It had then been merely a question of Dante instructing his own luggage be placed on his carriage before he returned to Aston House with all haste. He had arrived just in time to see Bella’s luggage being loaded aboard her carriage, an indication Bella’s appearance in the stable yard was imminent.
She had emerged from her house just minutes ago, covered from neck to toe in a black cloak, a dark blue bonnet covering her dark curls.
Dante’s anger at her duplicity was still such that he thought it best to keep his distance from her for the moment. “Might I ask where you intended going?”
“You might well ask,” she confirmed. “And there is no past tense about it. I fully intend to retrieve my maid and driver and leave London as soon as this conversation is over.”
One of Dante’s grooms arrived in the cobbled yard and, at a nod from him, moved to Bella’s carriage to begin removing her luggage.
“What are you doing?” She stepped forward in alarm.
“Having your luggage placed in my carriage, which is currently waiting on the road at the back of this house,” Dante answered mildly. “You will very shortly be joining it.” He nodded to the groom to depart with Bella’s assorted bags.
Her hands clenched at her sides. “I have no intention of entering your carriage.”
“I did not say you would do so voluntarily.”
Bella gasped her disbelief. “You intend to kidnap me?”
Dante gave the suggestion some thought before drawling, “I prefer to think of it as beginning our journey earlier than expected.”
“You might prefer all you please,” she snapped. “But as I have no wish to go to Huntingdonshire with you, I shall consider it a kidnapping. As such, I will report your behavior to the authorities at the earliest opportunity.”
“I doubt any will listen to you,” he dismissed in a bored voice.
“Are you so powerful, then,” she scorned, “that a lady’s claim to having been kept a prisoner against her will by you will be ignored?”
“Yes,” he confirmed bluntly and without apology. The mission he was presently embarked upon went all the way to the Prince Regent. The instructions had been specific: they were to ascertain the information required, by fair means or foul. For the moment, Dante was being forced by Bella herself to use the latter. “And we are no longer going to Huntingdonshire.”
“Not…?” She looked bewildered.
Dante shook his head. “I received another letter earlier this evening telling me the dowager had died shortly after the first letter was sent.”
“Oh.” Her anger deflated somewhat.
“Indeed.” He grimaced.
“That is…unfortunate.”
“But not, as we were already aware, unexpected.”
Bella’s frown was troubled. “I wish I felt more at her passing, but in truth, I cannot claim to feel much of anything.”
Dante, as Bella had guessed earlier today, could not claim to be particularly saddened by the dowager’s death either. He had only been answering the summons to Huntley Park at all out of respect for his deceased uncle.
And as a convenient reason to call upon Bella and request she accompany him to Huntingdonshire.
The dowager duchess’s death had meant he’d had to hurriedly make other arrangements to be alone with Bella in order to demand answers to his questions. A limited time now that he was forced to return to Huntley Park to make the necessary arrangements for the dowager’s funeral. Bella’s attempt to leave London this evening without him had required he bring forward those plans.
It was also the reason for his current impatience and anger.
Bella’s expression sharpened. “If the dowager is now dead, and there is no longer any reason for me to go to Huntingdonshire with you, why are you still insisting I am to go in your carriage with you?”
A question Dante had no intention of answering quite yet. Instead, he stepped forward to take a firm grip of Bella’s arm.
“Take your hand off me!” She attempted to release herself as Dante pulled her along beside him to where his carriage waited.
“You will only succeed in bruising yourself,” he warned grimly as he maintained that hold despite her struggles.
“I am already bruised from our earlier encounter,” she accused heatedly as they approached the black ducal carriage.
It had never been Dante’s wish to hurt Bella. Not physically nor in any other way. But the fact she was trying to leave London in the dead of night did nothing to allay his suspicion she might be a spy. She could merely be trying to escape him, of course, but even that supposition was not without questions that would need to be answered.
“I demand to know where you are taking me,” she insisted as Dante pushed her inside his lit carriage before removing his top hat and following her inside. He closed the door behind him, then sat opposite her.
Dante’s smile lacked humor in the carriage’s lamplight as he placed his hat on the seat beside him. “If I were to tell you that, then you could no longer accuse me of kidnapping you.” He tapped the roof of the carriage to signal his driver to depart. “I am more than willing to play the game of your captive to my abductor if it pleases you,” he added huskily.
“It is not a game if it is the truth.” Even in her indignation and distress, Bella could see this was a far superior vehicle to her own, with plush upholstery and curtains at the widows. The suspension was also first class, as the carriage began to move down the cobbled road with none of the rocking from side to side that she often experienced in her own carriage.
None of which changed the fact she was here against her will. A fact Dante St. Just seemed to think would hold no sway whatsoever with the authorities, when or if she were free to report the matter.
“Once my butler becomes aware I have been spirited away, he will immediately go to the authorities,” she predicted somewhat triumphantly.
