by Danice Allen
She moaned against his mouth and he couldn’t stop himself from lifting her and rubbing her against his erection. The shock of pleasure that coursed through him, and the way her head lolled against his shoulder as if she, too, were overwhelmed with pleasure, made him want her more than ever.
He caught her jaw and kissed her … deeper, harder. In a dim corner of his brain, he knew that if he could think clearly, he’d be horrified by the fierceness of his passion. But for now, all that mattered was Sam. Sam…
With his free hand, Julian traced the uncorseted edge of Sam’s ribs, then moved up to cup one small breast. Just enough to fill a champagne glass, he thought hungrily, and his mouth watered and his tongue ached to suckle there.
He was just calculating how best to bare her breasts without letting go of her for even an instant, when Sam breathed in his ear, “Julian … I can’t get this off. Please help me.”
Julian concentrated. He fought through the fog of desire and focused on what Sam was saying and doing. She had reached behind her and was attempting to undo the ties of her gown. Her face, as she beseeched him to help her, was flushed, her lips kiss-swollen, her hair tumbled by his caresses. Her eyes were bright with innocent, eager desire and … trust.
Reality hit Julian like a mule kick between the eyes. There he stood in a public inn, about to toss on the bed and make unbridled love to the young female with whose care he’d been intrusted. She was Amanda’s sister, Jack’s sister-in-law. She was family! Yet, after having primed and protected her for a respectable match, even rushed gallantly to save her from the nefarious designs of another, he was on the verge of squandering her innocence for his own selfish pleasure.
Lord! Her dare had proved just as dangerous as he’d feared. The little vixen had done what no one else had ever come close to accomplishing before! She had made him completely lose control!
But, no … there was still time to save himself from that fate worse than death. There was time to gather his usual cloak of dignity and reserve about him and put a stop to all this ridiculous excess of “feelings.”
“I will not help you undo your ties, Sam,” Julian informed her succinctly, taking hold of her shoulders and firmly putting distance between them. “You are not going to take off that dress. In fact, you are going to put on your pelisse and we’re getting out of here … right now!”
“But … but … Julian!” Sam stuttered, blinking confusedly. “You were kissing me. We were about to—”
Julian ran a shaky hand through his hair. “We were not about to do anything. I could never make love to you. You’re my ward!”
Sam gave a huff of exasperation, tossed a strand of hair out of her eyes, and crossed her arms over her heaving chest. “You impossible man! How can you ignore what happened between us just now? I dared you to kiss me, and when you did, exactly what I expected to happen, happened! Admit it, Julian. You wanted to make love to me. You still do!”
“For the love of God, Sam, don’t you understand? I’m responsible for you. You’re under my care!”
Her chin jutted out. “I’d rather just be under you!”
Julian felt his face suffuse with heat. “Don’t talk like a common tart,” he snapped. “I taught you better than that!” He grabbed her pelisse off a nearby chair and held it up for her. “Now, cease all these ridiculous theatrics and put on your wrap.”
Sam stamped her foot and crossed her arms tighter than ever. Her eyes gleamed with anger and stubbornness. “I’m not going anywhere until you admit that you wanted to make love to me.”
Their gazes locked. It was a standoff. Gritting his teeth with frustration, Julian finally said, “All right, you mulish girl. I admit it. I wanted to make love to you. I wanted to strip you bare and kiss every inch of your body.”
Sam’s face softened. Her eyes widened, her lips parted, and she bit her bottom lip.
“But I would have felt the same way about any female of similar physical charms who made herself as available to me as you did,” he added with calculated coldness. “There were no feelings involved whatsoever, Sam. I don’t love you.”
Julian hardened his heart as he watched Sam’s eyes brim with tears. He had to be cruel. He had to cure the girl of her silly infatuation … for both their sakes.
Suddenly she turned and marched toward the door.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“I’m going home,” she said, her voice indignant and choked with emotion.
“Without your pelisse? The hackney coach isn’t as warm as my carriage.”
