by Thea Devine
"I do not wish to speculate at all on anything you might contemplate," Jainee said testily. "I have been in London less than twelve hours; I have been quizzed unmercifully by your great good friend Jeremy Waynflete and dismissed as wanting out of hand; I have been attacked, by you, at the breakfast table, and now Lady Waynflete thinks I'm some mercenary vagabond who might fleece her, her household and you in some unmentionable manner. And over and above this, you wish to treat me like some servant girl at the beck and call of her libertine employer. This is hardly the finesse I would expect from a man of your experience, my lord."
"Nor is it a love match, Diana. It is a bargain, pure and simple, an exchange for favors with services to be rendered, and I call in my debt now. Come to me here."
Jainee backed away. Oh, an implacable look was on his face that said he would get what he wanted and all of her excuses counted as a great big smokescreen in the face what she had agreed to.
"I am not of a mind to," she said finally.
"You have no mind in this matter, Jainee," Nicholas said dangerously. "Your sole obligation is to obey."
Obey? Obey? Was there ever a more over-proud, over-confident cock of the walk than Nicholas Carradine? It was always the same with men like these: they bartered in clear colors—there were never any nuances and no delicacy at all. And they needed endlessly to be put in their places.
"My lord,” she said, feeling her way into a subtle refusal, "surely a gentleman with refined manners has no taste for back door debauchery."
"Never say so," Nicholas said. "I have a great taste for it; it lends a certain piquancy to the proceedings."
As, Jainee thought trenchantly, she might have expected. One couldn't bargain with a satyr. Everything was up front with him: it was easy to see that their duello of a conversa- 101
tion was as arousing as a caress and as pleasuring—up to a point.
And it was obvious that Southam had reached it.
"Enough of this imperious word play, Diana, It is time for more mortal activity," Nicholas went on, pacing toward her now as she continued to back away.
She felt her legs bump into the arm of the sofa closest to the door, and she tumbled into the seat.
"That's better, Diana, much better. You like your comfort—as do I." He towered over her as he came to her side, and bent down to grasp her arms to pull her closer to him.
She jerked away, and rolled out from under him and onto the floor, cursing the long skirt of her kerseymere dress that caught in her legs. She rose up on her knees, and crawled to the table where the coffee and chocolate service were set, and painfully climbed to her feet.
"I will not be taken like an animal in a cave," she said tightly, edging her way around the table as he came closer and closer after her.
"But what is the difference, Diana? It is all play and pay in the lower orders as well—as you should know very well. An animal is an animal—we sniff, we pursue, we catch, we , . . possess—it is over."
"I expect more of you, my lord," Jainee rejoined, her hand desperately seeking something to repel him, her fingers lighting, suddenly, on one of the lukewarm fat-bellied pots on the table. "Perhaps . . ." she thought fast, grasping the hinged top of the pot and aiming it full bore at Southam's lower extremities, ". . . some sweet . . . treat—" and she heaved the open pot at him and watched in fascinated satisfaction as a dollop of chocolate splattered against the obvious bulge between his legs and dripped down the pristine buff of his skin-tight pantaloons. She dropped the chocolate pot and ran.
"Oh no, oh no," Nicholas growled, and in a second he leapt after her and pinned her at the door just as she had
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got the knob turned and the thing almost open. "Oh no . . . oh, no!"
She felt him crush her body against the door, she felt the heat of his anger, and the weight of his desire jutting into her bottom, and then one steely hand grasp her hair and pull her head back ruthlessly.
"Oh no, vixen huntress—no, that you do not get away with," he hissed into her ear. "Open your mouth, Diana. Let me sweeten it with liquid kisses . . ." and as she obdurately refused to part her lips, she sensed his left arm lifting upwards, and then she saw in his hand the chocolate pot, and that it was tilted to pour the thick liquid all over her face and her mouth.
Involuntarily, she opened her lips to lick away the stream of thick sticky liquid as it flowed on her face.
"Yessss," he breathed as her tongue flicked in and out futilely trying to suck up the chocolate that dripped from her nose, her jaw, her chin and onto her dress, in her hair, in her mouth—he kept the pot tilted so that the last dregs of liquid sopped down onto her face and then he tossed it onto the floor and it landed with a disconcerting clank and a spray of fine droplets all over the pristine carpet.
"And now, my fine goddess," he murmured against her ear, and she felt next his tongue along the line of her jaw heatedly slaking his thirst to have her in whatever way he could.
His right hand, entwined in her hair, held her in an iron grip so that she could not move her head from the angle at which it was tilted, and his body rammed against hers rendered her utterly immobile against his strength.
She could kick him ... she couldn't do a thing: his heated tongue was coming closer and closer to her mouth as he licked away every drop of chocolate that defined her jaw, and sucked gently on the tenderest part of her skin, coming closer and closer still to the soft cushion of her lips.
She bucked against him then and he crushed that brief
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moment of rebellion by simply pulling her around so that they were eye to eye, and framing her face between his two iron hands.
"And now, Diana, the sweet . . . treat—" he murmured and delved mercilessly into her mouth and the lush chocola-tey perfume of her tongue.
