She looked down the same time he did, their foreheads brushing.
“Damn and blast,” he muttered.
For a second all Rosalind could see—and feel, for that matter—were the stiff lapels of Nicholas’s coat brushing against the swells of her bosom. She tried hardening herself against the sensation, but as she stared down, his warm breath feathered over her sensitive skin. Thousands of tiny shivers raced down her arms, goose pimples rising across her flesh.
“We’re stuck,” he growled.
“Stuck? Stuck how?”
He half sighed, half growled again. “Your brooch. My tie pin.”
Rosalind blinked, willing her eyes to focus. “How did that happen?”
He picked up his head and delivered a sardonic glare, but said nothing.
A sudden spurt of raucous laughter echoed from the corridor.
She inhaled sharply. “Someone could be coming.”
Her movements quick, she braced her hands on the arms of the chair, which made it look, at least for the barest of seconds, as if she was trapping him in the chair on purpose. Using her hands as leverage, she pulled her legs in, then twisted to slide them to the floor.
Awkwardly leaning forward with one hand at her back, Nicholas moved with her—his cravat pin was stuck to her bodice, after all.
In the end, no one came to the door, but Rosalind found herself kneeling between Kincaid’s legs, a knee on either side of her breasts. Her hands braced his rock-hard upper arms. He looked incredibly uncomfortable leaning forward as he was. And incredibly handsome.
A thick, dark brown lock had slid out from the queue at his neck and half-covered one gray eye. “What the devil did you do that for?”
She looked at his lips as he spoke and became momentarily mesmerized by their sculpted shape and a peek of white teeth.
“I-I’m sorry.” She gulped. “Here . . . let me . . .”
“I wouldn’t think it was possible,” he said as he looked down briefly, an odd light in his gaze, “but I think you’ve made things worse.”
“Surely you don’t still think I did this on purpose!”
“I’m not certain,” he said quietly, his brogue sounding thicker now for some reason. “And you should quiet down.”
“Not certain! I was trying to collect my aunt’s atrocious cat. Just what were you doing in here, sitting in the dark?”
He didn’t answer her.
“What then?” she pressed.
“Well, I wasn’t waiting for a certain clumsy female to land upon my lap.”
“I am not clumsy,” she intoned, affronted. She straightened a bit, which brought them eye to eye. And mouth to mouth.
He raised a dubious brow but did not pull away. Their lips were so close that they might as well have been kissing. But they remained thus, almost as if testing—or perhaps challenging—the other to take action.
“Were you hiding in here?” she asked, her words mostly air.
His silver gaze dipped to her mouth before returning to meet her stare. “Why the hell would I hide?”
“Hmm. Gabriel said you had come to London on business. Perhaps your business has something to do with being in this room.” Like, having a romantic tryst with a potential bride, perhaps. The flare of jealousy didn’t surprise her.
He looked down and began fumbling at her bodice, twisting her brooch and causing her to become acutely aware of the weight of her breasts. “If it will get you to hush that bonny mouth of yours to know, I was having a dram with your brother.”
“Hush?” she blurted, positively perspiring over his use of the phrase “bonny mouth.” Still, she tried to hold on to her senses. “No one has ever ‘hushed’ me before.”
“Aye. If you keep talking so much, I’ll hush you again.”
She wanted to pinch him . . . really hard.
“Come closer,” he commanded.
“If I come any closer, I’ll be in your lap again.” More precisely, she’d be further in between his thighs.
“Just shift . . .” He reached around her back and place his warm hand in the middle of her shoulder blades. Then he pushed her slightly toward him, arching her back. Once he got her in the position he wanted her in, he went back to work on his task.
She looked about herself, noting the way he loomed above her, around her. He radiated heat and smelled marvelous.
“Someone could walk in at any moment,” she murmured. “Look at us. Do you think they’d believe that we came about our position by happenstance?”
He merely grunted.
Her chin dropped to watch his long fingers maneuver her brooch this way and that. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to discern the best way to disengage ourselves without ripping your gown.”
A thought occurred to her then. What if her guardian were to walk in just then? It was possible his “watch” had begun this evening. And she didn’t know anything about this person. What if he was the sort to jump to conclusions? What if he carried a pistol? What if . . . ?
“Hurry, then.”
Briefly, Nicholas looked up from his work, his gaze intensely annoyed. “Believe me, I am hurrying.”
Their breath mingled between them for a moment, then he looked back down. A strong pull, that same thrumming vibration, seemed to hover around them. She tried to ignore it, but it occurred to her at that moment that for two people doing nothing more than trying to extricate their accessories, they were both suddenly breathing quite hard. And Nicholas’s hand seemed to be trembling.
“Nicholas,” she whispered.
His fingers stilled and his gaze traveled slowly upward from her brooch, to her bodice, to her neck, to her mouth, and then finally her eyes.
Rosalind licked her bottom lip, thinking she ought to say something, when one of his hands lifted to cradle her chin between his fingers. Shivers danced down her spine. He applied light pressure with the pad of his thumb, and she felt her lips parting. He looked at her mouth so intensely that her eyes drifted shut and her head tilted.
