With that deliciously wicked threat making her blood sizzle through her veins, it was all Catriona could do to force her own lips into a cool smile. “You needn’t work so hard to shock me. I can promise you that I have no illusions left about your character—or lack thereof. Why do you think I chose you?”
“Because you’ve been wearing your nightcap too tight? It must be that, because I would hate to think that you’ve been nursing a sentimental
tendre
for me all these years.”
His gentle mockery effortlessly skewered her heart. Desperate to keep the blade from twisting and spilling her blood where he might see it, she tossed her head with a scornful ripple of laughter. “Don’t flatter yourself, Mr. Wescott. I chose you because I know you can’t resist turning a tidy profit for a minimal amount of effort.”
Simon eyed Catriona balefully. Her offer was beginning to sound just a little too tempting. “And just how do you plan to spring me from Newgate?” He nodded toward her reticule. “Have you a pistol tucked away in your little silk purse?”
“I’m hoping that won’t be necessary. I plan to pay each of your debtors a visit to announce our secret engagement and to beg both their discretion and their patience. I believe I can make them see reason. After all, they’ll have no hope of recouping their losses as long as you’re rotting away in prison. If they believe your debts are to be settled as soon as we return from a romantic Highland honeymoon, they’re much more likely to be magnanimous, are they not?”
“You might be able to charm my debtors, but there is the little matter of that angry magistrate. The last time I saw him, he was howling for my blood.”
Her smile deepened, revealing a beguiling dimple in her left cheek. “Who do you think authorized this visit? Lord Poultney knows he has no hope of seeing you hanged. I was able to convince him that being leg-shackled to one female for life would be a far more fitting punishment for a rogue like you.”
Simon grew very still. He’d been a navy man just long enough to recognize when he’d been outflanked and outgunned. And he didn’t much care for the feeling that he was about to be boarded against his will.
He unfolded his muscled length from the settee, towering comfortably over his guest, and was gratified to watch her inch backward.
No one had ever accused him of gallantry. But it seemed he had no choice but to try and save this misguided child before she proposed to some convict less scrupulous than himself. If such a fellow even existed.
“Very well, Miss Kincaid,” he said, resting his hands on his hips. “I’ll accept this devil’s bargain of yours.”
“You will?” Catriona replied, unable to completely hide her start of surprise at his unexpectedly rapid surrender.
“With a small stipulation of my own.”
“And just what would that be?” she asked warily.
He took a step toward her. She retreated another foot, stopping just short of tumbling backward over the stool. “Although the prospect of squandering half your dowry is undeniably enticing, I’m afraid it’s not enough of an incentive to satisfy my…
appetites
. I see no reason why I should suffer the indignities of marriage without being allowed to enjoy any of the benefits.”
“S-s-such as?” she stammered.
His smile was as tender and benevolent as a priest’s. “You.”
She swallowed audibly. “Me? You want to enjoy
me
?”
“Surely you must have mirrors at your uncle’s house. It can’t have escaped your notice that you’ve bloomed into quite the beauty.” He lifted a hand to her cheek much as he had in the barn on that long-ago summer day. “If I’m going to play the role of devoted husband to you, then I deserve a more substantial reward than just your dowry.” He drew the pad of his thumb across the plush velvet of her bottom lip. At her delicate shiver, a husky note crept into his voice. “I want you. In my bed. Performing whatever wifely duties I require of you.”
Simon had thought to cast his seductive spell over Catriona, but he was the one mesmerized by the misty glow in her eyes, the tantalizing way her lips parted ever so slightly beneath the coaxing pressure of his thumb. Her skin still felt like down beneath his fingertips. It was a damn shame he would never find out if she was as soft all over.
It was almost as if they were back in that barn with the smell of fresh-cut hay tickling their noses and dust motes dancing a sparkling minuet around them. Almost as if he were a much younger man full of promise and secret dreams for the future that only she could see. Before he realized it, he found himself leaning forward, lowering his head toward hers, savoring the fragrant warmth of her sigh against his lips…
Swearing softly beneath his breath, he abruptly straightened. His trousers had grown uncomfortably snug and his traitorous body was urging him to draw her down on the settee and consummate a mock marriage to which he had no intention of agreeing.