Sam caught hold of the doorknob, then turned to look scathingly at Julian. “I’m not going home with you,” she announced haughtily. “ ’Tis but a short distance. I’m walking to Montgomery House.” She opened the door and stepped into the outer hall.
“In this rain?” he growled, slinging her pelisse over his arm and following her into the hall. “And in the dark, too? You’re behaving like a sulky child, Sam!”
“You treat me like a child,” she tossed over her shoulder as she tripped lightly down the stairs, “so I might as well act like one.”
Standing at the top of the stairs, Julian tried to decide how best to handle this sticky situation. By now he and Sam had attracted the attention of everyone sitting in the tavern … the innkeeper, the hackney driver, and two gentlemen enjoying a pigeon pie and a tankard of ale.
Not wishing to make a scene that might somehow be described to the wrong person, then repeated for the amusement of some influential member of the ton, Julian hesitated longer than he should. While he stood and racked his brain indecisively, Sam opened the door leading outside, leveled him one last smoldering look, then ran out into the dark, wet night.
“Bloody Hell!” Julian expostulated, no longer caring what the others thought. Once again, he had to rescue Sam from her own foolishness. While his audience watched with slack jaws, he descended the stairs quickly, tossed Sam’s pelisse on a nearby chair, and ran out the door after her.
Looking left and right, he spied her hurrying away in the direction leading away from Montgomery House. He cursed vehemently under his breath, then ran after her.
It was raining buckets outside, the deluge rivaling what Noah must have endured when the earth flooded. Mud puddles were everywhere and Julian couldn’t avoid them. In fact, in the dark, and with rain streaming down his face and into his eyes, he couldn’t even see them. But he knew they were there when he felt the icy water splash against his trouser legs.
Julian caught up with Sam just thirty feet from the inn, but he was already soaked through. So was Sam.
“Let go of me, you … you … bastard!” Sam shouted, twisting and writhing in Julian’s grasp.
“This is hardly mature, ladylike behavior, Sam,” Julian hissed between gritted teeth as he wrestled with his wayward ward. “I taught you better than this. And I thought I’d cured you of cursing.”
“I refuse to go with you,” Sam gasped, kicking and thrashing as he dragged her through the mud toward the King’s Arms. “I hate you!” she screamed. “You’re nothing but a bloody sod!”
“Tsk, tsk,” he said, bending to scoop her into his arms. “I thought we were friends.”
As Julian carried Sam toward the courtyard where the hackney coach was parked under a sheltering eave at the side of the building, she continued to curse and to struggle, making it extremely difficult for Julian to keep his footing on the slick ground. He had almost made it to the coach when a particularly slippery patch of mud sent them both flying. Julian fell hard on his rump in the middle of a puddle with Sam sprawled on top of him.
The sudden baptism was a shock. Sam quit cursing immediately and looked about her, a bit dazed. She’d left the inn in an angry huff, not caring about the rain or the darkness or anything else. Since Julian had continued to deny his feelings for her, Sam had been unable to bear remaining under the same roof with him another minute. She’d needed a little fresh air to cool her anger and clear her brain.
&nbs
p; But this was ridiculous.
In fact, the sight of the elegant marquess of Serling sitting in a mud puddle, looking fit to spit nails, was so ridiculous Sam couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
“I’m so glad I could afford you some amusement at my expense, brat,” Julian growled, struggling to his feet, his trousers plastered to his muscular thighs, his coat dripping brown water. “But, if you don’t mind, I think it’s time we went home and got out of these wet clothes before we both catch our deaths.”
“Oh, Julian,” gasped Sam between spasms of laughter. “You can’t imagine how un-Julian you look!” “
“I daresay you would be surprised at your own reflection in the mirror, as well,” Julian retorted, pulling her to her feet, then scooping her into his arms again. “We’re ten feet from the coach. I trust you’ve had enough amusement for the night and you’ll not thrash about and topple us into another puddle?”
Sam nodded, her anger gone, even her laughter dying away as she felt the full impact of the cold air on her wet body.
“You’re chilled to the bone,” Julian said accusingly as he opened the door of the hackney coach and lifted her inside.
