Once in a Blue Moon (43 page)

"Aweel. Ye tipped the dice, and ye bubbled up snake eyes, and there 'tis." Duncan punctuated this observation by taking a swig of brandy.

A faint smile pulled at the earl's hard mouth. "How profoundly and succinctly put. I gambled and lost. No sense weeping and wailing and beating one's breast over it. You're a level-headed man, Duncan."

Duncan grinned. "Thank ye kindly."

The earl frowned. "Unlike a certain female of my acquaintance, you don't allow your emotions to get in the way of your common sense. It's a pity, when one thinks about it, that we couldn't be married to each other."

Duncan's eyes popped open so wide his eyebrows all but disappeared.

The earl made a calming motion with his jack, slopping brandy onto his boots. "I didn't mean it that way, man. The point I was making—trying to make—is that the shackles of matrimony would be easier for one to bear if the one one was married to, the individual, so to speak, in an abstract way, as it were, was a man."

Duncan, who had been following the earl's jack as it waved through the air, had to blink a few times before he could speak. "I see yer point... I think."

"Of course, you see my point. That is because
you
are a man." He thumped Duncan on the shoulder with his finger. "If, for instance, I had preserved your sixteen-year-old virtue at considerable cost to my physical self, not to mention my peace of mind,
and,
I might further add, all the while
you"
—he thumped Duncan's shoulder again—"were cavorting around the countryside, possessed with a laugh that could make a man's blood run hot and lips created to do things to a man only the devil could have invented...." He paused for breath and a hearty swallow of brandy. "Why, the more I think on it, I was a bloody saint. But did she thank me for it? Ha!"

Duncan responded with a solemn shake of his head. "I would ae thanked ye for it. I would ae been so grateful, I would ae kissed... uh, I would ae thanked ye. Sir."

"Of course, you would have thanked me. Polite thing to do. And if I had then saved you from a fate worse than death—"

"What's worse than death?"

"Marriage to Tiltwell."

Duncan shuddered dramatically. "I wouldna at all think ill of ye for such chivalrous behavior."

"Of course, you wouldn't. You're a man. Just as a man would not seize upon such a cabbageheaded, cork-brained, bird-witted notion to give himself in marriage to a toplofty, niggardly bastard, merely to rescue the one he lov—cares for from debtor's prison."

Duncan helped himself to more brandy. He cradled the jack between his spread knees and stared into the shimmering golden liquid, a solemn, thoughtful look on his face. "Have you told her ladyship that you love her, sir?"

The earl glared at him. "That is just the sort of question a woman would ask. I fear we would not suit after all."

Duncan shrugged his big shoulders. "My heart is promised anyway. To Miss Poole. Only she willna have me. I'm not good enough for her. I'm too handsome."

Helped along by the brandy, McCady gave this statement careful consideration. "I have just come to a profound conclusion, Duncan. Women are incomprehensible. There is nothing for it. We are going to have to go home."

Duncan had a bit of trouble following the leaps in his lordship's logic. He settled for making a practical observation. "Can't. 'Tis dark out, and we're drunk."

The earl stood up. The world listed slightly. He sat back down. "Tomorrow will be soon enough." He tipped the lip of the brandy bottle over Duncan's jack, filling it to the brim. "In the meantime, you'll be needing to build up your strength, man, for the ordeal ahead of you. Because once we are home, you will drag Miss Poole by the hair up to Gretna Green and you will marry her whether she will have you or not."

"I will, sir?"

"It worked for me, didn't it? Sort of worked. Will work, dammit, once Jessalyn accepts the fact that she belongs to me and that if anyone needs rescuing around here, it's supposed to be her. By me. It's not the woman's place to do the rescuing. A man would know that."

"I still think it would help matters along if ye was t' tell her ladyship that ye love her. Sir."

"You look to your own affairs, Duncan."

Black Charlie sat hunched like a massive spider in a corner beneath the arcade at Tattersalls Repository. Neat rows of stacked coins of various denominations were arranged on the table in front of her. She was settling last week's bets.

"Morning, Charlie," Lady Caerhays said from beneath the big floppy brim of a stableboy's hat.

The leg flashed a mouthful of brown teeth and clay pipe. "Ere now! 'Tis Miss Jessalyn. I hardly recognized ye in them togs.
I
don't owe ye any blunt, does
I? I
thought we was all settled up."

