Too Wicked to Marry (12 page)

"Or off with it," he suggested. He waved toward the whisky bottle on the washstand. "Pour me a drink."

No
please
, she noted, and sighed. He probably expected her to tell him he'd had enough. Well, she wasn't there to nursemaid him, or play the disapproving governess. "Very well." She turned.

"Take off your gloves first."

She glanced over her shoulder and caught the glint of wicked amusement in his eyes. "Very well," she said, mild as you please.

Slowly, with a certain amount of insinuation, she peeled the thin kidskin riding gloves off her fingers. He watched her hands with a riveted attention that she found disturbing. One by one she let the discarded gloves drop to the floor, the action taking on a sensuality she hadn't consciously intended. Then she poured a measure of amber liquid into a glass. He snatched at her hand when she brought the drink to him, but she danced back, only letting him have the glass. He drank the potent single malt whisky in a gulp.

"Another." He held out the glass. "And take off your coat."

All too aware of the tension radiating from the man, Harriet undid the coat and slipped out of it with a minimum of fuss, draping it neatly over the back of a chair before bringing him the whisky. "There's only so far I'm willing to go, you know, before we have our talk."

His gaze held a disturbing mixture of contempt and hunger. One hurt her, the other she found unwillingly fascinating. He said, "I notice you did not say you wouldn't go further."

"Let's talk."

He drank. "Undo your hair."

She would go this far, and no further. Some long-suppressed corner of her mind whispered,
Why not
? She hated having her hair pinned up, anyway.

Martin moved to the bed. He stretched out on his side on top of the blue bedspread, leaning back on the piled-up pillows, his glass held casually in one hand. He smiled his dangerous, tempting, black-cat smile as he watched her take down her hair, as pleased with himself as some Oriental potentate having his every wish fulfilled by his favorite concubine. What
had
he been up to during those private meetings with the Turkish sultan?

"I won't dance for you now, effendi," she said after she shook out her long hair around her shoulders. "Don't bother to ask."

"I don't have my water pipe with me, anyway."

Harriet took a seat in the room's one chair, across the room from the bed. She tried not to notice that he'd undone several more buttons of his shirt. She also ignored the impulse to settle on the bed beside him and help him slip the garment the rest of the way off. She hadn't allowed herself to think of Martin Kestrel as a male for the last four years, at least not in any context concerning her own mating urges. She'd tried not to
have
mating urges. But now her carefully ordered thinking was topsyturvy, her life was a complete disaster, and all those repressed urges threatened to bubble out of control. It was only going to get worse, if things worked out as she needed them to.

Remember that he has good reason to hate you
, she reminded herself.
For he's not likely to let you forget
. This job was not going to be easy or fun.
Do what you have to
, she ordered herself sternly.
Then go home and get back to licking your wounds. They'll only be worse when you're done
.

"I should like to see you naked," he said, proving her point.

"We can't always have what we want when we want it," she snapped back before she could stop herself.

"I've waited four years." He drained his last glass of whisky and let the glass drop to the floor. He crooked a finger. "If a woman comes to a man's room she only has one thing on her mind."

"Tidying up, most likely," Harriet answered. "Scrubbing the floors, airing the linens."

"That wasn't what I meant and you know it."

"But some bait doesn't bear rising to, does it, Martin—my lord?" Harriet forced her thoughts back to her objective, and kept her gaze away from the hard muscles of Martin's chest. "May I leave off groveling for a while and discuss business?"

"We were discussing business. I've always paid you for your services."

The contempt in his voice brought her angry gaze to his. "I never took any of your money, my lord. Not a penny, or a pound, and I gave Patricia the finest education a girl is likely to receive in this unenlightened age. Furthermore—" Harriet bit her tongue. Justifications were not necessary; she had served her country.

"Furthermore, what?"

"Nothing." She'd risen to her feet during her tirade. Harriet shook her head, shifting the thick tendrils of hair framing her face. How the man could make her lose control so easily after all these years, she did not understand. Perhaps it had something to do with bare chests and beds, but she liked to think that she was not so easily susceptible to his flagrantly displayed charms. It had been a bad day; she was tired and rattled. That was all.

She stiffened her spine, took her seat once more, straightened her skirts, and asked, "Where was I?"

Mention of his daughter seemed to have taken some of the lecherous pleasure at taunting her out of him. "You were about to attempt to talk me into something." He glared at her through narrowed eyes. "You're going to try to make me believe I should help you with some sort of undercover assignment, is my guess."

"For a man who has just met me, you know me too bloody well."

"Don't swear. It isn't ladylike." He smirked. "Oh, right. You're not a lady."

