She blinked. “I could ask you the same.”
He started, unaccustomed to wondering why he plucked urchins from the streets with regular frequency. He just did—had for quite some time. Because you see yourself in their hopeless gazes. His jaw tightened against the unwelcome answer whispering inside him. “A hobby.”
“I thought you already had a hobby.” Her eyes glinted and he remembered their earlier conversation when she—Frank—had demanded to know why he seduced everything in skirts, in specific married skirts. Everyone needs a hobby, had been his pithy reply.
“One can have multiple hobbies.” Shrugging, he added, “I stop in at Applebaum’s often. Love their fudge.” He looked pointedly to the white paper sack. “Applebaum mentioned needing help…and I knew he and his wife lacked offspring.”
“So you appointed yourself their benefactor and decided to find them a ward?” She snorted. “Not likely. Say whatever you like, but I’m afraid you’ve been found out.” That square chin of hers lifted in a haughty angle. In that moment he had a flash of Frank again, all cheek and insolence.
“Oh? Do share your discovery.”
“You, Your Grace, are not nearly as wicked as you would like the world to think.” Her words did not rankle so much as the little smirk playing about her mouth. A wide-lipped virago’s mouth.
“What do you know of wickedness, Miss O’Rourke? You who hides behind disguises, leading a half-lived life?”
Hot color licked her cheeks. “My life is not half-lived. I’ve lived plenty. No coddled existence, to be sure. And I’ve seen my share of truly wicked—”
“Is that so?” He moved across the carriage, dropping down beside her. “And what would truly wicked be?” Before she could respond, he ran a finger down her bare neck. The stiff collar of her dress stopped him from going further, from descending, as he wished, to those perfectly formed breasts burned in his memory. He pressed his open mouth to the warm skin of her neck, touching where he could. Tasting.
She stilled, all warm, pliant woman against him. Gripping her chin, he turned her face to him and breathed in the chocolaty hint of her breath. “Like kissing a man in a moving carriage in the middle of the day? Would that qualify?”
Her gaze dropped, fell on his lips, and her head gave the barest nod.
He brushed his mouth against hers, enjoying the softly parted lips, the moist breath slipping into his hungry mouth, the feel of her body shuddering in surrender.
Her eyes remained open. Shocked wide. The taste of her filled him with raw need. He kissed her harder, tasting heat and Fallon and dark chocolate: the sweetest combination. Nothing he had ever experienced.
Fallon. So sweet, so uncorrupted for all her claims of hard living. A primitive need to claim her and protect her as his own seized him. The urge sent a ripple of alarm coursing through him nearly as potent as the dark desire smoldering through his veins.
Still kissing, mouths hard and ravenous on each other, he lifted her hand from her lap and pressed it over his bulging erection, determined to teach her wicked…and watch her fly from him in maidenly outrage. As he knew she would. As he needed her to do in order to stop.
Her hand flinched before settling over him, relaxing, testing his shape with a curious flex of her fingers, and he realized his mistake. He had not thought of what her touch would do to him. A groan ripped from his throat, bleeding into their kiss.
The sound woke her, tore her from him. She snatched her hand back and flew across the carriage to where he once sat, staring at him with the wild eyes of a hunted animal.
She clutched both hands tight in her lap, her thumb rotating rapid circles in the palm he had pressed against his cock. Heat scored her cheeks a deep shade of scarlet. Even her neck burned brightly.
“Why did you do that?” Her gaze lifted, meeting his, holding. The glow of those amber eyes made his stomach tighten.
Jaw clenched, he stared back, devouring the sight of her. His erection pressed hard against the front of his breeches, aching for her.
“I want you.” He would no longer deny it. The wanting prowled like a live beast within him.
She stared. Her breath rising and falling. “You said I would be safe from you.”
He nodded fiercely, dragging a hand over his face. His every muscle strained to drag her back into his arms. “I did.”
“You lied.”
Her whispered accusation knifed through him. “I did not know I would want you so much.”