Now her hands were free, but her body was imprisoned by the thrusting bulk of his, and her mouth—oh, her mouth: he ravished her mouth without a thought to her dehght or her need. He took her mouth the way he would have taken her—with pursuit and trickery, and finally out of pure animal need.
And because she had thwarted him.
Again.
And she would foil him now. She would; it would just take every ounce of spleen within her, every pore of her skin, and the all-encompassing power of her intelligence to do it, but she would do it, she would: the worst thing, the only thing that he could not expect of her at this moment when he rampaged within her mouth like a drunken sailor— at this very moment, she must, she had to, receive and to invite his kisses as if she could never get enough.
It was a thrust in another direction; no gentleman wanted entanglements, or importuning of his favors. She had only to give in this once, and she would show him all about power and involvement, and who would beg from whom. He would not get away with this treatment of her.
Her fingers curved around his huge hands like talons as she girded herself for the contest of wills.
Always attack, always go on the offensive. She knew it; it was Therese's advice. Make the bargain. Never surrender.
He had thought he could just roll right over her, and his title and his formidable reputation were enough to make her bow down and submit to his will.
She closed her hands over his and deliberately arched herself forward and into his kiss. She felt his little start of sur- 104
prise, and then his mouth gentle as she started to respond to him.
It was easy. No, it wasn't—it was a fight for domination: he was not readily taken in by her sudden compliance. If anything, he pressed her harder, demanding she give to him, eating at her, nipping, licking, drinking every last drop of the gooey chocolate within her mouth and around the edges of her lips.
"As I said, Diana — " he whispered between thick little sucking kisses down her neck and behind her ear, "I am in the mood to devour something......"
He came back to her mouth then and ever so gently slid his tongue deep within, found her and began sucking gently at her, so so
ftly, so intensely that she was caught off guard. Her body felt boneless as a whole new swoop of sensations assaulted her.
She was going under, under . . . under, and all because of his softly sipping pull on her tongue and her body's traitorous response to that moment of tenderness. She felt herself giving in for real and in honesty to the seduction of this kiss, and she had to consciously make herself fight it, like a swimmer battling for air. She couldn't—she just couldn't let him take her as easily as some doxy off of the street.
But he was so strong and so velvety as he coaxed her and invited her kisses so that she would cede all that power to him—she saw it, she understood it, and she could hardly withstand it. His seduction was too subtle for her, and she was too inexperienced.
She had to fight him, even in the midst of a searching provocative kiss that sent her senses reeling. She held on to him, and held on and felt the strength of the hands that cradled her head and could crush her as easily as he could an egg.
Crush and cradle, crush and cradle—with every last ounce of her strength she wrenched away from him with such unexpected force that he relinquished his hold.
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She pushed at him then and simultaneously stamped on his foot and he stepped back, surprised by the attack and the unanticipated pain; she ducked out from the prison of his arms, away from him, away from the door, away from the temptation of capitulation.
He turned slowly, with a kind of leashed in movement as if he were restraining himself from doing something more violent, and she saw for the first time the full brunt of the damage.
She felt a crowing moment of triumph at the sight of him which was quickly squelched by the wrathful look in his eyes as he surveyed himself.
His pantaloons were ruined, with a huge brown splotch right in the most obvious place between his legs, and little droplets of stain raining artistically all over his muscular thighs, and his highly polished boots, and his neckcloth was in disarray.
Jainee decided that this was the moment not to exacerbate matters.
She had fared no better; the liquid had soaked through the thinly woven material of her dress so that there was a dark stain at the exact same spot on her. Moreover, her collar hung limply over one shoulder, and the buttons had been torn from the bodice so that the lacy chemise beneath was partially revealed. Little smears of dark chocolate dotted the whole upper portion of her dress, her shoulders and her arms.
The pot lay on the edge of the carpet, with droplets spattered all over its border and the floor near the door.
She took a deep angry breath and she felt the cloying constriction of some substance on her face. She didn't even want to see what she looked like. She envisioned long streaks of chocolate smeared and dried all over her mouth and chin; she could not see herself walking out of the parlor and facing Lady Waynflete.
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"I believe my lord has had all the subsistence he can tolerate today," she said finally in a tightly controlled voice.
"Your resistance is intolerable, Diana; I could consider that you have revoked the terms of our arrangement."
She met his steaming coal black gaze insolently. Something was there, something—the challenge that Edythe Winslowe had talked about, or some other program that no one knew about but Southam himself, and she sensed that he would not upend her plans—not yet, but only because it suited him, not her.
Still and all, she could act upon that intuition and she said, "You won't."
"Oh, my, my—the arrogance of the goddess. No, I won't relinquish the bargain yet, my dear. I will see you crawl to me first and I will take great pleasure in exacting revenge for this morning's work."
He moved to the bell-pull by the side of the door, and yanked it viciously and then stood waiting for his summons to be answered, his sharp blazing eyes never leaving her face.
She stood three feet beyond him and did not move either, the gall in her throat fairly choking her with anger.
"I would give much to see how you explain this to Lady Waynflete," he added mockingly just as a servant scratched at the door.
