This Rake of Mine (35 page)

And risked her very life in the process. Risked everything to stop Marden.

"What the devil were you thinking?" he exploded, not unlike the powder keg she'd ignited.

Miranda rose up in the face of his fury, sputtering back, "What else was I to do? Stand there and let him shoot all of you? I asked him to stop, but he wasn't of a mind to see reason." She sniffed a little and shot Jack a disapproving glance as if he
(yes, him)
had just made some social faux pas. Like forgetting to remove his hat, or leave a proper calling card in the salver.

"I, for one, applaud your ingenuity, Miss Porter," Lady Josephine said.

She would
, Jack thought, his anger rising with every second. Demmit, didn't she see the danger she'd been in? And igniting a powder keg? This was her solution? Oh, there would be no more of that sort of nonsense!

Meanwhile, his great-aunt was showering Miranda with unsolicited and unwanted praise. "You showed a splendid amount of courage, Miss Porter, and, might I say, imagination. Why, I think the next time we need someone—"

"Enough, Aunt Josephine," Jack said, cutting her off, ignoring the stubborn light in her eyes. Oh, she was a Tremont all right, and one of the "mad" Tremonts at that, but she was no longer in charge of this house.

He was. And it was about time he took the reins of this manor and ran it as he saw fit.

"There will be no next time," he told her.

"But Jack, my dear boy—"

He rose from Miranda's side. "There will be no next time. For any of you. I have had enough of seeing my friends, my family, let alone the woman I love risk life and limb, and for what?" He paced the room. "There will never be an end to this if something isn't done, so I am ending it. Here and now."

"But Jack—" Miranda protested.

He swung around on her. "And not a word from you. Do you think I want my wife risking her life in such an improper fashion?"

"You love me?" she whispered.

"Yes," he barked at her.

She grinned up at him. "You want to marry me?"

"Should have years ago." He paced back and forth. "I lost you once, Miranda, I shall not lose you again." He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at everyone in the room, daring them to defy him.

Felicity managed to speak first. She whispered over to Temple, "Oh, heavens, he's gone mad from the curse. He thinks Miss Porter is Miss Mabberly. This will never do!"

"I think you will find that love can be a blessed curse," Temple said, clearing his throat. "But perhaps we should leave them alone for a little bit, to sort matters out." He started shooing everyone from the room.

Birdwell, Pippin, and Tally rose happily, glowing in the triumph of their matchmaking scheme. And besides, Tally was still seething with jealousy over Pippin's adventure on the beach.

"Is it true that pirate kissed you, Pippin?" Tally asked.

Pippin nodded, a dreamy expression on her face.

"Oh, bother," Tally complained. "How is it that you have all the luck?"

The glow on Pippin's face said the girl couldn't have been happier to have for once done something before her sophisticated and experienced cousins.

She didn't even mind when Jack sent a warning sally in their direction.

"I shall deal with the rest of you later," he said.

Sir Norris huffed at this. "And I you, sir. Breaking out of the King's jail. Accosting his appointed agent. We shall see about this." But still, he left quite willingly as well.

Not so Lady Josephine and Felicity. They remained seated, as if they wouldn't give up their places for any boon, intent on staying until the final act.

Temple caught Josephine and then Felicity by the arms and towed them out of the room.

"Uncle Temple, you must make him understand that is not Miss Mabberly. If he doesn't propose to Miss Porter, it won't be a proper betrothal—"

"Come along, Duchess," Temple said, pushing her the last few feet out of the room. "There is no stopping a man in love. Believe me, this I know from experience."

Closing the door behind them, they left Jack and Miranda to sort out the future that, up until now, had seemed unimaginable.

Jack knelt before her and carefully and ever so gently brushed her tangled hair back from her face. "Oh, Miranda. How I thought I lost you… yet again."

Miranda?
She must have hit her head harder than she thought, for she could swear he'd been calling her Miranda. "What did you say?"

"Miranda," he repeated, a wicked light sparkling in his eyes. "Miss Miranda Mabberly. 'Tis your name, isn't it?"