Her mouth parted. Something flickered in her eyes, making them glint red, not brown at all. Perhaps that explained it. She was some sort of angel from hell bent on possession.
The carriage rocked to a stop. He shook his head. A moment later the footman knocked upon the door. Fallon moved like fire licked at her heels.
He curled his hands into fists to stop himself for reaching for her, but it did no good. Before she escaped through the door, he grabbed her wrist. “And now you know. I want you. You remain at your own peril.”
Her eyes widened and he released her. He watched her go, slipping out the door…and he wondered if he would ever see her again.
Chapter 21
“A h, blast.” The older maid rattled amid her basket of rags and polishes.
It was likely the first time Martha had uttered a word in Fallon’s presence since she had been exposed a woman. She had sent Fallon plenty of disapproving looks, letting her censure be felt, but never deigned to speak. Her behavior was similar to that of the rest of the staff. They did not treat her badly. Just coldly.
“I left the vinegar in the last room.” Martha tapped at the side table where candle wax had spilled. I’ll be back in a moment.” She lumbered toward the door, stopping to shoot Fallon a pointed stare. “Don’t”—she gestured around the duke’s bedchamber—“touch anything until I get back.”
Fallon watched as she swept from the bedchamber, leaving her alone in the duke’s rooms. A scenario that might have worried her if she had not spotted the duke leaving the house earlier.
I want you. A tremble shivered through her. A man had never said those words to her. Certainly she had endured innuendos and crude suggestions in the past, but a blatant declaration of desire…and issued from the lips of a man whose kisses made her toes curl? Her gaze roamed the bed, trying not to imagine herself in its vast space. With him. She tried and failed. The wicked way he had touched her—the wicked way she had touched him—did not feel that…wicked. It felt right. Sighing, she turned from the bed. She could not go on thinking such thoughts.
Of her own volition, her gaze wandered to the door. The door she was never to enter. The room she was forbidden to see. She could have managed a peek before, when she was his valet, but she resisted…somehow thinking it was a weakness on her part. An admission, if only to herself, that the duke intrigued her, that she wanted to know more about him.
Now she didn’t care. He interested her. She knew it. Since depositing Andy at the confectionery, how could she deny it? He more than interested her. He enthralled her, mystified her. A demon duke one moment. A philanthropist the next.
Skimming her feather duster along the wall idly, she inched nearer the door. So what if he caught her? He already thought the worst of her. Thought her deceptive and borderline criminal.
With a quick glance over her shoulder, she closed a hand over the knob and eased open the door. Instantly the smell of charcoal, oils, and turpentine assailed her. The room felt stuffy with only its single window. Several canvases leaned against the walls, too many to count.
Bold splashes of paint met her gaze. Color was everywhere, within landscapes, portraits, still lifes. Even the poorly lit room could not diminish the vibrancy. But unlike anything she had ever seen at Trafalgar Square, this art was savage, wild and unapologetic in a way she knew only one man to be.
Realization dawned slowly. A painter? The duke lost himself in yet another exploit that wasn’t wholly corrupt?
An easel stood near the window, seeking what lit
tle light the drizzly day had to offer. Fallon stepped farther into the sparse room, eyes narrowing, squinting against the glaring colors of the canvas sitting on the easel. The reds and browns and golds gradually took shape and definition. Became—dear God—her!
The great mass of her hair was as it used to be, before she took a pair of scissors to it. Her face peeked out over one bare shoulder the color of an apricot. Her eyes shone darkly, alive, leaping from the canvas. Secrets gleamed in those eyes, warm with seductive promise. Her mouth was parted, lips wide, a deep pink. The mouth of a woman who knew…things.
Is this how he sees me?
She lifted a trembling hand, ready to brush them over the canvas.
“What are you doing in here?”
Her heart lurched. Dropping her hand, she spun around.
Before she could move, before she could speak, the duke was bearing down on her, long legs eating the distance separating them, a brutal gleam in his eyes.
