Gareth swallowed. Would she let him—
She leaned down and kissed his chest where the ‘V’ of his rucked up shirt hung open. “You have very little hair on your chest.”
His hands froze.
She licked him. “You are not unlike a sculpture.”
Gareth cleared his throat, which seemed to crowd with foreign objects with each stroke of her tongue. “And is that good, or bad?” His voice was an unrecognizable croak.
She chuckled against his damp skin, her tongue and mouth headed toward his right nipple.
Gareth moaned and turned them both onto their sides. She slid a leg over his hip and continued her distracting licking and sucking while he began to move, his hand dropping between their bodies.
“Mmmm, yes please,” she whispered when he thumbed her slick, swollen pearl.
He moved slowly this time, his motions languorous and thorough, his muscle memory cataloguing her responses and storing them for future use, his mind hoping such knowledge would again be necessary.
***
Gareth gathered her clothing and then wandered down to the river while Serena dressed.
She finger-combed her damp hair, twisted it into a heavy rope, and pinned it down with the few pins she could find. She told herself she looked much the same as usual when she tied her bonnet over the wet, tangled mess.
She’d just finished shaking out the blanket and folding it when a voice called down from the hillside.
“Hallo, there!”
Serena’s head jerked up and a vile word escaped her mouth. She shot a glance at the river and saw Gareth was too far away to have heard her. But he had heard Etienne, and his face wore the first scowl she’d ever seen. He looked. . . menacing as he strode up the bank, intent on reaching the stranger trespassing on his land.
“Mr. Lockheart!”
He stopped immediately and turned.
She gave him a rueful smile that probably looked more like the grimace it truly was. “That is my cousin, I’m afraid.”
“Your cousin?” He glanced from Etienne—who was wearing clothes more suitable for a bordello than a day in the country—and back to Serena.
She went toward him, her eyes on Etienne, who was grinning from ear to ear and waving his walking stick as he staggered down the hillside in Hessians.
“His name is Etienne Bardot. I may have told you my mother was French?”
“Yes, you mentioned that.” His gaze, once again, as distant as the moon. “And does he live in these parts?”
“No, he stopped by several days ago on his way to Dover.” She could see he thought it odd nobody had mentioned a visitor and hastened to add. “It was only a brief visit, he had business waiting for him but mentioned he might stop by on his return.” She looked into his veiled eyes—so different from a few minutes earlier—and wanted to weep. The little bit of ease that had developed between them had disappeared. “There is no reason to—”
“I was told you’d come this way, Serena, but I didn’t know you were not alone.” Etienne’s sly smile and glinting eyes made her want to slap him.
“Mr. Lockheart, this is Etienne Bardot, my cousin. Etienne, this is my employer, Mr. Lockheart.”
Etienne dropped a creditable bow. “A pleasure, sir. My cousin has told me much about you,” he lied.
Although Gareth’s expression did not flicker, Serena knew this was unwelcome news to the intensely private man.
“I’ve told my cousin about my commission here, Mr. Lockheart.” She shot Etienne a venomous look that he ignored.
“So, you must be down here surveying the river for beautification?”
Serena did not trust herself to respond to his insinuating smirk and innuendo.
“We were on our way back to the house when you arrived.” Gareth’s voice was as chilly as his hard gray stare, and even Etienne’s good humor dimmed under the other man’s cool tone.
“Of course, of course. I will join you, if you do not mind.”
They made their way up the hill, Etienne’s inappropriate footwear slipping and skittering.
“You’ve just returned from Dover, Mrs. Lombard tells me.”
“Ah, yes.” Etienne grimaced down at a glob of mud on the toe of his once shiny boot.
“You had business there?”
“Yes, I did.” He swatted at the mud with the cane and only succeeded in cracking his toe. “Damn!”
Gareth cleared this throat and Etienne looked up, his eyes swiveling to the other man’s raised brow and Serena’s scowl.
“Oh, I beg your pardon for my vulgar language, cousin.” He left the boot alone and smiled at his host. “I have several interests down that way.”
“So do I,” Gareth said, “perhaps we share more connections?”
Etienne’s guilty conscience made him look apprehensive. “More?”
“Yes, besides our mutual acquaintance with Mrs. Lombard.”
“Ah, I see.” He chuckled, clearly relieved. Serena had not before realized just how stupid he was. And what a poor actor. Gareth Lockheart would scent the lies on him like a hound scented a fox.
“Er, no, I doubt that is so. I am new to England, as Mrs. Lombard may have told you.”
“Mrs. Lombard has told me nothing about you.”
Again, Etienne chuckled. “I am crushed to hear it.” He smiled at Serena, but his eyes were as hard as iron. “Especially when I consider her my favorite cousin.”
“You have many cousins, Mr. Bardot?”
Although Mr. Lockheart’s voice sounded the same as usual, the sheer volume of words he’d spoken since leaving the river betrayed his suspicion to anyone who’d spent any time around him. Serena prayed her cousin would shut up, but Etienne had always considered himself the smartest man in any room.
“Only the one in England.”
“Two.”
“I beg your pardon?” Etienne asked.
