The Butler Did It (21 page)

“No, I don't, Miss Clifford,” Morgan told her. “If I had any sense at all, I would have had you and the rest of the ragtag assemblance that has commandeered my home thrown out of here this morning.”

“We—”

“Paid. Yes, I know,” Morgan said, watching as two small rounds of hot color appeared on Emma's cheeks. Interesting. Her entire face seemed to react to embarrassment, but only these two small spots showed her temper. “I'll ring for Thornley, Miss Clifford, and he can bring you a small platter of ham and cheese, at which point I do believe I can begin toting up what you owe me over and above what you have
paid.
”

“It wasn't that much of a pittance, my lord,” Emma said, those flags of color still flying high in her cheeks. “I could have run our home for a full year on that amount.”

“I'm sure you could, Miss Clifford. And you're mightily fatigued doing it, which is why you're here, to snatch up a wealthy husband who will put a period to your days of pinching every penny that happens to drop into your paws.”

“We've fairly beaten this subject to death today, my lord, and I'm heartily weary of it,” Emma said, getting to her feet, so that he had to rise as well. “What I wish to discuss now is this ridiculous idea of you providing me with a dowry. I won't have it.”

“No, you won't. Your hapless groom will have it, and I am giving serious consideration to doubling the figure that originally entered my mind. The poor fellow will doubtless earn every penny, leg-shackled to you.”

Emma gifted him with a long, dispassionate stare, the sort of look that would have had her brother, for one, ducking under the nearest table, his arms wrapped protectively about his head. “Say what you will, my lord, poke fun as you may, I will
not
be a party to this ludicrous dowry business, and will so inform anyone who assumes otherwise.”

“Really? Perceive me, if you will, as wonderfully impressed. You can see inside minds now, Miss Clifford? Deduce that a person is looking at you but seeing my money? Amazing.”

“I don't have to see inside anyone's head, my lord,” Emma said, her palms itching to slap that supercilious smirk off his face. “They tell me, straight out, when they ask what they believe are clever questions about my
guardian,
about how
generous
he is to be sponsoring me in Society. Why, they all but pull out scraps of paper and ask me to write down the figure so that they might then place it beneath their pillows and dream of it at night.”

It took some doing, but Morgan withheld his smile. “Take advantage of your good fortune, Miss Clifford, not umbrage. I can well afford most any amount, to be rid of you.”

“No.” As she'd jammed her fists against her waist while she bit out the word, it could only be a mistake to think she was saying one thing yet meaning another.

Morgan, no longer with any inclination to smile, glared at her. “Now you're being ridiculous. By tomorrow morning all of Mayfair will know that you are my ward, and that I have offered a dowry. Sally Jersey, all by herself, will have told two hundred people or more, and even plucked an amount out of the air before repeating it as gospel. You cannot contradict what is already a fact, not without considerable embarrassment.”

“To you, my lord. To you.”

“Damn—yes, Miss Clifford, to me. And to you. Think. If I have you under my roof, I am your guardian. There is no other male to gift you with that
honor,
if I can call it such and, believe me, if I could think of an
other word that wouldn't blister your feminine ears, I would employ it. If I have you under my roof and I am not your guardian, then I must have ulterior motives, luring your gullible grandmother and mother under false pretenses and planning a great seduction of your admittedly beautiful self.”

“That's ridiculous. Nobody would think that.” She would not lower herself to engaging in an argument as to whether or not she was beautiful, because she was too modest to protest what she knew to be the truth. But she would not cringe at fighting him, tooth and nail, on this silly business of guardianship.

Morgan arched one expressive eyebrow. “Ah, the innocence of youth. Dare I say stupidity? No, I am not so cruel.”

“Then don't be so condescending, either, my lord,” Emma told him, slapping her gloves against her palm. “I like you little enough as it is.”

“At last, something we have in common, as I am not enamored of you, Miss Clifford, no more so than I would be of any thorn sticking in my side. But, that said, you cannot contradict the existence of a dowry.”

