Proper Scoundrel

by Annette Blair

  When he got to the landing near his room, he stepped through his door. “I want you in my bed,” he said in response to her questioning look.

  The smouldering gaze she gave him made him stand her up and strip her in a fever, frenzied and desperate, the same way she stripped him.

  When Marcus stood naked and proud before her, Jade stopped denying heart and mind and accepted Marcus Fitzalan as her destiny. Not that she would give her self over to him, or to any man, but this man she would take to her bed.

  Time to live up to her name and prove what a scandal she could be.

  They’d known each other for eternity, he’d said, and he’d been right. She’d been waiting for him forever, she knew. She simply hadn’t known his name.

  Whether berating her, or saving her, going over ledgers or walking fussy newborns, his gentleness called to her. His touch awakened her from the slumber of youth and made her crave womanhood in his arms.

  He’d turned wallflowers into hot-house beauties, calmed a little girl’s fears and turned them to giggles. He’d encouraged his brother to heal, championed a baby boy, and opened a heart Jade believed eternally locked—her own—tossing a life’s worth of lessons over the chalk cliffs.

  Marcus Fitzalan, scoundrel and friend, the love of her life.

  Whatever their place in society, Earl or Lady, rich or poor, friend or foe, the secrets they harboured, and the directions their lives took—and they must go their separate ways—her heart would remain forever his.

  Marcus wrapped his arms around her, bought her scorchingly, sinfully close, skin to skin for the first time ever. Splendid silk, cool, soft, vibrant and alive, a fast-beating heart, warm rippling muscles.

  “My very own Scandal,” he whispered. “It’s time for learning and soaring. Time to do what I wanted the minute I saw you at the beginning of time.”

  He yearned as she did. Then and now. Glory.

  His kiss, sweet and tender, chaste even, made her heart race and her body quicken, this coming together soared beyond the melding of bodies to a mating of spirits.

  “I want you,” he whispered, hoarse with passion, teasing her upper lip with his lower, coaxing and prodding, breath warm, his hands working a special magic.

  “Have your wicked way with me,” she whispered. “Please.”

  Marcus raised a brow. “My pleasure, my darling Scandal.”

  His husky voice purled heat through Jade in spiralling coils. She sifted her fingers through the whorls of hair on his chest, testing and abrading, pebbling a nipple, licking and kissing. She rubbed her nose against the silk as well—spearmint, freshened by the sea. “I wanted to do this, and more, when you nearly blacked out after the babies were born.”

  “I would have let you.”

  “I was afraid.”

  “Are you still, Jade? Are you finally ready to step into the fire?”

  “I’ve been cold and yearning for your heat since the day we met, but I didn’t know it.”

  After a long, tongue-stroking kiss, Marcus lifted her into his arms and nibbled her neck, her throat, the hollow beneath her collarbone, sending shafts of white-hot lightening to every hidden place in her body. Shafts of heat that shivered, and sparkled, sizzled and melted.

  Jade shuddered. Her nipples pebbled. “Teach me to love you, Marcus. I want the something more you spoke about, the ultimate rise to the stars. Show me. Take me with you.”

  With an oath, Marcus placed her on his bed, covering her and touching her everywhere at once, and Jade absorbed each sensation with the joy of new discovery. When her breasts grazed his chest and his arousal met her pulsing centre, she arched and moaned.

  She never left her hearth, yet she had come home.

  He hovered above her, his cobalt eyes intense, his passion hot and fit to singe, his man-part throbbing-ready and ... huge.

  Huge? “No! Wait! It’s too thick, too long,” she said. “It won’t fit.” Jade scuttled out from under him, until she leaned against his headboard, arms around her upraised knees. “You may be a stallion, Marcus Fitzalan, but I’m no mare!”

  Marcus’s arms gave out and he fell to the mattress, laughing so hard he rolled to his side to catch his breath.

  Jade crawled down the bed to hover over him, her fear forgotten for the moment. “I love it when you laugh like that.”

  He touched her cheek. “I love it when you smile like that.”

  “Oh, look,” she said with relief. “It got smaller. It’ll fit better now.”

  “No it won’t,” Marcus said with another fit of laughing. “It won’t fit at all now.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Jade said. “Prove it.”

  Catching her off guard, he tumbled her on her back, reversing their positions, him grinning above her. “Your challenge shot it with anticipation,” he said. “It’s big again.”

  “It’s magic,” she said.

  “Tell me that when we’re finished. Please.”

  Marcus probed Jade at her centre to prepare her for his invasion, giving her pleasure, he saw. Thank God! Her eyes had barely widened before they turned soft and shimmery. He entered her a bit, pulled slowly back and away. He found her sweet spot with his hand and made her moan until she wanted more of him. Then he slipped a bit further inside her, repeating the teasing process again and again, testing limits, hers and his, until she surged to take him deeper.

  “I adore you,” he whispered against her lips, holding himself still, with rigid discipline. “I adore you.”