He knew. He knew who she was.

'Temple told you," she said, shooting a glance at the closed door. Leave it to the astute and observant marquis to uncover the truth.

Jack shook his head. "I knew before."

"Before? How? When?"

Jack grinned. "Not as long as I should have. Only since we kissed."

Her fingers went to her lips. The lips that had betrayed her secret.

He hugged her close. "As I said the other night, Miss Mabberly, your kiss was impossible to forget."

"My kiss?" She still had a hard time believing such a notion. But the idea thrilled her down to her toes, even as she recalled the one thing she considered unforgettable.

His kiss…

"Yes, yours." To make his point, he kissed her again, his lips covering hers, insistent and demanding. His tongue swept over hers, teasing her, sending desire racing through her veins. The desire she'd spent so many years denying.

Never again
, she promised.
Never again
.

But she needed to tell him the truth. Miranda pulled away and looked up at him. "I wasn't dead."

"I gathered as much."

She shook her head. "No, you don't understand. My parents sent me away. I never knew they'd told people that I was dead. I lived with my mother's cousins until they died a few years ago, and then I went to work at Miss Emery's."

"And I suppose your father never told you that I offered for you?"

"No."
He'd offered for her
… This time she believed him. With all her heart.

"What would your answer have been?"

"No," she whispered.

"No?" Jack sat back. "What do you mean, no?"

Oh, dear. Perhaps she shouldn't be
that
free with the truth.

"Well, you were a terrible rake back then. You told everyone you mistook me for an opera dancer! An opera dancer, indeed!"

Jack flinched.

"And you were a terrible wastrel. Why, you'd have run through my dowry before we'd been wed a year." She glanced around the halls. "And this house isn't exactly the most sterling example of your capacity for management."

"Ah, but my darling Miranda, that is where you excel," he said, gathering her up in his arms again. "I have to imagine you'll have this house worthy of even Billingsworth's purple prose."

"Don't try to cozen me, Jack Tremont," she said, the warmth of pride spreading through her veins. "My refusal then had nothing to do with your ne'er-do-well reputation; it had everything to do with your kiss."

"My kiss?" His hand covered his heart, as if she couldn't have wounded him deeper. "Miss Mabberly, I will have you know that my kiss—"

She placed a single finger on his lips. "Is unforgettable. Dangerously so. Your rakish, devilish kiss has left me trembling and breathless for nine years. Left me quite unfit for any other man." She paused and smiled at him. "It ruined me." At this he grinned back at her. "So do be quiet, stop trying to win me over with flattery, and finish what you started all those years ago."

His gaze met hers with an intense, dark inquiry. "Is this really what you want?"

"Please, Jack, make love to me." Could she say it any clearer?

He glanced up at the open door, looking out into the fading night beyond. "Miranda, I don't know… perhaps we should wait until the doctor has a look at you."

"Bother the man, I feel well enough." She put her hands on her hips and stared at him. "Don't tell me you've gone proper on me?"

Jack laughed. "Well, I do try to think of myself as a gentleman these days."

A gentleman? Heavens, that would never do!

To make her point, she pressed her lips to his, kissing him boldly, her hands splaying over his chest, tracing the muscles beneath his shirt, while her hips, oh, her hips were being rakish quite on their own—they rocked against him so she could feel his manhood come to life, straining against his breeches. "
Please, Jack?
"

He looked down at her and grinned. "Nine years is an awful long time to wait, I suppose," he said, catching hold of her hand. "But not here."

Catching her up in his arms, he carried her to the wall. Then he reached up and pressed something in the wainscoting. Moments later the panel opened to reveal a door.

"Is there a room in this house that doesn't have some secret?" she asked, as he handed her a candlestick.

"No," he told her. "But this is one of my favorites."

"Why?" she asked.

"You'll see," he said as he carried her into the shadows and up a staircase. When it came to a dead end, he pulled down on a latch, and the wall opened and they were in a bedchamber.

"Whose room is this?" she asked.

