The Untamed Bride Plus Black Cobra 02-03 and Special Excerpt (18 page)

Leaving him to quit the suite with Tony and Gervase, in a distinctly disgruntled mood.

His mood hadn’t improved when he returned to Grillon’s from visiting the Guards, then taking a quick swing through Whitehall and the Home Office, just to set a few more spectral cats prowling around their pigeon.

Nothing of any moment had been achieved. There’d been no one worthwhile confiding in at any of his stops, and neither Tony nor Gervase had spotted any cultists, although they were sure he’d been followed by at least three different locals working as a team—keeping watch, but too wary to try any direct attack.

Regardless, after last night, if he was to escort Deliah on another foray in which he and she would play welcoming targets, he wanted something a little more lethal than his cane.

His swordstick would feel better in his hand.

Tony and Gervase had elected to wait outside, hanging back at the corner of the street. Although he’d known they’d been close, even he hadn’t always been able to spot them.

Reaching the top of the stairs, he turned and made for his bedchamber. He’d change his cane for his swordstick, then collect Deliah and leave for the museum.

He was still some way from the door to his room when it opened. The Indian boy who was part of Deliah’s household came out. The boy shut the door and, without seeing Del, walked off down the corridor in the opposite direction, no doubt making for the servants’ stairs at the end.

Slowing, Del watched him go, then, reaching his door, opened it and went in.

Cobby was there, folding shirts. He looked up as Del closed the door. “Any luck?”

“No.” Del tossed him his cane, which Cobby deftly caught. “I thought I’d take my swordstick.”

Cobby grinned. “By the wall beside the door.”

Del turned, saw it waiting, and grunted. Picking it up, he paused. “Did Miss Duncannon send a message?”

“No. Haven’t heard from her, nor seen her, since breakfast.”

“What was her boy doing here, then?”

“Sangay? He just looked in to see if I had anything for him to do—any errands or the like. Probably looking for an excuse to get outside.”

Del humphed, nodded. He refocused on the swordstick in his hand. “So it’s off to the museum to trawl for cultists. Wish us luck.”

“I would, only I’m not sure which way that should go. Do you want them to hang back and let you live peaceably, or come at you and try to slit your throats?”

“The latter.” Del turned to the door. “At the moment I could definitely do with engaging a cultist or two.”

Or three. By the time he and Deliah reached the museum, Del was itching for a fight. He knew the sensation well, but never before had it been provoked by a woman, a lady. And all because she was behaving absolutely perfectly.

Except….

He’d spent the short hackney ride to Montague House lecturing himself on the absurdity of wishing her to change into some different, more delicate type of female, the sort prone to displaying her sensibilities. That might make reading her,
and managing her, easier, but it would conversely make his life a great deal more difficult.

And he didn’t truly want her to change. He wanted….

If she’d noticed his abstraction, she’d given no sign, but had commented happily on the sights as they’d crossed the town into Bloomsbury. Now she stood in the museum foyer scanning a board listing the current exhibits. “Where should we start? I rather fancy the Egyptian gallery. I’ve heard it’s quite fascinating.”

“The Egyptians it is.” He waved her on.

Discreet signs directed them up the stairs. As they climbed, she glanced at him, then asked, “How did your visit to the Guards go?”

It was the first she’d asked of it—which, now he thought of it, was unlike her. Perhaps she wasn’t as unaffected—as undistracted—as he’d thought?

“I found a few friends to chat to, but it was all for show. I didn’t even mention the Black Cobra.”

At the top of the stairs, he touched her elbow and indicated another sign down a corridor. They started toward it.

“I know you’ve resigned your commission, supposedly permanently, but was that merely for this mission? Will you rejoin when it’s over, perhaps serve in some other capacity? Or are you truly retiring from the field?”

He thought as they strolled. “The latter was my intention, and still is. Talking to the others today only confirmed that—the reasons for that.”

“Which are?”

An interrogation again, but gentler. He sensed she truly wanted to know. And after last night…“I’m thirty-five. My service has shown me much of the world, and also brought me significant wealth. Militarily, there are few challenges remaining—not for field officers such as myself. It’s time I came home and tried my hand at new challenges.”

