Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 02] (31 page)

Unafraid now, she moved to stand before him. “Here I am,” she murmured. “What will you do to me?”

He cleared his throat, and she thought that she had disconcerted him, but then he put both hands on her shoulders and said, “You behaved very badly.”

“I know,” she said with a sigh. “Of late, my temper just flies away with me, and when I suddenly knew what the pair of you had done …” She spread her hands.

“You had cause, but still you must not lose your temper when others are about. You nearly revealed what you know about the assassination plot. In view of Gabriel’s desire to bring in the army to deal with the wreckers, you simply must not do that.”

“I know. I truly don’t know what came over me. First Elizabeth said she was sure Gabriel knew more about the issues than I do, which is nonsense, and then he said what he did about Wellington being sure to take his advice and order in the army. The urge to prove him wrong was utterly overpowering.”

“Poor angel,” Antony said, looking into her eyes. “You are learning the pitfalls of secrecy. It is quite human to want to puff off one’s knowledge, either to prove one’s point, or to win an argument by hurling an absolute clincher at your opponent. Unfortunately, in my line of work, that can be a deadly flaw in one’s character.”

“How do you avoid it?” she asked, unusually aware of his warm hands on her shoulders, and wondering wickedly how they would feel on other parts of her body.

“I rarely discuss politics, and I try never to commit myself to a fact or point of view. It is too difficult to recall if one learned a detail from a newspaper or from secret sources, or because one was entrusted with a military confidence.”

“I rarely think things through before I speak,” she said, biting her lip.

“You’re blushing,” he said softly. “You did no harm today, but you must try harder to act like a conformable wife, or folks will begin to wonder why I don’t exercise a husband’s authority. You may force me to act in ways you won’t like.”

The implacable note was back in his voice, but this time it did not chill her. She knew he had good reason to issue his warning. He could not allow her to jeopardize his mission. Wellington’s safety must always come first.

She leaned toward him, pressing against the strong hands on her shoulders. “I won’t apologize to Rockland, but must I apologize to Elizabeth again, and to Gabriel?”

“I think perhaps you should return Elizabeth’s call,” he said. “You’ll want to see your grandmother and Lady Ophelia in any event. I’ll take you there myself, I think. It will do Alfred good to see that I’ve not abandoned my claim to the estate.”

“I’m going to Lostwithiel tomorrow,” she said, watching for a reaction.

“So you are,” he said equably. He was still looking into her eyes.

She moistened her lips.

“Charlotte, I—” He broke off, and his lips must have been dry, too, for he licked them.

She pressed closer. “Yes, Antony?”

“Damn,” he said, and his hands slipped from her shoulders and down her back as he drew her closer and kissed her.

This time, although it began the same way, with the pressure of his lips hard against hers, his movements were more urgent than before. His lips felt hot against hers. She could smell the citrus water he put on his face after Hodson shaved him, and she could smell the soft woolen scent of his coat. His breath was warm against her cheek. Then she became aware of changes taking place in her body as his lips softened and moved more caressingly, tantalizing her to respond.

Feeling her lips yield beneath his, she kissed him back hungrily, enjoying the sensation of his hands on her back, one between her shoulder blades now, the other lower, near her waist. He pulled her tight against him. She felt the warmth of his hands and body through the thin material of her frock, and just as ardently, she felt his arousal and comprehended his urgency.

Having bred horses for years, she understood the male sexual urge very well, and had no reason to think it stirred the human male differently from the way it stirred a stallion. Just as stallions were dangerous when the urge was upon them, so too were men, even gentlemen. For that reason, she had long since learned to keep gentlemen at a proper distance and to dampen their ardor when necessary. Until now, she had not had to contend with a husband, of course. And until now, her passions had not formed any part of the equation, for the simple reason that she had felt none.

With Sir Antony, at that moment, the equation altered drastically. She wanted him to kiss her. More than that, she wanted to feel his hands on her body. She wanted him to catch her up in his arms and carry her off to some fortress, like a knight of old in a Gothic romance. When his hands moved, pulling her even tighter against him, and the lower hand moved lower yet, to the flare of her hip, she pressed her mouth against his, inviting him to continue, to do what he would.

