His nose glanced hers in a caress, once, twice, three times. She nuzzled closer, and her lips skimmed his jaw an inch from his lips. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. His nerves vibrated with the overwhelming desire to press her against the stones and do wicked, depraved things to her body.
“Delilah.” Her name emerged on a begging, whispering groan. His lips came within a butterfly’s wing of touching hers, but he restrained himself. Barely.
“Marcus.” Her whisper-hiss of his given name sent shivers down his neck. “Is it working?”
“Working?” If she was asking whether her touch was driving him to the brink of madness, then, yes, it was working spectacularly.
“The men. Are they fooled?” She clutched his nape, but when she inched her hand up to grasp his hair, he reached around and stopped her. Their precarious situation registered like a gong. He’d almost lost control of the situation and himself. If she pulled the hair piece off his head, their only option would be to run for their lives.
The man was halfway across the lane and shuffling closer, peering at them. How far did Marcus have to go to throw the brutes off the scent? A tupping in the alley? While his body was all in, a heaviness he recognized as his tattered honor stamped the idea into oblivion.
“He’s coming closer. I apologize most profusely, Delilah.”
“For wha-a-a-a—”
He interrupted her query by smoothing his hand down the elegant curve of her spine to cup her buttock. Squeezing the firm mound, he tucked her closer, his cock cradled against the softness of her belly.
Any other gently bred woman would have swooned a thousand times over confronted with the gauntlet fate had assembled for Delilah this evening. The woman in his arms only arched her back and gasped in a distinctly non-horrified way that injected more heat in Marcus’s blood.
The man from the corner retreated, a lecherous smile across his face. It was time to make good their escape, yet he didn’t have the strength to separate them. She was the Delilah to his Samson.
The thought kindled enough humor to get his brain churning on their problems and not the attraction burning between them. His lips moved against her temple. “It’s now or never.”
Her response wasn’t as urgent as he’d hoped. Or rather, it was urgent in an entirely different way. She hummed and clamped her fingers on to the muscle of his shoulder. His eyes closed instinctively as tingles shot to every extremity.
A glance to his right showed a second man had joined the first to watch them. They had fooled the men, but for how long? He scraped his gentlemanly resolve from where it had taken an undignified dive to the pavers and put inches between them.
“Follow me,” he whispered for her benefit. For the men watching, he said, “Let’s fly to your rooms, my ladybird.”
His knees were embarrassingly shaky, which gave his stumbling, weaving gait an unexpected authenticity. In a stroke of good luck, a hackney plodded toward them and stopped to disgorge two very drunk gentlemen. Marcus handed Delilah up, gave the jarvey the address she’d given earlier, and joined her in the stale-smelling cab on the opposite squab. She was silent, giving no clue as to her state of mind. Did she want to kiss him or kill him?
He took her hands and chafed them between his. “How are you bearing up?”
Her voice, when it came, was bitten short with what might be frustration or fury. “Bearing up? My life was a simple one until I met you.”
“Your life had become complicated before I climbed through the window.”
The fight leaked out of her like water in broken crockery. She sagged on the squab and covered her eyes with a hand as if that would help her hide from the reality of her dire situation. “Ugh. You’re right, of course. I only have my bruised feelings to blame.”
“How are your bruised feelings to blame for any of this?”
“I was hiding in that blasted room because I overheard something rather unflattering about myself.”
“Who said what?” All Marcus’s frustration—sexual and otherwise—was directed at whoever had hurt Delilah’s feelings.
“It’s not important. Not anymore.”
He grasped her wrist and pulled her hand away from her eyes. Her gaze met his for an instant before skating away to watch the passing town houses through the grimy window, but for an unguarded moment, he could see the hurt she had been running from.
“It’s important to me.” He forced a calmness he didn’t feel into his voice.
“Is it?” She swung back around to glare at him. “Why? You’re only interested in what I’ve seen and how I can help you clear your father’s name.”
“That’s not entirely true.”
