My Darling, My Disaster (Lords of Essex)

by Morgan, Angie

  “Then what are yours, I wonder? Tell me, Lana, what are you hiding?”

  The subtle shift in the way his tongue rolled over her name had her senses on alert. It wasn’t soft and beseeching like the prior time. This time, he was testing it…tasting its weaknesses. As if her name held the answers he sought. She swallowed hard as he stepped closer, his eyes and manner unreadable.

  “I still think you were meeting with someone.”

  Lana couldn’t outright deny it. She was in hiding, and desperate to stay that way, but she could not stoop to blatant lying, especially after Lord Northridge had been open with her about Sofia.

  “You may think what you like,” she replied. He finished closing the space between them. Lana refused to retreat another step. “However, you may not take what you like.”

  Lord Northridge’s mouth turned up at the corners, as if her stand had amused him. “I take only what is willingly offered.”

  “I don’t recall offering my body for you to paw last evening.”

  “I hardly pawed,” he said with a soft huff of laughter. “Did you truly find me so detestable?”

  Lana wanted to say yes. Admitting otherwise felt like a form of surrender. She’d done well pretending to turn to ice underneath his hands and mouth, when inside she’d felt the slow scorch of desire. She hadn’t expected to feel that during Lord Northridge’s surprisingly tender kiss. But she had. For those few moments, she’d forgotten her dislike of him entirely.

  “I…did not,” she said in a shameful whisper, her fingers tangling together in front of her stomach as she tried to avoid his direct stare. “But I am a servant here.”

  “Then why is it, I wonder,” he began, inching forward, “that you do not behave as other servants do?”

  Lana’s throat closed off as she felt the bracing heat from his body. She would not cower. She would not scuttle back. He was testing her mettle. He wanted her to back down. And yes, perhaps she should. She was, to him, nothing more than a lady’s maid, after all.

  But everything inside of her, everything born and bred and royal, absolutely refused.

  “I am rather obstinate, I suppose,” she said instead.

  She felt his warm gust of laughter against her forehead. “You are a mule.”

  Lana gasped at the insult and snapped her eyes to his.

  It was a mistake.

  She saw the longing in them. The desire. Even a glint of admiration, unless she was fooling herself.

  “You are extraordinary,” he whispered. She parted her lips at the unexpected compliment, especially as it rode on the heels of an insult.

  “Lord Northridge,” she began, and then cut her eyes away, staring instead at his loosened cravat and the barest hint of bronzed skin above it. She felt the oddest desire to press her lips to that hollow, to feel his pulse throbbing there below the tip of her tongue. Stirring, she dragged in a shaky breath and licked dry lips. “I am like any other.”

  “Gray,” he said thickly, focusing on her mouth. “My name is Gray, and I do not want any other. I do not think of any other, not as I have found myself thinking of you.”

  It was wrong of him. He shouldn’t have been saying these things to her. Or asking her—a servant—to address him by his given name. And he should most definitely not have just brought his body to within a scant inch of hers. The air between them shimmered into something reminiscent of a lightning storm, powerful and elemental. She could barely breathe from the longing to have his hands on her. She was mad to want him to touch her again, and yet she did. If she was being honest with herself, she’d wanted their return ever since he’d removed them from her body the night before.

  “Only because I am considered forbidden. Only because I am an exciting risk,” she said, her chest beginning to strain from the lack of steady breaths. She wasn’t sure whom she was trying to convince.

  “No. It is something more.”

  His quiet words were so certain, so supremely sanguine, that Lana couldn’t help but be taken in by his conviction. More than what? A fleeting attraction? A desperate tumble belowstairs? She couldn’t be so foolish as to hope that he was about to profess his undying love. Men of his station and women of her current one had only one route open to them.

  And it did not involve marriage.

  It involved ruination. Hers, particularly.

  “You feel it too, Lana. I know you do.” His hand lifted to dislodge the white cap from her head. She watched it in silence as he placed it on the table. Oddly, the removal felt like he was evening the footing between them, and she had the strangest urge to snatch it to her chest. Her only defense against him was her position, and here he was…discarding it. Showing her that it didn’t matter. Her mouth went dry.

