One Night Of Scandal (4 page)

His casual profanity should have shocked her, but she was too riveted by the raw loneliness in his gaze. The scandal sheets hadn't lied. This man was being haunted. But not from without. From within.

He took one step toward her, then another. "I can't do this," he said fiercely, but he was already closing the distance between them, already reaching to frame her face in his hands. His voice deepened to a husky whisper. "Can I?"

Lottie had no answer for him. As his head dipped downward, she began to tremble. Her situation was far more dire than she'd imagined. This dangerous stranger wasn't going to murder her. He was going to kiss her.

And she was going to let him.

She held her breath without realizing it as his lips brushed hers. They were softer than they looked, yet firm enough to mold her mouth to his will with nothing more than a feathery caress. Her lips tingled, parting just a fraction as he exerted a coaxing pressure that was more plea than demand.

After a moment of that delicious tension, he drew away from her. Lottie's eyes fluttered open just in time to see his mouth curve into a bemused half-smile. "If I didn't know better, I'd almost swear you'd never been kissed before." Before she could decide if that was an insult or a compliment, his smile faded. "I don't know what instructions you received," he said gruffly, "but there's no need to play the innocent with me. I'm not one of those leering gents who fancies silly young chits fresh from their debuts."

Lottie's mouth fell open in outrage.

"There now. That's better." Before she could sputter a retort, his mouth slanted over hers, accepting a surrender she had not offered.

Well! Lottie thought. She'd just show him how silly a young chit could be! She might not have been kissed before, but she'd caught her sister and brother-in-law at it often enough to gain a firm grasp of the rudiments. Without pausing to ponder the folly of her actions, she twined her arms around his neck and pressed her lips firmly to his.

Her affronted bravado lasted only until the scorching sweetness of his tongue delved between her lips. She should have been repulsed, not beguiled, but the tender swirl of his tongue against hers was irresistible. He explored the yielding softness of her mouth until she was clinging to him not to prove her mettle as a woman, but to keep from melting into a puddle at his feet. He didn't kiss like a murderer; he kissed like an angel — deep and hot and sweet, all leashed power and coiled delight.

When the tip of her own tongue touched his, he groaned deep in his throat and wrapped his armsaround her waist, drawing her against the hard, muscled planes of his body. He guided her backward until her knees struck the padded cushions of the Grecian couch languishing in the shadows. The mantle slipped away, baring her throat and shoulders.

Lottie had forgotten all about her torn bodice, forgotten how easy it would be for a man to slip his hand beneath the shattered fabric and cup the weight of her breast in his palm. When Hayden St. Clair did just that, she froze, torn between shock and pleasure.

At first Lottie thought the sound she was hearing was her heart slamming against her ribs. Then she realized it was someone banging on a brass door knocker.

They broke apart, both breathless. Their gazes collided — hers guilty, his troubled.

He swore. "If this is Ned's idea of a prank, I'll strangle him."

Lottie opened her mouth; nothing came out but a squeak.

"Stay here," he commanded. "While I send whoever it is on their way."

With his departure, both her breath and her reason returned. What if his caller was the mysterious woman for whom he had mistaken her? Or worse yet, what if Sterling had discovered her absence and come looking for her? Either way, she was the one who was most likely to be strangled. Desperate to escape, Lottie began to cast frantically about for a way out of the study. She swept aside the heavy velvetdrapes, gazing upward. Although there was no sign of Harriet, the cozy lights of her aunt's second-story sitting room beckoned to her from across the courtyard. It might just be possible to drop out of this first-floor window and vanish into the moon-dappled shadows while her host was otherwise occupied.

But before Lottie could do more than snatch up her mantle, a woman in a wine-colored pelisse came sweeping into the room, her shimmering auburn hair piled high atop her head. There could be no denying her beauty, even if it was of the rouged and powdered Covent Garden variety, better suited to trodding the boards than gracing the pages of
La Belle Assemblee.

The marquess was fast on her heels. "I do believe you've made a mistake, miss. You can't just barge in here as if you own the place.

"There's been no mistake," the woman retorted.

