One Dangerous Desire (Accidental Heirs) (22 page)

Cross had left one of her arms free, and she reached up to work the clasp on her fob watch. There was a nasty needle-like pin at the back of it that she’d pricked her finger on more than once.

Rex’s eyes traced her movements, and he shook his head, as if to warn her off trying anything that might provoke Cross’s wrath.

The second Goliath was searching Rex’s pockets, removing pound notes, spilling coins like a shower of metallic raindrops on the hardwood floor, and finally lifting out a flat little red stone. The man lifted the stone to examine it in the electric light, as if to assess its value. Finding none, he tossed it against Rex’s chest, letting it clatter to the floor.

May had been with Rex when they’d found the stone on a walk through Central Park. She’d made up a fanciful story about its magical origins, and he’d teased her for having a wild imagination.

But he’d kept it. Saved it and carried the thing all these years. Years she’d spent hating him for giving up on her.

“Money, boy. Where do you keep yours?”

“In a bank,” Rex managed to say around the massive arm the man pinning him had pressed to his throat.

Cross shook his head. “Must keep some ’ere. You’ve got to pay all the workmen you usually have banging about.” He lifted a finger with an “Ah,” as if he’d just remembered an important fact. Then he lowered the knife from May’s throat and dug around in his coat pocket, emerging with a stubby, diminutive revolver, so small it almost disappeared in the grip of his hand.

When he pointed the gun at Rex, the cry she’d held back burst out. “Stop this! My father has money. I have money.”

“May.” Despite the warning in Rex’s tone, she couldn’t stop babbling.

“I can pay you, Mr. Cross, but you must let him go.”

Cross turned to her, one arm extended to keep the revolver trained on Rex, as he assessed her for the first time. He swept his gaze from her toes up to her forehead. Even through the overlong grizzle of his mustache, she saw his mouth turn down in disgust. “And where’s all this money of yours, rich girl?”

“A-at my home, of course.”

“Don’t think I’ll be welcome there, somehow.” The stench of his huffed annoyance nearly made May choke.

“I don’t imagine you’re welcome here either.”

Cross swung around, dragging May with him, and all eyes fixed on the elegantly dressed older man hovering in the stairwell outside of the ballroom. In the face of two armed men and another of mammoth dimensions, he wielded only a superior bearing and a silver-tipped cane.

When the stranger lifted a gloved hand to reach into his overcoat, George Cross pointed the revolver his way. May sagged in relief that the barrel was no longer aimed at Rex.

“Do you want your money or not, George?”

At the use of his given name, Cross shuddered. May felt the tremor run through the man’s body.

“Mr. Leighton?” Cross squinted at the man in the hallway. “Is that you, sir?”

“Lord Camford now. Inherited my father’s barony after all.” The baron walked like an aristocrat, pronounced every word with sharp precision, and he strode up to George Cross as if he were still master and Cross was nothing more than his dishonest footman. Camford seemed oblivious to the weapon Cross held in the space between them.

Cross’s arm began to shake as the tip of the revolver ebbed down. He seemed to go as boneless and weak as May had felt moments before.

May used the moment to slip from his grasp. As soon as Rex saw her free, he swung his arm, the flash of a blade catching the overhead light. The man guarding him emitted a pained grunt and withdrew, covering his arm where Rex had nicked him. Then he wound his massive fist back, preparing to strike.

“Touch him again, and you all remain poor men,” the baron intoned.

Amazingly, the man in front of Rex backed away, and May rushed into Rex’s arms.

“Are you all right?” he asked against her hair, cupping the back of her head with his hand.

As soon as she nodded, he nudged her behind him, pinned her between his body and the ballroom’s sparkling blue wall.

“Now, how much do you want?” the baron asked George Cross. “Name the amount for you to cease this madness and be gone from my grandson’s life for good.” He’d pulled a small leather wallet from his coat and ducked a hand in again to lift a fine gold-plated fountain pen into the air, pointing it at Cross, just as Rex’s father had aimed his revolver at the baron’s chest. “If I pay you, that’s the end of it, George. Threaten him again, and I’ll see you hanged for what you took from me.”

Lord Camford moved into the ballroom, drawing George Cross’s attention away from the threshold. As Rex’s father stood mutely, still gaping at his former employer as if he was seeing a ghost, he failed to see what May saw.

