A Scoundrel by Moonlight

by Anna Campbell

  Her eyes flashed up. “I wanted a book,” she said desperately.

  “One you can’t find during the day?” His voice bit as he continued. “With dear Mr. Crane’s advice on your choice.”

  If he was another man, she’d think he was jealous. But the great Marquess of Leath wouldn’t care about a maidservant’s flirtations.

  He went on before she could protest. “Surely you won’t say that you’re here for something to read.”

  She raised her chin. Knowing that she risked disaster, she said the only thing that came to mind. “I wanted to see where you sleep.”

  Surprise had him lurching back. “What the devil?”

  She took advantage of the few extra inches of space to draw a breath, tangy with sandalwood. Turning red as a tomato would lend credence to her explanation. “Please don’t make me admit this.”

  He watched her like a snake watched a rat. “Admit what?”

  “Must I say? You put me to the blush.” That at least was true.

  “Yes, you must.”

  She pressed her damp palms to her skirts. How she’d love to punch him, but she had a horrible inkling that his jaw would be much harder than her fist. Dear heaven, help her to sound convincing. But not too convincing.

  “Hasn’t a servant ever been besotted with you, my lord?” To her surprise, her question emerged steadily.

  “Not to my…” He spoke very deliberately. “Are you saying you have a penchant for me, Miss Trim?”

  He didn’t sound pleased. She should be relieved that he wasn’t ripping her clothes off. After all, her confession could be taken as an invitation. Yet again it struck her that he was a remarkably restrained libertine.

  She struggled to appear bashful instead of scared out of her wits. “It’s embarrassing.”

  “I’m sure.” He sounded skeptical, as well he might. “You’ve never seemed dazzled.”

  She turned her face away, staring at his hand spread against the door’s rich mahogany. Like the rest of him, his hand was big and powerful and beautifully formed. Despite everything, she couldn’t resist imagining that hand on her skin. His gold signet ring, visible symbol of his rank, gleamed evilly from his little finger. “I have my pride.”

  “Of course,” he said drily.

  She struggled to look humble and shy and innocent. All were true. Well, apart from the humble part. Her stepfather had frequently warned her that a mere sergeant major’s daughter had no right to be so stiff-necked. “I’m aware of the gulf between us.”

  “And it breaks your heart.”

  If only she could squeeze out a convincing tear. “I can’t help my feelings.”

  He didn’t move closer. It just felt that way. “Do you really expect me to credit this balderdash?”

  Her temper stirred. “You underestimate your effect on an impressionable girl.”

  He snorted disbelief. “More balderdash.”

  Damn him. A turbulent mix of desperation, anger, and reckless bravado gripped her. Frantic hands grabbed the front of his shirt. “I’ll show you balderdash, my lord.”

  She stretched up until her lips crashed into his.

  Chapter Seven

  Leath stiffened—everywhere—under Miss Trim’s unexpected assault. He had to give her credit. She’d dare the devil. He hadn’t expected her to take this absurdity about her tendre for him to this length.

  But then, he’d cornered her, hadn’t he?

  Her lips were soft and endearingly clumsy. She kissed like a young girl. This might be another ruse to disarm him, but he didn’t think so. Even more unbelievable than her supposed infatuation, the glorious Miss Trim wasn’t much good at kissing.

  Which turned out to be a damned lucky thing. As it was, he was hard as an iron bar. If she demonstrated an ounce of skill, his sanity would dissolve completely.

  Because he was still marginally sane, he caught her shoulders. For a moment, he reveled in her slender strength. Then with more difficulty than he wanted to admit, he pushed her away.

  She panted as her lips slid free. Throughout the brief, urgent kiss, she’d kept her mouth closed.

  “What—” She looked dazed, as if he’d painted her world with rainbows. Imagine if he’d kissed her back, taught her what to do.

  Except that he refused to kiss women he didn’t trust. And he most definitely didn’t trust this one. Although the shine in her eyes, firelit amber, might almost convince him that she really was smitten.