"Oh, we are, we are.
I
'm just here because, well,
I
'm having a dispersal sale."

Black Charlie's bristly brows disappeared into a grimy mobcap. "Are ye now? Guess ye don't have the 'eart for any more racin' now that yer granny's passed on, eh? Ye'll get a pretty penny fer the lot, ye will. Especially that Blue Moon of yours—he's a prime un. A tiptop goer and no mistake."

Jessalyn's smile felt a bit wobbly. "That he is. A tiptop goer..." A sudden rush of tears filled her eyes, and she had to blink hard and look away.

A dandy in green-striped trousers and a purple coat with brass buttons the size of eggs came sauntering up just then, wanting to lay a pony on the favorite in next week's Rowley Mile, and so Jessalyn drifted away. The auction yard at Tattersalls was always busiest on Monday mornings, for that was when the horses passed under the hammer and the legs settled last week's bets.

No woman, except for Black Charlie, of course, dared set a dainty foot within the yard at Tattersalls; that was why Jessalyn had once again donned her masculine disguise, this time as a stableboy in a felt hat, whipcord breeches, and an old black wool postman's jacket. As a special touch, she'd knotted a red kerchief around her neck. She must be getting good at strutting and spitting, she thought, for she passed unnoticed among the crush of sporting men.

Coachmen swaggered about, spitting through the holes in their teeth and brandishing their whips. Pinks and swells and tulips of the
ton
paraded before the white temple in the middle of the yard, showing off the cut of their riding coats and the shine on their boots. And the copers, those knowing horse dealers, consulted their notes and eyed the stock in the boxes, sizing up just how high they intended to bid and no higher.

Jessalyn spotted the Sarn't Major, pacing before the horse boxes, guarding his darlings, frightening away anyone who looked to be a potential bidder with his fierce scowls and growls. He scowled at Jessalyn and turned his back on her.

The Sarn't Major wasn't speaking to her. When she'd told him what she intended to do, she'd thought he was going to cry. "M'lady'll will be turnin' over in her grave when I tells her about this," he'd said, and in the end Jessalyn had been the one to shed the tears.

Blue Moon poked his dark red head out his box, and again Jessalyn's eyes filled. She used one end of the red kerchief to dab at her nose. Dear life, she was turning into a regular watering pot. A hammer rapped loudly on wood, and Jessalyn's heart squeezed up into her chest. For the bang of the auctioneer's gavel signaled the beginning of the day's sales. Saddle horses, coach horses, and hunters all passed under the hammer. And then it came turn for the racehorses.

The Sarn't Major walked the first of their lot—a five-year-old filly called AnnaBell—up and down the arcade so that the bidders could get a good look at her. The diffused green light filtering through the windows in the roof made the filly's immaculately groomed black coat shine like ebony. She went fast, for seven hundred pounds.

The next two, both proven studs, went for more. Jessalyn totaled the winning bids up in her head. Thus far they had made twenty-nine hundred pounds. Added to what was left of her Derby winnings, she already had a third of the sum she needed.

And now it was Blue Moon's turn.

The Sarn't Major led the big bay out of his box, and Jessalyn stepped forward, taking the reins from the trainer's hands. Tears were running down the seams of his craggy cheeks, and his black eyes were swollen and red-rimmed. His bull's head sank deep into his hunched shoulders, and he turned away from her.

The auctioneer stood behind a wooden rostrum at one end of the arcade. Jessalyn started at the opposite end and walked toward him. Her legs were shaking so badly she almost stumbled. But Blue Moon seemed to know that he was now famous, for he pranced and tossed his head and lifted his bobbed tail high.

"Now, gentleman," began the auctioneer, "if I might beg of you your attention. You have before you Blue Moon, out of Tulip and Catch-Me-if-You-Can. Three years old, he is, winner of this year's Epsom Derby by a nose while carrying the Letty colors. Young and strong, he is, with lots of races left in him and prime stud material. Can I say a two thousand? Two thousand pounds is the bid, gentlemen. Can I say two and five? Two and five, I'm bid. Can I say three? A Derby winner, gentlemen. Can I say three and five? Three and five I am bid...."

