The Viscount Who Loved Me (26 page)

With a frantic gasp, she dove under the desk, squeezing herself into the empty cube of space and thanking the heavens that the desk was completely solid, rather than the sort that rested on four spindly legs.

Barely breathing, she listened.

“But I had heard this would be the year we would finally see the notorious Lord Bridgerton fall into the parson’s mousetrap,” came a lilting feminine voice.

Kate bit her lip. It was a lilting feminine voice with an
Italian
accent.

“And where did you hear that?” came the unmistakable voice of the viscount, followed by another awful click of the doorknob.

Kate shut her eyes in agony. She was trapped in the office with a pair of lovers. Life simply could not get any worse than this.

Well, she could be discovered.
That
would be worse. Funny how that didn’t make her feel much better about her present predicament, though.

“It is all over town, my lord,” Maria replied. “Everyone is saying you have decided to settle down and choose a bride.”

There was a silence, but Kate could swear she could
hear
him shrug.

Some footsteps, most probably drawing the lovers closer together, then Bridgerton murmured, “It is probably past time.”

“You are breaking my heart, did you know that?”

Kate thought she might gag.

“Now, now, my sweet signorina”—the sound of lips on skin—“we both know that your heart is impervious to any of my machinations.”

Next came a rustling sound, which Kate took to be
Maria pulling coyly away, followed by, “But I am not inclined for a dalliance, my lord. I do not look for marriage, of course—that would be most foolish. But when I next choose a protector, it shall be for, shall we say, the long term.”

Footsteps. Perhaps Bridgerton was closing the distance between them again?

His voice was low and husky as he said, “I fail to see the problem.”

“Your wife may see a problem.”

Bridgerton chuckled. “The only reason to give up one’s mistress is if one happens to love one’s wife. And as I do not intend to choose a wife with whom I might fall in love, I see no reason to deny myself the pleasures of a lovely woman like you.”

And you want to marry Edwina?
It was all Kate could do not to scream. Truly, if she weren’t squatting like a frog with her hands wrapped around her ankles, she probably would have emerged like a Fury and tried to murder the man.

Then followed a few unintelligible sounds, which Kate dearly prayed were not the prelude to something considerably more intimate. After a moment, though, the viscount’s voice emerged clearly. “Would you care for something to drink?”

Maria murmured her assent, and Bridgerton’s forceful stride echoed along the floor, growing closer and closer, until…

Oh,
no.

Kate spied the decanter, sitting on the windowsill, directly opposite her hiding spot under the desk. If he just kept his face to the window as he poured, she might escape detection, but if he turned so much as halfway…

She froze. Utterly froze. Completely stopped breathing.

Eyes wide and unblinking (could eyelids make a sound?) she watched with utter and complete horror as
Bridgerton came into view, his athletic frame displayed to surprising benefit from her vantage point on the floor.

The tumblers clinked slightly together as he set them down, then he pulled the stopper from the decanter and poured two fingers of amber liquid into each glass.

Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around.

“Is everything all right?” Maria called out.

“Perfect,” Bridgerton answered, although he sounded vaguely distracted. He lifted the glasses, humming slightly to himself as his body slowly began to turn.

Keep walking. Keep walking.
If he walked away from her while he turned, he’d go back to Maria and she’d be safe. But if he turned, and
then
walked, Kate was as good as dead.

And she had no doubt that he
would
kill her. Frankly, she was surprised he hadn’t made an attempt last week at The Serpentine.

Slowly, he turned. And turned. And didn’t walk.

And Kate tried to think of all the reasons why dying at the age of twenty-one was really not such a bad thing.

Anthony knew quite well why he’d brought Maria Rosso back to his study. Surely no warm-blooded man could be immune to her charms. Her body was lush, her voice was intoxicating, and he knew from experience that her touch was equally potent.

But even as he took in that silky sable hair and those full, pouting lips, even as his muscles tightened at the memory of other full, pouting parts of her body, he knew that he was using her.

He felt no guilt that he would be using her for his own pleasure. In that regard, she was using him as well. And she at least would be compensated for it, whereas he would be out several jewels, a quarterly allowance, and the rent on a fashionable townhouse in a fashionable (but not too fashionable) part of town.

No, if he felt uneasy, if he felt frustrated, if he felt like he wanted to put his damned fist through a brick wall, it was because he was using Maria to banish the nightmare that was Kate Sheffield from his mind. He never wanted to wake up hard and tortured again, knowing that Kate Sheffield was the cause. He wanted to drown himself in another woman until the very memory of the dream dissolved and faded into nothingness.

