“Whatever you wish.” He scribbled his address and handed it to her, though his shuttered gaze warned that if he ever got her alone at his town house, matters might go differently than she would like.
He might try to kiss her again. Or caress her. Or—
Stop thinking about that! It makes you go all squishy inside. Which can’t possibly be healthy.
Exactly. So she would have to send Owen to claim the funds and hope that Warren wouldn’t balk at that. “Thank you, my lord,” she said again, and meant it.
With an enigmatic glance, he stood. “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
After he left, she released a pent-up breath. He hadn’t exposed her. He hadn’t stayed around to badger her. She’d bluffed her way through his threats and won. For now. At last she could go home.
She lingered only long enough to allow Warren a chance to have left the area entirely. Then she walked out the door of Dickson’s and started for home.
But she didn’t get far. Within moments, a carriage came up next to her, keeping an even pace with her. One look at the crest on the side told her who it must be. Blast the man.
Warren opened the door. “Get in, and I’ll take you home.”
“I will not, and you will not.”
But she had to admit she was tempted. A number of men were on the street, all of them watching her. Or it seemed like it, anyway. She wasn’t used to navigating the stews without Owen. She’d never felt so exposed.
Warren ordered the coachman to stop, then climbed out. Picking her up bodily, he tossed her into the carriage. It took her so by surprise that she just sat and gaped at him as he threw himself into the other seat and told the driver to go on.
“You had no right to do that!” she cried as she recovered her wits.
“I certainly didn’t. Not that it matters. What can you do to stop me?” He brandished that cocky smirk that maddened her. “Scream for help like a woman? Pretend to be Jones and report me to the magistrate? Who, by the way, has gone drinking with me a time or two. He’d be fascinated to hear about your masquerade as a Welsh male card player.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “What about your masquerade as a gentleman? When really you’re a bully?”
His smirk disappeared. “Yes, I’m the biggest bully in the world, forcing you not to walk the streets of London alone, keeping you from being attacked by footpads and scoundrels. I cannot believe you came here without Owen.”
“You left me no choice. How dare you threaten to have my servant turned off? He nearly had heart failure over it.”
“Yet he let you go out without him.”
“He doesn’t know I did that. I told him I would stay in tonight.” She glared at Warren. “Otherwise, he would have felt compelled to go along, thus risking his position. So if you dare to go to my aunt about him when he did nothing wrong—”
“I won’t.” He leaned forward, eyes glittering. “If you answer my questions.”
The leashed threat in his stance, the hot intensity of his gaze on her, gave her pause. And did funny things to her insides.
It was maddening. As her blood warmed, she jerked her gaze to the window. “Certainly. What do you want to know?”
“Who’s the man with the sun tattoo?”
She sighed. Curse him. “If I knew who he was, why would I have Owen ask around about him?”
“Damn it, Delia, I mean, who is he to you?”
“Until I find him, he’s no one.”
“You are the most stubborn, irritating—” He halted to drag in a deep breath as if to calm himself. “Stop evading the question.”
“I’m not evading anything. I’m simply not answering. Because I don’t have to answer to you.” She tipped up her chin. “You’re not my relation or suitor or guardian, so it isn’t your concern. I’m not your concern.”
“I’ve chosen to make you my concern.”
“Because Clarissa put you up to it.”
He ignored that. “You do realize I can find out the truth with or without your cooperation. I can hire a Bow Street runner, or nose about at St. George’s, or speak at length to your aunt and your sister-in-law. I can get to the bottom of it on my own perfectly well, if I so choose.”
A knot twisted in her stomach. “Then go ahead,” she bluffed. “See what you can learn.”
“Very well. I will.” He sat back against the squabs, seemingly unperturbed about spending gobs of money hiring investigators.
Oh, Lord, if he went so far, he would surely learn the truth. Then he might figure out the whole sordid story about Reynold, which she didn’t want. Bad enough that Aunt Agatha knew. Delia refused to have the whole of polite society knowing about Reynold’s suicide. What would a scandal like that do to poor little Silas’s future?
She eyed him warily. “You wouldn’t really hire a runner, would you?”
“If I had to.”
“But why?” she asked. “Because you claim to be worried about me? You’re not the sort of man who gives two farthings about women of good reputation.”
He bristled. “You know nothing about the sort of man I am. I have my own reasons for concern. My point is, I don’t need you to tell me the truth. It may take me a while to get to the bottom of it, but I will. Before I take that step, however, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt by allowing you the opportunity to explain yourself. Because if you keep on like this, it will surely be the ruin of you.”
She thrust out her chin. “I have a weapon on me.”
He snorted. “What sort of weapon?”
“One of my brother’s pistols.”
“And do you know how to use it?”
“Of course. Reynold taught me.”
Before she knew what he intended, he was across the carriage, restraining her while he searched her coat.
“Get off me, you big oaf!” she cried, shoving against him, but she was no match for his superior size and strength.
In seconds, he found and retrieved her pistol, then retreated to his side of the coach. Opening the panel to the driver’s seat, he thrust it through the opening to his coachman. “Keep this safe, John.” Then he shut the panel with a bang.
