Tempting Fate

by Alissa Johnson

  She was perfectly willing to obey that order.

  “You’ll come for me? You won’t search on your own?”

  There was a long, telling hesitation before he answered. “I’ll come.”

  Whit waited until the baron had a chance to settle himself into his study after the hunt before seeking him out.

  “How’s that head of yours, boy?” the baron asked as Whit made his way into the room.

  He bit back the instinctive need to retaliate for being called “boy” and took a seat in front of the desk, letting his back slouch and his legs stretch out before him. He hoped it made him look appropriately slothful.

  “Still attached to my shoulders, I’m afraid. How was the hunt?”

  The baron heaved out a grunt. “Damn poachers. Man can’t find game on his own land anymore.”

  “Damn shame,” Whit agreed and congratulated himself for not smiling.

  “Don’t suspect you came in here to discuss hunting, Thurston.”

  “I didn’t, in fact. I came to discuss your niece.”

  “Mirabelle?” The baron scowled. “What the devil for? Seems you’d have enough of her at Haldon.”

  “I do, which is why I’m discussing her now.” He made himself fidget with his cravat. “I realize she’s family, Eppersly, but can’t the chit stay in her room for a day or two?”

  “Heard you two don’t get on.”

  “She’s a bloody nuisance. And she…” He cast a nervous look at the open door before leaning over to whisper across the desk. “She talks to my mother. A man can’t very well enjoy himself around a woman who gossips regularly with his mother, can he?”

  The baron twisted his lips. “Can’t, now you mention it. I’ll see she stays in her room.”

  Whit didn’t have to feign his relief, though the gratitude was for show. “It’s appreciated. My father always said you were a sensible man.”

  The baron nodded as if he had reason to believe that comment was anything other than the lie it was. “Pity he’s not still here. No need to worry yourself over his censure.”

  “No need at all.”

  “He went well in the end, though. Had a wager with some of the others, how each of us would go. Won a hundred pounds on your father. The others figured he’d die of the pox.”

  “Cuckolding you, was he?”

  The baron blinked once, then threw his head back to roar and snort with laughter.

  “Your father’s son!” he managed when the greatest part of his mirth had passed. “Had a tongue as sharp as yours.”

  “Yes, I recall,” Whit muttered, and managed, just barely, to keep the sanguine expression of a slightly amused, but mostly bored young man on his face.

  “We’ll make a proper man of you yet.”

  “I look forward to the instruction.” As he might, he thought ruefully, a cannonball to the head.

  Twenty-one

  For Whit, dinner was no more pleasant that night than it had been the night before, but it was markedly less tense for him with Mirabelle safely tucked away in her room.

  The men drank themselves half stupid in the space of an hour and wholly stupid a quarter hour after that. So it was with great relief that he saw the last of them drag themselves off to bed before the clock struck eleven.

  He swayed and tottered himself as he made his way out of the dining room, but that was for the benefit of the staff.

  “Where’z the baron?” he demanded of one of the footmen as he lurched into the hallway. “Good man, the baron. Good man. Where’d he go?”

  “To bed…my lord,” the footman replied, sidestepping Whit’s tottering form. “All the guests have gone to bed.”

  “To bed! Already? Night’s young.” He gave a forced hiccup. “And they mocked me. Ah, well. Old men. What’s to do? That is…what’s a man…Never mind.”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  “Where’z my room, then?”

  The footman let out a hefty sigh, gripped Whit’s arm and hauled him up the stairs and down the hall. Because he was only willing to take the ruse so far, Whit fished out the key from his pocket himself.

  “Got it. Got it. Not a bleeding infant,” he muttered.

  “If you’re set then, I’m for my own bed.”

  Whit forced the key into the lock after a few bumbling tries, and waved a hand at the footman. “Off you go.”

  He didn’t need to turn his head to know the man rolled his eyes before leaving. Couldn’t blame him, really, though a decent footman would have made certain a guest had made it to his bed without first tripping over his own feet and cracking his head open on a piece of furniture.

  He listened. The sound of the footman’s steps dimmed and then disappeared up the third-floor stairwell. By the haggard look on the man’s face, Whit suspected he’d told the truth—he was for bed.

  It must be an exhausting job, he thought, as he stepped into his room for a candle and stepped back out again, to put up with the likes of the baron and his guests. Then again, the staff didn’t do much besides, as far as he could tell. Plenty of time to rest between the drunken mayhem.

  He made the brief trip to Mirabelle’s room and stopped. For a few long minutes, he simply stood outside her door considering, weighing, arguing, and otherwise working himself into a fine temper.

  She had every right to participate. He had every right to keep her safe.

  He should keep his word and knock.

  He should keep her as far removed from all this as he possibly could.

  He should bind and gag her, toss her into a carriage, and send the stubborn woman back to Haldon, that’s what he should do.

  This was a mission, he fumed, not a Mayfair dinner party. And this wasn’t the same as digging through trunks in the middle of the day. Had they been caught, he could have readily fabricated a believable explanation for why the two of them were in the attic.

  He was helping her find a portrait of her mother, or she was helping him find an extra blanket for his room. There’d been dozens of perfectly good excuses available.