“But it is mostly true.” Bitterness flavored her words. “It seems the gentlemen of London only wish to use me to their ends.”
“Delilah…” What could he say? She was the only one who could identify Quinton’s killer. He had to find the man by whatever means possible.
But that was for the morrow. Tonight his mission was to return Delilah unharmed and unruined. The hack slowed to a stop. The town house was more than respectable and far more elegant than his ramshackle rooms.
When she made a move to push the door open, he barred the way with his arm. “Do you have a plan?”
“I’ll sneak through the gardens and to my room up the servants’ stairs.”
“What excuses will you offer?”
She heaved a sigh and looked over at him, her mouth tight. “I’m a bit out of practice, but I’ll think of something satisfying, I’m sure.”
With that, she was gone in a flash of green.
Chapter 4
Delilah only made it as far as the first step of the servants’ stairs. The quick tap of shoes along the hall was only too familiar. Her mouth dried, and her mind shuffled through excuses, discarding one after another. The risqué dress she wore was a problem she had no idea how to explain away. On the other hand, her bloodied white frock would have been an even bigger problem.
“Where have you been? You disappear from Harrington’s and turn up hours later. I almost had a fit of the vapors,” her mother hissed at her.
“It’s nothing to worry about. I can explain everything.” Two lies told. How many more would leave her lips?
Her mother moved closer, the light from the candle she held spilling onto the shiny green fabric. Delilah’s hand twitched with an urge to imitate a piece of fichu and cover her décolletage.
“Come with me.” Her mother whirled, her flower-embroidered dressing gown whipping around her. Delilah lifted the hem of the too-long dress and followed her mother into the study, which was thankfully absent her father.
“Did anyone see you?” Her mother’s voice was strangely calm as she paced in front of the cold fireplace. Even though her father possessed a fortune, he retained the frugal mentality of a butcher’s son.
“No one.” While it wasn’t strictly true, Marcus wouldn’t count in her mother’s mind. He wasn’t an important member of Society.
“Perhaps we can salvage this.”
“Does Father know?”
“He believes you left early because of a stomach indisposition. Only Lady Casterly and I know you disappeared without a word to anyone.” Her mother stopped, grabbed the edge of the desk, and stared off to the side as if she couldn’t bear to look at Delilah. “Who is he?”
“My dress was ruined. I couldn’t return to the ball without causing a scandal. My new acquaintance procured me this dress and put me in a hackney. Nothing happened.” Delilah swallowed. Even though the bones of her excuse were true, it sounded ridiculous even to her own ears. Had word of the murder reached the gossipmongers? “Was there any excitement after I left?”
Her mother ignored the question to fire back one of her own. “Are you still a maiden?”
“Of course! I’m not ruined.” The half-truth kindled a wildfire in her cheeks.
While she was still a maiden, she was no longer wholly innocent. The feel of Marcus’s bod
y pressed into hers had altered her forever. He had imprinted on her. Yet he hadn’t even kissed her. Much to her shame, she would have welcomed the liberty. She had craved a taking that had never come.
Later, in the darkness of her room, she would dissect every nuance of their embrace, from the tickling of his whiskers against her lips to the delicious grip of his hand on her bottom. For now though, she had to lock the blazing memory away and hope it didn’t burn her to cinders.
“You can be ruined by rumors even if you weren’t ruined by deed,” her mother said with a calm coldness that was more worrisome than anger. No tears or wrath or guilt would be laid on her shoulders? “You missed your dance with Sir Wallace. He was most disappointed.”
Delilah was filled with remorse. Not because of the missed dance, but because she understood the pain her recklessness had inflicted two years ago on top of the toll her brother’s death had taken.
“I’m sorry, Mother,” Delilah said softly, backing toward the door. “It won’t happen again.”
As quick as a snake, her mother took hold of Delilah’s wrist in an implacable grip. “Indeed, it will not. We will never speak of this night again. Go to your room and burn that monstrosity of a dress. It’s obvious to me now that you need a settling hand as soon as possible.”
