Forever a Lord (7 page)

He stiffly stepped back. “I’ve clearly said too much.” He sounded agitated. “I should go.”

He probably thought she was judging him. And she couldn’t have that. Not when he was about to change her life
and
Henry’s.

She grabbed his biceps, yanking him back and held him in place. “No. Stay. We probably should get to know each other.”

He stilled, the muscle beneath his clothing hardening beneath her fingers. “Know each other?” His chest rose and fell in deep takes as he intently held her gaze in the soft shadows. “You mean you want to take this upstairs, to bed?” A slow smile spread across his lips. “Did my talk of tying you up intrigue you?”

She quickly retrieved her hand, fully aware of his pulsing warmth and gawked up at him. “Uh…no, that wasn’t what I was… I…I was merely…” She winced and tried not to panic lest it bring her stutter on. In truth, she was surprised it hadn’t reared its head yet, being in the vicinity of this daunting man. “Are you a boxer?”

He paused. “I am. Yes.” He appeared incredibly surprised by the question. “Why do you ask?”

It was like meeting one of those shirtless men inside Mr. P. Egan’s book, which Henry kept in the study. The boxing book she had been reading ever since Henry had commenced looking for a pugilist for them to invest in. Her heart pounded knowing that gritty world of swinging fists, which was only permitted to men by men, was standing before her. “Are you any good at it?”

He smirked. “I’m not one to brag.”

She tightened his coat around her shoulders. “So you
are
good at it?”

“As I said, I’m not one to brag. So don’t make me.”

Imogene bit back a smile. She rather liked him. She felt like whatever he said, he meant. “Do you still have all of your teeth?”

A cough of a laugh escaped him. “Yes. Though I have come close to losing them many a time.”

“Ah.” She tried to come up with another question. Boxing. Something to do with boxing. “And do you…box often?” Oh, now, her brain was turning into wine jelly.

“Not as often as I’d like. I give lessons over at Cardinal’s and have even taken a few matches since coming into London, but nothing worth my time. It barely pays anything. I’d need a patron for that, and though your brother has offered, I’m still not particularly fond of being owned.”

“Owned? Oh, no, no. Henry isn’t like that. He would never—”

“There is no need to defend him. ’Tis how boxing investments are conducted.”

“Oh.” The particulars of the investment itself were something she and Henry had never fully discussed. “So…how would an investment be conducted if…well…my brother were to invest?” She didn’t want to scare him off by saying
she
was the investor.

He hesitated. “You seem incredibly interested in boxing. For a woman.”

“I am. But it has nothing to do with me being a woman.” Gad. That sounded moronic. “I just want to know. What do you mean by being owned?”

He eyed her. “Your brother would basically control every aspect of my life both in and out of the boxing ring until the championship. Everything from who I associate with to who I fight and what I eat and how I train.”

She blinked. She would get to control this man like that?
Completely?
How utterly fascinating. Henry never told her any of that. “I didn’t realize it was so involved.”

“Everything involving the title for the Champion of England is. Aside from the prestige, we’re talking millions of pounds in bets placed throughout the land. Of which, of course, I would only see a fraction. But a fraction of millions is still staggering and beyond impressive.”

“It most certainly is.” She dug her fingers into the palm of her hand. Still feeling awkward, knowing that she was actually talking to the man who was going to change everything, she randomly blurted, “You have a most unusual accent. British, yet not. Were you born in London?”

“No. I was born and raised in Surrey.”

“Surrey. So where are you from now?”

“New York.”

“America? How exciting. Is it nice there?”

“When you close your eyes.”

“It doesn’t seem like you cared for it.”

“It was a place to live. Nothing more.”

“I see. And do you plan on going back?”

“Does it sound like I plan on going back?”

Her brows came together. This man certainly didn’t elaborate much. She asked, he answered. That was all. It was as if he was a wall tolerating their conversation. He was clearly bored. Not that she blamed him. Everything about her life was as mundane as staring at her medicine. Her investment scheme with Henry was the only exciting thing to have
ever
happened to her. Which was pathetic.

She stripped his great coat from her shoulders and held it out. “I shouldn’t keep you.”

“You aren’t keeping me.” He took the coat and shrugged himself into it, adjusting it around his large frame. “I always have time to entertain a beautiful woman.”

An odd giddiness poked at her knowing he thought she was beautiful.
Her.
She pressed her fingers nervously into her thighs, shifting the wet material of her robe. Maybe she should say something more. “Fortunately it stopped raining. So your walk home ought to be pleasant.”

“Is that your way of telling me to go?”

“No. I…I’m trying to make conversation.”

“Are you?” Amusement tinged his voice. “Might I point out, you’re not very good at it.”

