One Night of Sin (8 page)

She stared at him for a long moment, trying not to look shocked and virginal.

“You love to tease me, don’t you?” she asked after a moment.

“Who, me?” he whispered coyly.

Mrs. Whithorn’s voice in her head promised fire and brimstone, but Becky did not budge. She held her ground, trying to prove, perhaps, that she could be sophisticated and worldly, too.

Alec watched her watching him, and then her gaze traveled down his body. She could not help staring at the way his thin white shirt clung to his skin, wet linen hugging every muscled line of his broad shoulders and lean waist. He was even lovelier than she had thought. When she looked into his eyes again, she read an invitation there that took her breath away.

No, she was not ready to touch him yet.

With the leisurely air of a man biding his time, he sat down on the vanity stool and pulled off his shoes, chucking them aside. He stood up again, his bare feet long and princely, cushioned by the thick Persian carpet.

He reached for his wine, took a sip, and then shrugged his black suspenders off his shoulders. He started to take off his shirt, but paused. “Do you want to help?”

“No.”

His eyes danced. “Suit yourself.” Then he peeled his shirt off over his head, and Becky stifled a gasp at the glorious flex and play of sculpted muscle. He sent her a speculative glance, the promise of undreamed pleasure smoldering in his eyes.

So, he wasn’t an angel, after all. No, she concluded, her heart beating faster as he helped himself to a towel. He was a veritable Greek god—all smooth and strong and perfect. No angel could inspire such wicked thoughts. Her hand trembled as she lifted her goblet to her lips and took a steadying sip of wine, but she could not help staring as he patted the towel over the flowing lines and broad dimensions of his damp chest, then ran it lower, caressing oh-so-invitingly the intricate rippling fretwork of his taut belly, lapped by unsteady candlelight.

Who could have guessed that the male physique was endowed with such beauty under all those starchy cravats and layers of tailored clothing—shirt, waistcoat, jacket? She was entranced and wondering if he’d mind if she kissed every hard plane and curve. She’d make a ring of kisses around his adorable belly button. . . .

She took another feverish gulp of wine, thinking that she really ought to leave now. His black pantaloons were still damp from the rain and bordered on indecency—skintight, vaguely see-through, outlining every delicious inch of him—including regions that no young lady had any business staring at. Good Lord, were all men that big down there?

He turned away, finally finding a remnant of modesty, but when he peeled his trousers off, Becky choked on her wine at the sight of his sleek hindquarters, bare as the day he was born.

Far more beautiful than any statue, he straightened up, kicking off his trousers. “Are you all right?” he asked as she kept coughing. When he turned to her, buck naked and completely at ease, Becky inhaled a couple of droplets of wine and shook her head violently. He started toward her. “Do you want a clap on the back?”

Retreating, she flung up her hand to ward him off. “I’m fine,” she croaked. “Just fine—thanks.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive,” she wheezed, then whirled around and fled the room with the golden vision of him emblazoned on her mind in all his primal glory.

Her hasty exit must have puzzled him, but a second later his jolly laughter followed her, resonating from the dressing room.

“Shy, Becky-love?”

“Oh, do stop!”

“Teasing you? Never!” he called back amiably. “I think I’ve found a new hobby.”

She tried to scowl in his general direction, but somehow she couldn’t stop smiling.

CHAPTER

THREE

R
eaching the salon, Becky immediately spotted the source of the mouth-watering food smells wafting on the air—the dinner basket waiting for her on the round pedestal table. Her eyes lit up and she strode over to it without hesitation, tearing away the checked cloth covering the basket.

She oohed and aahed over each wonderful delicacy that she removed from it—bread and a hunk of good Cheddar, a jar of pureed soup, cold sliced meats neatly wrapped in cheesecloth, a bevy of slightly warm dry puddings, two peach tarts, strawberries, even a bottle of champagne. She found the silverware, napkins, and fancy china bowls and small dishes that Alec had left on the table, and quickly began fixing a plate for each of them, ravenously sampling everything.

With their feast laid out before her, she was tempted to devour it single-handedly, but she supposed that would have been inexcusably ill-mannered. Pained with waiting, she glanced toward the bedroom, but Alec was still in the dressing room changing into dry clothes.

Curbing her hunger, she decided to take a discreet peek around. Lifting the candelabra off the table, she wandered across the large main room, admiring his Old Masters and his Grecian urns with their beguiling, elongated figures so intricately worked. Trailing her hand along the scrolled arm of the luxurious Roman couch upholstered in striped satin, she approached the French doors to the sitting room and nudged one open, but when she lifted the candelabra and peered inside, she was taken aback to find the parlor bare.

