Lydia rolled her eyes. Johnny looked as though he was trying not to laugh. The aroma of spices and sharp cider filled the air. Johnny took an appreciative sip.
“It’s strong,” he said.
“My customers have hard heads,” Lydia said. She took a mouthful. The hot, heady liquid fizzed through her veins like fire. “So,” she repeated, “why are you still here, Johnny?”
Johnny slanted a mocking look at her. “Always so welcoming, Lydia.” He shifted on the bench, settling more comfortably against the tapestry cushions. “Newport Castle is uninhabitable,” he said. “I’ll be staying here until it is ready.”
Lydia felt a rush of apprehension. “Staying here at the Silent Wench? But the repairs could take weeks!”
“Months, more like,” Johnny murmured. “It is in a dreadful state.”
Lydia felt her panic rising. For the past fortnight she had told herself that Johnny would soon be gone and her life would resume its even tenor. Now she felt confused and disturbed.
“Surely it would be better for you to return to London?” she said. “You know that you prefer it to the country. Besides, it is almost Christmas! There must be people you want to see—” She broke off as she looked into Johnny’s eyes and saw the brilliant amusement there. He could read her like a book. He knew she wanted him gone. More disturbingly he knew why, knew that his presence discomfited her. She felt a tremor of emotion shake her. Johnny was dangerous to her. Her feelings for him were too raw, too close to the surface. She had to be rid of him.
“There is more here that interests me than in London,” he said gently.
Oh. That made her breath catch. But of course he must be referring to the estate.
A sudden gust of wind clattered down the chimney. The fire spat and hissed and the candles guttered.
Johnny picked up his glass of cider and tilted it to his lips. Lydia watched the muscles of his throat move as he swallowed. He needed a shave. His skin was rough with stubble. She could imagine the prickle of it against the tips of her fingers and gave a little shiver.
“Cold?” Johnny asked.
“Yes . . . no . . . a little.” She felt hot, in fact; hot and confused, still bemused by that moment between them. “The Silent Wench is a little dilapidated, I fear,” she said. She knew she was chattering in a vain attempt to ease the awareness between them. “It is an old building and there are lots of draughts and ill-fitting doors. Your predecessor did not invest in the upkeep of his properties, as you have already discovered for yourself. But then, he was seldom in Newport.”
Johnny put down his glass with a sharp click. “My uncle belonged in the London clubs,” he said. “Unlike me, he really did not care for the country.”
“No one liked him very much,” Lydia said, “so we did not really mind.” She was aware of the alcohol loosening her tongue. Already her body was starting to feel heavy and relaxed with the lassitude the wassail cup brought. And yet it also brought awareness, sharp and sensual as a whetted blade.
Johnny laughed. “I confess I did not like my uncle either,” he said. “Nor did I care for Roberts, his estate manager. I think he was lining his own pockets. I’m afraid I have dismissed him.”
Lydia gaped. “You dismissed Mr. Roberts? Oh, how splendid!”
Johnny laughed again. “You did not care for him either, then?”
“No, indeed. He is an odious man, a bully and a cheat.” Lydia frowned a little. “But who will run the Newport estate now he is gone?”
“I will,” Johnny said. “At least until I can appoint someone else I trust.”
“But . . .” Lydia boggled. “Viscounts do not run their own estates.”
“I do not believe there is a law against it,” Johnny said. He gave her the lopsided smile that creased the corners of his eyes and lit them with warmth. “Don’t worry, Lydia. I swear I will not cramp your style here at the Silent Wench. I enjoy a good bottle of brandy as much as the next man.”
Lydia jumped, spilling a few drops of cider on the table. “You know!”
Johnny’s blue gaze was very steady on her. “I know that the Silent Wench is involved in smuggling,” he agreed. “I heard the free traders last week.” He raised his drink to her in mocking salute. “And there I was thinking you had given up your bedchamber to me out of kindness.”
Lydia blushed. She threw a quick glance over her shoulder, but apart from a group of men in the corner playing at shove ha’penny, they were alone.
