London's Perfect Scoundrel

by Suzanne Enoch

  His instructors and his fellow students, though, had carried on the new tradition of bowing to his every whim. Rules didn’t apply to a twelve-year-old marquis with a bottomless income, and he had long ago realized that he could get away with anything short of murder. He’d come into his majority before his mother died, and once he had control over her income, she’d been as fawning and sycophantic as anyone else.

  He didn’t trust anyone any longer, nor had he for years, and so he’d become someone no one would want to trust. He knew then why anyone sought his company; with his reputation as he’d carved it out, the contact couldn’t be for friendship, so it had to be that they’d been drawn in by the smell of power and money. Those fools, he knew precisely how to deal with.

  Deciphering Evelyn took considerably more time and effort. She’d told him what she wanted: to save the children, the orphanage, and him. The most difficult part of the puzzle was that she seemed to be telling the truth. She had no ulterior motives that he could discover, and nothing he’d said or done or offered seemed to have swayed her an inch. And that was remarkable, especially considering that the foe to all three of her goals was the same exact person—him.

  Her existence, then, was simply…impossible. No one was that pure; no one’s motives were that noble. And no one ever tried to change him. They changed themselves to become more amenable to what he wanted, so they could have what they wanted. Period. Ergo facto finito. And no one locked him up when he refused to play their game. They went away and bothered someone else.

  Saint kicked one of the few pebbles remaining on his side of the cell. So he’d been missing for a week and no one had noticed. His solicitors paid his staff at his London home and his various estates, so none of the servants would fret over his absence. Hell, they were probably enjoying it, drinking his expensive French wines and smoking his American cigars.

  With a scowl and another curse at Mrs…. Natham, damn it all, he stood again, yanked off his shirt, and tossed it onto the pile with his discarded cravat, waistcoat, and jacket. This morning Molly and Jane had brought him a washing cloth and a bowl of clean water. What he wanted was a bath, but that seemed unlikely at the moment.

  Plunging the cloth into the water, he wrung it out over his head, letting the cold water course down through his hair and past his shoulders. The upstairs door squeaked open, but he ignored it. He knew precisely what he was doing, as he always knew; he was feeling sorry for himself. His afternoon class could damned well wait until he was finished washing and sulking.

  He didn’t see the point of him teaching etiquette to anyone, much less to a herd of orphans. Of course, it was part of Evelyn’s plan to civilize him. Well, he’d feel more civilized if he was clean.

  The lock turned and the door opened. “Lord Saint,” Rose’s plaintive voice came, “girls don’t bow, do they?”

  “On occasion,” he grunted, going to work on his torso with the cloth, “though there’s generally a man involved and the chit’s facing away from him and grabbing her ank—”

  “Enough!” Evelyn roared.

  He whipped around to face the door. She looked the vision of fury, fists clenched and stone gray eyes glinting. The muscles across his abdomen tightened. “Good afternoon, Evelyn.”

  Her gaze trailed down his bare chest and snapped up to his face again. “Children,” she bit out, “I’m afraid that Lord St. Aubyn’s lesson for today is canceled. You have free play this afternoon.”

  Grumbling turned into cheers, and the half dozen youngsters filed out of the cell again. Saint held Evelyn’s gaze. “Who do you think you’re punishing—them or me?”

  “Put on your shirt.”

  “I’m wet.”

  She turned on her heel. “Fine. I’ll have someone bring you dinner tonight.” Breezing back out, she slammed the door behind her.

  Something tight and uncertain ran up from his stomach and tightened his throat. Dinner was a good six hours away. “Evelyn!”

  Her feet continued stomping up the stairs. Saint glanced at the candles. Two hours of light remained, at the most.

  “Evelyn, I apologize!”

  The top door squeaked open.

  “Evelyn, for God’s sake, don’t leave me down here alone again! Please! I’m sorry!”

  Silence.

  Cursing, he grabbed up the water bowl and hurled it against the door. It shattered, porcelain shards and water spraying everywhere. “Is that your lesson for today, then, that you get to do what you want to do, and I get to sit on my ass in the dirt, in the dark, until you decide otherwise? I’ve learned that one already! Teach me something I don’t know, Evelyn Marie, damn it!”

