An Extraordinary Flirtation

by Maggie MacKeever

  “A pity,” mused Ianthe, “that Zoe didn’t try and play off her tricks on your squire.”

  “He’s not my squire!” Cara untangled herself quickly from her skirts and the chair. “You talk to him, Ianthe. Tell him I have gone shopping, or taken to my bed with a fatal fever, or anything you like.”

  Ianthe couldn’t look at Squire Anderley without thinking of the ceremony in which the huntsmaster smeared the blood of the quarry onto the cheek of a newly initiated hunt follower. No wonder Cara wished to run away. “Where are you going?” she inquired.

  Cara shook out her skirts. “To apologize.”

  Ianthe snatched up the brandy decanter and hid it behind her chair. “Don’t forget your tree.”

  Chapter 16

  Lord Mannering was awakened from a fretful slumber by a commotion in the hallway. He opened one wary eye to see Lady Norwood walk into the room. Flanking her were his servants, both of whom looked wary, and an orange-speckled dog. At the sight of him, Daisy woofed and wagged her tail. “Keep that creature away from me,” he said, and scooted, painfully, to the far side of the bed.

  Cara paused on the threshold. This would all be simpler if the marquess wore something other than a sheet. A sheet, moreover, which had slipped down around his lean hips. She forced her gaze back to his face. “I have hold of her collar, as you would see if you cared to look. Daisy has come to apologize.” She paused. He waited. “Oh, very well! As have I.I had to swear to Mary that I wouldn’t hit you again before she let me through the door.”

  The maidservant looked embarrassed, but resolute. As did Jacob, who said, “The lady returned the Sophora japonica. Shall I take it to the conservatory, my lord?”

  Since it appeared no mayhem was to be enacted on his person in the immediate future, Nick edged back across the bed, an act which not only angered his unhappy back, but also further discomposed his sheet, as he was well aware. Cara was equally aware, judging from the effort she appeared to experience keeping her gaze where it belonged. “Do nothing with the tree just yet. The lady has a habit of changing her mind. Would you care for tea, Lady Norwood? Sherry? I would offer to share my laudanum, but I appear to have drunk it all.”

  That would explain his somewhat rakish aspect. Laudanum, and the sheet which came close to covering nothing that it should. Not that Cara hadn’t already seen that nothing, although it was unfair to call it nothing when it was something indeed. And not only had she seen it, she had touched it, and felt it, and—

  Goodness, but the room was warm. Naturally, Nicky wouldn’t notice; the damned man had precious little on.

  He was watching her, somewhat smugly. “Ah— Thank you, no sheet. That is, no tea!”

  She looked mouth-watering, as always, even with her hair ruthlessly subdued into coils and braids, and her bosom in a pale blue dress. “That will be all, Mary, Jacob. I don’t believe the lady has any murderous intent.” Cara frowned, and he added, “Of course, I could be wrong. No, it’s all right, Mary! I spoke in jest. You may leave us alone.” The door closed behind the servants, and Nick eyed Cara. “I did speak in jest, I trust?”

  Cara approached the bed, Daisy’s collar still firmly in hand. “Cousin Fenella shot her lover, then herself. I merely brought back your tree.”

  Nick knew better than to say he had expected her. Warily, he looked to see if she had also brought a gun.

  “Boorish knave? Lecherous wretch? Although I believe you hit your peak with ‘lustful slug.’“

  Cara cleared her throat. “I may have been a little carried away by the violence of my feelings, perhaps.”

  “A little?” Nick touched his sore jaw.

  “Very well, a lot! I apologize for hitting you.” Cara looked around the room, but saw no sign of the earlier destruction. “And for breaking your ewer, and your vase.”

  Nick was not feeling especially magnanimous. He folded his arms across his chest. “And for burning my book of Elizabethan riddles? Not to mention denting poor Ferdinand.”

  Cara glanced guiltily at the suit of armor. Nicky was still angry with her, and she could hardly blame him. “I’m also sorry I called you an imbecile,” she murmured.

  A faithless, rake-helly imbecile, if Nick recalled correctly, and he was certain that he did. “I don’t think,” he retorted, “that I’m sorry I called you a shrew.”

  She returned her brooding gaze to him. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

  “Is there some reason why I should?”

