by Laura Landon
“Rule number two. A single woman of gentle breeding never entertains a male visitor alone without a chaperone present, preferably another lady of unquestionable character.”
“I am hardly a young schoolgirl. My character has never been in question. Now, to get back to my previous point—”
“Your character has never been in question because Lady Clythebrook has always been here to protect it. You are, however, single, and London Society plays by a different set of rules than those adhered to in the country.”
Josie set her cup down with a clink. “So what, pray tell, should I have done when you arrived.”
“Refused to see me, of course.”
“And have it be said that I had broken the terms of our agreement with Lady Clythebrook? I think not!”
“Then you should have insisted that one of the servants remain in the room.”
“They have more important things to do than sit in a corner and listen to us argue.”
The Marquess of Rainforth sat back in his chair and smiled. “Is that what you think we’re doing?”
“What would you call it?”
“I’d say we are having a lively discussion. I am instructing you on the difference between what is acceptable here in the country and why that same action will expose you to scandal in London. Society loves nothing better than to sink their teeth into someone’s character. And entertaining single men in private without a proper chaperone is guaranteed to set tongues wagging.”
“Spoken by a man who is an expert at creating scandals.”
“Touché, Miss Foley. Why else would Lady Clythebrook consider me the ideal candidate to teach you the traps to avoid when you reach London?”
Josie rose to her feet and walked away from him. “Regardless of what Lady Clythebrook has led you to believe, I have no intention of going to London. And if I do go, it won’t be to parade around the theaters and attend a number of fashionable balls. Nor will my intent be to attract a husband, but only to accompany Lady Clythebrook. I am tolerating your company for the next thirty days because Lady Clythebrook has left me no choice. If I do not, she will allow you to begin bringing in cattle immediately.”
“And you think thirty days will make a difference?”
“I think thirty days will be more than enough time for you to tire of country life and yearn to go back to the City, leaving us with a gaggle of cattle about which we know nothing.”
“It’s a herd.”
“What?”
“A herd, not a gaggle. But never mind. What if I told you there was no chance of my leaving?”
She studied him, her gaze taking in the serious expression on his face. “I wouldn’t believe you,” she said, but there was something in the way his silver eyes turned a darker gray that told her she shouldn’t dismiss his comment so easily. “Why are you so insistent upon bringing cattle here?”
His brows arched. “Don’t you think St. Stephen’s could use the added income?”
“If half the rumors concerning your wealth are true, the money from the sale of a few hundred head of cattle won’t be of any great significance. You could dip into the Rainforth coffers and take any amount that’s needed and the money would never be missed.”
He slowly set his cup and saucer back on the table, then stood to face her. “I only have St. Stephen’s to support me. My cousin has control of everything else, not me.”
“You gave away the income from your estates?”
“I gave away what I didn’t want. Which leaves me with St. Stephen’s.”
Josie stared at him in disbelief. What could have possessed him to turn over such a substantial income?
“Why did you keep St. Stephen’s?”
“Because I like it here.”
“So did your mother. It was hers, wasn’t it?”
“It had been in her family for generations. She and I used to come here when I was a child.”
“Did your father come with you?”
The corners of his mouth tipped upward. “No. He hated it here. St. Stephen’s was much too provincial for his taste.”
So St. Stephen’s would have been the only place his father had not left his mark.
Could she have been so wrong about him? Could she have been so convinced all the rumors about him were true that she hadn’t looked for any good? If that were true, she was in greater danger than she’d even imagined before.
“I would like that walk you promised me,” he said, as if he could read her thoughts and wished to escape them. “The flowers may not be in bloom, but the garden beyond the window is well tended. Is that your doing?”
“Banks and mine. We both enjoy digging around in the dirt.”
“Then I will imagine what it will look like in a month’s time. And we will leave the door open and make sure we stay within view of the windows.”
“But there’s no one here to watch us.”
“But in London there will be.”
“Another rule?”
“Yes. That should be number three. Not bad for half an hour’s work.”
He held out his arm and she placed her hand on it. The flesh beneath her fingers was hard and she remembered how it had looked and felt without the barrier of clothes when she tended his wounds. Her cheeks warmed and she lowered her head before he noticed.
“Do you feel the need for a shawl?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t want you to risk getting a chill.”
She wanted to laugh. She was more likely to suffer blisters from the heat that warmed her face. “I’m perfectly fine. You were the one who was injured. Are you certain you’re up to a walk?”
“Yes. I’d like to ask you some questions about the boy.”
“Charlie?”
They’d crossed the patio and were at the three narrow steps that led out into the garden. He stopped before they went down the first step and turned to face her. “Do you doubt Charlie is my son?”
She shook her head. “Some people guessed he was yours when Mrs. Gardner moved into the dower house and Charlie was born not five months after. Now, you only have to look at him to know you are his father.”