The duke shrugged his broad shoulders. “And they in turn will jump to the conclusion that you have come away with me voluntarily because the two of us are involved in an affair. It will cause a scandal, but none will attempt to pursue us or rescue you.”
She snorted. “And why on earth should anyone think we are intimately involved when none of my household staff had so much as set eyes on you before today?”
Dante was loath to reveal too much of his plans to Bella. But on the subject of her rescue, he wanted her to have no doubts. “I have left behind an…indication, proof, of the intimacy of our relationship, conveniently sitting on top of the desk for all to see in my study at Huntley House.”
She frowned. “What sort of proof?”
“A love letter from you agreeing to come away with me this evening.”
She drew her breath in sharply. “I wrote no such letter.”
“It is enough that others will believe you did. Damn it, you left me no choice when you decided to leave town this evening,” he snapped as she glared at him accusingly.
“Why are you doing this?” Her bewilderment deepened. “We have barely acknowledged each other these past seven years, and all of a sudden you seem determined I am to leave London with you, even against my will.”
He bared his teeth in the grimace of a smile. “Perhaps I am tired of fighting my desire for you and am now overcome with the lust to possess you.”
Bella made a sound somewhere between a snort and derisive laughter. “And perhaps it is true that pigs really can fly!”
Dante ignored the sarcasm. “You have yet to tell me where you were traveling to tonight.”
Her spine stiffened. “I do not owe you any explanations either.”
“Unfortunately, that is exactly what you will very shortly be giving me,” he assured her grimly.
“What do you mean?” Bella appeared totally confused by the statement.
Dante sighed. “We will talk once we have reached our destination.”
“Which is?”
“My hunting lodge.”
“Which is where?�
�
Dante gave a humorless smile. “You can keep asking me the same question, and in a dozen different ways, but my response will still be to refuse to answer you directly.” If Bella had no idea of her destination, then she could not reveal it to others, either when they stopped at an inn later tonight or when they stopped briefly for luncheon tomorrow.
“Surely it is reasonable for me to want to know where you’re taking me.”
“As reasonable as it is that I refuse to answer you.”
Bella frowned her frustration. “At least you might tell me how long we will be traveling.”
“Perhaps two hours this evening, until we are safely away from London, and then we will seek accommodation for the rest of the night. Several more hours’ travel tomorrow will see us reaching our destination.”
Her eyes widened. “We will be staying somewhere overnight?”
“I have just said so.”
“I do not even have my maid with me!”
He eyed her mockingly. “I do not believe maids or valets are required when a couple decide to go away together.”
She gave another snort. “You do not believe, or you know?”
Dante’s gaze sharpened. “Let us get one thing clear from the onset, Bella. Insulting me will only succeed in annoying me even more than I am already at your intention to disappear from London without my knowledge. Not a wise thing for you to do, in the circumstances.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I am offering words of advice.”
“Which, coming from the arrogant Duke of Huntley, sounds distinctly like a threat.”
“Take it in whatever way you wish.” He settled more comfortably in his seat. “I suggest, as we will be traveling for a further two hours, you try to get some rest.”
Bella glared her frustration as Dante folded his arms across that wide chest before closing his eyes and giving every indication of taking his own advice by falling asleep.
It was infuriating. He was infuriating.
Dante’s behavior in spiriting her off into the night was also worrying.
Not that she thought for a moment Dante intended harming her in any way. Indeed, he was a gentleman who had no need to resort to physical domination when a verbal one succeeded so well.
This situation simply made no sense to her. Dante made no sense to her. And yet he seemed to have gone to an awful lot of trouble to remove her from London. Including writing a letter, supposedly from her, implying the two of them were involved in an affair.
What possible reason could he have for such behavior?
Whatever it was, she acknowledged with a glare across the carriage at his sleeping form, he obviously had no intention of satisfying her curiosity quite yet.
“Time to wake up, Bella.” Dante gently shook her shoulder.
Despite what Bella might have thought to the contrary earlier, Dante had not been asleep but had merely closed his eyes to put an end to a conversation that was going round and round in the same never-ending circle.
Within minutes of his doing so, he knew by the even tenor of Bella’s breathing that she had fallen asleep, giving him opportunity to study her without censure or interruption.
Her cloak was wrapped about her securely in the cool of the night, but she had removed her bonnet, revealing slightly disheveled and glossy black curls. Her face appeared ethereally pale in the lamplight, and her closed lids meant he could no longer see those deep brown eyes. Neither detracted from the beauty of her smooth complexion, high cheekbones, pert nose, and full and slightly parted lips.
Dante’s cock had surged to attention merely from looking at her.
He had continued to observe her, and suffer that increasingly painful and hard throb of his erection, until they arrived the predicted two hours later at the inn Dante frequented whenever he traveled this way. Realizing he needed to rouse Bella from her slumber, Dante signaled his groom to wait before opening the carriage door.
The blank look in Bella’s eyes when she opened her lids and saw Dante sitting beside her was proof she was slightly disorientated, by both his presence and her surroundings.