Because God knew he was never going to act on that particular erotic fantasy. He didn’t even
like
Kate Sheffield. The thought of bedding her made him break out in a cold sweat, even as it swirled a ripple of desire right through his gut.

No, the only way that dream was going to come true was if he were delirious with fever…and maybe she’d have to be delirious as well…and perhaps they would both have to be stranded on a desert isle, or sentenced to be executed in the morning, or…

Anthony shuddered. It simply wasn’t going to happen.

But bloody hell, the woman must have bewitched him. There could be no other explanation for the dream—no, make that a nightmare—and besides that, even now he could swear that he could
smell
her. It was that maddening combination of lilies and soap, that beguiling scent that had washed over him while they were out in Hyde Park last week.

Here he was, pouring a glass of the finest whiskey for Maria Rosso, one of the few women of his acquaintance who knew how to appreciate both a fine whiskey and the devilish intoxication that followed, and all he could smell was the damned scent of Kate Sheffield. He knew she was in the house—and he was half ready to kill his mother for that—but this was ridiculous.

“Is everything all right?” Maria called out.

“Perfect,” Anthony said, his voice sounding tight to his ears. He began to hum, something he’d always done to relax himself.

He turned and started to take a step forward. Maria was waiting for him, after all.

But there was that damned scent again. Lilies. He could swear it was lilies. And soap. The lilies were intriguing, but the soap made sense. A practical sort of woman like Kate Sheffield would scrub herself clean with soap.

His foot hesitated in midair, and his step forward proved to be a small one instead of his usual long stride. He couldn’t quite escape the smell, and he kept turning, his nose instinctively twisting his eyes toward where he knew there couldn’t be lilies, and yet the scent was, impossibly, there.

And then he saw her.

Under his desk.

It was impossible.

Surely this was a nightmare. Surely if he closed his eyes and opened them again, she’d be gone.

He blinked. She was still there.

Kate Sheffield, the most maddening, irritating, diabolical woman in all England, was crouching like a frog under his desk.

It was a wonder he didn’t drop the whiskey.

Their eyes met, and he saw hers widen with panic and fright. Good, he thought savagely. She
should
be frightened. He was going to tan her bloody hide until her hide was bloody well bloody.

What the
hell
was she doing here? Wasn’t dousing him with the filthy water of The Serpentine enough for her bloodthirsty spirit? Wasn’t she satisfied with her attempts to stymie his courtship of her sister? Did she need to spy on him as well?

“Maria,” he said smoothly, moving forward toward the desk until he was stepping on Kate’s hand. He didn’t step hard, but he heard her squeak.

This gave him immense satisfaction.

“Maria,” he repeated, “I have suddenly remembered an
urgent matter of business that must be dealt with immediately.”

“This very night?” she asked, sounding quite dubious.

“I’m afraid so. Euf!”

Maria blinked. “Did you just grunt?”

“No,” Anthony lied, trying not to choke on the word. Kate had removed her glove and wrapped her hand around his knee, digging her nails straight through his breeches and into his skin. Hard.

At least he hoped it was her nails. It could have been her teeth.

“Are you sure there is nothing amiss?” Maria inquired.

“Nothing…at”—whatever body part Kate was sinking into his leg sank a little farther—“all!” The last word came out as more of a howl, and he kicked his foot forward, connecting with something he had a sneaking suspicion was her stomach.

Normally, Anthony would die before striking a woman, but this truly seemed to be an exceptional case. In fact, he took not a little bit of pleasure in kicking her while she was down.

She was biting his leg, after all.

“Allow me to walk you to the door,” he said to Maria, shaking Kate off his ankle.

But Maria’s eyes were curious, and she took a few steps forward. “Anthony, is there an animal under your desk?”

Anthony let out a bark of laughter. “You could say that.”

Kate’s fist came down on his foot.

“Is it a dog?”

Anthony seriously considered answering in the affirmative, but even he was not that cruel. Kate obviously appreciated his uncharacteristic tact, because she let go of his leg.

Anthony took advantage of his release to quickly step out from behind the desk. “Would I be unforgivably rude,”
he asked, striding to Maria’s side and taking her arm, “if I merely walked you to the door and not back to the music room?”

She laughed, a low, sultry sound that should have seduced him. “I am a grown woman, my lord. I believe I can manage the short distance.”

“Forgive me?”

