When the Marquess Met His Match (20 page)

“When Landsdowne cut me off,” he went on, “I racked my brains trying to think of something I could do to earn my own living, but I never thought of this, probably because it’s never been a business to me. It’s always been part of the estate, not a source of income in itself. I’d never thought of turning it into a business for profit until now.”

“But you’ve no capital. Did Somerton fund the entire investment?”

“No, Lord Conyers did. He’s agreed to buy ten percent of the shares and to stake us a loan for the rest. We had to give him a detailed prospectus before he’d agree, which is what we’ve been so occupied with during the past week. We presented our plans to him two days ago, and he agreed to the venture.”

“But, when . . . how . . . what made you . . . ?” She stopped and shook her head, laughing at her stuttering attempts to gain explanations. Nicholas’s doing something like this was so unexpected, she didn’t know what to make of it. “How did the two of you come to decide to do this?”

“It was my idea. I was coming back from Highclyffe, and the train stopped right out there.” He paused, pointing toward the open front door, the canal, and the railroad tracks beyond. “It was Providence, Belinda, that the train stopped right there. It was Providence pointing me to a purpose for my life.”

“I don’t know what to say, Nicholas.” She pressed a hand to her chest, laughing, for his exhilaration was infectious. “You’ve flummoxed me.”

“Have I? The cool, self-possessed Lady Featherstone is flummoxed? That’s quite a treat for me—having the tables turned this way.”

“Table turned? What do you mean?”

“Whenever I’m with you, I’m utterly at sixes and sevens. Hell, half the time, when I look at you, I can’t even remember my own name.”

She stilled, her laughter fading as her heart gave a leap. “I don’t know why,” she whispered.

He reached out and cupped her cheek. “Don’t you?” he asked tenderly.

She ought to pull away. She didn’t want to, but the door was wide open, and they were in full view of anyone who might walk by. She felt as if she could stand here like this with him forever, and though she knew she should withdraw, she didn’t want to. He let his hand fall before she had to decide.

“If you don’t know why,” he said, “then I shan’t tell you. It makes me feel better to know that my
whole
heart isn’t sitting on my sleeve.”

His words were light, carelessly uttered, but she knew that was not a reliable indication of his true feelings. She never knew what was genuine, not with him. She wanted his heart on his sleeve, she wanted to see it and know what was in it, but she couldn’t say that was what she wanted. Not after all the other things she’d said.

“Did you see the sign out front?” he asked.

She blinked at this abrupt change of subject. “What?” she said, and shook her head, knowing she was the one who was at sixes and sevens. “Sign? What sign?”

“I’m glad you didn’t notice it. That means I can show it to you myself.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the open doorway. “Come on.”

She allowed herself to be pulled through the doorway and out to the sidewalk. There, he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. “Look,” he said, and pointed to the white insignia and name painted over the brick.

“Lilyfield’s,” she read, and laughed, looking at him. “Lilyfield’s?”

He grinned. “Fitting, don’t you think?”

“Not for long,” she pointed out. “Not if you keep up with all this.”

“I told you this was Providence. I was sitting on the train, as I said, still resenting that tongue-lashing you’d given me in the maze the night before when you called me a lily of the field—”

“It was unbearably rude of me to presume—”

“Don’t,” he cut her off, reaching out to touch her again, pressing his fingertips to her lips right there in the street. “Don’t be proper and polite and apologize for being honest. I hated hearing the things you said, but they were true. We both know it.”

Once again, his fingers slid away from her mouth. “You made me see that I have to do something with my life, find a purpose for myself. I know if I don’t, I’ll never earn your respect. And I want that, Belinda. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”

She tried to remind herself of all the hard truths she’d learned about rakes, of all the insincere things they were capable of uttering without a qualm, but such reminders floated right past and came apart like smoke on the wind.

“You realize what this means, don’t you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “It means that I won’t be needing you anymore.”

Her heart gave a queer, hard thump against her ribs, as if that bubble of happiness had burst. “What . . .” She paused, but then forced herself to ask. “What do you mean?”

“There’s only one way to say something like this, and that’s straight out.” He cupped her cheeks in his hands, lifting her face. “Belinda,” he said as he ducked his head beneath the brim of her hat, “you’re fired.”

He kissed her, but the touch of his mouth was only a light graze against hers, too quick to be anything but a tease.