“You have two cousins here—Mrs. Lombard and her son.”
Etienne laughed, even though Mr. Lockheart had said nothing amusing. “Yes, that is true. How foolish of me. Now he would be my second cousin? Or first cousin, once removed?” He waved his lavender-gloved hand. “I can never recall such distinctions.”
“You have come to visit your cousins for a few days, Mr. Bardot? Tomorrow we will have something of an event, followed by celebrations in town. Mrs. Lombard has organized it all—a dinner and small dance at the King’s Head, our local inn.”
Etienne was momentarily rendered speechless by his offer. So was Serena. Not only at Gareth’s uncharacteristic effusiveness, but at the sheer horror of having Etienne anywhere within a hundred leagues of her son.
Etienne’s face flushed—most likely in anticipation of what he could steal if he was allowed to run tame in Gareth’s house.
“Why thank you, Mr. Lockheart, I should be delighted to stay for a spell. Tell me, what is this event you speak of?”
The remainder of the walk was given over to Etienne’s disingenuous interest in the rock moving and Gareth’s strangely comprehensive explanations.
Meanwhile, Serena’s mind spun and whirled trying to figure out a way to get the man who’d raped her, fathered her child, and was now blackmailing her, out of the house before he did something stupid and exposed her lies, as well as his own.
Chapter Fifteen
Gareth did not know what was between Serena and Etienne Bardot, but he suspected it was not cousinly affection.
While he couldn’t identify exactly what he sensed, he wasn’t willing to dismiss his keen perception when it came to subjects that interested him. And nothing had ever interested him as much as Serena Lombard.
Gareth knew he should feel ashamed at the relief that had washed over him when Bardot arrived and saved him from having to make sensible conversation with a woman whom he’d just mounted not once, but twice. But his relief had overwhelmed any shame or remorse.
Right or wrong, Dec’s words
had taken root into his mind the way lichen penetrated brick and mortar: “You’ve let your wealth soften your brain; you are from the London gutter and she was the husband of a duke’s son. Trust me Gareth, fine women might come to men like us for a bit of rough, but they will never do more than take us to their beds.”
Venetia’s observations couldn’t have been more different than Dec’s.
So, he had two friends with completely different opinions of his situation. Which one of them should he believe?
Gareth told himself the answer was irrelevant. He would ask for her hand in marriage no matter which of his friends he decided he believed. If she did not want him, he would be disappointed, but he’d weathered disappointment many times and survived. Still, he did not wish to offer for her if it would only put her in the unpleasant position of having to decline her employer.
In any event, he had time to decided; he could not speak to her on the subject with her cousin present.
Etienne Bardot was a man who liked to hear himself talk. He might rival even Dec on that score. But while Declan McElroy was amusing, witty, and—ultimately—kind, Bardot was self-centered, vain, and uninteresting. He also clung to his cousin like a limpet.
Not until Serena had excused herself—close to midnight—did Bardot leave for his own chambers.
Gareth heaved a sigh of relief when he had the library to himself. He’d hardly had a second away from Bardot since meeting the man. When he’d gone to the lake to deliver the specially made rope net he’d had made, Bardot came with him. When he came down to dinner early, hoping to catch up on some correspondence before dining, Bardot was waiting to play a game of billiards with him.
He’d talked non-stop through dinner about his activities in London—gambling, shooting, and boxing at Jacksons—his excursion to some friend’s hunting box last fall, the warm reception he’d received from Serena’s housemate, the lovely and distinguished Lady Winifred Sedgwick—and on and on. When Serena left them to their port Bardot consumed the better part of a bottle in thirty minutes.
Gareth had half worried, half hoped that Serena would have already gone to bed when they returned to the library, because then he’d have felt entitled to go up to his chambers, as well.
But she’d been waiting for them.
She’d listened to her cousin talk, served tea, and finally begged they excuse her, her usually sunny face tight and drawn.
Gareth had extricated himself from Bardot’s clutches soon after, leaving him alone in the library.
***
Serena paced like a cat in a cage. It was past one o’clock, and she knew Gareth had returned to his room not long after midnight because she’d heard his distinctive step as he’d passed her door.
Etienne’s room was directly across from hers. Serena knew that because she’d asked Jessup to put him there. The old butler had not shown any interest by even a flicker of his eyelid, but she’d known that her request surprised him. No doubt he believed they were lovers. People tended to think she had looser morals, being French. It didn’t matter that the reality was the opposite; French women from her class would never have been allowed the liberty she had in England. It was unfortunate Jessup would now question her morals, but that was far better than him knowing the truth.
She’d heard Etienne’s door open and close a half hour after Gareth went to bed, so she’d pulled a chair close to her door and sat, preparing to spend the night at her vigil. But her legs and feet had twitched so badly she’d had to pace, her ears straining to hear movement outside.
Sure enough, the nearly inaudible sound of a door clicking shut reached her ears just as the clock out in the hall struck two.
Serena opened her door and caught him headed toward the staircase, garbed in his night clothes.
“Etienne!” Her whisper was like the crack of a pistol in the dead silence of the hall and he jumped and gave a gratifying squeak of surprise before whirling around.