Grasping her arm, he hauled her from the room. He flung her ahead of him as if he couldn’t stand the feel of her. “Did I not warn you to stay out of there?”
Rubbing her arm where his touch burned like a brand, she demanded with far more daring than she felt. “Did you paint that of me?”
He glared at her. “Who else would have done it?”
She shook her head. “Why?”
“Why do I paint?” he snapped, his head cocking at a dangerous angle. “Or why did I paint you?”
She shook her head. Both.
His gaze blistered. “I like women.” He shrugged. “In bed and on the canvas.”
Fire lit her cheeks.
He motioned behind him, the gesture violent. “Did you care for the likeness?”
She lifted her chin, still grappling with the notion that the duke occupied himself in such a laudable pursuit. That, however unorthodox his style of art, he painted. He painted her. “It looks nothing like me. I’m not nearly so…interesting.”
His gaze flickered over her. “Not in that ugly sack, true. But I’ve seen you more interesting. Without a stitch on.”
“Oh!” Her face burned hotter, cheeks stinging as she recalled his intrusion in her room an instant after she emerged from her bath.
Their gazes locked, and she knew he was remembering everything about that night. He moved closer, his chest a wall of heat singeing her through her clothes. The anger had dissipated from his flushed face, but his eyes still burned on her with even greater threat than moments ago.
I want you. You remain at your own peril.
Yet here she stood, reminiscing over how his kiss tasted.
And then she remembered more. She remembered what happened when he had touched her, where—
A swift gasp cut through the charged air. “Your Grace, forgive us. We had hoped to finish before you returned.”
Martha stood framed in the doorway, looking back and forth between them. Her gaze skittered to the open door of the duke’s studio, and she shot Fallon an accusing glare. With a hard shake of her head, the older maid indicated Fallon should exit the room.
Glad to oblige and relieved at the interruption, Fallon turned, fleeing the room, the heat of Damon’s stare following her as she fled.
In the future, until she found a way to remove herself from this mess, she would take care to never find herself alone with him again. Because next time Martha might not arrive to save her.
Fallon stood on her tiptoes, stretching for the canister of walnuts the Cook asked her to fetch. With a grunt, she ceased reaching for the impossibly high shelf. Hands propped on her hips, she fixed a considering glare on the inoffensive-looking jar.
“Let me help you with that.”
Fallon turned, finding Daniel, the head footman, immediately behind her. She smiled at him, and his grin broadened in his narrow, freckled face.
He had been exceptionally kind to her since her “unveiling,” paving the way for the other servants to do the same. That alone endeared him to her. Especially considering the less than warm welcome she had received when Mr. Adams first presented her to the staff. No doubt Mr. Adams’s gimlet stare and Daniel’s ready acceptance had saved her from total annihilation. Aside of a few snickers and sidelong stares, no one treated her outright poorly. Well, no one save Nancy. The maid seemed disinclined to like her, no doubt embarrassed over her infatuation with Francis.
Fallon eyed the man who stood several inches shorter then herself. Rather than wound his ego by pointing out she was taller, she stepped aside. “I’m trying to reach the walnuts.”
Soon he realized what she already surmised. He could no more reach the canister than she. Shooting her a determined glance, he hopped upon the lowest shelf and seized the canister, dropping back down to his feet with a flourish. With an elaborate bow, he presented it to her.
“Thank you, Daniel.” She accepted the jar.
“Always happy to help a lady in need.”
“Am I interrupting?”
Fallon and Daniel swung around to face the looming figure in the pantry’s threshold. Her heart jumped a little in her chest at the familiar visage of the duke.
His lips barely moved as he spoke. A dark shadow passed over his hard features. “Isn’t this a cozy scene.”
Daniel made a sound in his throat that sounded like a chicken being strangled. “Y-Your Grace.” Clicking his heels together, he bowed smartly.
