Since he’d first seen this demure widow, all calm control and subtle shades of old gold, he’d told himself over and over to forget his inconvenient fascination. It had done no good. She haunted him as no woman ever had. While she wasn’t his usual quarry, he refused to accept that she wasn’t for him.
As so often tonight, she surprised him. "You make it sound so tempting."
No coy denials. No vacillating between yes and no, when the answer was always yes. Brock had become bored with easy victories. Yet here it seemed Selina considered his proposition a mere moment and the answer wasn’t no, and still he could barely contain his excitement.
He smiled, hoping he didn’t look half-witted with delight. He stepped closer. "I thought you’d slap my face."
"I should." The uncertain curve of her lips hinted that she was unused to smiling and wasn’t sure if it was allowed.
She never smiled when she was with the lout she was engaged to. Whenever she mentioned her son, she smiled. If Brock got her to himself, he’d make sure she smiled all the time.
She firmed her grip on his hand. His heart gave a mighty thump. Dear God, she was holding his hand, and he was about to go up in flames. He hadn’t been in such a lather about a female since he was a lad. Not even then.
She went on in a low voice. "I’m not nearly so proper as I like to pretend I am."
Oh? Now that was intriguing. "So you’ll do this?"
"I should say no. It’s mad that I’m even considering it."
"This is our chance, Selina. Don’t pass it up because you’re afraid."
She gave a choked laugh and to his regret tugged her hand free. "I am afraid."
"And interested?"
"And interested." She studied him with a worried frown. "But how would we manage it? I have to marry Cecil after Christmas, and I can’t let any harm come to Gerald. If you know of a way we can do this safely, I’d like to hear it."
Brock gave a shout of laughter and threw himself back onto the settle. "You’re magnificent, Selina. More magnificent even than I thought, and I’ve spent the week wondering why nobody else has marked what an extraordinary treasure you are."
She frowned, deep brown eyes still troubled. His extravagant praise didn’t ease her concerns, he could see. "I still don’t understand why you would."
"Don’t you?"
When she sat beside him, he settled his gaze on her. He’d watched her all week, careful not to attract the other guests’ attention. It was a relief and a pleasure to stare at her and drink his full.
"No, I don’t. I truly am as dull as everyone believes. If we do this reckless thing, you’re going to end up being frightfully disappointed."
He laughed again on a gentler note, and cupped her cheek in one hand. She started under his touch but didn’t pull away. "I doubt it. You’re the most enchanting creature I’ve ever met. And the most elusive."
Her lips turned down. "That’s what I fear. The lure of the chase made you notice me. Now I’ve stopped running, you’ll decide I wasn’t worth hunting in the first place."
"You make me sound like a cat torturing a mouse," he protested.
When her eyes ate him up, possessive yearning twisted his gut. He knew Selina had no idea that whenever she looked at him, her gaze sharpened with carnal hunger. He’d caught this avid expression a few times, and every time he’d ached to seize her in his arms and tell the curious world to go to hell.
"There’s something a little cruel about you, Lord Bruard."
"Brock."
She hadn’t objected when he called her Selina. Now he watched her delicate features soften. When she spoke his name, it sounded like a benediction. "Brock."
Tenderness sliced through him, sharp as a knife, and he leaned in to kiss her. He kept enough grip on strategy to rein in his passion – although passion stirred as powerful as a dragon waking in its cave.
She made a faint sound of surprise, and her lips fluttered beneath his. She tasted like honey. She kissed like an untried maiden. For a burning second, sweetness overwhelmed him.
Brock wasn’t a man who did sweetness. Or tenderness. But something about this slender woman with her dark blond hair and sad eyes sparked protective instincts that he hadn’t known he possessed.
She pulled back. Which was probably a good thing. Because now wasn’t the time to push her to greater intimacies. The settle concealed them from the doorway, but as she said, anyone could come in. If they were discovered alone like this, it would cause scandal enough. If they were kissing, the fat would truly hit the fire.
