A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (11 page)

A wager? Scandalous! And precisely
what she needed that day.

A pin jabbed into Aurora’s scalp as
Rose wrangled a particularly stubborn curl into an exacting and
precise position. “Ouch!” She reached up a hand to rub the sore
spot before turning back to Rebecca. “Done. What would you care to
wager?”

“
So sorry, miss,” her maid
said as she continued to work. “We have no time to dally.” Once she
had Aurora’s hair just so, Rose took hold of her arm and led her
from the chamber, down the stairs, and to the library.

“
If Lord Quinton
is
here to offer for
you,” Rebecca said, scurrying along to keep up, “you must promise
not to speak poorly of Lord Norcutt ever again.”

Aurora had no fear of that coming to
pass, so it was easy to agree. “Fine. And if I am correct and he
isn’t here to make an offer?”

Rebecca pulled on Aurora’s arm hard
enough to stop both her progress and Rose’s. They had just reached
the double doors to Father’s library—Aurora’s last moment of
freedom before whatever monumental change was about to take place
in her life. The look in Rebecca’s eyes was sheer sincerity. “Then
I’ll clean up the mess after your father rips you limb from limb,
so he won’t be in trouble with Prinny.”

Chapter Seven

2 April, 1811

I’m off to face my
executioner. Wish me luck in ending up wherever one can receive
kisses. I’d hate to spend eternity somewhere that sins of the flesh
are not permitted, particularly after having only experienced the
one kiss in my earthly body, not any true fleshly-sins. Oh, and one
other thing: Do you suppose that there is chocolate in heaven? Or
hell, since I’m likely on my way there. What would eternity be with
no chocolate? Let us all hope we never have to learn.

~From the journal of Miss
Aurora Hyatt

The frogs were back. Leaping around in
her stomach and threatening to pop straight up through her throat
and out of her mouth at any moment. And, quite frankly, Aurora
couldn’t decide whether they were more from an excited anticipation
or dread. Either would be appropriate in this situation.

Any moment now, Lord Quinton would
come through the doors of her father’s library and ask her to marry
him.

She wanted to accept him. Desperately
so, in fact. And she knew it was what her father wanted for
her.

But another part of her was very, very
afraid.

he part of her that remembered her
parents’ marriage. The part of her that remembered how unhappy her
mother was for as long as Aurora had known her. The part of her
that had resolved, upon the death of Lord Dodsworth (the moment
when she was freed), that she would never marry a man who was not
as desperately in love with her as she was with him.

When Father had called her in to his
library moments before and informed her of Lord Quinton’s
intentions, she told him that she would accept. She wanted to wash
away the shame that swallowed her father’s face when he looked at
her. She wanted to be certain he would not suffer due to her
actions. At least not any more than he already was.

But now…

Now she was not so certain.

How could she go through a
life married to a man whom she did not know? Oh, sure. She imagined
herself in love with him. Aurora was in love with the
idea
of Lord Quinton. And
he
did
excite her
in a way she’d never imagined possible, when he pulled her into his
embrace and kissed her until she thought a shipwreck was taking
place inside her head.

But was that really love? She doubted
it.

Aurora doubted even more
that
he
could
love
her
. He
didn’t know her at all. He’d only pulled her onto the ballroom
floor and waltzed with her and spun her head around and kissed her
and turned her life into a complete shambles and left
her.

That was not love.

So if she went through with this—if
she accepted him—she’d be making her father happy, but making
herself deplorable in the bargain.

She simply could not become her
mother.

The door opened and Hobbes announced,
“Baron Quinton to see you, Miss Hyatt.”

The man in question came
through the door, bleary-eyed with an unshaved jaw, his hair
falling about his shoulders in an untamed mess. Aurora’s breath
caught in her throat. Even when he looked wretched, he could
somehow send her heart to fluttering and her insides to thrumming.
She
must
put a
stop to that, and with a great good deal of haste, else she find
herself in precisely the same scrape her mother had spent so many
years in.

He bowed low to her and was slow to
rise. “Good morning, Miss Hyatt. I trust you slept
well?”

“
Scarcely a wink, no thanks
to you.” Blast. She really needed to think before she spoke. Not to
mention before she acted. It would save her a world of
problems.

In the infinitesimal span
of half a second, if that, his entire expression changed. Yet
instead of looking contrite or abashed, Lord Quinton’s eyes shot
through her like flaming arrows, devouring their target in an
inferno of lust. Oh, dear good Lord—
she
was the target!

His lips curled in a carnal grin
surely designed to turn her knees to jelly. She said a silent
prayer of thanks that she was already sitting.

“
Then we have at least that
in common.”

Her lips formed a soundless O. If she
wasn’t careful, he could charm her into doing anything.

Lord Quinton gestured to the open seat
on the sofa beside her. “May I sit?”

Aurora nodded. That seemed safer than
opening her mouth and allowing more gibberish to spew
forth.

He sat entirely too close to her. The
side of his thigh brushed against hers, tickling her senses with
heat. She could smell him again—no brandy this time, but ample heat
and a hint of oranges mingled with his musky cologne.

She had to put some distance between
them so she could think. But when she scooted a few inches away, he
just turned his body so that he was facing her more fully, and then
his knee was virtually on top of hers.

“
I must apologize for my
behavior last night,” he said. His voice was rich and rough, like
velvet caught sliding over tree bark. “What I did to you is
unpardonable.”

“
Indeed,” she said, to fill
the lengthy silence following his pronouncement.