"This is the address what was given to my driver." She drew off her black, lace-trimmed gloves and began to unfasten the silk frogs of her pelisse, her sophisticated appearance at keen odds with her East End cant. "We'd best make haste, you know. It's damp as a morgue out there. The poor chap won't wait all night." She looked Hayden up and down like a wharf rat eyeing a particularly succulent piece of cheese before drawling, "More's the pity."

Lottie must have made some sort of sound without realizing it. The woman's head jerked in her direction. "What's she doing here?"

Hayden refused to be distracted. "Perhaps the question should be, 'What are
you
doing here?' "

The woman blinked at him. "Why, Mrs. McGowan sent me."

Mrs. McGowan
.
Fanny Wilson
. The names clanked into Lottie's consciousness like badly struck notes on the pianoforte. She'd read them often enough in the scandal sheets. They were both notorious members of the demimonde, women who peddled flesh only to those wealthy enough to afford the most expensive and exotic of pleasures. Her face burned with dawning horror as she realized exactly who — and what — Hayden St. Clair had mistaken her for. She clutched the mantle to her tattered bodice, but still felt naked.

The woman began to circle Lottie, looking her up and down much as she had Hayden only minutes before. "The gent who hired me made no mention of your lady."

Your lady
. The words sent a curious shiver down Lottie's spine. She waited for the marquess to deny her, but he held his tongue.

"With all that creamy skin and those big blue eyes, she's a tasty little bit of baggage, ain't she?" To Lottie's intense relief, the woman finally returned her attention to Hayden, avarice gleaming in her eyes.

"But it makes no difference to me how tasty she is. If you want to watch me with her, it'll cost you double. Pleasures like that don't come cheap, not even for a gent."

Hayden cocked his head to the side and studied Lottie, his expression thoughtful. For one dreadful moment, Lottie thought he might actually be considering the doxy's vile proposition. Then he finally said, very softly, as if he and Lottie were the only two in the room, "If she's from Mrs. McGowan's, then you would be…?"

"Just leaving." Lottie pasted on a bright smile as she began to inch toward the door. "Since your butler has been dismissed for the night, I'll just see myself out."

He took a single step, neatly blocking her path. "That won't be necessary. I believe it's my other guest who will be leaving."

"Then I'll see her out," Lottie volunteered, clutching at the woman's arm as if she was drowning in the Thames and someone had just tossed her a rope.

"Just one minute there, guv'nor," the woman protested, snatching her arm from Lottie's grip. "I don't want you ruining my fine reputation. In all her days — and nights, Lydia Smiles ain't never left a gentleman unsatisfied."

Without once taking his eyes off Lottie, Hayden retrieved a fat wad of pound notes from the open valise on the desk and tossed them to the woman. "I believe that should compensate you for both your time and your trouble, Miss Smiles. And I can assure you that nothing will give me more satisfaction than your imminent departure."

Despite the woman's sulky pout, she wasted no time in stuffing the pound notes down her bodice. As she drew on her gloves, she shot Hayden a regretful look and Lottie a sympathetic one. "A pity I couldn't have stayed, dearie. He looks to be more man than you can handle."

As the woman swept out of the room, Lottie could find no argument for that. The front door slammed, sealing her doom.

Hayden St. Clair leaned against the desk, folding his arms over his chest and looking every inch as murderous as society claimed him to be. "You're a writer, aren't you?"

"Why on earth would you think that?" Lottie stole a guilty look at her hands, then tucked them behind her back. She'd taken great care to scrub every trace of ink from beneath her fingernails in honor of her debut.

"Let's just call it an educated guess, shall we?" His eyes narrowed. "So which one of those wretched scandal sheets sent you to spy on me? Was it
The Tatler
?
The Whisperer
? Or has even
The Times
stooped to such despicable measures?" He shook his head. "I can't believe they were foolhardy enough to send a woman. Especially a woman like you." He looked her up and down, his uncompromising gaze sending a frisson of heat over her skin. "Why, if I were a certain sort of man…" He left the observation unfinished, as if even he wasn't entirely sure what sort of man he might be.

She drew herself up. "I can assure you, my lord, that I'm no spy."

"Then perhaps you'd care to explain why I found you peering into my window."

She opened her mouth, then closed it. He arched one eyebrow.