“There’s a picture that looks exactly like him hanging at Rainforth Park. It’s a picture of me when I was about his age.”
“Why did you never come to see him?”
“I’d like to think I would have, if I’d have known he existed.”
She stopped in the middle of the path and darted him a look filled with shock and surprise.
“But, perhaps I wouldn’t have,” he continued before she had a chance to say anything. He looked down on her and smiled his most seductive smile. “It’s hard to say what a rake such as myself would ever do.”
Her heart beat faster in her chest. “You didn’t know you had a son?”
“Her condition was one detail Carrie failed to mention when she asked me to provide her with a home in the country where she could start again. I didn’t even know about her death until a few weeks ago. That was when I came to the orphanage in search of the child.”
“But how could you not know? The dower house isn’t that far away from the manor house.”
“That was part of the bargain Carrie and I struck when she left. She wanted to put her past behind her and start a different life from the one she’d been living in London. At the time, I thought there was little possibility I’d ever return to St. Stephen’s so I gifted her the dower house. She asked that I never make any effort to see her again and I saw no reason not to agree to her request. I assumed if she ever needed me, she knew where to find me.”
“Did you love her?”
“No. I didn’t love her. Nor did she love me. A wise woman never falls in love with a scoundrel. And Carrie was very, very wise.”
Josie felt the weight press heavier against her chest. He was right. That was the mistake her mother had made.
They walked further and he stopped when they reached a small fountain with benches facing it where
they could sit. “Would you mind if we rested here a while?”
She sat down on one end of the bench and he sat on the other. They weren’t so close they were touching, yet close enough that his nearness caused her body to warm by several degrees.
“What kind of boy is he?”
She listened to the lazy lapping of the fountain and watched the water spray. “He has a gentle disposition and is very bright. He loves books and never wants me to quit reading when I get to the end of a chapter.”
“He’s a good student?” he asked, clearly interested.
“He’s going to be an excellent student. He’s only four, Lord Rainforth. He hasn’t been taught to read yet, but last week Mrs. Lambert found him in the library practicing his letters on his own.”
Josie looked up to see the smile on his face.
“When this is over, I’m going to take him to live with me.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s my son.”
“But he’ll never be your son in the legal sense of the word.”
“Do you think that’s all that matters? It doesn’t to me. And I’ll make sure it never matters to him either. You more than anyone should understand that.”
Josie looked over at the man who was such a conundrum to her. He was a threat to everything she’d always guarded herself against, and if she were smart, the only emotion running through her would be distrust and wariness.
Instead, she found herself in danger of losing her heart.
She stood as if separating herself from him would make everything better. Leaving his side only made her shiver.
“You’re cold.”
“No, I’m fine,” she started to say, but he was already placing his jacket around her shoulders.
A rush building with the force of a tidal wave shot through her, heating the blood in her veins and not easing until it settled with a molten heaviness at that place low in her belly.
If only he’d never come to St. Stephen’s.
This was why he was a man to be feared. Even though she’d aligned all her defenses to fight him, she was weakening at every turn. Then, he stepped closer to her and looked down on her.
She knew what he was going to do when he reached out to cup his palms on either side of her face and she knew she should do something to stop him, but she didn’t.
“Ah, Josephine,” he whispered, then leaned forward and brought his mouth down on hers.
She should have been prepared for the force with which she reacted to him. His voice alone had the power to cause her insides to stir and tumble, and every time she was near him the air separating them sparked as if it had been charged by bolts of lightning. His kiss had the power to tip the earth from its axis.
The pressure of his mouth against hers was not so demanding to frighten or intimidate her, yet not so innocent she missed his intent. With a slight moan, she accepted his kiss and tilted her head as a sign of her willingness.
Josie leaned into him, taking in the passion building between them and suddenly, without understanding where such a need sprang from, she wanted even more.
Her whole life she’d ignored thinking about what it might feel like to be kissed by someone she cared for. She’d shoved her curiosity aside because she knew giving in to any man was forbidden. As if any man would want her if they knew.
But when she kissed the Marquess of Rainforth, she forgot. The passion raging within her made her willing to risk it all and give into him with all the abandon of a starving person after a crust of bread.
He must have realized what she wanted because he deepened his kiss, then opened his mouth atop hers and skimmed his tongue along her lips. The second she parted for him, he entered her mouth, his tongue mating with hers in a ritual that sent her emotions into rampant flight. It wasn’t only their closeness that sent fiery sheets of heat spiraling through her, but his arms wrapped tightly around her, pulling her to him.
Josie wound her arms around his neck, holding on to him with a desperation that brought him closer. On legs that were almost too weak to support her, she leaned against him, her body nestled next to him. There they stood, mouth to mouth, chest to chest, and heat to heat. And she couldn’t have found the will to move if it meant her very life.