  “Feel what?” she croaked.

  “The connection between us that has been there from the start, from the moment you walked through the doors at Ferndale.”

  She swallowed a hysterical giggle. “You mean the one that makes me want to pummel you into the next fortnight?”

  His lips twitched, but his next words erased the momentary humor. “Physical attraction.” Long slender fingers hovered in the air next to her cheek, but he didn’t touch her. “Tell me you feel nothing, and I’ll leave this room. Say the word, Lana, and I’ll go.”

  His words catapulted through her, bursting through her defenses like cannons on a battlefield. She knew better. She knew better than to trust the aching look in those wide blue eyes or the feeling that this man needed someone to trust, needed someone to hold him. If only for a moment. She could give him that, couldn’t she? God knew she was no stranger to loneliness and the need for physical comfort.

  But Lana was wary. He was so exasperatingly difficult to fathom. Cold one minute, hot the next. Hubristic to a fault, and then achingly gentle as she’d seen with his daughter. She was not impervious to his looks, but she’d never been the sort of maiden to be swayed by a handsome face. Despite his high-handed nature, Lana found herself drawn to this man. To the tenderness she sensed beneath the surface. She didn’t want to think of him like this. So open and vulnerable. No, she didn’t want to feel anything for him at all, especially when he was staring at her just so. It was a losing battle. He made her want to do unreasonable things. Foolish things.

  No, she didn’t want him to leave.

  Not even when his eyes flared at her silence and he breached the remaining space between them, the moment for retreat vanishing. Panting softly, Lana made no move to stop him when his hand came up and his fingers touched the column of her neck. They slid to her nape and pressed into her skin, sinking up into the mass of her hair.

  “Regardless of what I feel, you know nothing of who I am,” she breathed, her willpower threatening to dissolve at the touch of his fingertips on her tingling scalp.

  “Then show me,” he replied before setting his mouth to hers.

  Lana’s shaky reserve held firm for all of one heartbeat before it crumbled like a fortress built on sand. Gray’s tongue drew across her sealed lips, and her mouth, as if governed by another mind, betrayed her. Her lips parted on a tremulous sigh, allowing him entry, and he swept in without hesitation. God, it was even better than what she had imagined so many times in her dreams. Warmer. Hotter. Brighter.

  Addictive.

  She wanted more. Her hands slid up around his neck, her tongue touching his tentatively. He groaned his approval and deepened the kiss. Lana’s entire body trembled at the sensual onslaught as he sought the soft interior of her mouth, drawing her lips between his and coaxing her to respond. Unlike the last time he kissed her, now all she wanted to do was open to him…savor the sleek glide of his tongue, welcome the warm press of his lips, delight in the hard strength of his body. He was all she could feel and taste and breathe, consuming every single rational thought in her head as bursts of heat kindled and ignited along her quivering limbs. Lana moaned into his mouth, lost to the erotic storm he was arousing within her.

  Gray swiveled her around, edging
her backward until the lip of the sewing table pushed against her lower back. His palms rounded over the curves of her bottom and lifted, hefting her up and settling her on top of the table, even as his mouth continued to ply hers with soft nudges and wet bites. Breaking the heated embrace after an eternity, his eyes impaled hers—so deeply blue and unfathomable, like the ocean she’d crossed to get here, that Lana couldn’t speak.

  After a long moment, he bent to feather every inch of her face with soft grazes of his lips, as if memorizing every contour and every rise. The aching tenderness of his touch left her speechless. Without realizing it, her anxious fingers had worked their way into the loose linen of his cravat, tugging at it until it fell away, exposing his neck. He smelled of lemon and cedar, and Lana couldn’t help herself—she touched her mouth to his throbbing pulse, tasting his warm, salted skin.

  “We must stop,” she whispered as his own busy lips trailed above her brow and around to her ear.

  “Do you want me to stop?” He took her lobe between his teeth, his breath hot. Gray tugged gently, his tongue sweeping out to lick the sensitive skin there. Lana shivered and moaned her answer. No. God no. Don’t stop.

