The thought did little to calm her nerves. Should anyone catch her alone in a gentleman’s bedchamber, worse, such a notorious gentleman, there would be the devil to pay.
If only the stakes weren’t so high. If only her sister Amelia wasn’t such a ninnyhammer. If only Erskine wasn’t a man who turned even sensible women silly.
Philippa sighed and straightened away from the door. “If only” wouldn’t help. It was imperative that she found and destroyed the compromising letter her henwitted sister had sent Erskine before her engagement to Mr. Gerald Fox had been announced last night.
Then Philippa would take to her heels and never think about the rakish Lord Erskine again.
By the light of the fire blazing in the hearth, she surveyed her surroundings with a jaundiced air. The chamber was large and luxurious. Her aunt must be trying to turn Lord Erskine up sweet, in the hope that he’d offer for her horse-faced daughter Caroline. Given the trouble his libertine lordship had caused, Philippa almost wished her vile cousin on him. Over the last few days, she’d observed him closely. She couldn’t approve of the cynical light in his eyes and the way he arrogantly assumed that any chit in his vicinity must swoon at his merest word.
However Philippa wouldn’t be female without admitting that he was a spectacular specimen of masculinity.
She’d worried that it might take too long to locate the letter, or that he might carry it as a trophy, but her gaze immediately fell on a beautiful mahogany writing slope left open on the window seat. She could hardly believe her luck. Pulses kicking with relief, she rushed toward the window.
Then stopped on a horrified gasp when she heard the doorknob squeak as it turned.
Lord save her …
Frantically she dived across the few feet of floor to the dressing room. She had time to notice dark coats hanging from rows of pegs and shelves neatly stacked with clothing. Hands shaking, she tugged the door closed until she cowered in thick darkness. Thick darkness redolent with leather and soap and sandalwood—and something undefined that teased her senses.
Dizzy with fear and that unfamiliar but pleasant scent, she silently prayed that whoever had come in would finish what they were doing and go. Much as she strained, she couldn’t hear a thing, even with her ear pressed to the door. The thick wood blocked all sound, just as it blocked all light.
The dressing room door jerked open, unbalancing her. She only just saved herself from tumbling to the floor in an undignified heap. As she stared up at the looming figure above her, panic hammered through her, turned her blood to ice.
“What have we here?” The Scottish burr in the deep drawl brushed across her nerves like sandpaper.
Sick with dread, Philippa lurched away, crowding against the coats lined against the back wall. This was beyond awful. What must he think? What might he do?
Lord Erskine’s chest was bare and a white shirt dangled from one elegant hand. The wall lamp near the doorway spilled gold over a terrifying expanse of gleaming skin. His lordship’s sardonic green gaze focused on her.
His calmness only built her fright. One would imagine that he was accustomed to discovering well-bred virgins huddled in his undergarments. Curse him, he probably was. Philippa had only met Blair Hume three days ago, but like most of the nation, she knew his reputation for subverting even the most virtuous ladies.
“My lord—” Desperately she struggled not to stare at his impressive chest with its scattering of dark hair.
“Miss Philippa Sanders.” With unconcealed irony, he bowed. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
To her horror, he stepped into the confined space. The dressing room had been tiny before. Now it was suffocating. Her heart pounded with fear. That cursed elusive scent made her head swim as she wedged herself into the wall, wishing she could disappear altogether.
Still his tall body remained scant inches away. Surely it was only in her imagination that a subtle heat radiated out to envelop her.
“I mistook the room,” she stammered.
She made the error of glancing at his chest. Broad. Powerful. Sculpted with muscle. She gulped for air. Watching the farm workers from a distance without their shirts wasn’t at all the same as facing down a half-dressed rake in his bedroom.
A wry smile curled the rake’s thin, expressive lips. “By a whole wing, apparently.”
She straightened and glared at him, struggling to ignore the way his thick black hair was ruffled and his eyes devoured her. A gentleman would pretend to believe her, however feeble her lie.
