His Wicked Ways

by Jaide Fox

  Bronte couldn't help but chuckle. “I expect that is because my mirror tells me otherwise,” she said, taking a seat.

  Lord Fairfax settled beside her. Leaning close, he murmured. “Your mirror lies to you."

  Repressing a responsive shiver as his warm breath caressed the side of her neck and ear, Bronte smiled, feeling slightly more comfortable with the ‘normalcy’ of his flirtation. “Mayhap it is only that I still see so much of the thin, freckled girl with the frightful shock of red hair that everyone used to tease me about unmercifully, but I can not see that the years have improved me beyond passable. I confess, though, that I had not thought you so shallow as to be carried away with nothing but what you perceive as beauty."

  He did not look the least affronted. “But I am a shallow fellow for I must confess it was your appearance that prompted me to demand an introduction. Imagine my surprise and delight to discover there was far more to you than luscious curves and a pleasing countenance."

  A jolt of shock went through Bronte at his blatantly sexual comment. He chuckled at her expression.

  "It is that touch of wide eyed innocence that appeals to me most, I think ... beyond the intelligence and the lively sense of humor, which I find almost as delightful as.... “His gaze strayed from her face to her bosom. “...the rest of you. The innocence in your eyes makes it difficult to imagine you ever having warmed any man's bed, and yet there is a sensuality about you that makes it equally difficult to believe that you would be one of those cold fish I am forever hearing my cronies complain about.

  "I would think that it would take any man, even one as jaded as I, a very long time to grow weary of your charms."

  The clatter of a plate penetrated Bronte's shocked dismay. She and Lord Fairfax both glanced around instinctively at the sound.

  Smiling grimly, Darcy sprawled in the chair across from them. “I'd wondered where you'd gotten off to, darlin'."

  Bronte studied him uneasily, wondering if he'd overheard Lord Fairfax. From the glitter in his eyes she thought it possible. On the other hand, he scarcely looked much angrier than he had earlier. “Lord Fairfax was kind enough to escort me to dinner,” she said shakily.

  Darcy's eyes narrowed on Fairfax. Whatever he was about to say, however, remained unsaid as Nick wandered up and settled in the chair beside him.

  "What a surprise to see you here,” Lord Fairfax murmured dryly, eyeing Nick coolly. “But then, where there is one, the other is not far behind. I'd thought you and Olivia were quits, Cain."

  Nick's face hardened. “I hadn't thought my affairs of public interest."

  Lord Fairfax shrugged. “Olivia was a bit maudlin about it ... insisted upon bending my ear. I assure you, I had no interest in the tale, but then I'm sure you're aware that it can be difficult extricating oneself from such a situation. You did ... ah ... comfort her when St. James’ interest waned, did you not?"

  Bronte glanced uneasily from one man to the other, realizing that, for all that they were behaving with excruciating politeness, there was a very definite undercurrent of violence in the air. In vain, she cast about in her mind for something to say to distract them from the course they seemed bound upon.

  Fate stepped in in a most unexpected manner.

  Two very male hands lifted her skirt and slid up her legs to her thighs. Bronte jumped, her eyes widening as her legs were wrenched apart and the rough scrape of whiskers abraded the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs as a head was thrust between her legs. Letting out a yelp, she surged to her feet, slapping at the bulge beneath her skirts.

  The man, who'd apparently passed out beneath the table sometime before their arrival, obviously too inebriated to know where he was much less retain any semblance of coordination, sprawled at her feet.

  Nick, Darcy, and Lord Fairfax were on their feet in an instant. Darcy literally leapt the table, tipping it over and sending dishes, glasses and food in every direction. Seizing the man, he lifted him from the floor by his neck, pinning him to the wall and commenced to pounding at his face with his other fist. Around them, half the guests gaped, too stunned to react at all. Several women screamed. A number of other chairs fell over as other men surged to their feet to see what was happening.

  Nick and Lord Fairfax each grasped one of Bronte's arms almost simultaneously, apparently both having decided it would be best to remove Bronte quickly from the scene. Before it resulted in a tug of war, however, Nick settled the dispute by slamming his fist into Lord Fairfax's jaw in an uppercut that was so swift and so powerful it rocked Lord Fairfax's head back on his neck. His eyes rolled up in his head. His knees wobbled, and he went down like a felled tree, catching the edge of yet another table and upending it.

  Grasping Bronte's hand, Nick dragged her from the room and down the hallway, his stride so rapid Bronte had to run to keep up. He said nothing to her as they waited on the steps for his carriage to be brought around, but his gaze was damning and Bronte withered under that hard stare.

  Still under the influence of a little too much punch, embarrassed, revolted at the assault, and feeling an onslaught of fresh guilt for attending a party she knew now was nothing more than a decadent sexual romp, Bronte found she couldn't meet his gaze. Shivering as much from the coldness of his condemning gaze as from the chill night air, Bronte wrapped her arms around herself, trying to still the quaking that seemed to delve deeply inside of her.

  Once they were settled inside his carriage, Nick looked her over assessingly. “Were you introduced to young MacFarland before he thrust his face between your thighs, or was that your introduction?"