Without even looking at the footman, the duke bit out, “Leave us.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Daniel scurried past, dipping one last bow of deference. With a hasty, apologetic glance for Fallon, he disappeared from the pantry.
Her pulse hammered madly at her neck. She could not—must not—be alone with him. She stretched out a hand, her mouth parting, ready to call Daniel back.
“Good riddance,” the duke drawled as the door to the pantry clicked shut. He leveled her with his intent stare. “I have you alone now. You may have escaped me earlier this afternoon, but no one can save you now.”
She dropped her hand to her side. Fallon inhaled deeply against the sting of resentment his words elicited. “I don’t need anyone to save me. I can look after myself.”
“Indeed,” he retorted, stepping close. Too close. “You’re like a cat, is that it? Always landing on your feet. It hasn’t taken you long to win over the men on my staff.”
A small window high in the pantry’s wall offered enough light for her to see the dark ring of blue around his irises. Beautiful and subtle, soft as undulating grass in the glow of moonlight. Ironic considering the hard bend of his lips.
He glanced at the door Daniel departed through, then back at her. His smoky gaze slid over her in a slow drag of heat. “Perhaps there’s a reason you keep getting the sack.”
Cold swept over her, effectively dousing the heat his gaze evoked. “Meaning what precisely?”
“You do have a way about you…”
Indignation began a slow creeping burn up her neck. “What way would that be?” Even as she asked the question, she was certain she would not like his answer.
He shrugged one shoulder. “You could be less provocative.”
Anger churned through her stomach. She pressed a hand to her belly. “You think I bring unwelcome advances upon myself?” she demanded, the blood rising in her face.
He cocked his head. “Well, you were fending off the attentions of a man the first time I saw you. Every time I turn around, I find you in the same scenario. Even I have trouble keeping my hands to myself.”
“You cannot be accusing me…”
He took a step closer, an encroaching wall of heat, and she saw from the hard glint in his eyes that he was not jesting. He thought her responsible when a man fawned over her?
His indigo blue jacket brushed the starched front of her dress, a bright splash of color against the muted gray of her dress. “Perhaps you should rethink what you do around men.”
“What I do around men?”
As if she did anything deliberate. As
if she set out to get sacked and put her livelihood in jeopardy. As if she enjoyed living one step from the streets.
“And what is that?” she spit out.
“Twist them into knots…make them want you even when they know they should not.”
“Only an arrogant bastard born with the world bowed before him would say such a, a…stupid thing!” Her chest lifted on ragged breath, but she could not regret her outburst. Not even at the narrowing of his eyes or the deepening color in his cheeks. She jabbed him once in the chest. “Why not call me a whore?”
His hand closed over her hand, his grip hard, a warm pulsing manacle.
She wrenched her hand free and buried it in the fold of her skirts.
He was silent for some moments, tension emanating from him in waves as palpable as steam. When he at last spoke, his query gouged her, swiping at an already open wound. “I should be glad if you were, then we could stop these games and do what we really want to each other.”
She flinched, his words too crude, too rough…too stark and thrilling in their honesty. Her palm swung toward him—without thought or deliberation—a blurring arc on the air.
For the second time in one week, she struck a duke.
Or tried, at any rate.
He ducked aside and she missed entirely. Rot! A small sound of distress escaped her tightly compressed lips and she swung again.
This time, he caught her hand.
She gave a fierce tug, but he would not surrender her hand. Anger swept through her in a savage burn. She fought to be free. Beyond control now, she swung again. He caught her other hand, too. Fallon stood there, both hands caught, and felt an utter fool.
With both hands imprisoned, he forced her back until her body met the wall of shelves in a noisy rattle of jars and crockery.
She gasped at the sudden move. With the sharp bite of shelves at her back, the hard wall of his body at her front, she could scarcely draw breath.
Their eyes locked, collided, battled with unspoken words. Tension crackled on the air. Awareness throbbed between them. His eyes smoldered, nostrils flaring.
Sins of a Wicked Duke Page 15