Regency Rogues Omnibus (78 page)

Brynmore’s last briskly spoken words still hung in her mind. “I will leave you to
this
mess. Fix your marriage and dinna follow us! I will find out what happened to your brother and send word.”

Kit’s heart fell. How could she let Nick do this to her? How could she react just like he accused her of being and-and in front of Brynmore? Then with more force, and by catching Nick in a momentary lapse of his grip, she did manage to jerk her arm free. She turned angrily toward her traveling bags and she began packing them with jerky motions.

“What are you doing? You are
not
following them or leaving here. I forbid it!” Nick said angrily.

Kit snapped then. She could feel it like a whip cracking, and she did something she’d rarely done in her life, she yelled. “I am
divorcing
you, Nick Ralston! I have contacted a lawyer, and I never want to see you again!” She only regretted saying it too late, as angry tears threatened, she wondered why she cared if Brynmore Duneagan heard her say that or not. To try to regain her dignity was the answer that clamored within her mind.

Chapter Thirteen

Joelle attached the last veil to the scanty outfit she wore. The assemblage was nothing more than twenty sheer veils of varying colors draping her body from startling pinks, deep reds, to green, and even a gossamer black one. She was nude beneath and used light gold chain ropes with bangles attached, wrapped around and above her breasts with another one low around her hips to hang the veils on. It was a Gypsy dancer’s attire, a most seductive one, used specifically for a licentious belly rolling dance they did. A veil dance that she knew how to perform and intended to do for Saxon as an answer to some questions and adamant opinions he’d raised.

“Opinions he has stuck to, damn, him!” Joelle muttered, biting one fingernail as she studied herself critically in the full length mirror. She was in her bedchamber at Gabriella and Drummond’s London mansion, which to her was part of the glaring problem. “I should be at Saxon’s home in London, not here!”

However, Saxon had wanted it this way. Ever since Saxon had bought them passage to England,
in separate cabins,
she thought in exasperation, he’d made love to her only once on the ship. After their escape from The Order, that added up to only two times in all the weeks since. The minute Saxon’s boots had touched English soil, he’d undergone a change. Not that she knew him well enough to say that this Saxon was a change at all. It could be the real Saxon, for all she could say that she honestly knew. Being kidnapped and sexually abused by a cult did not necessarily allow one’s true bearing to show. The dangerous adventure, which she and Saxon had lived through, might not begin to portray Saxon’s everyday character.

But she really did not believe that. She might have wondered, a little at first, after his change, however, Saxon had not left her completely clueless. He’d said on several occasions that she deserved better, not better than him, but just better treatment. Then, they’d also been extremely busy. Neither of them had any intentions of letting The Order of the Satyr continue blithely on its way. Destroying The Order was of the utmost importance to them, and the swiftness of events unfolding took a lot of their time, but it shouldn’t interfere with making love.

“Regularly!” Joelle stated succinctly, undulating her hips once with a returning jingle of the bangles.

Nevertheless, she’d finally discovered Saxon’s purpose concerning her, why he would kiss her with controlled passion, but then stop when it should naturally go further. Oh, she remembered his words exactly and while it was sweet and endearing, and even loving, it was totally ridiculous compared to the reality of their life and how they’d come together or intended to stay together.

Saxon had said, when she’d confronted him in frustration last night, after he had stalled their building passion once again, “Joelle, I want to court you. I
am
courting you. Wooing you like the beautiful woman that you are.”

“What rubbish,” Joelle muttered, with tears sparkling in her eyes. Either one of them could die attempting to destroy The Order of the Satyr. They did not have time for courting. They needed to live, to be alive, and to feel alive.

“To love,” she sighed, as she absentmindedly fingered a fuchsia colored veil draped sheerly two inches below her belly button and falling over her mound. It followed her length to just above her ankles. Her soft belly protruded in just the right amount of enticing bareness for a seductive belly dance. Her hips were round enough to swing becomingly and her bottom plush enough to roll with an alluring display. It was her breasts that worried her. They were full globes, but one was a bit higher than the other and she had no deeply plunging cleavage. Joelle raised her arms. She could see one dark nipple through the light-blue silk scarf over it. That was better, she decided, with her arms high, her breasts looked level and her cleavage appeared.

Saxon had invited her to his home for dinner this evening, a romantic evening he called it. “And I have a surprise for you, Saxon.” Joelle teased the mirror with a seductive look as she shimmied her body and the bangles jingled all around. She was going to seduce Saxonhurst, the Marquess of Hartely, this evening. And if he did not start pulling the veils off her body until she was entirely nude, there was going to be trouble.

Saxon paced his formal dining room. The table was set elaborately with gold and crystal, the wine was breathing, candles were lit, and a fire flamed in the fireplace. The gas lamps about the room were turned down low and besides an elegant dinner, there was champagne and chocolate cooling on a table next to an intimate settee he had placed by the fire.

He brooded over the fact that it was deucedly hard to do romance, of the courting and wooing nature, without tumbling into heated sexual passions. Everything, with a woman that he loved in his mind, alluded to sex. He wondered exactly what two people could do romantically for a full evening while excluding sex? Especially when all he
wanted
to do was to make love to Joelle for hour upon hour. It was on his mind constantly.

Saxon was sincerely glad that he was wearing the full elegant trappings of an English nobleman this evening. He should be taking Joelle out to dine, to dance. It would be much better to stay focused on his goal of treating her like the respected and honored woman he intended to marry, easier if other people surrounded them. He just could not bring himself to share her though, even in simple social gatherings where it would be easier to respectfully court her.