She stepped through the door he held open for her. “I suspect there isn’t a woman alive who could deny you forgiveness for that smile.”

“You are a rare woman, Maria Rosso.”

She laughed again. “But not, apparently, rare enough.”

She floated out, and Anthony shut the door with a decisive click. Then, some devil on his shoulder surely prodding him, he turned the key in the lock and pocketed it.

“You,” he boomed, eliminating the distance to the desk in four long strides. “Show yourself.”

When Kate didn’t scramble out quickly enough, he reached down, clamped his hand around her upper arm, and hauled her to her feet.

“Explain yourself,” he hissed.

Kate’s legs nearly buckled as the blood rushed back to her knees, which had been bent for nearly a quarter of an hour. “It was an accident,” she said, grabbing on to the edge of the desk for support.

“Funny how those words seem to emerge from your mouth with startling frequency.”

“It’s true!” she protested. “I was sitting in the hall, and—” She gulped. He had stepped forward and was now very, very close. “I was sitting in the hall,” she said again, her voice sounding crackly and hoarse, “and I heard you coming. I was just trying to avoid you.”

“And so you invaded my private office?”

“I didn’t know it was your office. I—” Kate sucked in her breath. He’d moved even closer, his crisp, wide lapels now only inches from the bodice of her dress. She knew
his proximity was deliberate, that he sought to intimidate rather than seduce, but that didn’t do anything to quell the frantic beating of her heart.

“I think perhaps you did know that this was my office,” he murmured, letting his forefinger trail down the side of her cheek. “Perhaps you did not seek to avoid me at all.”

Kate swallowed convulsively, long past the point of trying to maintain her composure.

“Mmmm?” His finger slid along the line of her jaw. “What do you say to that?”

Kate’s lips parted, but she couldn’t have uttered a word if her life had depended on it. He wore no gloves—he must have removed them during his tryst with Maria—and the touch of his skin against hers was so powerful it seemed to control her body. She breathed when he paused, stopped when he moved. She had no doubt that her heart was beating in time to his pulse.

“Maybe,” he whispered, so close now that his breath kissed her lips, “you desired something else altogether.”

Kate tried to shake her head, but her muscles refused to obey.

“Are you sure?”

This time, her head betrayed her and gave a little shake.

He smiled, and they both knew he had won.

A
nthony knew he had to be insane.

There could be no other explanation. He’d meant to scare her, terrify her, make her understand that she could never hope to meddle in his affairs and win, and instead…

He kissed her.

Intimidation had been his intention, and so he’d moved closer and closer until she, an innocent, could only be cowed by his presence. She wouldn’t know what it was like to have a man so near that the heat of his body seeped through her clothes, so close that she couldn’t tell where his breath ended and hers began.

She wouldn’t recognize the first prickles of desire, nor would she understand that slow, swirling heat in the core of her being.

And that slow, swirling heat was there. He could see it in her face.

But she, a complete innocent, would never comprehend what he could see with one look of his experienced eyes. All she would know was that he was looming over her, that he was stronger, more powerful, and that she had made a dreadful mistake by invading his private sanctuary.

He was going to stop right there and leave her bothered and breathless. But when there was barely an inch between them, the pull grew too strong. Her scent was too beguiling, the sound of her breath too arousing. The prickles of desire he’d meant to spark within her suddenly ignited within
him,
sending a warm claw of need to the very tips of his toes. And the finger he’d been trailing along her cheek—just to torture her, he told himself—suddenly became a hand that cupped the back of her head as his lips took hers in an explosion of anger and desire.

She gasped against his mouth, and he took advantage of her parted lips by sliding his tongue between them. She was stiff in his arms, but it seemed more to do with surprise than anything else, and so Anthony pressed his suit further by allowing one of his hands to slide down her back and cup the gentle curve of her derriere.

“This is madness,” he whispered against her ear. But he made no move to let her go.

Her reply was an incoherent, confused moan, and her body became slightly more pliant in his arms, allowing
him to mold her even closer to his form. He knew he should stop, knew he damned well shouldn’t have started, but his blood was racing with need, and she felt so…so…

So
good
.

He groaned, his lips leaving hers to taste the slightly salty skin of her neck. There was something about her that suited him like no woman ever had before, as if his body had discovered something his mind utterly refused to consider.

Something about her was…right.

She felt right. She smelled right. She tasted right. And he knew that if he stripped off all of her clothes and took her there on the carpet on the floor of his study, she would fit underneath him, fit around him—just right.

