The Naked King (2 page)

As he feared, she was crying.

“Go away.” She wouldn’t look at him.

“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that quite the way it sounded.”

She snorted—and then had to sniff repeatedly. He offered her his handkerchief.

“Thank you.” She glared at him briefly, her eyes quite red behind her spectacles.

He took Harry’s leash so she could blow her nose, which she did rather defiantly. She stared straight ahead, refusing to meet his gaze.

“And I was not affected in the slightest by your words. Of course not. I merely had a speck in my eye. It is true my sister is a beauty; I have hopes she will have a wonderful Season.” She sent him a pointed look then. “She is much too young for you, however.”

She looked like an angry kitten, trying to be fierce with its tiny claws and teeth. And he
had
hurt her feelings; he had sisters; he knew when girls felt wounded.

He felt an odd warmth in his chest. A bout of indigestion, most likely. He’d certainly had too much to drink. Once he saw Lady . . . Lady . . .

“You never did tell me your name.”

She shrugged. “And you never told me yours.”

“So I didn’t.” He inclined his head. “Stephen Parker-Roth, at your service.”

“What?” She stumbled on a crack in the pavement. He reached to grab her, but she avoided his hand.
“The King of Hearts?”

“Well, yes, some people call me that.” He cleared his throat. “I’m rather good—or lucky—with cards.”

Cards? Anne sniffed. “It’s not
cards
you’re good with.”

“It is.”

Damn it, the rogue looked like a blasted choir boy, as sinless as a cherub, but she knew through long association with her half brothers not to trust that mask of innocence. “Oh?” She allowed her skepticism to show in her voice.

He had the grace to laugh. “I grant you my skill with cards is not the only reason I got that dam—er, unfortunate nickname.” He raised his brows. “How do you know it, Lady—” He frowned. “Devil a bit, I
still
don’t know your name.”

She might as well tell him. He would learn it soon enough once the Season got underway. “My name is Lady Anne Marston.”

“Lady Anne,” he said.

Her name sounded like someone else’s when he said it—someone beautiful, or at least someone interesting. Someone he was interested in.

Idiot! Only a complete noddy would think the King of Hearts could have the slightest interest in a redheaded, bespectacled bluestocking. She wasn’t the beauty of the family; she was very ordinary looking, except for her lamentable hair.

She was
glad
he wasn’t interested in her. She wasn’t interested in him.

She was a terrible liar.

“So how is it, Lady Anne, that you know my nickname when you have so recently arrived in Town? If gossip is correct, the earl dumped you—” He coughed. “I mean
deposited
you at Crane House just yesterday.”

Dumped was the correct description. Papa could barely stand to pause the coach long enough to let her, Evie, and the boys out. He certainly hadn’t waited for their baggage to arrive; he and Georgiana were far too anxious to get to the docks and board their ship for Greece. Fortunately Cousin Clorinda, being in London already, had moved in the day before, but things were still very much at sixes and sevens.

“The London papers come even to the country, you know.”

He raised one eyebrow and looked annoyingly superior. “So you can peruse the gossip columns?”

She raised her eyebrow back at him. “So I can read the entire paper.”

And, yes, perhaps she had paid particular attention to gossip concerning the K—of H—. She’d taken an interest—a
scholarly
interest—in him. She’d come across an article in Papa’s
The Gentleman’s Magazine
a year or two ago, an account Mr. Parker-Roth had written describing one of his plant hunting expeditions. He’d sounded exceptionally intelligent and rather intrepid— obviously he’d learned how to be as cozening in print as in person.

She flushed. She’d dreamt about him once or twice, too. She was lonely on occasion—well, most of the time. She may have sworn off men, but somehow he’d caught her fancy. What harm was there in a little romantic woolgathering? She was never going to meet him.

Except she just had.

One would think a twenty-seven-year-old spinster would have more sense, especially a woman with her experience.

