Jenny’s head spun. “Who?”
“My man of business.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest, guarding against her laugh. “I’m not expecting anything in response.”
But his gaze arrested on her lips and gave the lie to his statement. “Besides, I’m supposed to meet Ned at eight sharp, and so I can’t stay. I just wanted to tell you.” He looked away. “And now I have.”
That look, Jenny thought, would be her undoing. “Do you have five minutes?” she heard herself ask. “I’ve just put on the teakettle.” Jenny nearly bit her tongue. Tea was normal. Mundane. Mortal. One didn’t ask the Marquess of Blakely in for a cup of tea.
He looked at her with guarded wariness. And then, wonder of wonders, he nodded.
A minute later, Lord Blakely was seated at the table in her back room with a clay mug in front of him. He’d looked speculatively around her stripped-down front room, her rickety wood tables freed from their heavy black shrouds. But he hadn’t asked any questions. And when she’d led him down the short hall into her living space in the back room, he hadn’t so much as wrinkled his nose at the close quarters. He’d sat in a squeaking chair at the table where Jenny ate her meals. He’d waited quietly while she readied the leaves. After she poured, he picked up the cup and turned it around in his hands. Jenny imagined him cataloging every imperfection in its surface, every chip at its edge.
“I don’t have any sugar to offer you,” she eventually essayed.
“Sugar.” Lord Blakely’s nostrils flared. “I do not take sugar,” he said in a voice of disdain.
It was the same tone of loathing Jenny imagined a bloodthirsty pirate would have employed to say, “I do not take prisoners.”
Lord Blakely did not, in fact, take prisoners. What he took instead was a cautious sip of tea.
“White,” he said rather stiffly, “says that an apology given to a woman needs to be accompanied by at a minimum, flowers. He also told me you would ask what I was sorry for. And that I would not have a good answer to the question.” He glanced up at her, swiftly, and then returned to contemplation of his cup. “White is very competent. It is disconcerting to discover that he is not correct in every particular.”
“So you talked to White?”
He took another sip of tea. “Yes. I talked to White. I had a very long conversation with White.” He flashed another glance at her.
“And did you enjoy it?”
“I—well.” He looked down into his mug and swirled the liquid around. “I think so. Probably. Yes.” Miracles doubled, and another smile played across his lips.
“Three,” said Jenny in pleasure.
“Three?” He set the cup down. Tea sloshed over the edge and seeped into the wood of the table. “Three what?”
“Three points.”
He shook his head in befuddlement. “Points? What points?”
“I get a point every time you smile,” she explained. “I’ve decided to award myself five if I can ever make you laugh.”
He drew himself up in that manner he employed just before he said something cruel. He looked offended. But he bit his lip. He paused, almost as if counting. What finally came out of his mouth was: “How do I get points?”
Jenny tried to mask her shock. He wasn’t trying to cut her down with arrogant drivel. Maybe the tea had turned his mind. She was going to have to make a note of the leaves: bohea, good for taming arrogant lords. But his temporary lapse was no reason to give up her advantage. She pursed her lips and put her head to one side. “You don’t.”
“Why not?”
“You like numbers. I need points. Lots of points. It’s protection, you see.”
He glowered at her. “If you collect points, I have to get something. It’s inequitable otherwise.”
She shrugged. “Well, I don’t like numbers. So you can’t have points.”
His fingers drummed against the table. The liquid in his cup sloshed. “That makes an odd sort of sense, in a world devoid of all logic. White warned me about that, too.” He sighed. “What do you like?”
“And I thought you didn’t care.” The bitter words spilled from her before she could call them back.
“Ah.” Lord Blakely’s voice was all steel blade again, like a cold knife against Jenny’s throat. “Madame Esmerelda—Meg—whatever your name is.” He swallowed and placed his hands flat on the table.
“I have a confession to make,” he said, in that voice forged from hard, cold metal. “It will come as no surprise. But it seems that every time I do care, I find myself saying something harsh in response. As if I could sever any emotion that attaches me to anyone else.”
