“And just what would that be?” she asked warily.
He took a step toward her. She retreated another foot, stopping just short of tumbling backward over the stool. “Although the prospect of squandering half your dowry is undeniably enticing, I’m afraid it’s not enough of an incentive to satisfy my…appetites. I see no reason why I should suffer the indignities of marriage without being allowed to enjoy any of the benefits.”
“S-s-such as?” she stammered.
His smile was as tender and benevolent as a priest’s. “You.”
She swallowed audibly. “Me? You want to enjoy me?”
“Surely you must have mirrors at your uncle’s house. It can’t have escaped your notice that you’ve bloomed into quite the beauty.” He lifted a hand to her cheek much as he had in the barn on that long-ago summer day. “If I’m going to play the role of devoted husband to you, then I deserve a more substantial reward than just your dowry.” He drew the pad of his thumb across the plush velvet of her bottom lip. At her delicate shiver, a husky note crept into his voice. “I want you. In my bed. Performing whatever wifely duties I require of you.”
Simon had thought to cast his seductive spell over Catriona, but he was the one mesmerized by the misty glow in her eyes, the tantalizing way her lips parted ever so slightly beneath the coaxing pressure of his thumb. Her skin still felt like down beneath his fingertips. It was a damn shame he would never find out if she was as soft all over.
It was almost as if they were back in that barn with the smell of fresh-cut hay tickling their noses and dust motes dancing a sparkling minuet around them. Almost as if he were a much younger man full of promise and secret dreams for the future that only she could see. Before he realized it, he found himself leaning forward, lowering his head toward hers, savoring the fragrant warmth of her sigh against his lips…
Swearing softly beneath his breath, he abruptly straightened. His trousers had grown uncomfortably snug and his traitorous body was urging him to draw her down on the settee and consummate a mock marriage to which he had no intention of agreeing.
Folding his arms over his chest, he gazed sternly down at her. “Those are my terms, Miss Kincaid. Take them or leave them.”
Catriona knew she would have to be mad to agree to his shocking terms. She had proposed a brief, sterile marriage of convenience. He had countered by demanding to defile her tender young body in whatever way was guaranteed to bring him the most pleasure and satisfy his debauched appetites. For her brother’s sake, she might be able to recover from being married to Simon. But sharing his bed—even for a season—could very well haunt both her body and her heart to the end of her days.
She tilted her head to study him. He wore the mask of leering villain with disturbing ease, but she couldn’t afford to forget that he was also a skilled gamester.
If he was bluffing, she supposed there was only one way to find out.
As the mist faded from Catriona’s eyes, leaving them as sharp as flints, Simon set his jaw, bracing it for the well-deserved clout he knew was coming.
“Very well, Mr. Wescott,” she said firmly. “I shall take your terms. And you.”
Simon’s jaw dropped in astonishment.
All he could do was stand there as she bustled back over to the stool and began to draw on her gloves as if she hadn’t just bartered away her precious innocence to a complete stranger. “It may take me a day or two to arrange for your release. I’ll send you a full set of instructions as soon as I’m able. I believe you’re familiar with the way to my uncle’s estate just outside of the city. I’m hoping we can be on our way to Gretna Green for our wedding as early as Monday morning.”
As Simon watched her knot the ribbons of her bonnet into a jaunty little bow, it took him several ragged breaths to identify the unfamiliar emotion coursing through him as anger. Simon Wescott didn’t get angry. He got drunk. He got bitingly sarcastic. And occasionally, he got even. But he never got angry. And in truth, he wasn’t angry now.
He was bloody well furious.
He hadn’t been so thoroughly duped since he’d caught Philo Wilcox at the faro table with an entire deck of aces tucked up his sleeve. He had satisfied that slight by calling the man out and shooting him in the arse when he turned to flee instead of fire. He supposed society would frown if he inflicted a similar punishment on the cunning Miss Kincaid.
But that didn’t mean he was without recourse.