“You know,” he said as he pulled back, his brow creasing in a slight frown as he looked into her upturned face, “if you insist on flinging yourself at me in this blatant fashion, you really mustn’t do it on a public street. What will people say?”

He grabbed her hand again. “Come with me, and I’ll show you the rest of the place.”

As he pulled her back through the doorway and started up the stairs with her in tow, she felt compelled to set him straight regarding his choice of words. “I did
not
fling myself at you.”

“Lady Featherstone, society’s shining example of ladylike propriety,” he continued as he turned at the landing, his voice conveying that breezy carelessness that always told her he was teasing, “the model for all her fellow Americans of how to be a proper British lady—”

“Oh, that’s ridiculous! You make me sound like someone’s maiden aunt!”

“And there she was,” he went on, undeterred, “kissing a fellow right there on the sidewalk. Why, I’d never have believed it if I hadn’t been there myself. Can you imagine what a scandal it would make if the gossip columnists ever got hold of the story? I can’t begin to fathom what they’d say.”

“I did not fling myself at you,” she protested again, as they reached the top of the stairs and entered another large room as empty as the one below.

“You did. I know you did.” He turned toward her and eased closer, tilting his head to avoid her hat. He was going to kiss her again, she knew, but he moved so slowly that by the time his lips were a hairsbreadth from hers, she couldn’t breathe. “You know how I know?” he whispered.

“How?” she whispered back.

His lips brushed hers. “Because I’m falling like a ninepin,” he said, and kissed her.

Chapter 17

N
icholas already knew kissing Belinda was akin to lighting matches in a room full of dynamite. There were sure to be explosions, he just never knew how singed he’d end up. In kissing her moments ago on the sidewalk, he’d figured the best he could hope for was a slap across the face, but when that hadn’t happened, he’d figured his chances in private weren’t quite as dismal as he’d previously thought. But even here, away from any prying eyes, he’d never expected this.

He hadn’t expected her mouth to open under his without any coaxing at all, or her arms to entwine around his neck to pull him closer. And when he tore his mouth from hers and pulled back to gather his wits and make sure this wasn’t some smashing, damnably erotic dream, he certainly didn’t expect her to grasp his face in her hands, kiss him four times, and frantically gasp, “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”

Stopping was the last thing he wanted to do, but he felt he had to at least try and be noble. “Belinda—”

“If you keep talking,” she interrupted, “I’ll start thinking how mad it all is and what the consequences might be. I don’t want to think about consequences, Nicholas. Just shut up and kiss me again.”

When he didn’t move, she rose up on her toes and kissed him, and with that contact, he knew the responsible, dependable man he was trying to become was in serious jeopardy.

“No, no,” he said as he broke the kiss, the arousal rushing through his body making him feel a bit desperate. “Think, Belinda, do. Because if you don’t, it won’t be long before I won’t be able to. And at that point, it’ll be agony to stop.”

“You’re a rake,” she reminded, brushing his lips with hers as if it was her turn to tease and coax. “Why should you stop?”

He said the first thing that came into his head. “Because you won’t respect me in the morning.”

She gave a stifled giggle against his mouth.

“Why do you always laugh when I’m
not
making a joke,” he muttered against her lips, “and never laugh when I am?” He turned his head away, but he only got far enough for his lips to graze the satiny skin of her cheek before his resolve began weakening again. He compromised, nuzzled her ear, inhaling the intoxicating scent of her perfume. “You think all the wrong things are funny.”

“Do I?” She gave a shiver of pleasure as he pressed a kiss to her ear. “Oh,” she gasped, a soft, hushed sound in the empty room.

He pulled her earlobe into his mouth, sucking gently, as his hands slid down between them to shape and cup her breasts through her clothes. Any minute now, he thought, she’ll come to her senses and tell me to sod off. Any minute now.

She didn’t. Her breathing quickened, her head falling back to rest against the wall behind her, and her hips pressed up toward his.

The pleasure of it was almost unbearable, and he clenched his jaw, resisting valiantly, trying to think not about what he wanted but about what was right. “We can’t,” he said with a groan. “I don’t want it this way. Not for us.”

Even as he said it, he proved himself a liar, for his hands grasped at the fashionably narrow folds of her skirt, pulling them up to get his hands beneath. She didn’t help him, but she didn’t stop him either, and he managed it at last on his own. As his palms glided up her thighs, he could feel the heat of her skin through the thin fabric of her knickers.

