“You could not impose,” he said. “That is, I’ve imposed on your hospitality so many times throughout the years that the very idea is nonsense.” Very carefully, he chose his next words. “Indeed, I want you to know that I would consider you more than guests. You should consider this to be your very own home in town.” Mrs. Sheldrake pressed her lips together, shocked or disapproving, but Laura bent her head to disguise a smile. This encouraged him. “I hope,” he said lightly, “that the lack of my uncle’s antiques will not discomfit you too much, Miss Sheldrake.”
“Oh, no,” she said softly. “Not at all.”
All right, he was remembering the way of it now. And so was she, apparently. She’d formed an ardent attachment to him when he was at Eton, doing everything possible to win his attention. Once she’d told him that she would name her first son Anaximander. The first mapmaker in recorded history; what a fine legacy to bequeath! And—he smiled a little, remembering his sober, officious tone—he’d cautioned her against it. It will be your job as a wife to trammel rash whims, not to encourage them. Anaximander! Good grief, he’d be thrashed every night at school. “Tell me,” he said. “Are you still determined to curse your sons with terrible names?”
She remembered instantly; there was no need to explain it. She blushed and gazed at her feet. “Philip or Stephen would do, I expect.”
Mrs. Sheldrake made a sharp noise and came to her feet. “Well, we must be off, I fear. We plan to see the Crace collection at the museum before our train departs.”
Laura, looking startled, rose as well. He came to his feet, understanding from the narrow look Mrs. Sheldrake gave him that she saw him a bit more clearly than her daughter did. You have bought us a house, that look said, but you have not bought us. “I understand,” he told her, and then, after a pause, added, “It’s a very fine exhibit.”
“Hullo!”
Good God. How the hell had she gotten out?
Her cheery announcement won the ladies’ instant and wide-eyed attention. He turned. She was draped along one side of the doorframe, a small, curvaceous package done up in scarlet silk. “Miss Masters,” he said. There was no help for it; he had to introduce her, as she well knew and had certainly counted upon. “Do come in.”
As she let go of the door and slinked toward them, he caught sight of his pathetic, incompetent, bloody fool of a footman skidding to a stop outside the door. He gave Gompers a small shake of his head, which turned into an astonished double take as the full effect of Miss Masters’s gown became clear. All at once, he understood that his earlier unease had been a premonition of disaster. The gown had no structure or tailoring, save for the high, square neckline and the capped sleeves. The gold sash tied at her waist drew the thin fabric tight around her hips, announcing, very bluntly, that she did not wear a corset.
At her next step, petticoats also began to seem doubtful.
He cut a glance to Laura, who was gawking. Eton had yet to embrace the aesthetic style, and this was a very rude introduction. “Mrs. Sheldrake,” he said. “Miss Sheldrake. Allow me to present to you my cousin.”
“How do you do,” Laura said faintly. Mrs. Sheldrake managed a nod, and cast him a glance in which he read a story of deep disappointment, of sad suspicions confirmed.
“Smashingly,” Miss Masters replied. “I got your globe, I think? Very pretty, very…round?”
Laura cast him a horrified look. God above, did she think he’d given the thing away so quickly? “Miss Masters’s luggage was delivered today,” he said. “The servants must have mixed your very kind gift with her things.”
“Yes,” Miss Masters said cheerily, “that’s what I assumed.” She reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. To complete the artistic effect, she’d left it unbound, and it fell in a shimmering sheet to the tops of her thighs, the shade of sunlight on a cold winter day. The ladies gawked at it. He could not blame them. It seemed she was a better businesswoman than he’d guessed; that hair was the best damned advertisement for hair tonic imaginable.
He wrenched his eyes away. Laura was looking rapidly between him and his new family member as though her opinion, too, was rapidly being revised. “But I thought…” She put a hand to her cheek. “How lovely to hear you’ve reconciled with your family.”
“Laura,” Mrs. Sheldrake chided, but without much force. Her eyes rested on the doorway, probably awaiting the appearance of the chaperone that etiquette demanded. Damn it.