And then suddenly, Nicholas’s hand dropped away. She opened her eyes in just enough time to see him give his head a quick shake. Then he closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath before opening them again.
“You were . . . ,” she began breathlessly, “. . . you were about to . . .”
Reaching down, he removed his tie pin, disrupting the simple knot of his cravat. “There,” he said quietly. “We are free.” He leaned back in the chair, his strength surrounding her.
He had been about to kiss her, she was sure of it. But why had he stopped? Oh, she could scream. Why did he hesitate?
There was some desperate, discontented part of her that flirted with the idea of grabbing him and kissing him herself, but she resisted.
“You can stand now,” he pointed out rather gruffly.
She nodded, staring up at him, trying to figure him out.
Sighing, he reached out, grabbed her at the waist, and practically shoved her up before him.
“My, you’re as gentle as a lamb,” she muttered, straightening.
He nodded his thanks, a half smile upon his lips.
“I did not intend that as a compliment,” she said, her tone stern.
Nicholas chuckled. He couldn’t help it. And he hadn’t wanted her to move. The thought shook him. If he could do whatever he wanted at that moment, hang the consequences, he would want nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and drag her back down onto his lap and pin her to his shirt for good.
For safekeeping, of course. It would be a lot easier to watch her, wouldn’t it?
Och, what was he thinking? He had almost kissed her. Hell, he had practically invited her to do so should she have the desire. And the equally terrifying thing was he rather thought she desired—just as much as he did.
And just what the hell had he been doing with the tie pin? He could have disengaged them within seconds, but instead he’d tarried, lingered, savored. The view, dear Lord, the view . . .
&
nbsp; “Christ,” he muttered under his breath.
He stood and crossed the room with brisk strides. The further away she was from him right now, the better.
Standing in the same spot he’d put her in, Rosalind brushed at her skirts. Her head jerked up at the sound of raised voices floating in from the hall.
“It’s one of my brothers,” she announced, her slightly alarmed gaze sliding to meet Nicholas’s.
He nodded to the cat that was currently trotting his way to the door. The thing looked positively harmless now.
“Go,” he ordered quietly. “I’ll wait until you’ve moved on before I leave.”
She nodded, following the cat from the room.
As Nicholas looked down to refasten his tie pin, he swore he heard Rosalind whisper, “Thank you, Oliver, for being such a naughty kitty.”
Rosalind didn’t think it could be possible, but three hours later, her mood had darkened considerably.
Her guardian was here tonight, she was sure of it, and she had failed to reveal him. However, it was possible that he retained his cover so well for the simple fact that there hadn’t been any real danger here at Devine Mansion.
Or, perhaps, if her ears hadn’t been abused with constant blithering speculations concerning the new marquess in their midst, Rosalind would have been able to concentrate.
If they only knew she had sat upon his lap in a room down the hall, she’d be delegated from respectable almost-spinster to a hoyden in the course of a single evening.
“I heard the Scots have insatiable carnal appetites,” someone whispered from behind a fan, which caused someone else to gasp.
“Truly?”
“How frightening!”
Rosalind flicked a glance toward the small grouping of women on her right, her brow rising in wonder. A seated young lady seemed to be sliding out of her chair. Had she fallen asleep?
Strangely, several other ladies seemed to have an odd tilt to their heads. What was happening to their necks?
Rosalind turned to look past the dancers at the other side of the room. Even the women over there seemed to be suffering from the same peculiar head tilt.
She followed their gazes . . . directly to Nicholas’s kilt. Her mouth opened on a small gasp. Apparently, the sly creatures were all trying to get a peek.
A new surge of jealousy sprouted within her. She didn’t begrudge him his inheritance. She was delighted for him. But life had seemed so much simpler when he had been her own little secret.
Rosalind smirked. Could she blame them? He was rather breathtaking.
But she’d had about enough of all these women ogling Nicholas and his bare knees. And his sculpted calves. And his trim waist.
Seven dances. Seven! And he had not asked her once.
“Rosalind.”
Blinking out of her musings, she turned to find Gabriel standing before her.
She smiled in greeting, her brows lifting. “Yes?” Another minuet had ended and some guests were marveling at the grace of the dancers.
“As the last dance of the evening is approaching, I wanted to give you one last instruction.”
“What is it?”
“It was not below my notice that you danced with a number of gentlemen this evening. More than usual, more than you ought to have.”
She sighed quietly.
He ran a hand through his hair. “Tomorrow, after Madelyn and I depart, when they come calling, and you and I both know who I’m talking about, you are to inform Briggs to tell them that you are not at home. They will insist on leaving cards, I realize, but then they had better get the hell out of my house. It’s not safe. Not with that damnable wager setting fire to their heels. ”
Rosalind blinked slowly. He had just given her a splendid idea.
“Please, do not fret,” she said simply.
The chords signaled that the waltz was about to begin. It was the only waltz of the evening.
Gabriel gave her a nod, then strode across the room to retrieve his wife for the dance.
Tomorrow, Rosalind would welcome the deluge of men coming to call. Perhaps with a houseful of male visitors, her guardian would have no choice but to lurk about the windows—or perhaps he’d be bold enough to come to call himself.