“You can’t do that!” she cried.
“Obviously I can. And so could any other fellow with half a mind to it.”
“Give it back. It doesn’t belong to you!”
“You’ll get it back as soon as you tell me why you’re searching for the bloody fellow with the sun tattoo.”
“That’s none of your concern,” she said with a sniff.
“Then I suppose I’ve just added a pistol to my collection.”
Her throat tightened. “You can’t keep it! It’s one of the few things I have left of Reynold.”
He narrowed his gaze on her. “Wait a minute—does all of this have something to do with your brother? Did he gamble at Dickson’s, too?”
“Don’t be absurd.” Lord, he was veering closer to the truth. And she couldn’t have that. The world thought Reynold had died accidentally.
“Because if it does, I can help you. Just tell me what—”
She leaned forward and kissed him. She’d tried everything else to stop his questions, and none of it worked. And he did seem to like kissing her.
He froze, then jerked back. “What are you doing?”
“Kissing you. I know you’re familiar with the practice. A woman places her lips against a man’s—”
“You’re trying to distract me from getting answers.”
Placing her hands on his knees, she asked, “And what if I am?”
His gaze dropped to her hands, and his breath grew fractured. “It won’t change anything.”
Feeling reckless and wild and oddly light-headed, she rubbed his knees. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Still, he hauled her across the carriage and onto his lap. “But you’re welcome to have a go at it, anyway,” he growled. Then he brought his mouth down on hers.
It should have alarmed her. It didn’
t. This was what she wanted. He’d made her crave him, and she couldn’t help craving his kisses, too.
No, that wasn’t it at all. She was doing this to get his mind off his questions. That was the only reason.
It was also the only reason she threw her arms about his neck, the only reason she let him clutch her close and drive his tongue into her mouth with quick, sensual strokes. The only reason she squirmed on his lap and turned to pudding in his arms.
He drew back to clasp her head between his large hands, and his eyes swallowed up the night as he stared into hers. “Just to be clear, this discussion isn’t over.”
As far as she was concerned, it was. “Shut up and kiss me.”
Heat flared in his face. “With pleasure.”
He seized her mouth once more, taking and conquering and intoxicating her. The odor of port and cigars overwhelmed his usual scent of spicy cologne, which should have put her off. Instead it made her ache for more kisses, more touching, more everything.
Honestly, how could she not have known that a man could make a woman feel so delicious? His whiskers scraped her chin and even that was a sensual delight. Her blood felt near to boiling over, and she wanted, needed more.
So when, after he’d feasted for a while, he slid his hands down to cover her breasts, she let him. Oh, Lord.
She’d never bound her breasts, trusting to her lack of a corset, her oversize coat and waistcoat, and her voluminous cascading cravat to hide her modest attractions. But that, of course, now meant it was far too easy for him to . . . touch them once he pushed her cravat aside and unbuttoned her waistcoat.
Thumbing her nipples through her shirt, he pressed his mouth to her ear. “These, my dear, deserve to be better displayed.”
“Do they?” She couldn’t breathe for fear he would stop. Her skin felt alive, her heart ready to explode, and her nipples, which he’d begun to pluck, tingled and grew taut beneath his caress. “You don’t find my bosom too . . . too small?”
His eyes gleamed in the gaslights from the street. “Not particularly. But I can’t be sure without examining them more . . . thoroughly.” Opening her waistcoat, he bent to seize one breast in his mouth through her shirt.
“Oh. My. Word!”
With a chuckle, he flicked his tongue over her nipple, then sucked hard on it before drawing back to murmur, “I need to make an even closer inspection.”
Unbuttoning her shirt, he pulled it open to bare one of her breasts entirely.
She should protest. She should get off his lap.
Instead, she reveled in the way his eyes slid closed as he laved her nipple with rough lashes of his tongue.
“I find your breasts delicious in every way,” he rasped.
Gratified, she pressed her breast into his mouth and clasped his head closer. “I find this so . . . ohh . . . so very . . .”
“I believe we’ve established that you do feel the same urges that a man feels. Thank God.”
Thank God, indeed. Though now she didn’t know what to do with all this . . . excitement. Her pulse ran amok, and her body ached to have him crawl inside her clothes and touch every inch of her.
“Damn, I just want to devour you,” he muttered under his breath, and opened the shirt more so he could suck her other breast.
“Yes. Do.”
“Careful, brat, or you’ll . . . infect me with your recklessness.” He dragged his mouth up to her neck to tongue the hollow of her throat.
“I think . . . I . . . already have.”
“In that case . . .” He slid his hand between her legs to rub her at the jointure of her thighs, through the fabric.
Heavens, it felt good. So good. Much better than when she’d touched herself there. Or perhaps that was because he was doing it.
“Be glad you’re wearing trousers,” he said as he fondled her shamelessly through them. “Because if you were wearing skirts, it wouldn’t be my hand there but my mouth.”
His mouth? On her privates?
“That sounds . . . interesting.” So interesting that something dampened her trousers, as if he already had his mouth on her.
He froze, and she wondered if he’d actually felt the dampness. “Delia,” he said, “we must stop.”
