Improper Gentlemen

by Diane Whiteside

  Rosalinde wasn’t in bed. She was framed by the open window, gazing out over his garden. Moonlight silvered her and rendered her nightshift nearly transparent. Her unbound hair flowed to the middle of her back, but her long legs and tapered waist were silhouetted in a magical glow beneath the thin muslin.

  His very own faery princess. She ought to have been winged. Even without them, the way she strained toward the open window convinced Aidan she half-believed she could fly if only she tried hard enough.

  She sighed.

  Please God, let that sigh be for me.

  “Lass,” he whispered as he moved further into her room.

  She made a little squeak and whirled to face him.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said in a half-voice. “ ’Tis only me.”

  “Only me, he says,” she muttered as she took several steps toward him, her shoulders slumping with relief. Then she stopped herself and glared at him with cold fury. “How dare you risk my reputation by sneaking into my room like this? Anyone might have seen you in the hall.”

  “No, they mightn’t,” he said, pointing to the gape in the wall. “I had you placed in this room especially because of the secret passage. No one knows I’ve come and no one will mark when I leave.”

  “I’ll mark it right now,” she said archly. “I’m sorry, my lord, but you seem to have stumbled into the wrong chamber. Unless I’m mistaken, the viscount’s sister is across the hall.”

  “What would I want with the viscount’s sister?”

  “The same thing you wanted with me, I’ll wager. You were certainly doing your best to charm her all evening.”

  Now that he was closer, he noticed that her cheeks glistened damply in the silver light. A stab of guilt lanced him. Surely she hadn’t been weeping. “I was simply tending to the needs of all my guests, Rose.”

  “Lady Sophia seemed particularly receptive to your tending.”

  Aidan shook his head. “I didn’t single her out for attention.”

  The Knack was a blessing and curse sometimes. When he set himself to be appealing and agreeable to all, invariably there were a few mixed signals.

  “Well, she was certainly hanging on your every word and draped herself over your arm every time I turned around.” She started to move away from him.

  “Rose, don’t you understand the purpose of this house party at all?” He grasped her shoulders to make her stay with him.

  “You’ve made it obvious. You invited me here to torment me while you woo another.” She balled one fist and pounded his chest a few times, gaining steam with each blow. “Even the viscount’s mother gave you several soft-headed looks this night. She’s still a handsome woman. No doubt, she’d be up for a romp should you wish to climb through her window.”

  “Are ye daft? No, lass, ye’ve missed my plan entire.” He caught her hand to keep her from pummeling him, uncurled her fist and planted a kiss in the center of her palm. Her fingers remained scrunched for another heartbeat or two, but then she relaxed and gentled under his touch. He laced his fingers through hers to ensure that she wouldn’t run off or start beating him again.

  “Do ye think I don’t know what folk say about me?” he asked. “This fortnight I hope to change Society’s opinion of me for good.”

  “Rubbish. No one else’s opinion matters so to you.”

  “Well, ye’ve the right of it there. Your opinion is the only one that really counts,” he said softly. “But I know what the world thinks matters to ye, so I would have them think better of me for your sake.”

  “A most convenient philosophy. And original to boot.” She turned her face away. “A killer who cares what others think of him.”

  He grasped her chin and forced her to look at him. “Do ye believe me guilty?”

  “Have you told me otherwise?”

  He released her. She had him there, but the only reason he’d confessed in the first place was to protect someone else. What good would it do if he denied the confession later? The whole trouble might start up again.

  “Search your feelings, lass,” he said. “What does your heart tell you on the matter?”

  She met his eyes then, her soft gaze penetrating to the last wrinkle of his soul. He’d never been more tempted to knack someone in his entire life. One simple suggestion would do it and she’d believe him as spotless as the vicar’s sheets, no matter what anyone told her later.

  But either she trusted him or she didn’t. He couldn’t use his gift this time. He didn’t dare breathe.