  She licked her lips again, slowly, as if tasting him. He bit back a groan and drew her closer, when good sense dictated that he throw her out on her delectable rump. Solving the puzzle of her presence was impossible when the wicked urge to have his way with her jammed his brain. He wasn’t used to his head and his instincts being at odds. His head should be winning.

  It wasn’t.

  “I give you points for trying,” he said, the hint of savagery directed mostly at himself. Her flinch stabbed him with guilt, although heaven knew she’d asked for trouble.

  “I’m sorry.” Her slender throat moved as she swallowed. “If you tell your mother I kissed you, she’ll let you dismiss me.”

  He was surprised that his mother had mentioned his attempts to send Miss Trim away. “If she knows you came to my room, that’s enough,” he snapped and felt guilty again when she flushed with humiliation.

  “So you’ll win.”

  More easily than he’d expected. He wondered why he wasn’t happier. He should be dancing a jig, now that this conniving baggage had overreached herself. But his lips tingled from the pressure of hers. His head flooded with the lemon perfume of her soap, more familiar than it should be. Just the sound of her voice made him yearn.

  He didn’t believe that she wanted him. But by God, he wanted her. Except she hadn’t claimed to want him, had she? She’d claimed a silly schoolgirl infatuation.

  It would serve her right if he showed her what risks she took. Tossed her onto his bed and flung himself on top of her.

  Except…

  Except in her face, he saw secrets and mysteries. But he also saw innocence. Whatever else she was, she wasn’t experienced with men. That one awkward, incendiary kiss betrayed Miss Trim as a novice.

  She played dangerous games.

  He should send her away with orders to pack.

  His hands tightened on her shoulders, holding her in place.

  “Why don’t you tell me to go?” she asked wonderingly. For once, she sounded like a bewildered young girl, not the woman whose actions tormented him with questions and whose presence banished his sleep.

  “You want to kiss me?”

  “No,” she said quickly, then less certainly, “Yes.”

  She struggled to keep up the pretense of girlish adoration. Except that after she’d kissed him, he’d caught arousal stirring in her eyes.

  “Which is it?”

  She bit her lip and before he could stop himself, he bent to kiss her, to stop her torturing that luscious mouth. Her shocked gasp was a whisper of warm breath on his face.

  His hands slid around her back, holding her as a lover holds a woman he intends to kiss. Thoroughly.

  Knowing he’d pay, knowing this was absolutely the last thing he should do, he brushed his lips across Miss Trim’s.

  Nell still shook with reaction from her first kiss. The experience had left her confused and strangely frustrated. She wasn’t sure she’d enjoyed it, although it had been… interesting.

  She hadn’t expected the heat and intimacy and sheer physicality of placing her lips on a man’s. His mouth had been firm and he hadn’t responded. Not that she was sure what she wanted him to do.

  For a long moment, Leath watched her with an unreadable expression. His hands dug into her shoulders and she feared that he was about to shove her out the door. She was bizarrely reluctant to go. She braced for a summary ejection from his room, then tomorrow a summary ejection from Alloway Chase.

  His hold softened in a way she couldn’t describe. She stared up at
him, transfixed, afraid. No wonder poor silly Dorothy had fallen under his spell. He was the most compelling man she’d ever known.

  Her skin tightened with anticipation. Slowly his lips skimmed across hers in a caress as different from her all-out assault as satin from iron.

  The kiss lasted no more than a second, yet flooded her with such longing that her knees buckled. She leaned back against the door.

  He still looked uncompromising. His features were all hard planes: strong bones, jutting nose, adamantine jaw.

  Yet his lips… His lips had been softer than a feather.

  She snatched a jagged breath and struggled to speak, but before she could, he gave her another of those sweet kisses. Did he linger a little this time? Taste her as delicately as he’d sample a fine claret?

  Her breath caught as he raised his head and regarded her with familiar concentration. To steady herself, she hooked her hands around his neck. “That was…”

  Lovely? Wrong? Frightening? Beguiling?

