An Unexpected Proposal (St Daine Family 1) (6 page)

A slight sound—or perhaps it was the growing appearance of light slowly spilling into his darkened retreat?—warned him he was no longer alone.

Glancing up, he watched as the
other
reason for his sleeplessness, her body cleverly adorned by a tempting nightdress wrapped in a warm halo of soft light, materialized in the doorway.

Claire
.

His body heated instantly and his heart beat out a thrilling rhythm while his mind played through the torturous scenario which had teased him all week despite his attempts to block the tantalizing scene of impropriety from his thoughts.

He had dreamed of her.

Aye, he had dreamed, that first night after she and her family had arrived at Rothwyn House. Even now he could remember the highly erotic sounds of their mingled breathing as their bodies rhythmically strained together, glistening with the effects of concerted effort as they strove toward the pinnacle of release. Unfortunately for him, he had awakened before the much sought release could be obtained, and the effect had left him disgruntled and a bit surly. He shifted to ease the sudden, uncomfortable tightness in his breeches. The action must have given away his presence there in the darkness, because he saw Claire's hand fly up to her throat as a tiny yelp of fright fell from her lips.

“Your Grace! You startled me!”

“My apologies, Miss Leighton. Is aught amiss?” The question was unnecessary, of course, for if the lady was below-stairs, after hours and unchaperoned, that was clue enough something had certainly gone awry.

Tightening her fingers in the fabric of her robe, she clenched the garment close below her chin while her cheeks flushed with color just notable in the low light. “No, I-I was restless and thought I might find a book to read.”

She watched him, her gaze filled with cautious curiosity, and Lucien stifled a sigh.

The often wearying and much lauded constraints of propriety (the likes of which he had all but preached to Phoebe every single day of this past week, his conscience sarcastically pointed out to him) demanded he leave the room immediately. But the mulish, obstinate male side of him insisted he stay. “I am sure we have several volumes on animal husbandry, if your goal is to bore yourself to certain, witless slumber.”

Peering askance at her, fully aware he had a house full of guests, any one of which could also 'feel restless' and come stumbling upon them at any particular moment, he rose from his seat and moved toward where she stood poised for flight in the opened doorway. “I could recommend a particularly dreary tome, if you would like. Or perhaps you had hoped to find something much more interesting?”

C
laire did not think
anything he might suggest could possibly be more interesting than her peculiar reaction to his voice at the moment. He spoke and her body tingled. Her cheeks were sure to be permanently rendered the most ghastly shade of red from the many blushes his presence caused, she thought.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, his voice low and husky, and Claire was helpless against the flood of warmth flowing through her. She felt it to her toes.

Perhaps her reaction was due to the fact that he had come up in front of her and was now standing so near she could smell the very scent of his skin, she wondered, hoping it was so and yet knowing better, though she was loath to admit it.

He was far too close for her comfort, especially given the battle she waged in her head at the moment. Suppressing a shiver of uncontrollable pleasure at both his nearness and the sensual level of his tone, she said, “That I should not be here with you. I—”

“Should be tucked safely away in your bed, far from the dangers of being caught in a darkened library with a lonely old duke?” he answered for her.

Ignoring the 'old' bit of his comment, for clearly he was far from aged, Claire stared up at him, her brow creased in a slight frown. “You are lonely, Your Grace? How could such a thing even be possible when you are surrounded by a large and loving family?”

She could just see his brow arch upward in the darkness before he said, “Large? Yes. Loving?”

He shrugged. “Betimes that is debatable. My sister, Phoebe, for instance, likely hates me and the ground I walk upon.”

Claire knew she should find it odd to be discussing his family and their emotional attachments, or the lack thereof, with him in the middle of the night while she clutched her nightdress close, and yet, she found their conversation strangely normal.

“I am quite certain your sister does not hate you, Your Grace,” she hastened to assure him. “She merely feels you are being a trifle…overprotective.”

Lucien chuckled. “A trifle? Of course she does. But then, someone must keep an eye on her reputation while she rushes about willy-nilly and with nary a thought into yet another situation rife with possible scandal.”

“Your sister does seem quite determined to locate her brother,” Claire offered, remembering the one conversation she had shared with the younger St. Daine earlier in the week. Her tone hinted that she would not be adverse to learning more about the situation if he were willing to share, but he did not bother to explain his sister's preoccupation with their missing brother.

Rather, he asked, “And you? What is it that you are determined to do, Claire?”

