by Lauren Smith
By the fifth dance her feet were aching, but Joanna couldn’t have cared less. Dancing with Brock had erased her black mood. She’d been smiling, laughing, not caring in the least about the attention focused upon her as each dance progressed. Only when the music stopped did she finally feel the hundreds of eyes upon her and the whispers spreading like wildfire in the crowd.
“No wonder she hasn’t found a match. Five dances…”
“Must be his mistress…”
“Too improper, dancing with that Scotsman…”
“Her mother will be ashamed…”
Everywhere Joanna looked there was judgment and callous disregard for her feelings. What had she been thinking? Courting scandal by dancing with him? Even if this scared off Edmund Lindsey, was it truly worth it? What of the gossip that would hound her in hushed whispers wherever she went? A man like Brock wouldn’t marry her. She was simply a toy for a reckless Highland lord to play with when it suited him. Just kisses in libraries at midnight and dances to stir the scandal sheets.
“Lass…” Brock whispered, holding out his hand.
She stared at him, and before she could think twice, she’d wound back one hand and slapped him hard across the face. The assembly hall fell into a silence punctuated by the violins coming to a halt when the players dragged their bows discordantly over the strings. Everyone, it seemed, was gaping at her. Brock didn’t move, didn’t so much as flinch, even though a soft red shade was forming on his cheek.
Oh Lord, why in heavens did I do that?
The thought made her hysterical enough that she was torn between laughing and crying. She’d just slapped Brock in front of half the ton. If she wasn’t going to be at the top of the scandal sheets for dancing too long with him, she’d surely end up there now for striking him in public.
Joanna turned and fled. She was going to be the laughingstock of all England.
She flew down the steps to the front of the assembly hall and onto the street, clutching her reticule as she prayed her family wouldn’t notice her absence. But how could they not? Everyone had been staring at her by the end of the fifth dance, and then she’d gone and slapped Brock in front of them all.
She waved at a hackney driver a dozen feet away. He picked up his whip and gave a gentle flick to his horses and headed toward her. A breath of relief escaped her.
I can go home and forget about tonight…I hope…
Just then, someone grabbed her from behind, a hand covering her mouth. She yelped as she was raised up and shoved into the coach she had summoned.
“Oi! What are you doin’?” the driver shouted.
“Just take us to Finchley Street! I’ll pay double the regular fare,” the man who held her said. Joanna stilled for a brief instant as she realized that the man who’d grabbed her was Brock.
“How dare you?” She tried to escape, but Brock blocked her path as he climbed inside with her.
“Hold that temper, lass. I’m not going to harm you, which is more than you did for me back there,” Brock snapped. His hands captured hers, pinning them to either side of her head against the cushions behind her on the seat.
“Let me go, Lord Kincade,” she demanded. His handsome face was a mask of moonlight and shadows in the dim coach interior as his lips curved into a grin.
“Not just yet. You and I need to talk.” The smile faded, and he looked deadly serious now. If he hadn’t been holding her wrists, she would have slapped him again.
“Talk? You should have talked to me a month ago. But no, you left me tied up in a library and kidnapped my brother’s fiancée!”
“I didna kidnap her. I was rescuing her,” he corrected.
“Well, you might have been rescuing her, but you left me,” she said with a growl. “You cannot go around kissing ladies like that with no consideration for their feelings. And then you convinced me to dance and you danced so wonderfully that I forgot to stop and now everyone is talking because you’re a known skirt chaser and a rogue, and then I slapped you and it will be all over the papers tomorrow. I’m ruined, and it is entirely your fault…” She struggled to get free, fury raging through her, but she couldn’t get him to let go.
“Lassie, you talk too much.” That was the only warning she had before his mouth slanted over hers and the world exploded around her in delicious sinful fire for the second time in her life.
3
Brock smiled against Joanna’s lips as she melted against him. She was just as wonderful as he remembered. He kept her wrists pinned against the back of the coach for a moment longer until he felt her surrender to his kiss. When he released her, she curled her arms around his neck. Every time his mouth covered hers, he felt unable to get enough of her natural sweetness or the dreamy intimacy that settled around them as they embraced. His stomach flipped with boyish excitement as he pressed against her. He had his lovely English lass back in his arms where she belonged.
In the month since he’d first met her and had to abandon her to rescue his sister, he had been reliving that heated encounter in the library of Joanna’s country home. He had vowed to come back for her to make her his.
The time had come at last.
He longed for a bride, one who could share his bed, make him laugh and smile with her lively talk and brilliant mind, and whose dowry would help repair his crumbling castle. Joanna was that woman. But there was a problem—her brother would kill him if he asked for her hand in marriage. They were on civil terms after the matter with Rosalind, but they could not be considered friends.
So how then to get his beautiful blonde siren away from her protective guard dog of a brother and his damned band of rogues?
An elopement, perhaps? Yes, that would do nicely. A race to Scotland. He knew the roads better than any Englishman and could travel faster, even with Joanna in tow, assuming he could convince her to marry him.
“Brock,” Joanna whispered against his mouth between kisses. “You are…the most wicked man I’ve ever met.” Her breathless accusation held no real venom, only sensual delight and surprise.