No furniture. No rug. Just a lonely expanse of parquet floor and an empty picture rail that ran the circumference of the room beneath the ornamental frieze. She frowned and closed the door again. As she turned around slowly, perusing the main room again, she began to see the empty spaces where she realized more pieces of his spare, leggy, claw-foot furniture had once stood, though they had been well-camouflaged by a white statue here, a deftly placed potted fig tree over there. On the walls, she now detected slightly darker rectangles where the silk wall-hangings had not faded from the sunlight because they had previously been covered up by now vanished pieces of art.

Well, perhaps those things had been sold off to help him climb out of that sinister-sounding “deep dark hole” that he had mentioned. Recalling what he had said about making and then losing a fortune at the gaming tables, her first thought was one of sympathy at the realization that the proud aristocrat was doing his best to keep up appearances—obviously of penultimate importance here in Town, as she had learned today when everyone had shunned her.

But then alarm suddenly flashed through her. If he was having financial difficulty . . .
Oh, no.
Her glance flicked toward the dressing room. What if he found the Rose of Indra hidden in his dresser drawer? If he chose to take it from her, she doubted she could stop him. He was bigger than she, and stronger.

She was already marching toward the dressing room, determined to get him out of there, or at least to distract him if he was still lingering over his toilette.

You could choose to trust him, instead,
a small voice in her head offered. Perhaps it was conscience.

Indeed, if she took that route, Alec, judging by his cultured furnishings, might even be able to determine how much the jewel was worth, whether its value was sufficient to buy back her home from Mikhail. But Becky couldn’t do it.

Trusting people was usually a losing bet, she had learned in life. Better to rely on oneself alone. Then no one could let you down.

She hurried on, determined to keep a good man honest, but just as she stepped into the bedroom, her suave host emerged.

“I thought you’d be eating by now.” Ambling toward her, Alec was bare-chested, a towel draped carelessly across his shoulders. He had donned loose baggy trousers of natural linen—in the style called Cossack trousers, ironically enough. He was still tying the drawstring as he sauntered toward her, his bare feet silent over the parquet floor.

“I . . . I waited for you.” She scanned his face in guarded suspicion, but quickly concluded by his guileless look that he had not found the ruby.

Thank God.

“I see,” he said amiably. “So, you were coming to tell me to hurry up.”

She smiled, the tension slowly easing from her. “Those weren’t to be my exact words, but the sentiment’s the same.”

“Here I am.”

“Come, your soup is getting cold.” She captured his hand and tugged him over to their feast.

“You don’t have to share with me, Becky. It’s for you.”

“You’re much too generous. I could never eat all this by myself.”

“Ma’am,” he murmured, politely pulling out a chair for her at the table.

She gave him a gracious nod and took her seat. With a warm smile, he sat in the chair next to her, his thighs sprawled loosely.

“I hope everything is to your liking. Watier’s is famous for their dinners here in horrible, hateful London Town.”

She sent him an arch smile. “It’s all very good,” she replied as she lifted her spoon to her lips. “Almost as good as my own country cooking.”

“You can cook—food?” he exclaimed.

Nodding, she pointed with her spoon to the place she had set for him. “Eat.”

He did not obey; she had a feeling he rarely did. Instead, he propped his elbow on the table and just watched her with an odd little smile on his face.

“What is it?” she asked with a spoonful of soup halfway to her lips.

“Hm?” he murmured.

“You’re staring.”

“You’re the only woman I know who can cook food,” he said matter-of-factly, then took the towel off his shoulders and used it vigorously on his still damp hair.

Becky couldn’t help smiling when he was through. He looked so adorably tousled and boyish.

“Shall I open the champagne?”

“Oh, would you?” she asked eagerly, then confessed, “I have never tasted any before.”

“Well, then, you must do so without delay.” He rose and undertook the task. “If you intend to make your fortune as a fine London courtesan, my girl, you’re going to have to get used to the stuff.”

She offered no reply, guiltily letting him maintain his wrong assumptions.

She was trying not to think yet about what lay ahead tonight, and she had the distinct impression that Alec knew she was nervous and was determined to soothe her with his teasing and his easygoing charm.

She supposed it was going to hurt, despite his skill as a lover.

Her mother had died when Becky was fourteen, still too young to have certain matters explained to her; and the ultra-pious Mrs. Whithorn probably didn’t know the facts of birds and bees, herself; but whatever instruction the female adults in Becky’s life had left neglected, the brazen country girls in her village had explained in wicked, astonishing detail.