That flat, unemotional tone took her aback. She’d heard it from him so many times before. She was learning not to trust his tone. His eyes glimmered, and he stared at the wall behind her. He was not a dispassionate man, Jenny was beginning to realize. He was just very, very uncomfortable letting his emotions show.
“I care,” he said flatly. “And I am trying to stop responding the way I do. I told you I was sorry. I meant it.”
Jenny’s heart trembled. It did more than tremble. It flipped over, exposing its tender underbelly. She had no idea how to take this side of Lord Blakely. He apologized in the same arrogant tone of voice he’d used to cut her to shreds the other night. And yet she suspected the tone he used was as ingrained in him as his intellect.
“Now,” he continued in a businesslike tone. “About those points of yours. What do you like?”
If she were a lady, Jenny would own that violets were her favorite flower. If she were a courtesan, she would confess a desire for emeralds. But she was Jenny Keeble, and she didn’t want gifts from this man.
Her brow furrowed in mock concentration. “Would you know,” she said softly. “I find that I am partial to…”
He leaned forward, intent on her answer.
“Elephants,” Jenny finished.
Lord Blakely raised his chin. “You’re trying to make me laugh,” he accused. “It shan’t work. Citation to a mere mammal is not worth five points.”
He was every bit as arrogant as he had been before. But there was something warmer about the cast of his features. Something that hadn’t been there before tonight. And so Jenny laughed. She couldn’t help herself, and she wouldn’t have, even if she wanted to. When she did, he smiled along with her, his face lighting up. Their eyes met. Locked.
He shoved his mug of tea across the table and stood up.
“Damnation,” he said.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, before she remembered he was supposed to meet Ned, and he would undoubtedly have to take his leave.
“I’m going to have to apologize to you again.”
Jenny brushed her skirts into place and looked away. “I understand. You have to go—”
He stepped toward her. “That,” he said brusquely, “is not what I have to do.” He was so close she could smell his soap and the earthy, masculine scent of bay rum.
“You see,” he whispered, “when you laugh, it’s as if this light spreads all around you. I can’t figure out how to respond. I’m not sure if I should scurry from it, like a cockroach, or fly closer, like a moth. I’ve tried scurrying. It didn’t work. So I have a control in the experiment. Shall I modify a variable?”
It took Jenny a second to realize he was talking about kissing again. By that time, he had raised his hand to her cheek. Two warm fingers slid against her jawbone.
“Tell me to stop,” he said, “and I’ll stop. Tell me to leave, and I’ll leave. But I would prefer you didn’t tell me to leave.”
“Kiss me.” The words were from her mouth before she had a chance to think them over.
His finger rubbed her lips, as if to capture her acquiescence. His hand stroked down the side of her face. Then his lips came down on hers.
His kiss drove all thought of elephants and points, arrogance and loneliness, from Jenny’s mind. The world receded until there was nobody present but the two of them. Until on
ly the liquid sounds of the mating of their mouths filled her ears. His taste—tea mixed with sweet mint—enveloped her. His hands whispered down the simple muslin of her dress.
She brought her palm up against his chest, ran it down fine linen. He exhaled and his chest pressed against her fingers. And then he, too, explored her, his hands tracing her shoulder blades, down each vertebra to the small of her back. His fingers traveled up again, gilding her spine with their heat. Then her shoulders. The nape of her neck. And his mouth, always his mouth, hot on hers. She gasped, and he drank in the sound of her desire.
He pulled away from her, and she blinked dizzily. But he only moved to sit. Wood creaked as he distributed his weight. And then he pulled her atop him to straddle his thighs. Her skirt rucked up to her knees, and she let herself sink against his hard muscles. His body’s arousal pressed, hot and rigid, between her thighs. Her own excitement pooled in response.
He kissed her again, tongue and lips hot against hers.