“I’ve not even started to kiss you properly,” he said with a chuckle, brushing the backs of his fingers over her cheek.
She gazed up at him. “You haven’t?” Those blue eyes, deep and mysterious as the loch by his castle back home, were so damned lovely and wide-eyed with innocence.
A bone-deep ache grew inside him whenever he looked at her. This wasn’t simple lust; she filled him with a longing for things he’d dared not to dream of since he was a lad. She was a ray of sunlight, a hearty laugh, a wink and a smile all rolled together. She was everything good and pure in life, and he wanted her—wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything before.
She must be mine, at any cost. It was a greedy thought, he knew, to think he could possess her when he didn’t deserve such a beacon of light in his life, and once she realized she was kissing a damned devil she would hate him. Yet he couldn’t bear to face that truth just yet.
His father’s cruelty had destroyed so much of him that even his heart was made of stone.
“When I kiss you properly, lass, you will know.” He nuzzled her throat before he pressed a slow, languid kiss above her collarbone. She sucked in a breath, struggling against his hold, but it wasn’t an attempt to get free—it was an attempt to get closer.
“Where are we going?” she asked between gasps as he moved his lips back up to her throat.
“To my home, at least for now. My brothers and I are sharing a residence on Finchley Street for the duration of the festivities.”
“Your…home?” Some of the drowsy lust in her voice faded. “No, we mustn’t…”
This time when she fought his hold, he allowed her to pull herself free. She shrank away from him on their shared seat. “You must take me home at once.”
“Joanna,” he whispered. “Surely you know why I have come.”
“For Rosalind’s wedding,” she said coldly.
“That is only one reason. The other is you.” He reached for her, bu
t she slapped his hand away.
“You left me alone for a month! You kissed me and left me without a word! And now you want me to believe that you’re here for me? I doubt you thought of me at all before you saw me at the assembly.”
The hurt in her eyes wounded him, but there was no way to make her understand. The night they had met had been dangerous, and he couldn’t have done anything more than kiss her. He could not have made it back to Scotland with both Joanna and his sister. And he could not have written to her or sent word, because her brother no doubt had been watching her ever since that night.
Brock had convinced himself—or tried to—that leaving her alone was better, that she belonged with a man who could love her. But he had been a damned fool to think that he could stay away from her, though, not once he saw her again.
“Marry me,” he blurted out.
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“Let me take you to Scotland, make you a proper bride.”
She gazed at him, mute, trying to process his words. “But…” He could see the indecision in her eyes.
“We still have two days before the wedding. You dinna have to decide now.” He opened the coach window and gave the driver her brother’s address. Once the coach turned around, he sat back on the seat across from her and tried to remind himself that she needed time. Taking her into his arms for another kiss wouldn’t necessarily change her mind. Women needed more than passion in their lives; they needed stability, a common ground. He could offer none of that. His past had been vastly different and far harsher than hers. But it didn’t stop him from wanting her enough that it made him ache inside to think of letting her go.
When he and his brothers had arrived for the wedding, he’d hoped to see her sooner, but her damned brother had kept her safely away each time he’d tried to visit, though always making it seem coincidental. Even with their differences settled there was a cat-and-mouse game of civility between them. It had only been luck that he’d seen Ashton disappearing out of the assembly hall when Joanna had approached him to dance; otherwise, he never would have had the chance to talk to her, let alone share five dances with her. He’d expected her brother to storm in at any moment and drag her away, but he hadn’t. The overprotective fool had slipped up in Brock’s favor, but Brock wasn’t stupid enough to believe that Ashton wouldn’t figure out where his sister had gone and who had chased after her.
He knows I want her, and he’s protecting her, just as I tried to protect my sister from him. Brock was never one to enjoy situations of irony, and this one made him want to punch a stone wall.
“Why do you want to marry me?” she asked after a long silence.
“Why?” he echoed, confused.
“Yes. Why? Do you love me?”
He stumbled in his response. “Well… I mean…”
“Right, you don’t, because we don’t even know each other. Marriage should be based on love, not lust.”
He laughed. “Love? Lass, you are far too innocent. I’ve met only a few people who ever married for love, and those marriages didn’t end well.” His parents had married for love, but his father’s greed for power had been stronger than his love, and it had broken his mother’s heart. He would never forget what she’d told him only a few days before she died.
“Love, true love, fills the heart so completely that there is no room left for hate or greed. I thought I was enough for your father, but I wasn’t…”
Brock didn’t believe he could ever love someone that much—not because he didn’t want to but because his heart had been hardened by hate and anger. It was weighed down with stones of the past. There was a darkness inside him, one that he could not banish. A man like him could never be filled with love and nothing else. Because if he did love fully and all-consuming, whoever held his heart would make him pay dearly for it. She would crush him the way his mother had been crushed. His spirit would be broken and his will to live destroyed when he would not be loved back. Joanna was a danger to him, and she didn’t even know it. She could leave Scotland, return to her family and friends in London, and leave his castle empty and his heart in pieces on the floor. No…if they married, he would have her heart and body, and she would have his body and affection, but no love. It was too dangerous.