He dropped his hand from her face. In part because he hadn’t counted on the heady effect of touching her. During this house party, he’d slept alone, despite plenty of opportunities for company. But compared to Selina Martin’s refined beauty, every other woman here seemed overblown and obvious.
As Selina raised a trembling hand to touch her lush lips, her eyes were round with astonishment. He had plans for those lips, plans that had kept him randy and restless all week. How could a woman with a mouth made for sin imagine that any man could find her disappointing?
"That was…"
"A promise of more to come." He caught her hand again. Now he’d touched her, it was impossible to stop. "Will you give me a week, Selina?"
"You’d need to promise discretion. Word can never get out that we were together."
"I swear I’ll never speak of this."
"Thank you."
"So will you come to me?"
That hungry gaze roamed his features, making his blood churn with heat. "If I can."
Triumph surged through him. It was yes. By God, it was yes.
He spoke in a rush, in case she changed her mind. "I have a hunting box in the Essex marshes. Lovely and isolated. Even better, it’s only a couple of hours away. I don’t want to spend days stuck in a carriage."
Although he could think of plenty of things they could do in a carriage. A week wasn’t long enough for everything he wanted to experience with this woman.
But a week was all they had. There was no point regretting their limited time together. He never wasted energy fretting over impossibilities.
Brock went on. "You’ll love it. The sea is only a mile away."
Her eyes glowed with anticipation. "I’ve never seen the sea."
He dared to tease her. Now he had her consent, he was ready to dare his life. "I hope it’s not just the sightseeing you find appealing."
To his surprise, Selina smiled, properly this time. "I look forward to seeing the country. Not to mention a certain wicked gentleman who may offer a modicum of entertainment."
He laughed. He’d never imagined her mocking him. Hell, he wanted to kiss her again, but he couldn’t risk it. If she came to him tomorrow, he’d kiss her until she was breathless.
"We can’t leave Derwent Hall together," she said. "And I brought a maid with me. What can I do with her? I don’t want her coming with us, but I’ll have to tell her something."
"Can you make up some reason not to go home straightaway? A school friend or a relative in the area you’d like to see?"
"I suppose I could." She made a moue of self-disgust. "I’m not used to telling lies."
"Will you lie this once for me, Selina?"
She looked down to where he held her hand. "Gladly." The eyes she raised to his were brilliant with light. "I’ll say I have a friend who lives nearby. I’m lying on my own behalf, too. I want to know how it feels to share my body with a man I want, not one to whom I owe no more than duty."
Poignant emotion clogged his throat – when he wasn’t a man who did emotion either – and his voice emerged as a rasp. "You do me too much honor, my darling."
While he’d called a host of women his darling, Brock had an inkling that when he called Selina his darling, he meant it.
His desire for her was compelling, but he was familiar with desire. Woefully so, the judgmental world would say. But something in this quiet room swept him, the infamous libertine, out from shore
and into uncharted waters. For one fraught moment, he wondered if Selina Martin was more dangerous to him than he could imagine and perhaps he’d be wise to stay away from her.
But as he stared into her delicate face, wisdom was a word that held no power.
"There’s an inn on the London road called the Blue Wagon. I’ll leave before breakfast and wait for you there. Come as soon as you can. I resent every moment that we’re apart."
Selina continued to look troubled. Her light brown brows, several shades darker than that thick honey-colored hair, drew together. "I’ll send my maid on to London. We’re packing up the house, so I can make some excuse for wanting a bit of peace and quiet in the country. She’s been with me since I was a girl. Even if she suspects my motives for staying in Essex, she won’t betray me. I’ll arrange for my carriage to return after our time is over."
Damn it all, Brock didn’t want to think about that. Not now when he had a week of unequaled pleasure stretching before him. "Something is worrying you. Tell me."