He was losing his head; his wits went down another notch with every inch his hands went higher. Even so, he tortured himself by moving slowly, exploring the shape of her legs—the dents of muscle along the outside of her thighs, over the undulating curve of her hip, to her behind. Shoving up her bustle, he allowed himself one quick, frantic exploration of her shapely buttocks before sliding his hands to the front.

He wanted to touch her bare skin somewhere, anywhere. He slid his hands across her abdomen, wondering why the hell women had to wear so many clothes, then he shoved his fingers up underneath her stiff whalebone corset and curved them inside the waistbands of petticoats and drawers, and when the backs of his fingers finally touched the soft skin of her belly, his reaction was immediate and unexpected. His knees buckled beneath him.

He groaned, his hand tightening around folds of muslin and his body pressing hers to the wall so that he could stay upright.

It took him a second or two to regain his balance and his equilibrium, but not enough to find the will to stop. “You’re killing me, Belinda,” he panted, pressing kisses to her face, her throat, and her hair as his knuckles grazed her belly under her tightly fitted clothes. “Killing me by inches.”

He caressed her as best he could, but the tiny little patch of bare skin to which he had access wasn’t going to be enough to satisfy either of them. He pulled back, thinking to withdraw, but his resolve crumbled when she gave a moan of protest, and he worked his hands beneath her petticoats to more promising territory.

He shaped her thigh, then eased his hand between her legs, and even though he was probably proving himself to be the very same libertine she’d declared she could never respect, when he turned his hand and cupped her mound, he didn’t care.

Her knickers were damp, she was ready, and at the touch of his hand, she cried out. He stifled the sound with a kiss, for though he desperately wanted to hear her cries of pleasure at his touch, he didn’t want anyone else to hear, and he didn’t think all the broken windows had been replaced.

He kissed her, taking her sounds of pleasure into his mouth, relishing the way her body moved against his hand, but he didn’t have the chance to relish it for long. Her hips jerked frantically against him two—three—times, then she cried out, coming in a rush so quick it startled him, her thighs clenching tight around his hand, her subsequent cries of pleasure hushed by his kiss. When she collapsed into the aftermath, breathing hard against his chest, he caught her with an arm around her waist and held her tight, slowly easing his other hand from between her thighs as he pressed kisses to her hair.

He wanted, more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life, to unbutton his trousers, lift that lovely, luscious bum in his hands, and take her; to be inside her and feel her legs wrap around him would be like heaven. But he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want her like that, against a wall. Not when he was trying to be a better man.

Drawing on willpower he didn’t even know he possessed, he tore himself away, extricating himself from muslin and cashmere and sweet-scented woman. Shaking his head, trying to regain some semblance of sanity, he took several steps back, enough steps that she was out of his reach.

“Why—” She broke off, panting, her eyes wide and almost gray in the dusky twilight. Her skirts were still up above her knees, too tight across her hips to fall to the floor on their own. Her bustle and hat were askew. She looked utterly ravished, and though the ache in his groin was a painful reminder that he wasn’t, he realized that didn’t really matter at all. It was satisfaction enough just to look at her.

“You stopped.” It sounded almost like an accusation.

“I had to. If I took you here, now, like this, it would be . . .” He paused, trying to find the words to explain. “It would just be wrong.”

He couldn’t help laughing at himself as he said it, for he appreciated what an inadequate explanation it was, and one that he’d never made before. In the entire thirty years of his life, he’d never been the one to say stop, but hell, he seemed to be doing all manner of unaccountable things lately.

She ducked her head, and a pink tint washed into her cheeks at the sight of her hem up around her hips. She pushed at the folds of wool and muslin, settling the layers of her dress back into place.

“I don’t blame you,” she said without looking at him, and her voice was so stiff, he felt as if the floor were opening up beneath his feet. That’s what chivalry and responsibility did for a fellow.

“After what happened two weeks ago,” she went on, “it’s no wonder you’re chary. One day I’m shoving you away and ripping you to shreds, and the next, I’m begging you to make love to me.” She gave a little laugh, the color in her cheeks deepening. “You must think me the most inconsistent, muddleheaded woman in the world.”

“I don’t.” He stepped forward and caught her arm as she started to turn for the stairs. “I don’t think that at all. But look where we are at this moment. I don’t want to take you for the first time against a factory wall with my trousers around my knees.”