  In response, he slipped his fingers under the cap of one sleeve of her serviceable dress and tugged it down. He brought his kisses to her bared shoulder while sliding down the opposite sleeve. And then, with the fingers of both hands still hooked into the rim of her muslin bodice, Gray pulled again. The top of her dress came down, her chemise with it, and Lana’s breasts, completely unhindered, spilled out into the dim light of the single lamp.

  She gasped, her breath coming short. But Gray held her panicked eyes, calming her, reassuring her before letting his gaze descend to feast on the sight of her.

  “Do you know how beautiful you are, Lana?” he said thickly. “So perfect. I knew you would be. I’ve never seen such skin like yours, like a luminous pearl.”

  She blushed deeply, everything falling away—the room, the manor, all of it, until it was only them. Only him, and the way he was looking at her.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he murmured again, his eyes rising to connect with hers.

  Would he? Lana had never been anywhere near this intimate with a man, but she had heard rumors from others. That men could be beasts. That they would simply do as they pleased. She did not doubt Gray’s honor, though, not after learning how he had been unable to abandon his child. If she changed her mind in another few seconds, she trusted he would stop.

  But the shocking, shameless truth was she didn’t want to. Not yet.

  Flushing with brazen shame, she shook her head in answer. With a smile, Gray lowered over one peach pink nipple and touched his tongue to the tip before drawing it into his mouth. Gasping at the wicked swirl of his tongue, Lana’s back arched like a tightened bow at the instant streak of fire that torched a path from her breasts to her hips. He suckled her, taking her between his teeth and gently tugging. She had never felt anything so sublime, so indecently delicious in her life. As Gray’s hands bracketed the span of her ribs and his mouth traveled to her other breast, lavishing his tongue and teeth on that one as well, she couldn’t imagine asking him to stop. It felt exquisite. He made her feel exquisite.

  A clatter down the hallway broke her lust-filled trance. Lana bolted upright, her eyes springing open to land on the closed door. Gray straightened, his gaze following the same route her eyes had taken, his own narrowing with understanding of their predicament. In an instant, Lana saw the peril of their situation—she, spread upon the table in a wanton display with the master leering above her, her breasts swinging free like a common tavern wench.

  The utterly mortifying truth of it.

  What the devil had she been thinking? She’d let emotion and lust overcome her good sense. She was risking everything, and for what? A few scattered embraces with a man who could destroy her fragile house of cards on a whim?

  Cursing her stupidity, Lana yanked up one sleeve while Gray slid the other into place. She batted his hand away, covering herself once again and hopping off the table. The distinct sound of footsteps came toward the sewing room door, and Lana’s heart tumbled to her feet. Even fully clothed, she couldn’t be caught with him like this—she’d be tossed out on her ear with no alternative but to find her way to Lord Langlevit alone, her perfect cover in tatters. Not to mention the scandal that would follow in her wake.

  She cursed herself again in several languages. How could she have been so reckless?

  Wild-eyed, she shushed Gray and shoved him backward, toward the space against the wall next to the door. There was no closet to hide in, no adjoining door for him to escape through. He’d have to hide behind the opened door and pray not to be seen. He stumbled back, his frown telling her he didn’t like hiding. But he must have understood what was at risk for her, because he stayed quiet.

  The door opened a mere second after Lana caught sight of Gray’s discarded cravat beneath the table. She kicked it farther underneath and turned to greet her visitor. She thought she might be ill at the dour face that appeared.

  The ever-vigilant Mrs. Frommer had opened the door wide enough to block Gray from Lana’s view. Her eyes narrowed on Lana and then canvassed the room in an efficient sweep. Lana felt true fear rise in her chest for a moment as the housekeeper’s gaze lingered near the table where she’d kicked the loosened cravat out of view. She held her breath until Mrs. Frommer’s cold eyes returned to her person, certain that the housekeeper would see right through the cloud of sin surrounding her.

  “I saw the light under the door,” she said in a clipped voice, not bothering to disguise her enmity. “I wanted to be sure someone hadn’t left a lamp lit.”

  Lana swiped up Brynn’s slippers and shot the housekeeper a false smile, hoping she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt. “I was repairing something for Lady Briannon before tomorrow.”