She cringed and shifted against the wall. “I know.”

He shifted closer, the heat of his body drawing unnervingly close. “How old are you?”

She pressed herself harder against the wall, until she felt the plaster beneath the silk embroidered paper. “Old enough. Why?”

One hand and then another pressed against the wall beside her head, caging her in with his muscled frame. “Old enough for what?”

Her breathing shallowed. “For anything.”

Another slow smile teased his lips. “If I tied your hands behind your back or above your head, would you be amenable to it?”

A strange fluttering overtook her stomach as he hovered above her in dominating silence. “Am I supposed to answer that?”

He cocked his head, still watching her. “Let me give you some advice based on what I’m seeing here. Never let a man you don’t know this close to you again. There are a lot of assholes that prey on women like you. Consider yourself fortunate I’m not one of them.”

Assholes? She blinked.

His voice grew husky. “Are you warm yet? I can take off my coat again. In fact, I can take off whatever you want me to. All you have to do is ask.”

She felt the foyer sway and locked her knees together to keep herself from sliding down the wall. Something about the way he had said it made her want to drape herself against him.

His right hand left the wall and trailed to her shoulder. He gently curved his palm in and brushed past her throat, making her suck in a sharp breath.

Rough padded fingers nudged her face up toward the fuzzy outline of his own face. “You’re very pretty. Do you know that?”

Why did she sense this man was going to change
more
than her finances? She swallowed, feeling his lips hovering above hers. Should she let him kiss her? It wouldn’t be a sin, would it?

The heat of his breath tickled her mouth.

She grew faint. Very, very faint.

He released her and pushed away from the wall. “I have to go.” Turning, he stalked toward the entrance, his boots thudding against the marble with what appeared to be a determination to not only leave but never be seen again.

A long breath escaped her. He was leaving? After all of that talk of him doing whatever she asked and his strange quest to bind her hands? What happened? Did she suddenly cease being pretty?

Stumbling away from the wall, she glanced up at the stairwell, thankful it was empty, and hurried after him. “Mr. Coleman?” she whispered so no one would hear.

His large frame paused, still holding the entrance door open as he kept his back to her. “Coleman is my boxing name. It’s not my real name.”

“Oh. I beg your pardon. What is your real name?”

“Just call me Nathaniel. Now what do you want?”

Imogene brought her hands together in an effort to remain calm. Unlike all the blurred aristocratic faces she’d met this past week in countless ballrooms that had sent her into a cringing, stuttering panic, he had brought everything into focus and made her realize what had been missing all her life: a genuine strength to be more than her illness. “You didn’t say goodbye.”

He glanced over his shoulder, those striking clear blue eyes capturing hers in the candlelight of the foyer. “Are you asking me to kiss you?”

She gawked. “I… No.
No.
Why would I— All I was pointing out, and very respectably, mind you, was that you walked away without bidding me farewell.”

He slowly closed the door and faced her again. “I walked away for a reason.”

Her brow creased. “I hope I didn’t offend you in any way.”

Shifting his jaw, he strode back toward her, his coat billowing menacingly around his solid movements as if he were about to take flight and land on top of her.

Though she wanted to throw up her hands and dash up the stairs to find Henry, she knew that would only make her look the ninny that she was.

He paused half an arm away, blocking her view of the foyer. That crisp scent of leather, wood and coal drifted toward her again. He lowered his gaze to hers. “You didn’t offend.”

Everything about him was a bit
too
exciting. She almost couldn’t think. “I didn’t?”

“No.” He held her gaze. “My mind simply isn’t where it should be and I’m not one to take advantage of a clearly virginal woman.”

Her eyes widened. “What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, now, you can’t be
that
naive. What do you think goes on between men and women when no one is looking? They don’t sit and play cards.”

She fisted her trembling hands, which had gone from damp cold to damp hot, realizing
exactly
what he meant. She knew about kissing. She also knew that when bedchamber doors closed at night, something happened that resulted in children. So did he mean to say he wanted both? “Are you offering on my hand?”

His mouth quirked. “Not in the way you think.” He edged in tauntingly. “This is probably where you should turn and run, tea cake. Before all this pent-up self-restraint you see…
flies.
Because I’m not known for restraint when it comes to women.”

She swallowed. He was teasing her. “If you doubted your self-restraint, you wouldn’t have told me.”

He eyed her. “I’m not always this nice to women.”

“If I felt in any way threatened by you or this situation,” she confided, “I would have screamed by now. I can scream, you know. I try not to, given Dr. Filbert insists I never strain my throat, but I can. I’m not as frail as everyone thinks I am.”

He hesitated. “Doctor? Is something wrong with you?”

