A Scoundrel by Moonlight (20 page)

He nipped her neck, making her shudder. The feeling that rose each time he entered her body surged. But he went still before she reached her climax.

“Not… yet,” he gasped against her damp skin.

“I want this.” She was barely aware of what she said. She plowed her fingers into his buttocks, compelling him to move. “I want you.”

“Keep wanting me.” He retreated and advanced.

She bowed up in response. His face filled her vision. Stark with arousal, flushed, mouth stretched over his teeth.

She hovered so close. So tantalizingly close. Again he stopped before she toppled over the edge. “You’re torturing me.”

His grunt might indicate frustration or amusement or both. “I want to show you what we can create together.”

The light now was bright enough to reveal every strained line on his face. Deep brackets framed his mouth. She hooked her legs across his back, linking her ankles.

“Let go,” she crooned, running her hands over his shoulders. “Let go.”

“Eleanor, you destroy me,” he gasped.

He jerked forward, claiming her, and this time as she rose, the wave was too great to stop. On a cry she broke
through to the summit, then the whole world crashed around her in a rain of fire. The pleasure dashed her against the sky then back to earth then back to the sky.

Through the blinding tempest, she heard his guttural groan. Her body clenched anew against the surge of liquid heat and her fierce response drowned everything except joy.

And the fact that she’d love him until she died.

N
ell woke in Leath’s—James’s—embrace. Briefly, she basked in voluptuous memories of the night. When she wriggled free, he made a sleepy complaint, but didn’t wake. The morning was brisk, and she rubbed her arms as she studied her lover.

The light revealed signs of tiredness, but he looked more at ease than he had at Alloway Chase. Only last night had she realized that the sexual pull between them had worn at him as it had worn at her. She had a feeling that if she woke him, he’d assuage that sexual pull again. But the weariness in his face—and knowing that she’d have his attention later—led her to kiss his bristly cheek, then collect her clothes from the floor. She blushed to remember how they’d got there, although surely a woman who had passed such a wanton night had no right to blush.

She washed and dressed in the small room adjoining the bedroom, wincing as muscles she’d never used before protested. Not that she minded. She felt as though the world was painted bright gold.

The world in fact was dark gray. Rain struck the windows with a force that made Nell grateful to be inside with the man she loved. A faint smile curved her lips as she wondered whether he’d take her back to bed this morning. She hoped so. Last night had hinted at oceans of sensuality waiting to be discovered.

She wandered downstairs to the kitchen, setting up breakfast and making tea. After missing dinner, James would be hungry. Then she tidied the parlor and set the fire. The housewifery was second nature. She’d run her stepfather’s house since her mother’s death. But she’d never worked for the comfort of a man who shared her bed.

Braving the weather, she retrieved a few bedraggled late roses from the bushes around the door. Upstairs all remained quiet.

Nell turned her attention to the entry hall, where James had flung his greatcoat and luggage before he’d carried her away to heaven. Usually he was the most orderly of men. She smiled to think that he’d arrived in such a fever he hadn’t even stopped to hang his coat to dry.

For a lost moment, she hugged the damp greatcoat. This morning her progress was woefully slow. She kept stopping to recall the night: a daring caress; a tender kiss; wild sensations sizzling through her. The thought of James Fairbrother left her staring into space for minutes at a time. If she wasn’t careful, she’d turn horribly dreamy. She’d never been in love before. The emotion’s all-encompassing power astonished her.

Sighing at herself, she hung James’s hat and coat beside her cape on the hooks near the door, then turned to his bags. He’d brought only a leather valise and a satchel of papers. The satchel was familiar from their first encounter in his library. In the days when she was convinced that the
Marquess of Leath was evil personified. How far she’d traveled since.

After lugging the bags into the parlor, she set the valise near the stairs. When he woke, he’d want his shaving gear and a clean shirt. She rubbed her face with one hand. He’d chafed her last night. And, she blushed to note, not just on the face.

She lifted the satchel onto the mahogany desk in the corner. The bag was heavier than expected and not fastened properly. When she slung it up, the contents cascaded across the priceless Turkey rug.

She smiled to think that even here, he brought work. Then she glimpsed her name on some legal document.