He stalked toward her, kicking the stool out of his path. Something in his narrowed eyes made hers widen with alarm. She scrambled backward, betraying her first trace of genuine fear since finding herself locked in the cell with him.
“Why, Mr. Wescott,” she said breathlessly, “was there something else you wished to discuss?”
“Oh, I think we’ve done all the discussing we need to do.” He backed her up against the wall until there was nowhere left for her to flee. “But I can’t let you leave here believing me remiss in my duties. If I’m not mistaken, it’s traditional to seal such a bargain with a kiss.”
Her hand fluttered to her throat. “Oh, no…I really don’t think…it would hardly be proper if—”
He bore her against the wall with his body, cupped the back of her head in his hand, heedlessly crushing her bonnet, and brought his mouth down on hers, cutting off her protest in midsqueak. If this was a devil’s bargain, he was determined she would leave this cell knowing exactly which one of them was the devil.
But he hadn’t anticipated that the softness of the mouth crushed beneath his would give him a taste of both heaven and hell. The scorching sweetness of her kiss tasted of nectar and ambrosia. The flames only licked higher as she twined one hand around his nape and clung for dear life, as if she were sliding down into some deep, dark abyss and was determined to take him with her.
Catriona had spent a thousand lonely nights dreaming of the kiss Simon might have given her in that sunlit barn if she hadn’t been so young and he hadn’t been so jaded. She would close her eyes with a wistful sigh and imagine the tender communion of their minds, hearts and souls as his lips gently brushed over hers in a chaste caress.
This was not that kiss.
She had been right about one thing. There was nothing proper about this kiss. It wasn’t the kiss of a suitor tenderly wooing his bride. It was the kiss of a pirate claiming his prize. The kiss of a conquering barbarian intent upon ravishing the first village virgin he saw. Simon ruthlessly plundered the softness of her lips, taking advantage of her shocked gasp to plunge his tongue between them.
She welcomed him into her with shocking ease. The heated thrust of his tongue threatened to melt everything inside of her to thick, sweet honey.
Simon had thought to punish Catriona, but he was the one in pain—aching with a raw hunger that made him want to devour so much more than just her pretty mouth.
When her knees failed her, his knee was there, sliding between her thighs to bear her up. Even through the thickness of her skirts, he could feel the heat emanating from her tender core. He could not resist crudely grinding his knee against her, and his body surged with a wicked thrill of satisfaction when she moaned her helpless pleasure into his mouth.
Neither one of them heard the creak of the cell door swinging open on its rusty hinges.
“Aw…ain’t that sweet!”
They sprang apart. Acting purely on instinct, Simon wrapped one arm protectively around her waist and thrust her behind the shelter of his body.
The gaoler was standing in the doorway of the cell, the blackened stumps of his teeth bared in a fond grin. “Seeing the two o’ you together like that positively warms me old cockles.” He shifted his gaze to Simon, sighing wistfully. “You’re a lucky devil, lad. I always did wish I ’ad me a sister o’ my very own.”
Chapter 5
He wasn’t coming.
Catriona climbed to her knees in the padded window seat, unlatched her bedchamber window and leaned halfway out into the night. Except for the distant jingle of a harness and the whick
er of a restless horse drifting out from the stables, there was little to disturb the bucolic peace of the evening. No matter how desperately she searched the rolling hills and neat hedgerows surrounding her uncle’s estate, there was no sign of a gallant knight charging over the hill to either rescue or ravish her.
A wicked shiver danced unbidden over her skin. If the kiss he had planted on her lips at the jail was any indication, he was more inclined toward the latter.
She cast a nervous glance over her shoulder at the bed. Even Robert the Bruce seemed to have deserted her. The furry rogue was probably out courting the harem of female cats who prowled the stables, vying for his fickle attentions.
Settling back on her heels, she studied the delicate ormolu clock on the mantel. According to her calculations, Simon should have been released from Newgate over five hours ago. In the four days since they had made their pact, he’d had ample time to plot his escape from her. He had probably already fled the city, perhaps even the country. He was most likely languishing in the arms of some pretty little trollop right now, swilling brandy and making jokes at Catriona’s expense.
