The Heart of a Scoundrel

by Christi Caldwell

  “Do you require assistance?” Though the faintly pleading way in which he studied her suggested a greater desire for a lady like her to remove herself from his shop. She took in the armful of books in his arms.

  “Er…”

  “Because I can help you,” he said with a touch of annoyance in his tone.

  “Th—”

  “But I am helping another patron at the moment.” With that, he spun on his heel and marched off.

  Well. She supposed she should be offended by his surly unpleasantness. Her lips twitched instead with suppressed amusement. Phoebe returned her attention to the black panther. “You poor thing, you,” she said softly. Not only being plunged into a world in which he didn’t belong, but being consigned to a life with the foul, miserable shopkeeper.

  The panther’s lips peeled back in that perpetual growl, indicated the same displeasure as the shopkeeper with her presence.

  “It is hardly your fault you’re so miserable,” she said, stroking him on the head one more time. The world saw a beast to be feared and not revered. What a lonely way for any being to go through life, merely existing and not living.

  The shopkeeper’s flat, nasally tone carried over to her from within the shop, cutting into Phoebe’s musings. “…Captain Cook, indeed, I do, my lord.”

  Her ears pricked. Drawn by those first two words, she abandoned the angry panther and moved down the aisle, picking her way around the tables filled with oddities from all over the world.

  “Yes, the very same.” That deep, gravelly, very familiar baritone brought her to an abrupt stop.

  Her heart kicked up a funny rhythm that had nothing to do with any of the artifacts, items, or books in the curiosity shop. Edmund. “I am looking for a book on the history of his ship, the Resolution,” he spoke in quiet tones that continued to do funny things to the organ beating too hard inside her chest.

  She touched her hand to the shelving and peeked around the floor-length unit just as he accepted a book from the crotchety shopkeeper. That subtle movement caused the midnight fabric of his expertly tailored coat to pull across his impressive frame, highlighting the muscles of his back. Her mouth went dry. Gentlemen were not supposed to have broad-muscled physiques. They were supposed to be padded and proper, and not at all…well, so very masculine.

  The shopkeeper glanced up and caught her gaping at them. “Can I help you?” he snapped.

  Phoebe gulped and dipped back behind the shelf. She pressed herself against the mahogany structure, her heart hammering. Mortified heat burned a trail across her body. Still, for the miserable man’s notice, Edmund hadn’t noted her impolite scrutiny. No. He—

  “Miss Barrett.”

  A strangled squeak escaped her at the unexpectedness of that silken whisper. If that black panther had been given a voice, this is how it would have sounded. Dangerous and oddly warm at the same time. “Ed—m-my lord,” she swiftly corrected at the ghost of a smile upon his hard lips. “I—” Have nothing to say. There were no words. Phoebe remained with her back pressed against the shelf, borrowing support. “Hullo,” she settled for. After all, what else could a young lady who’d been caught gawking and eavesdropping say?

  The shopkeeper took a step toward them, but Edmund leveled the reed-thin man with a frigid look that sent him shuffling off in the opposite direction. When the marquess returned his attention to her, his firm lips were turned up in a seductive grin that drove back all reason and logic that reminded her the folly in being here, alone, with him.

  Though she wasn’t really alone. Not truly. Her sister even now perused the aisles. So, Phoebe remained rooted to her spot.

  She and Edmund spoke in unison.

  “What brings you here?”

  They shared a smile and he held up a small, leather volume with one word emblazoned in gold across the front. Resolution.

  She reached out reverent fingers and then caught herself, lowering her hands back to her side.

  “Here,” he urged, holding out the copy.

  With a tentative hand, Phoebe reached for his offering. He placed the copy in her trembling grip. Their fingers brushed and even through the kidskin of her gloves, her skin burned from the heated intensity of his touch. Desperate to give her fingers something to do, she fanned the jagged, ivory pages and then stopped at a random page. Do just once what others say you can’t do and you will never pay attention to their limitations again…

  Edmund tugged off his gloves and beat them together. “You’ve come to discover those pieces beyond your Wales.” His was more a statement than a question, spoken with an unerring accuracy. How could he know her thoughts so clearly when they’d but met?

  “I have.”

