The Heiress (6 page)

“I’m very wealthy, ladies,” Richard said. “I had no need to marry Christiana for money.”

“Then why did you marry her?” Suzette demanded.

Daniel grimaced, wondering how Richard was going to answer that one.

“I care about Christiana and her happiness,” Richard said finally. Apparently the women weren’t buying that, which Daniel supposed wasn’t surprising considering they thought Richard was Dicky and had treated his wife horribly this last year. At least that was what Daniel presumed when Richard sighed and added, “My behavior this last year is a direct result of what happened with my brother. I—”

“Oh,” Lisa interrupted. “Of course.”

“Of course what?” Suzette asked suspiciously.

“Don’t you see, Suzette? No doubt in his heart of hearts he has always felt guilty for surviving the fire that killed his brother.”

Daniel rolled his eyes at the words. Richard had absolutely nothing to feel guilty about, and he didn’t think George had possessed the capacity to feel guilt, but Lisa was not done.

“Meeting and falling in love with Chrissy must have been a balm to his wounded soul,” Lisa continued in earnest tones. “But then they married and moved here, living just up the street from the charred remains of the townhouse where his poor brother died. It must be a daily reminder of his death. His guilt would have returned and trebled, because he was no longer experiencing just the guilt of surviving while his brother didn’t, but now also for finding a love and happiness his poor dead brother would never have . . . His soul tortured, his spirit wounded, he lashed out at Chrissy, the woman he loved, destroying her love and their relationship out of the guilt consuming him.”

Daniel was so amazed at the dramatic drivel young Lisa had come up with from one simple comment that he almost laughed out loud. The girl might have just a bit too much of a romantic bent for her own good. She needed looking after, that one, and Daniel decided he would point out as much to Richard. If the man stayed married to Christiana, he would really have to look out for the girl.

“Is this true?” Suzette asked, sounding like a suspicious nanny. It was a tone Daniel had heard often as a child, though from his mother, not a nanny. They hadn’t been able to afford a nanny. Oddly enough, he suddenly found himself imagining Suzette as that nonexistent nanny, though really the gown he pictured her in as that nanny was nothing a respectable nanny would wear and covered less than it revealed as she approached him in his mind with a naughty smile and a spanking paddle in hand.

“Spank me,” he breathed on a sigh, and then muttered, “Better yet, let me spank you.” A vision immediately rose in his mind of her turning and slowly pulling up her scandalously short, ankle-revealing skirt to present him with a view of her very fine bottom.

That vision died an abrupt death when Richard’s voice intruded, soaked with melodrama as he said, “Guilt can lead a man to act like an ass and do the most foolish of things.”

Daniel almost snorted at that. He was standing there in a dark room all but dancing with a dead man while having the most ridiculous sexual fantasies about Suzette. All this while waiting to be able to slip out of the house undiscovered. Oh yes, guilt—and many other emotions—made a man do foolish things.

“Please, Suzette. Can we not at least hear him out?” Lisa pleaded.

There was a moment of silence and then Suzette answered, her voice exasperated, “Very well, but only because Christiana is stuck with him now.”

“I knew it could not have been all pretense when you were courting Christiana,” Lisa said happily, her voice fading as they apparently, finally, moved away from the door.

Daniel pressed his ear to the door to listen as the muffled voices grew fainter. Once he could no longer hear them, he waited another moment to be sure they hadn’t just fallen briefly silent, then reached for the doorknob and eased the door open. After sticking his head out to glance both ways to be sure the hallway truly was empty, he finally started out into the hall with his burden, only to stop after one step and back into the room again as a door opened up in the hall.

Grinding his teeth together, Daniel eased the door almost closed and stood peering through the narrow crack until the maid who had been sleeping in the bedroom connected to the master bedroom appeared. Christiana’s maid was his guess, and he watched impatiently as she walked by in the direction of the stairs. She moved as silently as a sylph and Daniel frowned to himself as he realized he wouldn’t know when she had cleared the stairs and it was safe to exit. Sighing, he leaned his shoulder against the wall beside the door and started to count slowly to one hundred, sure it couldn’t take longer than that for her to reach and descend the stairs and then make her way up the hall toward the servant’s section of the house.