Sam merely nodded, her teeth chattering too hard for speech.
Frowning, he said, “Stay put. I’ll get the driver and be right back.”
Sam nodded again, quite meekly, and he shut the door. Though he was probably not gone above three minutes, it felt like an age before the door to the coach opened again and Julian climbed in with a bundle of something in his arms. Sam was shivering convulsively, her arms wrapped around her updrawn knees as she tried to conserve what was left of her body’s warmth.
As the coach immediately rocked into motion, Julian said, “Take off your clothes, Sam.”
Sam stared. “Wh … what?”
“I said, take off your clothes. I’ve brought blankets, but they won’t do you any good unless you first take off those wet clothes.”
If her blood hadn’t been so sluggish, Sam was sure she would have blushed.
“What’s this?” Julian drawled. “Displaying a bit of modesty, are we? You were so eager to take your clothes off a few minutes ago, and now you shy away like a shrinking violet?”
“Th-that w-was different,” Sam explained quiveringly.
“Yes, earlier it would have been complete foolishness to take off your clothes. Now it will be complete foolishness if you leave them on. Come on, Sam. It’s dark in here. I won’t see a thing.”
Sam looked longingly at the blankets piled beside Julian on the carriage seat. She wanted more than anything to be warm again, but she’d never imagined disrobing for the first time in front of Julian under such wretched circumstances. It was hardly romantic.
It was, however, quite necessary. She took a shaky breath and reached back to undo the ties of her dress, but her fingers were so numb, she couldn’t even feel what she was doing. She fumbled for a while, reluctant to ask Julian to do now what he’d refused to do before, when he said, “Here, brat. Let me do it. Turn around.”
Sam turned her back to Julian and he swiftly undid her dress and slipped the sleeves off her shoulders. As his fingers brushed her bare back, they felt warm against her skin. She dared a peek at him and, from the occasional light from a streetlamp flashing into the coach, she observed that his chiseled features seemed set in stone. He looked downright grim. Apparently undressing her bothered him more than he was ever likely to admit. And if she hadn’t been so darn cold, she’d have made it even harder for him…
Julian removed Sam’s clothes as expeditiously as possible. It was imperative to get the wet, icy garments away from her skin so that she didn’t catch a dreadful cold. And, for more than one reason, he was anxious to see her bundled up in a blanket from head to toe as soon as it could be managed.
As he quickly worked, he tried to see as little as possible of his ward by immediately covering each bared part of her with a section of the blanket, but even in the dark coach he caught tantalizing glimpses of creamy, almost luminescent, white skin.
And just the process of disrobing her was arousing, particularly taking off her stockings. Her legs, which he had never before seen so much of, were long and shapely, her ankles small, the arch of her foot graceful and supple. He loved a good arch on a woman…
A brief, erotic fantasy flashed through his mind of kissing that delectable dip in her foot, then working his way up, kissing and licking every inch of her, till—
With some difficulty, Julian forced away his erotic thoughts, then finally … finally … he had Sam wrapped up in a blanket with another one thrown over her for good measure.
“Aren’t you cold, too, Julian?” Sam asked him, peering over the bunching of blanket at her chin where she held it tightly together.
Julian considered the question. He supposed he did feel a bit chilled externally, but he was so heated up internally by his unwilling attraction to Sam, he didn’t seem to feel the cold as he ought.
“I’m not cold,” he finally replied. “Don’t worry about me.”
“But I can’t help worrying about you, Julian,” she protested. She lifted the edge of her blanket. “Would you like to share the blankets?”
Julian caught a glimpse of slim, white thigh and said, emphatically, “No, thank you. Now tuck that blanket snugly around you or you’ll feel a draft.” Then he determinedly looked out the window the rest of the way home and replied in cool monosyllables to all Sam’s attempts at conversation, or, more times than not, he outright ignored her. All he wanted was to get home, get Sam tucked in bed … by herself … and make himself comfortable with a hot bath and a bottle of brandy in front of a roaring fire, whereupon he was greatly tempted to get roaring drunk.