“What does that mean?” Dread overtook her remorse.
“You need a husband, gel.” Her mother’s demeanor softened, and she touched Delilah’s hair so lightly it felt like a butterfly landing. “Don’t fret. Sir Wallace will make a fine husband, and once you have a babe or two, your life will make sense. You’re too high strung and not at all strong since your illness.”
Her mother had used the same excuse over and over the past two years to keep Delilah under her watchful, protective gaze. Delilah had even been grateful for the mothering she’d received those first months while recovering from the lung malady.
When news of Alastair’s death in Portugal fighting Napoleon arrived while she was in the throes of her own battle, her mother’s grief had transformed into an all-consuming need to keep Delilah safe.
Once Delilah was recovered, however, it hadn’t taken long for her mother’s restraints to chafe, but guilt had kept her obedient.
Until now. She refused to marry Sir Wallace.
“We’ll have callers tomorrow. You need sleep to look your best.” Her mother’s forced lightness grated. “We don’t want Sir Wallace to question your ability to bear him strong sons.”
Her mother spoke from a place of love, but it had been twisted into something ugly. Panic made Delilah want to run away and play pretend the way she had as a child. She missed the easy innocence of the days when her father was a modest merchant, her brother’s laughter boomed from their cottage, and the smell of her mother’s baking would draw her home.
“I’ll go to my room now, Mother.” Delilah slipped away and padded up the stairs.
Thankfully, no servants witnessed her duck inside wearing the garish dress. She struggled to remove the dress, finally wrenching herself free. Kneeling in front of the grate with the fabric spilling from her outstretched hand, she hesitated as the orange glow made the green dress sparkle. A shiver ran through her body. Changing her mind, she folded the dress and tucked it onto a high shelf in her wardrobe.
After slipping into a night rail, Delilah climbed under the covers and closed her eyes, but they immediately popped back open when all she saw was the dead man staring vacantly back at her. Did Quinton have a family who would miss him? A mother, a sister, or perhaps even a wife and children?
She grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest, which summoned a different set of eyes. Green eyes that were very much alive, dancing with mischief and beckoning her with a promise of adventure.
When she finally drifted to sleep, her dreams were plagued with danger and excitement and secrets.
She didn’t rise until noon, and even then she did not feel truly rested. The events of the previous evening took on an unreal cast, as if Delilah had only read about the murder and not semiwitnessed it. Had Marcus been only a dream?
She clambered out of bed and went straight to her wardrobe. The green dress was tucked behind her folded chemises, exactly where she’d left it. A scratch at her bedroom door, as soft as it was, made her heart jump.
“Come in,” she called.
Millie, the lady’s maid hired for the London season, bustled in with a pitcher of water. “Good morning, miss. Are you feeling well enough to dress and receive callers?”
Delilah stumbled over her words. “Erm… Yes, I’m feeling better.”
Millie glanced her direction while filling the basin with steaming water. “Are you sure? Your color is rather high. You’re not feverish, are you?”
The looking glass revealed tangled hair and reddened cheeks as if Delilah had been out walking a windswept countryside without a bonnet. “No, I’m quite well.”
“Your mother said I wasn’t to bother you last night as you were feeling poorly.” It was obvious by the lilt in her voice that Millie hoped for details.
“The ball was hot and crowded, and I felt faint.”
“Your mother made mention of your weak constitution.”
Delilah didn’t feel weak in the least. In fact, her body hummed with energy. She felt alive. Perhaps that’s what seeing death at close quarters did.
Millie bustled to the wardrobe, and Delilah tensed until the maid pulled out a pretty blue frock with pleats along the bodice and embroidered flowers along the hem and cuffs. Her secret remained safe. For now.
After dressing and choking down tea and toast, Delilah commandeered the morning paper from her father’s desk and skimmed the headlines. Nothing about a murder at Lord Harrington’s. Nothing about a suspect in a bloodied white frock.
She dropped the paper to her lap, her hands crinkling the newsprint. Was the lack of news a good or bad omen? Relief and worry battled.