A Metropolitan Police constable and two other men stepped slowly, taking the stairs soundlessly, up to the ballroom level. Behind them, the coppery glint of Jack Sullivan’s head emerged as he ascended, a pistol drawn and tucked close to his body.

“Just wanted a share of me own son’s wealth, Lord Camford,” George Cross’s voice had become a high-pitched whine.

“Unfortunately, you didn’t earn it,” the constable leading the group up the stairs said coldly. “Drop the gun, Mr. Cross.”

Rather than protest as May expected, George Cross let the weapon fall from his fingers. He looked broken, haunted, his shoulders drawn down like the lines on his face. His two compatriots looked on miserably before one dashed toward the stairwell, and the constable rounded on him, clapping his enormous wrists in irons. They dealt with the one Rex had cut in the same fashion, and then moved in for George Cross.

Sullivan drew him over near Rex, as if offering the two men an opportunity to express any final sentiments to each other.

Rex’s body was as rigid as marble under May’s fingertips. His head was turned her way, and he seemed unable, or unwilling, to meet his father’s gaze.

But George Cross wasn’t looking at his son. All his attention remained focused on his former employer. “I did love her. I did love your daughter.”

Camford lifted his chin and stared down his aristocratic nose at Rex’s father. “Not enough.”

Rex drew in a deep breath and added, “Not nearly enough.”

The baron cast his grandson a pained look and then glared at George Cross. “Neither of us cherished my daughter or her son as we should have.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

T
WO DAYS AFTER
his father’s arrest, Rex still found it hard to breathe when he remembered the fear in May’s eyes and the dirty edge of a knife blade rammed against the tender flesh of her neck. Sleep’s temporary oblivion had abandoned him. Food soured his stomach. Even his coffee tasted like soot.

And now, cutting through his twisted thoughts, Jack Sullivan’s calm, steady voice droned on about a man whose business he’d considered acquiring before all of this had commenced. Before he’d seen May again at Ashworth’s. Before his father had come crashing into his life to extort money and dredge up his past.

“Shall I return later?”

“Sorry?” Rex knew only that he’d been asked a question and flicked the stone he’d been holding onto his desk. The flat polished edge landed on the special marriage license the Duke of Ashworth had assisted him in obtaining. For a man who’d once wished May to marry into his own family, Ashworth had been gracious and generous, no doubt encouraged by his daughter. “To be honest, Jack, I haven’t truly heard a word you’ve said.”

Sullivan closed his trusty notebook and slid it into the inner pocket of his tweed jacket. “May I speak plainly, sir?”

“I hate it when you dither. Just say it.”

“Why haven’t you married the lady yet?”

That question he heard. The sentiment had been echoing in his head for forty-eight hours.

“Before I met her again last month, her greatest concern was which dress she’d wear to what party or ball.” It wasn’t true, but seeing her as a fine, frivolous lady distanced her from him, a criminal’s son.

“You underestimate her, I think.” Sullivan sniffed in disdainful disagreement.

Rex extracted himself from the chair he’d been sunken in for hours. “She could have married Devenham and been threatened with nothing more than a twisted ankle when she played croquet or danced a waltz. A damned broken nail when she bested him at parlor tennis. Which she would.”

“Is that truly how you see her? A pampered princess who wishes to spend her time in leisurely amusements?”

No.
His muscles bunched in his body, eager to burst with movement. He reached out to swipe everything off of his desk and clasped the marriage certificate instead.

“She’s much more than that, Jack. Strong and smart and a much better human being than I will ever be.” He held up the slip of paper. “What can I offer her? A home in a hotel where she was attacked?” After returning the document to his desk, he leaned on the edge and scrubbed a hand across his face. “Life with me won’t be easy. Why does she deserve such a fate?”

When Sullivan offered no response, Rex glanced up to find him coolly examining his pocket watch. “Since I have no intention of indulging your bout of self-loathing, shall I return later to finish my report?”

Before Rex could decide whether to punch Sullivan in the nose or shake the man’s hand, Mrs. Hark rapped at his office door.

“Visitor for you, Mr. Leighton.”

“Send him away.” His answer had been the same for the two days he’d sequestered himself in his office. Jack Sullivan was the first person he’d admitted.

Mrs. Hark stopped just inside his office door. At his command to refuse the visitor, she clasped her hands in front of her and rocked back on her heels. “I don’t think I will, Mr. Leighton.”