Julian’s efforts to repress Sam had worked. By the time they reached Montgomery House, she had sunk into a defeated silence.
Julian got out and paid the driver well for his service and patience, gave him another shilling to forget that he’d ever seen them before, then carried Sam up the front steps to the door. Hedley heard their approach and opened the door to admit them. As Julian carried Sam into the hall, still dripping from his mud bath, Hedley’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.
“My lord! What happened?” he exclaimed, forgetting his usual decorous manners in his surprise. He looked back at the hackney coach still waiting at the street, and, seeing no one else alight, added, “Where is Clara?”
“I’ll tell you everything as soon as I take Miss Darlington upstairs,” Julian answered. “Do not fear. Clara is safe. Now I want you to send someone outside to fetch Miss Darlington’s wet clothes, shoes, and pelisse from the coach, if you please.”
And with that meager explanation, Hedley was forced to be satisfied. Perplexed, he stood in a daze for a moment watching his employer carry Miss Darlington up the stairs, tracking mud on every step, before he ordered the footman out into the rain to bring inside the young lady’s clothes.
As Julian carried her up the stairs, Sam made a resolution. She built up her courage for one last, colossal effort to make Julian see her as a woman and to admit his feelings for her. It was a desperate move, but if it failed, she felt as though she had nothing to lose. If she didn’t try, she’d lose Julian anyway.
So, as curious servants scattered and hid behind potted plants and curtains to gape, Julian strode grimly past them all to Sam’s bedchamber. He managed to turn the knob, kick open the door, and carry Sam inside without assistance. Then he set her on her feet on the Delft tile by the fireplace and turned instantly to go.
“Ring for a bath, Sam,” he said tersely, tossing the words over his shoulder. “You can choose whichever of the maids you want to stand in for Clara till we can get a more suitable replacement. Afterward, I suggest you go immediately to bed.”
His hand was on the doorknob when Sam cried out, “Wait, Julian! Don’t go yet. There’s something I wish to … That is, I…”
Sam watched as Julian’s broad shoulders drooped a little, as if relucta
nt to turn around. She had obviously tried his patience to the breaking point. But finally, slowly, he turned.
“What is it, Sam?” he muttered in a beleaguered tone.
For a moment, Sam just stared at him. In the candlelight from a sconce on the wall behind him, and in the glow of the firelight, she could see the damage that had been done to his usually fastidious, elegant appearance.
His clothes were wet and mud-splattered from top to toe. His cravat was sodden and limp. His shiny boots were caked with mud and … if her nose did not mistake … horse manure from the courtyard at the King’s Arms. Yes, his clothes had definitely been ruined by their little adventure.
But as for the man himself … Julian’s wet hair clung close to his well-shaped head, the fringe that hung over his collar curling against his neck. His complexion glowed from the exercise of carrying her up the stairs, and the sheen of rain on his face gave him an earthy, basic sort of appeal … even surpassing the appeal he typically exuded when he was groomed to his usual perfection. His features were implacable, his mouth a thin, grim line. Oh, if only she could kiss away that stern expression…
“What is it, Sam?” he prompted her impatiently. “I haven’t got all night. I have to tell Hedley his daughter’s eloped before I can even take a bath.”
Sam took a deep breath, then, lifting her arms, she let the blanket that hid her nakedness fall to her feet.
Julian couldn’t help himself; he had to look. His gaze traveled the length of her, from head to toe. Sam was beautiful. She was like a goddess, slim and white and perfectly formed. But he was transfixed by more than her beauty. The look in her eyes, the longing, the vulnerability, the love … was hard to resist.
“Can’t you tell Hedley the news later?” she whispered. “Perhaps you and I could … could bathe together? The servants needn’t know.”
Julian tried to ignore the hard ache in his loins, the rush of blood to all his nerve endings, and forced himself to look her straight in the eye. But that was a mistake. Her eyes beseeched him, beguiled him. Her desire, so simple and honest, was obvious in her expression. And he wanted her as much, or more, than she wanted him.