Given the reckless promise she had made him, she supposed she ought to be grateful that he was stranding her at the proverbial altar. Agreeing to his bold demand had been madness itself. Of course, it had almost been worth it just to watch that beautifully sculpted jaw of his drop in shock.
Heat crept into her cheeks as she tried to stop her wayward imagination from conjuring up shocking images of the duties a man like Simon Wescott would expect his wife to perform. She ran a finger over the tender swell of her bottom lip. Judging by the devastating skill of his kiss, those duties would probably afford her just as much pleasure as they did him, if not more.
The clock ticked away another minute. Apparently not even the prospect of bedding her was enough to entice him into honoring their bargain. Catriona shifted restlessly on the window seat, feeling unaccountably irritable.
The faint echo of a husky male murmur made her heart skip a beat. She craned her neck toward the copper-roofed dovecote, only to discover two of her uncle’s footmen out for an evening smoke before securing the house for the night.
Despite the tender buds adorning the nearby branches of a linden tree, a crisp bite of winter still laced the March air. Curling into a corner of the window seat, Catriona tucked her bare feet beneath the hem of her nightdress and hugged her ragged plaid more tightly around her.
The green and black tartan was so threadbare it was nearly transparent in spots. Her uncle had banished it from polite company over three years ago. She’d had to rescue it from the trash heap twice after he’d ordered the maids to burn it. The cashmere shawl he’d given her for her twentieth birthday was tossed carelessly over the lacquered dressing screen in the corner while she clung to this rag.
She knew she was being childish, but she couldn’t bear the thought of letting it go. It was all she had left to remind her of the life she’d once shared with her parents and her brother. Time was fading both the tartan and her memories.
As if to underscore that forlorn thought, the long-case clock on the second-floor landing began to sound, not stopping until it had chimed eleven times. As the last hollow bong rolled through the house, Catriona’s spirits sank.
If Simon had betrayed her, she was done for. Eddingham was due back tomorrow afternoon and she knew his first order of business would be to petition her uncle for her hand.
Throwing off the plaid, Catriona climbed down from the window seat and stalked over to the tall cherry wardrobe in the corner. She yanked out a brocaded portmanteau and began to cram handfuls of stockings and undergarments into it.
Her uncle Ross had been right. Her head was stuffed full of clouds and dreams. If she hadn’t been clinging to a childish romantic fancy, she never would have entrusted her hopes—and her brother’s life—into the hands of a shameless scapegrace like Simon Wescott. She’d be better off selling the few pieces of jewelry her uncle had given her over the years and booking passage on a mail carriage to Edinburgh. She might arrive in the Highlands with little more than she’d left with, but at least she wouldn’t have to abandon all hope of finding Connor or her clan.
She was digging deeper into the wardrobe when her hands brushed a smooth length of rosewood. Her haste forgotten, she drew the rectangular box from its hiding place and gently lifted the lid. A thick sheaf of clippings was nestled in the box’s silk-lined interior.
Which you no doubt pore over every night in your virginal white nightdress before you slide between the cold sheets of your lonely bed.
The echo of Simon’s mocking words was so clear he might have been standing just behind her, near enough to touch. It hardly helped that her white nightdress with its fussy ruffled cuffs and high collar was as virginal as a novice’s robes.
Catriona snapped the lid shut and shoved the box deep into the portmanteau beneath the most unmentionable of her unmentionables.
She was reaching into the wardrobe for the sturdiest, homeliest wool gown she owned when a tremendous clatter came from the direction of the window. She tensed, her heart lurching into an uneven rhythm. The clatter was followed by a blistering oath in a man’s deep familiar baritone.
She ran to the window and leaned out to find Simon Wescott lying on the ground below in a disgruntled tangle of long arms and legs, splintered trellis fragments, and rosebush branches. It was hardly the dashing sight she had envisioned in countless daydreams—Simon strolling beneath her window while strumming a lute or gazing tenderly up at her, one hand clasped to his heart while he recited, What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Catriona is the sun!
