A Dangerous Man (12 page)

She choked back a nervous giggle.

Good heavens, what was wrong with her? She needed to gain control over her wayward emotions before she saw Richard again.

Leah had thought this room, at least, would be small and
cozy, but it was huge, and paneled with the richest waxed mahogany she had ever seen. Still, it was a cheery room, lit by
mullioned windows hung with gold-fringed crimson draperies.

Drawn by the enticing scent of roasted meats, she walked
to the sideboard.

"Good morning," Rachel said as she breezed across the
room and sat at the table. A footman appeared at her side.

"Just tea" She glanced at the plate in Leah's hands. Her
lips pursed ever-so-slightly, her brows lifting in a dainty look
of surprised disapproval.

Leah sighed. At home, breakfast was a casual affair, a serve
yourself whenever you wanted. Everything here was rigid and
formal, from eating to dressing for breakfast. Rachel's frock, a
delicate, sarcenet silk the color of butter, seemed better suited
for a grand ball than a morning meal, leaving Leah feeling
frumpy and underdressed. But Rachel was smiling, her blue
eyes soft and inviting. Here at least was a welcoming face.

"I know this might all seem a bit overwhelming," Rachel
said before sipping her tea. "But I do not want you to be
distressed. I will be right beside you during the days and
weeks to come to lend you my advice and support. We will
begin today by touring the house and meeting the staff.
Tuesday is our at home day. That is when we receive visitors. We won't have to worry about that until next week. By
the way, dear, that is Geoffrey's seat. You should sit one seat
over, or at the head of the table. I hesitate to say anything.
But if I do not, you will never learn our ways. Don't you
agree?"

Leah glanced down the length of the gleaming mahogany
table, which could comfortably seat fifty people. She looked
back at Rachel, who sent her a vacuous smile.

"I wonder why I have never met your family," Rachel said.

In truth, Rachel had taken the seat that should have been
Leah's, at Richard's right hand, but Leah kept her silence. She
did not want to alienate her new sister the first time they
spoke. "My father rarely comes to Town"

"Are you related to Major Jamison of the King's Guard?"

"No," Leah said, unfolding her napkin.

Rachel frowned. "Do not be so mysterious, Leah. We are
sisters now. Tell me about your family, dear. Who are your relations? Where are you from?"

"I have only one aunt, my mother's sister, Emma Burton,
who came to live with us after my mother died-"

"Oh, how sad that your mother is gone. But tell me more
about your father, dear. How does he know St. Austin? Where
are his estates? What is his title?"

And now the point of Rachel's curiosity became clear.
Gone was the illusion that Leah had found a friend in her new
sister.

"My father has no title," she said bluntly, refusing to cower
beneath the intensity of Rachel's gaze. "He owns cotton mills.
In Lancashire."

"Your father is in trade?" Her eyes were wide, lips pulled
back, an expression of horror one might expect if a rat had
just crawled across the table.

Leah would have laughed if she did not realize Rachel's
reaction would soon be repeated in every drawing room in
the ton.

"Never mind," Rachel said when Leah didn't respond.
"Tell me about you and St. Austin. Where did you meet?"

"My father and Richard arranged everything," Leah said.
She had no intention of discussing her marriage with Rachel.
She might be smiling prettily, but her questions seemed more
an interrogation than an interest in becoming better acquainted.

"That is as it should be, dear, but I am more interested in
you and St. Austin." Leaning forward, Rachel dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Surely you must realize legions of women have tried for years to bring St. Austin up to
scratch, without success. That is, until you"

Visions of Lady Margaret Montague rose unbidden in Leah's
mind. The proprietary air with which she'd clung to Richard's
arm. Her silk skirts swaying flirtatiously around his legs.

Had he loved her? Had he thought to marry her?

It does not matter, she told herself, ruthlessly cutting off her
thoughts. Just as it did not matter that she had once thought to
marry another. They were wed. They had to build a future together, as Richard had told her, and then, shown her.

"Naturally, I'm curious about the woman who finally managed to snag him in the parson's mousetrap. Was it love at
first sight, or a slow wooing? I'm on tenterhooks to know."

