Scotsman of My Dreams (27 page)

“The far off scent of cinnamon. I'll have to ask Cook to bake cinnamon scones every morning. That way, the spice will always perfume the air, reminding me of you.”

She didn't need scent to think of him. Perhaps it would be wiser not to confess that.

He opened her bodice, separated the fabric and kissed his way from her throat to the lace of her corset cover. His tongue darted out, lightly touching and tasting her skin.

“I love how soft your skin is,” he said.

She reached up and placed her palm against his cheek in wordless thanks. He made her feel beautiful.

“How do we get rid of this?” he asked, pulling at the corset cover.

She abruptly sat up, pulling off the top of her dress, then making short work of the corset cover. He didn't wait for her to unfasten the busk of her corset but did it himself until she was half naked.

She should have felt embarrassed. Or ashamed for her wantonness. Instead, she felt odd, unlike herself. Lighter than air yet weighted with worry. For a few minutes she wasn't going to think. She wasn't going to agonize. She wasn't going to grieve.

While she was sitting up, she wiggled out of her skirt and removed her two petticoats.

His palms found her breasts, his fingers curving around them. He brushed his bristly cheek against her skin, smiling when she made a sound.

“Is that uncomfortable?”

“No,” she said, reaching up. Her fingertips trailed across his face. “Do you have to shave more than once a day? Do you do it yourself or does Howington help you?”

“Howington is no longer in my employ,” he said. “As for shaving, the first few weeks I was bloodied but unbowed.”

“Such a stubborn man,” she said softly.

“Says the woman who is just as stubborn. Or is it more proper to call you obstinate?”

“Either one will do,” she said. “But let's not talk of character now. Touch my breasts again, please.”

“You're nearly as ribald as a duchess as I once knew,” he said.

“Should you really be talking about a former conquest when you're bedding me?”

“I seem to remember your remarking on a certain driver of yours when I was standing naked in front of you.”

“Turnabout is fair play, I suppose. Shall we make an agreement between us, then?”

“I shall never bring up another conquest.”

“Neither shall I,” she agreed.

“Good, because every time you mention Hugh, I want to punch the man in the face.”

“Truly? Why?”

He didn't answer her, bending to nuzzle at her neck. Her soft sound became a moan.

“Do you really think I'm ribald?” she asked a few minutes later.

He raised up on his forearms and stared at her.

“If you'll give me an exemption from the rule we just made, I'll tell you that you're unlike any other woman I've ever known.”

“Truly?”

“I like that you're honest. I love that you're direct. You startle me sometimes, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I never know what you're going to say.”

“That's not necessarily a bad thing, either. Forewarned is forearmed. If you surprise ­people, they normally give you the truth in return.”

“So that's your strategy.”

“Actually, it isn't. I don't seem to have a strategy when it comes to you, Dalton.”

“I feel the same about you, Minerva. I don't behave as myself around you. But there are ­people who might say I haven't been myself ever since returning to London.”

She placed a hand on the back of his head, pulling him down for a kiss.

“Must we be so profound?”

“On no account,” he murmured against her lips.

He spent the next quarter hour kissing her everywhere. His fingers led the way over the curve of her shoulder and down to her arm. He hesitated at the inside of her elbow then traveled down her arm to the palm of her hand.

His fingers trailed to the end of each fingertip.

“You have calluses,” he said.

Her hand immediately clenched into a fist. He pulled her fingers free.

“They're fascinating,” he said. “There an indication of how different you are.”

“Different is not necessarily better.”

“In this case, you're wrong,” he said. “Different is most definitely better.”

Her heart was going to break, she was sure of it.

“
D
ALTON,” SHE
said, her voice catching on a sigh.

“Patience,” he said.

He didn't need his eyes as he kissed his way from her waist to her concave abdomen. She jerked when he kissed her navel and touched his tongue there.

He smiled in response.

She had beautiful legs. He traced a path from her ankles to her knees, and then up her shapely thighs to the nest of hair.

He kissed the crease at the top of her thigh, then did the same to the other leg.