"Mine," he told her.

How like a rake to have his own private entrance to his bedchamber.

Jack lay her on the bed and followed after her eagerly.

None of this was proper, she knew. Why, it went against every lesson in decorum she'd ever taught, but none of that mattered as Jack began to kiss her again, this time without any restraint.

With his mouth covering hers, his hands went to work divesting her of her clothes. Her modesty had gone the way of her good sense, for when his fingers ran over her bare skin, it sent waves of desire through her, had her moaning softly with need.

Before she knew it, her gown was up and over her head, her shoes, stockings, and garters were flung away, and all that remained was her corset.

Her too-tight, binding corset. The one he loosened now, ever so slowly.

She writhed beneath him. "Be done with it."

"As you wish," he said, grinning, and the corset followed her other clothes. And then in hasty fashion, his clothes went the same course.

And then suddenly they were both naked, tangled in the sheets of his bed, and Miranda relished the feeling of it—the crisp hair on his chest, the muscles of his back, the way his legs twined with hers. She stretched like a cat, trying to find every bit of pleasure she could.

Not that Jack wasn't doing his rakish best. His lips, his kiss; there was a good reason she'd never forgotten him.

His hands ran up the length of her body, cupping her bottom and bringing her right up against him, his manhood sliding between her legs. The place that ached for him.

"Oh," she whispered. "I never imagined."

"My dear Miranda," he said, "I haven't even started."

Then he did. His mouth dipped down to her breast, his lips catching hold of a nipple and sucking on it until it became hard and pebbled. Then he took the other one and did the same. Back and forth, he tormented her. She arched up toward him, delirious as her body became enveloped in a haze of passion and desire.

She tried to breathe, tried to imagine there could be more to his talents, when his fingers plied her in a place she'd never been touched by a man. Her hips swayed almost obediently as his hand charmed her thighs to part. He delved between her legs, slowly parting her there, until his fingers came to touch her and stroke her anew.

This time she moaned loud and clear, so loud that Jack covered her mouth with his and kissed her as thoroughly and deeply as his fingers were now exploring her.

She quaked as he slid a finger ever so slightly inside her, and then it returned to the nub. Back and forth, he teased her body until it trembled and rocked with need.

Her hands, which had been clinging to the sheets to keep herself steady, now clung to Jack, running down his back. His body was tense and starting to glisten with sweat.

He kissed her again, this time so deep and hard, so full of a hot, fierce need that she knew he was asking her for more—that he wanted more than just her tentative explorations.

She reached out and caught hold of him, that hard length, and began to stroke him, following his example, drawing her hand from the root to the wet tip and back down again, over and over until he was groaning with pleasure.

But it wasn't enough. Not for either of them.

She knew what came next, wanted it with a woman's desire. What she had said before, about his kiss frightening her, that had been true. But she was a woman grown now… a woman who had waited far too long.

Catching his hips, she pulled him close, so the tip of his length pressed into her. Her hips rocked to invite him forth. She stretched and clung to him, aching to feel every bit of him inside her.

Jack murmured into her ear. "Are you sure about this?"

"Please," she told him, her hips arching up to close the gap between them.

"I have never wanted a woman as I do you," he told her as he filled her. Slowly, he pressed himself into her, moving back and forth.

And when he came to her barrier, that tiny hint that spoke of her innocence, he broke it quickly and kissed her back into passion's embrace, even as he drove himself all the way into her.

He pulled himself back out, nearly all the way, and her eyes flung open. That couldn't be the end of it, could it?

But he was grinning at her, and he filled her again, and she felt a delicious sense of hunger rising within her. Then he did it again, stroking her over and over against the restless tide that threatened to overwhelm her.

Miranda clung to him, her body rocking with his. She found herself rising, felt him pushing her higher and higher.

She was headed toward madness, there was no other explanation. This house, this man, this love, it was utter insanity, and now she was about to succumb to it entirely.

And then she did, in an explosion of passion.

What was this heaven? she wondered, even as it enveloped her.