He opened it a crack. "My coat, please." And then he turned to Jainee.
"Do not trifle with me, Diana. I am past being moonstruck and your beauty will take you only so far. Your defiance will trip you up and land you flat on your back with less fastidious men than me. lake warning, huntress, and reckon who are your benefactors and who are your enemies. Even a goddess has some discrimination."
"While you, my Lord, have none. You are nothing more than a rutting boar—and a great bore, and I will take great pleasure in bringing you to your knees . . ." She stopped there; really, she had to curb her reckless tongue; the look
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on his face made her knees buckle. He would not take much more from her.
"I will be the last to worship at your feet, Diana. And the first to crush your pretensions." He reached for his coat and waved away the servant whose sole duty was to help him on with it.
"You are very good, Diana. Very good. An adventuress born could not have carried this off as well as you. You do me credit. And you give me none. You will share my bed, huntress, if I have to stalk you, bag you and tie you up."
"You will never share mine," Jainee swore fiercely. "Never."
Nicholas smiled grimly and reached out across the space between them and tapped her cheek. "You will eat those words, Diana, I promise you, and they will be sweet treats after all the punishment I shall unleash upon you. Mark my words, Diana." He flicked her cheek once again and he was gone.
Chapter Seven
The bitch!
He was in such a rage over her high-handedness he could barely stand the short ride from Lucretia's townhouse to his own in Berkeley Square.
The bitch, the sneaky, viperous daughter of a devil—damn her, damn her. . .
He jumped out of the carriage before it jerked to a halt and tore up the steps and into his front hallway shouting, "Trenholm! Trenholm! Blast it!"
"Sir?"
Nicholas whirled. Damn the man. He was a wizard, invisible one moment, magically there the next, precise to a fault and never discommoded by anything. He surveyed the damage coolly as Nicholas ripped off his coat, and said without inflection: "I will draw your bath, sir."
"And send word to my Uncle Dunstan that I wish him to dine with me tonight."
"Very good, sir."
Very good sir, very good sir . . . the rigorous conscientiousness with which Trenholm performed his duties was both numbingly efficient and overwhelmingly irritating, and Nicholas was in no mood to appreciate how effortlessly all his needs were served.
He took the steps two at a time, his thoughts tumultuous with his spiralling anger: he couldn't begin to count all the ways he was going to show Diana, queen of diamonds, just who would take the trick.
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He burst into his bedroom, the front room at the head of the second story stairs, and ruthlessly stripped off his morning coat, oblivious of crackling fire already laid and blazing, and the enfolding warmth that caressed the air.
. . . the brazen-faced jade— No woman had ever routed him so thoroughly and willfully; she was a handful ... a mouthful. . . he paused in the act of untying his neckcloth: he could still taste chocolate, he could still taste her—
He licked his lips. . . . Sweet . . . Bittersweet—strumpet . . . no better than she should be with her quick hands and chameleon heart—just the kind of woman to make a bawd's barter. . .
But those eyes, those arrogant "make me" eyes, and that smug cat smile . . . she was everything he thought she was and more, and he would make her pay for her insolence and her malice, and ten thousand pounds couldn't even begin to cover it.
There was not enough money in the world to save the huntress from his deadly sights.
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He did not relish a midday bath, but the chocolate had soaked through his clothing and dried on his skin, as he discovered once he had removed his shirt and pantaloons. He
boots were irreparable, and he contemplated the delicious mayhem that he would visit upon the goddess as he soaked in the steaming hot water. Oh, he would topple her from grace soon enough, when it suited his purposes, not hers.
They were on his turf now, at the mercy of the ton where appearances were everything. No one had ever guessed that he, Southam, possessed of estates and townhouses and mountains of money he could not spend in a lifetime, still felt like the scruffy little urchin who had tumbled down a chimney and into a fairyland.
He was an impostor—every bit as much as the goddess, and maybe more. The thought amused him.
The thought sustained him. He never forgot, ever, and sometimes it seemed as if all the water in London could not scrub
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away the telltale layer of soot. Sometimes he still felt it, matted and grimy on his skin.
He had been four, or at least he thought that had been his age. He knew his first name, Nicky, and he knew all the pretty silvery things in the dining room looked just like his house. He remembered asking if he were home yet.
But home was a big warm house in the country with his beautiful mama and swoops of landscaped garden and a wild little forest in which he had gotten lost one day ... or perhaps he had been taken to get lost, he could never be sure. There had been a woman who acted as caretaker of him. The name that came to mind for her was "Mrs. Mops", but he had been sure that had been his childish nickname, and he really had no memory of whether she had accompanied him that forever day in the woods when he found the road — then a rickety wagon which had either been driving along and stopped, or worse, had been waiting just for him.
The kindly Mr. Slote ... he would never forget the name, or the ride in the wagon . . . and the loss of innocence and the feeling of utter abandonment. Slote fed on cruelty and the sweat of the helpless, he was unscrupulous and utterly without conscience.
He would never forget the beatings when he demanded to see his mother. He would never forget the stinging scrape of the stone against his hands and legs as Slote forced him down chimney after chimney and walked away with his hands full of money and his slaveys limping, chained behind.