And once the matter of dismissing her guardian was settled, she could focus all her energy on an entirely different matter.
Season after season she had concentrated on other people’s happiness in matters of love. And now with Nicholas in London, it was time for her to make her own match.
He had wanted to kiss her, she was sure of it. And yet, he’d hesitated. She wasn’t certain why, but she knew without a doubt that if Nicholas Kincaid had come to London to find a bride, that woman was going to be her.
Her plan set, Rosalind couldn’t help but smile with proud satisfaction as she watched her brother sweep his wife into his arms, gliding her effortlessly onto the dance floor. They looked perfect together, quite like they completed each other. No one could deny their being in love.
It occurred to Rosalind then that no one had asked her to dance. She looked about, spying Nicholas sauntering in her direction.
Her heart skittered. It was the last dance of the evening, the only waltz, and very fitting that he ask her. He neared, his paces slowing.
Lifting her chin, she straightened her spine and took a deep breath, her acquiescence poised on the tip of her tongue.
And then he passed her by and walked out of the room.
Chapter 5
Long walks in the countryside had never failed to clear Nicholas’s head in the past.
Unfortunately, he was currently traversing a crowded, sooty city, and any thought-clearing he managed amid the clattering of wagons, carriages, and bustling people only seemed to make more room for all things Lady Rosalind Devine.
And when it came to that particular woman, his imagination often wandered into dangerous territory.
As he turned the corner that would bring him to Hyde Park and closer to the Devine residence, he told himself he was only a man. A man attracted to his charge.
He hadn’t wanted to hurt her last night, but maybe it would do the proud lassie a wee bit of good to be brought down a peg or two.
However, his mind kept replaying the way her shoulders had lowered, the way she’d twisted her hands in the folds of her gown, when he had passed her by.
She hadn’t stood alone for long, however. Some gangly, young lad had approached her, and, after gracefully accepting his offer, she’d allowed him to twirl her enthusiastically around the ballroom floor. She had smiled graciously, all infallible politeness.
He had gone to bed last night, his mind replaying the events of the evening: the look of open interest gracing her features when Gabriel had introduced them, the way his blood had surged at the sight of her kneeling on the floor between his legs, the smell of her. And once Nicholas had managed to fall asleep, she’d haunted his dreams. In his uninhibited imaginings, it was he who had swept her up into the dance.
He had clutched her tightly to him, his fingers sliding roughly through her hair. He had bent down and plundered her rosebud mouth until she’d surrendered and sunk into him for support and more of his kiss. Right there in the middle of the ballroom for everyone to see.
He had woken sheathed in sweat, the sheets twisted in his hands. It surprised him that just the idea of this particular woman engaged so intimately with him in the dance was enough to set his blood to an immediate boil.
Aye, it was wise of him not to dance with her. After that dream, he wasn’t so sure that he would have held her respectfully nor kept the secrets of his mind so easily hidden.
Especially from her brother.
And Nicholas wanted Gabriel to know she was safe with him, from him.
Her brother placed his rare trust in him. As Gabriel’s friend, Nicholas had to uphold a certain code of conduct. And that included keeping his eyes, hands, and mouth from roving over Gabriel’s sister.
“Pardon
,” Nicholas muttered to a group of ladies as he stepped around their meandering gait in order to pass them.
They lifted their noses at his words. He sighed. So lofty and unforgiving. Perhaps they’d heard about his choice of attire the other night and feared he was indeed a real-life Scottish beastie.
Smothering a grin, he strode onward through Hyde Park, aiming for Grosvenor Square and Devine Mansion.
The decision to walk was made in part by a stubborn horse who was proving to be the biggest, hairiest bairn when it came to the distractions of the city, and partly because it wasn’t that far from his rented town house.
Accustomed to much more strenuous exercise in the country, it was really just a small trek to their home, and he needn’t fight with the congestion of the streets either.
Was it really midmorning already? It felt as if he had just left Devine Mansion.
He pulled out his pocket watch. “Twelve o’clock.” Well, it was some ten hours ago.
City hours for the ton were vastly different. As they attended ball after ball, partygoers kept “town hours”—sleeping until noon, some of them. He hoped Tristan was awake or, at least, home.
He needed to speak with the lad. He needed to tell him that he’d be watching the back of the house this evening.
Upon leaving Devine Mansion late the night before, Nicholas had been about to mount his jittery horse when he’d noticed the redheaded man—the same man from outside the bookshop. He’d been standing near a shadowed row between houses across the lane.
Nicholas had approached the man and shouted a greeting.
Well, to be honest, it had been less a greeting and more specifically, “What the hell are you doing over there?” Subtlety was never his forte.
The man had run. Nicholas had chased him for half a block before the stranger had become winded and able to run no more. Reaching him, Nicholas had grabbed him, but the lanky man surprised him by wresting free enough to slip out a small dagger.
Nicholas had managed to dodge the blow aimed at his face, but he’d lost his hold. The vermin had scurried away, disappearing down another alley like a rat slipping into some invisible crack in the foundation.
Guarding a Notorious Lady Page 6