The touch of his tongue on her lips was a shock but not an unpleasant one. Daringly, she touched her tongue to his, smiling as she did. He was watching her, and his eyes gleamed with a mixture of amusement and raw lust. When he raised his head a moment later, she pouted.

He chuckled. “This is a dangerous game we play, angel.”

“I know.” Hoping he would not stop, she licked her lips invitingly. “You are my husband, sir. People will think it odd if we never touch each other and always keep a polite distance. I should at least become accustomed to your touch, I think.”

She could have sworn she heard him groan. He said, “I can see how you drove Rockland to distraction.”

“I never said such things to him.”

“Perhaps not, but I don’t doubt that you enticed him one moment and set him at a distance the next. Nor do I doubt that, like me, he wanted to shake you till your teeth rattled one moment and to make love to you the next.”

“Which do you want now?” she asked, looking at him from under her lashes.

In answer, he crushed her against him again and kissed her in such a way that she knew he wanted to possess her. Responding with enthusiasm, she remained certain that she could stop him—and herself—at will.

When he picked her up and carried her to a sofa, sitting with her in his lap, she sighed with pleasure and relaxed against him. Stroking his face with her hand, she delighted in the prickling sensation of his incipient beard against her palm.

He tilted her chin up so he could begin kissing her again, and his fingers tickled her throat as his tongue pressed once more against the opening between her lips.

She parted them willingly, savoring the warmth of him, the tingling shock of invasion. His fingers were warm on her throat, stroking the tender skin there, moving lower to the hollow at its base, then to the topmost ribbon on her bodice. So entranced was she with his tongue’s exploration of her mouth that she scarcely heeded what he was doing until he untied the ribbon, then the chemise ribbon beneath it. Deftly, he laid both garments open.

Feeling the kiss of cool air against her breasts, she gasped, but in her mouth his tongue became more demanding, more possessive, until she responded in kind. She felt fire rushing through her wherever he touched her, and through places where no one had touched her in her life. The sensations overwhelmed her, and when he bared her breasts completely, she felt no embarrassment, only increasing passion. The touch of a finger on the tip of her left breast made her arch her back, demanding more.

Abandoning her mouth, Antony bent his lips to her breast, stirring new fires. Charley moaned. One hand drifted to her lap, his fingers gathering the material of her skirt, raising it higher and higher. Slipping beneath the skirt, his hand inched upward, then stopped. He raised his head. Cooler air caressed her wet nipple, making it tingle.

“What the devil have you got on?” he muttered.

“French drawers,” she said, realizing what he referred to from his impatient tug on the lacy garment. “I bought them in Paris.”

“They’re an infernal nuisance, and damnably in the way.”

Suddenly, she felt nervous and less confident about what they were doing.

“Antony?”

“What?” he shifted his gaze to see her face.

Passion warred with common sense, and she could think of nothing to say.

He kissed the tip of her nose. “You don’t look much like an angel now,” he said. “I doubt that they fly about with their breasts so enticingly displayed.”

She chuckled. “That’s a sacrilegious comment, if not a profane one, sir. If this were Spain you’d have to answer to the Inquisition for such impudence.”

“If we were in Spain, you’d have been hanged long ago for witchcraft.”

“I’m not a witch!”

“Are you not? You’ve cast a witch’s spell, I think.” As he bent his head, his intention clearly to begin again where he had left off, monkey chatter in the hall startled them both. Moving so quickly that her fist caught the point of his chin, Charley snatched the two bits of her gown together, tying the uppermost ribbon faster than she had thought possible, despite being dumped without ceremony onto the sofa seat.

Antony stood, then sat again immediately, taking time only to snatch up the book Charley had heaved at him earlier. He laid it open over his lap.

Charley stifled a giggle as the door opened and Letty came in with Jeremiah perched as usual on her shoulder.

“Hello,” she said, looking from one to the other.

“Hello, yourself,” Antony said. “Were you looking for one of us?”