She shrugged. “I have fainting spells and issues with my throat. There was an incident when I was younger. I could barely swallow without being in pain and lost almost a quarter of my body weight when I was seven.”

He stared, his features darkening. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

She shrugged. “I was rather fortunate. I could have died. Everyone was surprised I didn’t.”

He said nothing.

“My name is Imogene, by the by.
Lady
Imogene. But you can call me Gene.”

He stared at her in a way that resembled a panther gazing upon its prey. Then, suddenly, he edged back. “I really have to go.”

She tried not to panic. What if he didn’t take the offer? What if she had scared him away with all her stupid talk of doctors and death? “We should take tea sometime. Here at the house. Next week in the afternoon? Yes?”

He kept staring. “I’m not looking to be domesticated.”

“Oh. I… Well…tea is very informal. As long as I have a chaperone it would be very respectable. You and I can get to know each other and be friends.”

“Friends?” His gaze traced her eyes to her lips and back to her eyes again. “You’re a woman.”

Her cheeks grew hot. “Men and women can be friends.”

“Men and women aren’t meant to be friends. Trust me in this. Good night…
Imogene.
” He turned and strode for the entrance door and opened it. Glancing back at her one last time, he stepped into the darkness beyond, closing the door behind him with a thud.

Imogene hurried to the closed door and lingered, wishing he would come back. Everything about him was so beautifully raw and real. She didn’t realize a man could make a woman’s toes curl in her own slippers.

It was divine.
He
was divine.

Setting both hands on the door, she pretended for a breath it was him. Her pulse thrummed against the carved wood as she traced her fingertips against it. She smiled dreamily. Together, they would take that quarter of a million and rule the world.

She paused. Wait. She had just let him walk out the door without
any
guarantee. Scrambling to open the door, she threw it back and ran out into the night after the man she knew was going to change her life.

CHAPTER SIX

When Greek meets Greek, then’s the tug of war.

—P. Egan,
Boxiana
(1823)

N
ATHANIEL
PRAYED
FOR
inner strength. He’d never met a woman who had actually made him want to do more than rip clothes off. Attraction to a woman was one thing. He’d had plenty of those since he was sixteen. But this fierce need to dig his two hands into each and every breath she took was beyond anything he’d ever known or touched.

Raking back his rain-dampened hair in disbelief, he trudged down the gravel path. How he had managed to escape her and that house without giving in to what he
really
wanted to do was beyond his own understanding.

The darting steps of slippers urgently running after him in the darkness made Nathaniel turn. His breath hitched as Imogene’s curvaceous figure, draped in that hand-bitingly clinging wet fabric, bustled toward him.

Despite the darkness, the row of glass lanterns hanging off the iron railing lit just enough to illuminate the seductive bounce of those well-outlined breasts as she jogged toward him.

He stiffened—everywhere. The woman clearly didn’t realize how much he
could
see.

She alighted before him, primly threw her long blond braid over her slim shoulder and glanced up, that quiet, oval face, flushed cheeks and those stunning bright hazel eyes meeting his gaze. “I couldn’t let you go quite yet. Not until you promise me you will take my brother’s offer.”

He fisted both hands, fighting the two opposing voices raging in his head. One told him to go. And the other one told him to rake his hands down every inch of her wet robe before stripping it off. He couldn’t decide which voice he should listen to and had been mindlessly arguing with both ever since he first saw her. “Not to disappoint you, tea cake, but I’m going to need a few days to think about the offer. I’ve got people to talk to.” Mainly Matthew. He hadn’t been informing the poor bastard of much these days.

Her blond brows flickered as her voice dipped in concern. “Do you need a better offer?” She leaned in closer, bringing that lavish, crisp scent of lilies. “Was the money not generous enough?”

He drew in a ragged breath, wishing she wouldn’t lean in so damn close. Because all he could think about was the same thing he’d been thinking about when he had her up against the wall in her house. How he wanted to take those wrists into each hand, pull them up over her head and knot them into place with her own silk stockings. That way, he could have free rein over that luscious body and do whatever he wanted. “The sort of offer I’m thinking about, Imogene, probably isn’t going to suit you
or
your brother.” He was all about being honest.

She searched his face amongst the shadows. “I will make it suit us. What were you thinking?”

A gruff laugh escaped him. If she were any more naive, he’d have to pinch her adorable ass. “You really don’t want to know what I’m thinking.”

“But I do. I really do. I genuinely want to assure you that—” She blinked rapidly, her features momentarily blanking.

He hesitated, sensing something was wrong. “What is it?”

She staggered and then to his heart-pounding astonishment, swooned.

Jumping toward her, he grabbed hold of her slim body before she hit the gravel, the wet fabric of her robe and nightdress shifting against his bare hands. “Jesus.”

