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Authors: Diane Whiteside,Maggie Robinson,Mia Marlowe

Tags: #Historical romance, #Fiction

BOOK: Improper Gentlemen
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Chapter 9
 
T
hree months. Ninety days. Two-thousand, one-hundred and sixty hours, give or take a few minutes. Lucy was very good with numbers—she’d kept her aunt’s books as well as surpassed the woman in creating the loveliest hats this side of Paris. Many a marquess’s wife would insist on a springtime trip to Edinburgh to purchase Lucy’s hats. In three months she might be able to set up a small business right here in London, if she could stay away from Simon.
Not likely. He sat opposite her in his expensive carriage, whistling as the horses clip-clopped to Jane Street. She snuggled into her fur, resentful of his good cheer.
Well, why shouldn’t he be cheerful? He’d seen half an opera and half of her. But that would be all, she swore it.
MacTavish opened the green-glazed door before they could alight from the carriage. “Is anything amiss, Sir Simon? The opera cannot be over so soon.”
“It is for us,” Lucy said, sailing into the house with her nose high.
“Miss Dellamar does not share our love for Gluck, I’m afraid. Mac, would you be so kind as to open a bottle of port and bring it upstairs to Miss Dellamar’s sitting room?”
Lucy turned on him. “You can’t stay!”
“Now, Luce. I remember to the letter what my limits here are. There’s nothing in our agreement that says I can’t have a drink with you upstairs any time I want.”
“I don’t drink!”
Simon raised a dark brow.
“I don’t! Not very often.” And when she did drink, it was good Scottish whiskey. “Mr. MacTavish, you may bring port for Sir Simon, but I’d just as soon have a glass of
uisge beatha
.”
The butler didn’t bat an eye. “Very good, Miss Dellamar.”
“And send Miss Dellamar’s maid off to bed, Mac. We’ll have no need of her tonight.” Simon unhooked her cape and tossed it to the butler, then extended an elbow for the trip upstairs.
“I suppose you think
you’ll
undress me.”
“Only if you ask,” Simon said innocently.
“I’ll never ask the likes of you to help me do anything!” Unfortunately in her anger, Lucy missed a step and Simon saved her from plummeting down the stairs.
“Lucy, Lucy. It is I who should be angry—I’ve been denied my rights in bed.”
“You have no rights, you wretched man! We are not married.” Lucy shook him off and threw herself down on a cozy chintz chair in her little parlor. The fire had been lit, and the room tidied. She didn’t like that one bit. Tomorrow she’d speak to MacTavish to have the staff leave her things alone.
“But I am your protector for the next three months. It’s not every man who would agree to keep a mistress and not make proper use of her.”
“Proper
use
?” Lucy saw stars, felt her blood pound at her temple. Simon would give her an apoplexy before those three months were done.
Simon stretched his legs before him on the sofa, knocking the table askew. “You know what I mean. A mistress is supposed to be biddable. Flatter a fellow. See to his needs. You wouldn’t even let me sit through my favorite opera.”
Lucy straightened the table between them, not that it was a sufficient barrier. “No one is keeping you here, Sir Simon. Perhaps you should go back. Right now. They’ll let an important man like you back in.”
“No doubt. I invested in the production, for all the pleasure I got out of it. The audience would have enjoyed a troupe of trained monkeys just as well.”
Lucy almost laughed, which would quite go against the animosity she was projecting. She was saved from herself by MacTavish, who carried a silver tray with two bottles, two glasses and a crystal bowl of shelled walnuts. He placed their refreshment on the table and left. To Lucy’s surprise, Simon leaned forward and poured two glasses of whiskey.
“How can you do without Mr. MacTavish at your house?” Lucy asked, taking the glass from Simon. She glared at his dirty fingertips on principle.
“Oh, I’ve an under-butler, and an under-under butler. Mac’s sons. One of them serves as my valet, too. They’re glad to be out from under his thumb and are out-Mac-Tavishing him at every turn. The house is so damned proper now I’m afraid to drop my stockings on the floor.”
Lucy did smile now. Once Simon had more holes than socks on his feet. He’d never known his parents, and his ancient grandmother had been too frail to fight his youthful follies.
Simon had been wild, and Lucy had been tame. They were doomed from the start.
She took a sip of whiskey and watched as Simon tossed a walnut up in the air and caught it between his teeth. He was like a blue-eyed lion, toying with his prey. Lucy did not want any part of her to wind up between his teeth again.