Jessalyn craned her neck trying to see who was leading the bidding. He was an older gentleman, with a shock of white hair and a monocle fastened tight to one eye. She thought he looked kind. She hoped he was the sort of person who wouldn't forget to give his horse a dram of canary wine after the hard gallops.

"Against you, sir. At five thousand." The auctioneer pointed to the man with the monocle. The man raised his glove.

"Five and five then. Thank you, sir. And may I say six then? Six it is to you, sir... No, sir? Are we done at six? Six is the bid. Going at six thousand pounds." He banged the rostrum with his hammer, and Blue Moon was sold.

A natty groom ran up to her and took the big bay's halter.

Jessalyn buried her face in Blue Moon's glossy neck, clinging to him until the groom gave a gentle tug. "I'll take care of 'im, lad," the boy said. "Coddle im like a nestling, I will. Don't ye worrit none."

Jessalyn bit her lip and nodded, releasing her hold on Blue Moon's neck and stepping back. Tears filmed her last sight of him as the groom led him off to his new owner, the gentleman with the white hair and monocle and kindly face, and just like that he was gone.

And Jessalyn was still short two hundred pounds.

Becka Poole didn't know what to think. Her mind was in a whirligig over all these comings and goings, her body near death's door with exhaustion and spasms of the nerves.

First, Miss Jessalyn had been all set to wed Mr. Tiltwell, and Becka was that pleased. Because what with milady's sad passing, poor Miss Jessalyn had been left alone and broken-hearted.

But
then,
on what was to have been the happy day, she'd been abducted by the devil earl, stolen right out of the church she'd been, heaven preserve her. Carried off to barbarous Scotland and ravished she had been, and Becka got all shivery just thinking about it. Then he'd up and brought her back with him to Cornwall, had the mad earl, and Becka had been sent for from London Town, where she'd been left alone with all the crocodiles and sphinxes, a prey to hillas and God knew what else. By ship she'd gone, and her belly hadn't been the same since. So bilious had she been that she'd had to feed off biscuits and soda water for days after, leaving her so weak she could barely lift a spoon to her mouth.

Yet no sooner had Becka been safe in Cornwall—or as safe as a body could be, what with that Mr. Duncan astaring at her all the time with lustful eyes—than off they'd gone again, back to London Town. Becka supposed she couldn't blame Miss Jessalyn for running away, what with the way the devil earl had been keeping her in his bedchamber day and night, ravishing her again and again. Becka got all shivery just thinking about it. And so back to London they had come, by mail coach this time, and her dairy-air still bore bruises black as tar pitch. But her bones were what had suffered the worse—rattled and battered, they felt, as if they'd been taken out her body and used for cricket bats.

Nor had she been allowed a moment's peace to recover
a
bit of her strength, because yesterday Miss Jessalyn had went and sold Blue Moon. Becka would have thought there was nothing ever going to part the young miss from that horse, she loved him so. It had fair broken her heart to do it, too. She'd cried all of last night, she had, keeping Becka awake, so's she'd had to drag herself from bed this morning with a gouty pain in her head.

Not Miss Jessalyn, though. Up bright and early
she'd
been, and off she'd gone again. And now this afternoon here she was back again, with a smile fair to splitting her face and clutching a piece of paper in her hand.

"I've done it, Becka!" Miss Jessalyn said, laughing and crying both at the same time and whirling around on her toes, fit to make a body dizzy just to look at her.

Becka touched her hagstone and prayed to St. Genny. She was beginning to fear that marriage to the mad devil earl was turning Miss Jessalyn mad along with him, the way
a
dollop of buttermilk in cream turns it sour. "Ee done what, miss?" she asked warily.

"He'll not go to prison now! Oh, he'll be furious with me when he hears about what I've done, and then he'll sulk for
a
bit, because he is a stubborn, arrogant Trelawny to his very bones. But he'll forgive me soon enough. All I'll have to do is..." She trailed off as a pretty blush suffused her cheeks. "Well, when you marry Duncan, you'll understand what I mean."

"I told ee, I bain't marryin' Mr. Duncan. Not never, and—"

A fearsome pounding rattled the front door, and Becka shrieked, clutching at her throat. Miss Jessalyn ran into the hall, and Becka followed, sure she was going to have a heart stroke, and wouldn't Mr. Duncan be sorry then, when she was dead and laid out in her coffin.

"Jessalyn! Open the bloody door or I will kick it in!"