  Mrs. Frommer kept a hand on the doorknob, remaining in the doorway with one pencil-thin eyebrow raised. “You look flushed, Miss Volchek.”

  Cringing, Lana licked her lips and gathered her sewing supplies. “It is rather over-warm in here,” she replied in as agreeable a tone as she could manage. “But luckily I finished just as you arrived and was about to leave. I will follow you out, Mrs. Frommer.”

  Though she loathed the housekeeper, if Lana left with her, she wouldn’t have to face Gray. The spell his touch had woven through her had lifted just enough for shame to take its place. The throb of her breasts compounded it. Lana nodded at the stony-faced housekeeper, distinctly aware of the virile man hidden not a half step away from her. Her cheeks burned with the scalding memory of his mouth and hands, and her shameless response to them. She was a coward to run, she knew, but it was clear that she could no longer trust herself with Lord Northridge.

  With a shaky breath, she reached for the lamp and lowered the wick, extinguishing the flame. She rushed through the door and into the hallway, sighing with relief when the housekeeper closed it behind them.

  Chapter Seven

  “Lord Northridge,” a lilting female voice called out.

  Gray turned to see Lady Cordelia Vandermere strolling toward him as he was descending from his coach on St. James’s Street in London. At the sight of his sister’s friend, he stifled the immediate urge to duck into the entrance to White’s. It would be unforgivably rude. It wasn’t Cordelia’s fault that his mother had chosen her as top prospect for a daughter-in-law—in spite of his own recalcitrant feelings on the matter.

  He greeted her nonetheless with unfailing courtesy as she reached him, her maid and chaperone hovering a short distance away. “Lady Cordelia, a pleasure to see you.”

  “And you.” She smiled winsomely, and for a moment, Gray stared at her. Despite her purported frigidity, Cordelia was indeed a lovely girl. His mother was right. She had the right pedigree and circumstances to make him an excellent match, and she certainly was young and attractive. But Gray felt nothing but mild appreciation for her beauty, much the same
way as one would appreciate a beautiful portrait. For one, her flaxen hair seemed too pale and weightless. It lacked the supple substance a darker shade might hold. Hair the color of warm chocolate, for instance. Nor were her eyes the kind of bottomless green that made a man want to lose himself in them. Simply put, she wasn’t Lana.

  Gray groaned inwardly. If he had any sense in his head at all, he would be setting his cap at Cordelia instead of lusting after impossible outcomes with a servant. A servant who deserved better than some lord rutting after her. Common sense, however, seemed to be in short supply, especially where his sister’s beguiling maid was concerned. She haunted his thoughts every waking moment.

  He focused on the lady in front of him. “I trust you are well?”

  “Very well, my lord, thank you.” Cordelia nodded, a trifle breathless. “We were visiting the apothecary down the street, and I happened to notice your coach. How is your mother? And Lady Briannon? I haven’t seen either of them since our arrival in London.”

  “They are both well,” he replied. “I believe my sister was out shopping with her lady’s maid this afternoon for a dinner later this evening.”

  He clenched his jaw. There had been no reason for him to mention Brynn’s lady’s maid, but alas, his tongue had formed the words anyhow.

  “Ah, yes, the Russian girl,” Cordelia said. “I saw her briefly in Breckenham on the journey here a few days ago, and to my great mortification, I quite mistook her for someone else.” She laughed, and Gray notched an eyebrow at her decidedly unusual display of humor. Normally, Cordelia was far more reserved, particularly when in the presence of her mother. He glanced to her waiting companion—an attractive young woman not much older than she. Perhaps her mother’s absence explained her surprising break from habit. “Well, I shall not tarry longer, my lord, as I expect you are engaged at the moment. I bid you good evening.”

  “And you, Lady Cordelia.”

  Gray blinked at his unexpected fortune as she departed down St. James’s Street arm in arm with her companion. He’d half expected her to wrangle a dinner invitation out of him or at least convince him to accompany her on a stroll or ride in the park. But then, perhaps, those machinations were her mother’s doing, not hers.