Serena opened the door wider and motioned for him to come inside. She shut the door soundlessly behind him and turned; Etienne’s color was high and his chest was heaving.
“What do you want?” he demanded, his fists resting on hips covered by a ridiculously gaudy purple and gold-trimmed robe.
“Where were you going?” she demanded in French.
His eyes flickered over her, his lips twisting when he saw she was still dressed in her clothes from dinner. “Waiting for me, were you?”
“Please tell me you are not planning to steal from this house.”
He lifted a shoulder and dropped his arms before spinning on his slippered heel, prowling her room with deliberation. “What is it to you?”
“It is my job, Etienne. A position that is paying me well—which means I can pay you well. But not if I get sacked because my cousin has light fingers.”
Again he shrugged, lifting the lid of her jewelry cask with one finger and then letting it fall again when he saw the cheap paste jewels it contained.
“The shipment I was expecting in Dover was lost. One of the men who worked for me was captured by excisemen, two of the others killed.”
Serena’s fingers itched to strangle him. “What did you expect? The English have been patrolling the coast in ever-increasing numbers, even I know that.”
“They know who I am.”
Serena covered her face with both hands and sagged against the door. “Please tell me you did not use your real name.”
He turned on her, all the fear he’d been hiding now evident on his face. “Don’t be a fool! But they know what I look like, and it will not be long before descriptions of me circulate the coast.”
“So stay in London.”
“It’s not so simple.”
“Why not?” Serena had to fight to keep from yelling.
He grimaced and shoved a hand through his carefully disheveled hair, disheveling it further. “I owe money.”
Serena could not have heard him correctly. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me, dammit!”
“I cannot believe this.”
For once, he had nothing snide or witty to say. “I had a run of bad luck, on top of another run of bad luck. If the shipment had come in this week, I would have been fine. But now?” He heaved a sigh of self-pity that made her want to take his head off.
“I have another delivery scheduled for next week.”
“What?” She didn’t wait for him to speak. “You must get word to them—they must not come or more people could die.”
“If I don’t get that shipment I will be ruined.”
He was even more loathsome than she’d always suspected. Serena marched to the cheap looking jewel box and dumped it out, its pitiful contents spilling over the dressing table. She took a hat pin and jabbed it into the bottom of the box, prying it up. Underneath was a necklace given to her by the duke’s mother. It was worth thousands, or at least it had been before she’d sold several jewels. She picked it up and hurled it at his head.
He ducked, but the clasp grazed his cheek.
“Are you mad?” he demanded, running a finger over the small bloody scratch and holding it out for inspection. When she didn’t answer, he bent and picked up the necklace, his eyes widening. “You have been holding out on me,” he accused.
“Take it. Tomorrow you will leave, and I will not see your wretched face again. This is the last time I will allow you to squeeze even a pence from me, Etienne. I promise you, if you come to me again, I will have you arrested for blackmail, which is a crime. I will leave the country and go back to France. Unlike you, I can earn my own way in life. Now, tell me how to get word to the men risking their lives to bring you goods.”
He swept her with a look that oozed scorn. “Why do you care about those strangers? Besides, what can you do about it?”
Then and there, Serena decided she would kill him if he did not leave tomorrow. Maybe he saw something in her eyes, because his hand tightened around the
glittering jewels.
“Fine, do what you want—do something stupid and get yourself killed for a handful of strangers, for all I care. Get a quill and paper. You will need to write this down.”
Serena wrote down directions to a smuggler shack, names of three men—if you considered Pickaxe, Longfoot, and Derby to be names—and the nonsense phrase which would get their attention: fresh mackerel for a song.
“How can they even think of getting a message through with the channel crawling with excisemen?”
“You don’t understand these men; they are like rats, they need only the tiniest gap to squeeze through.”
“And why would they agree to perform this service?”
“Because they get part of the shipment. Also, if the men coming over are caught it’s possible they might give up their names to the excisemen.”
She nodded. “Very well. How much time do I have?”
“I would not leave it beyond the end of the week.” He caught her wrist and squeezed. “Why are you doing this?”
“Can you really be so stupid?” She wrenched away. “You know why. If they find you it is only one more step to me and Oliver. If the man they have now doesn’t talk, the next ones they get might.” Her voice shook with anger at his stupidity and the danger it had put them all in.
“What will you tell them?”
“I’m going to tell them you’re dead.”
He flinched away from her. “That’s a bit severe, is it not?”
“Do you wish to evade capture or not? If they think you dead, the word will spread. You may be lucky enough to avoid their interest altogether.”
A slow, ugly smile curved his lips. “You would have made a fine criminal, Serena.”
“Thanks to you, I am one.”
He laughed and sauntered toward the door.
“Wait!” she hissed, but he’d already opened it and stepped into the hall. “Etienne!”
He turned and leaned close. “Yes, my dear?”
“Don’t forget. You will be gone in the morning.”
He grinned, and with lightning speed lowered his mouth over hers, giving her a big, wet kiss before she could pull away.
A Figure of Love Page 18
