One Night with a Rake (Regency Rakes) (19 page)

The burlap bag was snatched off her head. The room was dim because heavy drapes had been pulled over the windows. She blinked owlishly for a moment, trying to get her bearings. The room was spartanly furnished, but the coverlet on which she rested was damask and of good quality. If her eyes didn’t deceive her, the landscape painting overhanging the small fireplace seemed to be a Gainsborough. The room was too conventional, too well-appointed a place to house a kidnapped victim.

Then Georgette looked up into the face of her abductor.

And was tempted to swear so vehemently even Mercy would have blushed.

“Nathaniel Edward Colton,” she said, spitting his name through clenched teeth. “Have you taken complete leave of your senses?”

“No, but I suspect you have.”

“Because I dare to leave the house without you dogging my footsteps?”

“For a start, yes.”

She struggled against her bonds, but he didn’t seem disposed to untie her.

“If I were so minded,” Nathaniel said, “do you realize I could do anything I want with you?”

“It appears to me you already have.” Georgette wiggled into a sitting position. The process wasn’t terribly dignified, but once she was upright, she felt more in control than when she was lying down.

“Only because you’re intent on endangering yourself,” he said with vehemence. “Don’t you understand?
Anything
could happen to you on Lackaday Lane.”

“I fail to see how. There were two men guarding me at Madam Bouchard’s, the bully and Mr. Darling.” She glared at him. “What did you offer them to allow you to cart me off?”

“Only a couple solid clouts to the head. Something anyone of evil intent could have done.” He hitched a hip on the side of the bed. “For what it’s worth, I regret having laid out one of them.”

But he didn’t regret abducting her, evidently. “And the rope and burlap bag? You happened to have those stashed in your pocket?”

“No, the previous madam of the House of Sirens left a few of her toys behind and I decided to use them to scare some sense into you. Do you realize there have been two murders on Lackaday Lane now?”

Her belly roiled uncertainly. “Two?”

“It seems I maligned Mr. Bagley falsely. He was not derelict in his duties,” Nate said. “His body was dragged from the Thames this morning.”

“And you think the same person did both killings?”

“They were both strangled,” Nate said. “Though Mr. Bagley was dispatched with a piano wire instead of a leather strap, so his demise was bloodier than Vesta’s. And I expect the killer thought we wouldn’t discover his body until there wasn’t enough left to identify it. Vesta, on the other hand, was laid out like a present for us.”

Georgette suppressed a shiver. “Was his neck also broken?”

“No. With Vesta, that was a mercy of sorts. As if the killer didn’t want her to suffer, but he did want her to asphyxiate.” Nathaniel shook his head. “With Mr. Bagley, it seems as if the killer didn’t mind causing him pain.”

Trying to penetrate the mind of a murderer was an uncomfortable place. Unlike the room where Georgette now found herself. “Where are we?”

“I keep a little
pied-à-terre
in Cheapside. It suits my purposes when I want to be in London, but I’m not keen on staying at the family town house.” He stood and paced the room like a caged lynx, raking a hand through his hair. “Don’t worry. No one fashionable could possibly know you’re here.”

“I’m not concerned for fashion and you know it.”

“You should be.” He rounded on her and leaned down to face her, nose to nose. “A woman in your position should fill her days with trips to the milliner and taking tea with the patronesses of Almack’s instead of traipsing about Covent Garden fretting about the lives of whores.”

She leaned away from him so far she lost her balance and flopped back onto the feather tick. Didn’t he realize the life he was prescribing for her sounded empty as a pit? “Do not presume to tell me what to do.”

“Someone sure as hell needs to. Georgette, don’t you realize I could have been someone intent on doing you real harm?”

“Real harm?” Since when was seducing her out of her maidenhead not considered harm? “After last night, I find your concern for my welfare a tad misplaced.”

He lifted a cynical brow. “You’re not trying to blame me for that, are you? As I recall, you’re the one who came to my bedchamber.”

Drat the man, he was right, but she wasn’t about to admit it to him.

