The Last Hellion

by Loretta Chase

  “On such short notice, I collect Mrs. Clay was unable to tend to my rooms,” Lydia said mildly, once Ainswood was out of earshot.

  Jaynes glanced about him, his mouth pinching up as he took in the cobwebs dripping from the ceiling corners, the film frosting mirrors and glass, the dust that lay as thick as the volcanic ash upon Pompeii. “She might have done something,” he said, “if she dared.”

  Lydia peered into the gloomy, cobwebbed cavern Jaynes had called her dressing room. “I understand that bachelors—some bachelors—dislike having their things disturbed.”

  “Many of the servants have been here since the fourth duke’s time,” said Jaynes. “We’ve some from families who’ve served the Mallorys for generations. Loyalty’s a fine thing, but when you’ve nothing to do, day in and day out on account of not knowing what to do or not daring—” He broke off, and pinned his mouth shut.

  “Then it will be easier to bring the staff ’round to my methods,” Lydia said briskly. “We shall commence with a blank slate. No housekeepers set in their ways. No interfering mothers-in-law.”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” said Jaynes. Then he screwed his mouth shut again.

  Lydia could tell he was nigh bursting with revelations. While she was curious, she was, however, also aware of the protocol forbidding her to encourage him. She had noticed he was not so restrained in dealing directly with the master. Earlier in the day, she had heard the valet muttering—not always under his breath—while assisting His Grace with his toilette.

  “In any case, whatever changes will be effected must wait until tomorrow,” Lydia said, moving back to the door leading to the master chamber.

  “Yes, Your Grace.” Jaynes trailed behind her as she entered the bedchamber. “But you will want a maid. I had better go down—”

  “There you are,” Ainswood said, stomping out of his dressing room. “I was wondering if you meant to stay gossiping with my lady all night. What the devil have you done with my clothes?”

  “Your clothes are in your dressing room, sir.” Jaynes added something in an undertone, which Lydia couldn’t make out.

  “Not those clothes, you smug rascal,” Ainswood snapped. “The ones I wore yesterday. The ones in my bags. All I can find is damned shirts and neckcloths. Where’s my waistcoat?”

  “The waistcoats you wore yesterday are in my quarters, to be cleaned,” said Jaynes.

  “Curse and confound you! I hadn’t emptied the pockets!”

  “No, Your Grace. I took that liberty. You will find the—er—contents in the lacquered box on the—That is to say, I shall find it for you, sir.” Jaynes started toward the dressing room.

  Ainswood backed toward the doorway, blocking it.

  “Never mind. I can find the bleeding box. I’m not blind.”

  “In that case, if you will pardon me, sir, I was about to go down for one of the maids. I should ring, but no one will know who’s to come or what for.”

  Ainswood, who had been about to reenter the dressing room, turned back. “A maid? What the devil do I want with a maid?”

  “Her Grace requires—”

  “Not in my room.”

  “Her Grace’s chambers are not fit for—”

  “It’s past midnight, confound you! I won’t have a pack of females clucking and fussing and disrupting everything.” At last Ainswood seemed to recollect Lydia’s existence. He shifted his glower to her.

  “Dash it, Grenville, must we start that nonsense tonight?”

  “No, my dear,” she said.

  The green glare flashed back to Jaynes. “You heard her. Go to bed. You’ll have all day tomorrow to toady.”

  Mouth screwed tight, Jaynes bowed and departed.

  After the door had closed behind him, Ainswood’s expression softened marginally. “I can undress you,” he said gruffly.

  “‘Can’ is not the same as ‘want to.’” She went to him, pushed back a lock of chestnut hair from his forehead. “I had supposed the excitement had palled. You’ve done it once already.”

  He edged back, his green eyes wary. “Grenville, you are not going to be…” His gaze shifted away while he sought the word he wanted. “Kind,” he tried, and frowned. “Patient.” That word didn’t satisfy, either, apparently, for his brow furrowed. “I should like to know what you and Lady Dain talked about. Dain said it had to do with torturing husbands.”

  “What did you and Dain talk about?”