“I won’t marry you.” Her soft reply stung worse than any blade sinking into his chest. He hadn’t expected her to reject him.
He had been listening tonight at the assembly hall, had heard the mocking whispers that she would never find a husband, that something was wrong with her.
There was nothing wrong with Joanna. What was wrong was that the damned Sassenachs thought their women should be meek as lambs and silly as geese. Sweet Joanna was fierce, intelligent, and had her own mind, and those bloody English fools knew it.
“I’ll ask you again after the wedding,” he said as the coach stopped at Lord Lennox’s residence.
She frowned, and the furrow between her brows made her look adorable. “I won’t change my answer.”
He smiled. “You might. A man can hope.” He opened the coach door and assisted her down, holding her close as he set her on her feet. She stared up at him, her blue eyes like dark pools beneath the muted light of the streetlamps. A loose curl of pale-blonde hair brushed the tops of her breasts, and he slowly stroked her silken strands back with his fingers. Her breasts rose in response as she took in a sharp breath.
“Sleep well, fair Joanna, and dream of me tonight.”
She scowled. “I most certainly will not.”
He cupped her chin, tilted her head back, and feathered a lingering kiss on her lips before he stepped back and climbed into the coach. “Aye, you will.”
She would change her mind. Brock had two days to convince her that marrying him was something she wanted. He would be a good and loyal husband, and he would see her well cared for and well satisfied, in bed and out.
So long as I can keep her safe from my family’s past.
He hadn’t forgotten what Rosalind had shared with him. Their father, Montgomery Kincade, had betrayed his fellow Scotsmen by helping an English spy assassinate the leaders of a rebellion more than twenty years before. That spy was still alive, and Brock’s father had threatened him with proof of their dealings being made public before he died. Rosalind had found that proof and had given it to Ashton to use against their sworn enemy. Instead, Ashton had chosen to burn it to protect her.
Brock didn’t believe that was enough. He didn’t trust the English, and he fully believed that the Kincade family and anyone they cared about would be in grave danger if the truth about their father ever came to light. He had to find a way to protect his family and his future bride from the bloody hands reaching through the mists of time, hoping to drag him down into darkness. But how could he stop a powerful English spy or his own countrymen if they cried out for vengeance?
I am not my father. I will not hurt Joanna. I will protect her with everything that I have.
Edmund Lindsey held the glass of ratafia, frowning as he searched for any sign of Joanna Lennox in the ballroom. He’d gotten used to finding her quickly in a crowd over the last few months. She was taller than most ladies, and her pale-blonde hair was like a shining beacon beneath the chandeliers.
“Lindsey, you continue to disappoint me,” a cold voice said from behind him. Edmund spun to face a handsome aristocrat with dark hair and even darker eyes. The man had appeared from a shadowed corner of the ballroom, unseen by the nearby guests. Edmund glanced about, expecting to spot a door or some pathway to explain the man’s sudden appearance, but there was no such place from which he could have emerged. It reminded him of just how skilled the man was and that he was not to be trifled with.
“Sir Hugo.” He bowed his head at the man who had been sending him his orders for the last three months. Those orders had been clear—that he must seduce and marry Joanna Lennox. How he had found himself in that position was a matter he preferred not to dwell upon.
“I did not spend my
time and resources trying to convince the eligible bachelors in the country to avoid Miss Lennox just so you could somehow drive her off.”
Edmund tried to puff up his chest, taking some professional pride in his abilities. “I am on the verge of winning her over. In fact, I was about to ask her for a moment alone so I might confess to some of our shared interests—the ones you so kindly provided.”
“That will be difficult, seeing as she is no longer here. She fled with that Scottish brute, Kincade. It’s been three months. I was informed you had ways of winning women over, but it appears those rumors are simply that—rumors.”
The verbal slight didn’t go unmissed. Edmund would have thrown the ratafia in any other man’s face, but not Hugo Waverly. Waverly held power far beyond what his title would suggest. If it hadn’t been for the excellent funding he had received from the man, Edmund would never have taken this task on.
“Perhaps I should have picked a more aggressive man to woo her,” Hugo said, then looked Edmund up and down. “Taller as well. But I thought by now she would be more desperate. I had dearly hoped to see her shadowed with self-pity as she accepted your proposal. It seems I miscalculated either her desperation or your effectiveness.”
Edmund knew better than to react to such an insult. He knew he was attractive, and while not particularly bulky in muscle, he offered pleasure to any woman in his bed. Plenty of women had learned quickly enough that what he lacked in height he made up for in other ways. Yet Joanna had not even given him the chance to show her his charms. The little chit could barely contain her open dislike of him, and it filled him with a frustration that he barely concealed in his polite manners. Such constant rejection was no good for one’s self-esteem.
“It’s clear she will not choose me,” Edmund confessed. Oddly enough, saying the words out loud came with a strange sort of relief. “Perhaps you ought to bribe the Scot?”
Waverly’s cruel mouth twisted with a venomous smile.
“I’m afraid the Scot is not for sale. But you have given me an excellent idea. I had intended for you to make her miserable as a husband, but perhaps my plans were not ambitious enough. But that man’s father and I have a history. It opens certain…possibilities.”