“I will allow that I seduced you,” Nathaniel said, easing down beside her and leaning on one elbow. He reached over with his other hand and traced the lacy edge of her bodice. A wicked little thrill trailed after his touch. “But you made the choice to come to me.”

He leaned down and kissed her.

She hated herself for not turning her face away, but she couldn’t bear not to feel his mouth on hers. Every time Nathaniel Colton kissed her, the world tilted a bit further on its axis and she imagined a future where she wasn’t destined to bear a royal heir or spend her years smiling woodenly at the collective nonsense that was life at court.

The only trouble was the life Nathaniel seemed to want for her sounded just as hollow. She was expected to be purely ornamental when she longed to be useful.

But if
he
were at the center of that conventional existence, might she be able to bear it? Better yet, might she be able to change things so she could have him
and
a higher purpose?

When he finally released her lips, she was halfway to believing her fantasy was possible. But that didn’t change the fact that he’d made off with her as if he were a common highwayman and she an ill-gotten bauble he’d exchange for coin later.

“I made the choice to come to your room last night, I’ll admit it. But I’m not here now by my own choice,” she reminded him.

“No, you’re not, but it’s for your own good. You want a bit of schooling on the ways of the world. Being a marquis’s daughter only matters to some. There are others who would do as I’ve done and worse.”

She snorted. “What more could they do to me?”

“Trust me, Georgie, you don’t want to know.”

A dark shadow passed behind his eyes and she wondered what malignant memory streaked by for him. Something from his days in the war? Remembrance of the nights of debauchery after he returned from the disaster at Maubeuge? Whatever it was, it clearly grieved him.

If he wished to speak of it, she’d listen, but she wouldn’t try to pry it out of him. Her favorite tutor had been fond of saying that every soul in the world bore a secret too deep for the telling. If you only knew it, the knowing would break your heart.

And it might break the heart of the one who shared it to know that you, too, were now burdened with the weight of it.

Some things were not meant to be spoken aloud. Like festering things in the earth, they were too terrible for sunlight. They were things each person must work out in fear and trembling for themselves until finally the demons were, if not cast out, at least stilled.

She’d never really understood that tutor till now.

“What will you do with me?” she asked in a small voice.

A crooked smiled lifted one corner of his mouth. “An interesting conundrum. A bound woman presents a number of fascinating possibilities.”

He began to undo the row of buttons that marched down the center of her bodice. Much as her nipples tingled at his fingers’ nearness, nothing had changed since last night.

He still hadn’t spoken a word of love to her. And however much her body wept for him, she couldn’t allow him to take her again if their joining was of no more import to him than if he’d been a stallion covering a mare.

“Please don’t,” she said.

She didn’t know whether to be glad or sad when his hand hovered between one button and the next. But in that slice of a moment, it occurred to her that she knew why Nate had not spoken of love.

“You’re sad that I’m not Anne,” she blurted out.

“No. I know full well who you are, Georgette.” He studied her face as if he were committing her to memory. “I’m the one I’m not sure of. All I know for certain is that I’m not the same man who loved Anne. He’s dead. I think he died in France. Or maybe he was dead before he went there and just hadn’t had the good sense to fall down yet.”

There it was again. That shadow. The specter of something unspeakable hung over them for a moment.

“I’m not a very good man, Georgette,” he said as he worked the knot that held her arms fast. “I’m sure that’s no news to you.”

She started to protest, but he covered her lips with two fingers.

“Let me get this out and then you can berate me all you like.” He finished untying her and rubbed her arms to make sure the circulation was restored. “You see, no matter how terrible a man is, sometimes he can’t help but lift his gaze above himself.”

The adoration in his dark blue eyes surprised her.

“I’m no angel,” she whispered.

“Thank God,” he said devoutly. “If you were, I’d never find the courage to tell you…that I have feelings for you.”

Her heart threatened to hammer its way out of her ribs. “How did you reach this astonishing conclusion?”

“With great difficulty.”

“Careful. You’ll turn my head with such flattery.”