  Heaven help her. Heaven condemn her. She’d started this. Now she’d opened the gates to destruction on a level she’d never contemplated.

  One thumb trailed down the line of her jaw, leaving a tingling wake. His lips quirked in a faint smile that set her heart cartwheeling. The huskiness in his voice stroked across her nerves like silk. The clean, male scent of his skin surrounded her, too familiar in a man who should be a stranger. “You’re not usually lost for words, Miss Trim.”

  She’d never been kissed before. She’d always imagined that whoever the lucky fellow was, he’d use her Christian name. Still, something about the way his lordship said “Miss Trim” made her shiver with excitement. And God forgive her, lately when she’d imagined kisses, the man kissing her had been Lord Leath.

  Nell felt as if she toppled over a cliff. She should flee, forsake her quest for vengeance, forget that however unacceptable the attraction, she found this man so appealing. She should scuttle back to Mearsall and her dear, kind stepfather, and her dull existence, and be grateful that dullness promised safety.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said shakily.

  “You kissed me first.”

  “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

  She wasn’t surprised when he laughed. Even she thought that she sounded absurd.

  “You seem new to the activity. I merely offered an alternative technique.”

  She thought she’d blushed before, but this critique set her cheeks on fire. “I don’t go around kissing random men, my lord. I refuse to apologize for my inexperience.”

  “I’m glad.” He caught her loosely by the waist. She was overwhelmingly conscious of those large hands holding her.

  “For my inexperience?”

  “That you made an exception to your rule.”

  “I suppose you’re used to women throwing themselves at you,” she mumbled, knowing she made a fool of herself. A man like Leath probably couldn’t step outside without tripping over eager young ladies wanting to kiss him. Wanting more.

  The idea of him doing more to her sent Nell’s heart hurtling into her ribs.

  He smiled. How she wished that he’d stop. That gentle curve of his beautifully cut lips set her pulse rocketing. “If only life was so exciting for a politically minded marquess.”

  She wasn’t deceived. Even disregarding Dorothy’s story, she couldn’t see women ignoring his manifold attractions. He’d been angry when he’d discovered her in his room. She sensed no anger now. Just perpetual waiting.

  She backed away and bumped hard into the door. “I must go.”

  His hands tightened. “You freely entered the lion’s den, Miss Trim.”

  “Stop calling me Miss Trim,” she said crossly, bracing her hands against his powerful chest. She told herself to push him away, but her disobedient fingers curved into hard muscle. He was so wonderfully warm. Beneath her right palm, his heart beat like a conqueror’s drum.

  The kiss had been intimate. Feeling the life pounding through him felt more so. What a mistake she’d made coming here. Even if she left immediately, she and the marquess would never be strangers again.

  “Would you rather I called you Eleanor?” he asked silkily.

  Her eyes widened. “Only my father called me Eleanor. Everyone calls me Nell.”

  “I rather like the idea of kissing Eleanor.”

  “I rather like the idea of going back to my room.” She squeaked in horror. That sounded like a proposition. “Alone.”

  “So no curiosity?”

  She saw by his expression that the shake of her head lacked conviction. “I’m sorry I invaded your apartments.”

  “I’m not.”

  Shocked, she stared at him. “You’re not?”

  “I have a lovely woman in my arms and no particular plans for the rest of the evening.”

  Her stomach lurched in dismay. Dear Lord, at last she saw the seducer. And as he’d so rightly said, she’d put herself squarely in his sights. She shoved his chest. It was like trying to move a monolith. “No.”

  “No?”

  “Droit de seigneur went out of fashion with the farthingale.”

  “So you don’t want to share my bed?”

  “No.” Although her blood beat hard and hot at the thought of having that big beautiful body as her plaything for the night.

  “Yet here you are.” The edge in his tone made her shiver.

  “I… told you why.”

  “Yes, you’re suffering a bad case of unrequited love.”