Folding his arms over his chest, he gazed sternly down at her. “Those are my terms, Miss Kincaid. Take them or leave them.”
Catriona knew she would have to be mad to agree to his shocking terms. She had proposed a brief, sterile marriage of convenience. He had countered by demanding to defile her tender young body in whatever way was guaranteed to bring him the most pleasure and satisfy his debauched
appetites
. For her brother’s sake, she might be able to recover from being married to Simon. But sharing his bed—even for a season—could very well haunt both her body and her heart to the end of her days.
She tilted her head to study him. He wore the mask of leering villain with disturbing ease, but she couldn’t afford to forget that he was also a skilled gamester.
If he was bluffing, she supposed there was only one way to find out.
As the mist faded from Catriona’s eyes, leaving them as sharp as flints, Simon set his jaw, bracing it for the well-deserved clout he knew was coming.
“Very well, Mr. Wescott,” she said firmly. “I shall take your terms. And you.”
Simon’s jaw dropped in astonishment.
All he could do was stand there as she bustled back over to the stool and began to draw on her gloves as if she hadn’t just bartered away her precious innocence to a complete stranger. “It may take me a day or two to arrange for your release. I’ll send you a full set of instructions as soon as I’m able. I believe you’re familiar with the way to my uncle’s estate just outside of the city. I’m hoping we can be on our way to Gretna Green for our wedding as early as Monday morning.”
As Simon watched her knot the ribbons of her bonnet into a jaunty little bow, it took him several ragged breaths to identify the unfamiliar emotion coursing through him as anger. Simon Wescott didn’t get angry. He got drunk. He got bitingly sarcastic. And occasionally, he got even. But he never got angry. And in truth, he wasn’t angry now.
He was bloody well furious.
He hadn’t been so thoroughly duped since he’d caught Philo Wilcox at the faro table with an entire deck of aces tucked up his sleeve. He had satisfied that slight by calling the man out and shooting him in the arse when he turned to flee instead of fire. He supposed society would frown if he inflicted a similar punishment on the cunning Miss Kincaid.
But that didn’t mean he was without recourse.
He stalked toward her, kicking the stool out of his path. Something in his narrowed eyes made hers widen with alarm. She scrambled backward, betraying her first trace of genuine fear since finding herself locked in the cell with him.
“Why, Mr. Wescott,” she said breathlessly, “was there something else you wished to discuss?”
“Oh, I think we’ve done all the discussing we need to do.” He backed her up against the wall until there was nowhere left for her to flee. “But I can’t let you leave here believing me remiss in my duties. If I’m not mistaken, it’s traditional to seal such a bargain with a kiss.”
Her hand fluttered to her throat. “Oh, no…I really don’t think…it would hardly be proper if—”
He bore her against the wall with his body, cupped the back of her head in his hand, heedlessly crushing her bonnet, and brought his mouth down on hers, cutting off her protest in midsqueak. If this was a devil’s bargain, he was determined she would leave this cell knowing exactly which one of them was the devil.
But he hadn’t anticipated that the softness of the mouth crushed beneath his would give him a taste of both heaven and hell. The scorching sweetness of her kiss tasted of nectar and ambrosia. The flames only licked higher as she twined one hand around his nape and clung for dear life, as if she were sliding down into some deep, dark abyss and was determined to take him with her.
Catriona had spent a thousand lonely nights dreaming of the kiss Simon might have given her in that sunlit barn if she hadn’t been so young and he hadn’t been so jaded. She would close her eyes with a wistful sigh and imagine the tender communion of their minds, hearts and souls as his lips gently brushed over hers in a chaste caress.
This was not that kiss.
She had been right about one thing. There was nothing proper about this kiss. It wasn’t the kiss of a suitor tenderly wooing his bride. It was the kiss of a pirate claiming his prize.