“Why the secrecy?” Johnny asked. “I’ll wager everyone in Newport knows what goes on here.” He settled his broad shoulders against the high back of the bench. “I thought that smuggling was long gone.”
“Not in these parts,” Lydia said. “The free traders resent having to pay what they see as English taxes. And the brandy is very fine. So are the laces—and the linen.”
“I see.” She could tell that Johnny was trying not to laugh. There was a spark of amusement deep in his eyes. “A fine justification for breaking the law.” His gaze narrowed. “I suppose the Silent Wench houses a highwayman or two as well?”
“Certainly not,” Lydia said. She hesitated. “Well, there was Thomas of Henfaes, but he was too poor a rider to make a career of highway robbery. The carriages refused to stop and then he could not catch them up.”
“That would be a distinct disadvantage,” Johnny agreed gravely. “What about wreckers?”
“Now you are being absurd,” Lydia said severely. “You have read too many adventure novels. Here in Newport we value our sea trade too highly to try to wreck it.”
“But you have no compunction about wrecking carriages if not ships?”
Lydia could feel her guilty blush deepening. In the days since Johnny’s arrival she had almost forgotten that his accident had in fact been no accident at all.
“I do not know what you mean,” she said, hearing the woefully unconvincing note in her voice.
Johnny laughed derisively. “Cut line, Lydia. Those scapegrace children—Miss Evans’s young brothers, I believe—habitually sabotage travelers on the turnpike road. Their father repairs the carriages or provides alternative transport, the doctor treats any injuries and the Silent Wench offers accommodation—and you all get paid for it. It’s a brilliant piece of enterprise. It’s also dangerous and illegal.”
It sounded very bad when expressed like that, Lydia thought. “Smuggling is dangerous and illegal,” she pointed out with a flash of spirit, “yet you condone that because you enjoy good brandy. Your moral code is somewhat flexible, Johnny.”
“Touché,” Johnny said. “it always has been, I fear.” He leaned forward. “Nevertheless, this has to stop, Lydia, before someone is killed. I say that as Baron Newport and your new Justice of the Peace.”
“I know it’s dangerous!” Lydia burst out. “I’ve told the boys to stop, but they do it for the best of motives. Newport is impoverished and many people have no work, and so the villagers take matters into their own hands. We need work and we need investment in the estate. We need a landlord who cares!” She stopped as she ran out of breath.
Johnny’s hand covered hers, warm and strong. “You have one now,” he said.
Once again Lydia felt that tug of awareness combined with profound emotion, a pull deep within her. She wondered again how it had happened, when it had happened. When had friendship and familiarity transformed into this mysterious attraction? Not that it mattered. Explaining it, understanding it, would not change her feelings. And she was fooling herself if she pretended it was mere attraction. That was to demean what she felt for Johnny. She had loved him for years as a friend and somewhere along the line that emotion had transmuted into a different sort of love.
“I know you care,” she admitted. “I have seen what you have already done to help us.”
“Then trust me,” Johnny said. His hand tightened over hers. In his eyes were both challenge and demand. “Trust me, Lydia,” he repeated softly.
“I do.” Lydia felt panic stifling her breath. She droppe
d her gaze. Johnny must not be allowed to guess her feelings. She jumped to her feet, sending her chair clattering back on the stone floor in her haste to escape.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I need to check on Eliza.”
Johnny stood up politely and bowed. “Of course.” He came around the table, waiting for her to precede him to the door.
“There is no need to escort me,” Lydia said. “I know my way.”
There was a wicked glint in Johnny’s eyes. “I find I need to fetch a book from my chamber. An adventure novel, perhaps, to inspire some more wild flights of imagination.”
Lydia did not believe a word. She put her hands on her hips. “I will fetch it for you,” she said.
“No, you will not,” Johnny murmured, holding the taproom door open for her. “You are not to wait on me.”