Rex glanced at Sullivan. Good God, had they both decided to rebel against him when he was in the foulest mood of his life?

“Thank you, Mrs. Hark.” May’s voice sounded from the hallway behind his housekeeper. “Let me take it from here.”

In the most obedient act Rex had ever seen Mrs. Hark perform, she retreated and offered May a half bow. An actual bow.

As soon as May swept into the room, his lungs started working. He could breathe again. Not in the pained, shallow gasps he’d been suffering for days, but long drams of air filtering into his blood. Rose-scented air.

And how she looked. Mercy. She’d come to conquer, wearing an elaborate cream-colored gown with so many beads sewn into the bodice and skirt she rustled when she walked and glinted in the morning light. Large teardrop pearls bobbed on hooks at her ears, and her glossy hair was pinned up in an elaborate style, with diamond-crusted pins holding ebony curls in place.

“Good morning, Mr. Sullivan. Forgive me for interrupting, but might I have Mr. Leighton to myself for a bit?”

Sullivan ducked his head. “By all means, Miss Sedgwick.”

The two exchanged an odd, fleeting look as he strode from the room.

When he and May were alone, Rex had to resist the temptation to bow to her too. To get on his knees and ask her to forgive him for being an unmitigated ass. For ignoring her for two days after what must have been one of the most frightening experiences of her life.

“I’ve brought a Mr. Witherspoon from down the road with me. He was guarding the wrong house, it seems.”

She referred to the guard Sullivan had hired to stand watch over Rex’s townhouse when he’d anticipated more trouble from his father. He’d sent the man to keep post outside the Sedgwick house. Knowing the man was there kept Rex from lurking outside her townhouse overnight himself.

He nodded. If he spoke, he’d be apt to start babbling, and the rush of emotion coursing through him would no doubt emerge in a cloud of nonsense.

Rather than falling on her like a starved beast, as everything in him wished to do, he reached a hand out to her, like a man sinking in quicksand might strain for a lifeline.

May didn’t step forward, but she lifted her hand too, just touching her fingertips to his.

The contact, just the slide of her skin across his, ignited shivers up his arm, a spike of heat through his chest. He hooked her fingers, then grasped her wrist. Lifting off his desk, bending over her arm, he kissed the bare flesh at the edge of her sleeve.

One taste and his blood was on fire. One taste and all his hours of futile debate fell away. This was May. She’d been the first woman he’d ever desired, the only woman whose nearness he’d ever craved.

“I take it you missed me, then?”

In answer, he stepped toward her and settled his hands around her waist. They fit there so perfectly. “Forgive me.”

“For keeping me waiting or for torturing yourself?” She reached a hand up as she spoke, feathering it over the lingering bruise on his cheek.

“For exposing you to danger when I vowed to keep it away from you.”

May eased against him, stroking along his arms before entwining her hands behind his nape. “And then you vowed to keep yourself away from me? Unfortunately, you asked me a question which prevents our separation.” She pressed her body closer. “I prefer another vow. An exchange of vows. Yours and mine.”

Why had he wasted two days? She was lush and warm in his arms and looked at him without a hint of resentment or well-deserved anger. She looked at him as if he and this moment mattered more than all the rest. May had a gift for that. For embracing each and every moment, rather than being hindered by the past.

“Shall I name the day?” she asked as she threaded her fingers through the hair that brushed his collar.

He kissed her, thinking it the best answer he could offer. She responded by lifting onto her toes, teasing him with tenderness before letting him deepen the kiss, taste her as he had ached to do for what seemed like weeks.

“Name the day, love.” He’d marry her the same hour if he could rustle up a vicar.

May pulled back with one of her supremely satisfied grins. “Why not today? In a few hours?” She ran the backs of her fingers over the stubble along his jaw.

“I should shave first,” he teased, though he loved the sensation of her fingers raking through his whiskers so much he didn’t want her to stop.

“Yes,” she said in all seriousness. She truly meant for him to go and shave, and for the two of them to exchange vows in a matter of hours.

Impatient, beautiful woman.

He lifted a hand to caress her cheek. “I take it this isn’t entirely spontaneous.”

“Well . . . ” She lowered her eyes a moment and failed to look believably abashed. “Let’s just say that Mr. Brooks is prepared to do his valet duties quickly, a church has been secured, and our requisite witnesses will be in attendance.” She glanced over his shoulder at the clutter of documents on his desk. “Don’t forget to bring the license.”

