Captured by a Gentleman (Regency Unlaced 6) (6 page)

“A question I would also like an answer to.”

Darcy snorted her exasperation. “I have just given you one.”

“But you did not deny or confirm you are an innocent,” Ranulf mused under his breath as he stepped close to her.

Close enough that he could see how dark her eyes had become as she gazed up at him, the pupil melting into the dark brown.

Close enough that he was able to lift his hand and touch her creamy soft cheek and see the way she flinched at the familiarity but did not move away.

Close enough that he could grasp her chin as the soft pad of his thumb ran lightly over her slightly moist and parted lips. To feel the way they trembled beneath his touch.

Close enough Ranulf could see firsthand how quickly her breasts now rose and fell as she breathed shallowly.

Close enough that he could breathe in her perfume, a combination of flowers and an increasingly heady musk he believed accompanied Darcy’s increasing awareness of both his touch and him.

Innocent or viper?

At that moment, Ranulf had no interest in deciding whether or not she was either of those things.

Or both.

Darcy remained unmoving as she realized Ranulf was about to kiss her.

Ranulf.

The man who had accused her of possibly wishing to do him and his property harm.

The same man, even though he’d been about to marry her cousin, Darcy had daydreamed and fantasized about kissing since she first saw him a year ago. The same man who had filled her nighttime dreams with longings and feelings which caused her to wake in the morning with aching and sensitized breasts and a dampness between her thighs.

In one of those dreams, she had experienced pleasure such as she had never imagined. Ranulf had been kissing her and touching her in an intimate manner that had caused her body to convulse and pulse. The dampness between her thighs became a flood which had felt sticky when Darcy woke with a start and touched curious fingertips down there. Her nether lips had been swollen and moist. And hidden away in the damp curls above, she had discovered a small, pulsing nubbin. One that caused her to groan in pleasure and curl up into a ball of longing the moment she touched it.

She had told the truth when she claimed she had no wish to harm Ranulf. She would much rather be kissed by him.

Her lashes fluttered closed, lips parting as she tilted her head in expectation of that kiss.

The feel of Ranulf’s lips against her own was heavenly, so much
more
pleasurable than her dreams. As was the sleek glide of his tongue across her parted lips, before it slid moistly into the heat of her mouth. Darcy had no idea what she was supposed to do with that tongue, but instinct told her to—

Oh yes, if that melting sensation was the result, then entangling and stroking her own tongue along Ranulf’s was exactly what she needed to do.

His arms were about her waist as he kissed her more fiercely, holding her close, crushing her breasts against the hardness of his chest as their bodies were molded together, from her shoulders to her thighs.

Breasts and thighs that ached.

Ranulf broke the kiss, releasing Darcy so suddenly, her lids flew open as she stumbled back and saw the expression of loathing on his face. “Ranulf…?” She was totally at a loss to understand the reason for his sudden rejection.

It was at times like these when Darcy wished her mother were still alive for her to talk to and to advise her. Or that she had a close female friend in whom she might confide. A friend who was more sophisticated than she, and who might help her know what to do or say next in order to have Ranulf kiss her again.

Ranulf looked coldly down the length of his nose. “I will be recommencing my journey to Scotland shortly—”

“Without me?”

Ranulf could not help but be aware those brown eyes were now wide with distress, and Darcy’s cheeks were pale. From her fear of being left here and found by Sugdon? Or fear that she had been caught out and challenged for possibly being responsible for the damage to his carriage.

Was this a classic example of “keeping your friends close, and your enemies even closer”?

Ranulf was still unsure whether Darcy was either or both of those things…

But perhaps, now that he’d kissed her, the journey need not be an altogether unpleasant or boring one.

Darcy’s lips felt as soft as they looked. Her response had been immediate and less than innocent in the hardening of her nipples against his chest and the spicy and pervading musk of her rising desire. She had yielded to him completely within seconds, an indication she did not find his advances or the idea of lovemaking repellent or unacceptable. Did it really matter whether she was friend or foe, as long as she surrendered? If it allowed him to claim Darcy in whatever way he wished.