Out in the passageway it was cold and quiet. The light was dim. Lydia risked a glance up at Johnny’s face and wished she had not. He was watching her, his blue eyes narrowed and intense in a look that sent the awareness cascading over her skin. His arm brushed hers and she almost flinched, so acute was her response to him.
“How did you know?” She grabbed quickly for conversation to ease the tension between them. “How did you know that the boys sabotaged travelers on the road?”
The shadows hid much of Johnny’s expression, but she could see a faint smile tilt his lips. “They were so anxious for me to be hurt, so keen to escort me here, that it made me suspicious. I asked a few questions, and a pattern soon emerged. Too many people have had accidents on the road for it to be by chance.”
“Please don’t punish them,” Lydia said. She pressed her hands together anxiously. “They are good boys. Truly they are. I teach them at the school.”
She saw Johnny’s smile deepen. “They told me that you teach here too,” he said. “You are very generous to do that as well as run the Silent Wench.”
“I found kindness in Newport,” Lydia said. “I do no more than give it back.”
She was about to start up the stairs when Johnny put out a hand and stopped her. She paused on the first step, her hand on the carved newel post. They were level; she could look directly into Johnny’s eyes. What she saw there made her heart thump.
“It occurs to me that I know a great many of your secrets,” Johnny said softly. “There is a price for my silence.”
For a moment Lydia did not understand him, then comprehension broke over her and her head spun with the combination of knowledge and fierce, dizzy temptation.
“Oh!”
She had not expected it, not of Johnny. He had said he would protect her and it seemed that was exactly what he was offering, his protection. She knew she should be horrified, offended, any one of a dozen reactions. She waited to feel horrified, offended or some other suitable emotion. She did feel a flicker of disappointment that a man who had professed himself honorable should, after all, prove to be a complete rake. But she also felt more than a flicker of excitement. It slid through her veins like heady wine, wicked and wondrous. It was true, Lydia thought helplessly. All those people who had said she was wanton had not been mistaken. She might have lived like a nun since Eliza was born but place temptation before her—place Johnny before her—and she was lost to all respectability.
Johnny’s gaze was watchful. It made her heart race and the breath flutter in her throat. His hand was still resting on her arm; she could feel his touch through the thick, practical worsted of the gown and she wanted to feel his hands on her bare skin beneath. The urge was so sudden and so fierce that it made her gasp. She bit her bottom lip to quell the sound, saw Johnny’s gaze fix on her mouth and then she was in his arms and he was kissing her.
She had never kissed Johnny before, and now she found herself wondering what on earth had taken her so long because it felt perfect, tender and sweet, yet somehow so fiercely right that it shook her to her soul. She slid her hands up over his chest and about his neck, pressing closer to him, making a tiny sound of gratitude and gladness when he gently nudged her lips apart and deepened the kiss, touching his tongue to hers. The ground shifted beneath her feet; the familiar walls of the Silent Wench spun about her like a fairground ride. Desire, deep and turbulent, lit her blood, and it was as though all her senses, starved to barrenness for so long, had come alive again.
She pulled back abruptly as common sense intervened. She was tempted, she wanted Johnny, but it was impossible. She was mad even to contemplate it.
“No!” she said. “No, I can’t do this.”
Johnny ran a hand over his disordered hair. He was looking less than his usual immaculate self. “I thought you seemed to be managing quite well,” he murmured.
“I can’t be your mistress,” Lydia stated baldly.
Johnny looked disconcerted. “I was not aware that I had asked you.”
“You implied it,” Lydia said. “You said there was a price for your silence.”
She saw the understanding break in his eyes. He smiled. “I see,” he said slowly. “I am flattered that you were prepared to consider it even for a moment, but . . .”
Mortification crashed over Lydia in a wave. She closed her eyes. “I misunderstood, didn’t I?”
“I fear so.” He was trying not to laugh, damn him.
“It would be more gentlemanly of you to pretend,” she snapped. How embarrassing that he had not wanted her after all. And yet he had kissed her as though he desired her.
“I don’t believe it would be more gentlemanly of me to blackmail an unprotected woman.” Johnny sounded mildly offended. “What interests me, though, is why you would have agreed.”