That was new, too. As a rule, Brock preferred his lovers to keep their thoughts to themselves. The awful truth was that in most cases, his paramours were far too eager to unburden their hearts into his ears.
Selina had always been mysterious. Her reticence was among the many aspects of her personality that he found attractive. Now he burned to discover all her secrets.
Patience, laddie. You’ve got a week ahead.
She looked surprised at his demand. "It’s just…"
"Yes?"
She freed her hand and made a helpless gesture. "It all seems so random. By chance, Cecil and I came in here to discuss our arrangements for tomorrow. By chance, you overheard us. If some other lady had ventured into the library, would you have made the same offer to her?"
Brock couldn’t help it. He caught her face between his hands and kissed her swift and hard. "No. On my honor, no. I knew you were mine the moment I saw you. I’d already planned to pursue you to London. This encounter just presented me with an opportunity I intended to create anyway."
Once she stopped looking dazzled, she looked relieved. "I don’t want you to take my consent cheaply. I said yes too fast, I know, but we don’t have time for games."
That extraordinary tenderness cramped his heart again. "I’m aware of the privilege you grant me."
"You’re so good at words." Her gaze roamed across his face. "Words are easy."
He struggled not to squirm under her perceptive inspection. Because she was right. Words were easy, and he’d used them so often to persuade a reluctant lady of his sincerity, when he intended nothing past a quick fuck.
"If I say I mean it this time, you’ll only suggest that’s what I always say."
Wry humor curved her lips. "And is it?"
"Aye." He lifted her hand and brushed a kiss across the knuckles before he let her go. "You’ll just have to trust me."
She had that dazed look in her eyes that appeared whenever he touched her. He loved that this attraction between them made dissimulation impossible.
"It’s mad, but despite how short a time I’ve known you, despite…"
"My reputation," he said grimly, because he was too aware of what people said about him. He was even more aware that most of it was justified.
The strange thing was that only as he looked into Selina’s deep brown eyes did he feel any shame for his riotous ways, the lies he’d told, the hearts he’d broken. Because he found himself caught in the liar’s dilemma. He told the truth, yet nobody with half a brain would believe him.
Selina didn’t flinch from what he was. He came to realize that she was the bravest woman he’d ever met. When he’d first seen her, he recognized straightaway that she didn’t love that lumbering yokel Cecil Canley-Smythe. Brock was in no position to criticize her for marrying for money. But before tonight, he’d imagined he pursued a woman slightly less principled than she turned out to be.
Now he realized the sacrifice she made for her boy. She was under no illusions about Cecil, but she was willing to pay any price in return for her son’s security. Brock’s mother had been vain and flighty and selfish. Selina’s stalwart maternal love left him in awe.
"Yes, there’s your reputation. But that’s part of your appeal."
Startled, he let out a bark of laughter and stretched one arm along the top of the settle behind her. "The devil you say."
"You’re perfect, Lord Bruard."
Before they were done, she’d call him Brock without thinking about it. "Just who is seducing whom in this scene, madam?"
She smiled, her eyes sparkling. He hadn’t expected this impish humor either. "I caught you in my trap."
"That you have." Many a true word was spoken in jest. "I’m not sure I’ve ever been called perfect before."
That fugitive pink heated her cheeks again. He’d never before found himself so enchanted by the sheer wealth of detail he discovered in a woman.
"Let’s not go too far. I’m not saying you’re perfect for anything except my purposes. But it’s your sins that make you the ideal candidate to share my bed."
"You want to conquer the rake?" He couldn’t contain the cynicism edging the question. And a hint of disappointment. He knew that many women pursued him to discover what all the fuss was about. He hadn’t put Selina Martin in that category.
"I’ve given myself to only one man, and he didn’t satisfy me. I can’t imagine that Cecil will be much better. If I’m to kick over the traces just once in my life, I want it to be with a man who knows what he’s doing. I’ve had enough clumsy fumbling."
He winced at her frank description. What a crying shame that this glorious creature had never found a lover to match her.