  She pushed at his chest again. “Not love. Just infatuation.”

  “Prove it.”

  Her wriggling stopped and she regarded him aghast. “I’m not a doxy.” Bitterness seeped into her voice. “I don’t even know how to kiss, as you so ungallantly pointed out.”

  His laugh this time held the characteristic grim note. Briefly when he’d kissed her, he’d looked like a gentler, younger, kinder man. Now the purpose in his expression made her quake with nerves. And unwilling excitement. She’d never stood so long in a man’s embrace. Next to Leath, she felt small and feminine. Powerless too, which should terrify her. After all, he threatened ruin, and there was nobody to save her.

  “You’ll keep your chastity, although God knows you tempt fate.”

  “I thought you were in the library,” she said stubbornly.

  “No excuse.”

  “So let me go.”

  His smile wasn’t reassuring. “Not until you’ve learned how to kiss a man.”

  She braced against him. “I think I’m better off not knowing.”

  “I’m appalled that a woman so lovely is untouched.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Compliments won’t make me stay.”

  “Perhaps not. But this might.”

  He captured her lips in a quick, commanding kiss. Odd how much he could convey without words.

  “You… you flatter yourself, my lord.”

  “Do I? You’re still here.”

  She gulped in air. She kept forgetting to breathe. Then when she did, Leath’s musky essence intoxicated her, making coherent thought impossible.

  Another inhalation. Only to realize that he no longer held her. His beautiful hands hung loose and open at his sides, although his rough breathing indicated disquiet.

  She raised her hands from his chest, loathing how his warmth lingered on her palms, and reached behind her for the doorknob. “You’ll stop me if I try to leave.”

  Nell had a horrible feeling that she sounded like she wanted him to keep her here.

  “Try it and see.”

  Despite all the evil she knew of him, she had the strongest feeling that she could trust him with her life. Was she right? Or was she another stupid girl caught in a rake’s net?

  “Just a kiss?” she whispered, hardly believing that she wasn’t already halfway back to her room. She wondered if he had any idea what potent effect his raw masculinity had on her frail willpower. “Can I trust you?”

  The edge retu
rned to his voice, although he didn’t move. “You’re the one who broke into my bedroom.”

  Completely unjustified guilt surged. He was a bad man and she’d been doing the work of the righteous. But she couldn’t deny that she’d felt shabby breaching his inner sanctum. “One kiss and then I’ll go.”

  “As you wish.”

  “You agree?” she asked in shock.

  “It’s time to move from negotiation to action, my dear Eleanor.” To prove he meant it, he drew her into his arms.

  Chapter Eight

  Miss Trim’s—Eleanor’s—lips trembled against Leath’s. Touching her was so sweet that he almost forgot that he didn’t trust her. Not for a moment did he believe that she was smitten. On the other hand, he did, against all sense, believe that she’d never kissed a man before.

  Where the devil had she been living? In a cave under a mountain? He always chose sophisticated, experienced lovers. But there was something breathtaking about setting his lips to Eleanor’s and knowing he was the first.

  This girl possessed no worldly skills to augment his pleasure. Which didn’t mean there was no pleasure. There was far too much, damn it.

  The proximity of his bed, the late hour, her tantalizing combination of shyness and eagerness. All conspired to erode his anger and suspicion, and remind him that she was beautiful and night after night he’d dreamed of touching her.

  Gentleness won out as he tasted lips locked against him. A pang of inconvenient tenderness struck him as he recalled her kissing him as if battering him into submission. Now her resistance seeped away until she fit against him as though created to please him. He kissed the corners of her mouth, then nipped softly at her full bottom lip.

  A muffled protest parted her lips.

  It was enough.

  The tip of his tongue invaded her mouth. Just that small incursion blasted him with enough heat to incinerate good intentions.

  She jerked back, cinnamon eyes dark, troubled, heavy with desire. “That was… strange.”

  He smiled and cradled her head between his hands. “You’ll come to like it.”