Although—what if she were to set more rules? Rules that only benefitted her? She might not allow him into her bed and into her, but what was stopping her from having Simon repeat his performance at the opera?
Lucy held the cards, or at least Simon thought she did. In truth, she could not imagine turning him into the authorities. And who would believe that rich Sir Simon Keith, industrialist
extraordinaire,
was once a scrawny Edinburgh thief? Simon had progressed even back then from pickpocket to cat burglar, so how natural it was for him to continuously rise and improve himself.
She’s seen the looks he’d received tonight at the opera—looks of curiosity, envy and grudging respect. She’d always known he was smart, and far too skilled with his hands. Now it seemed she had his tongue to add to his attributes.
“I have an alteration to our agreement, Simon,” Lucy said abruptly.
Simon put his drink down. “Oh?”
Lucy picked hers up and took an enormous swallow of Scotch courage. “Yes.” And then she proceeded to tell him, stumbling over only a word or two.
 
Simon did the best to keep a straight face. His plan was working even more quickly than he’d hoped. To have Lucy dependent on him for her pleasure would be the first step into getting her to give him his. She blushed and stammered her way through the new rules and Simon nodded his head like an old sage considering their wisdom. When she was done, he leaned back on the flowery couch and pursed his lips. He pulled out a bearing from his watch pocket and stroked it absently.
“And you say I may touch you everywhere but you will not touch me?”
Lucy nodded.
“So, really, I’m to be your mistress and you’re to be my master.”
Her eyebrows knit. “That sounds very odd.”
“Odd it is. Let me get this straight. I’m to feed and clothe you. Keep you in style at Jane Street for the next three months. Make love to you from head to toe—”
“Not really!”
“Your distinctions are negligible, Luce. Just because I’m not thrusting my cock in your quim doesn’t make it any less satisfying for you. Be at your beck and call. Pay you off at the end of it—you haven’t yet mentioned the sum of your extortion, by the way—just so you will not have me arrested for my boyhood indiscretions.”
“They were a bit more than indiscretions. There was a price on your head.”
“Do you plan on collecting it?”
Lucy gaped at him.
“Suppose I say no to all this. Are you prepared to tap the night watchman’s shoulder and ask him to summon you a constable so he can take evidence?”
Lucy lifted her stubborn chin. “Aye. And don’t forget my seventeen shillings. With interest.”
Simon closed his eyes. She really was too beautiful when she was angry. “Very well. You’ve got me over a barrel, you do. I’m shaking in my boots.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I might not. But I can’t take the chance, can I now, Luce? I’ve built up a nice new life for myself—I’ve got hundreds of people dependent upon me for their livelihoods. I can’t change the face of England from a prison farm in Australia.”
“They might hang you instead.”
She said it with a great deal of enthusiasm. Aye, his Lucy was definitely angry at him. Damn it, he
had
come back for her. He couldn’t help it if she’d gotten impatient and run off with that popinjay Ferguson.
“An excellent point, and I’m fond of my neck.” He slipped the bearing back in his pocket and tugged at his neckcloth. There would not be much need to think tonight if he was lucky. “Well, I suppose I’d best begin these onerous duties, seeing to your comforts. You don’t mind if I remove my jacket and tie, do you?”
Lucy’s mouth dropped open. “N-now? But you just—”
Simon grinned. “I did, didn’t I? But it can’t hurt you to do it again. I don’t think anybody’s ever died of too many orgasms. Well, perhaps a lecherous old man may have met his Maker a time or two, but you’re still young yet, and in reasonably good health, I trust.”
Lucy had no answer to that. She continued to stare at him as he unbuttoned his figured black satin waistcoat. When he reached the top button of his fine lawn shirt, she shot up off her chair.
“That’s enough.”
“I live to serve. What would you like me to do?”
He was fairly certain she mumbled “Go to the devil.” He’d already been there and back—he could still hear the cannon and smell the sulfur.
“I need help with my dress.”
“Certainly, my lady.”
She was still as a marble statue as he twisted her gingery hair out of the way and attacked the row of golden thread and hooks. He’d always had nimble fingers, and in seconds the fabric gaped at her back. She wore a back-lacing demicorset over a plain white shift and he loosened the strings without being asked. “Now what?”
She pivoted to face him. “Now you are to sit back down on the sofa and finish your whiskey. I will call when I’m ready for you.”