Clearly Lord Erskine was no gentleman.
“It’s late,” she said with hard-won steadiness, telling herself that if she kept her head, she might yet escape unscathed. By Lord Erskine or by scandal. “I must return to my room.”
He didn’t step aside to let her pass. Definitely no gentleman. “Not quite yet.”
Meeting his gaze required every ounce of faltering courage. “Not before you return my sister’s letter at any rate.”
Surprisingly he laughed. “Huzzah, Miss Sanders. I knew there was more to you than the little shadow glowering at me from the corner.”
She flushed with chagrin. She’d had no idea this darling of the ton had noticed her, let alone remarked her disapproval. “My lord, I insist that you give me Amelia’s letter immediately.”
“Or what?” Dark eyebrows tilted in supercilious inquiry. At least he’d stopped staring at her like he meant to gobble her up like a Christmas bonbon. “You’ll unfold all my shirts and stamp on them?”
Welcome anger bolstered her defiance. “A man of honor would return the letter.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible.”
“Why?” Her fists clenched at her sides as the urge to clout him thundered through her. “What do you intend to do with it?”
His smile broadened, and in spite of irritation, frustration and fear, his male beauty made her throat tighten. No wonder Amelia had made such a fool of herself over him. Right now, even clever, pragmatic Philippa Sanders felt a little giddy to have all that glorious virility focused on her humble self.
“I intend to do precisely nothing, my sweet little Yuletide burglar.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”
His smile intensified. “It means that I burned it immediately after I read it.”
She drew her first full breath in what felt like days. Since Amelia’s tearful confession of her arrant stupidity, apprehension had knotted Philippa’s belly. If Erskine wanted to cause trouble, he could use her sister’s letter to spark an awful scandal—not to mention scupper Amelia’s newly minted engagement to a nice young man of substantial means.
Philippa paused, knowing she owed Lord Erskine her heartfelt thanks for his unexpected chivalry and, even more urgently, an apology for invading his room. But her response sounded grudging, even in her own ears. “That was…generous of you.”
The mocking smile didn’t fade. “I’m glad you think so.”
All night, anger had lurked beneath her fear. Firstly at Amelia for being such a rattlebrain and creating this mess, then at herself for getting caught. Most futile of all was her anger at Lord Erskine for coming in at such an inopportune moment. Although at least now she knew what had happened to the letter. “I must go.”
“No rush, my fascinating Miss Sanders.” He shifted closer and the light behind him lent his face a suddenly sinister expression.
“I’m not your Miss Sanders,” she snapped with a resurgence of dread. A chill trickled down her spine. Awareness of her own danger swamped any gratitude for Amelia’s reprieve.
“Not yet, at any rate,” he said mildly, pulling the door shut behind him.
Darkness wrapped around them. Rage and terror spurred Philippa to surge forward, shoving hard at Lord Erskine. Her hands met smooth, warm skin and an immovable male body. The silky hair on his chest created soft friction against her palms. “Let me out of here.”
“Devil take you, do you never say please?” He shifted to break th
e contact, but not nearly quickly enough for her peace of mind.
As he leaned away, she pushed past him to tug madly at the doorknob, but even using both hands, she couldn’t budge it. As she struggled, her shoulder brushed Erskine’s arm. To her surprise, he made no attempt to hinder her departure. If he intended seduction, he was insultingly half-hearted.
Hardly surprising. She wasn’t nearly beautiful enough to appeal to that famous connoisseur of female loveliness, Blair Hume.
She told herself she didn’t mind. And didn’t believe it for a minute.
“Stop this nonsense immediately and open this door,” she demanded breathlessly.
“Have I persuaded you against breaking into anyone else’s room?” he asked without shifting. “Especially if the anyone else is a man.”
Shock made her hand drop away from the doorknob. “You’re trying to teach me a lesson?” she hissed incredulously.
