The Mischievous Miss Murphy (15 page)

Candie pressed herself against the wall, her blonde head slowly moving back and forth in wordless denial of the inevitable. She should scream for help. She should faint away at his feet. She should give him a swift kick in the shins.

So why couldn’t she open her mouth? Why did she feel more awake, more vitally alive than ever before? Why, if there was any physical contact to be made between the two of them, did she want it to be with her lips, her arms, her tinglingly anticipating body?

He took her mouth first, capturing her lips beneath his fleetingly before tracing small, nibbling kisses down the length of her slender neck to her shoulder. Finding her hands with his own, he raised her arms to twine around his neck, and when she did not resist, he trailed his fingers down her arms and began a devastating exploration of her soft upper body.

“Ah, my torment,” he breathed against her ear as he maneuvered the two of them over to lie close together on the waiting bed, “I have longed for this since the moment we first met. Come, my sweet Candie, let me love you.”

Candie was beyond protest, beyond denial. Her guardian angel, usually so alert to danger, was dismissed without a qualm as the woman in Candie gloried in an entire world of newly discovered sensations. If she were to be damned for anything, she would gladly be damned for this.

Tony was an experienced lover, and it took him next to no time at all to dispense with the robe that hindered his wandering hands. Now he could feel her softness as it beckoned beneath only a thin covering of silk. He would love all of her, taste and touch her from head to toe. But first he had to have another sample of her sweet lips.

Nibbling at the comers of her mouth, he used his tongue to coax her lips apart before deepening the kiss.

And then, suddenly, he drew back. Candie, slow to realize that the man who had so recently been draped half across her willing form was now arching away from her, his body rigid with shock, moaned at her abandonment and, her eyes still shut tight in bliss, reached up to coax him back into her embrace. Her hands met rock-hard muscle, taut, unyielding muscle, and she opened her eyes to gaze at him through slightly out of focus sherry eyes.

“Tony?” she questioned shakily.

His eyes raked her silk-encased body one more time before glaring at her accusingly. “Damn you, Candice Murphy!” he spit out between clenched teeth. “What trick are you planning now?”

She didn’t understand. What was he talking about? Hadn’t he been the one doing the seducing? She watched in bewilderment as he practically threw himself off the bed and put half the distance of the room between them.

“Cover yourself!” he hissed, averting his eyes. “What if my sister were to come in and see you like that? Or is that what this is all about? All that talk about never marrying was all a hum, wasn’t it? You’re out to catch yourself a husband, aren’t you? Well let me tell you, madam, you’ve set your cap at the wrong man!”

Now Candie was angry. Very angry! “What the devil are you babbling about? You barge into my life, set my entire formerly pleasant existence all topsy-turvy, make me abandon every vow I’ve ever made—not to mention depriving me of my hope of Heaven without allowing me the luxury of enjoying the sin—and then you turn around and accuse
me
of having designs on
you
? You’re a few bricks shy of a load, my lord, do you know that?”

“And you, madam, are the most crafty female since Eve,” Tony snapped. “You didn’t think I could tell, did you? You thought you had me so overcome with passion I wouldn’t notice, didn’t you?”

“My stars, the man’s gone stark, staring mad,” Candie said to the room at large. “That’s what it is. The man’s become unstrung.”

“Oh really?” he sneered. “I may have been a little unhinged earlier, but not so much as to overlook the fact that you, my little schemer, are a virgin!”

Candie was nonplussed for a moment. Of course she was a virgin. But how did he know? And what difference did it make? “Guilty as charged, my lord,” she admitted at last, just as she thought he was about to explode once more. “I’m a virgin. Since when is that a crime?”

Coniston ran his hand through his hair, a habit Candie realized to be an unconscious gesture of frustration. “Give me some credit, for God’s sake,” he said curtly. “I may be many things, but I am not a despoiler of virgins.” He slammed a fist into his palm. “Damn that wily Max! He knew it all along.”

At last Candie understood. Tony had been more than willing to bed her when he thought her to be a woman of the world, but now that he had discovered her innocence he didn’t know what to do with either her or his own desires.

Unbelievably, she felt very much like smiling. “What’s to do now, Coniston?” she quipped, settling herself on the edge of the bed.

Lost for a moment in a brown study, Tony’s head jerked up at her mocking words. If looks could kill, Max would have soon been throwing a fine Irish wake for his only niece, but Candie felt no fear. “What I do now, you maddening chit, is to go somewhere private and get roaringly, messily drunk.”

Candie watched as he headed for the window. Just as he put a leg up on the sill she asked softly, “And what then, Tony? How do we deal together in the future?”

Tony turned to look at her over his shoulder. “We don’t,” he answered tersely before disappearing out of sight.

T
ony was true to his word.

Four days had passed since he’d uttered his vow in Candie’s bedchamber, and no one, not Patsy (whose only comment was that Tony must be hot on the trail of yet another dashing matron), or Hugh Kinsey (who stared at Candice very intently but said little), or Will Merritt (who hadn’t even realized that his friend had done a flit) could shed even a glimmer of light on his possible whereabouts.

Max, being Max, had not been true to his word.

He had remained ensconced in his suite at the Pulteney for the full three days he’d allotted for the scheme before returning to Half Moon Street, having departed the hotel disguised as himself, his booty (and some fine wines discovered during a nocturnal tour through the Pulteney cellars) dutifully lugged to the street by a willing lackey. All that remained behind of the Maharajah of Budge-Budge were a small mound of soiled ceremonial robes and a large unpaid bill of fare.