Richard striding into the room saved Leah from having to
reply. When he glanced at Leah, his eyes appeared startled,
as if he had forgotten he even had a wife, much less expected
to find her at his table. A sudden nervousness brought her
hands to her stomach, a breathless ache to her chest. She
didn't know what to do or say. She peeked at him from beneath her lashes.

The perfect cut of his riding clothes drew her gaze to his
broad back and tapered waist. Had she truly run her hands
over the chiseled muscles hidden beneath the bottle green
coat and buff pantaloons? Buried her fingers within the silken
strands of his hair? Clung to his powerful hips as he'd entered
her body?

She laced her fingers together on her lap. Heat spread over
her skin, as if she had developed a sudden fever.

Rachel laughed. "Richard, your blushing bride looks as if
she might faint dead away at any moment"

Leah grabbed her fork, attacked her eggs with a vengeance.

Silently, she cursed her fair skin that reddened when she
felt the least discomfort or embarrassment. She needn't have worried about her clothing or the artful arrangement of her
hair, she realized as he turned to greet her.

After a politely stated, "madam," he bowed, all stiff formality and polite indifference. Gone was the flesh-and-blood
man who had touched her so tenderly in the night, replaced
by the cold and arrogant Duke of St. Austin, his exquisite civility chipping off pieces of her suddenly aching heart.

Her thoughts grew foggy, her hands cold.

For a brief moment, she felt as if she were back in her
father's house, back when she first met this man and his obsidian gaze had raked over her with his unrelenting stare.

She had not expected him to fawn all over her like some
moon-struck calf, especially in front of Rachel, but she had
expected some warmth, some sign that what had passed between them was as special to him as it was to her.

Somehow she managed to smile and nod and pretend to
listen as Rachel continued her less-than-subtle probing, all
conducted through a pleasant smile and gleaming eyes.

"I had asked Leah how the two of you met," Rachel said to
Richard. "Perhaps you would care to tell the tale, St. Austin?
Naturally I'm curious about the child you took to wife."

She turned innocent blue eyes on Leah. "By the way, dear,
how old are you? Or should I say, how young?"

The butler walked over to the table and stood beside Leah.
"Pardon me, Your Grace?"

She pushed her eggs to the side of her plate, mashed her
toast with her fork. The unbearable churning in her belly sent
a wave of nausea up her throat. The dreaded sting of tears
touched her eyes. She did not know why she felt the urge to
cry. It was silly, really. He was all that was polite and civil.

"Leah," Richard said. His voice was the same deep baritone rumble that had trembled over her skin in the darkness,
only now it was filled with cold indifference.

She folded her hands on her lap and smiled at her husband
as if she were happy. Then she saw it. The brief flare of sen sual heat in his eyes. The sweep of his gaze moving over her
lips, making her shiver as surely as if he stroked his fingertips over her mouth. Try as he might to maintain his indifference, he was not unaffected. It was a start. "Yes?"

"I believe Harris is speaking to you"

"Oh, yes, of course. What is it, Harris?"

"You have a visitor, Your Grace"

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Rachel said. "Who is it, Harris,
and what do they want?"

"A Mr. Alexander Prescott, Your Grace," the butler said to
Leah, his voice slightly hesitant. "Shall I ask him to return
this afternoon?"

Alexander? Leah pressed her hand to her stomach, a burning flush once again creeping up her neck. He had said such
hateful things to her last night, what more could he possibly
have to say? "No, thank you, Harris. I would like to see him
now."

"Very well, Your Grace," he bowed and strode away.

Rachel's brows shot up, her vapid blue eyes wide and perplexed. "A gentleman calling at this time of day? On a newly
married lady? And without your husband's permission to
call? Not quite the thing, Leah. Not the thing, at all."

A flash of anger swung her gaze to Richard. Her jaw tightened. "Do I need your permission to see my friends?"