She whispered his name again, her fingers grabbing at his shirt.

He raised up and kissed her on the lips.

“Patience, dear Minerva.”

He had never wanted to extend his loving for hours and hours. He'd always been determined to find pleasure more than give it. But this was Minerva, and he wanted to erase the sting of her tears and bring her joy.

He tasted her, teasing her with his fingers and then his tongue. She widened her legs and implored him with a moan. For long moments he indulged himself in pleasing Minerva.

Her breath grew shallow, her moans louder. She reached down and pulled his hand up to cover her left breast. For a moment he abandoned his teasing to raise up, draw a nipple into his mouth, gently grazing it with his teeth.

When he returned to her intimate folds, his tongue and fingers flicking against her, she widened her legs, lifting her hips up to offer herself to him.

Her hand played in his hair; he could feel her fingers tremble.

The sound of her climax opened up something inside him, more elemental and less selfish than passion.

Raising up on his forearms, his hands clenched into fists, he entered her, surging into her heat with too much speed and need. An apology trembled on his lips as she raised her hips to meet him. He steadied himself, breathing hard, and remained motionless, the hardest task he'd given himself in a very long while.

He spoke against her ear. “I should have been slower, gentler,” he said. “Forgive me.”

“Oh, bloody hell, Dalton. I was just going to tell you to move. Harder, please.”

Her words surprised a laugh from him.

“What an astounding woman you are.”

She answered him by lifting herself up and then grabbing both his buttocks and pulling him down. He had never been coached so ably.

He laughed again, surging into her. The top of his head was about to blow off. His heart was beating like a stallion. His breath was stripped from him. All he knew was that he ceased to be himself but was part of her. Or she was part of him.

Then she was shattering in his arms and this time he accompanied her, a journey of a thousand breaths and a dozen lifetimes at least.

 

Chapter 31

D
alton wanted, in a way that was alien to him, to ask if he was a better lover than Hugh. He wanted her praise. It was a sign of his vulnerability around her. If nothing else, he should have heeded the warning in that thought.

Instead, he rolled to the side, pulling her with him so they faced each other on the Aubusson carpet.

He wanted to give her more of himself, a feeling he'd never had before this moment.

“I think you must be magic,” he said. “I think you must have been directed to my life for a reason. First, to charm me out of my dour mood. Second, to enchant me completely.”

“I enchant you?” she asked in a breathless voice.

He leaned over and kissed her, smiling against her lips.

“Oh, you do, Minerva. You most certainly do.”

“A minister wouldn't have bedded me on the floor of your library,” she said. “See? You're hardly boring.”

“You have a heretical mind,” he said.

“I do?”

“You should sound disturbed by that, not delighted.”

Making love had either been a lark in the past or something fervently desired. Neither situation had involved his mind, only his loins. He'd forgotten the woman as quickly as the deed was done or he awoke wishing himself home.

He'd never felt anything but a certain fondness for the women in his bed.

Now? Not fondness at all. Something more. Something that rumbled through his life with the force of a wave or thunder. Something elemental, like nature itself.

He rolled to his back, staring upward, seeing the ceiling as a patch of white. Was it his imagination or could he see the plasterwork?

“You have a mistress.”

He turned his head. “I beg your pardon?”

“I saw her, Dalton. Your mistress. She's very beautiful.”

“You have me at a disadvantage, Minerva. I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Will you say that about me tomorrow? ‘You have me at a disadvantage.' ”

“I really don't know what you're talking about. I don't have a mistress.”

“I might be considered your mistress,” she said.

She was more than a mistress, and he'd never said that about another woman. Nor had he ever thought to contemplate the future at the side of one particular female.

What would life be like with Minerva?

Each day would be an adventure. There would be something about someone or something in each day that would be special to her, and consequently to him. She would find something amazing or amusing, something that challenged her and in turn him. She would argue with him. She would ridicule his beliefs. She would attempt to convince him of some point or another. She would praise him and challenge him in the same breath.

She would occupy his bed and his heart.

“You have a son.”