  “I’m fascinated by you,” she said.

  “Are you certain, Jade?” he asked before breaching her final barrier.

  “I am fascinated.”

  He released his breath in a gasp, his body tense and pulsing as he fought to keep from burying himself in her velvet sheath. “Are you certain this is what you want? We will both be changed, not outside, but in our hearts and deep into our souls. Of this I am certain.”

  She stroked his lips with a finger, arched, and rolled her hips, absolutely aware and proud to torture him. “Be my lover, Marcus. Come inside me.”

  Jade revelled in Marcus’s shout of triumph, mindful of his gentle care, his patience and love as he delved deeper and deeper, and brought her higher and higher.

  In one swift move, he surged and buried himself so deep, discomfort blazed for a blink, then fire cooled and became a soothing salve, a warmth, that radiated outward and about them, pulling him with her into a cocoon of satisfaction. Alone in the universe, desire grew like stars flaming to bright scintillating life, the essence of pleasure almost too intense to bear.

  Jade ascended to a plane higher than she thought possible where paradise glowed a luminous azure, burnished and pure, the clouds a cushion upon which to float. In Marcus she saw a matching glory as the gods set them gently down to marvel in wonder at where they’d been.

  In the aftermath, they touched, they kissed. Jade knew Marcus as well as she knew herself, this soul mate God created for her.

  “I’ve been sick with missing you,” he said. “And tonight ... I was so bloody scared tonight. Jade, I couldn’t bear losing you.” He pulled her hard against him, imprisoning her with possessive hands. “I’m so worried about you.”

  Because she couldn’t change a thing, Jade refused to address his worry. “You broke me when you left for London,” she said, addressing his former statement, instead. “Everyday you were gone was a form of torture. Why didn’t you write? I was so angry and so sad that you didn’t write.”

  “I wrote to you every night,” he replied, finding her breasts in particular need of attention, and distracting her in the bargain. “In my mind as I lay awake wanting you beside me, I wrote you, and afterward, I made slow sweet love to you.”

  He surged to renewed life and she took him home again. Back to heaven, they went, faster and more frenzied this time, their arrival nothing short of cataclysmic.

  Lazy minutes later, he rolled her over and atop him, as if content to memorize her with his hands and kiss
where he could reach, and she lay her head in the hollow of his shoulder to sleep.

  Sometime during the dark of night, he suckled her to completion and slipped inside her, filling her, fulfilling her, adoring her with his body, their loving slow and languorous and breathtaking, the most marvellous awakening of Jade’s life.

  She welcomed his every thrust, discovering she could enhance their play with her movement. She learned to pull him in, hold him tight, and make him moan and shout her name. She would release him to withdraw, only to pull him back again. With her love, she milked him, and with his seed, he filled her.

  “I adore you,” he said as he all but collapsed atop her, nuzzling her ear even as he closed his eyes. “Though I think you near killed me with lust.” He sighed in contentment. “I can’t think of a better way to go.”

  Jade heard his weak chuckle as she curled into him and snuggled her nose into the hollow of his neck, settling her leg near that delicious man place, all soft and at rest now.

  She drifted to sleep and dreamed of a world where no danger threatened and life’s secret burdens would never tear them apart. “I don’t think the gunman was aiming at Jade,” Garrett repeated as Marcus paced. “I believe he was trying to break one of the fine ceramic tubes of gunpowder with a bullet so it would explode on impact and ignite the rest.”

  Marcus turned on him. “How many tubes?”

  “They found shards enough for a great deal of damage, including several unexploded tubes. We didn’t have one explosion but a series of them.”

  “How can that be? I stayed with the railroad cars from the minute they arrived. No one could have planted gunpowder tubes while I was there.”

  “Then somebody planted plenty before you and the train arrived. Perhaps someone who works for us?”

  “What? A disgruntled employee just happens to try and destroy us at the same time Jade is trying to do the same?” Marcus scoffed and ran a hand through his hair. “There are so many loose ends, Garr. I thought I knew who’d want Jade dead, that once we had that first gunman, we had the greedy cousin, but the locals identified the man I chased to ground. He’s still locked up and he isn’t Giles Dudley.”

  “Which doesn’t rule out the cousin, Marc.”

  “I suppose not. Guess I’m not thinking straight.”

  “Look,” Garrett said. “I know you’re worried about Jade, but you’ve got to pull yourself together. And get some rest, you look like hell. What did you do, pace all night?”

  Marcus actually felt heat scuttle up his neck.

  Garrett’s eyes narrowed in confusion for a blink then he grinned.

  Marcus rolled his eyes. “Actually, I had a revelation last night.”

  “One usually does in such circumstances.”

  “I meant at the site.”

  Garrett cleared his throat. “Of course.”

  “No, really. Whoever did this knows railroading well enough to know that however scarce and expensive the wood for ties, the rails are worth thrice as much.”