  “Saint?” Evelyn’s voice came from the other side of the door. “Calm down, and I’ll come in.”

  Breathing hard, he realized what was happening. He was panicking. Him. The heartless, ruthless, soulless Marquis of St. Aubyn was afraid of being left alone again in the dark. “I’m calm,” he snapped.

  No one who had the power of thought could possibly have believed him, but Evelyn obviously had more compassion than sense, because she opened the door.

  Saint started to say something that would convince her to remain for at least another few minutes, but he stopped when he saw her face. With a nearly audible groan, his mind angled around from thinking of his own terrors to wondering what he’d done to hurt her now. “Why are you crying?” he said in what he hoped was a more reasonable tone.

  Wiping at the tears flowing down her pale cheeks, she sniffed. “Because I don’t know what to do.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You? You always know what to do.”

  Evie looked at him. Water still ran in slow, angled drips down his shoulders, down his bare chest, down his muscled abdomen, and soaked into the waist of his trousers. Damp hair hung across his left eye, and her fingers twitched with the abrupt desire to brush it back from his face. He looked so…innocent. And that wasn’t all. She absolutely wanted to devour him.

  Wiping at her face, she made a show of positioning the stool and plunking herself down on it. He knows what he looks like, she told herself fiercely. He knows what to say. This was just another part of his game, to make her wish to stay and keep him company, or better yet, to make her feel so sorry for him that she would let him go. When she felt slightly more in control of her base, counterproductive, lustful emotions, she looked up at him again, to find him still standing there, gazing at her. Evie swallowed. “I wasn’t feeling sorry for you,” she said.

  “Of course you were,” he returned, his own voice calmer and deeper, more in control. “You feel sorry for everyone.”

  For her own safety, and her own sanity, she knew she had to stay one step ahead of him, one inch further in control. “I’m mad at you, not sorry for you.”

  “You’re mad at me,” he repeated. “And yet you’re the one with the keys, my dear. Imagine my own feelings.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.” She sniffed again. “It’s not you I’m mad at; it’s me.”

  “Now we have something in common,” he drawled, shaking out his hair.

  Droplets flew, several of them landing on her arms. Goose bumps raised, though she thought the shiver running along her nerves was due more to the idea of being alone in a room with a very handsome half-naked man than from a few drops of water.

  “For a week I’ve tried to show you what good you can accomplish and how kindness begets kindness. I’ve had your undivided attention. And yet, nothing’s come of it.”

  Saint looked at her for a moment, an emotion she couldn’t read crossing his face. “I’m a hopeless case,” he finally said.

  “But you can’t be.”

  “And why not?” Saint sank onto his haunches. Reaching out, he could just bat the toe of her shoe with his fingertips.

  Oh, good heavens. Now she had a handsome, desperate, half-naked man literally at her feet. “You…no one is as awful as you are.”

  “And yet, here I am.”

  “That’s not what I mean. It�
��s…”

  He tilted his head, his gaze taking in, measuring, her every expression. “You may as well be blunt. Honesty looks well on you.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  “Don’t change the subject. We’re talking about me.”

  “Yes, we are,” she agreed. “I mean that no one—no one—can be as much a scoundrel as you are and still be as charming and interesting and even likable as you are.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “You’re faking it, Michael.”

  His gaze dropped for a moment. “That’s very nice of you to say, I suppose, but believe me, I am a self-serving, hedonistic bastard.”

  “Perhaps, but that’s not all you are.”

  To her surprise, his mouth curved in that damned sensuous smile of his, instantly transforming him from innocent to so…enticing her mouth went dry. She swallowed again.

  “You are a very interesting female,” he murmured. “But is it for my sake or your own that you claim to see some sort of redeemable qualities here?”

  “Both of us, probably.”

  “Honesty again.” He batted her toe again, absently, like a cat playing with a ball of yarn. It was the first time he’d touched her without demanding more, a kiss or his hand up her skirt. A warm tremor went through her.