He suddenly realized who it was she was talking about.

“He looks just like you.”

“Does he? Arthur and I looked a great deal alike. ­People sometimes wondered if we were twins. You're talking about Sarah, and she's not my mistress. She was Arthur's.”

He felt her raise up. Was she staring at him to see the truth of his comment?

“She's really not your mistress?”

“No, she's not. But I would like her to be part of my family. The boy, too. I'm his uncle and I've never been an uncle before.”

“Is that normal, making a by-­blow a part of your family? And isn't that a ghastly label for anyone to wear?”

“I think you choose what's normal for yourself in your life, don't you? If you're wise you do.”

He was beginning to understand that, just as he knew that he hadn't chosen wisely before. But he didn't have to continue making the same mistakes.

“When did you find out about Neville?” she asked a few minutes later.

“This morning. I went to your house straight away.”

“Was that when the Covington sisters waylaid you?”

“I found them to be very pleasant, all in all. Except for the part about being entirely too interested in your life. They look to you as some sort of heroine.”

“What?”

“I think they live vicariously through you, Minerva.”

“Oh dear. I wonder what they would think to see me now?”

“Marry me.”

She didn't say anything for so long that he thought she hadn't heard.

“Marry me,” he said again. “I've never asked another woman to be my wife. Does it normally make a woman mute?”

She sat up.

“I've never been asked to marry in that fashion,” she said, “so I can't answer that. I would imagine it does, however. It's certainly had that effect on me.”

He sat up as well, wanting to reach for her but thinking it was perhaps better if he didn't.

“I would tell you I'm quite wealthy, except money doesn't seem to interest you. I could expound about all my family's various interests, but you know most of them since you've been working with me.”

“Are you certain you don't just want a permanent secretary? Someone who could put up with your grumbling without quitting?”

“Only if she was also my countess and slept in my bed. Oh, you might have to guide me from time to time. I feel it only necessary to add that as part of your wifely duties.”

“You can't be serious, Dalton.”

“Is it my face?” he asked.

“Your face? What about your face?”

“I know I'm scarred,” he said, wishing she would either just say yes or no quickly. No sense dragging this out.

“Oh, bother. You're as handsome as sin and you know it.”

He felt something in his chest loosen. “You've never thought I was ugly, have you?”

“Only because you're not,” she said, her voice tinged with irritation.

“Marry me.”

She began to put her clothes back on. Since she wasn't speaking, wasn't giving him a chance to marshal his counterpoints to her arguments, he did the same.

He'd never felt as supremely awkward in his life.

Standing, he made his way to the chair, fumbled for his cup and drank his cold tea, wishing he knew what to say.

The knock on the door was a welcome relief.

“Are you decent?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she said, her voice curiously without expression.

He hesitated at the door. No doubt anyone would be able to tell what they'd been doing in his library. At the moment, he wasn't certain he could face down his housekeeper with the equanimity one needed for a circumstance such as this.

He opened the door, forcing a smile on his face.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Wilson is here, Your Lordship.”

Good God, that's all he needed.

“Give me a moment, Mrs. Thompson,” he said. “I'll come and meet with him in the parlor.”

“Very well, Your Lordship.”

He felt an uncharacteristic flush warm the back of his neck. Once he closed the door, he turned to Minerva.

“Will you be all right here for a little while?”

“Yes,” she said again. No other comment, just that single word.

Is that what a marriage proposal did to Minerva, reduce her to one-­syllable words?

He left the room, feeling as if there was something more he should have said or done.

S
HE COULDN'T
become the Countess of Rathsmere. Had he lost his mind? The world would think them both insane.

He had to be jesting. In a moment he'd say something like: “You thought I was serious, Minerva? What kind of fool do you take me for?”

No, he wouldn't say that, but he had to have temporarily misplaced his judgment.

He couldn't be serious. He couldn't mean it.

Her fingers were trembling. No, her whole body was trembling. Perhaps some of it was due to pleasure, but most of it was because of shock.

How dare he ask her to marry him? How dare he throw her into confusion like that?