“Everything all right, my dear?” her father asked, peering at her over his spectacles. “Still feeling peaked?”
She pasted on a smile, rose, and kissed his cheek, returning his paper a little worse for wear. “I’m feeling much restored after a good night’s sleep, Father.”
He smiled absentmindedly, the crux of his thoughts always on his business, and returned to scratch in the ledger lying open on the desk. It was a leather-bound affair several inches thick and at least a foot and a half in width. The book stolen from Harrington’s library must be considerably smaller in order to be concealed in a gentleman’s frock coat.
With a final look over her shoulder, Delilah joined her mother in the drawing room to poke a needle through the cloth stretched tightly in her embroidery hoop. Before she realized what she had done, the cow she embroidered had two heads. One uncommonly small, the other freakishly large. She put the work aside and tapped her toe.
What would have satisfied her the day before—sitting quietly with her mother and daydreaming—now knotted her stomach. It wasn’t nerves exactly, but something closer to impatience or anticipation.
What was she expecting to happen? Stumbling upon a scene of murder and intrigue didn’t happen every day, thank goodness. Waiting was a woman’s lot, after all. Waiting for a dance, a visit, a proposal.
She remembered this feeling. This feeling had driven her to explore the moors around their cottage. This feeling had led to pain and suffering for herself and for those she loved. She stilled her foot, took a deep breath, and began to pick out the stitching of the cow’s extra head. She would fix her mistake.
Her mother’s gaze could examine and diagnose as well as any physician. “Perhaps Kirby should inform visitors we’re not receiving.”
“I’m quite well, Mother.”
“Sir Wallace is sure to call and question your whereabouts last evening.”
“Yes, I suppose he will.” She accidently jabbed the needle into her finger. Blood spread on the cloth, turning her bucolic pasture into a scene of carnage.
Kirby opened
the door. “Sir Wallace Wainscott, ma’am.”
Her mother stood, smoothed her skirts, and ran a critical eye over Delilah. “Don’t forget your smile, dear. Men prefer demure, agreeable wives.”
The words sent a shudder through her. Imagining her life as Sir Wallace’s wife left her weak in the knees and sick to her stomach. Nevertheless, she pasted on a smile and put her work aside. Work. As if the sampler would add anything worthy to the world.
Sir Wallace stepped across the threshold wearing a pair of buff-colored breeches, a dark blue frock coat, and a cream waistcoat with a gold stripe. His hair was pomaded into an artful style, and his cravat was so elaborate and high not even his knobby Adam’s apple was visible. No doubt Mr. Brummel would have approved.
At one time, she would have said his expression was aristocratic. Now, he just looked priggish. The angry spark he’d ignited the night before with his ungentlemanly comments turned into a blaze with astonishing speed.
“Ladies.” He performed a courtly bow and stepped forward to take Delilah’s hand for a kiss. “I’ve been aggrieved since I heard you’d taken ill. Indeed, I hardly slept a wink, but you look as fresh as a flower, Miss Bancroft.”
Delilah pulled her hand from his and clenched her skirts to keep from giving into the compulsion to slap the smile off his face. “What kind of flower, pray tell? A blooming lily, or do I remind you of dull, common bird’s-foot?”
His smile faltered. “An English rose, of course, Miss Bancroft.”
Delilah barely stifled a snort. Most likely, Sir Wallace had spent the evening at a gaming hell or brothel with Lord Nash.
Her mother glided over to greet Sir Wallace, her face reflecting her disquiet. After she covered the pleasantries, the three of them took their seats. Delilah sank into a corner of the settee across from Sir Wallace while her mother settled beside her.
Sir Wallace perched on the edge of an armchair, one leg extended as if proud of his slender limb and elaborately embroidered stocking. Although Marcus had been wearing boots, based on the breadth of his shoulders and chest, Delilah could extrapolate and pictured a well-muscled limb to go along with the rest of him.
A SINFUL SURRENDER: Spies and Lovers Page 5