Traffic was beginning to pick up. The streets and walks had been deserted when she’d left Crane House earlier—a very good thing as she’d had to run to keep up with Harry. Of course now the stupid dog was walking sedately at Mr. Parker-Roth’s side.

“The
ton
is always making up nicknames for people,” he was saying. “They’ll probably christen you and your sister as soon as you attend your first social event.”

“I sincerely hope not.” Blast it, how was she going to navigate these treacherous social waters with only Cousin Clorinda to help her? She bit her lip. It was just like Papa and Georgiana to go off to dig in the dirt, leaving her in charge of the children. Not that Evie was a child any longer. Of course not. They wouldn’t be in this mess if she were.

She swallowed a sigh. Thankfully, Evie was a sensible girl—but Anne had considered herself sensible once, too. All it had taken was one experienced, London rake paying her a little attention—

Dear God, what if Brentwood was here in Town?

No, she couldn’t be that unlucky. She’d been reading the gossip columns very carefully for weeks and had not seen his name.

But if he
were
in London—

“A penny for your thoughts, Lady Anne.”

Her heart thudded into her throat. “I wasn’t thinking about anything.”

“No? You looked—”

“Oh, yes, look, here we are at Crane House.”
Thank God!
“What a surprise. I don’t know how we got here so quickly.” She was blathering, but if she kept talking, he couldn’t ask her questions she didn’t want to answer. “Thank you for escorting me and for taking charge of Harry. If you will just give me his leash, you can get”—she hadn’t been about to say he could get to bed, had she?—“that is, you can be about your business.” She smiled, or at least tried to, and held out her hand. If she was lucky, she would never see him again.

Ha! She might hope she wouldn’t see him, but she was here for the whole cursed Season. She couldn’t hide in her room and send Evie to the parties and balls with only odd, elderly Cousin Clorinda as chaperone.

Perhaps Mr. Parker-Roth would leave London tomorrow to hunt for greenery in some exotic—and very distant—location. She would add that thought to her prayers tonight.

“Lady Anne,” he said, looking far too serious all of a sudden.

“Mr. Parker-Roth, I should go. Cousin Clorinda and my sister must be wondering where I am.”

She glanced up. What if someone looked out a window and saw her conversing with Mr. Parker-Roth? She and he would be quite recognizable—neither was wearing a hat. Their faces were evident for any curious spectator to see.

Whom was she kidding? It wasn’t only her face she had to hide—her unfortunate hair was a blazing beacon, proclaiming her identity to anyone not color-blind.

Perhaps no one would look. It was early for most of the
ton
. . . but Lady Dunlee lived next door and she had a nose for even the faintest whiff of scandal. Cousin Clorinda had warned Anne about the woman the moment Anne had crossed Crane House’s threshold—and Lady Dunlee herself had already stopped Anne to let her know the boys had been teasing her nasty gray cat.

“But I never properly apologized,” Mr. Parker-Roth said. Harry sat calmly at his feet. Why wouldn’t that dog behave for her?

“No apology is necessary. Now, please—”

He touched her lips with his gloveless fingers. She froze.

Oh.

His skin was slightly rough—he clearly used his hands for more than raising a quizzing glass or shuffling cards—and warm.

All of a sudden, she didn’t care about the windows overlooking the square.

“I don’t want you to think you aren’t beautiful.” His fingers slipped sideways to cradle her jaw; his thumb moved back and forth over her bottom lip. “You are.”

He was an enchanter, that was it, weaving a spell around her. Faintly, very faintly, she heard the voice of reason warning her about gossip and Lady Dunlee, about boorish and unprincipled villains, about the complete idiocy of believing her fantasies lived in the real world, but for the first time in a decade, she ignored it. Her hands crept up to rest on the King of Hearts’s broad, solid chest.

In her dreams, he had not only been handsome, he’d been kind and honorable.

She wanted a taste of what this man could give her. Just this once. Just for academic purposes. To impress upon herself that dreams were not real and men were indeed best avoided.

