Taffeta & Hotspur (10 page)

“
I am well pleased with
that.” He grinned and teased her.

She looked into his eyes. It was dark
in the carriage, but she could see a strong bright glitter in his
dark orbs as he returned her look. “When do you mean to call in
your marker and be done?” she asked, trying to press the issue, not
sure if she wanted him to say he would forgive her the marker. Part
of her wanted him to call it in…

“
In time…” he said, his
expression enigmatic.

She sighed. The next thing he did was
to put his arms around her and draw her close.

“
However, I wouldn’t mind a
down payment,” he whispered as his mouth first brushed lightly over
hers, teasing her with sensations. As her lips parted, his tongue
found its mark and lapped at her own in an erotic, slow, and
sensual movement that set her tingling with desire.

What was happening? It was a kiss …
just a kiss and yet, rockets exploded in her head and fireworks
went off in her blood, traveling throughout her body. She gave
herself to his kiss and realized she had been hungry for it—waiting
for it. What was wrong with her? She was behaving like a
tart.

His tongue drew on hers and taught it
a new rhythm, as his hand moved to cup her breast beneath her
cloak. She should have been shocked—not at his action, but at her
reaction. She should have been horrified with herself, but she
wasn’t. She wanted his touch, and owned it to herself. She heard
him then as he whispered her name.

“
Taffeta … you are
delicious, but that is all for now. It is bad enough we are alone
in my carriage, without giving fuel to the gossip mongers. We might
be seen.”

She was off her game, taken off guard,
and she couldn’t find the words to respond. She should have come
back with something witty or offensive or… But all she could do was
lick her lips and look up and into his seductive eyes.

He held her face with his ungloved
fingers, “You beauty you … do you know what you do to
me?”

“
I know what you do to me.”
She surprised herself by answering him.

And then he shocked her by saying,
“Don’t allow it. You must not find me desirable. You must not think
me as anything but the scoundrel you have called me. I have made a
deal with you and mean to cash it in when it suits me—remember
that. It is a deal—nothing more. That is who you must know I am.
For I will never be more—it isn’t in me.”

His words slapped her in the face and
ruined the dream. A dream that had developed because of her
premonition, a premonition that was blocking her ability to have
the visions she had come to rely on. He looked so serious. She had
to buck up and handle this—it was all part of growing up, wasn’t
it? “Then call in your marker, and let’s be done,” she said
softly.

“
I am not ready to be done,
but I shall call it in, sunbeam. Believe me, I shall call it in.
Will you be ready when I do, or is it all bluster?”

She eyed him ruefully and turned away
to pet her sleeping pup and stare out the window at the passing
traffic.

~*~

Tarrant surprised Taffeta again when
they reached her aunt’s town house. He insisted on accompanying her
inside and to the kitchen where she rummaged for just the right
sized basket.

“
Do you have the Chronicle
about?”

She hurried off and returned, waving
the newspaper about. She saw he had cut out a portion of the basket
to allow the small pup to get in and out of it at will and smiled.
He seemed to know what he was doing, so she simply watched as he
took the paper from her and shredded it into the basket, spreading
a few leavings of paper on the floor around the front of the
puppy’s new sleeping area.

While she waited, she finely chopped
some cooked chicken and fed it to the weak little Valiant, cooing
to him all the while. He fell asleep chewing on a final morsel, and
Taffy sighed contentedly.

“
Come along…” he said taking
her hand.

“
I mean to take him to my
bedroom.” she answered. “But I will put him in here when I can’t
watch him.”

Without another word, he dropped her
hand, bent, and picked up the basket and the pieces of the
Chronicle, and said, “Right then…”

“
Well … but … you
can’t…”

“
Lead the way.”

“
You can’t go to my
bedroom,” she answered, frowning.

“
Oh I can, and I will, but
this time only to deliver your pup there.”

She put up her chin and went ahead of
him to the stairs and then down the long hallway to her bedroom.
She opened the door wide and stood aside to allow him passage with
the basket and the sleeping pup. He placed it gently at the foot of
her bed and turned to leave, but even as he started out the
doorway, he turned and took one long stride and had her wrapped in
his embrace.

His kiss was wilder this time, hungry,
demanding, and she got lost in the passion it generated in her. His
mouth on hers was in control not only of her lips, but of her body,
and she pressed into him.

He elicited physical and explicit
sensations from her that she couldn’t deny—and knew she would not
feel for anyone else.

Friends talked about the magic of
finding ‘the one’.

Was the Hotspur … her one?

His hand was on her breast, sensually
cupping and fondling and generating a reaction she was embarrassed
to own. He taught her in that moment she was a woman in
waiting—waiting for his touch.

His tongue showed her how to give and
bend to him, and then somehow he had managed to undo her gown
enough to release her from the bodice, and he was bending his head
to suckle at her hard yearning nipple.

She gasped with pleasure and made no
attempt to stop him. She knew the rules. Maids did not give
themselves before marriage. She knew this, but oh, she wanted him,
had never wanted anyone like this before, and she whispered, “What
am I doing?”

Suddenly and without warning, he
straightened and backed away from her as though he had suddenly
been stung. “I… I… Forgive me…” With which he turned on his heel
and vanished.

What the deuce? She asked herself as
she heard him hurry down the stairs and out the front door. Faith
and la … just what the deuce!

~*~

The rakehell Hotspur leaned back
against the plush squabs of his leather carriage seat and tried to
call himself to order. What the devil is wrong with me? He had
planned a convivial evening at Vauxhall and then a tryst with the
Connors woman just to get some physical relief from his constant
hard-on. He couldn’t remember when last he had been with a woman …
and this one was driving him mad with desire.

