Royal Regard (37 page)

Bella lightly slapped her hand against his
arm, saying, “That is not the least bit true. You are a scandalous
liar.”

“Not at all.”

She looked up at him, then, with a face
filled with confusion. “You really have?” She turned her eyes away.
“You have not. You will say anything to keep me from crying again.”
At that, he saw tears well up. One rolled down her cheek.

“Awfully good job I’m doing, too,” he said,
as he smoothed it from her face with his thumb. She swallowed hard
and blinked the emotion away, eyelashes fluttering faster when he
said, “If you’ve forgiven me, Huntleigh must have set things right,
because I have done nothing of the sort.”

She shrugged, blushing, and admitted, “I
understand now why Myron was so… especially after the… well. I’ve
told him everything, which I should have done that very night, and
am ashamed I put you both through such torment. You were only
acting like fools because you were frightened for me, and rightly
so, and I just made it worse by using Lord Malbourne to try to make
you jealous.”

“Do not mistake me, sweet,” he tipped her
chin up to look into her face, “I will kill him where he stands if
he touches you again.”

She swallowed a squeak, but tucked her head
back against his jacket and agreed, “I won’t have you executed for
protecting me, though I don’t like everyone always
protecting
me. It’s not as though I am a helpless
featherbrain, and half a crown says I can best you with a
rapier.”

“I’ll not bet against you, my lady. Not
today, not ever. I give you the field from this day forth.” She sat
up and tucked her feet under her legs, looking at him more directly
than was comfortable.

“Does that mean you will let me fight my own
battles?”

He opened his mouth but managed to keep from
saying anything before he gathered his wits.

“It means I won’t let you fight battles
against me. And probably won’t stop you going after anyone else
with a sword in your hand.” He raised a brow and offered the most
sardonic smile he had at his disposal. “Call it cowardice.”

“I shall.” She dropped her head onto his
shoulder, absently tugging at his jacket as he imagined a wife
might do when trying to soothe a husband’s vanity. “And you still
plan to be an overbearing fat-head whenever you please?”

“Correct,” he agreed. “The Northopes have
been fat-heads since before the Reformation.”

He wasn’t sure what to say when she grumbled,
twisting her fingertip around one of his waistcoat buttons, “I
don’t like my own husband selling me off like a sack of flour.”

This experience he kept having with her was
devastating; never knowing, one meeting to the next, how to do
something so basic and innate as seducing a woman. Bella was still
snuggled up with him, still smoothing her hand over his shirt
front, still tucking her face underneath his chin to keep him from
seeing her blush, but there was only one right way out of the trap
she had set, and he wasn’t sure what it was.

Most gracious God, we humbly beseech
thee…

“Don’t be silly. I paid for a sack of
diamonds.” He kissed the top of her head, waiting for the
inevitable outburst. When it didn’t come, he continued,
tentatively, “Diamonds of the first water, I might add.”

She slipped the top button of his waistcoat
in and out of its mooring. “I will never in my life be a diamond of
the first water.”

It was excruciating to be so regularly
tested—surely by vengeful goddesses—with the emotional
vulnerability of a woman, which he’d never really cared to
understand. It was more than a wrench to admit the lack in his code
of honor. He had no idea how to keep her happy, but for the first
time in his life, it mattered.

“Come now, you know I could have bought a
thousand wives in an Arabian bazaar for the price I paid for you.
And I would still have my herd of camels and my flock of
goats.”

She snorted, “
Goats
. You have the most
ridiculous notions.”

He put a finger across her lips. “And given
my rather extensive investment, I think it only right to question
why you are here alone. Your husband and I agreed—”

“Stop,” she declared, as she pulled herself
away, “Stop.” She held her hand up to keep him from saying another
word. “Any variant of ‘your husband and I think it best,’ will see
me leave for Saltash tonight and never speak a word to either of
you again.”

