The Smithfield Bargain (16 page)

James smiled and saw the old man's surprise. “You know that is nothing but an idle threat.”

“Idle? Are you so sure of that?”

“Banish her if you will,” he retorted icily. “Cut her off without a farthing, but you, Your Grace, owe me something.”

The duke snorted in derision. “I owe you nothing for the ruin of my granddaughter.”

From beneath his travel-stained coat, James pulled a wrinkled sheet of paper. He had suspected the Duke of Westhampton would threaten this. Keeping Romayne in her home was crucial to his work, so he was prepared. Standing, he opened the paper and tossed it toward the duke. “Your request for help, Your Grace. I assume this was printed on your order. As you can read, anyone possessing information leading to the whereabouts of Romayne Smithfield is due a generous reward.”

“And you think I should give that reward to
you
?”

Folding his arms over his chest, James smiled. “I would not have guessed you to default on your word, Your Grace. Romayne holds her oaths dear. I had assumed that she learned such honorable precepts from you.”

“You are glib, MacKinnon.”

“The truth comes easily for those who don't fear it.”

The duke laughed, the raspy sound resonating across the high ceiling. “I find little reason to trust you.”

“That is wise of you.”

“How much would you consider a proper payment for your services?”

James's eyes narrowed. The duke's smile urged him to answer cautiously. “Services, Your Grace?”

“Do you wish me to be more straightforward?” The wizened man folded his hands on the table. “What will it cost me to have you disappear from Romayne's life after you have signed the proper documents to end this marriage?”

“To divorce her?”

The duke's face bleached as he shook his head. “Good God, man, if I wanted to ruin her more, I would petition for a divorce for her. I want the marriage annulled.”

“Impossible now.”

“She intimated that this marriage was one of convenience.”

James sat on one corner of the table, noting the old man's fury at his informal motion. That fury became horror when he said calmly, “It has been very
convenient
for me to have a beautiful and sensual woman like Romayne about.” Picking up the page that the duke had sent to Scotland, he folded it and put it under his coat. “Your Grace, I beg your indulgence to retire. Romayne tells me that you are accustomed to dressing for dinner, and I would like a bit of time with my wife before that.” He allowed his smile to return. “I am sure you understand, Your Grace.”

He did not wait to hear the duke's answer. As he closed the door behind him, he listened for any sound to tell him if the duke was going to continue his bout of temper. There was nothing but silence.

Mayhap he had been too rough on the old man. He would have liked the duke under other circumstances. Other circumstances … How many times had those words run through his head since Romayne had been propelled into his life?

He glanced toward the front door. The butler waited there.

“Clayson?” he called.

“Yes, Mr. MacKinnon?” His wrinkled nose made no secret of his distaste of the new arrivals in the Hall, but he did not shirk his duty.

“His Grace might appreciate the services of his bodyservant.” Although the lanky man regarded him with curiosity, James added only a request for directions to the rooms he would share with Romayne.

“Lady Romayne's rooms are on the floor above, Mr. MacKinnon.”

“If you will point me in the direction of
our
rooms, I would be grateful.”

Clayson's lips tightened into a colorless line as he gestured toward the stairs James guessed would lead to the east wing.

James climbed one side of the double staircase. The upper floor was as grand as the ground one, exactly as he had guessed the house of a duke to be. As he followed the butler's instructions along the meandering hallway, he saw more elegant rooms. He smiled when he thought of how Romayne had tried to adjust to Dora's simple home.

He did not knock on the door that should have led into her rooms. Opening it, he smiled with self-deprecation as he looked at the delicate furniture and the profusion of white lace that seemed to be hanging from every piece. This was no place for a man who preferred the sky as his canopy and the earth as his bed, but it was the perfect setting for Romayne.

He closed the door before walking toward the white marble fireplace. Looking at the furniture, which had been arranged for intimate conversations on the light blue Oriental rug in front of the bed, he pulled off his damp coat. He tossed it onto a chair and loosened the cravat that had irritated him all day. As he ran his finger about his collar, he opened another door.