  Bronte felt her cheeks color. She sent him a resentful glance.

  "Why did you go when I expressly asked you to keep your distance from that woman?"

  Bronte sent him a look. “You forbade it!"

  His lips tightened. “Was that it then? To show me that you would do as you pleased ... even if it is dangerous? Foolhardy? Have you any notion at all of what ‘parlor game’ they were playing downstairs?"

  She didn't and he had to know she hadn't been downstairs at all.

  "They were using ether on one another. I saw two insensible women carried off upstairs while I was looking for you."

  Bronte swallowed against the surge of dismay that swept through her. She'd heard tales of such things, of course, but she hadn't believed they could possibly be true. She shuddered to think what might have happened if she'd allowed anyone to talk her into going downstairs.

  Regardless, she resented feeling as if she owed him any explanation, and still she found herself trying to excuse her behavior. “She invited me. I thought ... I thought it was only that you did not like it because she was your mistress,” she managed to say, though her chin developed an annoying wobble before she'd managed to finish speaking.

  "I did not like it because there is very little that she and her set will not attempt and you are no match for such as they, even though you seem to think yourself very worldly."

  "You would know!” she said accusingly.

  His face hardened. “I would."

  Bronte turned her head to stare out the window, trying to regain control of her wayward emotions. “I was ... curious,” she said in a small voice.

  "About what?"

  Bronte swallowed with an effort. “To see if I could understand what you and Darcy saw in her."

  He remained silent for so long that Bronte finally glanced at him. It was dim within the carriage, despite the street lamps that lit the interior intermittently, but she could see that his expression was stony and unreadable. Finally, he held out his hand. “Come here."

  Bronte studied him a moment in surprise and finally placed her hand in his. He pulled her across the space, settling her across his lap. Without even thinking about it, Bronte looped her arms around his neck and dropped her head against his shoulder just as she had when they were children and he'd offered to comfort her. She found that it was just as comforting to be held by him now as it had been then.

&nb
sp; It was odd that she'd forgotten the many times he'd held her while she cried, stroking her back soothingly, murmuring words of sympathy and encouragement.

  "Do you think that it never bothered me to think of you in Isaac's bed?"

  Bronte stiffened, pulling away slightly to look at him. “It did?” she asked in surprise

  His lips twisted wryly. “It did."

  Bronte settled her head against his shoulder again. “There was something in the punch."

  "I know."

  "I feel most strange."

  "I'm trying very hard not to take advantage of you, Bronte. Do, please, cease to remind me that you've had far too much to drink."

  Bronte chuckled.

  "Why don't you tell me what frightened you? Why you're so upset?"

  The urge to laugh vanished abruptly. Bronte swallowed against the surge of fear and the sudden urge to burst into tears that replaced it. She could not bring herself to tell him that it was fear for him, though. He had punched Lord Fairfax out. She didn't want to think about what the repercussions might be.

  The urge to tell him, and to beg him not to meet Lord Fairfax in a duel was nearly overwhelming, but she knew it was useless to try to wring such a promise from him. In the first place, he would consider it an insult to suggest that he couldn't hold his own in any duel. In the second, he had hit Lord Fairfax. Lord Fairfax might well call him out on account of it, and Nick would not refuse a challenge. He might be persuaded not to call Fairfax out, but no amount of pleading would convince him to ignore Fairfax if he decided to pursue the dispute.

  "You went to the party because of me, didn't you?"

  He'd been stroking her back almost idly. At that, his hand stilled. “And?"

  She released him and sat up. “I wish you had not."

  He stopped her when she would have moved back to her own seat. “I make my own decisions and I am responsible for my own actions, Bronte."

  She shook her head. “Even when you did it because someone was where they should not have been and you felt duty bound to protect them only because it had become a habit with you?"

  His eyes gleamed with amusement. “You are a difficult habit to break, Bronte."

  "I do not want to be a habit!” she snapped, angry that he was making light of the situation when she was so swamped with guilt over the possibility that he could be hurt, or worse, only because of her own willfulness. Resentment swelled inside her too, for she could not have anticipated anything that had unfolded.

  "What do you want?"

  She looked down at her hands in her lap. She had wanted to hate him and Darcy. Better yet, she wanted not to care at all. She had wanted that most of all—not to feel hate, or yearning but a complete absence of anything that would continue to haunt her whenever she considered seeking a life for herself that included a husband. She had wanted to discover that the feelings that had begun when she should have been too young to have felt them at all had not been real.

  Now, all she wanted was to undo everything she had done since she had made the decision to return home to England. Like the slow deterioration of dying nerves around an aching tooth, time and distance had dulled the pain of her memories. She should have been content with that.

  Instead, she had opened herself up to even more pain because she saw now that, no matter what happened, it was going to end badly and she was going to take even more regrets back with her than she had had to start with.

  "Peace,” she replied almost angrily, trying to wiggle off his lap once more. “The freedom to make my own decisions and take the consequences without having to worry that someone else will suffer for my poor judgment."

  Nick's hand tightened on her waist. His face hardened with anger. “That is only because you do not fully comprehend what the consequences might have been if I had not intervened."

