Not Proper Enough (A Reforming the Scoundrels Romance)

by Carolyn Jewel

  Emotion jammed up her throat and kept her from replying. Instead, she rested her head on his chest. What had she done? Nothing but what had to be done.

  Still with his arms around her waist, he twisted to look at Martine. “I’ll see to her tonight. We’ll call if you’re needed. Her room.”

  Her maid bent a knee and headed for the down staircase.

  “Martine?” he called after her.

  “Milord?”

  “Thank you for not shooting me.”

  “It was a near thing, sir.”

  He took the candle Martine had left them. With Eugenia’s hand in his, he led her upstairs. But not to her room right away. They ended up in the Turkish room where he secured the door. She found herself glad to have a few moments to gather herself. He always knew, didn’t he?

  “Lady Fenris.”

  Eugenia shook herself, but her stomach remained firmly lodged somewhere around her toes. She stared into Fenris’s face. Her husband’s face, and if he hadn’t still held her hand, which he did, she might have crumpled to the floor. “What have we done?”

  “I’ll take that as a rhetorical question.” He watched her. Examined her. He could lay her soul bare with his eyes. He stripped off his greatcoat, hat, and gloves, letting them fall to the nearest end of the divan. While she watched, he stripped down to his skin, efficiently and quickly. Naked, he put his hands on his head and slowly ran his fingers back through his hair.

  From the moment he’d set his fingers to undo his cravat, Eugenia had stopped thinking about anything but him. The man and his magnificent body and that she was soon going to be able to touch him. Say what you would about her utterly conflicted emotions; there was no denying the physical attraction that sang between them.

  He stayed just as he was. Naked. Hands on his head. Erect. And she glanced away to see his body reflected in the glass. Front. Side. Back. The sight was so beautifully erotic she had to close her eyes. She would lose everything if she continued to look at him. Everything.

  “What do you see?” he said.

  She dragged her eyes open and met his gaze. The sleepiness was gone, replaced by a stark emotion that peeled away her years of resentment and hurt. Gone. Vanished in his eyes. Vanished in the ring he’d put on her finger.

  He held out a hand.

  “The impossible. I see the impossible.” The words came on a breath. He loved her. She saw and could no longer deny it. He loved her, and she was humbled that he allowed her to see, even believing she did not return those feelings. “I see forever.”

  She took a step toward him and put her hand on his. His fingers closed around hers. “What do you see?” She put her other hand on his chest. Palm over his heart. She closed her eyes and let the beat of his heart thrum through her. Slowly, she opened her eyes. “When you look at me? What do you see? For I suspect the woman you see is a stranger to me.”

  He turned her around, and her coat and bonnet joined the pile of his clothes. He unfastened, as quickly as Martine ever did, the buttons of her gown. She smoothed her skirts.

  “I see you.”

  “My God, Fenris. I married in a muslin gown I wear when I do not expect company.”

  “You look lovely. Comfortably lovely.”

  “How could you let me go out like that?”

  Slowly, he shook his head. “Madam, I was not about to give you an excuse to change your mind.”

  To her horror, tears threatened, because he loved her, and she didn’t have half his courage. Her eyes burned and not a single word could pass the lump in her throat. With her assistance, he managed the rest of her clothes. He stood behind her when she, too, was stripped to her bare skin. He rested his fingers on her shoulders, dancing the pads from her very upper arms to her throat and back.

  Candlelight reflected in the glass a dozen times. She watched him behind her. His head was bowed and a lock of his dark hair had fallen across his forehead. In the glass, the man behind her ran just the tips of his fingers downward, over the curve of the side of her breast.

  “Ginny,” he said. He wrapped his arms around her, and he rested his chin on top of her head. He slid a hand over her belly and left it there, fingers spread. “Ginny, my love. I’m not sorry at all.”

  She turned in his arms, and this time, she took his hand and walked backward to the divan. As she lay back, he resisted. Instead, he leaned against the upholstered back of the divan, one knee bent to the ceiling. The view of his cock transfixed her.

  He tugged on her hand and straightened his leg. “You may have all of me, madam.”

