My Lord Wicked (Historical Regency Romance) (23 page)

"Is that because of consideration toward me or because of vicious things that are said of my guardian?" She looked at him challengingly.

"To be honest, both."

"To be honest with you, Mr. Rountree, I must tell you my heart is already engaged."

He swallowed, and she felt his hand tremble. "Who is the fortunate man?"

"A man I cannot name. A man who does not know of my love and who probably will not return it."

"Then the door has not necessarily slammed on me?"

"Not necessarily, but I could not come to you or to any man without a heart full of love."

"As I would expect."

Freddie listened to the crunch of gravel beneath their feet as they continued along the path, a brisk wind carrying with it a salty tang. "Tell me," she said, "What did my guardian say to you when you asked permission to court me? Did he ask how much a year you have or if you would cherish me until the end of your days?" She tried to put mirth into her words.

"He did not. He merely told me that you were free to select the man of your choice. I do not believe he means to interfere."

She nodded thoughtfully. Marmalade's back arched, and he stretched out his legs in an attempt to walk over Freddie's shoulders. She put him down, expecting him to tag along like a dog, like Champs had always done. But Marmalade's interest was suddenly captured by an insect which he proceeded to chase, much to Freddie's amusement.

"I wonder if you are as good with children as you are with animals," Luke said.

"I hope to fill whatever home I have with blessedly spoiled children I have brought into the world."

He squeezed her hand. "I hope they are my children."

She colored at the thought of being that intimate with Luke Rountree.

He saw the flame in her cheeks. "I must beg your forgiveness, Miss Lambeth, for speaking so personally."

"I assure you, I am not at all ready for such talk, Mr. Rountree. I feel I barely know you. And I know you cannot have any great knowledge of me."

"I feel I've known you forever," he said thoughtfully. "I know that you enjoy astronomy, the making of elixirs, the growing of herbs, nurturing stray cats, that you are only just learning to play the pianoforte, that you possess true artistic talent, and that Dr. Malcolm Edgekirth is in love with you."

Her eyes rounded.

"Has he also asked for your hand?"

"Dr. Edgekirth has not spoken to my guardian," she answered truthfully.

"Ah, but that was not my question."

She felt the scrutiny of his brown eyes. "You are far more perceptive than I had thought, Mr. Rountree."

"And you, Miss Lambeth, are wonderfully evasive."

"I think you will be very successful in your profession, Reverend."

A smile tipped the corners of his mouth. "Do you fancy being a bishop's wife?"

She was evasive once more--this time with a mischievous glint in her eyes when she said, "You have great persistence."

By now they had rounded the park and were walking back to the abbey, when Edgekirth walked forward to meet them.

He was all smiles for Freddie but gave only a curt nod to Luke as he came to walk on Freddie's other side.

"You might be interested to know, Edgekirth," Luke said, "that I have spoken to Miss Lambeth's guardian."

Freddie, catching her breath at the curate's boldness and outspoken honesty, gave a quick look at the doctor, who muttered an oath under his breath. "Damn you, Rountree!

"Please," Luke said, "a lady is present."

"Miss Lambeth is well acquainted with my foul outbursts," Edgekirth barked.

Luke spoke with controlled anger. "I would have you apologize."

"No, really," Freddie protested. "It is true. I am so accustomed to the doctor's ill humor that I think nothing of it."

"She will have your apology," Luke repeated.

"Of course, Miss Lambeth, I am sorry for speaking so coarsely in your presence," Edgekirth said.

"Does that mean you shall not do so again?" Freddie asked with amusement.

Edgekirth shot a disgruntled gaze at Luke. "Not in the presence of a curate, at least." He held Freddie exclusively in his gaze. "Am I to be privy to your guardian's answer to Mr. Rountree's petition?"

She looked straight ahead. "My guardian said I am free to choose my own husband."

"And," Luke added, "Miss Lambeth has given me little encouragement, but I am a patient man."

"Patience, my dear Mr. Rountree, is waiting until one is five and thirty to select a mate," Edgekirth said. "What can a man of your age know of love?"

