The Temptation of a Gentleman (37 page)

Marion almost laughed at his quip but couldn’t. Not when he’d mentioned the wedding that would never happen. “I’m not marrying you.”

Noah’s eyes widened. “You think not? I just chased you from London!”

“Don’t make jokes.” She turned and was dismayed to see both her mother and Sally watching the pair with interest. “Are you both unhurt?”

Noah watched as Marion crossed over to embrace her mother and say a few words to Sally. She’d been through an ordeal. A terrible one considering she’d apparently found out that Walter Hawthorne wasn’t truly her father and that Sally had lied to her. But if she thought she could avoid his questions and his love, she was dead wrong.

“Come on.” He strode forward and grabbed her arm. She pulled back, but he hauled her away nonetheless. “Griffin, get the ladies into the carriage and take them home. Marion and I will follow in a short while.”

Griffin’s eyebrows knitted together. “Noah, are you certain…”

“Go!”

He swung up onto the horse, taking Marion with him and settling her in front of him in the saddle before he thundered off down the road and away from prying eyes.

***

“Where are we going?” Marion asked as she tried not to let her body touch Noah’s. Each time it did, heat seeped through her gown and made her very aware that she wanted him. Despite the fact that she was about to tell him she would never marry him even if he dragged her off like a barbarian.

“Somewhere to talk,” was his grim reply, then he snaked his hand around to rest on her belly.

Marion sucked in her breath through her teeth. Closing her eyes, she said a silent prayer that she wouldn’t melt with his touch. “We aren’t going back to London?”

“No.” He pulled her toward him a fraction so her back pressed against his broad chest. “We aren’t. We’re going,” he paused and pointed toward a secluded spot along the river. “There.”

He pulled the horse up and helped her down. She didn’t fight him when he took her arm and led her down to the river’s edge. Soft heather was the perfect seat, and she sat down in it and stared up at him.

“I already told you I won’t marry you.” She refused to break their gaze, even as he sunk to his knees beside her and touched her face.

“Then tell me why.” The anger and teasing were gone from his voice, replaced by genuine confusion.

She shook her head. “You don’t want this.”

“We had that discussion weeks ago.” He clenched his jaw. “You didn’t want this, I didn’t want this. And then we grew closer. What changed to make you run away so suddenly?”

He brushed his knuckles over the curve of her cheek and the line of her jaw. Awareness crackled through her like an electric shock.

“Nothing.” She swallowed hard. “Nothing. I just realized it was folly.”

“Don’t lie.” He smiled as he leaned up and brushed his lips against her hair. “It doesn’t suit you.”

Her lower lip trembled and she turned her face so he wouldn’t see how much it hurt her to have him touch her. “I heard you talking to Griffin last night. I heard you say that a country chit wasn’t in your plans. I know you don’t want to marry me, and I don’t want you if you’ll only grow to resent me after you’re bored with my body.”

Noah froze in his caresses, and Marion waited for the inevitable denials of what she’d heard. For a long moment he held her gaze, then he leaned forward and kissed her. The touch removed her careful guard and she responded. His tongue probed her mouth, tasting her, testing all the hollows and curves. She couldn’t hold back the moan of pleasure at even the simplest of touches.

“I will
never
tire of your body,” he reassured her against her ear. “But as much as I also respect your mind, you, my dear are a lousy spy.”

She might have bristled at his words if he hadn’t slid one hand up to cup her breast. Even through the muslin, her nipple hardened in anticipation of his mouth on her body, of him joining with her.

He was lowering her back against the grass, and she somehow couldn’t do anything to fight him. In fact, she arched against his chest like a hopeless wanton.

“Did you hear that I love you?” Noah’s voice was suddenly breathless, but it wasn’t only from desire. She could hear the anticipation in his words, the need for her to say the same.

But was he telling the truth?

Her breath hitched. “No, I didn’t.”

He smiled. “Then you didn’t hear enough. I love you, Marion Hawthorne. I love you and I cannot wait until you are my wife. In fact, after I ravish you here beside the river.” To accentuate his words, he slipped one hand beneath her skirt and began a slow slide up her leg. “I plan to take you to Gretna Green and make you my wife. Before you can convince yourself of any more nonsense and try to run away from me again.”

Her eyes blurred with a combination of tears at his confession and desire when his fingertips found her very center. “You love me?”

“I love you.” No sooner had the words been said than she fell over the brink in a wave of pleasure that had her grasping at Noah’s shoulders and arching against him. She found herself repeating her declaration over and over again.

Her hands trailed down to Noah’s breaches buttons and one by one she wrenched them open. His erection popped out into her hand, hot and hard and ready to fill her. He hiked her skirt up even further and with little fanfare, thrust into her.

Immediately the wave she’d just ridden on crested again and with only a few hard thrusts she came, this time joined by Noah as he gripped her against him and drove his seed deep inside her.

For a long moment, they laid together, their bodies merged as Marion smoothed her palms across his back.

Finally, he withdrew from her and buttoned his pants while she smoothed her wrinkled skirt back down, but she didn’t rise up from the grass and neither did he.

“I’m not even Marion Hawthorne any longer,” she said with a sigh as she reached up to touch his face. “How do you know if you love me? Marion with no last name, the bastard.”

“You’ll have a last name.” Noah frowned at her. “Mine. And as for being a bastard, no one need ever know about that.”