Beyond was a dressing room. He touched the nearest dress of the dozens hanging there. Rubbing the silk between his fingers, he whistled lowly. That frock alone must have cost as much as his horse.

“Ellen will need nearly as many before she is launched into the Polite World.”

He turned to see Romayne behind him, but a Romayne unlike any he had ever seen. Swathed in a silk wrapper of the palest pink silk, a hairbrush in her hand, she wore her hair in a golden wave down her back. As she walked toward him, the intoxicating scent of some perfume urged him closer. She reached toward him, and he longed to throw good sense to the winds and pull her to him. She was lovely and ready to be introduced to pleasure … by him.

“Reconnoitering, Major?” She closed the door to the dressing room before going to sit on the blue silk settee in the middle of the room. “You'll find no spies or anything else interesting in here.”

“Odd, for I was thinking quite the opposite myself.”

Romayne ran the brush along her hair. She listened to James's footsteps behind her. Longing to know what had happened between him and her grandfather, yet fearing to discover the truth, she remained silent. She quivered when his hands settled on her shoulders and unrestrainable delight raced along her.

The settee squeaked as he put one knee on the cushion and leaned forward to whisper, “You needn't have hurried your bath, dear wife. I would have enjoyed helping you rinse the soap from your curls.”

“I was thinking of my own enjoyment.”

“Were you?” His finger ran along the half-crescent of her ear in a tantalizing path. When he drew her hair aside, he kissed the spot where her pulse leapt with the longing she could not quell.

He drew her to her knees on the settee, facing him, as his lips claimed hers. Her fingers inched up his waistcoat to caress his shoulders. With a groan of desire, he pulled her to him. She gasped as his skin through his loosened shirt brushed hers, searing scintillating rapture through her.

At a knock on the door, she started to pull away. He laughed and tugged her back to him again. Turning her face from his, she whispered, “Someone's at the door.”

“Let them stay at the door, dear wife.” His husky chuckle heated her skin as he slipped his finger beneath the knot in the sash holding her wrapper closed.

She put out her hand to halt him, but her fingers froze in mid-air as his hand grazed her breast. Sensations stronger even than the yearning she had known before absorbed her every thought. Gazing into his green eyes which, for once, clearly bared his emotions, she reached up to steer his mouth over hers. This wonder was too luscious not to share.

A shocked cry of dismay shattered the ecstasy. Romayne collapsed to sit on her heels as she stared at Grange's horrified face. The abigail rushed across the room and grabbed her hand, jerking her to her feet.

Standing between Romayne and James, Grange pulled Romayne's wrapper tightly closed. “Have you lost every ounce of sense you ever had? First you tell His Grace that this is a marriage of convenience—”

“I never said any such …” Romayne's voice faded as she looked at James who was coming around the settee. His blank face warned her of the potent emotions within him, emotions that she had felt in his touch and others she never wanted to encounter.

“His Grace has ordered that Mr. MacKinnon use the guest rooms in the west wing.” Before either of them could protest, she continued, “Mr. MacKinnon, Miss Dunbar wishes to speak with you. Her room is across the corridor, down one door to the left.”

“Ellen is settled comfortably across the hall, and I've been banished to the west wing?” He laughed and tossed his coat over his shoulder. “Couldn't manage to stow me somewhere outside Yorkshire's East Riding, could he, so he settled for stashing me as far from my wife as possible in Westhampton Hall.” Turning, so only Romayne could see the mirth in his eyes, he added, “Don't fret, dearie. I shall convince your cherished grandfather that my place is with you.”

“Here?”

He chuckled. “Or in the west wing, if you prefer. I would prefer it myself if it was more private.” His arm circled her waist. His whisper brushed her ear tantalizingly. “Think of it, dearie, just you and me alone in a cavernous suite where no one could interrupt us.”

Again Grange intruded. “My lady, His Grace expects you on time for dinner.”