  “Why did you come to the house?”

  “I wished to speak to your brother.”

  Cara could no longer bear the sight of all that splendid flesh. “Sit!” she said to Daisy, and to her tormentor, “Why?”

  Nick watched her wander aimlessly around the chamber. She paused to touch the backgammon board. He hoped she wouldn’t take it in her head to throw it at him. “I fear that’s a moot point now.”

  Cara moved away from the backgammon set, lest she succumb to an impulse to damage him with it. “Did you have your hand down Zoe’s dress? If you didn’t, you might as well have, because she is a prattle box.”

  “I didn’t want to have my hand anywhere near the dratted chit.” Nick gazed without favor on Daisy, who was lying on the hearth. “That blasted hound made it impossible for me to escape. You needn’t point out that a gentleman wouldn’t tattle on a lady. Your niece is no lady.” He moved, and winced. “And it’s becoming more and more clear that I am no gentleman.”

  Having maligned the marquess to the best of her ability, Cara now felt the need to play devil’s advocate. She moved closer to the bed. “If you weren’t a gentleman, you wouldn’t have agreed to marry her. She truly did try to seduce you, didn’t she?”

  Nick looked up at her lovely face. Cara’s expression was utterly serious, as if she placed a great deal of importance on his words. “Your niece hasn’t the least notion of what seduction is. However, she has been practicing kissing, in case you want to know. Not that she’s very good at it.” His gaze lingered on her lips. “Not a fraction as good as you are.”

  Lady Norwood didn’t trust this change of mood. Mistrust didn’t stop her, however, from sitting down on the bed. “Is that the truth, Nicky?”

  “Truth is what one believes at the moment. What do you believe, Cara?”

  Cara didn’t know what she believed. “You’re bruised,” she said, and touched his cheek.

  “Bruises aren’t the least of it,” retorted Lord Mannering, and brushed his lips against her fingers.

  “Are you hurt so very badly?”

  “I am.” Neither of them was talking about bruises, he thought, as he moved his mouth to her wrist.

  Cara touched her fingers to his other bruise. “I fear I displayed an unbecoming tendency toward temper, my lord.”

  He drew her closer. “Tumultuous passions,” he murmured, against her throat.

  “A dreadful lack of self-control,” she whispered. “The family has a tendency toward melodrama, alas. And remarkable wrong-headedness.”

  Nick’s skilled fingers worked the buttons of her dress. “And to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh.”

  He pushed the gown aside. His lips were warm against her throat, her shoulder, the hollow of her neck. Cara was ablaze with sensation. Disjointed fragments drifted through her brain. Creatures of the senses... Love unwisely and too well... Tormented by unrequited love...

  Nick drew back, and broke the mood. “I may never leave this room again. Perhaps your niece wouldn’t wish to have a bedridden spouse.”

  Zoe wouldn’t mind at all if she’d ever shared a bed with Nicky. “Turn over,” Cara said, and reached for the jar of basalm on the bedside table.

  Nick was nothing loath. He rolled over on his belly—not without a groan—and the sheet slid lower still. Cara feasted her eyes upon that mouthwatering expanse of muscular male back, and took refuge in the familiar obfuscation. “It is a common belief in Gloucestershire that wood and coal ashes applied after lawn-mowing wil
l kill caterpillars and slugs. The combination is particularly efficacious if well watered with the contents of a chamber pot.”

  Nick wondered first if Cara intended to smear him with wood and coal ashes, and secondly if the chamber pot was tucked safely out of reach. Cara dipped her fingers into the ointment, and began to rub, and kept to herself the additional snippet that in Gloucestershire, parsley wine was esteemed as a powerful aphrodisiac.

  Parsley be damned, one only needed the sight of an almost-naked Nicky. Cara stroked her hands over his back. His skin was warm and smooth and spicy-smelling, although the latter was only a memory, because the scent of camphor was heavy in the air. Concentrate, she told herself, as her hands slid smoothly over his skin, applying light pressure here, and heavier pressure there, making light, slow, circular motions with her fingertips, or a heavier motion with the heel of her hand. The trapezius received her attentions first, the broad triangular muscle that lay just below the skin, covering the upper back, part of the neck, and the shoulders; then the levator scapula, the rhomboids, the latissimus dorsi and the external obliques; and the erector spinae, or sacrospinalis, those several combined muscles that ran from the neck to the small of the back.