That familiar soft laugh played up and down her backbone like music, and she realized with an unwelcome frisson that the evocative scent filling the room was Lord Erskine’s own. The intimacy of recognizing his personal essence scared her more than being trapped with a rake.
“I am indeed.” In the tight space, she was close enough to hear him draw breath. More encroaching intimacy. “Step aside and I’ll set you free, chastened but unharmed. And hopefully a little wiser.”
Her snort was derisive. If her mother had heard the unmannerly response, she’d have a fit. But then so much of what Philippa did gave her mother the vapors. “Who on earth do you think you are? What a cheek.”
“Miss Sanders, I feel some humility is called for.” He still sounded as though he found her endlessly diverting. “If you’re as clever as you think you are, you wouldn’t be stuck here with a rake while your sister sleeps comfortably in her own bed, safely beyond scandal’s reach.”
The comment’s justice rankled. “You’re a very annoying man,” she muttered, wishing to heaven she’d left Amelia to solve her own problems.
“Undoubtedly,” he said without inflection. “But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong about you needing to temper valor with discretion.”
She bit back a blistering response about profligate libertines following their own advice and waited impatiently for him to let her out. She very much feared that if she spent much longer with the irritating Earl of Erskine, she’d strangle him with one of his neck cloths.
For what seemed a ridiculous length of time, Erskine rattled the doorknob.
“Stop playing games,” she said sharply, tired of his antics. He might find his teasing funny. She just wanted to leave this room and say goodnight and never see him again. “Unlock the door and let me out.”
He stopped tugging on the doorknob. A fraught silence fell. For the first time when he spoke, no trace of humor warmed his deep voice. “It’s stuck.”
* * *
“I don’t believe you.” The girl’s voice was impressively flat and steady.
Erskine should have guessed that the self-possessed Miss Philippa Sanders wouldn’t have hysterics when she learned she was confined with a rake. He didn’t need any light to know that disapproval weighted that direct brown gaze. For the last three days, he’d suffered that solemn, critical stare every time guests and family gathered.
Although she couldn’t see him, he shrugged. “That is, of course, your privilege.”
From the moment he’d seen her in this closet, reluctant excitement had thrummed in his veins. Although surely the small, brown-haired woman with uncompromising dark brows would strike most sane men as prim or dour.
Apparently he wasn’t sane.
Since their introduction, he’d wanted to shake this girl’s unnatural composure. Miss Sanders awoke all his worst impulses. Not since his schooldays had he wanted to pull a girl’s plait or put a mouse down her back just to stop her treating him like a member of some inferior species.
Erskine had grown up considerably from the boy who used such unproductive tactics on the pretty baker’s daughter. He’d immediately recognized that his urge to upset Miss Sanders’s calmness was similarly based in seeking her attention, if only in displeasure. And the heat swirling in his blood since she’d touched his bare chest was distinctly adult.
While he didn’t understand the fascination, he made a habit of being honest with himself. This observant little sparrow drew him in a way the fashionable and sophisticated London ladies never had. He was yet to work out why. This attraction’s inexplicable nature added to its power. In all this sprawling house, the only person who stirred a shred of interest was the woman regarding him the way she’d regard a worm in an apple.
An unusual experience for a man generally considered irresistible to the fairer sex.
He’d been right to suspect that more went on beneath her quiet exterior than she wanted the world to know. In the last five minutes, she’d displayed more spirit than she had in three days of staring him down. Perhaps he should have locked her in a cupboard the first day.
“You’ve got a key. Or you’ve clicked the lock somehow.”
She didn’t sound frightened, for which he was heartily grateful. Instead she sounded like a schoolmistress scolding a lazy pupil for sloppy arithmetic.
Good God, Erskine was in a bad way. Something in that stern voice made him want to grab her and kiss her until she lost the breath to berate him. “You’re not a very trusting soul, are you?”