  “My heart says it doesn’t know the whole story,” she finally said. “And I want to know, but I’m afraid to know at the same time.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love you, Aidan Danaher,” she said, pulling away from him and flinging herself face down on the bed. Her shoulders shook with emotion. “God help me, but I do.”

  Aidan moved to join her, stretching out full length beside her so he could stroke her back. Fierce joy made his chest ache. He could scarce believe his luck. Trust and love in one star-kissed night.

  And without using the Knack at all.

  Then he realized with dismay that she was weeping. “Easy, Rose. Ye don’t have to cry.”

  “Yes, I do.” She continued to blubber into her pillow. “It’s the height of folly for a woman to declare herself first. You’ll despise me for being weak and soft-headed and—”

  “Love is never weak or soft-headed. It lifts us out of the mud and puts us on the same footing as the angels. Loving you saved me, lass.”

  “But I can’t seem to help it,” she went on as if she’d not heard him.

  Alarm bells jangled along his nerves. Had he compelled her to love him without realizing it? “Why d’ye say that? D’ye feel at all odd?”

  Sometimes the people he knacked complained of a slight, sudden headache at the time, a chill on their limbs and a memory lapse later.

  “Odd doesn’t begin to describe it.” She sat up and glared at him accusingly. “I can’t even look at you without my heart threatening to leap out of my chest.”

  He smiled. No one had ever complained of that after he knacked them. He ran his palm over her crown and smoothed down her rumpled hair. “Your head doesn’t hurt, then?”

  “No,” she said with a little shiver.

  “Are ye cold?” He traced a fingertip along the lacy neckline of her nightshift. Her mouth parted softly and her eyes went darker.

  “No, if anything I’m far too warm,” she admitted with another shiver that he now recognized as delight in his touch. “Though most folk would say I’m definitely not thinking clearly.”

  He leaned forward to kiss the corner of her mouth, right at the juncture of smooth skin and moist intimacy. “I like the way ye’re thinkin, lass.”

  “Because it works to your purpose.”

  He feathered a row of kisses along her cheekbone. “And what purpose would that be?”

  Her face turned to follow his lips, tracking him like a sunflower tilts toward the sun. “You obviously mean to seduce me.”

  He brushed her lips with his, a tease. “Is it working?”

  “Um . . .” She caught his bottom lip and suckled it for a moment. “Yes,” she said in a long exhale, then sat up straight. “No. Wait. What was that you said about loving me?”

  So she had heard him.

  He cupped her cheeks in both his hands. “Aye, lass, I love ye. And it saved me, Rose, in ways ye can’t conceive.” He kissed her closed eyelids. “Prison takes more than the prime of a man’s years. It eats away at his soul. But even after ye left, when I thought I’d never see ye again in this life, I had something prison couldn’t touch. I had you.” He ran the pad of his thumb over her lips. “Or at least, the memory of you.”

  Her lips twitched in a smile.

  “Sometimes one shining moment is all a man ever has, but I had a whole string of Rosalindes in me head. You on the back of that wicked Thoroughbred, putting him through his paces. Walking through Royal Docks with your ar
ms full of flowers for the house.” His hand wrapped around the back of her neck and drew her forehead to touch his. “Lying beneath me, all gasping and spent after ye came so sweetly. Did ye not think of me after?”

  Her lips turned upward in an impish smile. “From time to time.”

  “Did ye, love?”

  “Only every night.”

  Then she leaned forward and kissed him. Hard.

  If we only kiss, we’ve been a bit improper, but no worse than if we were alone in an alcove sneaking a kiss at a ball somewhere, Rosalinde reasoned. Their kiss deepened, an undiscovered country, soft and wet as an autumn evening with the promise of a crackling fire later. His tongue invaded and she gave it a suckling welcome.

  Aidan laid her back down and stretched out beside her on the bed, kicking off his boots and dropping them by her bedside.

  Lying beside a man is improper, she admitted to herself, but it’s not as if he’s on top of . . .