Richard could see the fire burning in her eyes, as if she
dared him to deny her. He was half-tempted to tease her, but
he was anxious to get her out of the room before he did something foolish, such as behave like a jealous lout and forbid her
to see her friend. Such as drag her onto his lap, bury his hands
beneath her fetching, frothy confection of a dress, and have
his wicked way with her with Rachel sitting not two chairs
away.

"Of course you do not," he murmured, trying to ignore the sudden leap of his pulse, the tightening muscles in his arms
that if he didn't know better, he would swear was jealousy.
"As long as you adhere to propriety."

Good God, he sounded like a prig and her cheeks were
blushing with furious color. Her jaw tightened and her eyes
narrowed on him as if she would wound him with her glare.

She gave a stiff nod, then turned and strode away, her foolish skirts swishing flirtatiously over her backside, and it was
all he could do not to follow her. He recognized the name of
her caller from his conversation with Pierce. The boy was calf
ears in love with Leah, and now he was here.

It bothered Richard and he could not even begin to say
why.

How had he managed polite indifference, when he'd wanted
nothing more than to drag her into his arms?

He'd thought he had himself under control, the foolish
thoughts from the evening before banished to the darkest corners of his mind, where they belonged. Then, caught up in his
worry over whether or not his brother was drinking again,
Leah appeared before him when he had not yet schooled himself for her presence.

Now the blood rushing through his veins straight to his
groin told him his rigid control was a lie. Warning bells were
once again clamoring, but his lust studiously ignored them.

He did not recognize himself. It must come from some
primitive, primal instincts blazing to life within him.

Male satisfaction at having been her first lover.

It certainly wasn't love. That foolish notion was best saved
for poets and schoolgirls and green youths lost in their first
carnal stirrings. Before the truth came crashing down around
them. Love did not exist, but passion did.

No, this wasn't love. But what it was, he did not know.

She certainly wasn't important to him, or necessary for his
happiness. That road led straight to hell and he had no inten tion of traveling it. But she was his wife. He would treat her
with the respect and consideration she deserved.

Polite civility, those were the key words.

And wanton abandon, too, he thought with a rueful sigh,
images of the previous night making him sweat.

He stifled a groan as he realized he was gaping after his
wife like a feeble-minded fool and Rachel was watching him,
her blue eyes narrowed in shrewd calculation.

Damn, he had forgotten she was in the room. "What plots
are you hatching in that devious brain of yours?"

"Richard, you are a brute. Do you not know you hurt me
when you speak to me in such a manner?"

He returned his attention to his paper.

"Are you not the least curious what the gentleman wants?
Did you know he was at the ball last night?"

That grabbed his notice, and with it came a flare of unwelcome tension, a tightening in his chest. It was anger at Rachel,
he told himself, disgust at her machinations.

It was not jealousy directed at his new wife.

"I understand they are friends," he said.

"Friends," Rachel said, running her thumb over her fingernails, her eyes wide in feigned innocence. "Yes. I suppose one
could call it that. I saw them together on the terrace. They were
having quite an intense conversation."

Richard slapped his newspaper on the table. "You were
spying again? How many times do I have to tell you to tend
to your own concerns?"

"Anything that happens in this house is my concern"
Rachel ran her index finger around the rim of her teacup. "Do
you want to know what I saw?"

Richard pushed to his feet. He had to get away before he
said something he would regret. Or else he would throttle her.

"I saw him grab her arms and pull her close," she called
after him. "Then he-"

Richard slammed the door and headed for the library.

If, on his way, he happened past the receiving room where
Leah and her young buck were talking, well ... that wasn't
exactly spying ... was it?

He rubbed his hands over his face.

Good God, now he sounded just like Geoffrey.

"Mr. Prescott," Harris announced from the salon door.

Before Leah had time to rise from her chair, Alexander
rushed across the room, his frock coat and breeches wrinkled
and stained, as if he had slept in them. His hair was damp and
clung to his brow. He dropped to his knees at her feet.

He grabbed her hands. His warm breath fluttered over her
fingertips, wet with his tears. "Leah, forgive me. I know I do
not deserve it. My words were wicked and spiteful and cruel,
but I hurt so much, I wanted to hurt you, too"