  But there was no good excuse for two people to be snooping through a room in the dead of night.

  Thoughts of what could happen to Mirabelle if they were found out made his hands ball into tight fists.

  He wasn’t having it. He wasn’t going to be worrying over her instead of worrying over the mission. He sure as hell wasn’t going to spend the remaining nights of the party, standing in the hallway, arguing with himself.

  She’d see reason, damn it, or he’d make use of that bind and gag.

  Temper firmly established, he knocked sharply on the door.

  At the quick rap on her door Mirabelle rose from her seat by the window and, out of habit, grabbed the heavy candlestick she’d pilfered from the library ages ago. The bolts on her door were sturdy, but still…

  “Open the door, imp.”

  Relieved to hear Whit’s voice, she set down the candlestick and opened the door.

  “Are they all asleep, then?” she asked as she slipped out of her room.

  He took her arm and promptly escorted her back inside.

  “You’re staying here.”

  Taken aback by the brusque command, she did little more than stare at him while he closed and rebolted the door.

  “Three locks,” she heard him mutter. “Chit has three locks on her door, but can’t see the sense in staying behind them.”

  The insult broke her stupor. She’d had the sense to have them installed, hadn’t she? And it had been no easy feat to time that around her uncle’s comings and goings.

  She crossed her arms across her chest and glared at his back. “What the devil has gotten into you?”

  “You,” he snapped, whirling around and jabbing an ac-cussing finger at her. “You’ve gotten into me.”

  Later, she would think that a very lovely sentiment. At present, however, she just found it baffling. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  He raised his finger up an inch, much in th
e manner of someone about to deliver a vehement lecture. Willing to indulge him—a little—if it meant getting some answers, she waited. And waited…

  “Whit?”

  He dropped his finger. “I was going to yell at you.”

  “Yes, I could tell. Care to tell me why?”

  He hesitate before answering, his brow furrowed in thought. “I can’t stand the idea of something happening to you,” he finally admitted softly.

  She didn’t need time to appreciate that particular sentiment. She could have used a bit of it to come up with an appropriate response, however, because all she could think to say was, “Oh.”

  “The very thought of it, of you coming to harm, had me standing outside your door for the last ten minutes, arguing with myself like some sort of lunatic—”

  “You’ve been fuming outside my door for the last ten minutes?” She found herself grinning, rather pleased with the image. “Really?”

  His lips twitched and the lines across his brow disappeared. “Yes, really. And I—”

  “Were you pacing?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Were you pacing?” she repeated. “Or were you standing still, clenching your jaw at the door?”

  He ran his tongue across his teeth. “I can’t imagine why it would matter.”

  “It doesn’t, particularly,” she replied with a shrug. “Except that I’d like to have a clear picture of it in my mind, to use later when you’re laughing over my hand in the jar.”

  He laughed softly now, as she had hoped he would. “I wasn’t pacing. I was standing quite still, thinking I should storm in here and shout at you.”

  “But you didn’t,” she pointed out. “Didn’t shout, anyway.”

  “No,” he agreed and crossed the room to stand in front of her. “How could I? I’m angry with your uncle, not you. And you were just standing there, looking so quiet and patient, and—”

  “Confused,” she added for him.

  “Lovely,” he corrected and reached up to cup her face. “How is it I never before noticed how lovely you are?”

  She opened her mouth…closed it again. “You say these things at random intervals just to unnerve me, don’t you?”

  “It is fun to watch you flounder,” he admitted. “But I say them at random simply because they occur to me that way.”

  He caught a lock of her hair and rubbed it between his fingers. “Soft. I thought of it on our walk around the lake, the way the darker strands blend into the softer browns.”

  She licked her lips nervously. “Like a chestnut.”

  “The color’s the same.” He reached up to gently trace the arch of one eyebrow with his thumb. “I thought of your eyes, dark and rich—”

  “Chocolate.”

  “Chocolate,” he agreed. “—while I was undressing in my room, the night we agreed to a truce.”

  Her brain snagged on one comment. “While you were undressing?”

  “Yes. I think of you at the damndest times…your skin, your lips, and the beauty mark just above them.” His hand moved to cup the back of her neck. “This tender spot just below your ear.”

  “You do?”

  “Mm-hm.” He pulled her closer, and closer still, until he spoke against her lips and she felt the heat of it down to her toes. “And I think of this, nearly every waking moment of the day.”

  He kissed her then. Not with the softness he’d shown in the past and not with the wildness she’d experienced the night of the ball, but with a fierce determination that frightened and excited her.

  His mouth moved strongly over hers, demanding she give, and yield, and take. Until she could do nothing but obey. His hands moved to stroke possessively—down her arms, up her back and down again. She felt the warmth in the wake of every touch.

  He caught her around under the knees and hauled her into his arms. The sudden move made her gasp, as did the the feel of his arousal pressing against her hip when he settled on the edge of the bed with her in his lap. He nipped at her ear and snuck a hand under her skirt to stroke her calf.

  “Whit, I—”

  “Shh.” He pressed his lips to the side of her neck just below her ear. He’d been right, she thought with a ragged breath, it was tender there.

