by Laura Landon
Heaven help him.
He found the treasure he’d been searching for. His tongue met hers. Touched. Withdrew. Touched again.
Her hands grabbed bits of his flesh along with the fabric of his shirt. He was in pain. But it was not from the grasp she had on his skin. His pain was a thousand times more consuming.
Trying to control a desperation that defied understanding, he lifted his mouth and stared into her eyes. They were glazed with emotion.
“Who are you?” he whispered, his voice hoarse and raspy. “Why are you doing this to me?” He took two gasping breaths of air before he covered her mouth again. He did not want to leave her.
He ground his mouth against hers, drinking deeply, sharing with her. Taking from her. And she did not deny him.
With each kiss, she gave more of herself. She wrapped her slender arms around his neck and held on with a fierceness that defied explanation. She opened to him and moved with him and asked more of him than he thought he had left to give.
With each kiss, he lost more of his self-control. More of the sturdy defenses he’d built to protect himself from emotions as strong as this.
Bloody hell. This was not supposed to happen.
A warning bell went off in his brain, exposing the lies and betrayal and deceit he’d experienced at the hands of a woman. A woman who had used him for her own gain. Just as this woman wanted to use him for her own gain.
Simon growled an agonizing moan and lifted his mouth from hers. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. His chest burned like someone had branded him with a hot poker and left the fiery tip inside to sear his heart. He opened his mouth as he struggled to take in huge gulps of air. He braved a look at the girl and saw only confusion.
This was all an act. It had to be.
He tried to push her away from him, but her knees buckled, forcing him to hold on to her until she regained her composure.
She gasped for air while her eyes darted from one side of his shoulders to the other, as if she was too frightened to face him. She looked as scared as a snared rabbit in a poacher’s trap. Every inch of her body trembled in his arms.
“You still want to become my wife?” he said, tilting her face to look at him.
She didn’t answer. Her look told him she realized she needed protection from him more than she needed his protection.
He dropped his hands from her and she stumbled, then grabbed for the edge of the wing chair and righted herself. She stood immobile for a moment, one hand clutching her stomach, the other fisted against her mouth. Her chest heaved, whether from fright or from his kisses he didn’t know. He did not want to know. All he knew was that he wanted her out of his sight.
“Get out, woman.”
She wasn’t facing him. He realized she hadn’t heard him.
He didn’t want to touch her again, but he had to. Either touch her or wait for her to turn her frightened gaze to him, and he wasn’t sure he had the strength to resist her.
He grasped her by the shoulders and turned her toward him. A muffled cry escaped from the back of her throat, and his heart lurched within his chest.
He didn’t want to admit her reaction affected him. He didn’t want to admit her kisses held any significance. He didn’t want to admit there was a spot in his heart that wasn’t hardened enough to keep her from entering.
“Get out, woman. Get out before I do something we will both regret.”
She sucked in a harsh breath and twisted out of his arms. “I have already done something I regret, my lord.” She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth.
With her chin raised, she rushed from the room.
Simon stood at the curtained window and watched her carry herself with the greatest aplomb through the darkness to a waiting carriage. He watched until she was safely inside.
“I didn’t think it was possible for the little missy to leave more frightened than when she arrived,” Sanjay said, from the doorway. “I was wrong.”
“Frightened? Ha.” Simon walked to the fireplace and leaned one arm against the mantle.
“I think when next I come back to serve you it will be as a small kitten. It will be my purpose to teach you gentleness and kindness. You are in great need of it.”
Simon slammed his fist against the fireplace, then stumbled to his chair. “I don’t need your opinion tonight, Sanjay. All I need is—”
“What you want is right here, master,” Sanjay answered, setting a fresh bottle of whiskey and a clean glass on the table beside the chair. “I assume you will want to drink until you can no longer remember how badly you treated the missy.”
Simon filled the glass and took a deep swallow. “I don’t need you to be my conscience, Sanjay. Go to bed and leave me alone.”
“Very well, master. I will go to bed, but I think you will not be alone. You will have many of your demons to keep you company tonight.”
Simon heard the soft click of the door and knew he was finally alone.
He sank onto the soft leather of the wingback chair and dropped his head to the cushion behind him. He closed his eyes and tried to erase the sight of Jessica Stanton’s long, curling tresses trailing behind her as she left the room, but it did no good. The repulsion and fear he’d seen in her eyes was one of the demons that refused to go away.
She’d been lying, of course. She couldn’t be Baron Tanhill’s stepsister.
Simon poured some whiskey into a glass and brought it to his mouth. His arm halted midway to his lips, and his fingers clenched the glass tightly. She couldn’t be Tanhill’s sister, he repeated a second time, then a third.
His heart raced at the possibility that she could. If she was, she had just offered him his most bitter enemy’s head on a silver platter. Something he’d only dreamed of having.
Marriage to her would, according to her own admission, make Simon one of the wealthiest men in England and reduce Tanhill to an insignificant pauper. Not only could Simon use the money to pay his creditors and save his inheritance, but he could protect her from whatever mad scheme Tanhill had devised to take her money away.