Nick wisely stopped talking, so she scooted
back over to him, curling her hand under his arm, grasping his
sleeve. He buried his face in her hair, and she mumbled into his
waistcoat, “Myron said you were nursing a broken heart, but you two
have been as thick as thieves and might say anything to get your
own way. There is no reason a man like you would be heartbroken
over me.” She sounded only the slightest bit hopeful, which
saddened him, but for the chance to soothe her with his hand across
her shoulder, and a small kiss on her forehead.

“You know perfectly well Huntleigh won’t lie
to you about me; I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked.” While
part of him wanted to give Huntleigh a smack for implying Nick was
vulnerable, he felt one of the cracks in his heart healing. “And my
lady, if you wish to retain my favor, you will have to stop saying,
‘a man like you.’ Otherwise, I will think you far too familiar with
incurable rogues.”

He kissed the top of her head again as she
giggled, “You are incurable. But that is not what I meant at
all.”

“Indeed?” He tipped her chin up. “You don’t
think me a rogue?”

“Oh, you are a rogue, Sir.” Her eyes danced.
“I’m afraid there is no question of that.”

“Excellent. I would hate to think I was
gaining a reputation as a milksop.”

“No… of course not…” Her dancing eyes stopped
twinkling, as though a partner had stepped on her foot, and her
face took on the hue of a radish. “I just meant… someone so… you
know…” She dropped her eyes and allowed herself a very slight
whimper.

He gave no quarter. “Someone so what?” he
teased. “Important? Dignified? Noteworthy? Irrefutably Ducal?”

She tipped her head at the teasing note,
questioning his intent, and finally, when he could no longer hold
in the laughter, pushed his arm, almost toppling him off the couch,
resulting in naught but a deeper belly laugh.

“An awful man, far too full of yourself. No
shame at all.”

He chortled, “And here I thought we might
need more time to become acquainted. Let the honey month begin.”
With that, he lifted her across his lap, pulling her as close to
his heart as he could.

His fingers drifting across the nape of her
neck made her shiver against his chest, wriggling against him. She
probably didn’t even realize how enticing she was, innocently
trying to find a way to be closer than their clothes would allow.
The only thing keeping him from opening her dress, pulling up her
skirts, touching and tasting her—taking her—was his dubious stab at
honor and fear she would equate him with Malbourne, grabbing what
he wanted, taking advantage. Instead, concern for her dignity held
back one of Nick’s hands, respect for her person the other. The
rest of his body struggled under the sensual assaults she
unknowingly created.

There was only so long he could remain a
gentleman, and the time grew ever shorter.

“So, if you know I am a rogue…”

“Yes?” she asked, looking up, her eyes
flashing nervously.

He bent to whisper in her ear, his voice low
and husky, “Then why have you come here all alone in this succulent
dress? Were you hoping to confirm what the other wives say?”

She tried to look stern, but between her
squirming and stammering and giggling and blushing, there was no
remote possibility. She squeaked and tried to slip away from him,
but he held her firmly. When she tried again, he abandoned his
principles and trapped her legs with one hand.

“This is entirely improper!”

“Yes, it is, my sweet.” Her legs across his
thighs, kicking in a counterfeit attempt to escape, disarrayed the
nap of the velvet sofa as thoroughly as she disordered his mind
when he pulled her head down for their first kiss. In confusion,
she twitched sideways, but he was implacable. As soon as their lips
touched, she moaned just slightly, and when he tipped her head for
a better angle, her rigid posture loosened, and her hand tightened
on his shoulder.

Running his fingers up the back of her neck,
tangling her hair in his fingers, pulling just hard enough that her
mouth opened the tiniest bit, he tugged at her lower lip with his
teeth and ran his other hand down her arm when she stiffened at the
touch of his tongue on hers.

“You haven’t kissed like this before?”

She shook her head slightly.

While he contemplated, in a bit of a daze,
what she might or might not know, she finally said, “I obviously
know how…
babies
… are made and it isn’t meant to be… er…
titillating, except in penny dreadfuls, and certainly not in the
Bible.”