The next thing he knew, he had heard
Taffy’s voice berating someone, and it was all he could do to
control himself from killing the devil for even looking at her, let
alone threatening her.

Then, he looked at the pup, poor
little survivor, and realized it had been starved as well as
tortured, and his heart went out to the little Valiant, as she
named him. The pup couldn’t be more than six weeks old, newly
weaned, and every emotion was pinpricked into action.

However, she then announced giving up
her night at Vauxhall, giving up her concert to take the puppy home
with her and nurse it. He found himself not only amazed, but
touched—deeply touched.

She seemed to constantly astound him
with her actions, but what was worse, he was drawn to her in a way
that just would not do. He wanted to do things with her he had
never done with an untried maid. He did not tamper with virgins,
and if that was what she was, he had no intention of calling in his
marker or seducing her…

He felt something for her … something
so strong he found himself constantly looking for her, and when he
couldn’t find her, all he did was think about her.
Absurd.

I am done with love. It served no
purpose and led to pain. He was much happier as he was, enjoying
his life and doing what he wanted when he wanted. Now look at him …
playing nursemaid to a green girl who played nursemaid to a
mongrel. This should have made him frown, but instead he realized
he was smiling!

He would keep up the pretense of the
so called ‘marker’ because if she was not a virgin, then by all
means, he would satisfy his need for her. That was fair and just,
was it not? A bit of sport. That was all it was, wasn’t it? He was
merely entertained by the Lady Taffeta—nothing more.

He was fairly certain he would never
get the opportunity to get her into his bed as he believed she was
an innocent. He would not break his rule and play with an innocent
in that fashion.

Tonight when he took her in his arms
and kissed her, and then began removing her gown … when he was on
fire and couldn’t stop himself from touching her breast, suckling
her nipple… Damn, he had been nothing more than a cad with a
hard-on. He knew it the moment she whispered, “What am I
doing?”

He had swept her away with seduction
and had been no better than the scoundrel she had called him. Why
had the fates played their nasty little game with him and sent
Taffeta, the highwaywoman, to haunt his thoughts? Why?

A sweet tongue slowly licked cherry
lips … laughing eyes looked into his… Damn… But the touch of her
skin…? He had to get her out of his system. Only one way to do
that—avoid her as much as possible! Forget her, ignore her. He
would do it. He would…

That was the only way to break from
the driving, raging need when she came into view—and then even
afterward, when she was no longer in his sight.

A heavy sigh escaped him. Tomorrow he
had promised to take her for a ride in his phaeton, yes, but after
that—he would avoid the chit.

What made it all worse was he
suspected Taffeta was beginning to fall for him. He couldn’t have
that—she wasn’t up to snuff. There was only one decent way to
handle this situation, and that was to forget all about
her.

~*~

Lady Taffeta threw off her gown and
stomped around as she donned her nightdress and brushed her long
golden locks. She looked in the mirror and asked her reflection,
“What is wrong with you? What is wrong with him? What does it all
mean, for goodness sake?”

She grimaced at the young woman
looking back at her and shook the hair brush at her. “You are
behaving like a schoolgirl, an infatuated schoolgirl. You will end
by getting your heart broken by a rogue of a man—”

Her conversation with herself,
however, was interrupted when she heard her brother call out,
“Taffy! Taffy!”

“
Up here, Seth,” she
answered and went toward her door, but her brother was already
there, flinging her door open wide and storming her bedroom, with
Nigel right beside him.

He immediately spied the sleeping
puppy and exclaimed, “So it is true!” He walked over and surveyed
the wretched babe deep in slumber. “I hope Tarrant beat the hell
out of the blackguard who hurt this poor thing—why … its ribs are
nearly out of its skin. I never… You did very well to bring him
home, Taffy—proud of you.”

She went to her brother, sank into his
arms, a thing she hadn’t done for many years and then surprised
them, herself included, by bursting into tears.

“
There, there … he’ll do
now,” Seth patted her back and attempted to soothe her. “Couldn’t h
ave anyone better to look after him. There, there.”

Nigel cleared his throat, “Indeed, and
we will help you with his training. He’ll be right as rain and
before you know it, taking walks in Hyde Park with you. What did
you name him?”

“
Valiant.” She
sniffed.

Nigel and Seth chuckled in unison, “So
he is, Valiant indeed,” remarked Nigel, bending to pet the
exhausted puppy. “He’ll do … a few weeks time, aye… He’ll do…” He
seemed to be talking to himself as well as to her.

She led them to the settee and
indicated with a wave of her hand she wanted them to sit, which
they did, and then she demanded, “Now, tell me everything … what of
Cath and Lord Fenmore?”

“
Fenmore … Cath?” Her
brother frowned, and then his face cleared, “Damn if you don’t have
something there. The man couldn’t keep his eyes from her. Noted it
a few times but didn’t think anything of it at the time, because he
talked about you and how astonishingly in control you were in your
efforts to save the mongrel and how you wanted to call it George.”
This made her brother burst out laughing, but she stared him down,
and then Nigel cleared his throat.

“
I noted it as well,” said
Nigel. “Noticed it immediately, and what’s more, I think she likes
him as well. For when he wasn’t looking at her, she was looking at
him.”

“
Oh, excellent, I so hoped
it would take…”

“
Did you? Did you see it in
one of your visions?” her brother inquired lightly.

She frowned. “Not getting any visions
lately…” She didn’t add she only got visions of herself in
Tarrant’s arms. She shook her head. “I don’t know what is wrong,
but haven’t had any visions since that night we held up the
Hotspur.”