“My father.” She shut her eyes with a sigh. “I mean, Walter Hawthorne…”

Noah shook his head. Marion loved him, and in the years to come he’d teach her that she could trust him to take care of her. For now, he’d have to tell her.

“Hawthorne will be taken care of.”

Her eyes widened and he understood she took his meaning to be sinister. As much as he’d like to wipe the man away, he wouldn’t.

“Griffin has a spice plantation in India that probably could use one more worker. It will be a respectable job in a place where he’ll never be able to harm you or your mother again.”

“But she lied.” Marion shook her head. “If she’d only told us the truth about Georgina’s suicide from the beginning, you wouldn’t have pressed your investigation and we wouldn’t have been forced to marry.”

Noah pursed his lips. “Then I plan to not only keep her on, but give her a raise in pay. If she’s the reason we found each other, then bravo to her.”

Though he could have stayed in the heather for days and simply made love to Marion, the afternoon was growing late and they had a long way to travel. Reluctantly, he drew himself up to stand and helped her.

“Marion.” He took her hand and raised it to her lips. “I’ll make everything right for you. I promise you with all my heart.”

She smiled and the love they shared seemed to glow between them, as bright and warm as the sun above. “If I have you, everything will be right.”

He swung her up on the horse and followed behind. After giving her a light kiss, he turned the mount northward and into a gallop.

“Noah!” Marion leaned back against him with a laugh. “Has making love deprived you of your sense of direction? We’re still heading away from London.”

Marion could feel him grinning even if she couldn’t see it. “I told you. We’re going to Gretna Green to give you that last name.”

She tried to pivot, but couldn’t without falling off the mount. “You must be daft! The gossip… the rumors…”

He laughed and gently turned her face to kiss her on the lips. “The rumor will be that your husband is completely besotted and couldn’t wait to have you all to himself. And that, my love, will be the truth.”

Marion laughed and settled back against him with a contented sigh. Somehow, despite all the trial and pain of the day’s events, now that she was in Noah’s arms, she was safe and happy. And as long as she was with him, she knew it would be so for the rest of her life.

Take a Sneak Peek at the
final book in the Jordans Series,
The Desires of a Countess
(November 2011):

1816

“
If he comes here, I’ll run him out myself!”

“
Calm down, Ginny.”

Virginia Blanchard turned on her heel to stare at her best friend. Harriet Percy smiled back with a serene expression. Ginny frowned. How could her friend not see the problem?

“
Did you just tell me to calm down?” She motioned wildly to the letter Harriet held in her hand. “After
this
?”

Her friend nodded. “You have no idea what this-this-” She glanced back down at the missive. “Simon Webber is like. He may not be the ogre you believe he is.”

“
He’s a Blanchard!” Ginny snapped as if that explained everything. In her mind it did.

Her friend rose to her feet and returned the letter with a wry smile. “Actually, he’s a Webber.”

Ginny paused to shake her head, but most of the heat was gone from her voice and from her emotions. The fear was taking over, and that was much worse. She was so tired of being afraid. In the last few months, she’d thought her fears were gone for good, but now they returned with vengeance.

“
Simon Webber’s mother was raised a Blanchard,” she whispered. “Which makes him my husband’s cousin. If I’ve learned anything from the past four years in this family, it’s that all those people are fiends.”

Harriet’s face softened with pity and Ginny winced. She didn’t want that. Not even from her best friend.

“
Jack is one of ‘those people’.”

Ginny sank into a chair by the fire. Was it too early for a drink? Rubbing a hand across her throbbing temple, she struggled for calm and control.

“
My husband is dead. Henry won’t be raising Jack, I will. And I’d never raise him to behave like one of that family.” Ginny tossed the envelope on the table with a disgusted sigh. “Or a Webber.”

Harriet sat in the chair next to hers to place a warm hand on her own. “Don’t assume the worst.”

“
I have no choice, don’t you see? This man has been named trustee of Jack’s inheritance. He’ll have the power on a whim and at will to give or take my son’s future until he comes of age and is given the title.” She took in a shallow breath and somehow managed to keep weak, useless tears from filling her eyes. “After Henry’s death, I swore no one would ever have the authority to do that again.” She swallowed and found a bit of strength somewhere inside of her. “Unless I get rid of this man, I’ll have failed my child one more time.”

Harriet shook her blonde head. “Don’t talk like that! No one could do more for a child than you have done for Jack.”

Ginny pursed her lips as she dismissed all she’d gone through in the past. She had more pressing problems in the present. “I just hope all I’ve done won’t be for nothing.” She ran a hand over her eyes. “It doesn’t bode well, though.”

“
Why?”

She motioned to the dreaded message with one slender finger. “First, the man didn’t even bother to write himself. He let Henry’s loathsome solicitor do the deed. Mr. Randall probably took enormous pleasure in removing my purse.” She grimaced as she thought of thin weasel of a lawyer. “And the letter clearly states that this Webber isn’t only the trustee of the estate until Jack comes of age, but he’s to have some part in overseeing my son’s upbringing, as well.”

She jumped back up to pace the room. “Oh, this is so frustrating. At least when Henry was alive, I knew what I was dealing with.”

“
A bastard,” Harriet interjected with heat.

Ginny smiled at her friend’s loyalty. “But this Webber could be far worse. He’s an unknown enemy.”

“
Or so you believe.”

Ginny couldn’t fathom her friend’s naivety. Of course, Harriet had never had to reckon with a husband or in-laws like hers. No, Harriet’s late husband had been the love of her life.