"If you think to disparage me over my lack of years, remember I have many, many more years ahead than a man of five and thirty summers."

They came back to the drawing room and had tea. It was obvious the doctor intended to stay until Luke took his leave, but Luke was just as stubborn. They sat in the drawing room long after the teapot had been emptied, and the plate of cakes held nothing but crumbs, but still neither of them left.

Finally, Freddie got to her feet. "Forgive me, gentlemen, but I have matters which require my attention. I thank you for your visits." And she swept from the room.

Invited or not, she intended to force her company of Lord Stacks.

Chapter 21

Freddie's response to Luke Rountree's suit only mildly aroused Stacks' interest. He would have known it had she a marked preference for the young man. Stacks strongly suspected the poor curate would be dismissed as Edgekirth had been. Perhaps the girl was too young to be considering a husband--as she had said--but he thought not. There was something else preventing her from looking favorably on her suitors. He felt it as surely as he sensed a storm rising when nary a cloud darkened the sky. But he did not know what it was.

Eason brought the post, and Stacks sat behind his desk to read the letter from his solicitor, surprised the packet was so slender. Were there not a bevy of applicants for the position of companion to his ward as there was the last time? He unfolded the velum. There was only one sheet. His gaze skipped over the page, his pulse racing in anger.

Mr. Lindsley wrote that he was still in the process of collecting applications but that he had some very distressing news to impart to Lord Stacks. "It seems," he had written, "that a Mrs. Taylor, lately of your employ, has bandied your lordship's name about London in the most negligent, appalling manner. With this being the case, it grows increasingly difficult to procure the services of a well qualified lady."

Stacks issued a curse, then wadded the letter into a ball and flung it across the room. "Damn her black soul to hell!" he shouted. He regretted his generosity in paying her for the entire quarter when she had served only a month.

Why had Lindsley been so blasted vague about what the woman was saying? It mattered not a whit to Stacks what was being said of him. After all, he had chosen to absent himself from the
ton
for the past decade. But he was gravely concerned over the possibility of Freddie being slandered. She did not deserve to be tainted merely by her association with him.

What if the vile Julia Taylor was suggesting that he and Freddie. . .Suddenly he remembered his dream from the night before, the dream that resurfaced painful memories he had tried desperately to suppress. Only this time Freddie--not Elizabeth--was in this dream.

She had lifted her youthful face to him. She did not look like a young girl any longer. Her eyes simmered with a smoldering passion. Her tongue provocatively moistened her lips, and she held her arms up to him. He bent to kiss her, his breath labored, as she opened her mouth to him. In frenzied sucking gestures, he drew in her warm breath and circled inside her soft lips with his tongue. The power of the kiss weakened him.

They fell back on his bed--it was daytime--and his knee parted her legs. She moaned softly and arched into him. Suddenly, as happens in the fragments of dreams, they were both naked, their moist flesh merging in one primeval rhythm. Her body was beautiful. His eyes trailed lazily over its lithe, ivory leanness, her supple little breasts, the thatch of brown between her legs. He thought he would explode from his hard, engorged need.

As if it dropped from the heavens, a black silk sash twisted about her neck, wrapped by and guided with his hand.

She spread her long legs to receive him, and he lowered himself into her slick sheath, plunging into an abyss of paralyzing pleasure, holding her moist body ever tighter. He was aware of her lavender scent, her softness, of the urgency of her movement beneath his muscled torso. Yet he wasn't aware. He was dazed by own powerlessness, his mindless need to blend his body and his soul with this woman/child who shuddered beneath him.

She cried out with pleasure, raising her hips to meet him. With each plunge, the sash tightened. Plunge, gasp, twist. Plunge, gasp, twist. Plunge, gasp, twist.

He opened his eyes, and her eyes were no longer Freddie's green but had become clear and blue. And the face was not Freddie's but Elizabeth's.

Then he woke up. His heart was beating so rapidly his chest heaved. He looked quickly at the bed to assure himself it had only been a dream, that no one was there.