  “Might I?”

  A sly grin appeared on his mouth as she straddled him. “If you’re very, very good, yes.”

  She lifted her hips and, a hand around his sex, seated herself, slowly. Wonderfully. He sucked in a breath and thrust up against her push down. “Yes.” She whispered the word. “Yes. Just so.”

  “Lovely. You, so lovely.” He brushed his fingers over her breast, then down the midline of her body. Once again, he spread his hand wide over her belly.

  She brushed back that wayward lock of his hair then kissed him and rocked forward. She tasted his mouth. Took him, drank deep of everything she’d refused to imagine before. One of his hands covered her breast while the other held her bottom, and for a while they made love like this, slowly, with one or the other of them from time to time looking away to watch in the glass.

  At one point, his eyes were half closed because he was watching the joining of their bodies, and she stared at his face. He caught his lower lip between his teeth, and she slowed the roll of their hips. She cupped his face between her hands and tilted his head to hers. His gaze flicked up to hers, and something tugged at her chest, a feeling that expanded until it could not be held in and brought a sob rushing out of her.

  “My darling Ginny.” He looked at her as if she were his world, and her heart clicked into place. Her love for Robert wasn’t pushed aside. She would always love Robert, but there was room in her heart for another love.

  He made her happy. When that had happened, she didn’t know, but she was happy when she was with him. And sometimes, at times like this, she thought that feeling was more than happiness.

  She rocked her hips harder, and he responded by grasping her hips and bringing her down harder. His cock went deeper inside her, and she let out a groan. He held her and reversed their positions so that he was on top of her. She brought her hands down and spread her fingers over his backside, knees bent, doing whatever she could to keep their connection.

  “I love you, Fox,” she said. “I love you madly. Desperately. With all my heart.”

  “Hush.” He pushed up on his palms and stopped moving, even resisting her hands on him urging him to start again. “You needn’t say that.”

  “I take it back.” She sucked in a breath and tried to still her arousal. “I don’t love you anymore. I did, but not now, you awful man.”

  He was still hard, but he wasn’t moving. “You can’t take it back. It’s too late. Say it again.”

  “No. You said you’d bring me here and fuck me senseless, and you haven’t. I can’t love a man who doesn’t keep his word.”

  His eyes got big and wide and then an evil grin spread over his face. He pushed his hips forward. “That?”

  “Fenris.”

  “Fox,” he said, the word harsh against her ear. He moved slowly in her again, but that wasn’t what she wanted from him. “Then say that other word that sounds like that.” He covered her and, with his weight held on his arms, kissed her, and she kissed him back. He drew away. “Say, ‘Fuck me,’ Ginny, and I will, as hard as you like.”

  “As hard as you like?”

  “I’m hoping there won’t be a difference.” He stopped moving.

  “God, I hate you.”

  “Say it.” He grabbed her arms and pinned them over her head. “I’d die to hear you say that.”

  She wrapped her legs around him. “Fuck me, Fox.”

  And then he did, and
held her while he did, and there really did come a point where she lost her mind while he moved in her, hard and fast. He angled himself in her the way he had before, and he was saying that word and others like it, and then he couldn’t speak, either, and it was just the two of them. They were slick with sweat, the both of them.

  His belly slid over hers, and it wasn’t hurting her but she was right there on the edge of discomfort at the very same time her body hurtled toward a climax. He put his mouth by her ear and whispered, “Do you love me now, Ginny?”

  She broke. Completely, and then he did, and she held him close, and when she came back to her body, while he was shuddering with his release, she opened her eyes and said, again, “Yes. I do. I love you, Fox.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The next morning.

  TAP, TAP, TAP.

  Fox tightened his arms around Eugenia and ignored the noise. They were in her bed, and he was warm, sexually sated, and very comfortable. He did not want to be any more awake than he was right now.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  A door opened. He kept his eyes closed.

  “Milord?”

  He recognized Martine’s voice but would have continued to ignore her if not for the thread of tension in her words. Martine had a head on her shoulders. He disengaged himself from Eugenia and rolled over. He kept the sheets up. “Yes?”

