And in his eyes, she saw the truth that he wasn’t even bothering to hide. He would stop at nothing to have her in his bed, bargain or no.
She cursed as a wayward thrill coursed down her spine. The impudence of the man! Well, she would just showhim . She turned to the dressmaker with a smooth smile. “I do hope my friend hasn’t embarrassed you too much with his antics. Sometimes he can be most outrageous. I wouldn’t be surprised if after he chose all these gowns, he changed his mind about them and refused to pay.”
Mrs. Watts didn’t so much as frown.
Worse yet, Byrne merely chuckled. “Mrs. Watts has dealt with me often enough, my sweet, to know that I pay my bills with admirable regularity.”
Christabel glared at him. So much for trying to shame the man into behaving. Ignoring her frowns, he turned his attention to the dressmaker. “And speaking of payment, I’m willing to pay more to have these gowns finished in three days.”
Mrs. Watts eyed him with a wily gleam. “It will be a great deal more.”
“Whatever it costs.”
The woman smiled broadly. “Very good, sir.” Then she untied Christabel’s chemise and pulled it down to form a line across the very top of her breasts. “Now, milady, for your evening gowns, is this an acceptable neckline?”
“No,” Byrne said, before Christabel could even answer.
Mrs. Watts pivoted to him like a dog following the bounce of a ball. She pulled the chemise down a little more. “Here, then?”
“Lower,” he said.
As Christabel seethed, Mrs. Watts went down another half inch. “Here?”
“Lower.”
“Perhaps I should simply pop out my breasts and serve them on a platter,” Christabel grumbled. As the dressmaker coughed to hide her laugh, Byrne raised one eyebrow. “While that sounds intriguing, my sweet, when we’re in public you’d best keep them in a gown.”
“Inbeing the important word,” she retorted.
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Mrs. Watts continued to hold the chemise in its present position, her gaze fixed on him. “Sir? Is this all right or not?”
He glanced from the dressmaker to a glowering Christabel, then back to the dressmaker. “That’ll do for now, I suppose. We’ll see how the gowns look once they’re done.”
With a nod, Mrs. Watts finished her measurements. “Will that be all, sir?”
“No. She needs something to wear for the next few days, so if you could alter one of her old gowns, something she wore before she went into mourning—”
“She can’t,” Christabel broke in. “We dyed all my old gowns black.”
“Allof them?”
She stuck out her chin. “Yes.”
“Bloody hell. At least that explains why you persist in wearing them.” He turned to the dressmaker.
“Could you make her mourning gowns a bit less…severe? And have one of them ready in the morning?”
“Certainly, sir.”
He rose and strode to the door. “I’ll call her maid to fetch them.”
As he opened the door, Rosa practically fell into the room. Christabel rolled her eyes. Rosa would never go meekly off when there was gossip to hear.
“Forgive me, sir,” Rosa babbled, “I was merely coming to tell my lady—”
“It’s all right, Rosa,” he broke in. “Just go bring us the prettiest of your mistress’s mourning gowns, will you?”
“But they are all ugly, senor.”
“What a surprise,” he said dryly. “Very well, then take Mrs. Watts with you. She can assess which ones are best for alteration.”
Rosa and Mrs. Watts went off, and Byrne closed the door. Only then did she realize they were alone. And she was dressed most scandalously.
He seemed to realize the same thing, for his gaze took outrageous liberties as he surveyed her scantily clad form.
To her chagrin, her pulse leaped in response. “For pity’s sake, go see to your horses or something. We can finish this without you. Go on, go away and leave us in peace.”
“And let you dress yourself like a nun? I think not.”
His nonchalant assumption that this masquerade gave him the right to tell her what to wear frustrated her.
“I should warn you, just because I let you get away with these outrageous flirtations in public doesn’t
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mean I’ll allow them in private. Furthermore,” she lied, “I shall elaborate on your abominable treatment of me in my written report to His Highness. And when your father hears—”
“What did you say?” He’d gone abruptly still, his eyes turning gray as a sudden tempest. Too late, she remembered that he had good reason to dislike his father. “I-I said I will make a report to—”
“No, you called His Highness my ‘father.’ ” He advanced up the dais’s steps swiftly, trapping her atop it. “If you’re to play my mistress, Lady Haversham, there are some things you should know about me. For one, His Highness is not my father.”