  “You.” He essayed half a grin. “I must meet with lawyers, and sign away my life, and accept a dowry.”

  “Lady Dain told me. I had meant to discuss it with you on the way home.” Instead, she had slept most of the way.

  The half-grin faded. “Gad, Grenville, are we going to have to discuss? Is that why you’re humoring me? Because if it is, you’re wasting your time. You’ll have to quarrel with Dain about it.”

  She studied him. He’d discarded his coat, waistcoat, and neckcloth without Jayne’s assistance. Which probably meant those garments were lying on his dressing room floor. Along with his boots. His left shirt cuff was buttoned. The button was gone from the right, and a large tear told her why. She grasped his wrist and pointed to the tear.

  “If you had trouble getting it unbuttoned, why didn’t you bellow for help?” she asked. “We were only in the next room.”

  He shook her off. “Don’t take care of me. I don’t need taking care of.”

  Her temper flared. She banked it and retreated a pace. “No, and you don’t need a wife, either, I’m sure.” She walked away to the window. “This should be interesting—watching you try to figure out what to do with me.”

  He stomped back into the dressing room and slammed the door.

  Chapter 15

  Ten seconds later, there was more stomping, and the door flew open. “I didn’t think!” he shouted. “Are you happy now? I admit it. I didn’t think past the wedding night. And now you’re going to turn everything inside out, and—and there’ll be maids parading in and out of my room—and I won’t have a minute’s peace!”

  “That is correct,” Lydia said calmly. “I am going to turn this house upside down and inside out, from garret to cellar. Because it is a disgrace. I cannot abide disorder. I will not have it.” She folded her arms. “What do you propose to do? Shoot me? Chuck me out the window?”

  “Of course I won’t! Damnation, Grenville—” He stormed to the fireplace, slammed his hand against the mantel, and glared at the fire.

  “Even if I could abide dirt and disorder,” she went on steadily, “it is very bad for morale. This is a fine house. It is a shame to let it go to rack and ruin, and a good staff with it. I will not compromise on this matter, Ainswood. You must like it or lump it.”

  “Bloody hell.”

  “Perhaps I had better dispel all illusions at once,” she said. “It is very unlikely I shall compromise on any matter. I am not at all sure I possess the capability.”

  He lifted his head, glanced briefly at her. “You married me. That was a compromise. Of your curst damn principles.”

  “It was not a compromise, but a complete overthrow of my principles,” she said. “The only way I can restore my equilibrium is by arranging everything precisely as it ought to be.”

  His gaze returned to her and settled accusingly. “You said you wanted to make me happy.”

  She opened her mouth to retort, then shut it.

  She paced the length of the room instead. It was a considerable length, and minutes passed. He said nothing. All he did was straighten away from the fireplace and watch her.

  She had an idea of what the fundamental problem was, and since it was her habit to confront problems straight on, her instinctive reaction was to confront him.

  The trouble was, it wasn’t Ainswood’s nature to confront his troubles straight on, else he wouldn’t have the problem in the first place.

  She had to choose her words carefully.

  She covered the room’s length once more. Then she went to the window and looked dow
n into the garden. A light rain had begun falling. She heard it rather than saw it. With starlight and moonlight blotted out, the world outside the window might as well have been an abyss.

  “Devil roast me,” his exasperated voice broke the silence. “It isn’t your fault I didn’t consider the consequences. You gave me every chance.”

  She turned from the window. He stood not far from the fire, behind a chair whose back he grasped. He was staring at his hands, his handsome countenance as rigid as a death mask.

  “Dain told me I must reorganize my household to accommodate a wife,” he continued. “What the devil is it to me? It’s not as though I give a bleeding goddamn about this pile.”

  He didn’t, obviously. He wished it didn’t exist, she supposed. Since it did, the next best thing was to pretend it didn’t, to pretend nothing had changed, and he wasn’t the Duke of Ainswood. He shut his eyes and mind to the house and staff he’d inherited, in the same way he shut out all the other responsibilities of the dukedom.