“Must we?” she choked out.
Even as he kept caressing her and nuzzling her neck and making her want to fly, he said hoarsely, “Yes. Before I embarrass myself.”
“I don’t . . . understand.”
“When a man becomes aroused . . . Never mind, it isn’t an appropriate conversation.”
She wriggled against his hand, which was still fondling her. “I think we’ve . . . gone beyond appropriate. Besides, we always have inappropriate . . . conversations. That’s why you . . . find me . . . charming, remember?”
“Too damned charming by half,” he growled and took her mouth once more.
She could feel the bulge in his trousers pressing against her bottom, and she wondered how it would be to touch it, caress it the way he was caressing her—
The carriage shuddered to a halt, and both of them froze. She looked out to see that the coachman had pulled up in the mews behind the houses. Oh, Lord, what was she doing, letting him caress her like this?
She scrambled off his lap and buttoned her shirt up while he sat there panting, his hands curling into fists on his knees as if he fought the urge to grab her again.
Her body was on fire. And there was no way to douse the flames, even if she wanted to. Which she didn’t. No one had ever made her feel like this. It thrilled and terrified her all at the same time.
He gave a shaky breath. “Delia, I didn’t mean to—”
“I have to go.” She had to escape him, to get to her room before she did something insane—like tear the rest of her clothes open and beg him to take her.
Before Warren could stop her, she opened the door and climbed out, then took off at a run through the gate.
“Delia!” he hissed behind her. “Damn you, come back here!”
Not a chance. She heard the carriage door open, heard him vault out after her, but she was quicker than he and she knew the backyard well. She’d already found the unlocked window and slipped inside the house before he’d even made it past the back gate.
Sure that the darkness had hidden her entry place from him, she stood by the window, heart pounding, listening for him to leave. What if he didn’t? What if he roused her aunt and demanded answers of her?
The fear of that reminded Delia that her waistcoat still hung open. As she buttoned it up, her hand accidentally brushed the damp spot on her shirt where he’d sucked her nipple through the fabric. She stifled a groan. Thank heaven their mad interlude had been interrupted. It could never have led to anything but her ruin.
Oh, but part of her wouldn’t mind being ruined. Indeed, she was surprised more women weren’t ruined regularly.
She heard him mutter a curse just outside, and her pulse jumped.
“Come out for a moment, Delia,” he said in a low voice, so near that she caught her breath. “I know you’re in there, and we haven’t finished our discussion.”
Bother the man. Could he actually hear the beating of her heart, the heavy breaths she strove futilely to restrain? Of course he couldn’t—that was silly.
And thank heaven Flossie had apparently abandoned her usual habit of waiting by the window for Delia’s return, or the cat would surely have yowled at him. Or perhaps not, given his perverse effect on every female within his orbit.
His voice sounded again, husky and deep and so tempting, it made her ache. “We’re not done, Delia Trevor. You will tell me your secrets one day soon. Or I will find them out on my own, I swear.”
A shiver swept through her. A shiver of alarm, of course. Not of anticipation of their next battle, their next encounter. That would be daft.
He was making her daft.
She heard his footsteps recede, heard the carriage leave. Only then did she make her slow and stealthy way through the house, as she�
�d done many a night before.
This time she’d cut it rather close, and it was all his fault. It had to be near dawn. If she weren’t careful, she’d run into the servants coming to light the bedchamber fires. And Aunt Agatha always rose early, too, with Brilliana not far behind. They both thought Delia quite a layabed for her late rising.
Increasing her pace down the hall, she nearly wept with relief when she reached the door to her room. At last this interminable night was over.
A meow from the floor alerted her to Flossie’s presence.
“Shh, puss,” Delia whispered as she bent to pick up her pet. “Was I too late? You got tired of waiting?”
Cuddling the purring cat close, Delia slipped inside her room.
“Where on earth have you been?”
Delia jumped and nearly screamed before she caught herself.
Not that stifling her cry would save her from retribution. Because sitting on the bed was her sister-in-law, her eyes red, her nose swollen, and her mouth thinned with worry.
Brilliana rose and picked up the candle burning low on the bedside table. “And why in heaven’s name are you wearing that?”
Blast. Delia had forgotten about her men’s attire.
Apparently, her interminable night wasn’t over after all.
Eleven
Slowly Warren returned to where his coach waited in the mews. He was still aroused from their utterly unwise intimacies. That had been too close, too reckless. She hadn’t stopped him; he hadn’t stopped. If they hadn’t arrived at her aunt’s house, who knew what might have happened?
“Home, my lord?” the coachman asked as Warren reached the coach.
“You go on. I’ll walk to wherever I wish to go.”
“Very good, my lord.”
As the carriage pulled away, Warren turned back to look at the Pensworth town house. Truth was, he didn’t know where he wished to go next. By the wee hours of the morning he usually was heading home, since his nightmares fled once the sun rose to flood his bedchamber with light.
But right now, the thought of entering his large and silent abode and climbing the stairs to his bedchamber with its cavernous, empty bed struck him as so lonely he could hardly bear it.
The Danger of Desire Page 11