After appearing in Portman Square to offer his thanks to Lady Montague for “sheltering my dear lamb whilst I was away” and present the lady with a fine Sevres vase as a small token of his appreciation (seeing as how his pawnbroker had offered only half its worth), he agreed that Candie should remain where she was for a space, as his schedule was rather hectic.

Upon his asking for and receiving Lady Montague’s permission for some moments of privacy with his niece, their hostess departed to have a word with Cook, who had performed some distressingly distasteful act upon last evening’s turbot.

The door to the small salon had barely closed behind Patsy’s departing form when Candie, standing in the middle of the room with her arms crossed at her waist, asked baldly, “How much?”

Max didn’t dissemble, but calmly reached into his pocket to pull out a roll of notes as thick around as his fist and dutifully hand it over to her. “I left decent vails for the servants, of course, and the advertisement set me back a trifle, but the rest is there, lassie, all right and tight. Now if you could just see your way clear to gifting me with a pound or two for walking-around money? It’s the barber I’ll be visiting, and there’s a hole starting in my left boot sole, and no mistake.”

Candie nodded, barely listening to her uncle’s recital of pressing needs. She counted out over a thousand pounds of pure profit—surely enough to keep them warm and dry and in a lovely cocoon of comfort for some months to come. Unless Maximilien had another sudden urge to visit his favorite gambling hell, that is. “Here’s two hundred,
Uncail
, “ she said, holding out a small pile of notes and depositing the rest in the bodice of her morning gown. “That should keep you in shoe leather for a little while.”

“It’s a hard heart you have, lass, and no mistake. Is it casting me off you’re about to be, now that you’re swimming in Lady M’s deep gravy boat?”

“Oh, close your potato trap,
Uncail
, and give your tongue a holiday,” Candie admonished cheekily before gathering Max into her arms and giving him a smacking kiss on the cheek. “I missed you, you know, conniving rascal that you are.”

Max was pleased to see that his niece hadn’t allowed her friendship with Lady Montague to turn her head. But what about Lord Coniston, he couldn’t help but wonder. Disengaging himself from Candie’s fond embrace, he held her at arm’s length and looked into her eyes searchingly. “And what about Betancourt, puss? Is he why you’re here? And is it pursuing the man or hiding from him that you’re doing?”

“Ha!” she expostulated. “As if hiding behind his own sister’s skirts could keep me safe from such as him.” Her brown eyes took on a dreamy look as she remembered Tony’s nocturnal visit to her boudoir, then clouded as she remembered his parting words. “His lordship was a bit put out by my slight breaching of his family walls, but he took himself off several days ago to God knows where, so I imagine he can’t be too upset. Not that I care a fig where he is, mind you.”

She shrugged her shoulders eloquently. “Ah, well, while the cat is out the mouse will dance, right, Max?”

“So it’s cat and mouse you two are playing, is it? He came to see me at the Pulteney, you know, ranting and raving at how I was going to land you in jail, or worse. Wasn’t nice of you to set him on me, not that I couldn’t handle him.”

Candie smiled. “I heard. You gave him that ‘if it please God’ rubbish, didn’t you? Seeing as how it took you three days to show your cheery face in Portman Square, I imagine God’s pleasure was not required. I’m sorry for setting the man on you, but I could tell he wasn’t about to stop hounding me until I told him what I knew. I had no fear that you couldn’t fob him off some way.”

Giving Max another kiss, she proceeded to sit herself down on the settee and pat the space next to her. “Come here and let me tell you about a visitor Patsy had while you were away.”

“Ivy Dillingham?” her uncle suggested, wrinkling his pudgy nose. “Tony mentioned her to me. Can’t say as I knew of his connection with the old harpy. How is she? A year older and a year worse, I wager.”

“Why not stay to dinner and judge for yourself? Mr. Merritt and Mr. Kinsey are already invited. I do believe Patsy wishes to use them as a cushion against Miss Dillingham.”

Maximilien considered the idea a moment and decided an evening spent with Ivy Dillingham might be entertaining. But he said, “Perhaps I can amuse the woman.”

“You plan to pluck the same fat hen twice?” Candie asked, seeing the twinkle in her uncle’s eyes.

Max shook his head. “No need, lass. We’re sitting solid for the moment. I just thought I’d flatter the creature a bit—keep her viper tongue off you and her ladyship for a space.”

Candie gave a little shiver. “I won’t ask how you know Patsy’s frightened to death of the woman, but I’ll agree to anything that will keep Miss Dillingham diverted, at least during dinner. Honestly, the woman’s enough to put even a trencherman like you off your feed. Besides, I think she could be dangerous.”

“Covets her brother’s wife’s goods, y’mean?”

“Exactly.” Candie nodded in agreement. “I could see her toting up the worth of every scrap of furniture in the place when she was here the other day. Not that she would do murder or anything like that, but she bears Lady Montague little love. I wish Patsy could be rid of her. If only she’d open her eyes to Mr. Kinsey. He’d protect her.”

“Candice Maureen Elizabeth Murphy,” Max chided, clucking his tongue. “Since when did you need a third party to do your dirty work for you? This soft living has dulled your wits and mayhap your courage as well. Ah well, if you’re too soft to do the thing yourself I guess I might be persuaded to take a hand in things.”

Sitting up very straight, Candie retorted just as her uncle had known she would. “The devil you will, you devious old conniver. If I decide Ivy Dillingham must go, I’ll handle the way of her going m’self, with no help from you at all. The apple doesn’t fall that far from the tree, you know, and I’ve learned a trick or two of my own over the years.”

“How will Betancourt react if you go sticking your nose into what he clearly believes to be family business?”