Curious, she gathered the papers and bore them to the couch. A quick glance at the document revealed that it set out Eleanor Charlotte Trim’s agreement to become James Fairbrother’s mistress. She didn’t read it from beginning to end—it was dauntingly thick—but the man so thorough in political and estate matters had been equally thorough when it came to her ruin. There were provisions for allowances and gifts. And children.

When she reached the paragraphs mentioning progeny, her hand curved over her belly. She wasn’t overjoyed about bearing the marquess’s bastard, but she accepted that pregnancy was likely. Perhaps a baby already grew inside her. The thought of a child never free to claim its father shaved a few layers off her contentment. Perhaps she should wake James and make him remind her why she’d taken this reckless step.

Sighing, she set away the contract. James had drawn it up for her protection, but she couldn’t like it. The dry language left her cringing. She felt like something the marquess had purchased.

A pile of letters bound with cord lay beneath the contract. Nell had no right to pry into James’s correspondence so she bundled everything up.

Until a word caught her eye. A word that turned her blood to ice.

Baby.

Knowing she committed an unforgiveable breach of privacy, she snatched up the sheet of cheap paper. The hand was unformed, as though the woman writing it had little or no education. It was dated a week ago and signed “Your dearest Celie.”

Bile stinging her throat, she read the pathetic lines addressed to the great marquess, pleading for money to support the little girl they’d made together. Fumbling, she knocked aside that letter and read the next. The same, except signed Mary and dated a fortnight ago. This child was a boy.

It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t.

Nell’s mind insisted she stop, pretend that she’d never seen those pathetic words. But a force stronger than self-protection gripped her.

She read each letter more quickly, until she barely glanced at the last one. Another name. Another girl who could barely write. Another baby. Another desperate plea sent within the last month.

Numbly she stared down at the papers littering the sofa and the floor.

Leath had seduced all these women after he’d abandoned Dorothy, and there had been multitudes before Dorothy if Nell believed in the diary of debauchery.

She believed.

One letter had slipped behind a cushion. She straightened it and started to read.

This one was different. Someone called Hector Greengrass wanted Leath to pay him ten thousand guineas in return for a certain document. The short note, written in a vilely knowing tone that made her skin crawl, invited the marquess to arrange a meeting via a tavern in Newbury. It mentioned no names, but she immediately knew that he was talking about the diary of Leath’s sexual exploits. The lecherous marquess had fallen into a blackmailer’s clutches.

Nell closed her eyes and struggled to calm her pitching stomach.

Dorothy hadn’t lied. Even down to the diary.

On a muffled cry, Nell lurched to her feet and rushed outside, leaving the door banging in the wind. She retched into the flowerbed, bringing up watery tea and not much else.

Feeling woozy, she stumbled upright, clinging to the cottage’s whitewashed wall. Her legs trembled near collapse. Behind her eyes, the sad, begging, incriminating letters marched, one after the other. Each representing an innocent girl who had fallen foul of a rake’s lies. Each representing a life destroyed.

She vomited again, although nothing was left inside her. Still she heaved until her stomach hurt. But nowhere near as badly as her heart.

Eventually she stood, head swimming. With an unsteady hand, she wiped cold rain from her face. More than anything, she wanted to scrub every inch of her skin. But she couldn’t risk returning upstairs. Not when that brute lay in wait.

Disgust threatened to crush her into the mud. But this wasn’t time for self-hatred. She’d have years to regret her stupidity and weakness.

Now she needed to escape. The scale of Lord Leath’s
evil staggered her. She couldn’t comprehend that the man she thought she’d known turned out so rotten. Turned out to be the man she’d originally believed him. He’d used her. Worse, she had an agonizing premonition that after her blistering anger cooled, she’d discover that he’d broken her heart too.

But she wasn’t defeated. Finally she had proof of his sins. And, she thought, straightening, she was in Derbyshire. She’d always intended to enlist the Duke of Sedgemoor’s influence to bring down the wicked marquess. His Grace’s family seat, Fentonwyck, was mere hours away.

Leath’s preparations for their affair had included delivery of a sweet little bay mare for Nell. She almost smiled. Before she was done, he’d be sorry he’d taught her to ride.

She must go. Before he woke. Before she saw him and recalled his filthy hands all over her. Worse, how she’d begged him to touch her.