She smelled the brandy on his breath again. “You’re drunk.” She spoke to him, but she was reminding herself.

“Yes.” His words whispered past her cheek. “But I’m not blind.”

His mouth brushed hers. Her lips tingled, feeling suddenly swollen. This kiss—if you could call it a kiss—was nothing like the hot, wet, slobber y affairs she’d endured from Brentwood. Being kissed by Brentwood had been an attack—this was something else entirely.

Comfort, not lust. An invitation, not a command.

Beguiling, seductive, making sin seem like a divine gift . . .

“Anne.”

She loved the sound of her name in his voice. A little shiver slithered through her and she sighed, tilting her head more, like a sunflower seeking the sun.

He made a small, satisfied noise and nibbled on her bottom lip while his free hand, the one not grasping Harry’s leash, slid to the back of her head.

An odd warmth gathered in her belly. Something hard and frozen began to melt. She leaned into Mr. Parker-Roth’s strong body, wanting—needing—more of his heat.

And then she heard the hiss of an angry cat and Harry’s answering bark. Mr. Parker-Roth jerked backward. She felt herself wobble and grabbed his coat.

“Hold tight,” he muttered. His arm locked around her waist as they lost their battle with gravity and tumbled toward the pavement.

“Oof!”
He flinched as he took the brunt of the impact.

She was not a feather weight. “Are you all right?”

“I’ll live.” His voice had an edge of pain.

“I’m so sorry!” She relaxed against him for a moment. His body was so hard under hers. Pleasantly hard. And something else of his was getting hard as well . . .

Her face burned. What had she been thinking? Here she was, sprawled across a man in a public square and from the feel of the sun on the back of her legs her skirt was up around her knees. And from the feel of the man below her, he was having the expected reaction. How mortifying. And if anyone saw them . . .

She started to scramble off him. He held her still.

“Let me go.” She tried to twist free. “Think of the scandal if we are observed.”

He flinched again and tightened his hold on her back . . . well, a bit lower than her back.

“Mind your knee, love.”

“Oh.” Her leg was now between his. Her knee was indeed very close to—“I’m so sorry.”

“That’s all right. No permanent harm done.” He smiled a little tightly. “I hope. Now, we’ll just have—”

That’s when she heard the sharp intake of breath.

“Trouble,” Mr. Parker-Roth muttered.

Anne looked up. Lady Dunlee stood not ten feet from them, a look of delighted horror on her face.

“Lady Anne—and Mr. Parker-Roth! What in the world are you doing?”

Chapter 2

Stephen rubbed his temples and tried surreptitiously to lean against a sturdy wingback chair in Lord Crane’s bookroom. Tiny devils with sledgehammers were banging away on the inside of his forehead and the high-pitched yammering around him only added to his misery. He’d give his damn fortune to be back in his bedchamber, curtains drawn, icepack on his head. But he was, for all his faults, a gentleman. He couldn’t leave Lady Anne to face the music—or screeching—alone.

He glanced over at her. She looked more than capable of defending herself. At the moment she was glaring at her elderly cousin Miss Clorinda Strange and Lady Dunlee, her mouth set in a tight line, her brows almost meeting over her nose. He’d swear her nostrils flared. If he were closer to her, he’d probably see green sparks shooting from her eyes.

“Cousin Clorinda, Lady Dunlee, you are making far too much of this incident.”

“Far too much?” Lady Dunlee sniffed and raised her eyebrows. “I don’t see how one can make ‘far too much’ of a lady disporting herself with abandon in a public square—and with the King of Hearts, no less.” She shot him a pointed look. He smiled back as blandly as possible.

“Anne.” Miss Strange was scowling. She’d not looked pleased when they’d interrupted her—she’d been perusing some large, musty tome when Lady Dunlee had burst in, dragging them along in her wake. “Is this true?”