His hands slid up her waist, sliding over her chest. Jenny gasped as he thumbed her breasts. His fingers circled the tips, coaxing them into hardness. And then he pulled away from her mouth, and placed his lips around her nipple through the material of her dress.
A white blaze of light seared through the layers of cloth, and Jenny threw back her head. His practiced hands adjusted the bodice of her dress and pulled down her loose chemise and the thicker stays. He lifted a firm globe free. The cool air touched it for only a second before he closed his mouth around the tip. He licked it and a wave of pleasure crashed against her. He sucked it, and the wave became an ocean rising up eagerly to meet her.
Another kiss, this time on her mouth again. She drank him in, as tipsy on his taste as he appeared to be on hers. His hands came around her fiercely, and he fumbled behind her. Thank God for simple gowns. Her dress loosened. He pulled it down around her shoulders and it fell to her waist. Stays followed, and then her chemise.
“God,” he whispered, tracing the contours of her breast with one long finger. “You have no idea how many times I have fantasized about this.”
Before she could come up with an answer, he took her other breast in his mouth, and all possibility of words washed away in a hot surge of desire. Jenny clutched his shoulders, pressed herself against the hard ridge between his legs.
“You’re even more passionate than I dreamed,” he said. “The smallest touches. The way you move against me. Oh, God, Meg. Tell me your name.”
His mouth came down on her nipple again. This time he bit it lightly, and Jenny made a sound in her throat. She was drowning against him. But he showed no signs of letting her catch her breath to answer.
He lifted his head. “Tell me your name.”
Jenny, she thought. It’s Jenny Keeble. Her thoughts moved at a snail’s pace; her nails dug into his back.
“Can’t you feel it?” he whispered. “We’re going to explode together. Tell me your name. And I can be inside of you.”
Her inner muscles clenched at the thought.
He slipped his hand under her skirt and found her wet slickness waiting for him. He touched her between the legs, rubbed her where she was hot and slippery. Where she was sensitive, and those featherlight touches sent pulses of pleasure from head to toe.
“Yes,” he whispered. “God, I know you want me. Let me—”
Jenny shook her head to remind herself. “I won’t be your mistress.”
He kissed her throat. “At present, I’m not interviewing for the position. I’m here because of what you said.”
“What I said?”
“I am lonely. Damned lonely.”
She closed her hands on his shoulders, his words scalding into her.
He nodded. “You don’t like numbers. I’m trying to think what we have in common. That was what you said, right? Find what we have in common?”
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. He was supposed to stay cold and distant. Instead, he tempted her with her deepest desires.
“Right,” he said, setting his jaw. “I can think of one thing we both enjoy.” He put his lips back around her nipple. He teased the sensitive bud back and forth. And then his hand circled down below, rubbing the sensitive flesh between her legs.
“Oh, my God,” she moaned. “Lord Blakely—”
He lifted his head, his eyes hooded. “Gareth,” he said.
“What?”
“My name is Gareth. Don’t call me Lord Blakely. Not now.”
He leaned his head against hers, nose to nose. Their breath mingled into sweet perfume. His hand, still trapped between her thighs, stroked gently. Jenny thrilled, half pleasure, half shame, that he touched her in that intimate way.
His eyes glowed. “Tell me your name,” he insisted.
“Nobody’s called me by my name in twelve years.”
“Nobody’s called me Gareth in twenty-four. I’ll not go another day without hearing it.”
Church bells struck the hour. It was the first event outside the two of them Jenny noticed. The heavy vibration from those deep tones echoed through her, a reverberation of the pleasure he sent through her with his touch. She counted the strokes. One, two…
His thumb stroked across her bare nipple again. “God almighty,” he whispered against her neck. “Please tell me your name.”
Three, four, five. Jenny rang like that bell. She tried to remember all the reasons why she couldn’t tell him her name. Six. Why she couldn’t allow him, naked and virile, into bed with her. Seven. Why he couldn’t sink into her right now, stretching her wide. Eight, and the bells stopped.
Eight o’clock.