She was lost to what he was doing to her. A molten river swirled low in her stomach to awaken a place that was unfamiliar to her. The woman standing in her shoes was a stranger, wanton and hungry with desire. She tightened her grip around his neck and kissed him back with a desperation that couldn’t be assuaged.
She wasn’t sure when she realized she’d lost control of the passion that soared through her. Wasn’t sure when she didn’t care about anything except his hands moving over her, skimming the sensitive skin at the back of her neck then running up and down her spine. Or the feather-like strokes of his fingers as he brushed them against her cheek, then down the column of her throat, and lower yet over the rise of her breast.
Flames seemed to lick at her flesh, flames of desire and passion far hotter than any fire she’d ever known. The chilly air was warm now and every inch of her burned as if she were standing in an inferno, the heat from his kisses sapping her of her strength.
He lifted his mouth from hers and kissed her cheek, then moved downward over her jaw and to the column of her throat. She gasped for air, knowing there was not enough restraint in the whole universe to save her now. For the first time she understood the passion that had destroyed her mother, and Carrie Gardner, and every other woman who’d given herself to a man and been left behind with a babe in her belly and an empty future that offered the woman nothing but a broken heart.
Without willing it to happen, all the nightmares she thought she’d buried surfaced until the man kissing her was not the Marquess of Rainforth but someone else. The hands holding her were not his but someone else’s.
She knew the moment he realized she was no longer a willing participant. He lifted his mouth from her and stepped back. The void that separated them seemed cavernous.
Neither of them spoke for several long minutes. She struggled to find her voice but it took more than one false start before she was finally able to utter any sound.
“I don’t think Lady Clythebrook intended for you to take your assignment so seriously, Lord Rainforth.”
“Don’t you? I think this is exactly what she intended.”
Josie darted her gaze upward and caught the seductive glint in his eyes.
“Rule number four,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “Passion is a very dangerous game to play. You can never let a situation go beyond your control or no matter how many rules you try to follow, they’ll all be for naught.”
Josie didn’t care a fig about his rules. The only words worth remembering were the ones he’d spoken earlier.
A wise woman never falls in love with a scoundrel.
Jaded Moon
by Laura Landon
Ransomed Jewels Series Book Two
CHAPTER 14
Josie didn’t come to this section of the orphanage unless she had to. Tonight, she had to.
She lifted her lantern higher while she made her way down the steep stairs that led from a secret door at the back of the old larder in a wing of the orphanage that was no longer used and consigned to storage.
When she reached the cellar, she went down another set of stairs and through a second locked door that opened to a maze of tunnels. She took the path to the right then turned right again and stopped. She stepped behind a false stone wall and moved forward until she reached a thick, oaken door. She took a separate key from her pocket and worked it into the lock then turned it. The hammer clicked and she pushed downward on the heavy latch until the door opened.
She wasn’t the only one who knew where this door was—one other person did. But she was the only one who had a key. That had been her first stipulation when she’d agreed to let the smugglers use the secret tunnel beneath the orphanage to move their contraband from the caves to their wait
ing wagons on the other side of the meadow. Not all the men who delivered the goods were savory characters and she would never let anyone who might be a threat anywhere near the children.
Tonight she didn’t have to worry, though. She wasn’t here to open the passageway so the men from Captain Levy’s ship could bring in their goods. Tonight she’d come because she’d received a message from Baron Lindville that he wanted to meet.
A part of her hoped he was going to tell her that they’d found another way to bring in the goods and they wouldn’t need to use the caves any longer. Another part of her hoped it was to tell her things had gotten too dangerous and this would be the last shipment that would come in.
She wanted to laugh. When had she begun to consider an alternative to the smuggling? The most disastrous effect of her meetings with the Marquess of Rainforth was believing that his cattle venture would be able to feed and clothe the children, or that he intended to stay around long enough for it to happen. It was frightening when she thought of how much she’d weakened since she’d met him. Before he’d come she wouldn’t even have considered trusting anyone else with providing for the children.
Josie walked down the long passageway until she heard the gentle slapping sounds of the waves coming ashore. The air felt different here. Heavier. Wetter. She didn’t mind looking at the waves from up above, but every time she came through the caves, she felt as if she were suffocating. Tonight though, she’d had no choice in the matter. Baron Lindville’s message had been most insistent.
Josie walked further into the cave, then stopped when she reached the widest section. She lit the two torches stuck into the wall and looked around. She dreaded meeting with Lindville but told herself that after this last shipment she’d never have to come here again. Even if he didn’t realize the smuggling had to stop, she did. Once Rainforth began work above the caves, there’d be no way they could continue without risking that they’d be seen.
“I could have had the torches burning when you came,” a voice said from the shadows, “but I wasn’t sure you’d be able to come and I hated to take the chance that someone would see the light.”