All of the starch went out of Lottie's shoulders. "Oh, very well! If you must know, I
was
spying. But not for the tabloids. Only to satisfy my own curiosity."

"And have I succeeded in satisfying you?" The unspoken challenge in his gaze reminded her that only minutes before she had been in his arms, sharing his kiss, feeling the scorching heat of his palm against her naked flesh.

Feeling her cheeks heat, Lottie began to pace back and forth in front of the window. "I don't know why you're in such a foul temper. Why, there I was, just minding my own business— "

He arched the other brow.

"Well, I had the noble intention of minding my own business until Harriet overheard the maids gossiping and learned that my aunt's neighbor was the Mur— " She snapped her mouth shut, shooting him a nervous look.

"The Murderous Marquess?" he gently provided.

She decided it would be safest to neither confirm nor deny. "The next thing I know, I'm stuck in a tree with my lovely gown all ruined and my aunt's cat making smug faces at me." She paused in her pacing. "Are you following this?"

"Not in the least," he said pleasantly, crossing one booted ankle over the other. "But please don't let that stop you."

She resumed her pacing, tripping over the hem of the mantle draped over her arm. "So after narrowly avoiding Terrible Terwilliger herself, I catch a glimpse of a mysterious light in your window. The house could have been on fire, you know. Why, I might have saved your life! And what thanks do you offer me in return? You snatch me into the house, call me a silly, little fool, and then you — you— " She swung around to face him, her chin held high. "You kiss me!"

"Surely the most vile of all my transgressions," he murmured, looking far more amused than ashamed. "Even murder pales in comparison."

She flung out her arms, not even noticing when the mantle slid to the floor. "Don't you understand? I can't be kissed yet. I'm coming out!"

"You most certainly are."

Warned by the downward flick of his gaze and the gruff note that had returned to his voice, Lottie glanced down to discover that her feverish pacing had caused her bodice to slip south. One seashell-pink nipple was peeping over the tattered silk.

Mortified, she gave the fabric a jerk, wincing as she heard yet another seam give way.

Determined to reclaim her wits, if not her dignity, she threw open the window, pointed across the courtyard to her aunt's house and announced, "I'm coming out. Tonight. Over there."

The mansion blazed with light. The jingling of harnesses, clip-clop of hooves, and clatter of carriage wheels had been joined by a steady stream of laughter and chatter. The string quartet had progressed from tuning their instruments to warming up, each note sounding more like music than the last. Since it appeared that everything was proceeding according to schedule, Lottie could only pray her absence had not yet been detected.

Hayden's expression slowly changed, going from dangerous to deadly. "You," he breathed, drinking in her features as if for the first time. "You're not from one of the scandal sheets, are you? You're the child from next door. The one I saw this morning." He ran a hand through his hair, raking it back from his brow. "Sweet God in heaven, what have I done?"

"Nothing!" she assured him, more alarmed than gratified by his reaction. "And I'm hardly a child. I'll have you know that I'll be one-and-twenty in less than two months. Why, Mary Shelley was only sixteen when she first eloped to France with Percy Bysshe Shelley."

"Much to the chagrin of the first Mrs. Shelley, whom he had neglected to divorce." Hayden paced behind the desk, as if searching for any shield to place between them. "I'm relieved to know you're no longer wearing napkins, but isn't twenty-one a bit old for a debut?"

Lottie sniffed. "I'm hardly on the shelf yet, if that's what you're implying. We spent the Season in Greece the spring I was eighteen. Then last year, I came down with an unfortunate case of— " she hesitated, realizing her confession would hardly make her sound like a mature woman of the world "— measles. But it was quite a severe case," she added, "and had it gone into scarlet fever, I could have died."

"And what a tragedy that would have been. We might never have met."

Lottie had misjudged him. He was quite capable of being sardonic.

Ignoring her glare, he planted both palms on the desk. "Have you any idea what an untenable situation you've placed us both in, Miss… Miss…?"

"Fairleigh," she offered, bobbing him a one-handed curtsy that would have done Miss Terwilliger proud if Lottie hadn't been trying to hold up the bodice of her dress with the other hand. "Miss Carlotta Anne Fairleigh. But my family and friends call me Lottie."