He had not been able to close his eyes again the rest of the night. Just as frightening as the nightmare recurring was the fear of abusing Freddie. Freddie who had come to him as an innocent filled with trust and blind love. But
not
the kind of love that occurred between a man and a woman.

The terrifying truth, he realized as he got to his feet and began to pace the library, was that he did not think of Freddie as a child. He had come to desire her as a man desires a woman. Just thinking about her caused life to spring to his groin.

He had been right to want to send her back when she first came to Marshbanks Abbey. If only he had done so then. If only she hadn't almost died with fever. Now it was too late.

She had confided that she had never been happier than she had at Marshbanks Abbey. She had never been shown love until she came here. And now she had eligible suitors and a cat she loved fiercely. And she even gave every indication she thoroughly relished working on his book.

To send her away would destroy her.

There was only one thing to do. He must go away.

***

She let herself into his library, stormed across the room and plopped down in the chair facing his desk.

His back had been to her as he stood looking out the window. "Has no one ever told you how rude it is to enter a room without knocking first on the door?" he asked before spinning around to face her. "Is that another omission I am to lay at the feet of the very unsatisfactory Mrs. Taylor?"

She burst out laughing. "Oh, do let's blame the maddening woman!"

A smile crossed his face, and he came to sit at his desk and face her, lifting a brow. "Am I to offer you felicitations?"

She gave him a hostile stare. "No, you most certainly are not! Do not weep over the fact I turned down Mr. Rountree."

"I fully expect tomorrow to find Tobias Whitcombe on bended knee in front of you."

Her eyes flashed and she raised her chin defiantly. "Playing with hearts is no laughing matter, I assure you. I have just left two extremely unhappy suitors in the drawing room and have come to chastise you."

"Me?"

She nodded. "Was it not your great plan to find me a suitable husband?"

"And what is wrong with that? Isn't a guardian supposed to see to the happiness of his ward?"

"Putting aside the fact that
your ward
had no desire to wed, think of the gentlemen's feelings. First Dr. Edgekirth, and now poor Mr. Rountree are both rather miserable, and I feel wretchedly guilty over it.

"I know you think I am nothing but a child, but I assure you I very much understand what it is to suffer unrequited love, and I find it highly regrettable that these men are forced to suffer such feelings of devastation merely because the mighty Lord Stacks desired to play matchmaker."

His face grew somber. "Freddie, I only wanted what was best for you."

He had called her Freddie!

"How was I to know that you would not hold the men in favor?" he asked. "And I'm deuced surprised to learn of this unrequited love of yours. I assume it was in the past. Before you came to Marshbanks Abbey."

She had been unable to remove her eyes from his since he had unknowingly called her Freddie. It seemed such an intimate gesture.

Her mind whirled over her next move. She had arrived at Marshbanks Abbey with nothing but her implacable pride. Should she throw it away for the man she loved more than life? If he denied her, she would be left with nothing. She might as well die. But, then, surely she would die if she had to live without him.

"Well," he said, his voice just short of being harsh, "was it in the past?"

Her eyes were swimming when she answered. "No, Thomas, my love."

Chapter 22

He could no more remove his eyes from her--his child/woman--than he could suppress the powerful emotions which raged within him. With loving thoroughness, he searched her innocent face, the warm green eyes moist with unshed tears, the freckles which bridged her straight nose, her full mouth he longed to feel under his. Her cork-colored hair wisped about her fair temple. She sat in her proud and stately manner gazing at him, waiting for his response. He could hallelujah! the heavens for giving him so precious a gift, for righting the sensual desire she had aroused in him.

He raised himself to unsteady legs, walked to her chair and dropped to his knees. His face level with hers, he took both her hands in his ever so gently and pressed kisses into the hollow of her palms. Great tears filled his eyes a moment later when he reached to stroke her cheek. "I hold you more dear than anything on this earth. I love you more deeply than any man has ever loved. There can never be happiness for me without you by my side. But I love you too dearly to make you mine. To do so would destroy you."