“I do contradict it. I want to be shed of the sort of fools I encountered this evening, my lord. Between the ones that were dancing attention on me because of my grandmother's ridiculous scheme, and those who were out to snag what they believe will be a small fortune from you, I had a most uncomfortable evening, one I do not wish
to repeat. It was only Mr. Rolin who spoke to me as if I were a person in my own right.”

How he hated hearing that name on her lips. He felt a tic beginning in his cheek. “As I believe I said earlier, Miss Clifford, you are not to encourage Mr. Rolin. I, as your guardian, will pen a note and have it sent round to him in the morning, crying off from your drive.”

“I will allow no such interference from you, my lord. You are not my guardian, I am not your ward, and I will do what I wish. I will tell anyone and everyone that you are not my guardian, but only housing us for the Season, and that there
is
no dowry. And I will go driving with whom I wish, and I wish to go driving with Mr. Rolin.”

She didn't end with “So there!” but the words hung in the air anyway.

“I'll speak to your mother,” Morgan said, then added, after conjuring up a mental picture of Daphne Clifford, “or perhaps your grandmother. One of them should see the sense in listening to me.”

Emma stepped quickly to the door and pressed her back against it, her arms outstretched, to bar him from leaving. “You will do no such thing. You will talk to me.”

“I've
been
talking to you, Miss Clifford, and found the exercise about as productive as beating my own head against a rock. Step out of my way.”

Emma couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe what she was thinking, feeling. In the midst of her anger, how could she be thinking about his lordship's bluer-than-
blue eyes? About the way his skin creased at the outside edges of those eyes, as if he spent considerable time squinting into the sun. Something inside her went very cold, then very warm.

He was standing close, too close. All at once she recalled the lateness of the hour, how alone the two of them were here, in his private study. Wasn't that just like her, acting, and then only later, thinking. And it was all his fault, because he was the one who had roused her temper to a point where any thoughts of self-preservation had flown out the window. Why, she had barely been able to contain herself until they could return to Grosvenor Square, where she could be alone with him.

Alone with him. Why had her mama allowed such a thing? One answer would be that her mama already believed that the marquis was her daughter's guardian. But, then, her mama could be talked round to believing the sky was green, if the argument sounded reasonable. Unless her mama, a sweet but rather featherwitted woman who admittedly had once had a Season, understood something she did not. And
that
was a difficult pill to swallow.

“Do…do you really believe Society would think that I was here, under your roof as you say, because you wish to…to ruin me? If I remain here, and there's no dowry, no talk of you being my guardian?”

Morgan pushed the fingers of both hands through his hair. “Ruin you? You really do wish to speak with the
gloves off, don't you? Good Lord.
Yes,
Miss Clifford, that is exactly what Society would think. Society loves nothing better than a delicious scandal, real or made up out of whole cloth. Under my roof—although clearly the expression annoys you—with only two dotty females and an idiot boy to guard your reputation? If my mother were your hostess, she would be here. She is not.”

Emma thought about this for a moment, then said, “She could be too ill to travel and have prevailed upon you to stand in her stead.”

“True. Which would make me your guardian,” Morgan gritted out from between clenched teeth. “My God, we're going in circles here. Apply to your grandmother, Miss Clifford, for I'll say no more on the matter. Except,” he said, looking at her, seeing an innocent yet spirited morsel who would be so easily crushed in Jarrett Rolin's opportunistic hands, “for the one more thing, one more turn around the obvious, if you please. You will
not
see Mr. Rolin. I won't have it.”

“You won't have it?” Emma said, realizing that she was still standing with her back to the door, still stupidly holding her arms out at her sides, her gloves gripped tightly in her right hand. “
You
won't have it?” she repeated with more force…which would have been about the time her brother would have scampered out from beneath the table and run for the nearest exit, to save himself. “Do you wish to learn, my lord, how very uninterested I am in what you will or will not have?”