Help Melisande win a proposal from you
, she thought immediately, and again, she flushed hot, both from the guilt she felt at knowing being alone with him like this was both highly inappropriate and inadvisable, considering her goal (not to mention the strictures of Society) and from her reaction to his casual, almost familiar use of her given name. He
must
know his doing so during such a vulnerable moment for her was hardly helping matters. “You should not use my name, Your Grace. We are hardly—”

“Intimates?” he asked, his tone ever more sultry, and Claire could not help but wonder if he drew some fiendish pleasure from watching the play of shocked emotions chase across her face. They came on so suddenly where he was concerned and there was no time for her to hide them.

“
Family
,” Claire corrected, her tone filled with censure. “Or even yet friends. We've barely met, Your Grace, and I am—”

“Terrified of the smoldering desire you feel when I am near?” he answered for her yet again, completing her sentence in a way she never would have dared, even if he had spoken the truth.

She flushed hot, a denial rising to her lips in a furious rush even as her insides melted at his quietly voiced summation of honest fact. Her mouth dropped open to issue a scathing retort but she quickly snapped it shut in indecision. If she boldly declared herself unafraid, he might believe she was being forward. Yet, if she decried the warmth she felt when he was near, she would be lying.

Desperately searching her thoughts for an appropriate response to his no doubt purposely scandalous question, Claire neglected to realize just how near he really was or that he meant to kiss her—until his head lowered and she felt the air between them disappear.

His lips, warm and full, touched hers. At the same time, his arms came around her, closing with his palms against her back. After a moment which seemed much longer than it actually was, he lifted his mouth the barest breath from hers, and then lowered it once more. This time, however, his lips began to move, finding first the delicate curve of her neck and then the highly sensitive area just below and to the right of her earlobe.

Claire shivered in reaction. Her hands forgot to remain clenched in her wrapper and stole upward instead. Her fingers threaded themselves through the dark hair at his nape while her chin rose, giving him greater access to the place where his lips were pressing. His teeth gently nibbled, causing a wash of liquid heat to pool low in her belly before spreading toward the secret place hidden between her thighs.

His tongue flicked out, soothing the spot where his teeth had nipped and Claire sucked in a quick breath—which Lucien stole with his kiss, his lips returning in just that instant to mold themselves against hers. Claire felt her own open to him and his kiss; to his questing tongue. Hungry now, she rose up on her toes to better meld her body to his, to give...

“Well this looks like it could get interesting.”

The humor-laced words were drawled into the darkness behind her, from somewhere above her shoulder, and Claire's frightened squeal, thankfully muffled beneath Lucien's lips, triggered a reaction from him she was not expecting. Quick as lightning, he released her and pushed her behind him in one smooth, reflexive move, protecting her from the possible danger of being recognized while he faced down their common enemy.

“No longer pining after Bethany, I take it?” the voice came again, and Claire could have sworn she heard a low chuckle follow.

With his large body positioned squarely in front of her, hiding her from his obviously unexpected late-night visitor, Lucien visibly relaxed. Claire guessed he must have recognized the fellow because he said, “Your timing is atrocious, Tony, but I must say I am glad to see you. Have a bit of trouble finding your way home?”

Careful to not draw attention to herself while the duke greeted the man in the shadows, Claire hastily rearranged her wrapper, pulling it tight while she tried, unsuccessfully, to shrink into utter invisibility behind Lucien. Apparently, her attempt to disappear only served to draw attention because she heard the man ask, “Do I get an introduction?”

The quirk of humor remained in his voice and Claire wondered whether Lucien would pull her from the protective shadow of his body to deliver the requested presentation, thus ruining her reputation and her life, or if he would continue to protect her with the shield of his body. A full moment of silence—silence during which Claire waited, both trapped and mortified to find herself so—passed with wretched slowness.

Finally, Lucien said, “No.”

The man still hidden within the shadows of the library affected a sigh, issued in such a way as to make her think Lucien's denial of an introduction had landed him a crushing blow. “One of the blooded lasses, I presume? Oh, well. Best you send her to safety then, Rothwyn, because we've a long night ahead of us.”

From her position behind him, Claire could feel Lucien's body stiffen. “You've located Tristan?”

“I have,” his—friend?—acknowledged. “But it is
where
I've found him that you are going to be none too happy about.”

“I don't give a damn where you found him, Tony, as long as he is alive,” Lucien said, and Claire knew he spoke the truth because she was standing so closely within the shadow of his body she could feel the ripples of tension dissipate as it left him.

“He lives, yes, though not through any effort of his own and not by choice, from what I hear.” The man in the dark shifted, hesitating, but then he said, “Your brother has spent the past few months on board the
Valkyrie
, Lucien. Do you know what kind of ship the
Valkyrie
is?”

Pirates
.

The word whispered through Claire's head like a fiendish threat in her deepest nightmare, and she gasped, causing Lucien to cast a glance over his shoulder at her.