Miss Masters seemed oblivious to the complexities of the moment, including the progressive stiffening of her new acquaintances as the doorway remained empty. No surprise there—she had, after all, been raised among wolves, or in America; he was not sure there was a difference. “Yes,” he said. “The reconciliation was a surprise to me as well.”
“But a happy one,” said Miss Masters. She slipped her arm through his; she was definitely not wearing a corset. He could feel the soft weight of her breast pressing against his elbow, and for a second, his awareness contracted to that single sensation. He forced himself to attend to her words, to ignore the warmth of her body and how it brought back to mind, with sudden and searing immediacy, the taste of her skin. “We decided, why bother with all that silliness our parents started? Blood is thicker than water, after all.” She paused as if struck; her expression gave him an inkling of what was coming. “Why, what a clever turn of phrase,” she marveled, “how striking, don’t you think?” He blackly congratulated himself: at least he had a handle on one of her routines. “Yes, I should find a way to use it in my advertisements.”
Laura made a mild noise that might have signified interest, but also worked perfectly well to communicate disbelief. “Indeed, Miss Masters, very original.” She looked to Phin, her brow arching.
He sighed. If Miss Masters had decided to masquerade as the family idiot, then his own role had also been cast. He gave a small shrug, the noble, martyred relative.
It did not serve. Laura frowned. “I had no idea that you had American family.”
“Laura,” Mrs. Sheldrake said more sharply. Her daughter’s stress on the nationality had unwittingly made it sound like a slur.
He cleared his throat. “In fact—”
“And I had no idea you had country friends,” said Miss Masters. She was eyeing Laura head to toe; the gown did not appear to impress her. “How delightful. Wherever did you acquire them?”
He slipped his hand down to her wrist and squeezed a warning. In response, she snuggled closer into his side. He gritted his teeth and disengaged; he needed his hands free, in case he decided to throttle her.
Offense had tugged Laura’s shoulders rigid. Brilliant. “We are from Eton.”
“Precisely.” His voice emerged curtly. “I am surprised, cousin, that you do not recall the many, many times I’ve regaled you with tales of the Sheldrakes’ kindness.”
Miss Masters gave a shrug that made her breasts bounce in spectacular fashion. He looked quickly away, and found he was not the only one astonished; Mrs. Sheldrake was adjusting her spectacles, her mouth agape.
“You cannot expect me to remember everything you tell me,” Miss Masters said. “So”—this directed, laughingly, at Laura—“Eton, you say? Well, if I haven’t heard of it, you mustn’t blame me. I know very little of England.”
“I thought everyone knew Eton,” Mrs. Sheldrake said in bewilderment. “The school, at least.”
Laura slanted a wry smile at her mother. “Perhaps they do not pay attention to schooling in America.” Taking her mother’s arm, she addressed her next words to a point somewhere over his head. “You will excuse us, sir? We have a very tight schedule, if we wish to see the exhibit before our train departs.”
“Of course.” So much for nurturing old affections. Miss Masters had dropped into the scene like a cannonball, and if the detritus could survive an awkward exchange of letters at the holidays, he would count himself lucky.
He waited until the door had closed behind them, then turned on her.
&nbs
p; Her expression was sober now. “Do not lose your temper,” she said. “I wished to speak with you, and your knockabout footman clearly did not deliver my message last night.”
He stared at her, at her swelling breasts and loose hair and big eyes and small, grasping hands, and his irritation twisted into something more athletic. It was as if she were trying to make him misbehave. “Yes, he did,” he said through his teeth. “And I chose to ignore it.” She should be very grateful that he’d chosen to ignore it. The thought of paying her a midnight visit had appealed to him for darker reasons than conversation. “I will tell the footman and the maid to thank you for their sacking.”
She looked unimpressed. “It was not their fault, Ashmore. But”—she shrugged, and by dint of sheer vexation he managed to keep himself from glancing downward like a dog in heat—“if you’re really so unreasonable, I shall hire them. In the meantime, don’t you even wish to know what I have to tell you?”