With that, she lifted up once more and nuzzled the edge of his jaw. “We must hurry.” Though even as she urged haste, she lingered in his arms, kissing him as if they had hours to love each other. Then she pulled away, reached down to clasp his hand, and tugged him toward the hallway.

Jack Sullivan stood near the threshold, conversing with Lady Emily Markham, and Mrs. Hark set a tea tray on the hall table.

“Every thing’s prepared for you, Mr. Leighton.” Brooks spoke from midway up the stairs where he waited for Rex.

Somehow, May had already become mistress of his home. And he loved it. He imagined himself possessed of decent management skills, but he suspected May would put him to shame.

“You already have them all dancing to your tune, love.” He stroked the slope of her back. “How do you manage it?”

“The lady is gracious and kind. She knows how to say
please
and
thank you
, Mr. Leighton,” Mrs. Hark said as she poured milk into Lady Emily’s teacup.

“I say
thank you
,” Rex protested.

His housekeeper’s eyebrows shot into her grayed hairline.

“Sometimes,” he added.

“You’re a fine master, Mr. Leighton.” Mrs. Hark grinned as she moved toward him, placing a hand at his elbow and urging him toward the stairs. “And soon you’ll be a fine husband, I’m sure. Might start by not keeping your pretty bride waiting.”

After kissing May once more, causing Mrs. Hark to turn her head away as if she was a prudish miss, Rex headed up the stairs, sending Brooks scampering ahead of him. Charlie joined the parade too, apparently too agitated from the excitement in the air to remain at his usual resting place in front of the office fireplace.

May is mine.
The sentiment was no longer about possession, but wonder. Eagerness. Gratitude that swelled in his chest, settling every doubt, erasing every worry. Tonight and every day to come, they’d share a bed, share a life, share a future.

M
AY HAD TAKEN
hours to prepare for her trip to Rex’s townhouse, allowing a maid to lace and pin and hook her into half a dozen layers, sitting still while another wrangled her curls and dressed her hair, fastening on the jewelry she’d been looking forward to wearing since she was a girl. Her mother had picked out a special set, fashioned in diamonds and pearls, to be worn on her wedding day.

It was almost unfair, then, that after disappearing up the stairs for a little over half an hour, Rex emerged looking devastatingly handsome, clean-shaven, and elegantly dressed. The white fabric of his shirt set off the sharp angles of his jaw, lighting up his olive skin and extraordinary eyes. The raven dark of his formal suit favored the broad expanse of his shoulders, the long, firm length of his legs. The dove gray cloth of his waistcoat shimmered like the walls of the Pinnacle’s ballroom.

He took her hand, bowing to kiss it like a quintessential gentleman. “Shall we depart?”

“Yes.” She didn’t wish to wait a moment longer to start their life together.

He glanced around the hall, as if realizing they were alone. “Where are the others?”

“Emily headed out in the Ashworth carriage, and Mr. Sullivan insisted on obtaining his own conveyance.”

“You’re ready for all of this?” His hands enveloped hers, warming her until she felt a kind of peaceful glow infusing her body. He wasn’t asking about the wedding but about him. Perhaps he was asking her to snuff out whatever flicker of doubt still lingered.

May nodded. She was more than ready. Despite her mother’s admonitions, she’d never learned patience.

“You’ll be happy as a businessman’s wife?” A tremulous smile lit up his face. Perhaps he sensed the irony in his question too. That she’d been raised to marry an aristocrat and had only ever loved Rex, now a man of commerce, as ambitious as her father.

“I will if you will,” she whispered. “You’ll be content as businesswoman’s husband?” The moment felt delicate, fragile, as if this was the exchange of their true vows.

Rex scooped her up, nearly lifting her off her feet, and said against her neck. “I will if you will.”

He gripped her hand, sealing their palms together, and led her straight out the front door. Mrs. Hark had arranged for his fancy brougham to be brought ’round and await them at the curb.

As they settled into the carriage, Rex reached for her hand again. “Thank you for arranging all of this. For knowing just what I needed.”

May smiled, then turned her head to watch Belgravia pass by as they proceeded to the small parish church on Marylebone Road. She hoped that what awaited Rex in their future, all the love they’d been waiting to give each other for six years, would be just what he needed.