Although she was sure James would protest, Romayne was not prepared for him to seize her by the waist and kiss her with a fervor that left her lips tingling from his fiery touch as he walked away. She put her fingers to her mouth and watched him leave the room.

With a sigh, she faced her abigail and the reprimand that was sure to come. Her hopes that her troubles would be over when she reached the Hall had been foolish. She was home and safe—from everything but the desire to love the one man she promised never to give her heart to.

Romayne ran her fingers along the fretwork on the gallery wall. She loved this grand, old house with all its wings that had been added on helter-skelter whenever the family had found the wealth or prestige to indulge its love for architecture. A deep breath brought her the scents of the beeswax and soap used to keep the Hall immaculate.

She looked up at the portraits lining the gallery. Smithfields, all of them, stretching back generations through the past to the beginnings of modern England. When she had been small, she had been frightened by the stern faces of the parade of her ancestors, but now they gave her the welcome home she had longed for. No questions, just the comfortable feeling of being back where she belonged.

Voices drifted through the long room to her. Gathering the skirt of her
eau de Nile
silk dress in both hands, she hurried away at a pace that would have garnered a reprimand from Grange. She did not want to speak with anyone—not until she had time to sort things out in her head.

Reaching a pair of ornately carved doors, she opened one. Darkness beckoned to her, but she did not need light. Her steps were sure as she entered.

Beneath her silk slippers, the cool, marble floor was coated with dust. She could not remember when she first had come to think of the ballroom as a haven. Here she could walk across the vast floor or sit on one of the benches beneath the shadowed murals. Nobody would come in to disturb her. Only once could she remember seeing the swathed chandeliers lit. That had been while her grandmother still lived. The Duke of Westhampton had no interest in hosting his neighbors.

Tonight she needed this haven more than ever. She must think clearly after listening to Grange's lecture about how she must behave with her temporary husband: “Never forget, my lady, that he is your
temporary
husband. You don't want his lust to leave you with a permanent reminder of this appalling relationship.”

James was not really her husband. There was no real marriage. The man she had been ready to wed was now only a corpse beneath the half-frozen Scottish soil. She had to own to admiring Major James MacKinnon, for he was ready to risk everything to stop a traitor, but he was insufferably tyrannical. Yet, with all that being true, why did she tremble with eagerness when James drew her into his arms?

Romayne choked back a scream as a hand clutched her arm. She was whirled to face James, but a James unlike any she had ever seen. Even in the dim light, his black velvet coat was free of dust and the buckles on his shoes glistened weakly.

As silent as the room, he put one hand at her waist and took her hand with the other. She gasped when he started to lead her into a waltz. When she stumbled after him, he laughed softly.

“Listen to the music, dearie,” he whispered.

“Music? What music?”

“Listen closely. I know you can hear it, too.”

He whirled her about with the grace she had seen in his other motions. Looking up into his eyes which were twin stars in the shadows of his face, she matched her steps to his. Dust rose in a fine cloud as they twirled about the floor in perfect unison. Her silk skirt spun around her ankles as he turned her to a melody she knew was the melded beating of their hearts.

His hand glided across her back, bringing her closer, as his mouth descended toward hers. The touch of his lips, warm and hungry against hers, sent her heart soaring. She locked her hands behind his collar and. leaned into the kiss.

Too soon he raised his mouth away. At her soft moan of protest, his fingers tightened on her arms, but he stepped back.

“Thank you for the dance, my lady,” he murmured as he went to look at one of the murals, which were of the countryside beyond the walls.

“‘My lady'? I don't recall the last time you called me that.”

“Being here in this grand house reminds me that, although I may think of you as a smudged-faced urchin, you are the granddaughter of a duke.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “And you were beef-headed to let me convince you to be part of my artifice.”

“Second thoughts, Major?”

He faced her, smiling, although she suspected the smile was as feigned as the light tone of his voice. “'Tis too late for that, isn't it?”

“Did Grandfather persuade you of the idiocy of your scheme?”