Lady Anne turned a lovely shade of red. “Of course not. I was not disporting myself with”—Zeus, she turned even redder—“I wasn’t disporting myself at all.”

Damn, he’d like to disport himself with the lady in a private room, on a large, soft bed. Odd. He’d never been drawn to bespectacled spinsters dressed in sacks before, but there was something about this spinster . . . She’d been delightful in the square. Shy, hesitant, yet curious, too—quite the contrast from her prickly behavior up to that point.

“Oh, no?” Lady Dunlee said. “I saw you in Mr. Parker-Roth’s arms. You were running your hands over his chest before you kissed him and threw him down on the ground to have your wicked way with him.”

Lust shot directly to his, er, brain, so he momentarily lost track of the conversation. Fortunately instinct prompted him to step quickly behind a chair, shielding his telltale bit from Lady Dunlee’s sharp eyes.

Lady Dunlee had misconstrued the scene, of course, but he wished she’d had the right of it. He was more than willing to let Lady Anne have her wicked way with his poor self.

How wicked would her way be? Mmm, that was an interesting question to contemplate. If her imagination faltered, his was more than adequate for the task. Much more. It was currently producing a number of delicious images, completely inappropriate for his present location. But if he and Anne were in his bedchamber—

“Mr. Parker-Roth, did I just hear you groan?” Damned if Lady Dunlee’s eyes didn’t drop to his nether regions, still well hidden behind the wing chair.

“I don’t believe so, madam, but I do have a touch of the headache.”

The blasted woman kept her eyes focused on where his unruly cock was misbehaving and arched a brow. “I bet you do.”

She couldn’t see through the chair, could she? He felt a hot flush sweep up his neck, but he did his best to ignore it. At least this corner of the room was too shadowy for his heightened color to be easily discerned . . . he hoped. He glanced at Anne.

She appeared to be too mortified or too furious to form a coherent sentence. Her mouth was open, but only strangled sounds emerged.

Unfortunately, Miss Strange’s voice was working perfectly. “Anne, were you actually on the ground with a
man
?” She might as well have said “soul eating devil.”

Her voice drilled right between his eyes. He rubbed the spot with his index and middle finger and leaned a little more against the chair. At a guess, Miss Strange was not a huge admirer of the male of the species. Not surprising. He couldn’t imagine any of his sex admiring her. She looked like an elderly heron, all stiff and angular, with a long neck and beak-like nose. She wore her gray hair in a bun so tight her watery blue eyes bulged.

“Oh, yes.” Lady Dunlee wasn’t even trying to hide her glee. She glanced at him again before dropping her voice to a stage whisper. “Lady Anne’s skirts were up around her knees, and Mr. Parker-Roth’s hands were on her”—she dropped her voice even lower—“derriere.”

Lady Anne moaned—and not with suppressed desire. No matter. The sound, throaty and deep, caused his eager cock to grow another inch.

Blast it, this was most definitely not the time or place to entertain salacious thoughts concerning Lady Anne. They were in a very sticky situation. Lady Dunlee was by far the biggest gossip in London if not in all of England.

Miss Strange’s jaw had dropped almost to her slippers, and her throat worked exactly as if she were indeed a heron trying to swallow a large fish whole. “Ah, ah.”

“I fell.” Lady Anne had found her lovely voice again. “I wasn’t . . . there was nothing . . .” She took a deep breath and scowled at Lady Dunlee. “It was all your cat’s fault.”

Good God, didn’t Anne realize she was teetering on the edge of social annihilation by accusing the woman’s pet of misbehavior? It was akin to jumping in front of a speeding carriage. Lady Dunlee could—and likely would—take instant umbrage and flatten Anne’s reputation with just a well chosen word or two.

He cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should sit down and discuss the matter over a nice, calming cup of tea.” He’d prefer a large glass of brandy, but even his sodden brain knew he dare not ask for that. At least his dimensions had subsided sufficiently so he could risk Lady Dunlee’s scrutiny long enough to take a seat. In fact, other pains were overtaking the ache in his crotch. His shoulder and hip throbbed from where he’d landed on the pavement and his head threatened to explode. His knees felt a touch wobbly and his stomach was considering revolt.

The ladies ignored him.

Lady Dunlee had swelled up like an angry feline. “How can you possibly say Miss Whiskers is to blame for your sins?”

“Because she
is
to blame.” Lady Anne clasped her hands as though to keep from strangling Lady Dunlee. “And they aren’t sins.”

Lady Dunlee’s eyebrows disappeared into her hair. “Rolling around on the ground in passionate—”

Anne cut her off. “The entire incident was an accident. If your cat hadn’t darted past just then, Harry would not have taken off after her and pulled Mr. Parker-Roth backward, causing us both to fall.”

“Ah.” Lady Dunlee’s lips pulled into a rather dangerous smile. “And I suppose Miss Whisker’s presence somehow compelled you to kiss and caress Mr. Parker-Roth
before
your dog pulled you over?”

“No. I mean I didn’t.” Lady Anne’s complexion got even redder. “That is,
he
kissed
me
.”

The silence that followed this announcement was deafening.

“So the beast forced himself on you?” Miss Strange choked on the words. Two pairs of feminine eyes—Lady Anne had the grace to examine the floor at her feet—swiveled toward him.

“Er . . .” If he remembered correctly Lady Anne had been a very willing participant in that kiss. Surely he remembered correctly? He wasn’t that drunk—he’d never been so drunk as to take liberties with an unwilling woman.

“No, of course he didn’t force himself on me, Cousin,” Lady Anne said, her cheeks still bright red. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Miss Strange patted Anne on the shoulder. “There, there. No need to be embarrassed. It’s not your fault.” She glared at him. “Everyone knows men are all too often driven by their baser instincts.”

Anne stepped away from her cousin’s touch. “You sound like the worst horrid novel, Clorinda. Mr. Parker-Roth did not attack me.” She shrugged one shoulder, looking most uncomfortable, but compelled by honor to tell the truth. “He may have initiated the encounter, but I didn’t exactly struggle.”

Not exactly. He bit back a smile. Not at all.

He cleared his throat, bringing the ladies’ attention back to him. He couldn’t let Anne dig herself deeper into a hole. A hole? Ha. He felt parson’s mousetrap yawning before him like a bottomless abyss, but there was no way to avoid it now; they might as well step in with as much grace as they could.

“Of course you weren’t struggling, dear heart.” Three jaws dropped at the endearment. “Why would you?” He moved to take her hand in both of his before turning to the other women. “My apologies, ladies, for letting passion rule my better judgment, but I’m afraid it’s been so long since I’ve seen my betrothed, I couldn’t contain my happiness.”

“Betrothed?” All three women spoke together in the same tone of incredulity. They were like a damn Greek chorus. Three pairs of eyes goggled at him now.

“I’m sure you didn’t tell me you were betrothed, Anne.” Miss Strange’s tone was an odd mix of confusion and horror. “I would have remembered if you had. And your father didn’t mention it in his letter.” She paused, her brow wrinkling. “At least, I don’t think he did. I grant you he ran on so about his silly antiquities I did skim a lot of his missive.”

Anne tried to tug her fingers out of his grasp, but he wasn’t about to let her go. “I didn’t tell you, Cousin, because Mr. Parker-Roth and I aren’t—ouch!”

She glared at him accusatorily; he smiled. He was sorry to have squeezed her so hard, but he couldn’t let her ruin his attempt to save her reputation. Couldn’t she comprehend? All they had to do was fabricate something remotely plausible. Lady Dunlee might doubt their story—most likely would doubt it—but she couldn’t know for certain what the truth was. He and Anne would have all Season to convince her and the
ton
of their devotion.