Apparently, he did not have to trust her to desire her.

“As I am now short a driver as well as a valet, I have decided to accept your offer of carrying out the duties of my valet—” His quelling glower was enough to halt her spontaneous move toward him, her obvious intention being to hug him. “As I was saying, I will accept your offer to be my valet, but only until such time as I have decided whether or not you are genuinely here for the reason you have stated. And,” he continued as she would have spoken, “I do not have to listen to a great deal of female prattling about the beautiful weather and magnificent views.”

“I never prattle.”

“No?”

“No.” Darcy could have continued to argue her innocence of any wrongdoing—as well as prattling conversation—but feared if she did so, Ranulf might change his mind and leave her here at the inn after all.

As concessions went, his acquiescence to take her with him, at least part of the way, was not exactly a gracious one. But she had few choices open to her, and at least she would be safe traveling with Ranulf.

From everyone but Ranulf himself…

Darcy traveled in far more physical comfort today than she had yesterday. Yesterday, the second carriage had been piled high with luggage, restricting her movement as she necessarily kept herself hidden amongst those bags. She had not dared to make room for herself on one of the seats in case she was seen through the window.

Ranulf had insisted she would sit inside the landau today rather than up on the seat beside him. The inside of the carriage was plush and well padded, and with half the roof folded down in the clement weather—at her request—the space was also airy. There was only one of Ranulf’s trunks and her own bag inside the carriage with her. The “necessary luggage.”

Despite her comfort, Darcy would much rather have been sitting beside Ranulf.

She was totally aware of his brooding presence just feet away. Clean-shaven today, his handsome face appeared all sharp and disapproving angles, his hard body moving almost fluidly as he handled the four horses with ease. To all intents and purposes, he had forgotten her presence behind him in the carriage.

Or perhaps he was deliberately ignoring her.

Ranulf had made it clear that, despite agreeing to take her with him, he did not trust her. Understandably so, perhaps, when she had appeared so suddenly and he admitted to having been recently beset by events he did not believe to be accidents.

Who could be doing such things?

The attack. A fire. The burr under Ranulf’s saddle. Any one of which might have resulted in Ranulf being seriously injured or, worse, dead. And last night, someone had deliberately caused damage to the wheel of the town carriage.

Strangely, it was obviously not the carriage Ranulf traveled in. Nor had the damage been made to look like an accident.

Darcy realized this last incident did not follow the same pattern as the previous three.

She longed to discuss that with Ranulf, but a single glance at his austere and averted features was enough to deter her from breaking the silence between them. So instead she kept her own counsel, her thoughts wandering from one scenario to another, none of which seemed to quite suit the crime. All, however, involved the uncle she had come to hate.

“I see I should have added no fidgeting and sighing loudly to my list of things for you not to do when traveling with me.”

Darcy glanced guiltily at Ranulf as she realized he had slowed the carriage to a walking pace and was now looking back at her.

He arched one dark brow. “Do I need to stop at the next inn so you may use the necessary?”

“No.” Darcy’s guilty blush became an embarrassed one. “I do not need—I was merely thinking.”

“And thinking requires you to shuffle about on the seat and sigh loudly?”

She glared. “If that is what I was doing, then yes.”

Ranulf was amused by the glitter of anger in Darcy’s dark eyes. She was even more beautiful when slightly angry, with those sparkling brown eyes, flushed cheeks, and delectable lips a deeper pink and slightly parted. “Would you care to come and sit up here beside me?”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh yes, please.”

He brought the carriage to a complete stop before jumping down to assist Darcy from inside the carriage and up onto the high seat beside him. “Is this the part of the conversation where I am expected to enquire what it was you were thinking about so intensely?” He flicked the reins to tell the horses to move on again.

Darcy frowned. “Why do you always have to be so mocking?”

“Perhaps it comes naturally to me?”

She shook her head. “I swear you were not always like this. You have changed this past year, Ranulf.”

