Stepping away from the window, Temperance lifted a brow. “Are you expecting anyone else?”
“But we are not ready yet!” Lynette cried as a wave of panic descended upon her. “This is a disaster.” Here she’d been wanting to put her best foot forward with her future mother-in-law and show her how organized and competent she was. Instead, with Delilah missing and the packing not yet finished she was going to do the exact opposite!
“You know,” Temperance said thoughtfully as she watched Lynette dash around the room tossing things willy nilly into trunks, “I cannot recall ever seeing you so flustered.
“Put some shoes on,” Lynette ordered, “and try not to say anything that could be interpreted as rude or outlandish. In fact, best not to say anything at all.”
“Am I supposed to hold my tongue for the entire trip?” Temperance asked as she followed Lynette out of the bedroom and down the stairs.
“If you can manage it. And do not forget-”
Without warning the front door flew open, allowing a torrent of rain and wind to blow inside the foyer. Stumbling back a step, Lynette caught her balance on the banister. Gripping it tightly, she descended the final few steps with Temperance right on her heels. When she saw who had opened the door, her jaw dropped in shock. When she saw what he was holding, it dropped even further.
“L-Lord Townsend? What are you doing here? And what is that?”
Shaking himself off, Nathaniel stepped into the foyer, his broad shoulders and the top of his hat nearly scraping against the doorframe. “I thought I would come and see how the packing was going. And this” - extending his arms, he held out a wriggling wet ball of black and white fur - “is my engagement gift to you.”
Seeing Lynette’s shocked expression, Nathaniel couldn’t help but grin. “Go on,” he encouraged when she remained frozen in place in front of the staircase. “He will not bite.”
“How do you know it is a he?” she asked as she stepped forward and tentatively took the puppy from him. Soulful brown eyes briefly met his before the puppy clambered up Lynette’s chest and put its tiny front paws on her shoulder, leaving a trail of muddy prints across the front of her dress.
“Because we have already named him Mr. Humphrey,” Delilah said excitedly as she dashed in from outside. Bouncing up beside Lynette, she cooed at the small puppy before grinning up at her sister. “Isn’t he darling? I am afraid I frightened him and he got stuck in a fence, but then Lord Townsend came and got him out! He came up with the name.”
Glancing dazedly between Delilah and the puppy, who had since closed his eyes and was now softly snoring, Lynette lifted her head and met Nathaniel’s amused stare. “You - you named a dog Mr. Humphrey?”
“Is there something wrong with that?”
“No I - I suppose not.”
How charmingly disheveled she looked, with her silky hair done up in a fanciful coiffure and a muddy puppy asleep in her arms. It made him want to sweep her up in his arms and kiss her senseless. A foolish thought, Nathaniel chided himself. Almost as foolish as rescuing a dirty rat of a dog and giving it to his fiancée as an engagement present. He hadn’t even intended to see Lynette until the end of the week, let alone give her a puppy. Yet here he was, looking for all the world like a dimwitted bounder who couldn’t let another hour go by without seeing his intended.
Ridiculous.
He should have stayed away as he had originally planned, but he’d wanted - needed - to see her and now that they were standing a mere two feet away from one another and he could smell the faint, alluring scent of her perfume he was forced to admit (albeit reluctantly and only to himself) that he’d made the right decision. One glance at her delectable body as he stepped through the front door and he’d gone hard as a rock. He wanted to see if her lips tasted as sweet as he remembered. To discover how quickly he could tease her nipples to two hard points of arousal. To take-
“Do you think Mr. Humphrey has any siblings?” Delilah asked.
Not the time or the place to be fantasizing about your wife-to-be, Blackbourne, he told himself sternly as he ran a hand down his face. Bloody hell, but Lynette made his blood boil as no other woman ever had. And the only thing they’d done was kiss! Which was, he reflected as Lynette and her sisters searched for a basket to put the puppy in, most likely the reason behind his unnatural and obsessive need to see her before she departed for Dunhill.