She hated that they so easily descended into bickering. If Patricia had behaved this way, Harriet would have put her down for a nap. She supposed that after such a trying day she and Martin both needed rest, but she was so keyed up she didn't know how that was possible. Perhaps she should ask to join him in a drink—which would, of course, be no more ladylike than swearing. Men got to have all the fun; women who joined them got called very ugly names.

"Very well," he finally agreed. "What do you want?"

"To go to a party."

Martin sat up so fast his head swam, and only an act of sheer will kept him from hurtling face first onto the braided rug on the floor. It took a moment for his eyes to come back into focus, and when they did he saw Harriet MacLeod gazing at him with a look of mild concern, and her usual calm demeanor.

"A party?" he demanded of this odd mixture of complete stranger and longtime acquaintance. "What are you talking about? What sort of party?"

"Let me explain."

Her hands were clenched so tightly together in her lap that her knuckles were white. Nerves? He saw the strain around her lips and eyes. She was a consummate actress, the little traitor, but he doubted these signs of strain were part of an act. He took great pleasure in seeing her perturbed.

"This should be quite an explanation," he observed. "You hate having to come to me for help, don't you? Of course." He rubbed his jaw. "You wouldn't be willing to put yourself in my debt."

"Even drunk, you're too bloody perceptive."

"I'll take that as a compliment, and stop swearing. Tell me."

She took a deep breath, and seemed totally unaware of the delightful way her breasts shifted beneath the starched material of her white blouse. Martin imagined them uncovered while she talked.

"It is a complicated story, and I cannot tell you all of it. To those uninvolved in the game, the details always sound quite preposterous anyway."

He understood what she meant by the game, of course. In his own diplomatic capacity he was very much a player in the rivalry between the British Empire and czarist Russia. Russia schemed to expand its borders, England countered with schemes to preserve the current balance of world power. The Great Game, as some romantic in the foreign office had dubbed the power struggle decades ago, was played on many levels, some official, many covert. Martin fought the war with words, negotiating delicate treaties between the Empire and governments
that were courted with equal fervor by the Russians. His was the clean, honest way: a game played by fair rules.

His lip curled back in disgust at the game she played. "Spies." He might as well have spit as said the word. "I'm getting used to your preposterous tales, Miss MacLeod. Do go on."

"The short version of the story is that a courier carrying vital information needs to be met at a certain time and place. The person who was supposed to meet that courier has been delayed. The meeting is to take place at a very private house party on a secluded estate. When I heard the location, I recalled that you had turned down an invitation to that specific party to accept the Hazlemoors' invitation instead. You could still go to that party—and take me with you." She smiled. "You see, when one ignores all the secretive trappings, it is really a very simple plan. I need a way in, you have an invitation. I meet the courier, I leave, no one is any the wiser."

Somehow he was certain it could not be as simple as she said. He must have received four or five invitations for the same time that he chose to spend in the Hazlemoors' wholesome company.

He smiled bitterly. If he hadn't gone to Freddie Hazlemoor's and been bombarded by eligible maidens, his thoughts would not have turned to marriage. Then he would not have proposed to his governess and he would not now be sitting in a room in Scotland with the treacherous woman who'd torn his life and soul to shreds.

He crossed his arms. "Good God, how I wish I'd gone off to Sir Anthony Strake's for a fortnight of good old-fashioned debauchery."

"You still can," Harriet said. "But you have to take me with you."

Martin stood even more quickly than he'd sat up, and it was even more of a mistake. This time when the room spun, it kept right on spinning. He could barely manage to croak out, "Take
you
to that den of iniquity!"

The last thing he heard was Harriet very calmly saying, "I could go as your mistress."

Martin woke with an aching head and to the sound of rain blowing hard and heavy against the windowpane. He also woke with two thoughts. One was never to touch the local whisky again. The second was that it had been quite a dream. An image of Harriet with her hair down and her clothing in disarray swam through his head. To combat the headache he let his imagination take the notion further, baring her shoulders and calling up an image of ripe, round breasts. He had not let himself think of her as a woman for so very long, but now every thought of her was of carnal revenge. She was traitorous; false—how right it would be to make her pay for her crimes against him in his bed. He groaned at the notion, half in pain, half in regret for letting the opportunity to use her as she deserved slip away so easily the night before.

"That was a dream," he reminded himself. The sound of his own voice, though it was only a whisper, sent a fresh jolt of pain through him. Getting up and dressed was not something he particularly wanted to do, but the sooner he was away from the Isle of Skye and temptation named Harriet, the better. It was all he could do to shave and change out of the clothes he'd slept in before stumbling downstairs, where he was immediately confronted by the landlord.