  Garrett shrugged. “Anyone might learn of it, but I should think it most apparent to us and the owners of the foundry.”

  “And whoever oversees invoicing and payments there.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jade appreciated the hot bath Marcus had delivered to her room after he left, and odd as it seemed after last night, she appreciated the privacy to enjoy it, her mind filled with him, his scent and texture, the feel of his lips on hers, on her breasts and elsewhere, which warmed her even now.

  She needed to come to terms with this new aspect of their relationship. To examine this feeling that she would never be the same Jade Smithfield who only met Marcus Fitzalan for the first time three short months ago. The Jade who, despite her determination not to relinquish her self to him, felt renewed and exhilarated for the physical process that she feared had done just that.

  Yet with all her doubts, she couldn’t help revel in the memory of the night just passed, wanting nothing more than to soak her pleasantly aching muscles for hours of sweet contemplation.

  Her door’s squeal as it opened put period to that on the instant. “Jade?”

  “Emily. What’s the matter, Sweetheart? You look sad.” Emily approached the tub hesitantly, her tiny little Mucks waddling faithfully behind, and once she got there, Em’s face fell even further, until her lips began to quiver. “Emmy wants Mummy.”

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Jade got right out of the tub, slipped into her dressing gown and lifted Emily in her arms to cuddle her. What could she say? She couldn’t pretend Catherine might still come back. Emily deserved better than false hope. But the truth felt so ... brutal.

  She kissed Em’s brow. “Emmy, you know Mummy would have come back to you, if she could have, don’t you?”

  Emily nodded, her look so trusting, it frightened Jade as much as Marcus’s gentleness did.

  “Papa didn’t bring her,” Emmy said, shaking her head.

  “Papa? Do you mean Marcus? You expected Marcus to bring your Mummy back?”

  Emily nodded.

  “You know him better than I do,” Jade said. “He wanted very much to bring Mummy back for you.” No wonder Em’s sadness today, if Marcus had been her last hope of getting Catherine back.

  Jade looked into Em’s big cornflower blue eyes. “He loves you, you know? Papa does.”

  Emily nodded again. “Where’s Mummy?”

  Jade tucked a couple of Emily’s ringlets behind her ear, remembering how Marcus doing that to her had made her feel cared for and protected. She carried Em to the window to look upon the rare beauty of a sunny day, and pointed toward the sky. “Remember, Emily, when we were looking up at the clouds the other day? How beautiful they looked all white and fluffy bright? Well, your Mummy is up there in heaven. She’s ... an angel now ... watching over you from one of those beautiful clouds.”

  Emily’s eyes slowly filled until a tear hovered and slipped off her lash. Then, as slowly, another, while she regarded Jade, as if her life depended upon Jade’s every breath.

  She seemed too young to understand death, or she should be, but she’d grown up where beatings and hunger were part of life, where a child likely encountered death often enough to understand the finality of it.

  Jade blinked, feeling the weight of responsibility, seeking divine guidance for Emily’s sake, and wishing Marcus were here.

  “Sweetheart.” Jade tugged on a flaxen ringlet adorning the tiny brow and had to clear her throat before she could go on. “I know you’ll always love your Mummy in a very special way, deep in here, in your heart, the same way she will always love you.”

  Emily barely nodded, almost as if she were holding her breath.

  Jade was sick inside, so afraid of doing this wrong. “Emmy, you know how Mucks had a doggie Mummy once, but you’re her new Mummy now, and you love her?”

  Em’s nod became more certain.

  “Good. You want to keep Mucks safe, don’t you, and warm and happy, and give her good food and lots of hugs and kisses so she’ll grow up strong and happy?”

  Another affirmative nod, and a softening of that pale little face.

  “Well, I want to take care of you the same way you take care of Mucks. I want you to be my little girl now, my very own, because, you see, Sweetheart, I love you too.”

  Emily released a great shuddering breath and her tears fell more quickly as she threw her arms around Jade and began to cry in earnest, until she sobbed so hard, Jade could hardly breathe for the pain in her heart.

  Mucks took to howling, crying along with Em, and she pulled away and looked down, her pup’s sadness of more concern than her own.

  “Here, Sweetheart,” Jade said. “Let me put you on my bed and bring Mucks up here with us, shall I?”

  Once she had her pup, Emily curled in a ball holding Mucks close, and Jade stretched out behind them, pulling them both, pup and child, into her embrace, and Em’s sobs diminished to an occasional hiccup.

  “I love you, Emmy.”


  “Can Mummy hear me?” Emily asked without turning toward Jade.

  “Yes, Darling. And when you laugh, it pleases her very much, because she loves you. So you must try to be happy, even though you miss her. If you are, she’ll be very content in heaven.”

  “Emmy loves M ... Mummy. Love ... you t ... too.”

  Some time passed before Jade felt Em relax, and longer still before her breathing calmed, turned peaceful, and Em slept.