He was appalled at Huntleigh. Absolutely
appalled. Perhaps it was a question of generation, or the man’s
overblown sense of piety, but it was inexcusable. Nick had assumed
a sailor would have been taken in hand by a whore at some point to
learn how to satisfy his wife, but apparently not an Anglican
sailor. It was incomprehensible some randy Frenchman or Latin lover
hadn’t seduced her years past.

However, it worked to his advantage. Husband
or no, Bella was as close to virginal as any experienced married
woman could be. No wonder she still blushed.

“But it is… different… with you than Myron. I
wonder if it might not be so… if it might be… different.”

She shook her head, hid her face in one hand,
put up the other as though she would erase her words from an
invisible slate.

“Oh, never mind. Just kiss me. Please? You
can do… that thing… if you want,” she pleaded behind her hands in a
way that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He sat
back to put at least a few inches of space between them, and placed
his hands on the cushions.

When she peeked through her fingers to find
him watching so closely, he said quietly, “I think, my dear, you
can count on me being different from your husband if he has
neglected the appropriate titillation—beginning with the passionate
kiss. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It just takes getting used
to. I think you’ll like it if you let me.” He gently separated her
hands from her face, curling them into his, rubbing her palms with
his thumbs.

She relaxed enough to let him kiss her again
very lightly and slowly, warming her lips against his. He let his
tongue tip gently explore the crease, rubbing his thumb gently
across her downy cheek. Eventually his tongue reached hers, and six
lifetimes later, she met him tentatively halfway. Her face and hair
were silky under his hands, shoulders and arms loose and supple,
kissing him until she was whimpering softly, he turning steadily
more demanding until her body was pliant, held tight against him by
her will, not his.

He jerked himself back, dragged himself away,
his hand on the back of her neck, breathing as though he had run a
mile. He had never in his life been this aroused after one kiss. He
had never in his life been this aroused.

“If I don’t stop now, my love, I will carry
you to the bedchamber across my shoulder, and Blakeley will give
his notice.”

Wiggling on his lap to find a more
comfortable position, she stopped suddenly when her hip encountered
his erection behind the placket of his breeches. Biting her lower
lip, she dropped her eyes, and he was afraid he would embarrass
himself by releasing inside his shirttail. Her face reddened, and
she twisted away just slightly.

“Well,” she huffed, glancing at him with her
eyes tipped up, cheeks rosy and rounded with a nervous tease, “If
you’d rather keep your butler than your rakish reputation…”

He tweaked her nose between thumb and index
finger. “Hush, woman. Without Blakeley, who would keep me from
ruining myself utterly, and you in the process? He is the only
pretense I have to respectability.”

“He must not be very good at his job, then,
as your respectability is hanging by a thread.”

“So says the married woman on my lap, kissing
me in the library with the door closed.” Face suddenly white, she
tried to scramble away, but he held her tight. “I’m teasing, love.
No one here will tell our secrets.”

At that, she did squirm away, twisting her
body like a fox escaping hounds, a comparison Allie had warned him
outright not to encourage. Bella nearly ran to place herself on a
chaise longue
halfway across the room, red satin with a gold
pomegranate pattern, a near perfect match to her dress, while Nick
made every possible effort to leash his animalistic nature.

“I’ve heard you have dozens of
secrets
. You’ve brought them here? Your servants are trained
to look away?”

He rubbed his hand over his face and through
his hair, realizing the riband had been lost, long curls now
falling across his face and into his eyes. Things were going
famously, finally, and now she wanted to trot out all of his prior
indiscretions? He would never understand women.

“What would you like me to say? I’ve lived a
rake’s life. That is no secret. I don’t intend to indulge the
tendency once I’m married.”

He had thought long and hard about his
lifelong habits, which had seldom involved infidelity on his part.
His longest relationship had been almost two years, most lasted
less than six months, but his dalliances only rarely overlapped,
and he never made false promises. He found it maddening to try to
keep track of more than one woman at a time, and none of the others
had disturbed his sensibilities so completely as Bella.