She blinked. “But I thought—”
“He did sire me, yes, no matter what the bloody arse claimed to the world. But there’s a vast difference between producing seed and being a father. Only one person raised me, and she’s the only one who counts. That fool at Carlton House had nothing to do with it, so I don’t give a bloody damn what you tell him.”
Backing her against the wall, he scowled down at her. “And one more thing—I don’t take kindly to threats. I respond by doing exactly what I’ve been warned not to do. And if you think my flirtations were outrageous before—”
Taking her off guard, he caught her chin in a firm grip and brought his mouth down on hers. The kiss was hard. Commanding. And very, very thorough. With provoking insolence, he sealed his mouth to hers as if he had every right to do so. But when he tried making the kiss more intimate, she wrenched her mouth from his.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, fighting to ignore the silly pounding of her heart and the deplorable quiver in the pit of her belly.
His smoldering gaze seared her wherever it settled. “I’m kissing my pretend mistress.”
“Stop it.” She cast a furtive glance to the door. “The servants might see us.”
“Good. Servants are notorious gossips, so let’s put on a good show for them.” Then he kissed her again. Except that this time he succeeded in invading her mouth with his tongue, erotically, possessively. And she didn’t stop him, blast it.
Worse yet, she liked it. She tried not to compare his slow, drugging kisses to Philip’s sloppy, eager ones, but it was hard to ignore the difference. Her husband’s kisses had always been a brief prelude to a quick tumble. Byrne’s kiss was an end in itself, hot, heady, and intoxicating. He fed on her mouth as if he’d been waiting half his life to taste it. The sensation made her dizzy. His hand skimmed down her throat, and she waited, on the edge of disappointment, for him to grab her breast and squeeze it roughly the way Philip always had.
Instead, Byrne curved his hand around the side of her neck, caressing her throat with his thumb, up and down, back and forth, to mimic the heated plunges of his tongue between her lips.
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Oh, heavenly day. He drove the very air from her lungs, which might explain why her knees were going weak and her head growing faint. With leisurely care, he thrust, probed, caressed…made love to her mouth.
But only her mouth. How very intriguing.
Though he’d settled his other hand on her waist, he merely stroked her ribs with it. He didn’t paw her breasts or cup her between the legs or squeeze her bottom, all of which Philip would have done within seconds after starting to kiss her.
And Byrne’s peculiar restraint was having the oddest effect on her. She felt restless and unsatisfied. She found herselfwanting his hand on her breast. Lord help her—what kind of a wanton was she? She tore her lips from his, seeking breath and…respite? Relief from the liquid heat he fed with each newer, bolder thrust into her mouth? “That’s enough,” she somehow managed to whisper. “You’ve made your point.”
His breath warmed her cheek. “My point?”
He turned to nibbling her ear, and oh, what that did to her. She thought she would come out of her skin. She could barely think, much less answer. “That if I threaten you, you’ll feel free to…take…certain liberties.”
“Ah.That point.” He tugged on her earlobe with his teeth, then pressed an openmouthed kiss to her neck.
“So you can…stop now. I got your point.”
“And I got yours—that you don’t mind my taking certain liberties.”
The truth of it didn’t make it any less insulting. She jerked back. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” His smugly masculine smile roused her ire, especially when he followed it with a sweeping, proprietary caress of his hand from her ribs to her hip. “I dare say if I took you to bed right now, you wouldn’t protest.”
His arrogant assumption drove her over the edge. Reaching down, she grabbed his privates and squeezed, just enough to warn him. “I don’t take kindly to threats either, you randy Irishman. We made a bargain. You agreed to the terms, which didn’t include kissing or anything else. So if you try that again—”
“You’ll what? Maim me?” His voice held nothing but sarcasm. She blinked. Most men retreated when faced with serious bodily harm. But of course Byrne wasn’t most men, as evidenced by his erection, growing harder and thicker and heavier in her hand by the moment. Nor did his angular features show even an ounce of concern for his precarious position.