  Nick groaned with pleasure as she ran her fingers over and between his ribs, then rubbed with the heel of her hand. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “Norwood.” Cara pressed a gentle fingertip into an abused muscle, moved her fingers in tiny circles over the spot.

  Norwood had been of an advanced age when he might expect to get a little stiff. Although Nick was a little stiff himself, and he was nowhere near Norwood’s age. Uncomfortable as it was, he was glad he lay facedown. Cara was paying particular attention to his gluteus maximus. He moaned.

  Cara recalled herself to her business, which was not stroking the marquess’s exceedingly fine rump. “A pre-ride massage will help your horse limber up; a post-ride rubdown will help restore muscles that may have been abused. My mare gets the most absurd expressions when I find her pleasure spot.”

  She’d found his pleasure spot, and he was going to react in an absurd fashion also if she didn’t stop. Nick reached up and caught her hand. She frowned. “Am I hurting you?”

  “More than you can imagine.” Nick pulled her down beside him. When she halfheartedly protested, he rolled her under him, imprisoning her hands above her head. “A forfeit is required, I think.”

  Cara was incapable of further objection. The heat of his body seared through her layers of clothing. His strong and very hard body. She couldn’t have spoken at that moment to save her life. At that moment, she didn’t wish to save her life. Smiling slightly, he lowered his lips to hers.

  Several moments later—how many Cara couldn’t say, but her bodice was thoroughly unbuttoned, and her hair as thoroughly unpinned—Nick released her and leaned back on his pillows. “You do kiss better than your niece. I don’t suppose you’d allow me to set you up in a little house somewhere?”

  “Like you intended for Zoe? Don’t provoke me, Nicky, lest I damage your lovely backgammon board. Come back and finish what you started, you wretch.”

  He propped himself up on one elbow and regarded her. “No,” he said.

  She stared at him. “No? Nicky, are you mad?”

  Cara’s bristles may have subsided, but Nick’s were far from lying flat. “Yes, I’m mad. Furious. Incensed. You might have thought it a damned odd thing that I made love to you in one hour and betrothed myself to your niece in the next."

  She burned, she throbbed, she ached. She threw a pillow at him. “Nicky, you are a beast!”

  “Are you in affliction, darling? Alas, despite your low opinion of me, I cannot slake my salacious appetites with you while I am betrothed to someone else.” He looked diabolic. “It would be dishonorable.”

  Cara eyed him askance. He added, “Lucasta Clitheroe? I didn’t, and we weren’t. Although I wished to be. You were shilly-shallying.”

  So he had insisted at the time, and she hadn’t believed him. Yes, and why should she believe him now? Cara perceived a pattern. Nick had seduced her, and at the same time amused himself with Lucasta Clitheroe. Now he had seduced her again, and betrothed himself to Zoe. To complete her chagrin, he said, “You see, I am capable of resisting a woman who wants me.”

  She might well have throttled him, or wept with vexation, or screamed until she was purple in the face; definitely she would have damaged him had he not grasped her arms. “The devil fly away with you!” she snapped.

  The wretch smiled at her. “We begin to understand one another better, I think. And if you hit me again, I swear I’ll hit you back."

  Cara might have done so nonetheless, had not the door flown open. Daisy leapt up from the hearth. Cara scrambled into the corner of the bed, behind the velvet draperies, and tried to restore order to her dress.

  Zoe burst into the room, followed by Mary and Jacob and another manservant, whom Nick recognized as his valet. “I’m that sorry, my lord, she was threatening to go to your club. I thought you’d rather she came here. She says that she’s your fiancée.”

  Lord Mannering wished that his fiancée had gone to Hades. She was simultaneously pouting, trying to move out of range of the servants, and looking curiously around the room. “Where did you find her?”

  The valet dripped disapproval. “She called in Bedford Square. We bundled her off before she could make more of a rumpus. Few of the servants saw her there.”

  Nick wondered if his faithful valet might be persuaded to bundle up the young woman and toss her into the river. “James, you are a treasure. Remind me to increase your wage.”