It occurred to Anthony that when she wasn’t arguing with him, Kate Sheffield might bloody well be the finest woman in England.

Her arms, which had been imprisoned in his embrace, slowly edged up, until her hands were hesitantly resting on his back. And then her lips moved. It was a tiny thing, actually, a movement barely felt on the thin skin of his forehead, but she was definitely kissing him back.

A low, triumphant growl emerged from Anthony’s mouth as he moved his mouth back to hers, kissing her fiercely, daring her to continue what she’d begun. “Oh, Kate,” he moaned, nudging her back until she was leaning against the edge of the desk. “God, you taste so good.”

“Bridgerton?” Her voice was tremulous, the word more of a question than anything else.

“Don’t say anything,” he whispered. “Whatever you do, don’t say anything.”

“But—”

“Not a word,” he interrupted, pressing a finger to her lips. The last thing he wanted was for her to ruin this perfectly good moment by opening her mouth and arguing.

“But I—” She planted her hands on his chest and
wrenched herself away, leaving him off balance and panting.

Anthony let out a curse, and not a mild one.

Kate scurried away, not all the way across the room, but over to a tall wingback chair, far enough away so that she was not in arms’ reach. She gripped the stiff back of the chair, then darted around it, thinking that it might be a good idea to have a nice solid piece of furniture between them.

The viscount didn’t look to be in the best of tempers.

“Why did you do that?” she said, her voice so low it was almost a whisper.

He shrugged, suddenly looking a little less angry and a little more uncaring. “Because I wanted to.”

Kate just gaped at him for a moment, unable to believe that he could have such a simple answer to what was, despite its simple phrasing, such a complicated question. Finally, she blurted out, “But you can’t have.”

He smiled. Slowly. “But I did.”

“But you don’t like me!”

“True,” he allowed.

“And I don’t like you.”

“So you’ve been telling me,” he said smoothly. “I’ll have to take your word for it, since it wasn’t particularly apparent a few seconds ago.”

Kate felt her cheeks flush with shame. She had responded to his wicked kiss, and she hated herself for it, almost as much as she hated him for initiating the intimacy.

But he didn’t have to taunt her. That was the act of a cad. She gripped the back of the chair until her knuckles turned white, no longer certain if she was using it as a defense against Bridgerton or as a means to stop herself from lunging forward to strangle him.

“I am not going to let you marry Edwina,” she said in a very low voice.

“No,” he murmured, moving slowly forward until he
was just on the other side of the chair. “I didn’t think you were.”

Her chin lifted a notch. “And
I
am certainly not going to marry you.”

He planted his hands on the armrests and leaned forward until his face was only a few inches from hers. “I don’t recall asking.”

Kate lurched backward. “But you just kissed me!”

He laughed. “If I offered marriage to every woman I’d kissed, I’d have been thrown into jail for bigamy long ago.”

Kate could feel herself begin to shake, and she held on to the back of the chair for dear life. “You, sir,” she nearly spat out, “have no honor.”

His eyes blazed and one of his hands shot out to grip her chin. He held her that way for several seconds, forcing her to meet his gaze. “That,” he said in a deadly voice, “is not true, and were you a man, I’d call you out for it.”

Kate remained still for what seemed like a very long time, her eyes locked on his, the skin on her cheek burning where his powerful fingers held her motionless. Finally she did the one thing she’d sworn she would never do with this man.

She begged.

“Please,” she whispered, “let me go.”

He did, his hand releasing her with a startling abruptness. “My apologies,” he said, sounding the slightest bit…surprised?

No, that was impossible. Nothing could surprise this man.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he added softly.

“Didn’t you?”

He gave his head a small shake. “No. To scare you, perhaps. But not to hurt you.”

Kate stepped backward on shaky legs. “You’re nothing but a rake,” she said, wishing her voice had emerged with a bit more disdain and a bit less quavering.

“I know,” he said with a shrug, the intense fire in his eyes draining down to light amusement. “It’s in my nature.”

Kate took another step back. She didn’t have the energy to try to keep up with his abrupt changes of mood. “I’m leaving now.”

“Go,” he said affably, waving toward the door.

“You can’t stop me.”

He smiled. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

She began to edge away, walking slowly backward, afraid that if she took her eyes off him for one second he might pounce. “I’m leaving now,” she said again, unnecessarily.

But when her hand was an inch away from the doorknob, he said, “I suppose I’ll see you next time I call upon Edwina.”