So he was to be deprived of seeing her glorious naked body revealed, but he had his memory of yesterday morning. It was probably just as well he not see all of her tonight—he was already hideously uncomfortable in his nether regions.
Simon sipped his whiskey standing up, leaning an elbow on the marble mantel. The room was cozy, not like the lair of any courtesan he’d ever visited. There were no naughty inspirational pictures on the walls, or much in the way of valuable objets d’art. Sold, probably, to keep Ferguson afloat. The earl had been up to the tips of his ears in hopeless schemes—Simon would alter the man’s luck before too long.
And then would Ferguson want his mistress back?
He couldn’t have her.
Bluidy hell
. Simon loved Lucy still, after all these years. He wasn’t sure why—she was no longer the stars-in-her-eyes girl who permitted him liberties in the shadows. She was, come to think of it, a bit of a shrew, her tongue as sharp as her cheekbones.
But he couldn’t marry her—she’d been Ferguson’s mistress for six years. Any idea he had of assuring his children’s place in Society would be shattered if he made a woman like Lucy his wife.
Double bluidy hell
. Simon tossed the rest of his whiskey into the flames, where the flare was so bright he had to step back before he singed his silk stockings.
But no one had ever seen her.
Except for tonight—but he had not introduced her to a soul. She could have been his cousin come to town. She’d been around to the shops with a note that said just that, although it was not likely a country cousin would furnish a love nest on Jane Street for him. But Simon had the money enough to bribe the storekeepers. If Ferguson’s silence could be bought—and Simon was sure it wouldn’t take much as the man was fair desperate—Lucy might have a chance.
Triple bluidy hell
. His investors’ dinner here next week. He’d have to cancel it.
Simon’s mind whirred like the gears to his inventions. He might not have a formal education, but no one could say that Sir Simon Keith was not a canny Scot. If anyone could see a way to turn wicked Lucy Dellamar back into innocent Lucy Dalhousie, it was he.
However, first he had to gentle Lucy with his hands and tongue, a task that was altogether more simple.
Chapter 10
 
L
ucy’s hands shook as she tied the ribbon of her pale yellow robe. It had not been to Percy’s taste—he was altogether into more flamboyant jewel-tones. She smoothed her hands down the silk and contemplated kicking herself for changing her arrangement with Simon.
But damn it. She’d been without so much as a peck on the cheek in thirteen years. She was almost half-dead already, if she was lucky enough to live to be a septuagenarian. Her prospects for marriage were dismal at best—how could she explain to a decent man that she’d lived on Jane Street for six years?
Everyone
had heard of Jane Street.
Six years ago she’d jumped at the chance to escape her aunt and her empty future. It was even more empty now. Lucy was a fool then, and a fool now.
But she would have something to remember on those cold future nights as she tacked silk flowers onto the crown of a hat and shooed away her cats. She’d have a cat right now, but Percy claimed they made him sneeze.
Percy
. Her brows scrunched.
Simon
. They scrunched even more. Men were impossible, but a necessary evil.
Lucy fluffed up her pillows and her hair, swallowed her reservations and called Simon’s name.
Her voice wavered, but he must have been listening closely. He walked through the connecting door in an instant, his dark hair gleaming like polished ebony in the candlelight.
His eyes were bright too, flicking over her form as she sat propped up on her bed.
“You’re lovely, Luce.”
“You don’t have to talk at all—there’s no point to your flattery.”
“It’s nae flattery. I mean it.” His voice was pitched low, his Scottish burr fighting back from the English civilization he’d imposed upon it. She wanted to stick her fingers in her ears.
“Words are cheap. Get on with it.”
Och, but she was bold as brass, when inside she felt like a puddle of oozy oatmeal. But it was rather fun to order Simon about. She had been much at his mercy when they were young, always waiting for a snatched kiss or a few minutes when she could simply
look
at him. He’d been beautiful in his way. But she had to admit he was far more beautiful now—he’d grown into his height, filled out. His body rippled with muscle as he walked across the room toward her.
However, she’d never ask him to remove his clothes. That would be too much temptation. Lucy might lose her head and forget that she was in charge here.
“What is it you want, Luce?”
She didn’t know. She shrugged. “You’ll think of something appropriate.”