After he’d left his parent’s house she’d been the only thing he could think about. Try as he might, he had been unable to get the scent of her out of his head. He did not even know what her perfume was, only that its soft, subtle scent still lingered in his bed long after she had left it.
“Can I speak to you for a moment?” His voice was rough. Deep. Guttural. He cleared his throat. “Please.”
“Of course.” Gently passing the puppy off to one of her sisters, Lynette bade him follow her into the adjoining parlor which was, Nathaniel noted as he stepped inside and nudged the door closed with his heel, nearly devoid of all furniture. His fiancée had certainly been busy over the past three days. There were rectangular spots on the walls where paintings had once hung and scratches on the hardwood floor where sofas and chairs had once sat. Even the curtains were gone; stripped away from the windows to offer a clear view of the street outside. “Did you move everything yourself?” he queried as he walked a slow circle around the room, his boots echoing in the empty space.
“Yes,” she said. “Well, Temperance and Delilah helped, of course.”
He turned his back to the mantle to face her, mouth stretching down into a frown as he imagined her struggling to drag furniture from one room to the next. “You should not have done all of this yourself. You could have been hurt.”
“From lifting a chair?” With a tiny smile, she shook her head. “I do not even think that would be possible.”
“Once you are at Dunhill, you will not need to lift a finger. You and your sisters will each have your own personal attendant who shall be at your beck and call night and day. Just do not summon them with a bell when my sister is about,” he added wryly as he thought of Annabel’s latest cause.
“I – I am afraid I do not understand,” she said, brow creasing in bewilderment.
“I don’t either. Is there anything else you need done?” His gaze once more skimmed the empty parlor before settling on Lynette. With her dark hair pulled loose around her shoulders and her dress covered in paw prints and a fretful expression on her countenance, she looked delightfully unraveled. He preferred her like this, he thought. A bit flushed and unsettled. Without making a conscious decision to do so, he took a step in her direction.
Her eyes widened.
“You are looking at me in that way again,” she said in a soft, breathy voice that sent ripple of hot, lusty desire shooting straight down to his loins.
“Am I?” he said huskily as he took another step, and then another, until they were standing chest to chest in the middle of the parlor and Lynette was forced to tilt her head back, exposing the creamy column of her throat as she met his searing gaze.
“Yes and I – I would rather you didn’t.”
“Would you?” Amused by her visible reaction to his nearness, he reached out and captured one long, silky tendril between his fingers. His forehead creased as he rubbed it slowly back and forth. “I have not been able to get you out of my mind,” he murmured, sounding as perplexed as he felt. “Have you been thinking about me as I’ve been thinking about you?”
She inhaled sharply when he dropped her hair in favor of slipping his hand around the back of her neck. “This is really neither the time nor the place,” she protested – rather weakly, in Nathaniel’s opinion – as he lowered his head and grazed his lips across her sensitive earlobe.
“I am afraid I have to disagree with you, my little wife-to-be.” He kissed her flush across the mouth, tongue darting between her lips to suckle the sweet nectar of her tongue before she was fully aware of what he was doing. For an instant s
he resisted, her shoulders tensing beneath the weight of his hands, before with a soft, moaning sigh she melted into his grasp.
He could tell by the tentative, almost shy sweeps of her tongue that she was inexperienced. Almost painfully so. But instead of dampening his desire for her, her innocence only served to inflame it to a fever pitch.
She clutched the nape of his neck as the kiss deepened, her small nails digging furrows in his flesh. Tilting his head he changed the angle of his head and drew hard on her bottom lip with his teeth before soothing the bite with a gentle lick of his tongue that drew a sigh from deep inside of her throat.