  “Sir.” She gave him a quick curtsey. “The Duke of Mountjoy is here and asking to see you and her ladyship.”

  “Ah.” He looked over at Eugenia, still asleep. “Thank you.” Something in Martine’s demeanor set off an alarm, and he frowned to himself. “What else? Is Mountjoy angry?”

  She hesitated.

  “Out with it.” Jesus, had Eugenia’s brother somehow found out about the two of them? He didn’t know how, but rumor traveled at lightning speed.

  “Mr. Hayden says he went to your father’s room this morning.” Hayden, of course, was his father’s valet of the last thirty years. Martine put both her hands over her mouth, and her eyes slid to Eugenia.

  Fox sat up, his heart pounding. “What is it, Martine?”

  “Below stairs is in an uproar. He’s threatening to quit, sir.”

  Eugenia stirred and rolled over. “What is it? Martine, is that you?”

  Fox put a hand on her shoulder. “Your brother is here, so in any event, you will need to get up.”

  Eugenia took his hand and kissed it. “Good morning to you,” she murmured.

  He squeezed her shoulder and gave his attention back to Martine. “Why is Hayden threatening to quit?”

  “Miss Rendell was there.”

  “Of course she was,” said a sleepy Eugenia. “She’s staying here, too.”

  “No.” Martine’s eyes went wide, and she took a deep breath. “She was in the duke’s bedchamber.”

  Under the covers, he gripped Eugenia’s hand. They were both of them now fully awake. “I presume she and my father were not having tea or a pleasant discussion of botany?”

  “No, milord. They were not.”

  “Oh,” Eugenia said, very softly. “Oh, dear.”

  He hung his head and sighed. “Please send my valet to Camber and tell him—my father, I mean—that I would like to speak to him in his office at his earliest convenience. And, if you would, ask Hayden to attend to me in my rooms. Please tell Mountjoy that I will see him shortly. Shoot whomever you feel needs it. Then you may assist Lady Fenris.”

  “Milord.”

  When Martine was gone, Fox gathered Eugenia in his arms. “Whatever you’re paying that woman, it’s not enough.”

  “Hester was in your father’s room?” She gripped his shoulders.

  “So it would seem.”

  “How am I going to explain this to Hester’s mother?”

  He kissed her on the mouth. “When you’re ready, find your brother. If I’m not with him, then I’m still with Camber.”

  He slid out of bed and put on enough clothing that he could decently manage the walk to his rooms, carrying his boots and the rest of his clothes. Hayden was there, stone-faced. “Thank you for attending to me,” he said. He dropped his clothes onto a chair and held up a hand. “So there is no misinterpretation, the Lady Eugenia and I were married last night. I’ve sent my man to look after Camber, by the way. I’ve no idea what’s got into my father, but I will deal with that and my wife’s brother as soon as I’m washed and decently dressed. Can you manage that or must I pay you your wages now?”

  Hayden bowed stiffly, and Fox waited while any number of offended and stubborn emotions flickered over the servant’s face. At last, he gave a grudging bow. “My lord.”

  “Thank you.”

  Once he was dressed, he headed for his father’s study. Halfway there, one of the footmen intercepted him. Fox tried to compose himself. He was tired, having spent much of the night most enjoyably not sleeping, and hungry, and in desperate need of tea. And for God’s sake, he was to confront his father about compromising a young woman who had accepted his hospitality. He forced a smile. “Yes?”

  “My lord. I beg leave to inform you that his grace requires your presence in the Grand saloon.”

  “Which bloody duke are we talking about? Camber or Mountjoy?”

  The footman took a step back. “Both, my lord.”

  “I will be there shortly.” He took another step down to the first floor then turned back. “Have tea brought there. And chocolate for Lady Fenris.” Because Eugenia drank chocolate in the morning and he’d be damned if she missed hers today. “And food. Something light.”

  “My lord.”

