Ten Reasons to Stay

by Sabrina Jeffries

  Panic pressed upon her chest. “And once you know?”

  “I’ll have a word with the gentleman, see if what you say is true.”

  “He’ll just lie to you,” she said glumly. “The way he lied to Mrs. Harris about my coming back in a few weeks for my Season.”

  “Credit me with some sense,” he said. “I can tell when a man is lying.”

  “Really?” she snapped. “You think I’m lying, and I’m not.”

  “Exaggerating,” he said, his gaze growing shuttered. “Not lying.”

  “So once you talk to him, then what?”

  “It depends on what he says.”

  Her temper flared. “Right. And he’s a man, so you’ll take his word over mine, of course.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you thought it.” She glared at him. “I’d rather take my chances on the road than with you.”

  “And I won’t let you. So let’s find you a place to sleep.”

  She searched for another argument to convince him, but what was the point? Nothing swayed him. He was even more stubborn when sober than her uncle was when drunk. He left her no choice but to let him lead her from the room.

  Now what? Colin would never lower his guard long enough for her to escape. And once he learned that she was the magistrate’s niece, he would wash his hands of her. Because what foreigner new to town would champion her when it meant tangling with the authorities?

  Unless . . .

  He did seem to find her attractive, despite his insulting comments about the sort of wife she’d make. Why not use that? If she could get him even a little enamored of her, then perhaps he wouldn’t be so eager to throw her back to her uncle in the morning. She might even convince him to take her to Honiton.

  Could she do it? She’d watched other girls at the school flirt and tease fellows into doing things for them. She’d never been good at it herself—not enough opportunities for practice—but it couldn’t hurt to try.

  She slanted a glance at him as he led her to the stairs with an iron grip on her elbow, his dark eyes resolute and his jaw set. Colin wasn’t some fawning suitor or a friend’s shy younger brother whom a woman could tease endlessly with impunity. He was a virile, volatile man. If he lost control of himself with her—

  She ignored the sudden and very wicked current that pulsed through her. She didn’t want that; she didn’t. All she wanted was to escape her uncle. And she could do it, if she were careful. After all, if Colin hadn’t lost control when he’d had her subdued beneath him, he wasn’t likely to do it in response to some teasing.

  And if he did?

  It was a chance she’d have to take.

  Colin lay staring up at the canopy of his bed, wishing desperately for sleep to rescue him from his misery. But until Eliza stopped moving about in the adjoining room, sleep was impossible.

  The last place he’d wanted to stow her was in his dressing room, especially since it was half-filled with boxes and had only a chaise longue for a bed. But it was the only room in the whole damned place that he could easily monitor. It had just one door and a transom window, both of which led into his bedchamber.

  He couldn’t risk her attempting an escape from this floor. And she was liable to do it, climb out some window and fall and break her pretty little neck. Then he’d have that on his conscience, too.

  She hummed as she moved about, and he groaned. Confound the stubborn chit. Was she trying to drive him insane? Given that he’d nearly seduced her in the parlor, she ought to keep quiet, if only to soothe his temper. But no, after arousing him with her sweetly innocent response to his unwise kisses and then still refusing to tell him what he’d needed to know, she’d waltzed up the stairs ahead of him like a queen. While he’d followed behind, trying futilely to tear his gaze from those seductively swinging hips.

  Then when he’d tried to stash her in the dressing room, she’d kept him there with questions about India, her soft, knowing smiles perfectly blending the innocent with the naughty. Clearly he didn’t intimidate her one bit.

  And why did she seem so damned convinced of his gentlemanly character? Other Englishwomen acted slightly afraid of him. Eliza melted in his arms.

  The little fool was fearless. And sweet, a temptress in the making. He wanted her. Very badly. Which was why when he couldn’t silence her magpie tongue, in desperation he’d shut her into her cage, before he gave in to the urge to stop her mouth with his own, again.

  God, he could still taste her, still feel her breast ripening beneath his palm, and her thighs parting to allow him to cradle his aching loins between the delicate softness of her—

  Don’t think about it, he told himself as his cock hardened.

  As if that were possible. He must be cursed. It was as if Shiva himself had sent down a delicious morsel of a female to destroy his resolve to settle in England. No matter what decision he made concerning her, it was bound to come back to trample him.

  But oh, what luscious lips she had. And that bosom . . . a man could die happy caressing those breasts, as tempting and womanly as any devadasi’s. He could well imagine her as one of those Indian dancing girls, draped in a filmy gauze veil, with kohl lining her eyelids and henna staining her pouting, seductive mouth—

  Damn it, he’d never get to sleep if he didn’t find relief from his obsessive thoughts and this cursed arousal. Casting a furtive glance at the closed transom, he turned onto his side and took hold of his cock.

  With her pretty humming still sounding in his ears, he began to work his flesh. He imagined her naked, beckoning him to suck her nipples and lick her belly and drive his eager cock inside her harder . . . faster . . . deeper . . .

  As he reached his release, he muffled his cries with the pillow. After that he was finally able to fall asleep.