“It’ll nae be
appropriate
,” he said, grinning like a wolf. He’d always had good teeth for a poor boy. Lucy was particular about teeth. Soon these teeth might be skimming down her skin, taking a wee nip here, a wee nip there—
“What was that, Luce? I didn’t quite hear.”
She must have let out a groan. She could barely think for the buzzing in her head. “N-nothing. Perhaps you can start by kissing me. That would be pleasant.”
“Aye. Pleasant. And how do you want me, Luce? Sitting next to you on the bed, or lying down?”
“Sitting is fine.”
He reached out and put a finger on her mouth. “So you’ll be wanting a kiss on these lips here then, not the other ones.”
He looked so terribly proud and pleased with himself for bringing up that wicked thing he’d done at the opera. She whacked his hand away. “To start.”
“Your wish is my command, my lady, else I’ll find myself in the bowels of a prison ship. I hear there are rats and very bad men aboard. ’T’would be a waste of my talents to be transported.” He scratched his shadowed chin—his beard was coming in dark at this late hour. “I’m not sure King George would let me go.”
Lucy sat up straight, forgetting all about kissing. “You know the new king?”
“Sure and I do. Who do you supposed knighted me? I’d met him several times before, o’course, when I—och, never you mind. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I’m not stupid!”
“Nae, you’re sharp as a tack, but you’re not an engineer, are you? I did some things for the Crown during the war—and after too—that are complicated. I should have asked for a pardon then.” He took a step backward. “Who knows, perhaps it’s not too late now.”
Lucy’s heart stilled. The evening was not turning out quite as she hoped. She should be in Simon’s arms and he should be kissing her senseless, not that she had much sense to begin with. “You’d admit your guilt? Let people know who Sir Simon Keith really is?”
“Aye. Then people from my past could hold nothing over my head. And let me keep it.”
Lucy was appalled—if he confessed he’d have no reason to stay here and do what she wanted. Do what she
needed
. “You’d be ruined.”
“Aye, that I would. All my pretentions to fit into Society would be shown to be the foolish dreams of a gutter thief. Ah, well. It was too much to hope for that I could get away with it all forever.”
“No, Simon! You’ve worked too hard, come too far.” She swallowed. “Never mind about the kissing. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” She looked down at her hands, so white against the yellow of her robe, and sighed. “You should know I couldn’t clap you in jail. I was wrong to try to blackmail you. I thought I needed time to get settled—and teach you a lesson, too—but I’ll be fine. Better than fine. Just give me a day to pack and I’ll be out of your hair and you can get a new mistress.”
Simon sat down on the bed, shifting her into him. He put his arm around her. “Those are the most words you’ve said to me in two days.”
“I said quite a lot to you in my head.”
He brushed her cheek with a fingertip. “I’ll bet. You never were a shy one.”
“But I was. I was bold only with you, and look where that got me.”
The stubble of his cheek tickled her forehead. “I’m sorry you felt you had no choice but to become Ferguson’s mistress.”
“I—” She couldn’t say anything. She’d promised Percy.
She needed to talk to Percy—explain to him that Sir Simon Keith was
her
Simon, come back as if from the dead. Percy was a romantic—surely he’d release her from her promise, or possibly even explain things to Simon himself. He didn’t have to go into every excruciating detail—and he owed her something, since she’d resorted to thieving for him.
“But it’s all water under the bridge, Luce. We can’t change the past now, can we? We wouldn’t be the people we are today without it.”
This philosophical Simon was a stranger to her, but the comfort of being in his arms was familiar. She snuggled in closer, grateful that he’d shed the layers of clothing a gentleman—even if he was a pretend gentleman—wore.
“I’d like to kiss you anyway, blackmail or no,” he whispered. “Will you let me, Luce? Will you be my mistress tonight?”
Why not? She would leave tomorrow—today, now, from the hands of the little china clock at her bedside. One night with Simon might not make up for thirteen years without, but it was the best she could do.
“All right.” She’d save being sorry for later.
She couldn’t miss the flash of smug triumph on his face.
Damn
. Lucy hadn’t put up much of a fight. She had folded from her blackmail scheme at the first sign that he was willing to throw his life away and confess to his sins, and had agreed to sleep with him despite the harm to her heart.
But Simon would never have been so stupid as to tell the king or anyone else—more likely he would have stuffed Lucy bound and gagged in a closet like he did to poor Lady Murray when she came home to discover him rifling through her jewel box. Lady Murray had testified that the young man had been remarkably gentle and courteous as he had done so—nevertheless, it was considered kidnapping, even if Simon had seated her on a padded chair in her own closet, with her gouty foot up on a footstool.