  That’s not my fault, is it? he’d said so bitterly when, not many days ago, Lydia had reminded him of the title he bore.

  “A most astute observation,” she said, strolling toward the bed. “Since you don’t give a bloody goddamn, it makes no sense for you to roar and rage about what I do with the household. If you find the reorganization process trying to your nerves—and I will admit, there will be tumult and apparent confusion for perhaps as much as a fortnight—you will be so good as to take your fits elsewhere. Out of the house.”

  “Out of the—”

  “I don’t want you upsetting the servants. How can one expect them to develop enthusiasm for their work—not to mention their mistress—if you are stomping about, snarling and snapping at everyone?”

  “You are throwing me out of my own house?”

  She met his stormy gaze. She preferred it stormy, the bleak look wiped out by indignation. “You rarely visit it. You don’t care what becomes of it. I should think you’d be happier elsewhere.”

  “Damnation, Grenville, we were married only yesterday—and—and you’re chucking me?” He let go of the chair, advanced upon her, and grabbed her shoulders. “I married you, dammit. I’m your husband, not a lover you can discard after one tumble.”

  His mouth came down hard on hers.

  It was quick, fierce, and devastating, an erotic rampage, demanding what she’d never intended to withhold.

  She tasted anger and power, but more than that was the sin of it, the diabolical knowing of it, the way he made love words inside her mouth with his tongue.

  He released her before she was ready. Unbalanced, she caught a fistful of his shirt. “Good God, Ainswood.” A few seared syllables; that was all she could get out.

  “Vere,” he growled. “You said my name when we said our vows. Say it, Lydia.”

  “Vere.” She reached up, cupped his face to tilt it toward hers. “Do it again.”

  “You’re not throwing me away,” he said. With a flick of his fingers he unfastened the topmost button of her bodice. With the quick assurance of a concert pianist performing arpeggios, he undid the rest.

  She brought her hands down, let them hang uselessly at her sides. “You’ve got it all wrong,” she said.

  “I’ll make it right.” He unfastened hooks and tapes with the same ruthless efficiency.

  In a moment, her black frock was a heap on the floor. He kicked it aside.

  He started on the petticoat.

  “I never said I don’t want you,” she tried.

  “You don’t want me enough.” He paused, though, his fingers brushing over lace and silk ribbons. His grim expression softened a degree. “Pretty.”

  “A gift from Lady Dain.”

  He bent his head and drew his tongue over the intricate, gossamer-light edging of the petticoat’s bodice.

  She sucked in her breath, dug tense fingers into his hair, to stop him. “What are you doing?” She heard the uncertainty and anxiety in her voice and hated it, but couldn’t help it. He was a rake. He’d committed acts of depravity she, completely inexperienced, could scarcely begin to imagine.

  He turned his head and nipped the skin of her forearm.

  She let go.

  “You put on lovely new underthings, just for me,” he said. “It’s sweet.”

  They were lovely. And ghastly expensive, no doubt. But it would have been churlish to refuse Lady Dain’s gifts, even though she had gone overboard and given Lydia enough lewd underwear to dress a dozen harlots. “Does that mean you’re not cross anymore?” she asked warily.

  He lifted his gaze to hers. She saw twin slits of green, dark and glinting. “Was I cross? I’ve completely forgotten.” He smiled then, that dreadful, brain-bone-muscle-melting smile. It was lethal, the lazy curve of his dissolute mouth, and he most certainly knew it. No wonder he despised women. He’d only to turn that smile upon them to topple them like ninepins.

  She toppled, too, inwardly, while outwardly she reached for him, brought his face to hers, and trailed her lips over that wicked curve.

  He simply let her do it. He didn’t move, didn’t respond. His hands remained at her waist, where they’d come to rest a moment before.

  She drew her tongue over his mouth, in the same teasing way he’d done to the lace of her bodice.

  The grip on her waist tightened.

  She nipped at his lower lip, as he had done to her arm.

  He nipped back, then, and parted for her.

  It was long and deep and dark this time, a kiss that was like falling off a precipice.