Becka gripped the brass hat rack for support, certain that she would faint any minute now. "Oooh, God's me life."

Miss Jessalyn stared at the door as if it were about to leap off its hinges and bite her. "It's Caerhays," she said, as if this were a great surprise.

Becka looked at her mistress as if she'd gone daft, as indeed, she must have. She nodded her head slowly. "Ais, miss, tes his lordship a'right. He sounds multitudinous angry."

Miss Jessalyn lifted her chin high in the air. "I am not receiving him," she said loud enough to be heard on the other side of the polished black oak panels.

"You bloody well will receive me, wife," his lordship said, loud enough to be heard back again. "You'll receive every bloody inch of me."

Becka clutched at her pounding heart. "Ooh, me life an' body. He means to ravish ee. Again. He's a scavenger, he is. A ravenous scavenger."

Miss Jessalyn turned her back on the door. "Becka, you will wait until I have retired to my room, and then you will admit his lordship. You will escort him into the parlor and explain to him that I am not at home to him."

"Ooh, but I've come all over queer of a sudden, Miss Jessalyn. With collywobbles in me belly and dreadful heart pulpy-taties fit to perspire me..." Becka squeezed her eyes shut and tried to faint. But though she felt all weak and fluttery, blessed darkness wouldn't come. She opened her eyes. Miss Jessalyn had already disappeared up the stairs. "Oooh, St. Genny preserve me."

"Miss Poole, ye'll be opening this door now."

It wasn't the earl's voice this time, it was Mr. Duncan's, and Becka didn't like the tone of it. Where was
he
getting off giving her orders? She didn't work for him, nor was she his wife either, so he had no
right,
and she wasn't ever going to
be
his wife, so—

"Becka!" Duncan roared.

Becka's hands were shaking like a leaf in a gale as she unbolted the door. She curtsied to the earl, too frightened to look up into his devil's face. "Afternoon, milor'. Funny that you're thinking to come round callin' today, when Miss Jessalyn, she be out—"

The earl brushed past her without so much as a by-your-leave and went pounding up the stairs, off to do his ravishing. Mr. Duncan's broad shoulders filled the doorway, and there was an odd look in his eyes as if he, too, had ravishing on his mind.

Becka's chin shot up, though she was careful as always to keep her hair pulled across her scarred cheek. "Ee can just keep yer distance, Mr. Duncan."

"And ye can just get yer bonnet and gloves and a warm cloak to wrap up in. Because ye're coming with me."

"Ee be absconding me!" Becka cried, backing up and clutching at her bosom so tightly a button popped.

Duncan threw back his head and let loose a hearty whoop of laughter. "Aye, lass. I'm
absconding
ye. We're getting married."

"I've told ee and told ee, I bain't never goin' to marry ee."

"And I say you are. Willing or not, ye're going to be my wife, ye're going to sleep in my bed, and ye're going to bluidy well like it!"

Becka bit her lip and ducked her head. Then she flung it back up again and yanked the hair out of her face. "Will ee look at me?"

Duncan took a step toward her. "I'm seeing ye."

"Nay, ye're not. Look at me!"

He took another step, bringing himself right up against her, and God's life, he was so
big.
"I see the scar," he said, his voice a gentle purr. "And if the man as put it there were nae dead already, I'd kill him for ye." He cupped the pretty side of her face in his big hand and turned it so that the scar was bared to the merciless light coming in the open door. He bent his head and kissed it. "There, now. 'Tis gone."

"But..." Becka touched her cheek, feeling the rough, ugly welt.

McCady broke the flimsy lock with one blow of his booted foot. The door slammed against the wall, rattling a pair of Egyptian funeral urns on the mantel.

Jessalyn was sitting before a dressing table in a massive chair that had clawed feet and a roaring lion's head carved into the back of it. She was applying powder to her face with a hare's foot, and she looked back at him, cool and remote, from the mirror. He gripped the door and slammed it shut behind him, and the urns rocked.

"I do not recall hearing you knock," she said. "Nor do I recall giving you permission to enter."

"I don't need bloody permission." He advanced on her, and she jumped up so fast the heavy lion chair teetered. Whirling, she backed toward a wall papered with a tangle of vines and lotus flowers. Her hand fluttered to her throat, and her eyes were two enormous silver saucers taking up the whole of her face. She was afraid of his anger—good. She deserved to be afraid since he'd been frightened half out his mind ever since he'd come home and found her gone.