  The door to the Grand saloon was open. Camber was there. As were Hester and Eugenia, who had, it would seem, dressed with unusual haste. Her eldest brother wore a thunderous expression, to say the least. Mountjoy’s wife, Fox’s cousin Lily, stood beside him. She was as heart-stoppingly beautiful as ever. There was as well another woman whom he knew he’d met. God help him if he could remember her name. Aigen was there, too, standing with his elbow on the mantel.

  Fox composed himself and strode in. “Camber. Mountjoy. What the devil are you doing here, Aigen?”

  “You weren’t at Upper Brook Street, so I came here. To warn you.” He glanced at Eugenia. “But now I’m enjoying meeting your delightful relations. I’ve been invited to go hunting at Bitterward.”

  “Warn me about what?”

  “Dinwitty Lane is writing poetry to Lady Eugenia. Very bad poetry as he’s not a Scotsman, but all the same, I thought you ought to be warned that he’s handing out manuscripts to anyone who looks at him sideways.”

  “Did you bring one with you? No? I’ll have to send someone out to fetch me a copy.” Fox walked to Lily and took the hand she extended to him. “Cousin Lily. Lovely to see you.”

  She bent a knee. Her gaze landed on the medallion hanging from his fob, and when she looked up, she looked at Eugenia then gave him one of those smiles that stunned a man who wasn’t prepared. Lily was no fool. Mountjoy was damn lucky to have convinced her to marry him. “Well, well, well, my dearest cousin Lord Fenris. I presume congratulations are in order?”

  “Yes,” he said. “They are, Cousin Lily.” Fox held out his hand to Eugenia, and she took it. He brought her close and he felt a certain improper glee when Mountjoy’s eyebrows about hit the ceiling. Marriage agreed with Mountjoy. Before he married Lily, the man hadn’t known the first thing about how to dress. His cousin had repaired the most glaring of the man’s defects.

  “Take your hands off my sister, Fenris.”

  “Your grace. I have the great honor to present Lady Fenris.”

  Aigen stood straight. “It’s true, then?”

  Mountjoy looked at Hester and nodded at the girl. “Lady Fenris. Delighted to—”

  “Mountjoy, darling man.” Lily put a hand on his shoulder and got his attention. “He means Eugenia.”

  The young woman whose name he could not recall took a step back, trying to remove herself from what was admittedly a private
and potentially volatile confrontation between two families that did not have a history of good relations. He remembered the girl now. Caroline Kirk. Eugenia’s younger brother, Nigel, had married her eldest sister.

  Mountjoy goggled at Lily. “Eugenia hasn’t married Fenris.”

  Fox put an arm around Ginny’s waist, and pulled her close. “Last night.”

  “About time.” Aigen didn’t speak to anyone in particular.

  Eugenia’s brother choked. “The devil—”

  Lily elbowed him, and Mountjoy closed his mouth. “My dear cousin.” Lily curtseyed. “Eugenia. Felicitations. Mountjoy and I are delighted beyond words. And very sorry we did not arrive in time to attend the ceremony.”

  “Are we?” Mountjoy asked Eugenia.

  Fox was aware he was holding his breath.

  “Yes.” Eugenia rested her head against his shoulder. “We are very sorry you weren’t there to share in our happiness.”

  “Camber,” Fox went on. “Forgive me for not having the opportunity to tell you in private.” This was a rare moment, him about to take his father to task like this. “But then, I presume you are about to present us with your future wife.”

  “Yes,” Camber said. Good Lord, his father was actually smiling. “Yes, indeed.”

  “Thank God.” Eugenia let out a breath.

  Hester clasped her hands to her bosom. “You’re not angry, are you? Not terribly, I hope.”

  “Certainly not.” Eugenia moved forward and enveloped Hester in a hug, and there were attempts to explain from his father and Hester but, frankly, none of them went well or made good sense.

  The arrival of tea, chocolate, and breakfast made a welcome interruption. Fox served Eugenia her chocolate personally and received a kiss on the cheek for his trouble. “How sweet of you to remember.”

  “What the devil is going on, Fenris?” Mountjoy demanded. “I came here because you told me there’d been a fire at Spring Street.”