The kiss of a conquering barbarian intent upon ravishing the first village virgin he saw.
Simon ruthlessly plundered the softness of her lips, taking advantage of her shocked gasp to plunge his tongue between them.
She welcomed him into her with shocking ease. The heated thrust of his tongue threatened to melt everything inside of her to thick, sweet honey.
Simon had thought to punish Catriona, but he was the one in pain—aching with a raw hunger that made him want to devour so much more than just her pretty mouth.
When her knees failed her, his knee was there, sliding between her thighs to bear her up.
Even through the thickness of her skirts, he could feel the heat emanating from her tender core. He could not resist crudely grinding his knee against her, and his body surged with a wicked thrill of satisfaction when she moaned her helpless pleasure into his mouth.
Neither one of them heard the creak of the cell door swinging open on its rusty hinges.
“Aw…ain’t that sweet!”
They sprang apart. Acting purely on instinct, Simon wrapped one arm protectively around her waist and thrust her behind the shelter of his body.
The gaoler was standing in the doorway of the cell, the blackened stumps of his teeth bared in a fond grin. “Seeing the two o’ you together like that positively warms me old cockles.” He shifted his gaze to Simon, sighing wistfully. “You’re a lucky devil, lad. I always did wish I ’ad me a sister o’ my very own.”
H
e wasn’t coming.
Catriona climbed to her knees in the padded window seat, unlatched her bedchamber window and leaned halfway out into the night. Except for the distant jingle of a harness and the whicker of a restless horse drifting out from the stables, there was little to disturb the bucolic peace of the evening. No matter how desperately she searched the rolling hills and neat hedgerows surrounding her uncle’s estate, there was no sign of a gallant knight charging over the hill to either rescue or ravish her.
A wicked shiver danced unbidden over her skin. If the kiss he had planted on her lips at the jail was any indication, he was more inclined toward the latter.
She cast a nervous glance over her shoulder at the bed. Even Robert the Bruce seemed to have deserted her. The furry rogue was probably out courting the harem of female cats who prowled the stables, vying for his fickle attentions.
Settling back on her heels, she studied the delicate ormolu clock on the mantel.
According to her calculations, Simon should have been released from Newgate over five hours ago. In the four days since they had made their pact, he’d had ample time to plot his escape from her. He had probably already fled the city, perhaps even the country. He was most likely languishing in the arms of some pretty little trollop right now, swilling brandy and making jokes at Catriona’s expense.
Given the reckless promise she had made him, she supposed she ought to be grateful that he was stranding her at the proverbial altar. Agreeing to his bold demand had been madness itself. Of course, it had almost been worth it just to watch that beautifully sculpted jaw of his drop in shock.
Heat crept into her cheeks as she tried to stop her wayward imagination from conjuring up shocking images of the
duties
a man like Simon Wescott would expect his wife to
perform
. She ran a finger over the tender swell of her bottom lip. Judging by the devastating skill of his kiss, those duties would probably afford her just as much pleasure as they did him, if not more.
The clock ticked away another minute. Apparently not even the prospect of bedding her was enough to entice him into honoring their bargain. Catriona shifted restlessly on the window seat, feeling unaccountably irritable.
The faint echo of a husky male murmur made her heart skip a beat. She craned her neck toward the copper-roofed dovecote, only to discover two of her uncle’s footmen out for an evening smoke before securing the house for the night.
Despite the tender buds adorning the nearby branches of a linden tree, a crisp bite of winter still laced the March air. Curling into a corner of the window seat, Catriona tucked her bare feet beneath the hem of her nightdress and hugged her ragged plaid more tightly around her.
The green and black tartan was so threadbare it was nearly transparent in spots. Her uncle had banished it from polite company over three years ago. She’d had to rescue it from the trash heap twice after he’d ordered the maids to burn it. The cashmere shawl he’d given her for her twentieth birthday was tossed carelessly over the lacquered dressing screen in the corner while she clung to this rag.