She didn't know what to think.

She wanted to go home.

She needed to go home.

Hugh had taken her carriage. Still, she had to get home, one way or another, and she was more than willing to make her way on foot.

Darkness had fallen in the last hour, however, and she wasn't fool enough to walk the London streets in the dark.

She would simply have to appeal to Mrs. Thompson, and through her, to Daniels.

She had to leave. Now, before Dalton returned and catapulted her into more confusion. She wanted to be home, in her own room. Where she could think, rationally and logically, about what he'd said.

Marry me.

He hadn't said anything about emotions. He'd only mentioned his wealth. He would probably have started enumerating the number of horses, cattle, houses, and carriages he possessed, plus the number of servants who worked for him, had they not been interrupted.

She had to leave.

After straightening her clothing, she wished she had a mirror to see how mussed her hair was. Her chin felt abraded. Did she look well-­kissed?

She opened the door, looked both ways, and left the library. She headed toward the foyer and the hallway to the back of the house.

“The announcement appeared in the papers this evening,” James Wilson was saying. “If Lewis is innocent, then he'll no doubt send his congratulations about your forthcoming marriage.”

She halted in the middle of the corridor, turned and stared beyond the library door to the parlor.

“And if he isn't?” Dalton asked. “He'll make an attempt on my life?”

“I would be willing to bet on it, Dalton. I've made arrangements to protect you, so you shouldn't worry.”

She continued toward the foyer, walking quicker until she was almost running through Dalton's home.

She had to get out, now. If Daniels wouldn't take her home, she'd walk, anything to leave.

He hadn't meant it after all. He hadn't been serious. This was just some sort of ruse he and Mr. Wilson had devised. Where was the relief she should feel? If nothing else, she should feel a little amusement at her own gullibility.

Instead, she was crying again. Silly, silly tears that proved she was better off home.

T
HANK HEAVENS
for Mrs. Thompson's kindness. The dear lady took a look at her face and bustled to the doorway, leaving Minerva no choice but to follow her.

They crossed the garden, eerily beautiful in the rainy dusk. Time had gotten away from her and she'd be returning home after dark, a fact that would no doubt scandalize the Covington sisters.

They couldn't possibly admire her. From this moment on she wouldn't believe anything Dalton MacIain said. But she wouldn't be seeing him again, so that would be enormously easy to do.

“Daniels,” Mrs. Thompson said when they reached the stables, “I want you to take Miss Todd home, straightaway.”

To her relief the driver didn't say another word, but he did glance at her, then back at Mrs. Thompson. Did she have a sign on her forehead? Fornicator. Foolish Woman. Idiot.

When he opened the door for her, she turned to Mrs. Thompson.

“Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

She doubted she'd see the woman again.

Mrs. Thompson only nodded, the kindness in her eyes almost Minerva's undoing. She would not weep in front of the two of them. Somehow, she had to wait until she reached her bedroom. Then she would release all the tears that were building up. Between the situation with Neville and Dalton, she might cry for weeks.

“Will you take me to the back of my house, Daniels?”

She didn't want the Covington sisters to see her come home, alone and hours after she should have arrived.

“
W
HAT DO
you mean, she's gone?”

Dalton had thought, on returning to his library, that Minerva might have gone upstairs to refresh herself. But when she hadn't returned, he summoned Mrs. Thompson, only for his housekeeper to answer him in a sullen voice he'd never heard her use.

“Crying she was, poor thing. Upset as much as I've ever seen a body upset. All she wanted was to go home, and who was I to tell her no?”

“How long ago?”

“I'm sure I don't know.”

He pushed past her, walked at a fast clip to the front door and down the steps.

“James!”

Damn the darkness. Damn his eternal darkness. Damn the man. Damn the situation.

Had James already left? With any luck he hadn't. With any luck he could commandeer the man's carriage since Minerva had taken his.

Why had she left?

“What's wrong, Dalton?”

“Take me to Minerva's house,” he said. “Where's your carriage?” He gripped James's sleeve. “Now.”

He didn't have a good feeling about this.