“Nathaniel,” she moaned as her body writhed against his. “Oh, Nathaniel…”
The sound of his name spoken in a moment of hazy passion was nearly his undoing. He’d already been imagining how easy it would be to take her on the floor. To sate his hunger for her with one long, slow, easy thrust as he soothed her tiny whimpers of discomfort with his lips and teeth and tongue. He knew the first time for her would not be pleasant, and he was eager to have it out of the way so they could enjoy one another in equal measure. Once they did, he was certain his need for her would disappear and she would no longer consume his every thought. He would be free of the wicked spell she’d cast on him… and their arranged marriage would be precisely as he wanted it: one without any undue emotion or jealousy or one of the other hundred or so odd maladies that plagued his friends now that they were married to shrewish, controlling women.
Dimly he registered that Lynette’s lips had gone firm beneath his and he opened his eyes to find her staring at him. With a muttered curse he stepped back, and after fixing the bodice of her dress and skimming a hand through her tousled hair she did the same.
“What were you thinking about just then?” she demanded. “You went somewhere else.”
“Nonsense,” he scoffed. “I am here, am I not?”
“But you weren’t. A second ago, you were gone.” Her mouth bowed in a hesitant frown. “You were kissing me, and then you disappeared.”
One eyebrow lifted in feigned amusement even as he wondered how someone who had known him for less than fraction of his life could already possess so much insight into his character. The truth was Nathaniel often did withdraw inside of himself, if only to puzzle out a perplexing problem until he was able to find a suitable solution. “Did I, now?”
She nodded. “You did. You also said you could not get me out of your mind as if – well, as if it were a bad thing. But wouldn’t it be something good? I realize we did not enter this engagement in the typical fashion-”
“On the contrary, our engagement is nothing if not typical, especially by the standards of the ton.” Best set the guidelines here and now, he thought as he met her uncertain gaze. He’d intended to wait until after she was settled at Dunhill, but what better time than the present to reiterate what this marriage between them was going to be… and what it was not? “I need something from you, and you need something from me. That makes this an arrangement of sorts, and the marriage ceremony will serve as our binding contract. Let me make myself clear, Lynette. I am not marrying you out of some sort of sentiment or affection or because I believe we may one day come to love one another. I am doing it because I want a wife who understands, as you do, that those things are a waste of time and energy. I will not be told what I may do and when I may do it. When we are married, I shall exert just as much control over my own life as I always have and I shall expect you to respect the boundaries between us. If you cannot, if you think to take more from this union of ours than I am willing to give, then it is best if we end the engagement here and now. I will give you and your sister’s means with which to support yourselves, and we need never speak again.” Even as he said the words aloud, the mere thought of never seeing Lynette again left a bitter taste in his mouth. He ignored it. “Well? What will it be?”
She was quiet for a moment. Her head canted to one side as her gaze flicked to the far wall, causing a long sable curl to tumble loose from what remained of her coiffure and fall upon one creamy white shoulder. The juxtaposition of silky black hair against alabaster skin was unbelievably arousing, and to his disbelief Nathaniel felt himself growing hard once again. Hell, he hoped she still wanted to get married if only because he feared he would soon explode if he couldn’t have her. “Lynette?”
“Yes,” she said finally as she lifted her eyes to his. “Yes, I still want to marry you. Yes, I still understand the terms of our arrangement. Now if you will excuse me, I need to change before your mother and sister arrive. Oh, and Nathaniel?” Her sweet smile belied by the sudden harness of her gaze, she narrowed her eyes until they were little more than slivers of glittering brown. “Need I remind you that thus far the only one who has shown any signs of sentiment and affection is you?” Without giving him time to answer, she picked up her skirts and stormed from the parlor.
CHAPTER TEN
So Nathaniel wanted a marriage without affection, did he? A marriage without sentiment or love? Silently seething, Lynette dug through the trunks she’d already packed until she found a suitable dress to replace the one Mr. Humphrey had muddied with his tiny wet paws. Well then maybe he shouldn’t have come here to begin with! And he certainly shouldn’t have given her a dog of all things. And he definitely should not have kissed her!
If anyone was in danger of breaking their agreement, it was him, not her.
Control him? She wasn’t going to try to control him.
She didn’t even know him!