  He settled over her, his hard groin pressed on her belly. His iron-hard length rocked on her in a slow knock.

  Well, at least we’re both still dressed.

  He rose up and pulled his shirt off over his head. She couldn’t keep from smoothing her palms over his chest. His nipples hardened under her touch.

  I suppose it’s less improper for him to be shirtless than if I were the one who’s undressed, she decided.

  Rosalinde continued to stroke his broad shoulders and down his arms. Muscles rippled under his smooth flesh and he cast off as much heat as a fire.

  “I want to learn every inch of your skin by heart,” she said, planting a kiss at the juncture of his shoulder and neck.

  “A pleasant prospect.” He chuckled and raised himself on his arms to peer down at her. “Why?”

  “So I know where I am with you. So I can close my eyes”—she suited her actions to her words—“and say to myself, ‘Yes, that’s the little scar on his shoulder.’ ” She fingered the slightly raised weal of skin and then planted a kiss on the spot. Then her fingers drifted lower past his navel, slipping beneath his waistband which seemed unusually loose. “Or I can think ‘Oh, there. That’s his lovely flat belly and . . .’ ”

  Her hand met his shaft, hard as granite encased in smooth warm skin. She grasped him at the base and her eyes flared open.

  “Once again, that’s not me belly, love,” Aidan said with a laugh.

  While her eyes had been closed, he must have undone the buttons at his hips and peeled back his trousers.

  Most improper. She ought to feel indignant at the liberties he’d taken, but the way she was running her hands over him, cupping and fondling his ballocks, she supposed she was taking a few herself.

  But as long as I’m still wearing my nightshift.

  He reached down and smoothed her hem up her shins, over her thighs and before she knew it, he’d pulled her shift off, turning the long prim sleeves inside out in his haste to be done with it. Then he tossed the nightshift to the floor and grinned down at her.

  “Oh, it’s a sight, ye are, lass.” Then he shucked out of his trousers and pulled off his socks.

  They were both in the glorious altogether. His gaze swept over her as if he were a starving man and she the last bun on the tray, but she didn’t feel the slightest urge to cover herself. She felt no need to restrain herself from looking her fill either.

  Aidan was beautiful in all his parts—hard, strong, soft, vulnerable. He was both needy and giving, bereft and bountiful.

  “All that’s best in dark and bright,” she whispered. Good and bad. Praiseworthy and shameful. It didn’t matter. She loved all of him.

  “I suppose that’s more of your ruddy Shakespeare,” he said hoarsely, his face taut with hunger.

  “No, that was Lord Byron, not that it matters particularly. It just seemed to fit,” she said softly. “But I don’t suppose you came here for poetry or intend to woo me properly.”

  “No, lass. I came to make love to ye. Most improperly.”

  “Well, then,” she said with a shuddering sigh as she looped her arms around his neck. “You’d best get to it.

  Chapter 8

  Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs,

  Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes

  Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers’ tears.

  What is it else? A madness most discreet,

  A choking gall and a preserving sweet.

  —SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet

  Aidan settled his hips between her splayed legs, propping his upper body on his elbows, and looked down at her. He ached to plunge in, but he had to be certain this time. He’d taken her without meaning to that first night on the island and then later she’d sent him away when he’d been determined only to pleasure her.

  Her lips parted softly and her chin began to quiver.

  “Why have you stopped?” she asked.

  “Because I don’t think I’ll be able to in a moment and I want you to be sure this time.”

  Her teeth glinted in a melting smile. “I’m sure, Aidan. I won’t send you away.”

  He brushed his lips across her brow and then dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. Her belly quivered in a small giggle.

  The urge to swive her senseless was still just as strong, but suddenly he was in no hurry. She wasn’t going to send him away. He could love this woman with toe-curling slowness.

  He wanted to savor her, to taste her, to mark every inch of her skin with his lips and claim her entire.

  He rolled off her.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m only after looking at ye, Rose.” He gave her a long perusal, from the crown of her head to her lovely feet.