Sally, the red-haired tavern wench, and Daisy the milkmaid, both fetching, knowing, brazen girls, were local experts on the subject of the “amorous congress.” Any male with whom one of them dallied had to be sampled by the other, as well. The two girls were both rivals and friends, and thoroughly relished sitting around and debating their comparisons afterward, much to the scandalized delight of the other young people in Buckley-on-the-Heath. The older folk pretended to be oblivious to the younger set’s explorations, for, after all, mating was a key part of country life, from the butterflies courting amongst the meadow flowers, to the kestrels coupling violently in midair, to the orderly annual breeding of Farmer Jones’s prize sheep. Sex was everywhere. God knew there was little else to do in rural England, except work.

Though Sally and Daisy had both gone up to the hayloft with nearly all the local farm boys and, of course, their favorite, the local squire’s insufferable eldest son, Becky had never even felt tempted. The extent of her experience was through hearing her lowborn friends’ accounts, and truthfully, she did not believe everything they said. She just liked being included in the conversations.

Well, she concluded, if Sally and Daisy had lied just for fun—and she wouldn’t put it past them—no doubt Alec would show her what she was supposed to do.

She did trust him that much.

He was very easy to be with, she thought, watching his every move with deepening feminine interest. Aye, if the lads back in Yorkshire were scruffy ponies, he was a haughty, temperamental, blooded stallion—very fast, very beautiful, and highly dangerous.

He read the champagne label with an approving nod. Untwisting the wire and coaxing the cork partway out with his thumb, he sent her a devilish half smile. “Center of the ceiling medallion.”

“What?” She followed his upward glance, then realized what he was about—making a game of shooting the cork out of the bottle. Her laughter relieved some of her tension. Lord, the man could make a party out of a twig and a ball of twine.

She shook her head and boldly challenged him: “Never.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “I see. The lady doubts my aim. Do you want to bet?”

“Dashed right I will.” She looked around for something to wager with. “I’ll bet you . . . one strawberry that you cannot hit the center of the ceiling medallion with that cork,” she declared, holding one up between her fingers with a flourish.

“I’d rather win a kiss instead.”

She shook her head firmly. “Strawberry or nothing.”

“You drive a hard bargain,” he said, taking aim. “Tallyho.”

Pop!

The champagne cork sailed through the air like a Congreve rocket and collided with the ceiling medallion, then bounced violently to earth.

“Oh, blast,” she muttered, losing the bet.

“I thought you said you were born lucky.” He strolled back to the table with the frothing bottle in his hand.

“Well, I’m lucky when it matters.”

“Tilt your head back and open your mouth,” he murmured, strolling back to the table with the frothing bottle in his hand.

The order startled and intrigued her. She ignored the frisson of arousal that his wicked tone sent through her veins and, daringly, did as he told her. Alec poured a small draft of the foaming liquid into her mouth and watched hungrily as she swallowed it.

“What do you think?”

She tasted it carefully, wrinkling her nose. “I like the bubbles, but ’tis a bit sour, isn’t it?”

“ ‘Dry’ is the term,
cherie.
Have some more.” He poured out two narrow champagne flutes. “You’ll find you may quickly acquire a taste for it.”

“Are you trying to get me tipsy?”

“It never crossed my mind.” He slipped her a sly half smile, then held up his glass. “A toast.”

She followed suit and looked at him in question.

“To the bold and beautiful Becky—you do have a last name?”

“Ward,” she blurted before considering the matter more thoroughly.
Blast.
She hadn’t really wanted to tell him that. The less he knew about her, the better.

“To you, Miss Ward. I predict that you shall take the Town by storm. In fact, I will make sure of it—personally,” he added with a wink.

She gazed at him wistfully for a second. “Thank you for your kindness to me, Alec. I don’t know what I would have done tonight without you.”

He looked away with a careless laugh and a hint of color rising in his manly cheeks. “Oh, it’s nothing, I’m sure. It’s easy to be kind to a beautiful girl.”

Good Lord, had she just made the libertine blush? He avoided her gaze and busied himself making sure they both had plenty of champagne, but the brief tint beneath his angular cheekbones spoke volumes of the real man behind the jaded facade.

He has a good heart, whatever his faults
.
All the more reason not to confide in him,
she thought gravely, gazing at him. All the more reason not to risk getting him killed. She had already seen Mikhail slaughter one man.

“You’re supposed to drink now,” Alec instructed with a determined return to his rakish indifference. “I toast, you drink, you see. A simple ritual.”

“Right.” She slipped him a knowing smile and sipped her champagne. “Ah, I must pay off my wager! Hold out your hand, good Sir Knight,” she commanded in a playful tone worthy of his own roguery.