If she was Tanhill’s stepsister, he could save her. And this time he would not fail. He would not let Tanhill take another life he’d given his oath to protect. If she truly was Tanhill’s stepsister, it would be possible to have every pound Tanhill thought to steal from the girl. And he could exact his revenge for what had happened in India.
Simon stared into the smoldering embers in the grate. If she’d told him the truth. She was, after all, a woman. No different from any other greedy, conniving woman God had placed on the face of the earth.
But she’d probably made up the whole story. She probably didn’t have a pound to her name but had come only because James had sent her. She’d probably only thought of marriage when she saw the amount of money James was willing to offer him.
He’d kissed her because he’d meant to teach her how dangerous it was to play her treacherous games. He’d meant to show her how risky it could be to tempt him with the money to save Ravenscroft but at a price he was unwilling to pay. He’d meant to enlighten her on how disastrous it could be for her to give in to her greedy ambitions and seek more than what she’d been sent to offer.
Bloody hell. Why had he kissed her?
Simon thought of James. He did not doubt for one moment that James had been the one who’d sent this Jessica Stanton to him. If that was her real identity.
He took a deep breath and tried not to be angry with his friend. If James were the one about to lose everything, he would do the same if he thought it would help him.
But what did James think would be accomplished by sending her to him? Didn’t James realize this woman held about as good a chance of becoming his wife as a snowball had of surviving in Hades?
Simon brought his glass closer, determined to drink until he could forget Jessica Stanton and the way he’d responded to their kisses.
It promised to be a very long night.
Chapter 5
> Jessica paced the length of the Duchess of Collingsworth’s bright, sunny morning room feeling as trapped as if Colin himself hovered outside the door waiting to have her committed to the asylum. She pushed a wayward strand of hair from her face and tried to make herself look more composed. It was hard. She’d never been more scared in her life.
She had five days until her twenty-fifth birthday. Five days until she became one of the wealthiest women in England. Five days to protect herself from her stepbrother’s greed and hatred.
She clutched a hand to her breast to calm her breathing. She needed James and Melinda’s help. She prayed to God they would give it to her.
Jessica clenched her fists in frustration. Never had she hated her deafness as she did right now. Never had she felt so helpless. So foolish.
Instead of pursuing a means of escape immediately, she’d wasted precious time and effort on her ludicrous plan to ask the Earl of Northcote to marry her.
How could she have been so blind? How could she have thought for a moment she could convince him that marrying her was the answer to his problems? Good Lord. Half of London still believed he’d killed his father. What lapse of sanity had made her go to him in the first place?
Jessica remembered the liberties he’d taken last night—the liberties she’d allowed—and shuddered. He was a rogue of the worst kind. She hesitated to think what that made her. His only redeeming quality was that he did not seem offended by her deafness. Although his refusal made it plain he would never want the stigma of a deaf woman as his wife. How could she have embarrassed herself so?
She looked out onto the cobblestone street and watched a carriage ramble silently past the town house. With an impatient sigh, she smoothed the white lace collar at her neck, then touched her fingers to her lips. Lips that still tingled from his kisses.
She’d never dreamed a man’s touch could cause such turmoil.
Her fingers touched the lips he’d kissed as she relived the emotions that had raced through her body. She tried to block out the image of him towering above her. But it was impossible to forget the muscled arms that had held her close; the lean, powerful hands that had caressed her skin; the rough, callused fingers that had seared her flesh with his touch.
Then, for the briefest moment, just before he’d pushed her away, she’d glimpsed the reason she would never doubt that he could protect her. She’d felt Northcote’s impenetrable dominance, his unwavering courage. She’d sensed a strength about him that bordered on ruthlessness. A strength that would keep her safe from her stepbrother.
But it was too late now to think he could help her. She knew he would not.
Jessica looked at the clock on the mantel and paced from one end of the room to the other, praying Melinda would not be too much longer. It was well before the accepted hour for callers, but time was a precious commodity. Ever since she’d left the earl, some instinct had warned her she could not waste a moment of the time left to her.
She raised her hand to her forehead and rubbed her temples to ease the pounding. Her eyes still burned from the hours she’d spent staring blankly into the darkness after she’d run from the Earl of Northcote’s town house. Then the tormented hours she’d spent pacing the floors until it was light enough that she could come to ask Melinda for help.
She leaned her shoulder against the frame beside the window and rubbed her eyes, hoping the dark circles had gone away. Heaven help her, but she was tired. She’d slept very little in the last two days. Eaten even less. She was weary with worry.
Small, gentle hands touched her shoulders, jolting her to her senses, bringing her back to the present. She turned to see Melinda’s gaze go from mild curiosity to wide-open horror.
“Jessica?” Melinda gasped. “What has happened to you? Are you all right? Have you been hurt?”
“No. I haven’t been hurt,” Jessica answered, hoping she’d spoken loud enough for her voice to be heard. She shook her head just in case. “Is His Grace here?”
Melinda nodded, then pulled the bell rope and asked a servant to have James join them immediately. The frown that covered his face when he walked through the door told Jessica she’d failed at making herself look composed.