That emotion was quickly dispelled the moment she obviously recalled where she was and whom she was with. She sat up straighter as she also realized the carriage was no longer moving. “Have we arrived?”
“At the inn, yes.” Dante nodded. “A bedchamber, a decanter of brandy, hot water for washing, and a light supper have already been prepared and are waiting for us inside.” He had sent word ahead earlier this evening as to when the innkeeper might expect their arrival.
Deep brown eyes widened. “A single bedchamber?”
“But it does have the benefit of a large bed,” he drawled.
Bella did not care if the bedchamber possessed the hugest bed in creation, she was not sharing it with Dante St. Just. It was preposterous for him to have assumed she would. Preposterous and typical of his bloody arrogance. “I really must protest—”
“Then could you do so once we have reached our bedchamber?” the duke answered in a bored voice. “It has been a long day, and I am in need of a glass or two of the landlord’s excellent brandy before I have to listen to any more of your chastisements.”
Her mouth thinned. “If you had not decided to kidnap me, you would not need to listen to me at all!”
“True,” he drawled. “But it is a price I am willing to pay for the prospect of the two of us spending a night in bed together.”
Bella breathed out noisily. “I think you have taken this ridiculous charade quite far enough. It is now time that you told me exactly why you have removed me from London against my will. The real reason,” she added pointedly.
Huntley’s expression became guarded as he looked at her between hooded lids. “You doubt my desire for you?”
She eyed him scathingly. “With good reason.”
“On the contrary.” He took one of her gloved hands in his and placed it against the front of his pantaloons.
Bella gave a shocked gasp, and her cheeks blazed with warmth as she felt the long length of Dante’s hot and erect cock straining beneath the material. “That is— I do not—”
“But I do,” Huntley derided. “Obviously.”
She snatched her hand away as she realized she had allowed her palm to linger against the hot, pulsing length of his cock. “Why did you do that?”
“To prove to you how inaccurate your previous statement was,” he said calmly
Bella felt anything but calm. How could she have possibly fallen asleep when this whole situation was so out of her control? More so than she had realized, if Huntley believed the two of them would be sharing a bedchamber at this inn. And she had every reason to know that he rarely said things he did not mean.
“I am sure there were other ways you could have proven your point without—without—”
“Placing your hand on my cock?” he finished for her lightly. “But none of them would have been quite so enjoyable for me. Besides, it was the best way to disprove your doubt as to the involvement of my emotions.”
Bella despised utterly the sudden tears that stung her eyes. She was tired, confused as to what was happening to her, and most of all disturbed by seeing and being with Dante again. None of it was helped by the fact she was now so physically aware of him.
All the things she had once felt for this man, but mainly attraction and desire, had all returned and awoken her slumbering senses. She was totally aware of everything about him. Sight. Smell. Touch.
The palm of her hand actually tingled from resting against the swollen length of his cock, even though it had been through the lace of her glove and the material of his pantaloons. She had felt the heat of him. The throb of him. She could still breathe in the scent of him, that elusive sandalwood and male musk.
Emotions, sensations, she did not want to feel again for this man.
Dante had hurt her once to the very core of her being, and she did not intend to give him that opportunity a secon
d time. She had never forgotten the words he had spoken to her that day seven years ago. They were seared into her soul.
“You are nothing but a silly child playing at being an adult. Come back and see me when you have grown up.”
Bella straightened. “I am sure the landlord will be only too happy to provide a second bedchamber if asked.”
Dante had watched the expressions flitting across Bella’s face. The glisten of tears in her eyes. The flush of unwanted awareness in her cheeks. The rapid rise and fall of her breasts beneath her cloak. The tight grasping together of her hands once she had removed the one from resting on his cock.
All succeeded in making him feel guilty for having been the cause of them.
He hardened his heart even as he acknowledgement that guilt. Yes, this was Bella, someone he had known from when she was thirteen years old, but that did not exclude her from also being a traitor to her adopted country.
“I do not intend to ask,” he bit out firmly. “And neither will you,” he added as she would have spoken.
Her eyes narrowed. “I most certainly will—”
Dante cut off her words by lowering his head and taking possession of her lips with his own. If she had emotion to spare, and it seemed that she did, then she might as well channel it into kissing him.
The first touch of her lips beneath his and Dante knew he was the one in danger of allowing his emotions to get the better of him.
She tasted delicious, and her lips were so soft and pliable beneath his. They parted without protest as his tongue slid along the seam of them before entering the moist heat of her mouth beyond. The kiss immediately became hot, devouring, as Bella’s hands moved to grasp his shoulders.
Bella had never experienced anything like being kissed by Dante. It was demanding, overwhelming, utterly intoxicating. His shoulders felt so strong and muscular beneath her fingers. She wanted to rub herself against him, to feel that strength overwhelming her, taking her, giving her unimagined pleasure.
Wicked Surrender (Regency Sinners 2) Page 3