And yet they were soon to be married.
“What if I am making a horrible mistake,” Lynette whispered as she studied her reflection in the one looking glass she’d left hanging on the wall. “What is done cannot be undone. Once I marry him… once I marry him he will be my husband.”
Forever.
She couldn’t make herself speak the word aloud, but it bubbled up into her sub consciousness nevertheless. Married forever to someone who had all but vowed never to love her. Married forever to someone she feared she was perilously close to falling in love with… even though she wasn’t at all certain if she even liked him.
Nathaniel Blackbourne was a complex man. Charming one moment, distant the next. Burning hot and then freezing cold. He’d said he didn’t want his life to change once they were married, and yet he was voluntarily leaving his townhouse to live in the country for the benefit of her and her sisters.
Who was the real Nathaniel, she wondered as she finished fixing her hair. The one who had just delivered such a crushing speech? Or the one who had risked his own life to save hers? Was he the man so adamantly opposed to love he’d gone out of his way to marry a veritable stranger? Or was he the one so filled with sentimental conviction that he’d arranged for her to travel to Dunhill with his mother and sister so that they might get to one each other before the wedding?
“Well,” she said as she gave her appearance a final study, “I suppose I am soon to find out.”
As if on cue a second knock sounded at the door, indicating the countess and her daughter had finally arrived. Squaring her shoulders, Lynette forced herself to take tiny, ladylike steps as she descended the staircase. To her relief, she discovered both Delilah and Temperance appeared to be on their best behavior as they introduced themselves to an older woman with a round face whose brown hair was threaded liberally with gray. Beside her stood a young lady with Nathaniel’s honey blonde curls and green eyes, although her face was far more slender and there was a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks.
“Hello.” Stepping down off the final stair, Lynette walked towards her future in-laws with her hand graciously extended. “It is a pleasure to meet you. Lady Townsend.” She dipped into one flawless curtsy. “Lady Annabel.” And another. No sooner had she straightened then she found both her hands captured by Lady Townsend’s surprisingly strong grip.
“Let me have a look at you,” said the countess. Pursing her lips, she examined Lynette from top to bottom,
her expression inscrutable. For an older woman she was still quite handsome, although age was visible in the lines fanning out from the corners of her eyes and the sides of her chin. With a pang, Lynette wondered if this was how her mother would have looked had Agatha lived beyond the age of fifty-two.
“Lovely,” Lady Townsend said at last as the stern line of her mouth unfolded into a smile. “Positively lovely. I can see why my son is so taken with you, Miss Lynette.”
“Thank you,” Lynette said automatically, even as she questioned the validity of the countess’ statement. “And where is Lord Townsend?” she couldn’t help but ask as her gaze flicked around the foyer. Dressed in their cloaks and ready for departure, Temperance and Delilah were standing by the door with Mr. Humphrey fast asleep in a basket between them, Lady Annabel had wandered into the parlor, and Nathaniel was nowhere to be seen.
“I fear he had to depart,” Lady Townsend said with a fluttering wave of her hand. “Business of some sort or another. As I am sure you are already well aware, Miss Lynette, your husband-to-be is not a man in possession of idle hands. Always busy as a bee, that one. Not that he has to be, mind you.”
“What Mother is trying to say,” Annabel interrupted as she returned to the foyer, “is that my brother is very wealthy and has no reason to continue making money other than the sheer pleasure of adding to the fortune he already has.”
“Annabel,” Lady Townsend said, her cheeks flushing a dark, mottled purple as she glared at her daughter. “That is quite enough.”
“What?” Annabel said in an innocent, airy tone that reminded Lynette very much of Temperance. “I am only speaking the truth.”
“Be that as it may,” Lady Townsend said through gritted teeth, “one does not discuss financial matters outside the privacy of one’s household. Do excuse my daughter. She has not yet made her debut into society and is a bit more…free with her tongue then she ought to be at times, I fear.”
For the Love of Lynette Page 14