  She took a breath, trying to retain her sense of logic. “Why do you behave as you do?”

  “Because I can? I don’t know. How, though, will you ever know if you’ve saved me or if I’m merely playing with you?” He straightened, making her abruptly aware that she was sitting too close.

  Before she could fling herself backward, he seized her by the ankle and tugged. With a grunt, she fell forward off the stool, bumping her bottom against the hard dirt floor.

  Even as she opened her mouth to scream, she realized no one was close enough to hear her. Before any sound came from her throat, Saint leaned across her, placing his hand over her mouth. “Shh,” he whispered, slipping his free hand into her pelisse pocket and retrieving the shackle key. “I suppose we’ll find out right now whether you’ve redeemed me or not,” he said. “Care to wager on the outcome?”

  “But—” She grabbed for the key, but he evaded her grasp, planting himself on her skirts to keep her from rising while he shoved the rusted key into the rusted lock and twisted it. With a snap the shackle opened, and he was free.

  He stood to fling the restraint against the wall, and Evelyn scrambled, half crawling, for the door. If she could get it closed, the key remained in the lock, and she would still have him imprisoned.

  With several long, limping strides, he beat her to the door. “It’s not going to be that easy, my dear,” he said.

  For a moment she thought he meant to escape and lock her inside the cell, and white cold panic hit her. “Saint—”

  The marquis reached around the door, pulled the key free, and closed it. “I told you this wouldn’t last much longer.” He smiled, catlike. “And I also said that you would be the first person I came after.”

  And next would be the children, and the orphanage. She couldn’t allow that. Evie lunged for the door key, but he lifted it above his head, out of her reach. Unable to stop her forward momentum, she slammed into his bare chest, pushing them both back against the wall.

  “Interesting strategy,” he murmured, twining his free hand into the back of her gown and drawing her closer against him. He met her gaze for a heartbeat, then leaned down to kiss her.

  It was a hot, deep, openmouthed, plundering kiss, the kind that knew they had no witnesses, nor anyone likely to come looking for them—for her—for hours. She needed to get out of there, to lock him up for the sake of the orphanage. But if he was kissing her like that, some part of her reasoned, he couldn’t be thinking of escape.

  Evelyn kissed him back, heat searing down her spine and out along her fingers and toes. Her hands, already reaching up for the key, sank into his damp, dark hair. She wondered whether other women felt so intoxicated, so overwhelmed by his attentions. He nudged her chin up and began a series of slow, warm kisses along her jawline, and her breath became a fast, ragged pant. She couldn’t get enough air, couldn’t get close enough to him.

  “You’re trying to distract me,” she accused breathlessly, pressing herself against his bare, damp chest.

  Saint shook his head, looking away just long enough to throw the door key across the room. “You’re distracting me,” he growled, slipping his fingers beneath the material at her shoulders and peeling the gown down her arms with aching, slow relentlessness.

  His mouth and tongue and teeth followed, and he turned them so that she was the one pressed back against the wall. In a second he had her pelisse open, and he reached beneath the material to cover her breasts with his palms. Even through the thin muslin of her gown she felt the warmth of his touch, the pressure of his embrace, and she gasped.

  “Saint, please,” she practically whimpered, seeking his mouth again.

  “Please what?” he rumbled, pulling her forward against him to yank the pelisse off her arms and down to the floor. Like a skilled harpist playing the strings, his fingers ran down her back, and her gown loosened. Nudging her back again, he stripped the material down to her elbows, imprisoning her arms in the muslin. Before she could answer or even do more than gasp again, he took the shift, the only thing covering her front from his glittering gray gaze, in both fists and ripped it open.

  “Oh! Saint, please—”

  “Michael,” he breathed back, glancing into her eyes before his gaze returned to her breasts. “Call me Michael.”

  “Michael,” she managed, then couldn’t even breathe.

  He ran his fingertips across her breasts, light but utterly ruthless, circling closer and closer until his thumbs crossed her nipples. They hardened beneath his touch, budding as he passed his nails back and forth across them.

  “Good hea…heavens.”