Another echo, this one in her own mind. His words, at the beginning, before he’d even entered her rooms.
It was now eight o’clock in the evening.
Jenny straightened, her hands flying to her cheeks in horror. “Ned!”
“Ned?” She felt his thighs contract. He drew back, a scowl on his face. His tone was formal, with just a hint of offended sanctimony. “My name is Gareth.”
Jenny shook her head in exasperation. “Your cousin Ned.”
He sat, still and wary as a crouching leopard. He didn’t even blink. But she felt understanding come to him in the gradual contraction of his muscles. First the thighs that supported her. The tension traveled up his shoulders, through his hands. Finally, she saw fine, dark lines spread like a net across his face.
He let out a breath. “Ned. Ah, yes. Ned. I had completely forgotten. Do I have to go to him?”
The last question made him sound like a plaintive child. But he made the decision without Jenny saying a word. She could see his choice in the squaring of his shoulders. As if he were hefting a great weight in donning the mantle of Lord Blakely. He’d said he would meet his cousin at eight, and so meet the boy he would. His implacable honor and responsibility allowed no other option.
She stumbled to her feet, freeing him of her weight. He adjusted his clothing—fastening buttons, brushing his coat into some semblance of order. He didn’t look at her.
“I will return.” He fastened his cravat around his neck with the air of one tying a hangman’s noose. “As soon as is practicable. It’s only fifteen minutes there and back. This shouldn’t take long.”
He paused, his hand resting on her naked shoulder. And then he walked away.
Chapter Eleven
A BLAST OF HEAT from the massed, milling bodies struck Gareth in the face as he entered the crowded room at the Arbuthnots’. He was already overheated from hurrying, and tense with thwarted desire.
Under the best of circumstances, he despised crowds. They made any room feel a bit too small. They stank, scents of human sweat layering atop rosewater and jasmine in nauseating fashion. And even though he knew rationally it was not so, he always felt as if everyone were looking at him.
This crowd was no more appealing than usual. He scanned male faces, attached to somber black suits, looking for his cousin. Next to him, a majordomo announced him in a carry
ing tone.
So intent was he in his search for Ned that at first Gareth didn’t notice the preternatural hush that fell. But it was unmistakable. For several moments, there was neither a clink of glass nor one single out-of-place whisper. At first, he attributed the odd sensation to temporary mental disorder brought on by unfulfilled lusts. Then he thought it a simple lull in conversation. A statistical anomaly, to be sure, but the anomalous occurred all the time.
But the sea of surrounding wide-eyed faces aligned toward Gareth like iron filings in a magnetic field. In a single gut-clenching moment, he realized the silence was not happenstance. Everyone really was looking at him. And—a quick check—he’d buttoned his jacket properly and his cravat was not askew.
Three seconds after the hush fell, conversation swelled about him in renewed fervor. He snatched pieces of conversation. “Carhart” he heard from an elderly lady. He strained his ears listening for others. But they were indistinct in the hubbub. “Embrace,” he heard quite clearly. And “compromise.”
Not three words he wanted to hear in close connection. Perhaps there was a perfectly reasonable explanation. There was no need to panic just yet. For instance, what the matron had whispered could very well have been something like, “It’s a good thing Mr. Edward Carhart has finally decided to embrace reality and come to a reasoned compromise with his cousin.”
It could have been.
And the hostess could have suspended the law of gravity for this fête.
Slowly, Gareth made his way through the densely packed crowds. They opened around him. Nobody spoke to him. Nobody even looked at him.
As he walked, those he neared shut their mouths and kept quiet. It was incredibly annoying. The first time he actually wanted to overhear a conversation, and nobody dared oblige him. Gareth did manage to grasp a few pieces here and there. Every phrase he heard was like picking up a sharp shard of glass, painted in a distinct color. Individually, the pieces meant nothing; a blur of color, a few lines. But by the time he reached the other end of the hall, he’d obtained enough bits to construct a damning—and damnable—mosaic.
Seductive Starts Page 55