She seemed to be examining them, and for an awkward moment, Charley wondered if she could possibly know what they had been doing. She dismissed the thought just before Letty’s gaze came to rest upon her breast. The child said, “I am not certain if this is the sort of thing one mentions or not, Cousin Charley, but your chemise ribbon is poking out between two of your bodice laces.”

Taking care to avoid Antony’s gaze, Charley looked down and said with commendable aplomb, “Good mercy, so it is! How very untidy!” She tucked the white silk ribbon back into its proper place, adding, “Before I wear this frock again, I shall have Kerra replace the ribbons on my shift with ones to match this gray satin. Then I shan’t worry about being embarrassed before company. I certainly hope,” she added, “that it hasn’t been poking out like that all afternoon. I should never be able to look Rockland or Mr. Gabriel in the eye again.”

“It wasn’t,” Letty said, eyeing her shrewdly. “I’d have observed it before if it were. It must have worked its way out while I was in the kitchen.”

“I’ll wager you did not come in here to assure yourself that my ribbons were in place,” Charley said, sensing repressed laughter in her companion and again taking good care not to look at him. “What did you want, darling?”

Letty glanced at Antony, then sighed and said, “I know curiosity is a vulgar habit, because Grandpapa Jervaulx has told me so times without number—nearly every time I ask him a question in fact. But I have observed that if one does not indulge in some curiosity, one frequently does not find out what one wants to know. The truth is that I heard you shouting. Then there was utter silence, so I wondered—”

“Yes?” Antony prompted.

“If there had been murder done.”

Both Antony and Charley burst out laughing, but their moment of intimacy was over. Charley tried to convince herself that she was relieved, but she knew she was deceiving herself. Antony had awakened a new curiosity, and as Letty had so kindly pointed out, curiosity, once stirred, rarely slept until knowledge had quenched it.

After dinner that evening, expecting Antony to go out again, she retired to her dressing room and sat down at the dressing table to let Kerra take down her hair and brush it out. The task was half completed when Antony strolled in through the doorway from her bedchamber.

Charley nearly betrayed her shock before she saw him wink.

“Good evening, sir,” she said, hoping her voice sounded calmer than she felt. “I thought you were going out.”

“Not tonight, my dear, though I do have some matters of business to attend to before I can retire for the night. I did hope for a private word with you before then.”

She had relaxed, but these words brought tension flooding back. Keeping her poise with difficulty, she said, “You may go, Kerra. I’ll ring when I want you again.” When the maid had gone, she exclaimed, “Good mercy, I might have been half-dressed! What were you thinking?”

“I knew there had not been time for that,” he said, smiling.

Picking up the brush Kerra had set down, she said more sharply than she had intended, “And just how long does it take a lady to disrobe, Master Expert?”

“Sheathe your claws, my lioness. Rockland hit the mark there, I must say.”

“I hope you did not tell him so after I left the room.”

“You know I did not,” he said, reaching to stroke her hair. When her startled gaze met his in the looking glass, he said gently, “You hit the mark, too, you know, when you said we had better grow accustomed to touching each other if people are to accept our marriage as a normal one. By the same token, the servants must begin to observe that we are developing some intimacy between us. Hodson knows the truth, for there’s precious little I’ve kept from him over the years, and your woman may have guessed, but the rest of the servants must not, and they’ll soon know something’s amiss if we don’t exert ourselves to pull the wool over their eyes.”

“If you think I’m going to sleep in your bed to convince them, you’d best think again,” Charley said.

“That’s what I thought,” he replied. When she gasped, he chuckled and said, “Not that you should sleep there, that you had not intended me to think you would.”

She bit her lip, realizing no one could blame him if he had assumed from her behavior earlier that she wanted to share his bed. Even now she was not certain of her feelings about that, one way or another.

Leaning a shoulder against the wall, he folded his arms across his chest, watching her for a long moment before he said, “There is something I think you ought to know.”

“What?”

“I think that although your experience is limited, your curiosity is boundless. It occurred to me that since we are legally married, and since after the annulment you do not intend to marry again, you might come to believe a certain opportunity exists to explore and satisfy that curiosity.”