The Earl's Inconvenient Wife
Page 26
She dipped him an English curtsy, returned his sword and without a word let him lead her up the stairs. How did this happen to him? How did he find himself in the most unwanted circumstances? This was not an adventure he would have sought for himself. He was probably the only soldier in the British army who didn’t want to be back on English soil. Balaclava had been a bloodbath and he’d been the one to live to tell about it, a prospect so daunting, he couldn’t sleep at night—he still woke up screaming about it. But here he was—back in England and with one more responsibility to carry out when all he wanted was to be back with his troops and a life he understood, a life that pleased him.
At the top of the stairs, he ushered her into his chamber and shut the heavy oak door behind them. Cam leaned his head against the door frame, closing his eyes for a moment of clarity, savouring the coolness of the wood against his brow. Good lord, he had an exotic dancer in his room. His grandfather would die if he knew. Exotic dancers were not part of his grandfather’s plan for him.
Aside from the pleasure that came with the thought of niggling at his grandfather’s limited sensibilities, this was not how Cam had expected the evening to go. He’d gone down to the taproom in the hopes of forgetting everything, to put off his duty one more day. He could have easily ridden on to London tonight before dark, but that would have meant facing his grandfather, playing the returning war hero and the doting suitor to Caroline Beaufort, his intended, a young woman selected by his grandfather as worthy of a Lithgow with her exquisite looks and immaculate pedigree, but a woman who engendered nothing more than polite interest from him.
It was no wonder he loved soldiering. It was full of the adventures he thrived on—new places, new people, new tasks—where there was little time to spend worrying over the delicate concerns of etiquette, while life here in London spread before him like a vast empty wasteland full of useless occupations. Well, maybe it wasn’t quite an empty wasteland just yet. There was still the dancer to deal with. He needed to make it clear to her that she had his protection, that nothing else would occur in this chamber tonight. Despite what his body might have argued, he wasn’t in the mood. His mind was too fixed on the things he’d have to do tomorrow, like telling the Duke of Cowden his son, Cam’s own best friend, Fortis Tresham, wasn’t coming back.
Cam turned from the door, ready to make his pronouncement, and his mouth went dry. His dancer stood before him beautifully naked, her discarded veils at her feet, a tanned goddess come to life with high, bold breasts and a gentle hand over her shy nether pelt, a delicious contradiction of seduction and innocence. Had he really been about to refuse her? His body’s reaction laughed at the prospect, but his conscience pricked. How dare he think of pleasure when Fortis was dead.
He strode towards her, purposefully shrugging out of his coat and draping it about her. ‘You needn’t offer yourself to me. You are safe here.’ The coat was big, effectively hiding her, but it did nothing to dampen his response. With her face revealed, she fulfilled the promise of beauty: wide eyes, a full mouth, a delicate jaw that created a heart-shaped face and hinted at English antecedents.
‘Do you not want me?’ She sloughed off his coat, naked once more, her hands cupping her breasts, lifting them for his inspection.
‘It’s not that.’ Cam was uncharacteristically at a loss for words, he who shouted orders over the chaos of a battlefield. ‘It’s just that you don’t need to feel obliged.’ He’d never taken a woman to bed who felt obligated to be there and he wasn’t going to start now.
She moved towards him, reaching for the stock about his neck and tugging it free, determined to undress him. ‘And if I don’t feel obliged? Would you want me then?’ She smelled like adventure, all citrus and spice, a fragrance of the Far East, a fragrance of happier times, when he and Fortis had served two years for the Crown in India.
Cam swallowed hard. He was starting to lose this fight and maybe he should lose it. Maybe bedding her would help in some way with the grief he carried, a first step back towards living. No, that was ludicrous. He was simply justifying things now to please his body. He put his hands atop hers, stopping them where they worked the buttons of his uniform’s waistcoat. ‘I don’t know who you are. I don’t even know your name.’ He knew only that she was Indian and English, and beautiful.
She pressed a long, slim finger to his lips. ‘No names. It’s best that way, don’t you think?’ He didn’t think. He was starting to not think at all.
Copyright © 2019 by Nikki Poppen
ISBN-13: 9781488047152
The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife
Copyright © 2019 by Janet Justiss
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