Simon fumbled with the ribbons of her peignoir.
“I’ve changed my mind.”
His fingers stopped tugging. “Pardon?”
“A lady is entitled to change her mind.” Lucy wiggled out of Simon’s arms. She was immediately chilled.
“I dinna understand.”
There was no smugness on his face now, just a few wrinkles on his brow and a petulant lip. He was the picture of adorable confusion, but she vowed not to succumb to that puppy-dog look.
“I misspoke. I don’t want to be your mistress. Or any man’s mistress.”
“You’re coming a bit late to that conclusion, aren’t you, Luce?”
Lucy clutched her hands into fists before she slapped him. But now that she had two fists good and ready, why not? She punched him on his stubbled chin. Not hard. But hard enough.
“Oy! What’s that for, now? I’m not laying a hand on you, you daft wench.”
She scrambled off the bed. “You’re right, Simon. I
am
daft. To think I almost—well, never mind. I’ll thank you to leave now. I’ll be out first thing in the morning. Percy wants all the dresses, so I won’t have much to pack.”
Simon rubbed his chin, looking wounded, as if such a hulking man could really be injured by anything smaller than a large-bore cannon. Then he shook his head, a dark curl flopping over his left eyebrow. “Nay. I’ll not leave. We have an agreement. In writing.”
Lucy swallowed back a shriek. It would do no good to work herself up anymore—she was already feeling an uncomfortable pulse at her neck. “Very well. Sleep with your agreement.
I’m
going to go sleep on the sofa in the upstairs parlor. Good night.”
She made it halfway through the door before she was trapped in Simon’s arms again.
“Let me go!”
His breath was warm on her cheek. “Never.”
She could feel the pounding of his heart against her chest. “You let me go before. Why do you want me now when I don’t want you?”
He looked down at her, his blue eyes feral. “Don’t you, lass?”
He was insufferable.
He was right.
What was it about this thoughtless brute that made her lose her wits? She was practically elderly now—she should know better. She
did
know better.
One night with Simon might lead to two—or more—and then she really would be losing her pasted-over virtue. He’d soon tire of her.
He’d marry.
And then where would she be?
“
Please
let me go.”
“I canna. Ye fit perfect, Luce. Can ye nae feel it?”
Oh, she felt it. She felt
everything
. His erection pressed into her belly, his fingers stroking her back and playing with her unbound hair, his lips against her temple. He sounded now like the boy she had loved, who had sweet-talked her until she’d gorged and sickened on his honeyed words. Tears spilled down her cheeks.
“Och, Luce, dinna ye cry.” He brushed the tears away, then kissed their traces. Lifting her mouth to his, she tasted her salt and his mint. She allowed him to delve into a deeper kiss, for how could she not? She could stand in the doorway forever kissing him, as long as he held her up.
But it seemed Simon had other ideas. He scooped her up as if she weighed nothing and carried her back to the bed, where he laid her down as if she were a fragile egg. But that was his last gentle maneuver, for his hands tore at her clothing and his mouth feasted on her newly exposed skin. He nipped her throat and worked his way down her chest, thumbing her nipples to diamond-hard peaks. Somehow he made her feel full and womanly, cupping one breast in his large warm hand as he suckled and swirled at the other. Lucy felt a tug to her womb as his tongue worked his new magic.
For it was new—her Simon had not the expertise that Sir Simon possessed, nor had he had the luxury of making love to her in a soft feather bed all those years ago. The combination of his skill and her comfort—and discomfort, too, for how could she combat the scorching heat that washed over her?—made her sink deeper into the mattress in confusion, torn between purely receiving and reaching out to him.
Lucy ached in places that had been neglected too long, most especially her heart, which threaded and jumped as if being squeezed. She might die any minute, but please not before he finished with her. Before they finished with each other.
Her body was waking, each brush of his fingers and lips sparking against her skin. It was no longer enough to lie passively as he swept her up in sin. She needed to feel his skin, too. Somehow she emerged from her dazed languor to pull up Simon’s shirt. Lucy wanted to touch his chest as he was touching hers, but with a growl he captured her hand and thrust it lower. His cock was enormous, stiff, straining to be relieved of the constraint of fabric. She obliged, fingers trembling at his falls.

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