He actually leaned closer, shoving his…thinginto her hand. “Go ahead. I dare you.” His eyes were steely
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bright as he lowered his voice to a menacing whisper. “See how far you get.”
Her mouth went dry. Dear Lord, what now?
She was saved by the door opening, and the dressmaker saying cheerfully, “I think we’ve found two gowns that will—Oh, dear. I-I’m sorry, I’ll come back.”
“No, stay,” Christabel called out, grateful that Byrne’s back was to the door. Releasing his privates, she started to withdraw her hand, but he gripped it before she could. When her gaze flew to his, he hissed, “Next time you touch my cock, it had better be under much more enjoyable circumstances. Understood?” Only then did he let go. As he turned to face the dressmaker and Rosa, cool as you please, it was all Christabel could do not to throw something at him. He was in for a surprise if he thought that she’d ever touch his cock inthat way. He’d just reminded her of the dangerous devil who lay beneath the smooth, charming façade, and there was no way she was ever sharing a bed withthat man.
man will keep them faithfully as long as
he’s sharing your bed, but once he discards
you, all his loyalty is lost.
—Anonymous,Memoirs of a Mistress
The warmongering female had actually threatened to unman him! Shaking his head, Gavin settled back in a chair to watch as Mrs. Watts marked one of Christabel’s black monstrosities for alteration. Christabel pretended to ignore him. The bloody chit was a real piece of work. One minute she responded to his kiss with all the fervor of a dockside tart, and the next she loosed that fiery temper of hers.
He’d infuriated many a mistress, but none had ever dared to grab him by the ballocks and vow to maim him. Even the boldest ones knew better than to tempt fate with him. But not Colonel Christabel, oh, no. She made a habit of tempting fate. And every time she did, it only stoked his desire higher. If she continued it, he’d soon be walking around with a bloody Maypole in his trousers.
Careful, Gavin. You’ve got bigger matters at stake than some female, no matter how pretty.
“Tighten the bodice, too, would you, Mrs. Watts?” he called out, venting his annoyance at himself by annoying Christabel. “Make it nice and snug.”
“I’ll try, sir, but it will take time. The trim makes it impossible to simply double the fabric. It would make the seams too thick.”
“Like Mr. Byrne’s skull,” Christabel grumbled.
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Gavin waited until she looked at him for his response, then said, “It’s not my skull that’s thick right now, lass.”
With her cheeks flaming, she jerked her gaze from his. Good. Lether be uncomfortable for a change. This arousal was bloody inconvenient. He ought to be trying to unearth her secrets, instead of dwelling on the sheer pleasure of kissing her.
But the woman had quite a talent for kissing, whether she knew it or not. There’d been none of those coy female tricks he was used to from his mistresses—no false air of innocence or fake shyness or pretense of propriety, all meant to stimulate his jaded palate, though they usually served only to irritate him. Even if people weren’t honest anywhere else, they should at least be honest in bed. Like Christabel’s kisses. In their honesty, they’d been more erotic than those of any sophisticated courtesan. Her mouth had tasted of currants and cinnamon, like a Christmas pudding, sweet and warm and generous. It was nothing like the perfumed mouths of the practiced society women, who only gave enough to get what they wanted—a pleasant romp with a man who wouldn’t interfere in their marriages or expect anything of them other than enjoyment.
Christabel didn’t want a pleasant romp from him. Nor was she willing to buy what she wanted with kisses. And the fact that she’d still responded to his kiss with such generosity of feeling intoxicated him. Made him want more. A great deal more. And soon.
He couldn’t wait to take down her “unfashionable” hair, wrap it about his hand, and feel it tumbling over his chest, his belly, his cock.
“Mr. Byrne!” said a sharp voice.
He snapped to attention. Damn, there he went again. He looked up to find that Mrs. Watts had started unbuttoning the marked-up gown to remove it.
And Christabel was glowering at him. “If you don’t mind—”
“I don’t.” There was no way he’d let the chit throw him out now. The more unsettled he kept her, the more likely she was to let something important slip. “I’ve already seen you in your corset, my sweet.”