“Oh.” She was scarlet now. “I suppose you’re right. I—I didn’t think of that.”

Despite the damnable situation, he couldn’t help a chuckle at that, and he could tell she didn’t know what he found so amusing. “In situations such as this,” he explained, “it’s usually the woman who manages to keep her head.”

That earned him a smile though it was a rueful one. That impudent nose of hers wrinkled a bit. “Are you saying I’m not fulfilling my proper womanly role?”

Nicholas glanced down, thinking wistfully of when he’d had her with her skirts up around her waist. Ah, well. He looked back up to meet her gaze again. “I can’t imagine you ever being anything but womanly, Belinda.”

Her smile widened, losing its rueful quality and revealing how much what he’d said pleased her. It caught him square in the chest, that smile. It lifted him up to the sky, and yet he knew he’d never had his feet more firmly planted on the ground.

“Come down to Kent,” he said. “Come to Honeywood and stay with me there. Be with me.”

He watched her smile go, and he cursed himself for pushing too fast, too soon. He hadn’t meant to say those words; they’d just come tumbling out, and now, there they were, hanging in the air like an awful mistake. She’d say no. What other answer could he expect? Did he think two weeks and one stab at making his own way would be all it took to change her opinion of him?

He watched her open her mouth to reply, and not wanting to hear her refuse, he rushed on, “I’m not expecting anything. I’m
hoping
, of course, but that’s not really the same thing, is it? At least, I hope it isn’t to you. But . . . but either way, if you came down, I could show you everything. The hops and barley fields, the brewery, the house and all its God-awful furnishings—” He broke off, painfully aware that it was the most inarticulate, unromantic-sounding offer he’d ever made to a woman, and that it was also the most important one. Why would she want to look at barley fields and his family’s ghastly paintings? He wanted to kick himself in the head.

She pressed her lips together, and he had no idea if she were about to give him a set down or if she was trying not to smile. He waited, heart in his throat.

“Let me think about it.”

Disappointment pierced him, which made no sense, for he hadn’t expected her to say yes anyway, but he gave a nod and gestured to the nearby stairs. “It’s growing dark. We should go down.”

She started to descend, but then she stopped, one hand on the rail. “Nicholas?” When he halted behind her, she turned to look at him over her shoulder. “I didn’t say no.”

She turned away and continued on down the stairs, missing the grin that spread across his face. That was probably for the best, he reasoned, following her down the stairs. As he’d told her before, a chap couldn’t go around wearing his whole heart on his sleeve. Not all the time anyway.

H
ONEYWOOD WAS EXACTLY
as he remembered. The hops still reminded him of Guards of Honor, their support poles pointed skyward like sabers drawn. The cottage gardens still put on a splendid display of color in the month of June, the half-timbering and ivy-covered brick of the house were still charming, and Forbisher, the butler, was still a tall, commanding presence despite his advanced years. The furnishings, unfortunately, were still hideous.

As he paused in the foyer to hand Forbisher his hat and gloves, he stared at the lurid chartreuse and grape papier-mâché tables that flanked the front doors with an affectionate sort of horror—rather as one might regard one’s grandmother as she ate her peas off her knife in front of the Prince of Wales.

“And may I say . . .” Forbisher paused a moment, his Adam’s apple bobbing a bit as he swallowed hard. Clearing his throat, he tried again, “It is good to see you back at Honeywood again, my lord.”

“Why, Forbisher,” he said, tickled by the way the old fellow jutted up his chin, “you seem almost . . . moved by my return.”

“Moved, my lord?” The butler’s eyes widened just a fraction, as if the idea of showing emotion were akin to falling into the pit of hell.

“Forgive me,” Nicholas said at once. “I was mistaken.”

Pacified, Forbisher gestured to the spare, gaunt figure in black crepe beside him. “You remember Mrs. Tumblety, of course.”

“Indeed, I do.” He smiled at the housekeeper. “Not losing your keys nowadays, I hope?”

“That hasn’t happened since you were a boy, my lord,” she said, an answering smile tipping the corners of her mouth. “It’s been a long time since the days when you’d tiptoe up behind me and slip them off the hook.”

“A very long time,” he agreed, and looked past her. “Mrs. Moore in the kitchens, I assume?”

“No, my lord,” Forbisher told him. “Mrs. Moore’s knees finally gave out on her last winter, I’m afraid.”