“Go on. Take the lady upstairs, Lucien,” his friend interrupted from the shadows. His voice sounded tired now, even a bit weary. “See her well settled, and when you return, I will tell you everything I know.”

B
y mid-morning
the following day, Claire was feeling rather anxious. Though none of her concern, she could not help but wonder what Lucien's late-night visitor had revealed to him about the missing St. Daine family member. Nor could she manage to wipe the memory of the duke's heated, passionate kisses from her thoughts.

He had escorted her to her room last night, had even dropped another quick kiss on her lips before pushing her inside her chamber and hurrying away back down the stairs to his friend who waited for him below. But no matter his familiarity in the dark of night when no one else would know, Claire knew she could not exactly rush to his side in the light of day and ask to be brought up on the details. Nor could she seem to think of a plausible excuse to explain away having accepted his kisses to Melisande, should she ask.

She was becoming increasingly fretful over both dilemmas when, shortly after Aggie finished dressing her hair, her mother joined her for a quiet morning visit in her room.

Clarisse Leighton delicately settled herself with her needlework upon a divan which rested against the foot of the large four-posted bed in the room Claire had been given and, after routine “good mornings” were shared, began to quietly ply her needle, forming sure stitches while Claire worried with her dress and paced about the chamber in a disturbing state of agitation.

“You are going to wear a rut in the duke's exquisite carpet, darling,” her mother warned and Claire moved to settle herself at the dressing table—to wait, though for what, she did not know. Her mother's attention focused on her sewing once more, Claire feared she would be forced to pass the remaining half hour before breakfast frowning at her expression in the glass—but then the door to her chamber suddenly flew open hard enough to bang noisily against the opposite wall, making her jump hastily to her feet.

Lady Clarisse jerked, winced, and lifted an injured thumb to her lips, but she did not rise when Melisande burst into the chamber, almost winded and completely neglecting to offer an apology for bustling in without an invitation.

“Claire! There you are! I've searched practically all of Rothwyn House for you, only to find you still lounging about here in your chambers!” Oblivious to the somewhat strained atmosphere in the room, she grabbed Claire's hand and promptly towed her toward the door. “The duchess has seated me beside the duke tonight and I haven't a clue which dress I should wear. You must help me decide!”

Claire cast an apologetic glance back over her shoulder at her mother, immensely grateful to Melisande for the interruption, although she had to admit she also felt a bit uncomfortable facing her friend with the memory of the duke's kisses still fresh in her thoughts. Still, she allowed Mel to draw her from the room, calling her excuses to her mother back over her shoulder as she went. “Please excuse us, Mother. Melisande seems to have stumbled into a bit of a wardrobe emergency.”

Her mother nodded and waved them away and Claire thought she might actually somehow survive the moment—until a door opened across the hall from hers and the man from last night stepped out. He paused, closing it carefully behind him, and causing both ladies to draw up suddenly in surprise.

Like a blond gypsy pirate, his shoulder-length hair had been left free of proper restraint and it looked as if he had just emerged from a bath because beads of water still dripped from the burnished lengths onto the front of his white lawn shirt—a shirt left scandalously open to the ladies' shocked gazes—and down the equally scandalous expanse of his broad, sun-bronzed chest. Thankfully, he had taken a moment to tuck the hem into the top of his thigh-hugging black breeches, Claire thought, the legs of which were also neatly pushed beneath the fold at the top of a pair of expensive black leather boots.

Glancing up at his face again, the shining loop of gold suspended from his left ear should have stricken fear into her heart, Claire thought, but it was the intensity in those piercing blue eyes of his which held her rooted to the spot. She held her breath while his dark gaze inspected Mel from head to hem, and then, when his eyes met hers, she had to bite her lip to hold in the squeak of fear which threatened to erupt. She noted the quick flare of recognition in his gaze, and her heart thudded hard in her chest. Would he give her away?

After several long, quiet seconds which felt quite like hours trudging past, his lids lowered a bit, shuttering the intensity of his gaze, and he dipped his head in silent acknowledgment.

“Ladies,” he murmured low and then walked away in the opposite direction, leaving Claire to surreptitiously pull in several deep, calming breaths without drawing Melisande's attention to the fact that she was doing so. By the time Claire realized Melisande also had yet to move after their run-in with Lucien's guest, there was no time to speculate over her friend's hesitation. The fellow might decide to come back and Claire had no wish to be caught out here alone with him again should he do so.

“Come along, Mel. Let us find the perfect dress for you,” she said. Grabbing the other girl by the sleeve, she tugged Melisande the last few steps to her chamber and then inside.