“Oh, the devil with it,” Morgan said, talking to himself. “I should have done this the first time.”

So saying, he reached out, which wasn't too great a stretch, for he'd been inching closer and closer to Emma, in order to impress his consequence on her (or impress himself against her; he wasn't quite sure), and brought his mouth down on hers.

To shut her up. That's all. To shut her up.

Emma's eyes popped open wide and she looked at him, seeing a bit of his nose, one closed eye, the lock of darkest black hair that persisted in falling onto his smooth forehead.

She felt his body against hers, hard and unyielding, became aware that his leg had somehow insinuated itself between her thighs.

She tasted him. She smelled him.

And then she began pummeling him on the back with both fists as she struggled to be free of him.

Morgan felt Emma's fists against his back, as ineffectual as feathers beating on London Wall, and smiled slightly as he drew her even more firmly into his embrace—leaving her just enough “fighting space” so that he could feel her softness moving against him.

He was vindicated, he deserved this. She had humiliated him, and now it was his turn. His turn to do what? Humiliate himself? No. He'd sort that out later.

Lifting his lips just slightly, he slanted his mouth and took hers again, this time insinuating his tongue,
for she had taken that slight opportunity to open her mouth, most probably to tell him something outrageously female like: “Unhand me this minute, you rotter!”

And that's when it happened. That was when he realized that, blast him for a fool, he
liked
this impossible woman,
desired
this willful, stubborn woman. That was when the smile, both the inward and the outward ones, faded from Morgan, to be replaced by an emotion that had nothing to do with humor, or anger, or even some juvenile attempt to get some of his own back.

Emma's fists still pounded against him. Then her open hands. Then she stilled, her fingers spread against his back, so that she could concentrate on what he was doing to her mouth, with her mouth.

She held on tight, her anger forgotten,
experiencing.
Melting against him, only to stiffen when she felt his hand cup her breast, then going fluid once more.

Angry. They had been so angry with each other, their tempers running hot.

But this was another sort of heat. Morgan felt it. Emma felt it.

Her knees buckled, and she felt herself sliding toward the floor, Morgan with her, still holding on to each other, their mouths still locked together, their hands roving, until they were both on their knees, their bodies fused together, melted together in this new, unexpected and overwhelming heat.

Morgan dragged his mouth from hers and buried his face against the side of her neck. “You drive me insane.”

Lifting her head, so that she could feel his kisses against her skin, savor the small bites he teased against that same skin, Emma whispered, “I really, really dislike you.”

“I know.” He shut her up again, taking her mouth even as he slid his arms around her back and, with more haste than finesse, lowered her to the floor.

He felt her arms as she wrapped them around his neck, pulling him closer, and the heat burst into flame—just before the Real World, using the voice of Thornley, came through the door, dousing those flames with the force of a bucket of cold water poured over his head.

“Ohmigod,” Emma said, her eyes wide as she looked up at Morgan as if she'd just realized what she'd been doing…what they'd been doing…what they'd been about to do. “My lord,” she whispered, blinking. “If you…if you would desist in pawing me and help me to my feet?”

Morgan was just as shocked, coming back to himself with a sudden shame at his ungentlemanly actions. He'd been…he'd been about to…
was he out of his mind?

“Certainly, Miss Clifford,” he said with what he believed to be remarkable sangfroid, taking her hands and helping her to her feet.

She began straightening her gown, which was sadly askew and badly wrinkled, even as he picked up the end
of the strand of faux pearls and tried, without much success, to jam it back into her hair.

“My lord? I had thought you wished refreshments,” Thornley said from the foyer.

“Not…not really, no,” Morgan said, casting a quick look down at himself, then just as quickly turning his back to Emma and walking over to stand with his front against his desk. Damn revealing breeches. “Thank you anyway, Thornley.”

“You're welcome, my lord. It's gone two, my lord. I imagine the young lady is ready for her bed. And may I say that you, too, my lord, have had a very long day.”