  They were delicate and well-formed with high arches. Her small toes were topped with neat square nails, smoothly filed. He moved down and raised first her right foot, then the left, to his lips for a kiss on the joint between her big toe and its nearest neighbor. Each time, he was treated to a long view up her legs to the shadowy realm between them.

  His cock urged him to more than looking, but he restrained himself from claiming her sex, then and there. He’d drive her to helpless need first. He ran a hand along her shin, over her knee and up her inner thigh.

  She tensed.

  “Whisht, lass. Trust me.”

  She nodded and closed her eyes, letting him spread her legs a bit further. He teased her intimate folds with glancing touches and circled her sensitive spot till she writhed in aching fury. He could finish her now, but he held back.

  He wanted to hear her beg. He stilled his hand.

  “Aidan,” she moaned. “What are you doing to me?”

  His balls ached in pleasurable torment at her obvious distress. “Ye’re not the only one in need, Rose, but believe me, the wait will be worth it.”

  She shot him a disbelieving glance. “You promise?”

  “On my honor as a gentleman.”

  “Ha.”

  He leaned over her and kissed her roughly. “Then will ye accept my word as a scoundrel?”

  She loosed a silvery laugh and then quickly covered her mouth at the outburst. She needn’t have worried. Stonehaven was built “hell for stout,” his da would’ve said, with walls thick enough to keep its residents’ deepest secrets.

  “At least the pledge of a scoundrel would make it a believable promise,” she whispered.

  “Then ye have my word as a veritable prince of rogues,” he said as he eased his shoulders between her knees to spread her wide. He delivered a string of kisses up the inside of her leg. “Now lie still. If ye can.”

  The skin of her inner thigh was soft and sweet. Her scent bloomed afresh each time his lips drew nearer to her sex, all musky and warm. He pressed open-mouthed kisses on her, running his tongue into her intimate cleft.

  She made a helpless little sound of need.

  He raised his head to peer at her. Rosalinde’s dark hair was spread out over her pillow in an undulating fan around her head. She’d draped a
forearm over her eyes. A way to shield herself from him, he supposed. Before this night was through, he’d batter down every wall she raised between them.

  Her mouth was slack and her breaths came short and quick. Her breasts rose and fell, the taut nipples straining upward.

  Her slightly rounded belly quivered. Her legs were splayed in abandon. Her dark curls glistened wetly at him, beckoning him to dive into them.

  He parted the soft lips of her sex to revel in the pink secret world of her. The inner folds and slick crevices, the tight little raised spot that throbbed for his touch, the snug channel that would be his ultimate goal. When his thumb passed over her, she quivered and clenched all the small muscles in her groin so the lips of her sex pursed in a parody of a wet kiss.

  He’d never imagined anything so erotic in his life.

  He tongued her and she raised herself into his mouth. He suckled the little spot, swirling his tongue over it.

  The sounds of longing she made went straight to his cock. Pressure rose in the shaft. If he kept at this, he’d end up spilling his seed on her sheets.

  He moved up her body, ignoring her sigh of frustration, leaving a trail of nibbling kisses along her ribs.

  He ran his tongue along the crease beneath each breast. She rocked her pelvis against him and he throbbed in needy agony.

  He laid his head between her breasts and heard her heart galloping beneath his ear. Her growing want flamed his. He drew a deep breath. The goal was to make her beg for him, not for him to succumb to the need to take her in a greedy heartbeat.

  Once he reduced her to pleading, then he could take her.

  For now, he forced himself to run through the plans he’d set in motion—anything to delay his body’s reaction to Rose.

  Staging the grotto, setting the trap, waiting to catch Peg Bass’s real killer. He felt steady enough to move on to her breasts. They were smooth and warm and topped with tight peaks. He nuzzled them, running his open mouth around her areolas, teasing her with his nearness. Ready the magistrate, nipple the culprit—damn, I mean ‘nab the culprit.’