Her stomach revolted again, but she placed a quelling hand over it. She might want to curl up somewhere dark and lonely and hide for the rest of her life. But she’d promised her beloved half-sister vengeance, and by God, she meant to get it.

Lifting her chin and squeezing her betrayed love into a tiny rancid ball deep in her soul, she rushed into the house and collected the letters. All the time, she strained to hear any sound from upstairs.

If Leath knew her plans, heaven knew what he’d do to her. Once she’d thought he was the last man to resort to violence. But then, she’d also convinced herself that he wasn’t Dorothy’s seducer. Nell’s instincts when it came to the marquess were tragically flawed.

She flung her cloak around her and ran, slipping and sliding through the rain, to the stables. In her heart, one
prayer echoed over and over: that she’d never see the Marquess of Leath’s lying, handsome face again as long as she lived.

Leath stirred to what sounded like a horse galloping away. But surely that couldn’t be. He’d chosen this cottage for its seclusion—and for the rugged beauty of the countryside. It must just be the wind rattling the windows.

He yawned and stretched luxuriously. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept this late. He had no idea of the time, but the light outside, even with the rain, indicated a morning well advanced. He’d stayed awake most of the night, dwelling on transcendent pleasure, the woman who lay so confidingly beside him, and the paths his life had taken. And might yet take.

Through the long, quiet hours, Eleanor’s presence had filled him with gratitude. What had happened extended beyond the physical realm. Their union changed everything. He wasn’t a fool. He knew this bond was rare and precious. He knew that to prove himself worthy of this gift, he must overturn all his old certainties.

When he’d stirred in the early hours and found her so sleepily sensual, he couldn’t stop himself. She’d taken him into her body and he’d felt like he’d found home. In a way he didn’t understand, she turned the world to light. But he understood too well that if she took the light away, he’d languish in eternal darkness.

Now he was hard and ready for Eleanor who, by the feel of the sheets, had left the bed hours ago. He shivered. Odd to be so cold and so hot at once. And he was hungry. Unprecedented sexual satisfaction gave a man a big appetite. For food and for the woman he wanted.

He rose against the pillows. Where was Eleanor? The
cottage was eerily quiet. He was a little disappointed that she hadn’t wakened him with a kiss—and with what came afterward. When he found her, he’d seduce her back to bed. After breakfast. Smiling at his plans, he scratched his chest and rolled out of bed.

To save her modesty, he tugged on his breeches. He let his shirt hang loose around his hips. He should wash. He should definitely shave—which meant retrieving his luggage from where he’d abandoned it in his elation at seeing Eleanor.

He pounded down the stairs to the neat parlor. But it was empty. Clearly Nell had been about. The room was tidy and he was almost sure that the roses on the windowsill hadn’t been there last night. A fire blazed in the grate, making the room deliciously warm.

Where the devil was she? The weather was vile, too vile for a ramble across the hills. Frowning, more curious than worried, he searched for his mistress. He didn’t need long. The house was little more than a cottage.

Leath grabbed his greatcoat, now neatly hung beside the door, and noticed with relief that her cape wasn’t there. She must be in the stables.

His increasingly frenetic hunt through the outbuildings turned up no Eleanor Trim. And no sign of the Arab mare he’d bought her. He burst into the windswept yard between the stables and the house, flummoxed. The weather had deteriorated, yet she’d gone riding. Why?

He recalled those pounding hoofbeats. Not the wind after all.

What on earth was her game? The house was stocked with all they needed. And this wasn’t a day for a pleasure jaunt.

Had he mistaken everything last night? Had he frightened
her into running away? Dear God, don’t let him have hurt her. He’d tried his best to be gentle.

Sick with worry, he trudged back to the house, huddling into his coat against the driving rain. He hoped to Hades that wherever Eleanor was, she was warm and dry and safe. He tried to reassure himself that she’d merely wanted some fresh air. But he couldn’t quash the certainty that something was vitally wrong.

He let himself back into the house and searched more thoroughly for some clue to her whereabouts. This time, he noticed his satchel on the sofa.

He frowned and crossed to empty it onto the upholstery. The contract slid out. Had that scared her away? Everything there was for her benefit—and the benefit of any children they produced. But after a night of passion, perhaps she balked at hard practicalities. He grimly recalled her reaction to his last attempt to discuss provisions for her welfare.