Until now.
She went on. "I don’t want a man who asks more of me than I can give. I don’t want someone who sees this as a love affair and who will be hurt or jealous when I leave him to marry Cecil. The rakish Lord Bruard won’t start imagining that what we do together is any more significant than two adults who fancy each other deciding to spend a week together."
Brock was piqued, despite her pragmatism mirroring the usual arrangement he offered a lover. But in the past, the declaration of noninvolvement came from him, not from his partner in pleasure.
He should appreciate Selina’s candor. Ridiculous, but he didn’t. In fact this revelation that Selina felt nothing but an itch she’d like to scratch left him feeling…hurt.
Hurt was another reaction outside his ken. Again, some instinct warned him that this quiet widow posed a risk to the man he’d always been.
His voice was sharp as he responded. "I hope this will be more than a fleshly transaction. I hope we can share respect and friendship."
She went back to looking startled. "Do you?"
"Don’t you?"
She regarded him as if she’d cracked open a chicken egg and a baby unicorn had popped out onto her breakfast plate. "I assumed you’d be so inured to temporary liaisons, you wouldn’t seek an…emotional connection."
So had he.
"Damn it, Selina, I like you." With an irritated exhalation, he ran his hand through his hair. Although he suspected he was more annoyed with himself than with her. "I want you, of course I do, but I feel more for you than the simple urge to fuck you. I hoped you might like me, too."
For pity’s sake, he started to sound like a needy boy, and he hadn’t needed anyone since he’d realized the world offered him a cornucopia of pleasure and no deeper connections at all.
Her pause before she answered irked him more than it should. "I don’t know you."
He lowered his arm from the back of the settle and clenched his hand on his thigh. "You know me well enough to offer me your body."
She frowned at him. "You could make a nun swoon with yearning. Do I need to like you? I want you, too."
Her bald declaration of desire crashed through him like a blow. But while that had always been enough from his other lovers, from Selina Martin, he wanted more. "Do you really
only see me as a walking cock?"
The pink in her cheeks deepened, but she didn’t look away. "It would be best if you were." Her hands spread in bewilderment. "Are you…are you considering changing your mind?"
Not on his life. "Are you?"
"No." Although she didn’t sound certain. "I’m sorry I misjudged you. I only had the gossip to go on, you see."
"Gossip says if it moves, I’ll fuck it."
"You…you’re very frank."
"Does it offend you?"
"No."
Brock had to lean closer to hear. The scent of jasmine filled his head. It was a more sensual scent than he thought she’d choose, but this astonishing conversation revealed she harbored depths he’d never suspected.
"It’s exciting." She went on, her voice a mere whisper. "Nobody has ever spoken to me like this. Roderick was a bit of a prude. He hardly ever mentioned our relations. And it’s not a subject I’ve broached with Cecil."
"He wants you." Brock had seen that from the first.
"Yes," she said with a commendable lack of false modesty. "That’s why he’s prepared to take on a penniless widow with a son. He’s rich enough to look much higher for a bride, perhaps even to the aristocracy."
Selina was no dupe. Nor was she a coy ingénue, for all her lack of experience with sexual satisfaction. Brock had started the night wanting her. Now he was in a fever to have her to himself.
"You’re the one who stoops to accept him."
Self-mockery twisted her lips. "The world wouldn’t agree."
"The world is an ass." Brock returned to what was worrying him. "You trust me enough to consent to be my lover."
Another of those searching inspections that seemed to penetrate to his stained soul. "Yes, I do. I don’t know why, but something tells me I’m in safe hands."
Warmth filled him, although God knew he was no hero. "I’ll do my best to justify your faith."
"I only ask you to be careful. I don’t love Cecil, but I owe him better than to marry him already carrying another man’s child."
Brock curled his hand over the back of the settle to stop himself from reaching for her. "I’ll be as careful as I can be."
The Highlander's Forbidden Mistress Page 3