Still, the second-hand’s ticking on
her father’s Bornholm clock cut through the tension in the room,
each stroke being outpaced two-to-one by her pulse. Or maybe
three-to-one. She couldn’t tell anymore.

Lord Quinton cleared his throat. “I
have come to make what amends I can. Your father has allowed me to
speak with you, so that I might make my intentions
known.”

With each word he spoke, the tiny
dimples in his cheeks came and left. She hadn’t noticed them before
now. Perhaps the extra growth of beard accentuated them. Aurora
fought the very strong urge that engulfed her (one she feared might
be a losing battle) to reach out a hand and touch one of his
dimples.

Lord Quinton lowered himself to one
knee and took her hand into both of his own. “Miss Hyatt, would you
do me the very great honor of becoming my wife? I cannot undo what
I have done, but I can give you the protection of my name. Please
accept me.”

She’d hoped he wouldn’t ask her so
suddenly. She’d hoped that she could have a few more moments to
settle her thoughts and decide how to answer.

But that was not to be. Instead, he
was kneeling before her and frowning up at her, waiting for an
answer.

She could marry him. She
could become his bride and they could both satisfy their lust (for
what else
could
her fascination with him truly be?), and then he would become
indifferent to her and she would grow unhappy with him, and they
would end up as unhappy as her parents had been and live on
opposite ends of their home.

Or she could decline. She could send
him on his way and manage on her own. Rebecca, at least, would
still speak to her. Aurora would not be left to fend for herself at
every turn.

But she must also consider Father. He
would be ostracized if she refused. How could she allow that to
happen? After all that he’d done to be certain she had the best in
life, she owed him at least this one small favor, like he’d asked.
All right, it was a gargantuan favor. But still—he’d asked. And
Father almost never asked her for anything.

The longer it took for Aurora to make
up her mind, the more Lord Quinton’s dimples started to twitch.
Before long, the twitching moved to encompass the eyebrow above his
right eye.

“
Miss Hyatt?” he eventually
asked. “Will you marry me?”

She really ought to answer him. But
goading him was proving to be far too diverting. “My lord, you are
quite gallant to make such an offer. However, we hardly know
anything about each other. Could you tell me a bit more, so that I
can make a wise decision?”

“
Such as?” Lord Quinton’s
lips pressed together into a firm, white line.

“
Such as where I could
expect to live, for example.”

He let out a ragged sigh. “We shall
live at Quinton Abbey in Yorkshire. Wetherby, to be exact. It is a
vast estate, and you will have your hands full with the running of
it, I’m certain. Until, of course, you become the Countess of
Rotheby. At that point, we would have our choice of any number of
grand estates.”

Rotheby. That sounded familiar. “I was
unaware you would inherit an earldom, my lord.”

“
As there are many things
we are each equally unaware of concerning the other.” He rose from
the floor, where she’d left him kneeling the entire time. After a
moment spent stretching his legs, he spoke again. “We will learn,
in time. But time is not in our favor at the moment, Miss Hyatt. I
urge you—nay, I beseech you—please accept my offer. I daresay your
reputation is in tatters at the moment. There is no time to waste.
We must marry as hastily as possible.”

Lord Quinton took both of her hands,
forcing her to look up at him. Oh, dear, it was a long way up to
his eyes. She stood to see him better, but still her eyes only
reached his chin.

“
You must accept me, Miss
Hyatt. There is no other option.”

The twitching of his dimples drove her
to distraction. Pulling one hand free, she stroked the back of it
along his cheek and stopped with her fingers trailing over the
dimple. It stilled on contact.

“
Fascinating,” she
whispered, not even certain she’d said the words aloud at
all.

Before she could stop herself—before
she even gained awareness of what she was doing—she leaned up into
him, stretching on her toes, and placed a chaste kiss where her
fingers had just been. Stubble tickled at the softness of her lips.
She drew back slightly and laughed, a gentle, nervous sound, then
kissed him there again. More insistently, this time.

There was no tickling, no laughter
this time. It felt scratchy and abrasive. Aurora reveled in the
sensation—particularly in the liquid pull in her belly from the
contact.

Lord Quinton’s grip tightened against
her other hand and he growled low in his throat. His blue eyes
looked stormy and turbulent and grey.

And then his lips were upon
hers. The warmth of his tongue slid along the crease between her
lips, questing for entrance. Her knees
did
turn to jelly then, so she
slipped her free hand up and around his neck, gripping tightly into
the mass of hair at his nape and praying she could hold on—because,
dear Lord, she never wanted this moment to end.

Somehow, her other hand was free and
joined the first to keep her upright. His lips left her mouth and
trailed along her chin and jawbone and neck, scratching her tender
flesh with his beard. His hands pulled against her bottom, pressing
her belly up against something hard and hot and entirely too
enticing for her unfettered curiosity.

Her breasts felt heavy, the tips taut.
With each shuddering breath, they rose and fell against his chest.
She wanted more. She wanted to be closer. His heat drew her in like
a ship’s anchor. She could no longer think. All she could do was
seek something that only he could give to her.

Aurora’s legs gave out. She fell into
Lord Quinton, knocking him backward. They landed on the sofa, her
body sprawled atop him. Still, his lips never left her
neck.

“
Good God, your skin is
like heaven,” he said into her mouth as his lips returned. His
hands slid over her legs, lower, pulling at her gown until he
reached the hem and his fingers slipped beneath to roam across her
bare thighs. She’d never experienced anything so scandalous
before—and that was saying something, considering recent
events.

Even with the chill of the library air
breezing across her naked flesh, she felt like she could catch fire
at any moment. Everywhere his fingers or lips trailed, a blaze
burned in their wake.