Daniel grew tired of the exercise by the time he reached fifty, but made himself continue to seventy-five before pulling the door open and easing his head out to peer about again. A gusty sigh of relief slipped from him when he saw the way was clear, and he hurried out into the hall, making for the stairs. He even reached them, but it was as far as he got before the sound of a door opening in the hallway below made him freeze. Adrenaline rushing through his veins, he peered over the railing in time to see Suzette appear below him. She was alone and walking at a quick clip.

Cursing under his breath, Daniel turned and hurried back up the hall wondering why the devil Richard hadn’t kept the woman preoccupied longer. He almost went to a different room than the one he’d just exited, but didn’t know which room would offer a safe haven. Daniel suspected the room he’d been in was the one Lisa was occupying while here, but that meant Suzette’s could be any of the other rooms and with his luck that would be whichever one he chose to duck into. In the end, he decided to return to the original room as the only relatively safe haven at the moment. Once Suzette went into her own room, he would then have to get out of Lisa’s quickly though, because with his luck, she would soon follow her sister upstairs.

Cursing George and even Richard for this ridiculous predicament, Daniel ducked into the room he thought was Lisa’s and eased the door almost closed so he could watch to see which room Suzette went into. It simply wouldn’t do if he started to leave, needed to find a new hiding spot to avoid Lisa and ducked into Suzette’s room by accident to escape the girl.

Daniel had the door open a bare sliver, just enough to see the length of this end of the hall to the top of the stairs. He found himself smiling for absolutely no reason he could think of when Suzette’s head came into view as she mounted the stairs. It was replaced with surprise when her upper body came into view and he noted the large damp patch on the front of her pale muslin gown. But that surprise was replaced with interest as he noted the way the apparently damp cloth was clinging to the curves of her breasts and her belly. Dear God, it was indecent . . . in a hell of an interesting way. The cloth had gone a little transparent with the damping, so that he was sure he could see darker circles where her nipples would be. Damn . . .

Daniel was so taken with the sight that it took him a moment to note that she was coming up the hall, and heading straight for the door he was peering out of. She would walk past, he assured himself, but couldn’t help noticing that the angle she was taking was pointing her straight to the door he held cracked open. Daniel stayed put for one more moment, but when she stopped at the table next to the door to pick up the candle holder resting there, and leaned up to the sconce on the wall to light the candle he realized she wasn’t going to bypass the door for another after all. It wasn’t Lisa’s room he was in, but Suzette’s.

Sure he couldn’t escape before she took the step that would allow her to reach and open the door, Daniel just froze, panic turning his limbs to stone as his mind began scrabbling around trying to come up with explanations as to why he was there in her room, and more importantly, why he had a dead man over his shoulder.

Fortunately, he never had to make those explanations. Suzette was just reaching for the doorknob when Lisa hailed her from the top of the stairs. Much to his relief, Suzette’s hand dropped back to her side and she turned toward her sister, and then moved to meet her as the younger girl started up the hall.

Daniel’s panic eased enough then to allow him to move and he promptly whirled away from the door and started across the room toward the nearest window. Fortunately, he wasn’t in complete darkness. The thin line of light coming from the door as well as the starlight coming through the open drapes of the window allowed him to make out and avoid furniture. Arriving at the window, he wasted no time in opening it, and promptly tossed George out. He felt a twinge of guilt as he heard the solid thud of the man’s body hitting the ground below, but only a twinge, he was too busy trying to follow him out to experience much more than that. Daniel had managed to settle on the ledge and lift one leg out the window when the room was suddenly awash with light.

Glancing around with a start, he stared at Suzette who had stopped in the open door, one hand clutching the candle stick with its lit taper. Her mouth was agape with amazement.

“Daniel,” she breathed.

“Er . . . yes . . . I . . . er . . . should explain . . .” Unfortunately, no explanations were coming to mind, so instead, he turned to glance down at George’s body on the ground a story below and grimaced. The man was sprawled face down in the grass, his head and legs sticking out at odd angles and the blanket now covering his derriere and arms only.