  "Do you think I am so naïve I don't know that I might have ended in Lord Fairfax's bed, or that that was his intention?"

  "You wanted that?” he demanded, furious now.

  "No!” she retorted before she had time to consider it, making no attempt to hide her revulsion of the idea. The denunciation was no sooner out of her mouth, however, than it occurred to her that she had intended to convince Nick and Darcy that she had no interest in either of them even if she couldn't convince herself of it. “At least ... that is not why I went. It wasn't what I'd planned, or even expected, but there is no reason why I should not take a lover if I wish to! I am not an untried girl! I am a woman, a widow who knows her way around a man's bed!"

  "So ... you're saying you went looking for a lover?"

  "Yes!” It was only partly a lie. She had not intended or expected anything of the sort when she'd decided to go to Mrs. Bolington's affair, but she had realized that the only way she was going to avert a breach in the long standing friendship between Darcy and Nick was to eschew the company of both. She didn't need to know why they had taken the notion to pursue her. It was sufficient that she could see that she'd aroused the fierce competition between them.

  "Why?” he demanded tightly.

  Bronte stared at him in growing agitation. “Do you think because I am a woman that I do not have the same needs that you do?"

  "Then seek a husband,” he said harshly.

  "I can not!"

  "Again, why?"

  "Because I'm barren!” Bronte blurted. “Because I could not give him what he would have a right to expect of me, an heir, a family."

  He studied her in silence for several moments. “You don't know that. You were not married so long that you could be certain of it."

  She turned to stare blindly out the window. “A physician confirmed it."

  "And he could still be wrong,” Nick said wryly.

  Bronte sighed, having covered the same ground numerous times with her mother. “Nevertheless, I could not, in good conscience, do so, and I have not the stomach to be tied to a man who would hate me for such a deception if time proved what I suspect to be true."

  Again, Nick fell silent for some moments. “If you are determined upon this course, then you have two to choose from,” he said, his voice laced with cold anger now. “Me ... or Darcy."

  Bronte gaped at him in dismay. “I can't! I couldn't!"

  His eyes narrowed. “I have had no complaints, not in many years at any rate. So far as I am aware, neither has Darcy. Women seem to find me attractive enough. I can not speak for their taste, particularly when they appear to consider Darcy handsome as well, but I have been led to believe they find little fault in my appearance. If you are seeking a lover, then you certainly could not object to a man of experience."

  "No, but ... but...."

  She could no more tell him that she couldn't choose because she didn't want to create trouble between him and Darcy than she could plead with him to avoid a duel. He would not consider the cost. Darcy would not consider the cost.

  It was possible that it would not result in a rift between them, but she could not risk it even if she could bring herself to choose between them and in her heart she knew she could not.

  "I ... uh ... the thing is, I just can't."

  "Why?"

  Desperation provided inspiration. “You are like brothers to me. It does not feel right. I know you are not, but I can not help feeling that way when we grew up together."

  He gripped her upper arms, dragging her against his chest. “Liar,” he murmured as he slid one arm around her, threaded his fingers through her hair and covered her mouth in a searing kiss that instantly heated Bronte's blood to a slow simmer. Dizziness swept over her the moment his tongue invaded her mouth in a possessive caress, demolishing what little resolve she'd managed to summon. She clutched the lapels of his jacket as full fledged desire wound through her body, rapidly tightening its grip upon her mind and senses, and finally slipped her arms around his neck.

  He hesitated when she capitulated, but Bronte was well beyond thought of drawing back. Driven purely by need, she pressed more tightly against him, car
essing his tongue with hers. He tensed. A hard shudder went through him. He caught her arms once more, clearly torn between his own needs that urged him to draw her closer still and the little reason that remained to him.

  Abruptly, he broke the kiss, moving his mouth along her throat in open mouthed kisses until he reached her breasts. Scooping one from her bodice, he closed his mouth around the distended tip, teasing it with his tongue, torturing her with the heated adhesion of his mouth as he suckled it.

  Bronte moaned, moving her hands over him restlessly, tightening her arms around his head as he continued to caress her sensitive nipple, sending waves of intense pleasure through her. He caressed her thigh, reaching down to grasp the hem of her dress and slipping his hand beneath it. She shifted as his hand skated up her bare thigh, trying to move to allow him better access, wanting his hand between her thighs.

  Lifting his head, he stared at her a long moment, his breath sawing raggedly from his chest. “As tempted as I am, a moving carriage is the worst sort of place to attempt this,” he said wryly.

  Disappointment swamped her, but reason reared its ugly head the moment her blood began to cool, and she realized she could not have left him in any doubt that she had lied. She moved away from him jerkily, adjusting her clothing, fighting the confusing mixture of emotions that pelted her.

  Uppermost was the near desperate desire to finish what they'd begun and to hell with the consequences. The temptation to burn her bridges completely and eliminate any future temptation by lying through her teeth was nearly as overwhelming, but she could not bring herself to tell him she had pretended in her mind that he was someone else.

  Almost as if he'd read her mind, he spoke then. “Don't bother trying to tell me again that you can feel nothing beyond a filial affection for me, or that you were imagining I was someone else. You and I both know that's a lie."