  But he dreamed of her, of those delicate hands caressing him, and that hair of rumpled velvet entwining his limbs as she brought him to ecstasy with her hot, silky mouth. So it was no wonder that when next he awoke, he was half-hard again, aching for the dream that evaporated as soon as his eyes shot open. As soon as he realized that something in particular had awakened him.

  For a moment, he lay there alert, waiting, listening, as early dawn brushed the room with the faintest wash of light. Then a loud thump sounded from the dressing room, and he jerked upright. What the blazes was she up to now? She should be sleeping—he’d given her a mountain of blankets. He’d also left her with candles and a flint box, so there was no need for her to be stumbling into things.

  He slipped from the bed and shivered as the chill hit his bare flesh. He would have to resign himself to wearing nightclothes. Though he’d slept naked in India, it was too cold for that in England, even with the fire blazing high.

  After donning his drawers, he threw on his banyan and knotted the tie, hoping that would be enough not to offend Eliza’s maidenly sensibilities. Then he lit a candle and knocked on the dressing room door. “Eliza? Are you all right?”

  “I’m perfectly fine!”

  Her cheery response gave him pause, especially when it was followed by another loud thump. “Are you dressed?”

  “Yes, why?”

  Swiftly, he unlocked the door, then swung it open to find her busily unpacking a pile of pasteboard boxes. A lit candle atop one box cast a lurid glow over the scene.

  He’d expected to find her sulking, the way his wife would have over being thwarted, not happily exploring his belongings.

  And doing it in style, too. She had shed her male attire to drape herself in a length of gold-shot silk that he’d brought from India to use as a gift for female relations. His mouth went dry.

  Not only did it enhance the warm color of her skin and make her honey-brown hair fairly sparkle, but she’d wrapped it only just high enough to cover her nipples. Then she’d thrown the extra bit over one shoulder, leaving the other creamy shoulder exposed, along with a healthy portion of her breasts.

  It was even more alluring than her too-tight ma
le clothes. What he wouldn’t give to run his tongue down into the shadowy crevice between her plump—

  “Did you want something?” she asked.

  You. In my bed. Now.

  He swore under his breath. “What the devil are you doing in here?”

  She shrugged her half-bare shoulders, apparently not the least perturbed by his burst of temper or her outrageous costume. “I decided to amuse myself by seeing what you brought with you from India.”

  He surveyed the boxes with their contents in various stages of disarray. “You had no right to unpack my belongings,” he bit out.

  “I didn’t think you’d mind.” When he glowered at her, she added mischievously, “It’s not as if I had anything else to do.”

  “How about sleeping?” he snapped. “That’s what most people do in the wee hours of the morning.”

  “Most people don’t have my worries.” She tossed him a challenging glance. “I had to keep my mind off of my dire future somehow, didn’t I?”

  Confound it, she was like water on stone with her persistent tale. And damned if he wasn’t beginning to believe her. She certainly seemed desperate to escape, so desperate that she’d refused to reveal her identity even after he’d manhandled her.

  He shook off that thought. Women like her had a talent for making men believe their fabrications. This was a game for her, and he wouldn’t let her win it.

  “So what did you find to ‘amuse’ you?” he asked, determined not to give her the satisfaction of drawing him into another discussion of her claims.

  She hesitated, then deliberately turned to rummage through something. “Oh, I found quite a number of interesting items. A lovely ivory comb . . . some leather slippers . . . and several fascinating pictures.”

  She faced him again, her expression resolute. “Tell me, sir, what exactly is the ‘congress of crow’?”

  What? Had she found—

  “Because that’s the title on this particular picture.” She held up a print, and he saw several others scattered atop the box behind her.

  Confound the woman to hell, she’d found his erotic Indian prints.

  Five

  Colin’s expression was so comical, Eliza had to smother her relieved smile. Finally, she had the reaction she needed. She’d begun to think he would never respond to her feminine wiles, given how he’d ignored her for the past few hours.

  She arched an eyebrow at him. “Well? Will you tell me what it is?” She held up the print. “The title didn’t explain, although I must say the picture itself is very naughty—”

  “Give me that!” Colin set his candle down on a box near the door and strode into the room. “That is not for a lady to see.”

  “I don’t know why not,” she shot back, though when she’d first found the prints, she hadn’t been able to stop blushing. But shock had given way to fascination, and then to a plan. A very risky plan. “You found them perfectly acceptable to carry around with you.”

  Snatching the print from her, he pushed past her to gather up the others and stuff them back into the box. “They were a farewell gift from an artist friend. He thought it a grand joke.”

  “And of course, you kept them anyway. Out of loyalty to your friend. Certainly not because you like naughty pictures.”

  He glowered at her. “I must have twenty books in these boxes, and this is what you chose to look at?”

  She shrugged. “I looked at the books, but they were horribly dry. Frankly, Colin, I don’t understand men’s fascination with recitations of who won what battle and how. Now, if you’d had any books or prints concerning fashion—”

  “Why?” His dark-eyed gaze trailed insolently down her body. “So you could invent an even more scandalous costume for yourself?”