He made a low growl of disgust in the back of his throat. “I’m doing this all wrong. What I mean is, you’re not like anyone else I’ve ever known. You don’t fit any of the rules.”

“I rather think you’re not overburdened with a need to follow them either. Else I wouldn’t find myself a prisoner in Cheapside.”

“I won’t keep you here if you want to leave.” Despite his words, he covered her body with his, careful to prop himself up on his elbows. She welcomed the weight of him.

“But I want you to stay,” Nathaniel said as he gazed down at her. “Always. I love you, Georgette.”

There were still questions, still gaps in the tenuous bridge he’d built between them, but she suddenly felt no need to ask him anything else. He was here. She was here. It was enough.

His mouth found hers and teased her lips till she opened to him. She answered him, groaning into his mouth, all her pent-up frustration melting into the wonder of his lips on hers.

His fingers tangled themselves in her hair. Then he pulled her head back so his mouth could trace the curve of her jaw and down her neck to the hollow at the base of her throat.

He
loves
me.

A weight lifted from her, leaving her feeling slightly giddy, as if she’d drunk too much sherry on an empty stomach. Her fingers plucked at the buttons of his waistcoat. She swept his jacket from his shoulders.

He raised up to divest himself of the garments, then paused to look back down at her.

“No, don’t stop now,” she said and sighed with pleasure when he returned so she could unbutton his shirt.

His blessed mouth danced over her collarbone to the tops of her breasts where the lace of her bodice strafed her tender skin. Only a few inches down and a thin couple layers of fabric separated her nipples from his lips. When he straightened to look down at her, she wanted to grasp him by the ears and pull him back to those aching tips, but something in his gaze stopped her.

“What? What is it, Nate?”

“I want to see you.” His eyes flashed feral in the dimness. “Let me look at you, love.”

With breathless tenderness, he rose from the bed and pulled her to her feet so he could undress her completely. She surrendered to his capable fingers. Pieces of her wardrobe fluttered to the hardwood around her like leaves in autumn, a glove here, her lacy stays there.

She bit her lip to keep from whimpering with need when he reached under her hem to ungarter her stockings and roll them down. When she finally stood before him in nothing but her chemise, he tugged at the silk ribbon tie between her breasts. The knot unraveled under his clever fingers.

Georgette unraveled too. He spread the opening of her chemise wider till both her breasts were exposed, tight-tipped and throbbing for his touch.

“My God, you’re beautiful, Georgie.” Nate ran a finger down the valley between her breasts. Then he traced lazy circles around each of them and cupped them as he kissed her again.

That now familiar downward pull in her belly throbbed in earnest. His thumb flicked over a nipple, sending a jolt of heat from her breast to her womb.

“I want to see you too,” she gasped as she tugged his shirt from his trousers. He bent to help her whip it over his head. She let the shirt fall from her grasp.

Georgette was no artist, but she recognized fine symmetry and elegance of line when she saw it. “I never thought it of a man before, but you’re beautiful too.”

Nathaniel stood before her, his muscles bunched and hard. Even in the dim light, Georgette saw half a dozen shiny scars marring his torso and arms, old wounds from his days as a soldier.

She lifted a tentative hand to the one that sliced across his chest, missing one of his brown nipples by a hair’s breadth.

“Does it hurt?” she whispered.

“Not now.”

She pressed her lips against the scars, one by one. She wished she could kiss away the horror behind them all. As she kissed his old hurts, her nipples brushed against him, sending the tight knots into an agony of wanting.

He trembled under her mouth.

When her kisses traveled down his ribs, his breath hissed in over his teeth. Still, he held himself in check and let her explore. She kissed his navel, darting her tongue into the small indentation.

He groaned aloud.

She brushed the bulge in the front of his trousers with her breasts and he pulled her upright to kiss her again.

Hard this time. His hands slid over her, this time bunching her chemise in his fist, rucking up the yards of material to bare her legs and buttocks. His fingers grasped her bum and pressed her against his feverish body.

His heat flowed into her, melting her insides.

Burned
alive
and
not
caring
one
whit.