  Her breath hitched as he reached an arm out, but he merely deposited his leather gloves onto the dusty shelf above her head. “And to look at Mr. McDaniel’s curiosities to bring you closer to those exotic places you now long to explore?”

  Flecks of silvery dust danced about them. “There is nothing that says I need forget Wales for some other far-flung place.” Disquieted by his knowing, she turned a question to him instead. “Why are you here, Edmund?”

  He ran his piercing brown gaze, flecked with gold, over her face. “Do you know, Phoebe, when I arrived here a short while ago, I would have said my desire to find more of Cook’s great artifacts is what drew me here.”

  Phoebe dragged the small volume close to her chest. “A-and now?” she whispered.

  Her pulse drummed loudly in her ears as Edmund dusted his knuckles over her cheek. “And now?” He lowered his lips closer to hers. “Now, I would say, I’m sure it was you. The hand of fate throwing us together again and again.”

  “Do you believe in fate?” Her words emerged breathless. “You do not strike me as one to believe in matters of fate.” Her lashes fluttered wildly and she hated that despite her friends’ warnings about Edmund, the Marquess of Rutland’s suitability, she wanted him. Wanted him when she knew nothing of him beyond their shared love of discovery, and his kiss, a kiss she’d now known twice.

  He ran the pad of his thumb over the flesh of her lower lip. “At one time I would have sneered at talk of fate.”

  God how she wanted to know his kiss a third time. “And now?” she repeated once again.

  He dipped his head lower, so close their lips nearly brushed. The faint hint of brandy clung to his breath, his sandalwood scent wrapped about her, intoxicating in its masculine power. “Now, I’d be mad to not believe.” Phoebe forced her eyes open, holding his intense stare with her own.

  “Do you know, I’ve been warned against you?” She set aside his book upon the nearest shelf.

  He stiffened, drawing back so she mourned even that slight parting. “You would be wise to heed such warnings.” He spoke in an emotionally deadened tone that chilled her, chasing away all earlier warmth. At the desolateness in his eyes, sadness pricked at her heart. What must it be like to go through life, whispered about and alone? As painful as it was to be the talked of viscount’s daughter, Phoebe had a loving mama and brother and sister, and loyal friends.

  Phoebe ran her palm over his cheek and he jerked erect as though she’d run him through. “I learned long ago to not place much heed in the words of gossip.”

  For a moment his thick dark lashes swept down and concealed the brown depths of his eyes. When he opened them, a whirl of tumult swirled in their depths. “You should,” he said on a gruff whisper. “You should steer far and clear of me, Phoebe Barrett, and seek out respectability instead of the ugliness that surrounds me.” She expected him to push her away. Instead, he leaned his cheek into her hand, as though craving her touch. “We are very different people. I am the thunder to your sunshine.”

  He was wrong; just as she herself had been wrong mere moments ago. They shared far more than she or he had acknowledged until this moment. They both knew the pain of Society’s condemnation. It united them in a bond that could only be experienced and shared by two who’d been scorned and whispere
d about by the cruel, merciless members of polite Society. “I don’t believe you want me to leave,” she said softly. She stroked her thumb over his lip, mimicking his earlier movements. Even in her innocence, she recognized the flare of desire in his eyes. “After all, even a gentle flower requires both the storms and the sunshine to survive, doesn’t it, Edmund?”

  *

  God help him. She was a pawn; nothing more than a tool to guide him into the graces of the woman he would bind himself to. Phoebe had never been more than another person to be used to exact his revenge upon the one woman, nay the only person, who’d never paid the price for betraying him and shaming him before all. The numb muscles of his upper thigh from that long ago duel fought for the right to the lady’s heart, throbbed in a mocking remembrance. And yet, where was the vitriol? Where was the hungering for revenge? Instead, desire burned inside him for this innocent slip of a woman with hope in her eyes and a dream on her lips. Panic squeezed the air from his lungs.

  Then she stepped away, putting the distance he himself should have between them and he breathed again. She wandered past the shelving, touching the cluttered tables with artifacts he cared not a jot about, and then she crooked a finger. Drawn to her like a moth to flame, Edmund followed after her, forgetting every lesson he’d learned about the perils of fire.