The sound of the door closing caught his ear and he glanced back to the room to see that Suzette had closed it. She had also set down her candle on a table by the door and was now rushing toward him. Daniel immediately drew his leg back into the room and sprang to his feet. Eager to keep her from the view below, he raised his hands to stop her from approaching the window, but she bypassed them easily. Not by feinting one way or the other, but by gliding between them and into his arms. The next thing Daniel knew her mouth was on his.

Suzette had obviously learned a thing or two from their earlier kisses, he noted a bit distractedly. She didn’t merely mash her mouth on his as she had the first time, but caressed his mouth with hers as he had done to her earlier. Daniel was so surprised that he simply stood there, his arms automatically closing around her. He had no sooner done that than she pulled back and whispered, “There is no need to explain. You have come to tell me yes.”

“I have?” Daniel asked with surprise.

“Of course,” she laughed, leaning back to allow her hands to move curiously over his chest. “Why else would you come tonight rather than wait for morning?”

That was a good question, he thought catching her hands with his and bringing their exploration to a halt. It was difficult to concentrate with her fingers playing across his chest, measuring the width and firmness. And Daniel definitely needed to concentrate now. He needed to come up with a reasonable explanation for his presence in her room that didn’t include his winding up in Gretna Green getting leg shackled. He definitely needed to make it clear that he wasn’t ready to marry.

“Er . . . well, actually, about that,” Daniel began finally, but then frowned as his hands holding hers brushed against the front of her damp gown. She was soaked through with something, whiskey from the smell of it, and he asked, “What happened? Why are you drenched in whiskey?”

“Oh.” Her smile gave way to annoyance and she glanced down at herself. Daniel followed her gaze, noting that the gown was plastered to her like a second skin, and it was definitely her nipples he was seeing through the now sheer cloth.

“Richard tried to stop me from drinking his whiskey and knocked it all over me,” she muttered with disgust. “He claims he’s changed and wants to make Christiana happy, but . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t think he’s changed at all. Chrissy says he won’t let anyone drink his whiskey and he was just as selfish about it in his office a moment ago as she claimed. I don’t think he’s really changed one wit.”

“I don’t know about that,” Daniel murmured, hoping to help Richard in his efforts to convince the women he’d changed so that Christiana would warm to him more quickly. Suzette might be able to influence Christiana if he could convince her that he had truly changed. “Coming as close to death as he apparently did today can make a man reevaluate his life and can be an impetus for change.”

“Hmm.” Suzette didn’t look convinced, but just shrugged, and then smiled and said, “I don’t want to discuss Dicky. I want to talk about us.”

“Us?” he asked weakly.

“Yes. I’m so glad you’ve decided to accept my proposal and marry me, my lord,” Suzette breathed and then rose up on tiptoe to kiss him again. This time she didn’t just caress his mouth with hers, but then she nipped at his lower lip, another trick he’d taught her earlier that night. Damn, she was a fast learner he thought with dismay. And damned good at this kissing business for a beginner, he decided when her tongue slid out to run along his lips. It was a temptation he simply couldn’t resist and Daniel allowed his mouth to open to her, his own tongue sliding out to play.

Suzette immediately sighed into his mouth and slid her arms up around his neck, her body arching into his with a rather flattering eagerness. An eagerness borne of the belief that he intended to marry her, Daniel reminded himself grimly and was about to put an end to this when he was distracted by the door opening behind her.

Stilling, he opened his eyes and then almost sighed with relief when he spotted Richard in the open door and not someone else. The other man paused at once on spying them, but then just stood there looking unsure what to do. Deciding it would be better for everyone if Suzette didn’t realize they’d been discovered, Daniel waved him away. Richard hesitated another moment, but then apparently decided to trust him and backed silently out of the room, pulling the door closed again.

The moment Daniel heard the soft click indicating it was fully closed he broke their kiss and began trying to disentangle himself. “Suzette, we have to stop now. I should go. It’s not proper for me to be in your room like this.”