She bit back a grin, telling herself that the giddiness coursing through her was only relief that he hadn’t broken his fool neck. “Why, good evening, Mr. Wescott,” she called down in an exaggerated whisper. “Why didn’t you just knock on the front door and have the butler announce you? It would have been a great deal more discreet.”
Swiping a trailing branch from his hair, he glared up at her. “And a great deal less painful.”
“I warned you in my note that the trellis might not bear your weight.”
Kicking away an offending piece of the structure, he sat up. “But you failed to warn me about the rosebush growing beneath it.”
“I didn’t see the need. It won’t bloom for several weeks yet.”
“It may not have blooms, but I can assure you it still has plenty of thorns. Or it did until I landed on it. Now I believe most of them are buried in my…person.” Wincing, he unwound a length of vine from his throat and clambered to his feet.
Before Catriona could suggest that she sneak down to the servants’ entrance to let him in, he was scaling the wall itself, using the roughened stones jutting out from the corner of the house for balance.
When his broad shoulders came within reach, she caught him by the back of his coat and helped to haul him through the window, the action giving her ample time to admire the intriguing play of muscles beneath the clinging superfine. She wondered if he had once scaled the rigging of the Belleisle with equal grace.
He cleared the window seat and rolled neatly to his feet. She backed away from him, rather intimidated now that she actually had a notorious libertine standing in her bedchamber. In her fantasies, he had always stayed safely outside the window, content to admire her from afar.
“I’m a bit disappointed in your lack of finesse, Mr. Wescott. I assumed you would have had ample experience at this.”
Rubbing his backside, he eyed her darkly. “At what? Plucking thorns out of my—”
“Sneaking through women’s windows in the dead of night,” she inserted smoothly. “After all, isn’t that the most expedient way to avoid their husbands?”
He shook his tawny fall of hair over his shoulders and smoothed the claret silk of his waistcoat. “I’ll have you know that I stopped trifling with married women years ago. They had an annoying habit of falling in love with me and ins
isting on divorcing their husbands.”
“How very tiresome that must have been for you. And the husbands,” she added dryly.
“I can assure you that my suffering was far greater than theirs, Miss Kin—” He scowled at her. “What in the bloody hell is your Christian name anyway?”
“Catriona,” she informed him, deciding this might not be the most opportune moment to chide him for swearing.
“Catriona,” he repeated, the name rolling from his tongue like music. “Naturally it would be Catriona,” he muttered beneath his breath. “Not Gladys or Gertrude or Brunhilde.” His expression brightened. “May I call you Kitty?”
She smiled pleasantly. “Not unless you want to land right back in that rosebush.”
He edged away from the window and swept her a genteel bow. “Good evening, my fair Catriona. Per the instructions you sent to my jail cell, I’ve come to compromise you.” Judging from his lazy, come-hither grin and the provocative way the buff doeskin of his trousers clung to his lean hips like a second skin, he looked more than equal to the task.
Catriona swallowed, her mouth suddenly going dry. “No, you’ve come to pretend to compromise me. We’re not wed yet, Mr. Wescott.”
“But we are practically betrothed. So don’t you think you should call me Simon?” Closing the distance between them, he captured her hand and brought her palm to his lips. “Or perhaps ‘darling.’ Or ‘sweetcakes.’ Or some other endearment that indicates your passionate and undying affection for me.”
Unnerved by the devilish twinkle in his eye, Catriona curled her hand into a fist. “My aunt has been married to my uncle for over thirty years and I’ve never heard her address him as anything other than ‘my lord.’”
Simon shrugged, the twinkle in his eye only deepening. “I’m only a humble knight, but I have no objection whatsoever to you addressing me as ‘my lord.’” Gently tilting her clenched hand, he brushed his parted lips over the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist. His voice deepened to a husky purr. “You can even add ‘and master’ in our more intimate moments if it pleases you.”
Some Like It Wicked Page 5