  She stopped in the corner of the shop and then tossed a glance over her shoulder back at him. Did she think he’d not wander down whatever path she led him on? How could the lady not know her own appeal? She had a more potent hold upon him than the sirens drawing those poor fools out to sea. An encouraging smile on her lips, she crooked her finger again, urging him the remainder of the way. No, the lady did not know her allure. He stopped beside her with a deliberate closeness so his thigh crushed the fabric of her skirts.

  Her smile dipped, the muscles of her throat working. “It is magnificent.”

  He ran his gaze along the crown of her silky, auburn tresses and the delicate planes of her heart-shaped face. “Yes, magnificent.”

  “Though my heart breaks for him,” she said, not taking her eyes from the smooth, black panther stuffed for his efforts—frozen in his last furious state of battle.

  Edmund’s gaze caught the golden-yellow of the beast’s stare. The snarling creature jeered at him for having dared to forget for even one moment that he was no different than the cold, emotionless creature on display before them. “Your heart would break for a beast with no heart,” he said, his tone coolly dispassionate.

  With a frown, she raised her eyes to his. “He once lived, and knew freedom and joy—”

  “He is an animal,” he bit out, tired of her naiveté, for with every honest smile and wide-eyed glance, pricks of something a more human, worthy man might have construed as guilt dug at his skin.

  Her smile deepened and she studied the stuffed creature with greater attention. “Perhaps,” she murmured to herself. “But I prefer to think of him as he once was.”

  “There you are.”

  Phoebe started and spun around, a guilty flush on her cheeks. Edmund followed her stare and took in with a lazy interest the blonde-haired, plump young lady with blue eyes. The young lady couldn’t be more than sixteen or seventeen. She smiled—Phoebe’s smile.

  The sister.

  “Justina,” Phoebe said and stepped away from him.

  The wide-eyed girl looked back and forth between them and then her smile grew, dimpling her cheeks. “Oh, hello.” She loosened the strings of a ridiculously large, garish, purple bonnet then lowered it.

  Splotches of red slapped Phoebe’s cheeks.

  When it became apparent Phoebe intended to say nothing further, Edmund filled the silence. He threw his arms wide and sketched a respectful bow. “The Marquess of Rutland. It is a pleasure.”

  A merry light twinkled in the girl’s eyes. This one would be ruined with far more swiftness than her sister had managed. The young lady dropped a curtsy. “My lord.” She looked to Phoebe and cleared her throat.

  “Oh, er…yes…my lord, this is my sister, Miss Justina Barrett.”

  “Miss Barrett, how do you do?”

  A tittering giggle bubbled past her lips. “Very well.”

  Phoebe’s blue eyes darkened and she frowned at the both of them. Ah, the lady was jealous. Her sister. In his mind, he mentally ticked off another of the lady’s weaknesses.

  The young Miss Barrett sidled closer to her sister and slipped her arm through Phoebe’s, interlocking them at the elbows. “Is he the one?” she whispered loudly.

  “Justina,” Phoebe bit out. The color of her cheeks deepened to the shade of a crimson berry and he suddenly had a taste for the sweet, summer fruit.

  He gave a crooked grin and reclined against the bookshelf, taking in the exchange with renewed interest. The one? The lady had been speaking to her sister of him, only confirming the supposition he’d come to yesterday morn—he’d fully ensnared Phoebe in his trap. This oddly light sensation in his chest felt a good deal different than the rush of victory he was accustomed to. Perhaps when she served her ultimate purpose and he ingratiated himself into Miss Honoria Fairfax’s graces and thoroughly ruined Margaret’s beloved niece—then there would be the sense of triumph. As it was, there was an otherwise inexplicable thrill in knowing she spoke of him to her sister. “Have you spoken of me, Miss Barrett?” he asked of Phoebe. And then, rusty from ill-use, the muscles of his mouth quirked up in a grin.

  The ladies responded as one. “No.”

  Justina Barrett leaned closer. “She just has the look.”

  “The look?” he spoke over Phoebe’s protestations, interested to know more about this look the younger sister spoke of, particularly as it pertained to Phoebe.

  “The longin—ouch.” She swung a wounded, accusatory gaze at Phoebe. “Did you pinch me?”