His humor fled, jaw clenching. “Perhaps that is as a result of having learned my wife was an adulterous bitch and plotting murder with her lover!”

Darcy gasped. “Millicent…?”

“Millicent,” he confirmed grimly.

“I— Well— Goodness…”

“Goodness had nothing to do with it, I assure you,” Ranulf said scornfully.

She shot him an irritated glance. “It was merely an expression of my surprise.”

Ranulf was well aware of what it was. It was Darcy herself who was the mystery to him. One he realized he was becoming far too interested in unraveling. A curious development, considering the only thing that had interested Ranulf these past months had been ruthlessly accumulating money from his many investments.

Darcy was very self-possessed for a young and unmarried lady. Nor, true to her word, did she prattle, and in doing so bore him, as so many other women did.

As Millicent had…

His wife had been beautiful, socially gracious, adequate in bed if unsurprising. A lack of excitement Ranulf had put down to the fact Millicent was his wife, and a gentleman did not make demands or expect physical excitement from his wife.

The exception was his cousin Sin and his wife Fliss; they made no secret of the fact their marriage was physically satisfying for both of them.

Millicent’s conversation had verged on the banal, boring even, but was no doubt something Ranulf would have learned to live with. In all the ways that mattered, Millicent had been the perfect wife and hostess.

Apart from, as it turned out, being an adulterous, plotting-to-murder-his-cousin bitch.

Well, yes, apart from that.

For the first time, Ranulf was able to see a little humor in that situation. To realize, in retrospect, his marriage to Millicent, while outwardly a success, would with time inwardly have become tedious and boring. Truth was, the two of them had little in common apart from Ranulf’s political ambitions.

These realizations somehow lifted a cloud from Ranulf’s emotions which had been put there, he now accepted, not by his wife’s betrayal, but by his own feelings of inadequacy. Learning one’s wife had taken a lover during the honeymoon period would be a severe blow to any man.

Which was perhaps also the reason he had lost count and forgotten the names of all the women he had bedded in the past eight months.

Darcy was right. The unhappy experience of his marriage had changed his nature, from amiable to hard and cynical.

Fliss had tried to talk to him several times on the subject, occasions when Ranulf had shrugged off her concerns.

He realized he owed his cousin-by-marriage an apology for having been so offhand with her these past few months.

Ranulf doubted he would ever be quite that easygoing man again, but he could at least try not to be such a coldly cynical and unfeeling bastard.

“Do not look so concerned, Darcy,” he advised as he saw her expression. “Millicent died before she could hurt anyone but herself.”

“What of her lover?”

“Given the choice between prison and banishment to the Continent, he chose the latter,” he revealed grimly.

Darcy could not pretend she was not shocked by these revelations about her cousin. Although Millicent
had
been Cecil Sugdon’s daughter… “How hurtful for you.”

Ranulf raised his brows. “Her murderous intentions were not aimed toward me.”

“I was talking of emotionally. I have never been in love but…” She shook her head. “I cannot begin to imagine how painful it must have been for you to learn of Millicent’s duplicity.”

“I assure you, her adultery paled into insignificance beside the plot to murder one of my relatives.”

Darcy’s gaze sharpened at the dryness of his tone. “Are you laughing at me?” She could see nothing in the least amusing in the situation Ranulf had described to her, and yet she was sure she also detected a slight softening in his dark green eyes and a rueful tilt to those sculptured lips.

“Not in the least.” The humor disappeared. “Now tell me what you were thinking about?”

It took several moments for Darcy to even try to remember what her thoughts had been prior to this conversation. How could her cousin have been so stupid as not to have realized how fortunate she had been to have a husband like Ranulf? Tall, handsome, an exquisite kisser—

Oh dear Lord…

“The obviously deliberate damage to the carriage wheel is different,” she blurted out.

Ranulf tensed. “I beg your pardon?”

“It is different from the other incidents. The attack. The fire. The burr under your saddle. The broken carriage wheel was deliberate and an inconvenience, rather than a direct attack on you.”