  “Your skin is so soft,” he murmured, then lowered his face. “So soft.”

  With one hand he continued to tease and mold her left breast, while he ran his lips and the tip of his tongue around her right one, following the path his fingers had blazed. When he took her nipple in his mouth, she thought she would faint right there.

  Evelyn lifted her chin and closed her eyes, overwhelmed by sensation as he suckled first one breast, then the other. She couldn’t move, didn’t want to move, as heat spread down her body and deep between her legs. With her arms half pinned, all she could reach was his waist, and she clung to him, trying to draw him closer, wanting to be part of him.

  His mouth and hands left her breasts, and she opened her eyes again. “Don’t stop,” she begged, embarrassed at the keen wanting she heard in her own voice.

  “I won’t,” he returned almost soundlessly, taking the arms of her gown and drawing them down her elbows, freeing her hands and then pushing the material down to her feet.

  Kneeling, he continued his slow destruction of her shift, ripping it inch by inch to her waist. Every inch of her skin that he exposed, he covered again with his mouth. Downward, past her navel, past the dark patch of hair at the apex of her thighs, traveling down her hips, her thighs, to her knees.

  “Lift your foot,” he instructed, and he slipped off her thin shoe, the gown with it. Repeating the action with her other foot, he trailed his hands and mouth up again, up the insides of her thighs. And then he slipped a finger inside her.

  “Oh, God,” she whimpered, her legs trembling.

  “You’re wet,” he murmured. “For me.”

  “Michael.”

  “Shh,” he continued in the same husky tone, standing, gliding his hands up along her body to her shoulders so he could push off the ruined shift, sending it to the floor with the rest of her clothes. “I want you, Evelyn Marie. I want to be deep inside you.”

  Lifting her in his arm, he carried her the few feet to his mattress and rumpled blankets, and knelt to lay her down there. He sat, turning sideways to pull off his boots, winci
ng as the left one came free. “You’re hurt,” she said unsteadily, trying to blink back to reality.

  “My ankle’s swollen,” he answered, facing her again. “You’ll pay for that in a minute.”

  “I—”

  “You’ve caused swelling elsewhere, as well.” He unbuckled his belt and with swift fingers unfastened his trousers. Shoving them down, he came free, erect and hard and very, very large.

  “Oh, my.”

  “Now you’ve seen a man naked and aroused with wanting you,” he continued, leaning over her, taking her breast in his mouth again and suckling hard.

  He settled between her knees, kicking off his trousers and spreading her legs as he brought himself closer to her, until the swollen length of him pressed against the inside of her thighs.

  “Michael, please,” she managed, reaching up around his hard, muscled shoulders to pull him closer, her heart pounding so hard and fast she thought she would die from it.

  “Please what? Say it, Evelyn Marie. I want to hear you say that you want me inside you.”

  “I want you inside me.” She had no idea what to do to make that happen, but her body knew. Arching her hips, she lifted toward him. “Please,” she said again, “please, now.”

  Lifting onto his hands, he covered her lips with his again, teasing her mouth open with his tongue. She felt him slide slowly inside her, between her legs. “It will hurt,” he murmured against her mouth, his own breath not quite steady.

  “How—”

  He pushed his hips forward. She felt him reach her barrier, then with a fast, tearing pain, break through and fill her.

  She shrieked, squeezing her eyes closed and arching against him, bending her knees harder. That brought him in deeper as he followed her retreat with his body. Slowly the pain eased, and when she opened her eyes he was looking down at her from inches away, his face hard with tension. “Pain for pain,” he whispered, and pulled his hips away again.

  “No, don’t leave,” she protested.

  “I’m not.” Slowly he pressed forward again, deeper and deeper, until he was fully buried. “And now, pleasure for pleasure.”

  He repeated the motion, thrusting against her, into her, slowly and deeply. Evelyn couldn’t think any longer, couldn’t manage a thought other than how satisfying it was to have him moving inside her. She felt heady and tense, her body tightening around him as though it knew before she consciously did that more was to come. She moaned in time to his deepening thrusts, raising her hips to meet him and clutching her fingers into his back.