He was a selfish bastard, but determined. He might never be able to wipe away his near rape of Joelle in the lewd sexual ceremony they’d been forced to perform by The Order of the Satyr. Nevertheless, he could show the woman he loved that he cherished her, respected her, and wanted to hold her up upon a pedestal of honor in his life. It was the right thing to do for the mother of his future children, however he was beginning to become disillusioned, because it was obvious that Joelle was not sailing upon the same boat as he was.

At first he’d thought that the stress of trying to bring The Order down could be upsetting her. That was until last night, when the first clue came to him that his Lady Firefly was perturbed at the sexual constraints of noble courting. It seemed that perhaps, while he was allowing her tender time to recover from their ordeal and find a romantic footing in their relationship, Joelle had a whole different outlook.

Still, he denied her.

Denied them actually, and he tried to tell himself that it was because he knew better, that he was thinking more clearly than Joelle. In time she would look back and thank him, saying that she’d not been herself in the upheaval of events, and she was glad that he was stronger and wiser. His justification had actually stood him strong, until last night, in the middle of a sleepless night, when he’d finally had to admit the real reasons to himself. After much soul searching, he was just not certain he could tell the real reasons that he’d discovered to Joelle.

Could he be so harsh to her, or was it better to keep to the idea that he wanted to court her and she deserved it? It was not an untruth, just not the entire truth, and he had himself convinced it was still the best way. At least until after they dealt with The Order, and the outcome showed them both alive and well.

As noble as he wanted to be in demanding that Joelle stay out of bringing The Order down, he could not. He could not take that away from her, even though it would likely put both of them in extreme harm’s way again. So, the entire point being that he could not say with confidence that either of them would make it out of this alive. He was not the type of man to delude himself. It was going to be dangerous, and while he could attempt to protect Joelle as much as possible, he was not a miracle worker.

Saxon angrily batted the tail end of a linen napkin sticking out over the edge of a table, then grimly he turned toward the fire. “And I will not take the chance of sending you pregnant into all of this!”

That was it, the final blow! It was the thing that he hesitated to put into words, while even becoming angry at Joelle for not thinking of it. However, he knew that his anger was really masking fear. His terror at the thought that he could lose Joelle, at the same time he did not try to stop her, but let her go along. He suddenly knew what women felt like, whom for ages watched their men go off to war.

“Put a brave face on it, man,” he muttered, adjusting the waterfall folds of his cravat. So, dressed to the nines and cloaked in evening attire that he considered dressed armor against Joelle’s sexual allure, he would put on a courageous face and live in hope for the future.

Then, Saxon heard the door opening across the room and behind him. He turned at the same moment, wondering why he did not hear his butler’s voice announcing Joelle’s arrival. Yet Joelle stood just inside the closed door. He started toward her, however her hand came up with the clear gesture that she wanted him to stop. His feet halted as he opened his mouth to speak. Yet just as before, Joelle raised a straight finger to her lips, making a shushing sound. He became aware that she still wore a deep red cloak, which was a stunning backdrop for the long waves of her richly toned black-cherry hair. It occurred to him that her hair was hanging free as his gaze traveled down the length of her cloaked body. It was unusual for her hair not to be caught upward in some style that women wore. His encompassing gaze ended its downward trail on her bare feet.

Immediate stimulation tingled in every fiber of his maleness. Bare feet, red painted toenails, and some type of gold anklet. That Joelle’s feet were bare coupled with her loose flowing hair told him something he’d not planned for was, “afoot.” That comprehension came one brief second before the red cloak sailed downward into a pool at Joelle’s feet.

Saxon resisted the urge to jerk his gaze upward to see the rest of what Joelle’s lovely bared feet promised. It was a tribute to his spying career and many intense undercover moments that he managed it all. What he did see were wisps of different colored silks floating around shapely ankles, encircled in gold bangles.

He was in trouble.

Saxon resolutely kept the small silver hook that replaced his missing hand at his side, even though he had the inclination to raise it and tug at his collar like a young man. His gaze stayed lowered as he cleared his throat, and asked in a restrained voice, “Joelle, what are you doing?”

The only answer came in a sound. The jingling of many thin metal objects in unison, then falling silent sharply. The sound so unusual, he lifted his gaze despite his effort not to.
Dear Lord
, he thought, with sexual awareness striking through his body, leaving instantaneous evidence arousing every nerve ending. It pooled with purpose in the eroticism of his mind, and the lust of his cock, while his gaze devoured Joelle’s attire.

Or lack thereof...

Really, he tried to think logically, it was the mystery of the delectable pieces of feminine shape that he could and could not see that were fermenting him. The bare cleavage of ripe breasts with rounded inner slopes revealed to tantalizing depths, but covered just shy of a nipple on each side. One side was barely veiled, with a single purple-colored gossamer scarf. The other breast was scantily clad in light blue sheerness.

That was the motif of the entire outfit. Skimpy! Whose origins he could barely guess, while his masculinity paid homage to whoever could be so generously creative on behalf of all men. His eyes moved from a naked and satin-smooth belly, to one rounded hip peeking through, and onto shapely shoulders, enticing feminine collarbone topped off with lush lips painted red and the kohl-shadowed eyes of pure allure.

How was he going to refuse the quite obvious intention of this? “Joelle, we have to talk!”

Joelle’s left hip rolled upward and stopped abruptly with the bangles adorning her lifting and jangling together, then falling silent with sharply cut stillness. Saxon watched Joelle’s back arching as she reached back and lifted a large quantity of her black-cherry colored hair above her head, while her sable eyes sparkled with seduction.

He raised his hand to her, in a half-hearted halting gesture. “No, really, Joelle. This is serious!”

With each single word that he spoke, Joelle’s hip rolled and the bangles sounded as she moved toward him. It was as though she spoke through her body to the bangles sound. No! No! No! No! To each word he tried. What could he do?