  And while she fell, so did her petticoat, so smoothly and easily that she was scarcely aware it was happening. His big hands ran over her like water while tapes and buttons gave way and hooks lost their mates.

  Her petticoat cascaded to a whispering heap at her feet. He knelt and gently pushed it away. He put her hand on his shoulder and took off her shoes and set them neatly aside.

  He held up his hands and she took them, and came down to kneel on the carpet in front of him.

  “That’s the prettiest corset I’ve ever seen,” he whispered. “Too pretty to take off in a mad rush. Turn around, Lydia.”

  It was pretty, embroidered with pink twining vines and tiny leaves. From behind, he drew his fingers over the edge of the corset, where the lacy chemise veiled her breasts. He spread his hands over the front of the garment while he kissed the back of her neck and her shoulders.

  She was weak with longing already. All she could do was stroke his wonderfully wicked hands and swim in sensation.

  He drew the corset away. She heard his sharp inhalation.

  “Oh, Lydia, this is…evil.” His voice was a rough whisper. He stroked over the back of the chemise.

  It was made of silk as thin as a butterfly’s wing, in the palest blush of pink.

  “Turn around,” he said.

  She turned, resisting the temptation to cover herself. He’d seen her naked before, hadn’t he?

  “It doesn’t conceal much, does it?” she said, fighting down a nervous giggle.

  “I forgive you,” he said thickly. His green gaze dwelt lingeringly upon her breasts.

  “For what?”

  “Everything.”

  He pulled her into his arms and bore her down with him to the carpet.

  He forgave her with deep, wild kisses that hurtled her over the precipice and dragged her up again. He forgave her with his hands, with caresses rough and tender by turns.

  She had no control. The slow undressing had awakened in her something deeper and darker than what, before, she’d called lust, infatuation.

  He was big and strong and beautiful and diabolically knowing, and everything he was, every pore and cell of him, she wanted for herself alone.

  The drive to possess and conquer was in her Ballister blood, and it was a hot blood, wild and greedy.

  She had no patience to be further undressed, and pushed his hands from her drawer strings. She pushed him onto his back and dragg
ed off his shirt. He let out a low, short laugh that turned into a groan when she unbuttoned his trousers. She was not so smooth as he had been, but she was quicker. She peeled them off and tossed them aside, and sat back on her haunches.

  He was a magnificent man, long and leanly muscled. The broad chest tapered to a tautly slim waist and hips. She drew her hand over the dark, silky hair feathering his chest, and down where it arrowed to his pelvis, lighter and tinged with red. “I hadn’t the presence of mind last night to look,” she said huskily as her fingers stole down to that forbidden place.

  “Look, touch,” he said with a choked laugh.

  She grasped his rod, swollen and hot. It pulsed in her hand. He made a low, aching sound.

  “You said I could touch,” she told him.

  “Yes, I like torture.”

  She bent and touched her tongue to it.

  “Jesus.” He pulled her hand away, pulled her on top of him. He found the opening of her drawers, slid his fingers in, and cupped her.

  The climax took her unawares. She was quivering under the strokes of his fingers when it speared through her, one sharp shock of joy that set off rippling aftershocks.

  Another came, and another…and then he pushed in, and she lifted instinctively, and came down to take him inside, deep.

  “Yes.” A ragged cry of triumph she couldn’t keep back.

  He pulled her down to him. She took his mouth, and stroked with her tongue, shamelessly mimicking his quickening thrusts.

  He rolled her onto her back and, breaking her greedy kiss, wrenched her hands from his neck and held them down on the carpet. He held her so, and she watched him, watching her, while the last stormy strokes spasmed through her body. Her eyes closed and she saw firebursts behind them. And one long, shuddering moment later, she heard a choked sound that was her name as he sank down, spent, on top of her.

  At half past ten the following morning, Her Grace met in Vere’s study with Mrs. Clay.

  At half past eleven, pandemonium erupted.

  What seemed like thousands of maids and footmen spilled out of baize doors, all armed with cloths, dusters, mops, brooms, pails, and some fearful implements Vere could not identify.