“No,” he said. “All I wish is that you will stay in your rooms. Is that so difficult?” Christ. He sounded as though he were imploring her. He hardened his voice. “Perhaps I’ll have a hole cut in the door, so your meals can be slipped to you. What say you?”
She fell silent. And then a sarcastic smile bloomed across her lips. “I say, come and give a kiss to your long-lost cousin.”
Chapter Nine
Phin’s gaze narrowed on the quirk of her lips. It was not his lust framing this view; she did, indeed, goad him deliberately. “Are you having fun?”
Her smile did not waver. “At this point, I think I’ll take an opportunity wherever I find it.”
He shook his head in disbelief. After the incident in the study, after she had seen what he was capable of, the fact that she saw an opportunity with him made her foolish beyond measure. But then, the contretemps in the study was only one experience among many, and perhaps the others had misled her. Hurtling across dance floors at him, attacking him in dark hallways, tying him to beds, pushing him out windows—yes, she might have gotten the wrong idea. But all her triumphs over him had owed to favorable circumstances. And circumstances did not favor her now.
He took a step toward her. She cocked her head as if curious. He advanced another step, and her chin rose. At the third, it became clear that she was too rash to be cowed. He took her wrists and pulled them up between them. “Listen to me,” he growled, ignoring the fluttering of her lashes, the pretty, sarcastic O her lips formed. “This is my house. So long as you are under my roof, you will live by my rules. You will behave yourself, or I will not bother to spare you the consequences.”
The pulse beneath his fingertips was hammering, but the brat did a bang-up job of smirking at him. She was so short she had to crane her head back to meet his eyes. Her face was perfectly heart-shaped, and a small mole marked the corner of her right eye, as if the devil had pressed a dark kiss to the tender skin there, giving her his mark before unleashing her on humanity. She depended on this girlish appeal to excuse all manner of nonsense, but the world did not work that way. Her actions bore fruit, and she would eat the results.
“I haven’t broken your rule,” she said.
He applied pressure, forcing her a step backward. Her brief resistance gratified him; the full-bodied flush of pleasure was so intense that it awoke a stray wit, cautioning him to pause, to reconsider his strategy.
But then she smiled and retreated a step on her own, the slant of her lips framing it as a challenge, and by God, he was going to take it. His hands clamped down; they felt capable of doing things to her that his brain could not rationalize. I will lead an honorable life, he told himself every morning. But his body knew that honor was a luxury like any other; it required the right circumstances to flourish, and she seemed determined to deny him the opportunity. So be it. Let her enjoy herself.
He advanced, and she made a sarcastic little game of her retreat, hopping the first step, twisting her hips to sidle the next. She had no more sense than a child; alas, he could not turn her over his knee and spank her like one. The thought distracted him; he was barely aware when her back touched the flowered wallpaper. “Oh, how boring,” she said, and made a face. “I had hoped we might have a go around the room. It’s been so long since I’ve danced.”
Her temerity amazed him. “You are beyond stupid.”
“You said you should know where I am at all times.” She went up on her tiptoes to make a dramatic survey of the room over his shoulder. “I believe,” she said solemnly, going flat-footed again, “that this is the drawing room.”
She had no instinct for self-preservation. Her wrists felt fragile beneath his hands, as easily snapped as twigs.
Christ. What sort of thought was that?
He threw her hands away.
They thunked into the wall on either side of her head, but did not fall. She held them there in a posture of mocking submission, like the bloody devil’s handmaiden.
“Have a goddamned care,” he breathed.
Her lips played with the idea of a smile. “So fearsome,” she murmured. “Don’t hurt me.”
He recoiled physically. Those were words he’d vowed no one would ever say to him again, and she tossed them out like a dare. Did she think he’d been playacting in Hong Kong? Had it somehow escaped her what his role might have necessitated? Had she missed his rough handling the other night? “You bank on a great deal,” he said, and had to clear his throat to speak without hoarseness. “A good many men would wallop you. They would do worse.” He paused. “They would want to do worse,” he said quietly.
Her sea-blue eyes were guileless. “That’s very true, isn’t it? But I have no need to fear that you will.”