“In Humberside?”

He felt his lips curve. “In Humberside, strange as that may
seem.”

Her nose tipped upward. “It doesn’t seem strange to me.”

And that, he thought, was interesting—revealing. Despite her travels, it seemed she, too, had a special place in her heart for the county of her birth.

Before he could turn the tables on her, she asked, “So what form do you imagine this Humberside challenge will take?”

They’d reached the Egyptian gallery; side by side, they turned into it. A succession of smaller connected rooms opening off a central hall, it was tailor-made for an ambush. The silver head of his swordstick felt reassuring in Del’s hand. Taking Deliah’s elbow, he steered her toward the first of the large statues in the hall, one of Isis that towered some eight feet tall. “Let’s examine the statues in this room first, going down this side, then up the other. That’ll give them a moment to find us. Then we can go through the smaller rooms and see if we can tempt them to make a move.”

She nodded. Dutifully considered Isis, and read the description inscribed on a plaque beside it.

“So,” she said, as they moved to the next statue, “what do you plan to do on your return to Middleton on the Wolds?”

His lips quirked. “You’ve missed your calling—you should have been an interrogator.”

Her brows rose haughtily. “I take it you don’t know the answer.”

“Not entirely. I’d toyed with the idea of resigning for some time, but beyond going home to Middleton on the Wolds, I hadn’t got to the stage of making more detailed plans, then this mission arose, and as part of it I resigned. So no, I haven’t any fixed intentions beyond going home.”

“But it’s your house, isn’t it?” She glanced at him. “Delborough Hall, where your aunts live?”

“Yes.” He steered her on. “They’ve been keeping the place—house and estate—running while I’ve been away, more or less since my father’s death. But from their letters I gather they’re eager for me to take up the reins, something I
did wonder about.”

“Indeed. They’ve been mistresses there for decades. They might not have wished to surrender control.”

“Apparently now peace has been established, they’re keen to travel and see all the sights the wars prevented them from seeing.”

She smiled. “From what I remember of them, they’ll thoroughly enjoy harassing some poor courier-guide.”

The notion made him grin.

They’d reached the end of the main hall. Glancing up the long room, he saw a number of other people, including two men who didn’t seem the sort to spend their hours studying ancient statuary. “I believe”—he turned back to Deliah—“that we’ve collected two watchers, but sadly, they’re not cultists.”

“But they might be…what’s the term? Scouting? For the cultists. Mightn’t they?”

“They might. Let’s go back along this side—we’ll pass them as we go up the room, then we’ll turn into the first rooms on our right.”

She nodded, and obligingly glided beside him as they perambulated up the room, stopping at every statue to admire and exchange comments.

As they left the main hall for the minor rooms, she returned to her earlier interrogation. “You don’t seem the sort to be a gentleman farmer.” She glanced at him. “Or at least, not to be satisfied with being only that.”

Very true
. “I’ve been thinking, what with Kingston so close, and York and Leeds not that far away, that I might look into investing in manufacturing. Manufacturing what, I’m not sure.” He glanced at her. “Textiles, perhaps.”

She dipped her head. “There are all those mills about Leeds. I had wondered if there might be a market for cotton there.”

“And silk.”

“Actually, there are a number of combinations of silk and cotton that are quite valuable commercially.” Her skirts
swished as she paused by a glass case housing pieces of pottery. “Are they still following us?”

“Yes. And they’re drawing closer.”

“Hmm. Then again, these rooms are smaller.”

“True.”

They continued ambling, and their watchers continued to follow, close enough to observe them, but not close enough to pose a physical threat. They seemed intent on watching only, thus giving Del no excuse to react.

Whether it was the possibility of impending danger abrading his protectiveness, or the airy nonchalance of her replies, or, loweringly, that he remained acutely aware of her, of the body he’d spent hours possessing thoroughly through the night that now seemed so elusive, drifting close yet beyond his reach, he didn’t know, but her continued apparent imperviousness, her insensibility to his nearness, his presence by her side, pricked him, increasingly on the raw.