  Phoebe darted out the pink tip of her tongue and trailed it over her lips. Another surge of lust slammed into him; once again filling him with a desire to lay claim to that mouth and more. She cleared her throat. “Er…yes…but only because I’d meant to ask whether you’d seen the display of Captain Cook’s hats at the back of the shop?”

  Joy lit the young woman’s eyes and she jammed her bonnet onto her head. “Indeed? I do not know how I missed such a thing.” Likely because there was no such display. He said nothing on that score as he was eager to be rid of the other Barrett sister. “I’ve been wandering around this infernal shop, but haven’t seen anything of remote interest, to me that is.”

  He winced as the young woman prattled on and on. This was his punishment for involving the Barrett sisters in his plans for revenge. This young woman and her infernal jabbering.

  “Oh, yes,” Phoebe said, her features schooled in a mask. “It was several rows back, down the bookshelf.” He eyed her. All creatures practiced deception. Even she. Only some, however, were skilled in matters of treachery and untruthfulness.

  “I shall go have another search.” Justina Barrett dropped another curtsy. “It was a pleasure, my lord.”

  “The pleasure was all mine,” he said with the same trace of the charming gentleman he’d demonstrated years ago.

  The young lady skipped off, leaving him and Phoebe alone—yet again. When he returned his gaze to her, he found her staring after her sister. She troubled the flesh of her lower lip, lost in thought. “I fear the day she makes her entrance into Society,” she said quietly, more to herself. “With her beauty and…” She gave her head a brusque shake, remembering herself, and likely remembering too late that, but for a handful of carefully orchestrated meetings, he was little more than a stranger to her. “Forgive me,” she apologized, clasping her hands together.

  Odd, she should worry after her own sister’s naiveté and fail to realize she was nothing more than a pawn in his scheme for revenge. Is she…? He forcibly thrust back the fool question. Of course, she was. If there had been no betrayal by Miss Margaret Dunn, there would have been no duel, and humiliation and moment of weakness in cari
ng for anyone other than himself. Then there would have been no Miss Fairfax. He dipped his gaze down Phoebe’s lean frame, lingering on the generous swell of her breasts, and then raising it to meet her eyes. And there would have been no Phoebe. What a travesty that would have been.

  He wandered closer. “There is nothing to forgive.” Not where she was concerned. Edmund lowered his lips to her ear. He inhaled, drawing in the fragrant scent of lilies that clung to her skin, the innocent scent crisp and clean, putting him in mind of things long forgotten—lush countrysides and pure, blue skies, the shade of her eyes. What madness was this? With their bodies’ nearness, he detected the faint tremble of her frame. “I wish to see you again, Phoebe. Not in stolen corners of establishments and museums in meetings of happenstance. Will you permit me to call upon you?”

  For the fraction of a moment, he wanted her to say no. Wanted her to study him with the jaded cynicism he was deserving of. But for an equally terrifying moment, he wanted her to say yes. A panicky viselike pressure squeezed the breath from his lungs at his own apparent weakness for the innocent Miss Phoebe Barrett.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  Edmund claimed her lips in a quick, hard kiss. He wrapped his arm about her waist and tugged her against him, aching to worship every curve of her glorious form with his mouth. She whimpered and he swallowed that breathless entreaty with his lips.

  “Phoebe?” Her sister called from somewhere within the shop.

  He swallowed back a curse and set her aside, placing three deliberate steps between them. Edmund yanked out a nearby book and thrust it into her shaking fingers. She eyed it in confusion just as her sister turned the corner.

  “There you are,” she said with that same silly smile. “I cannot find the hats. Would you please help me?” The youngest Miss Barrett dropped her voice to a low whisper. “The shopkeeper is quite the curmudgeon.”

  “Of course, sweet,” she said and then handed the book over to him, her hands far steadier than he would have imagined. “Thank you, my lord. It was a pleasure.” She spoke with a sincerity that ran ragged through him. No one welcomed his presence, nor desired his company. Within the depths of her unjaded eyes, however, there was warmth and a genuine desire for more than his body or the material things he might give—which was all he had to give. It drew him, more powerful than a serpent’s venom.