Her sigh conveyed endless irritation. “Lord Erskine, you needn’t persist in this foolishness. You have my word that I will never invade another man’s bedchamber.”
He bit back an invitation to invade his bedchamber any time she fancied.
When he didn’t respond, she went on, still as if speaking to someone slow on the uptake. “Pray unlock the door. No harm has been done. My sister’s honor is safe because you destroyed the letter. You obviously realized that she’d written to you on a foolish impulse.”
Actually the beauteous Amelia’s letter had been incendiary in the extreme and had offered privileges nobody but a husband had the right to claim. Erskine spared a sympathetic thought for the chit’s fiancé. Mr. Gerald Fox put his pretty beloved high on a pedestal, a pedestal from which she was likely to topple before long.
Erskine kept his voice light, although he wondered if Amelia’s younger sister had any inkling of the letter’s contents. “So all is squared away and you go your merry way, with your uncharitable assessment of me intact.”
He didn’t see her frown, but he knew she did. He’d never been so attuned to a woman. And he hadn’t even kissed her yet.
At the thought of holding her naked in his arms, hunger shuddered through him. While she didn’t dress to display her body, he knew enough about women to guess what she’d look like out of that unfashionable blue frock. She might be slender, but the bosom curving beneath those discouragingly high collars was round and firm. He’d wager that description matched the rest of her.
Perhaps winter and this tedious house party encouraged a taste for more subtle attractions. Three days in her company had convinced Erskine that Philippa Sanders was a rare beauty indeed. He was just grateful that his blockheaded companions were too distracted by the false gold of her sister to notice.
“I hardly think you care about my opinion,” she said in a repressive tone.
“I’m a sensitive soul.”
“Clearly,” she responded just as drily. “Now unlock the door.” She paused and added a sugary edge to the next word. “ Please.”
He laughed, wondering why her bossiness charmed him. He didn’t in general like managing females, but something about this small, confident woman touched the heart he’d imagined immune to tenderness. “Did that hurt?”
Another of those delightful, dismissive snorts. “You’ve had your fun, my lord.”
Not by a long shot, my dear. “Believe me, Miss Sanders, unless I can open this door, nothing can save you from the consequences of your foolishness. It seems fortune doesn’t favor t
he brave.”
He should be in a blind panic about what might happen if they were discovered together in such a compromising situation. Somehow, he…wasn’t.
“This isn’t funny.”
“I’m not laughing.” He paused. “You’re most welcome to search me if you believe I have a key.”
Her faint gasp made him wonder if she too relived that searing moment when she’d touched him. “The door’s really stuck?”
“It’s really stuck.”
He heard the faint rustle of her plain dark blue dress, the same dress she’d worn sitting across the table from him at dinner. Her expression had been critical as she’d observed her overbearing cousin’s attempts to captivate him. Caroline had been almost as busy as the beauteous Amelia making cow eyes at him.
When he’d accepted Sir Theodore Liddell’s invitation, he hadn’t realized matchmaking lay on the horizon. Although damn it, he should have. He was hardly a green boy when it came to ambitious parents.
Beside him, the doorknob rattled. Miss Sanders wasn’t one to give up before she was well and truly defeated. He admired her stalwart soul. He’d mocked her bravery in sneaking into his room to steal her sister’s letter, but it was a damned gallant act. An act that, unless they were very lucky, would have major repercussions.
As she moved, he caught a drift of her scent. Like Philippa Sanders, it was an intriguing mixture of tart and sweet. Lemon soap. And something warmer and earthier.
He couldn’t let her continue battling with the door. Already she breathed in frantic little gasps. He placed his hand over hers. There was that same shock of connection that he’d felt when she flattened her palm on his bare chest. “Do you believe me now?”
“Yes.” She sounded young and frightened, not at all like the assertive miss who had demanded the letter’s return. “This is such a disaster. We can’t say here alone. What if someone finds us?”
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Acknowledgements
Three Proposals and a Scandal: A Sons of Sin Novella Page 15