“Really?” He did not bother to restrain the mockery that entered his voice. “If you could hear my thoughts, you wouldn’t feel so certain.”
Her brow arched. “What? Do you want to strike me? To ravish me? You may speak them aloud; I won’t faint.”
The words seemed to brush directly against his groin. He dragged a hand over his face. There should be nothing erotic about this; God save him from his perversity. If setting her on him was Ridland’s idea of revenge, the man was even cleverer than he’d imagined. But her aim in this instance baffled Phin utterly. Slapped, killed, or fucked—these were the only ends she seemed to be inviting. She was inviting them. She wanted to hear about it.
The warmth rising from her pale skin briefly invaded his awareness. Flowers, yes, she smelled of lavender. What a ridiculously commonplace perfume for her. She required patchouli, sandalwood, ambergris—something complex and grossly unsuitable, to serve as a warning to hapless men.
But he was not hapless. The very idea that Ridland might have told her to bank on his lust utterly infuriated him. He leaned very close to her, letting her feel how much larger he was, how completely he might dominate her. “I warned you,” he said into her ear. Her hair was soft against his lips; he blew into it lightly to force her scent away from him. “I do not like being manipulated.”
Her cheek turned into his. He pulled away to avoid the contact, just enough to see her glance downward. “Part of you is beginning to like it very well.”
He realized with a shock that his lower body was pressed against hers, his cock as stiff as a poker. Good God. He withdrew a pace, his ears burning. “Are you shameless?”
“Not at present,” she said. “It requires significantly less clothing.”
He raked her with a look. “Judging by your costume, that could be accomplished very swiftly.”
She looked down at herself. “You underestimate the trickery of Liberty gowns. There are quite a lot of strings and things in this getup.”
He blew out a breath. He could handle this far better. Send her to her rooms, for a start. He did not need to tangle with her at all. That he was doing so bespoke a weakness on his part, and he knew well where the weakness resided. As she had pointed out, it was currently thriving.
Adopting a thoroughly, admirably, goddamned heroically reasona
ble tone, he said, “Miss Masters, I am going to take you upstairs. And you are going to stay there, if I have to tie you to a chair.”
She blinked. “I think Ridland might be working for Collins.”
It took him a beat to work out the meaning of this absurd string of words. And then he burst into a laugh. She created her own entertainment, all right. “Ridland.” He snorted. That power-hungry bastard could barely bring himself to answer to the government, much less to a two-bit piece of American scum. “If I’d known you had a talent for fiction, I would have supplied you with a pen and paper. Or was that what you were looking for in my study? You should have told me. I would have taken dictation for you.”
She lowered her hands to her sides. “Mock me if you like,” she said, her manner jarringly sober. “There was another agent from your government in Hong Kong.”
“Of course,” he said. “More than one, probably. It was a large operation.”
“Well, one of them was conspiring with Collins.” She spoke as though this news were momentous.
“Yes, Ridland mentioned that. What of it?”
For the first time in perhaps the entirety of their cursed acquaintance, she seemed thrown off guard. She wiggled her torso as if trying to cuddle into the wall, then put a knuckle into her mouth. What an abominable habit; he actually had to grit his teeth to prevent himself from telling her to stop sucking on it. The sound would drive him mad. He needed to adjust his trousers, but he would not do it in front of her; she would enjoy it too much. “But I don’t understand this,” she said, and her hand, thank God for small mercies, fell to her side. “Ridland knew about it? I didn’t mention a thing to him.”
He almost dismissed her remark. Of course Ridland knew there was a traitor; any thinking man would have assumed the existence of a turncoat the moment Collins slipped from prison without the aid of dynamite.
But as he started to speak, her denial abruptly reminded him of something: his own surprise at Ridland’s carelessness. I believe Miss Masters has some cause to fear a traitor among us, Ridland had told him. She will not be frank with me. I wonder if she hopes to trade her knowledge for her mother’s safe return. And Phin had thought, You’re growing sloppy to tell me that; it isn’t information I need to have. “You told him you had proof,” he said slowly.
Written on Your Skin Page 15