He lifted Anne’s fingers to brush his lips over them—and smiled a little more as she blushed and tried again to snatch them out of his grasp. This charade might even be pleasant. And should it—as it likely would—end in matrimony . . . Well, he’d been thinking just this evening—or was it this morning?—that he needed to give in and look about for a bride. He’d just turned thirty, he’d narrowly escaped a marriage trap two months ago, and his older brother and younger sister were both wed and busily procreating. Hell, after his second bottle of brandy, he’d admitted to himself he didn’t much care to live out his life as old Uncle Stephen.

Not that he’d be given that opportunity, of course. When he’d been home for his nephew’s christening, Mama had been hinting—rather more than hinting—that he should embrace the joys of matrimony sooner rather than later, and with John and Jane both taken care of, she would turn the complete focus of her marital machinations on him—Nick was still too young, the lucky dog.

He’d laughed when he’d watched her drag John up for the Season year after year and push eligible young ladies into his path—he would not be laughing so heartily if he were Mama’s victim. Frankly, he’d been a little surprised she hadn’t followed him to London when he’d left the Priory after the christening. Thank God for baby Jack. But he had little doubt the joys of grandmotherhood would not supplant the duties of motherhood—as Mama saw them—forever.

Truthfully, marriage shouldn’t be that onerous. This farce had saved him the annoyance of shopping for a bride—or having Mama shop. Once he was wed, he’d be off looking for plants on foreign shores most of the time anyway. It might even be convenient to have a woman on his estate to warm his bed and tend his children when they arrived. It wasn’t the marriage his parents had—it wasn’t the marriage he’d thought he’d have—but it was the exact sort of arrangement much of the
ton
enjoyed.

He studied Lady Anne’s expressive face. She was so full of emotion, she looked ready to explode. How would she look full of passion, naked in the center of his bed?

Delightful.

She should keep his nuptial bed very warm indeed.

“I know we aren’t ready to make a formal announcement, my love,”—she scowled at him—“but now that Lady Dunlee and your cousin have found us out . . .” He turned to the queen of London gossip. “We can ask you to keep our little secret, can’t we, Lady Dunlee?” He managed to keep a straight face at the absurdity of his request. He might as well ask the sun to change places with the moon.

“Of course.” Lady Dunlee’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “You can rely on me. I won’t tell a soul.”

Stephen believed her. She wouldn’t tell a soul—for however long it took her to toddle across the square to the house of her bosom friend and equally accomplished gossip, Melinda Fallwell.

“I still think the earl would have made it a point to say something to me if he’d known about this betrothal.” Miss Strange’s nostrils twitched as if she smelled something rotten.

What was the matter with the woman? His and Anne’s betrothal might be a complete sham but why would she wish to discuss that in front of Lady Dunlee? She must see the woman was dying for the smallest crumb of gossip, and here she was offering the gabble-grinder a veritable feast.

Stephen forced himself to smile. “I gather Lord Crane was in a hurry to catch his ship.”

“In a hurry?” Anne said. “That hardly describes it. Papa almost shoved us out of the carriage while it was still moving. He certainly didn’t pause to have a word with you, Clorinda.”

“No, he didn’t.” Clorinda nodded. “The man’s obsessed with bits of pottery and broken statues. Queer as Dick’s hatband about it, if you ask me—always has been. We were surprised he got his head out of the dirt long enough to marry your mother, Anne. And the current countess . . . she’s as daft about debris as he is.”

“Georgiana does share Papa’s passion,” Anne said, trying not to sound disgruntled. Papa and Georgiana never thought twice about taking off at a moment’s notice, leaving her to manage everything at home. She’d got used to it, but to expect her to handle Evie’s come-out as well . . . What in God’s name had they been thinking? She knew nothing about the London Season, never having had one herself, and it was clear to her Clorinda would be no help. And now with this nonsensical betrothal to complicate matters . . .

All she needed was for Brentwood to put in an appearance, and this disaster would be complete.