“What has happened, Jessica?” Collingsworth asked after he’d pulled a chair closer to the sofa where Melinda sat next to her. “What’s wrong?”
Jessica lifted her chin and took a deep breath. “I need your help. Please, Your Grace,” she said, looking at the Duke of Collingsworth. “I…I need to leave London immediately.”
She felt Melinda’s grip tighten on her fingers. The deep worry lines covering Collingsworth’s forehead deepened. She hated herself for causing them so much distress, but she was desperate. “It’s imperative that I leave London as soon as possible.”
“Leave? Why?”
Jessica took a deep breath. It was difficult to put the words into the open. Speaking them would make her nightmare more real. “My stepbrother is alive.”
James’s shoulders rose as he sucked in a sharp breath, and then he released a long, slow sigh.
“How do you know?” he asked, his face mirroring the dread she felt deep in the pit of her stomach.
“One of Ira’s sources told him. Colin has been in India all this time, and he’s on his way back. I must leave before he gets here.”
“Perhaps you don’t have to leave. Perhaps I can—”
“No. There’s nothing you can do. I need to leave. Now.”
“Where do you intend to go?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care. France, perhaps. Or…the American colonies. It matters little, as long as it’s someplace where he can’t find me.”
Jessica stared at the shocked look on her friends’ faces. “I’m sorry to put you in the middle of this, but I need you to make the arrangements for me. I’m not sure I can handle them. Especially since time is of the essence.”
Melinda put a trembling finger to Jessica’s cheek and turned her head back toward her. “Listen to me, Jessica. James is very powerful. I’m sure he can help you.”
Jessica shook her head. “I’m afraid even His Grace’s powerful connections cannot save me. Here,” she said, seeing the disbelief on their faces. She reached into her reticule and handed Collingsworth the paper Ira had given her—the same paper the Earl of Northcote had crumpled and thrown to the floor. “This is what I will be worth on my twenty-fifth birthday. My father left all of this to me.”
Collingsworth smoothed the sheet, then scanned the figures, halting at the bottom of the page. “Bloody hell,” he whispered.
He lifted his gaze from the paper to her face, then back again. The look in his eyes was an open book. There was no misunderstanding his thoughts. He knew the danger she faced as well as she did.
She sat back, pale and exhausted. “My birthday is Friday.”
The duke stood. “Oh, Jessica…” The frown on his forehead deepened as he looked back at the figure at the bottom of the page.
“There’s nothing anyone can do,” Jessica said, trying to calm the fears screaming deep inside her. “Colin will never give up until he has control of the money. He intends to put me in an asylum. Ira found out he’s already started the proceedings.”
Melinda’s grip tightened on her fingers, and Jessica turned her head, unable to look at either of them. “I must leave,” she repeated. “It’s the only way. Even you cannot guarantee that the courts will not grant my stepbrother control over me. He is family, after all, the obvious choice to control Father’s wealth.”
No one spoke. Finally, the Duke of Collingsworth touched her arm again.
“Perhaps there is another way,” His Grace said. “Perhaps if you were to marry—”
Jessica emitted a small, choked laugh. “No. I have already exhausted that possibility.” She saw the question in their eyes, but could not admit to them that even a man who was desperate for a dowry and about to lose all had refused her.
Melinda squeezed Jessica’s fingers as she often d
id to indicate she needed Jessica to look at her.
“But—” she started, then stopped.
Her rounded mouth opened in surprise, and Collingsworth rose to his feet. He assumed a warrior’s stance as he faced the door, as if he thought he might need to protect them.
Melinda’s expression of concern deepened. Whatever disturbed them was cause for alarm. Times like this made her hate her deafness even more.
“What is it?” Jessica clutched Mel’s hands. “Has something happened?”
Jessica’s heart pounded in her throat. Something was wrong, she could see it on both of their faces. Feel the danger surround her.
“Someone is here,” Melinda said as her husband took one step toward the door.
The Earl of Northcote burst through the doorway with a very flustered doorman on his heels. Jessica couldn’t catch all the servant’s words, but she knew he was apologizing profusely for allowing the uninvited guest to invade their portals.
“What the hell have you done, Collingsworth?” Northcote bellowed as he entered the room. He came to an abrupt halt when he spied Jessica.
She couldn’t breathe. Her heart slammed against her ribs and then raced with the speed of a runaway horse and carriage.
The hooded scowl on his face deepened, and his piercing glare shot angry daggers meant to do harm.
From his look, Jessica could tell he’d spent as restless a night as she. In fact, she wasn’t quite sure it had not been worse. His disheveled appearance made him look more like a pirate on the open seas than a member of London’s elite. From the scorching look in his bloodshot eyes, Jessica was thankful there wasn’t a sword hanging at his side. She did not doubt he was angry enough to use it. Nor did she question on whom.
The two-day growth on his face and the errant lock of dark hair that curled on his forehead gave him a foreboding look. His white lawn shirt gaped open at the neck, showing that same triangle of golden-brown skin that had drawn her attention last night. It still exposed the same curling wisps of black hair. There was no gleaming white cravat at his neck, nor was there a waistcoat beneath the unbuttoned tailcoat. He was most improperly dressed for making a call.