  Zoe stomped her foot. “I don’t see why everyone is making such a fuss because I wish to inquire about my fiancé’s health. What a strange room this is! What’s that awful smell? Is that a suit of armor? What an ugly bed." She walked closer to it. “Why, Lord Mannering, you aren’t wearing any clothes!”

  The marquess disliked the look in his fiancée’s eye. “No!” he said, and yanked the sheet up to his chin. On hearing that stern tone, Daisy—who had all this while been trying to get Zoe’s attention—sat down on her skirt.

  Zoe looked down at the setter, which she had noticed in a peripheral fashion, because she was accustomed to the creature’s jumps and barks. About Daisy in this setting, however, there was something very queer. Whatever was she doing here?

  Again, Zoe glanced at the ugly bed. Rumpled sheets, half-naked marquess—

  Zoe was not short of understanding. Her fiancé had not rumpled those sheets all by himself. No timorous maiden, she marched toward the bed, and grabbed hold of the velvet drapery, and twitched it aside. Her jaw dropped open at sight of her aunt scrunched up in a corner, disheveled and not entirely dressed. Cara looked embarrassed. The marquess looked as if he was trying not to laugh.

  What there was to laugh about in such a moment, Zoe couldn’t begin to imagine. “You betrayed me!” she yelled.

  “Alas, you have found me out,” said Lord Mannering, with a wonderfully wicked sneer. “I am a vile seducer. Your aunt will tell you so.” He grasped Cara’s wrist and pulled her across the bed toward him. “Won’t you, my pet?”

  Chapter 17

  A vile seducer? Lord Mannering? Zoe stared. Granted, he was handling Cara in a very familiar manner, dragging her across the bed and up against his pillows, but still—

  Cara shot the marquess a stern look, not without difficulty, because he held her so close, and proximity to Nicky, as has already been demonstrated, wreaked havoc with the workings of her otherwise excellent mind. She did recall, however, that she had been brought to London with a purpose other than snuggling with Nicky. “What are you doing here, Zoe? For a young woman to visit a gentleman in his lodging is a truly shocking thing.”

  “Really!” The ribbons on Zoe’s pretty bonnet fluttered, and the roses trembled. “And for an old woman it is not? Better that I should ask what you are doing here. And with my fiancé!”

  Understanda
ble, if regrettable, that Zoe should be in a tweak. Cara tried to adjust her bodice, which had gotten disarranged again in her slide across the sheets. “This isn’t what it seems.”

  “What a clanker!” Zoe clucked disapprovingly as Lord Mannering prevented Cara’s further struggles with her uncooperative bodice by clamping his hand around her wrist. “You must think that I’m a flat. There’s nothing wrong with my eyes. I know what I see.”

  The marquess arched an eyebrow. “Ah, but appearances can be deceiving, can they not?”

  A hit, a palpable hit, but to say that Zoe experienced a twinge of remorse would be to overstate the case. However, she did wrinkle her pretty nose. “You had your hand down the bosom of my dress!”

  “Perhaps, but I’m not the one who put it there.”

  “Lawks!” breathed Mary, recalling Nick to the presence of his owl-eyed servants. He sent all three of them off to fetch some tea. “Since you were kind enough to inquire, Miss Loversall, I feel like the very devil. It is uncertain if I will ever walk again. Now that you have ascertained the state of my health, perhaps you will go away. And take that dog with you!” Guiltily, Daisy slunk back to the hearth.

  Lord Mannering looked like the devil, not ill but diabolical. And Zoe’s aunt looked devilishly comfortable, cuddled up against him like that. Cara’s bodice was clearly unbuttoned—she could barely keep it on her shoulders—and her hair was as tousled and tangled as if it had never seen a brush. “Whether you can walk or not, my lord, it is evident that you are well enough to engage in certain other activities.” There was a marked dearth of breakable items in the chamber. Zoe eyed the backgammon board.

  “Touch that board and you risk your life,” said the marquess. He sounded as though he meant every word.

  Zoe picked up the brightly colored fan instead, and wondered what such a thing was doing in a gentleman’s bedroom, a question her aunt might have answered, though not without giggling. “I have a very delicate constitution, and this outrage must surely be a great shock to my heart.” Languidly, she fanned herself. “Perhaps I may even swoon.”