Enough to have him reach for her, his hand brushing the side of her breast as he wound her arm with his.

He detected the faintest tremble, the slightest quiver in her breathing, but her serene smile never faltered. A second later, she was enthusing about some ancient scroll.

Once started, he couldn’t seem to stop. Some part of him interpreted her refusal to let any sensual awareness of him show as a challenge, even though his rational mind knew he should be grateful. Instead, as he guided her deeper into the labyrinth of smaller rooms surrounding the main hall, he let his hand linger at the small of her back. Her breath caught. When she tried to move away, he moved with her, letting his palm brush upward, then slide down.

She sucked in a breath, tighter, more constrained, and shot him a sharp, if wary, glance.

Wariness wasn’t what he wanted. When she stopped before another glass case and stared in apparent rapt contemplation, he slipped his arm from hers and stepped behind her, his palm trailing from her waist down over her hip, and
around to, as he stood behind her watching her reflection in the glass, lightly caress the swell of her derriere.

This time she sucked in a more definite breath, caught her lower lip between her teeth, then looked up—and glared at him.

Her breasts swelled more definitely. She glanced swiftly across the room to where the two watchers were pretending to examine a wall plaque, then swung to face him. “What are you doing?”

Her hissing tone was music to his ears. She was no longer so unaffected.

He opened his eyes wide. “Me? Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Eyes narrowing, she prodded him in the chest. When he stepped back, she swept past and, with more of a swish than a glide, headed toward the next open door. She spoke over her shoulder in an irritated whisper. “Just because I lost my head last night doesn’t mean I’m going to—”

“Acknowledge it?”

She shot him an angry glance as he drew near. “Acknowledge what? And how?”

He halted just inside the doorway. The room was more of a small alcove; it had only one door, the one at his back. Returning his gaze to her face, he replied, “Acknowledge that you transformed into a veritable houri, and that you enjoyed every minute of what I did to you.”

“A
houri
? Nonsense!”

“Trust me, I know a houri when I have her beneath me.”

She nearly choked. “What about
you
, and what I did to you?”

“You want me to acknowledge that?”

“Why not? If you want me to do the same?”

He studied her for an instant, then nodded. “Very well.”

She frowned. “Very well what?”

He reached back and closed the little room’s door.

Her eyes flared wide. “What are you doing?”

He caught her arms, stepped back so his shoulders were against the door, then yanked her to him. Met her eyes as he
lowered his head. “I’m doing as you asked—acknowledging how much I enjoyed being inside you.”

He kissed her—and every particle of pretense instantly fell away. Her lips parted beneath his, her mouth instantly yielded. Inviting, inciting; it was as if he’d waltzed them straight back into the fire that had burned so hotly through the night.

He had his answer, all but immediately. She had been pretending not to be affected; the discovery was balm to his primitive male soul.

Yet he couldn’t resist taking the kiss deeper, angling his head and taking more, demanding more. Filling his hands with the bounty of her curves, he lifted her against him, shifted his hips against her, felt her hands grip his head, felt her melt….

Hauling on his reins, he abruptly drew back, staggered that she’d been able to lure him so far so quickly, to so deeply snare him in her sensual web.

A houri, indeed.

Thank God she didn’t know how thoroughly he was smitten.

Deliah blinked dazedly up at him. Her lips throbbed, her skin felt heated. She wanted….

Then she remembered where they were. Feeling his hands gripping her bottom, she wriggled—caught her breath at the press of his erection.

Felt marginally better when he cursed through his teeth and set her down.

She was still horrified. “Don’t you
dare
do such a thing again—not in public!”

He arched one dark, infuriating brow. “Why not?” His lips lightly curved. “You liked it.”

“That’s not the point!” She felt flustered to her toes. The same toes that had been curling bare seconds before. Which
was
the point. She clearly couldn’t trust herself—her wayward, wanton, according to him hourilike self—to hold to any socially unimpeachable line. Not when it came to him. Not if he touched her, kissed her.

She felt like fanning herself, but it was the middle of winter—a muff wasn’t much use. Gritting her teeth, she tried to glare at him.