There was the rub. He knew she had at least given the matter consideration. She was certainly not prepared to admit that she found him infuriatingly attractive. Or, more importantly, that she loved him. There was no future in that when Johnny could look as high as he wished for a wife and when she was the least suitable bride in the whole of Wales.
“I would have done it for Eliza’s sake,” she lied. “I thought... I was afraid . . .”
“That I would betray you? When I had promised I would not?” Johnny sounded so hurt that she felt stricken.
“No, of course I did not think that!” She could not help herself; she pressed a hand to his cheek, feeling the roughness against her palm. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I did not mean to hurt you.”
Johnny’s eyes had darkened again to the blue gray of a storm. “Lydia—”
This kiss was even better, intense, hungry from the first, sweeping her away. There was the tightest, most wicked spiral of heat in her belly that she had ever experienced. Her fingers itched to tear his clothes off, drag him into the skittle alley or the games room and make love to him on the billiards table. She was shocked by such unbridled thoughts, shocked but exhilarated at the same time.
She felt him draw away from her a little. His lips touched the hollow at the base of her throat and lingered in a caress that raised the goose bumps over her skin. He slid one hand into the bodice of her prim, businesslike gown and cupped her breast through her chemise, his thumb moving over the nipple. Lydia’s knees weakened and she made a sound of supplication in her throat. Pure sensation skittered down her spine. Pleasure flowered deep inside her.
“You smell delicious. . . .” His tongue flicked the vulnerable curve of her collarbone. “Lemon and spices.”
He turned her so that she was against the wall, cold stone at her back, her body trapped by the hard length of his, and he kissed her again, slowly, thoroughly and with such intent that Lydia trembled.
“We have to stop this.” She wrenched herself away from him.
“Must we?” Johnny reached out to draw her back into his arms. He was breathing hard. “I find I rather like your plan after all.”
“It’s the wassail cup,” Lydia said breathlessly.
Johnny laughed. “Are you saying that you need to be drunk to find me attractive?” He leaned closer. “Liar,” he whispered. His eyes were da
rk with desire, so intense and concentrated it made Lydia’s stomach drop.
She pushed him away. “Johnny!”
“Oh, very well.” He loosened his grip. “If you insist.”
Lydia steadied herself with both palms flat against the cold wall behind her. “If I misunderstood you, Johnny,” she said, “what was it that you were going to say?”
Johnny hesitated. Then he took her hands in his. “I need your help, Lydia,” he said. “I cannot turn the Newport estate around on my own. You know everybody. They trust you. I need you by my side to do this.”
Lydia looked at him. “You need an estate manager,” she whispered.
“I need a wife,” Johnny said. “I need you.” He was smiling a little. His eyes were clear, steady. “Lydia,” he said. “Will you marry me?”
Chapter 3
Johnny knew at once that she was going to refuse him. That would be twice, he thought ruefully. Twice he would have laid his heart beneath Lydia Cole’s feet and she would have kicked it aside. He wondered if he was mad to keep trying to win her. He wondered how many rejections a man was supposed to take. Then he looked at her. She looked flushed and ruffled and thoroughly kissed, and he realized that he would not give up, could not, until he had persuaded her that she could risk her heart on him.
“Johnny,” she said.
“I’ve loved you for years.” He had not intended to be so precipitate or so unpolished, but he thought it was worth trying to get in first, to try to make her see the truth. A moment later he saw that the words had been a mistake. She did not believe him.
“We can’t talk here. It’s not private.” The clatter of the kitchen door opening emphasized her words.
“Where then?” He was not going to let her go before they had this resolved.
She looked hunted, afraid. “Johnny—” she said again.
“Where?”
She made a huffing noise at his insistence, but she took his hand and drew him down the flagstoned passageway to the private parlor he had occupied on the night he had arrived at the Silent Wench. A fire burned low in the grate though the room was dark. The air was scented with the sharp freshness of the pine branches that decorated the beams.
Mischief and Mistletoe Page 20