  “Is this scandalous?” She batted her eyelashes at him in perfect innocence. “I didn’t think it any worse than an evening gown. And you were so outraged by my male attire that I figured I should put on something feminine. Under the circumstances, this was the best I could do. If you have a better gown, then by all means give it to me. Because this does have a deplorable tendency to slip down.”

  She tucked her thumbs beneath the top and pretended to tug it up, instead dislodging the silk another fraction. When his gaze swung inexorably to her bosom, she had to stifle a laugh.

  “Please tell me you’re wearing something underneath that,” he said hoarsely.

  “Of course.” She waited until he released a sigh of relief, then added, “I found a pretty jeweled chain to go about my waist. It’s the most darling thing, although I don’t think it’s really supposed to be worn against a woman’s naked skin.”

  “God help me,” he muttered under his breath.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked, sidling nearer.

  “I have to be in Brookmoor in a few hours,” he said curtly, whirling toward the door. “And before then, I would like to get at least a few hours of sleep—”

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said, to keep him from leaving. The man wasn’t cooperating, blast it. He was forcing her to be more shameless. “We could work out a trade. If you’ll agree to take me to Honiton, then I’ll do something for you.”

  “Like what?” he growled as he marched for the door. “Manhandle the rest of my belongings? Steal my hunting dogs? Tell the magistrate—”

  “Pleasure you,” she blurted out. “I . . . I could pleasure you.”

  He froze just short of the doorway.

  Gathering her courage, she came up behind him. “Your prints reminded me of the harem tales we girls secretly read at school. According to the tales, it’s possible for a woman to pleasure a man by—”

  Abruptly he swung around, then backed her against the wall of the dressing room, his eyes glittering dangerously. “Are you trying to end up in my bed, Eliza? Because that’s precisely where you’re headed.”

  He’d turned into the gothic villain again, and that wasn’t what she’d wanted. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Not that I’d complain, believe me,” he said in a rough rasp. Laying his hand on her hip, he swept it up to caress her waist, her ribs . . . the sides of her breast. “But if you’re hoping that seducing me will trap me into marriage, think again. I may ruin you, but I’ll be damned if I’ll marry you.”

  She fought not to show how sorely his cruel words wounded her. “Thank you for your candor, my lord,” she managed to choke out. “But it’s quite unnecessary. I’m not interested in seducing you.” She tipped up her chin. “Nor have I any wish to marry a man who considers me utterly unsuitable to play the role of his wife—except in his bed, of course.”

  “I didn’t say you were . . . I only meant that . . .” He muttered a curse. “Never mind. And if you don’t want to share my bed, then what do you intend?”

  With her blood in a dizzying stampede, she forced herself to soldier on with her plan. “From what I read, it’s possible for a woman to give a man pleasure without . . . losing her virtue. That’s what I’m offering.”

  He leaned so close to her that she could feel his arousal through the flimsy silk. The reality of it momentarily shook her, but it also reassured her that her plan could work. At least he found her attractive.

  Emboldened by his reaction, she slid her hand between them. “I could use my mouth or my fingers . . .”

  He caught her hand. “You could. That’s true.” His eyes bored into her. “But then what? Once you’re done pleasuring me, I mean.”

  “You take me into Honiton in your cabriolet.”

  “Ah, yes.” He released a shuddering breath, then turned his gaze to the door. “Tempting as your offer is, I cannot in good conscience accept it.”

  “Why not?” she cried. “I know I’m not the most attractive woman, but I thought . . . that is . . . you do seem to desire me.”

  “Yes.” A faintly regretful laugh escaped his lips. “But not enough to ruin my future and yours.”

  “It wouldn’t—”

  “The cabriolet is a gift from my c
ousin, sweeting,” he said softly, his gaze swinging back to hers. “He had the Monteith crest emblazoned prominently on the panels. By the time we reached Honiton, it would be morning. The buggy isn’t closed, and everyone we passed would see us together. So with your guardian out scouring the roads, along with his family and servants, all it would take is one glimpse of your face beneath your cloak, and there would be a scandal and no way to hush it up privately. We would either have to marry, or, if you choose to spout your little tale about my ravishing you—”

  “No, I wouldn’t do that.” It had been a bluff and a feeble one at that.

  “The point is, it’s too late to take you anywhere without creating a scandal.” He stared grimly at her. “Your only choice is to go home on your own and tell them you spent the night in the woods. And you seem determined not to do that.”

  Lord, but he was stubborn. Fine. Then she would pretend to do what he wanted and walk to Honiton on her own. “Very well, what if I do agree to go home? Will you let me leave?”

  “Of course,” he said, his eyes searching her face. “And I’ll follow at a discreet distance to make sure you reach there safely.”

  She blanched. “There’s no need for you to bother. I know the way—”

  He let out a frustrated laugh. “You’re still just trying to make a run to Honiton on foot. Very well, you force me to go looking for your family.”

  As he turned for the door, she saw all her plans slipping away. “Blast you, just let me go!” She grabbed his arm to stay him. “Don’t think about what could happen to me. Just forget that you ever saw me, and let me leave.”

  When he stiffened, she whispered, “That could be the trade, you know.” Desperate to make him agree, she slipped her hand down to cup him through his drawers. “I pleasure you, and you let me walk out of here alone.”