’t had a chance to remove it from my bodice.”

  Lord Motton’s eyebrows shot up and his eyes dropped to contemplate her bosom. She kept her hands from flying up to shield herself from his view only by the strongest exercise of self-control.

  “If you will turn around, my lord, I will retrieve it.”

  “Yes, indeed. Of course.” Motton turned and contemplated the red and gold brocaded curtains. Were they starting to look a trifle shabby?

  He tried very hard to ignore the breathy little scrambling sounds coming from the woman behind him. What was taking her so long? It should be the work of a moment to reach—no, he would not think of where she was reaching. Still, it could not take that long—

  “Lord Motton?”

  Jane’s voice was thin and tight, as if she might be on the verge of tears again. “Yes? Is it safe for me to turn around? Do you have the paper?”

  “Yes, you may turn, but no, I don’t have the paper.”

  He spun around, ready to jump down her throat for being so careless, but he swallowed his spleen the moment he saw her face. She looked miserable.

  “I mean,” she said, “I have the paper, but I don’t.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She turned as red as a furnace. “It’s stuck.”

  “Stuck?” She couldn’t mean…he looked back down to her bodice. It was in some disarray. The neck was crooked and a bit of her shift was sticking out.

  “Yes.”

  He had never seen a human blush so hotly. He was half-afraid she would spontaneously combust.

  He was feeling rather hot himself. Only one solution presented itself to his admittedly randy intelligence…well, intelligence might be a bit of a misnomer at the moment. Lust was reducing his meager thought processes to their most basic, bestial, instinctive level. He cleared his throat. “Ah, normally I’d call one of my aunts in—or your mother—to help, but I don’t believe we wish to have anyone else aware of our quest.”

  Jane was staring at a point midway down his chest. “I understand that.”

  “Ah. So, er, shall I, ahem, assist you?”

  It was not possible, but she turned even redder. “Yes.”

  “Very well.” He stepped around the desk. Jane had best not look down at his fall now. If she were redder than red, he was bigger than…He’d never felt so enormous. Perhaps his member had been inspired by Clarence’s Pan. “Did you stick it between your shift and your dress?”

  “No.” Jane’s eyes closed, and she whispered the words. “It’s between my shift and…me.”

  “I”—he cleared his throat again—“I see.” He looked down at her lovely bosom. He would have to reach in and touch…have her silky skin, her beautiful, round…

  He was only getting a bit of paper out of her clothing. This was not a seduction. Jane was a gently bred young woman, the sister of his friend. A virgin. He should make the process as brief and dispassionate as possible.

  Dear God, how the hell was he going to manage that?

  Perhaps he could try to imagine he was a physician. Doctors must be able to treat women’s bodies as, well, merely bodies.

  He took a deep breath and looked down at Jane’s lovely, soft—

  All right, so pretending to be a physician wasn’t going to be possible. He would just have to grit his teeth and get the job done. “Where exactly is the paper? Under which breast?”

  “The right one.” Jane was staring at his waistcoat again. “I think when I…when we…ah, just now when you and I—” She let out a long breath and scowled at his clothing. “When you kissed me, I think I moved so that the paper slipped down a little under my s—stays. I might be able to get it out myself, but I’m afraid I would tear it.”

  “We can’t tear it. We might lose a crucial piece of the puzzle.”

  “I know.” She frowned fiercely at one of his buttons. “Will you just get on with it?”

  “Very well.” He couldn’t merely thrust his fingers into her dress; as she said, they couldn’t risk tearing the paper. He would have to look at what he was doing…what he was touching…

  Jane darted a glance at the door. “Will your aunt Winifred—or one of your other aunts—come looking for you? I’d hate for them to walk in just as you were…you know.”

  Winifred was not one to lay traps. She might be considering Jane for the role of viscountess, but she would not be so crass as to try to surprise them in an awkward moment. Still, it always paid to be cautious. “I don’t believe you need worry, but I’ll lock the door just in case.”

  “You must be very accomplished at getting women out of their clothes,” Jane said as he secured the door. She was still standing stiffly exactly where he’d left her. The sooner he got this
over with, the better. “You must be an expert at seduction.”

  “No, not really.” He tried to smile reassuringly. It was true he wasn’t much in the way of separating women from their dresses, but when he did…well, he was discovering the task was far easier when seduction was involved. Then he had an eager, pliant woman in his hands, not one who was staring at him as though he were a poisonous snake choosing where best to bite her.

  He did not want to frighten or disgust her, but he suddenly realized he did not want to bore her, either. He wanted to give her at least a taste of seduction—but how to do that when she was scowling at him?

  “Perhaps it would help if you closed your eyes and thought about something else?” he said as he approached her again.

  “What should I think about?”

  “I don’t know. Something pleasant.”

  Her brows edged down even farther so they almost met above her nose. “I shall count to one hundred. Will that give you enough time?”

  He laughed. “I suppose it depends on how quickly you count. You aren’t planning to count aloud, are you?”

  Her chin jutted out. “Yes, I believe I will. It might hurry you along.”

  “It might make me nervous, and then I won’t be able to manage the deed.” His fingers already felt thick and clumsy.

  She snorted. “I can’t imagine that.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Hmph.” She rolled her eyes and then closed them. “One.”

  He smiled. Perhaps he should have some fun with this. He would see if he could seduce her a little—he had been having some luck with that just a few moments before. She had been so eager and soft when he’d been kissing her.

  Instead of turning her to reach the buttons on the back of her dress, he pulled her gently forward, up against his chest, and reached around to slip the top few free.

  “T—two.”

  He stepped back and eased her dress down to reveal her chemise and stays.

  Her breath caught and she bit her lower lip. “Three.”