Kate went white. Not that she could actually see her face, of course, but for the first time in her life, she actually felt the blood drain from her skin. “You said you were going to leave her alone,” she said accusingly.

“No,” he replied, leaning rather insolently against the side of the chair, “I said that I didn’t think you were likely to ‘let’ me marry her. Which doesn’t really signify, as I have no plans to let you manage my life.”

Kate suddenly felt as if a cannonball were lodged in her throat. “But you can’t possibly want to marry her after you—after I—”

He took a few steps toward her, his movements slow and sleek like a cat. “After you kissed me?”

“I didn’t—” But the words burned the back of her throat, because they were so obviously a lie. She had not initiated the kiss, but she had, in the end, participated in it.

“Oh, come now, Miss Sheffield,” he said, standing up straight and crossing his arms. “Let’s not go down that road. We don’t like each other, that much is true, but I do respect you in an odd, perverted sort of way, and I know you’re not a liar.”

She said nothing. Really, what could she say? How did one respond to a statement that contained the words “respect”
and
“perverted”?

“You kissed me back,” he said with a small, satisfied smile. “Not with any great enthusiasm, I’ll admit, but that would be just a matter of time.”

She shook her head, unable to believe what she was hearing. “How can you talk of such things not even a minute after declaring your intention to court my sister?”

“This does put a bit of a crimp in my plans, that is true,” he commented, his voice light and thoughtful, as if he were considering the purchase of a new horse, or perhaps deciding which neckcloth to wear.

Maybe it was his casual posture, maybe it was the way he stroked his chin as if pretending to give the matter some thought. But something ignited a fuse inside of Kate, and without even thinking, she launched forward, all the furies of the world collecting in her soul as she threw herself against him, pounding his chest with her fists. “You will never marry her!” she cried out. “Never! Do you hear me?”

He raised one arm to ward off a blow to his face. “I’d have to be deaf not to.” Then he expertly captured her wrists, holding her arms immobile while her body heaved and shook with rage.

“I won’t let you make her unhappy. I won’t let you ruin her life,” she said, the words choking in her throat. “She is everything that is good and honorable and pure. And she deserves better than you.”

Anthony watched her closely, his eyes trained on her face, somehow rendered beautiful by the force of her anger. Her cheeks were high with color, her eyes shone with tears she was fighting hard to keep off her face, and he was beginning to feel like he might be the worst sort of cad.

“Why, Miss Sheffield,” he said softly, “I do believe you truly love your sister.”

“Of course I love her!” she burst out. “Why do you
think I have gone to such efforts to keep her away from
you
? Did you think I did it for amusement? Because I can assure you, my lord, I can think of many things more amusing than being held captive in your study.”

Abruptly, he let go of her wrists.

“I should think,” she said with a sniffle, rubbing her reddened, abused flesh, “that my love for Edwina would be the one thing about me you could understand with perfect clarity. You, who are supposedly so devoted to your own family.”

Anthony said nothing, just watched her, and wondered if perhaps there was a great deal more to this woman than he’d originally estimated.

“If you were Edwina’s brother,” Kate said with deadly accuracy, “would you allow her to marry a man like you?”

He did not speak for a very long moment, long enough so that the silence rang awkwardly in his own ears. Finally he said, “That is beside the point.”

To her credit, she did not smile. She did not crow, nor did she taunt. When she spoke, her words were quiet and true. “I believe I have my answer.” Then she turned on her heel and began to walk away.

“My sister,” he said, loudly enough to halt her progress toward the door, “married the Duke of Hastings. Are you familiar with his reputation?”

She paused, but she did not turn around. “He is reputed to be quite devoted to his wife.”

Anthony chuckled. “Then you are not familiar with his reputation. At least not as it was before he married.”

Kate turned slowly around. “If you are attempting to convince me that reformed rakes make the best husbands, you will meet with no success. It was in this very room, not fifteen minutes ago, that you told Miss Rosso that you saw no reason to give up a mistress for a wife.”

“I believe I said that was the case only if one does not love one’s wife.”

A funny little sound emerged from her nose—not quite
a snort, but more than a breath, and it was abundantly clear, in that moment at least, that she had no respect for him. With a sharp amusement in her eyes, she asked, “And do you love my sister, Lord Bridgerton?”

“Of course not,” he replied. “And I would never insult your intelligence by saying otherwise.
But
,” he said loudly, warding off the interruption he knew was sure to come, “I have known your sister but a week. I have no reason to believe that I would not come to love her were we to spend many years in holy matrimony.”