  He moved down toward her shoulder, pressing kisses along the way. Aroused, and uncertain what to do with that feeling, she struggled against him. “Whit—”

  “Shh. Let me, Mirabelle,” he whispered, and she felt a shudder tear through her at the sensation of his hot breath against her skin. “Just for a moment. I’ll stop when you ask. I promise.”

  Stop? Why the devil would she want him to stop? She’d only wanted to say something nice, something sweet and poetic as he had. She only wanted to get closer, damn it.

  Frustrated, she reached up to tangle her hands in his hair and brought his roving mouth back to hers. She kissed him with all the determination and possessiveness he’d shown that night, all the desperation they’d felt in the carriage, and all the restless desire she felt now.

  She kissed him with all her heart and the deepest wish that he could see inside it.

  A growl worked in his throat. And the next thing she knew, she was lying down, his weight pressing her firmly into the mattress.

  “I’ll stop,” he whispered again, even as his hands worked under her to undo the buttons of her gown. “I’ll stop if you want me to.”

  She tugged his coat down his shoulders in response.

  They pulled and yanked, tearing at clothes in a frenzied rush to find the skin underneath. He caught her hand as she reached for his buttons of his breeches.

  “Not yet, Mirabelle. Not yet.”

  She gaped at her hand in his. Had she really just tried to do that? Was she supposed to do that? She swallowed hard and met his eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “I do,” he whispered gently. “Let me show you.”

  She dipped her head in a nod, then closed her eyes on a sigh as he bent his head to press kisses along her collarbone, careful to be gentle where the skin was still tender from her fall. “No thinking, Mirabelle. Just feel.”

  “Yes.” She sighed again. “Oh, yes.”

  That sound, that incredible sound of a woman yielding, nearly drove Whit over the edge. He struggled in his need to be gentle, and in his need to ravish. He’d never wanted like this. Not even when he’d been a green boy, panting after everything in skirts, had he ached so painfully for a woman. If she’d touched him, if he’d let her fingers continue on their quest to free him, he wouldn’t have lasted.

  He lifted his head to watch her for a moment while his hand brushed down to mold a breast. He’d managed to pull her dress off—all the while thinking that when they were married, he was going to order her an entire wardrobe of gowns with oversized button holes—and now he reveled in the soft skin her thin chemise left exposed.

  He brushed a thumb across a nipple and watched as it peaked through the material. Her answering moan shot a shiver of lust through his system. His fingers glided along the neck of the chemise, gently pulling it back to expose her.

  “It’s…it’s not the blue chemise,” she whispered with a hint of apology.

  “It’s perfect,” he heard himself tell her in a voice gone hoarse. “You’re perfect.”

  If she responded, he didn’t hear her. With his own blood roaring in his head, he gathered the material at the hem and bunched it up to pull it over her head before laying her back down again.

  “Beautiful.”

  He took his time with her, torturing them both by tasting, sampling, teasing. He explored every inch of her form and delighted in its curves and dips, the subtle flare of her hips, the flat expanse of her stomach.

  She moaned and twisted beneath him, and when she gave a soft cry and raked her nails down his back as he brushed at the heat between her legs, he gave in to the desire to take.

  To distract her, and please himself, he kissed her hard and deep as he stripped off his breeches and tossed
them aside.

  “Put your legs around me, imp.”

  She complied blindly, and this time it was he who gasped as he slipped into her wet entrance that first inch. He stayed there, caught between bliss and agony. His arms shook as he fought back the painful urge to just finish the job in one glorious push.

  He could be gentle. He would be gentle.

  He kissed her softly as he eased inside, seducing her body into accepting his. He waited for her to cry out, to tell him to stop.

  But she only wrapped herself more tightly around him and kissed him back.

  Until he came to the barrier that marked her as an innocent. He almost offered to stop. Almost. He was only a man, for pity’s sake.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered instead. And with a strong surge of his hips, pushed through to bury himself completely inside.

  She unwrapped herself in a thrice. “Oh, ouch!”

  He dropped his forehead to hers. “I’m sorry, imp. Give it a minute. Just a minute.”

  A minute turned into two, and then three as he courted her again with long kisses and soft caresses. He whispered in her ear, sweet nonsense that made her smile and sigh, wicked nonsense that made her blush and squirm.

  When her body relaxed under his again, he shifted his hips cautiously, gauging her reaction as he began to move inside her.

  Her reaction was everything he could have hoped for and more. She moved with him, her arms banding around his shoulders as her legs once again banded around his waist.

  In the soft light of two flickering candles, they rose together. She striving for something she couldn’t name. He striving to keep himself from grabbing that something before she had the chance.

  He listened to her breath quicken, her soft cries grow faster and higher in pitch, and he willed her to reach out and take.

  When she did, when she shuddered and bucked in his arms, he let himself go.

  A full moon on a cloudless night can create a play of light and shadow that renders even the dreariest view an interesting landscape of black and grey. From his position in the woods at the edge of the side lawn—which was inarguably a very dreary view under most conditions—McAlistair sat and frowned at the scene before him. Pretty it might be, but convenient it was not. Better it be black as pitch so he could move across the ground without being seen.