What the hell just happened?

Quickly sliding his hands beneath her and with a single toss, he effortlessly hefted her up and into both arms, rolling her body toward his chest, and glanced down at her.

Her head rolled back, exposing the length of her throat and her full lips unconsciously parted in the shifting light and shadows of the lanterns.

He quickly leaned in toward her mouth, setting his ear against those lips. Relief trickled in at realizing she was still breathing.

Get her to Weston. That way, it’s off your hands and it’s not your fault.
Tightening his hold on her, he jogged his way back toward the entrance and veered in through the entrance door she had left open.

Her small hands jumped up to the lapels on his great coat, tightening their hold.

He jerked to a halt and glanced down at her in the dim candlelight of the foyer, his pulse roaring in his ears. “What happened? Are you all right?”

She stared up at him, her hazel eyes unfocused. She momentarily closed her eyes before reopening them and half nodded. “Yes. I…I fainted, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” he breathed out.

She winced. “I do that.”

Not good. “Do you want me to call for your brother?”

“No. He…he would only call upon the doctor.”

He eyed her. “Don’t you want him to call the doctor?”

She slowly shook her head. “No. Dr. Filbert always puts me on bed rest. Then I’m not allowed to do anything for days. Not even read. I hate it.” She tightened her hold on the lapels of his coat and peered up at him. “Can you take me up to my room instead? Please?”

It was the softest and sweetest of pleas he had ever had the pleasure of hearing. It actually made his throat tighten. He searched that pretty, rain-dampened face. “Is that what you want?”

She half nodded and leaned her blond head against him as if she completely trusted him, which she must, considering she was asking him to take her up into her bedchamber. “’Tis up the stairs on the right. Keep to the right and turn two corners.” She sounded weak, her voice faint. “It will be the eighth door down. And please don’t tell Henry. He always makes a fuss whenever I faint. Promise me you won’t tell him.”

He couldn’t help but instinctively cradle her closer in response to that plea. “I promise.”

He made his way up the main stairwell. Once he was on the landing, he carried her, her slippered feet dangling, toward the direction she had given him, turning two corners. It was eerie wandering about such a lavish home. It had been thirty years since he’d found himself in an abode bigger than the peeling walls of a lone room he had leased from an ironmonger back in New York. Nathaniel eventually found the eighth door on the right in the vast corridor.

“Is this it?” he whispered down at her, so no one could hear him.

“Yes,” she whispered back.

The door was wide-open, candlelight glowing from within. He strode into a very feminine-looking bedchamber, with pale pink walls. On the right was a dressing table covered with a white lace runner and various crystal perfume bottles, painted pink tins and jewelry boxes. On the other side, against the far wall, was a large four-poster bed covered with white linens and an array of plush pillows.

The room personified her. Tranquil and pretty.

Striding over to the bed, he gently lowered her onto the linens, slipping his bare hands out from beneath her. He tried not to linger on the feel of those curves.

Holding his gaze from where she lay against the pillows, she smiled weakly. “Thank you.”

The way she looked up at him, so trustingly, made him lean down and gently kiss her smooth forehead. “You’re welcome,” he murmured against her skin. Something about that quiet, oval face and those stunning bright hazel eyes that had clearly seen so little of the world had made him want to swallow her whole and remember a time when all that mattered was skipping a stone across water.

He’d never kissed a woman on the forehead before. He’d licked it, and nipped it, but never kissed it for the sake of kissing it.

Even worse…he didn’t stop there. Nor could he. He gently kissed the side of her temple, then trailed his lips to her soft cheek and kissed that, and then trailed his lips to her chin and kissed that. She smelled like fresh rain and lilies. It reminded him of the dew-ridden fields outside of New York where he’d lie in the grass for hours whenever he wanted to escape the bustle of the city.

Though she drew in a notable breath that made her breasts rise up toward him, she didn’t move.

Nathaniel did everything he could to keep himself from burying himself into her and that scent. His chest tightened with the awareness he was overstepping his bounds given her innocence. He straightened and stepped away from the bed.

She stared, her cheeks flushed. With both hands still flat against the linens, she whispered up at him, “Why did you do that?”

He shifted his jaw, feeling like he had disrupted her peace. The peace he’d been trying to absorb, he realized. “It doesn’t matter.” He stepped back again. “I suggest you get out of those wet clothes.” He paused and added, “After I leave.”

He turned and strode out of the room, closing the door behind himself to ensure he didn’t look back. His pulse raced as he tried not to think about what he had just done, though it was rather tame given his nature and what he usually inflicted upon a woman. Nathaniel was infinitely relieved when he finally made it outside, closing the entrance door behind him.