He bracketed her to the wall with his hands and pressed his pelvis against her stomach, grinding it against her. He was hot and hard for her, and he wanted her to know it.

He brought his face so close to hers he could see the black centers of her eyes widen to swallow nearly all of the gray. "Have you been to Tiltwell?" he said though his teeth.

Her breasts pushed up against his chest as she drew in a breath. Her throat worked, barely getting the word out. "Yes."

"Did he touch you?" He wrapped his hand around her throat. Her pulse beat wildly against his palm. Her skin was the softest thing he'd ever felt. Her mouth was wet and trembling and slightly parted, as if she'd just been kissed— or were about to be kissed. "Did you allow him to touch you, Jessa?"

"No!"

He didn't know if she told the truth, and he didn't care. He wanted only one thing from her right then, and he was going to begin with the taste of her mouth.

He spanned her jaw with his long, hard fingers. He forced her lips to open beneath his, and he filled her mouth with his tongue. She whimpered first in outrage and then in surrender. She wrapped one arm around his back and tangled her fingers in his hair. She sucked on his tongue, pulling it deeper.

He swept his thumbs back and forth over nipples that were budding against the soft stuff of her dress. Her hands gripped and bunched the taut muscles of his back. They made love with their mouths, sucking, tonguing, rubbing kiss upon kiss against each other's lips. Her roaming fingers found the top button of his buckskins, and she popped it free. He shuddered as the back of her hand brushed across his lower belly. He undid the rest of the buttons himself, pushing his throbbing sex into her hands.

She gripped him roughly, stroking him almost to the edge of pain, and if he didn't get inside her soon, it was going to be too bloody late.

He bunched her skirt up around her waist and grasped a handful of soft linen drawers.

She tore her mouth from his, panting. "McCady, please don't rip—"

The thin material made a satisfying tearing sound as it parted beneath his fist. He pushed a finger inside her, and she gasped, arching against him. She was very wet and very hot.

He stoked her with his finger until he had her humming and vibrating and building up steam like a fired locomotive. Cupping the silky underside of her bottom with both hands, he lifted her and slowly sheathed himself. She cried out, arching and throwing back her head so violently it banged against the wall. He pressed his open mouth against the wildly beating pulse in her throat and pushed himself deeper.

He gripped her hips to hold her still so that he could grind and thrust into her, and she was biting his shoulder and her nails were clawing at his back, and he let the pressure build and build and build to an explosion that was fierce and scalding...

And not enough.

Her head fell onto his shoulder, and she sagged against him, as the last shudders washed over them. But already he was kissing her again. Already he was quickening and stirring inside her again. His fingers grasped her head, spilling pins and hair down over his hand and wrist, and it felt like liquid silk.

He pulled her head up. "Were you lying about him?" She licked her lips; he licked them after her. "You didn't let him touch you?"

Her eyes were wet and glazed with passion, like glass. "He didn't touch me," she said into his open mouth.

He made a small movement to lodge himself deeper. "Never again will I come home to find you gone."

"I can explain—"

"Later. You'll explain later. Right now I want to get only one thing fixed firmly in your aggravating head. I shall never come home again to find you gone. Nor will you ever spend another night out of my bed without my permission. And since I intend to spend
all
of my nights in
my
bed," he said, punctuating the key words with little thrusts of his hips, "it is highly unlikely that permission will ever be forthcoming. Do we have an understanding, Lady Caerhays?"

"Yes, my lor—"

His mouth seized hers in a deep kiss that filled him with the taste of her, but it was not enough. It was never enough. He moved in slow, rhythmic strokes, and she was gripping him, squeezing him, pulling him to the edge, and it was still not enough. He pumped his hips, and her head thumped against the wall.

"McCady... the bed," she gasped out between panting moans. "Why... can't we... do this... on the bed?"

"Yes, yes. The bed." His hands spanned her waist, and she grasped his hips with her strong thighs. He tried to carry her in this fashion over to the bed.

The bed was a monstrosity of black curtains embroidered with gold hieroglyphics and a bedstead supported by enormous crocodile feet. He stumbled over a webbed claw, and they fell onto the bed in a tangle of legs and arms and laughter.