She rubbed her finger along his beard. “Why, Mr. Riley, I do think you’ve spilled something on yourself.”
He pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to her. “Will you do me the honor?”
She took it and cleaned the evidence of her pleasure from his face. When he tucked the linen back into his pocket and grabbed her hand to pull her farther along in the house, she jerked him to a stop. “You didn’t find pleasure of your own.”
“Oh, I most certainly did.”
“Why am I not inclined to believe that?”
He kissed her hard on the mouth and then grabbed her hand. “Come along; let’s finish exploring before it’s dark.”
“Nick . . . ” She couldn’t actually say the words for what she wanted to do, so she looked down at his crotch. He was evidently still in a state of arousal. “Let me reciprocate,” she said.
“As much as that would please me, I don’t want you down on your knees in this place.”
She looked at him oddly. What a strange thing to say. “You were on your knees.”
“That’s different.” He dragged her through a door and into a series of other rooms. All were bare, the echo of their voices making this house an eerie place.
They finished the rest of the tour in under an hour. She’d been right in thinking some parts of the house were newer and required less work, but overall the place needed to be redone, top to bottom.
When they were back in the carriage, Amelia didn’t let Nick say no to her again. She had him out and in her hand before he could even think to object. Once her mouth was around his cock, his hands assisted in the bob of her head. Because of the proximity of the driver, Nick was forced to remain quiet, not something he was good at. Amelia smiled, making her teeth lightly scrape the underside of him.
He came in her mouth as he reared off the seat, desperate to be in her deeper. When she sat up across from him, she gave him a grin. The look in his eyes was dark and had her shivering. He still craved her. He still wanted her.
“How long before our dinner reservations at the inn?” he asked.
She reached for the watch in his vest pocket, flipped it open, and read the time.
“About three hours.”
“Good.”
Thank God she’d had enough sense to ask for adjoining rooms. No one would know that she wasn’t, in fact, sleeping in her room.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Dinner, it turned out, became a private affair that they could have brought up to their room without having to fully dress. Landon had sent a note to say his carriage was stuck in mud and that they wouldn’t arrive in Highgate until the evening hours. They didn’t expect to see one another until the following day.
Which meant she and Nick had time alone. Away from the worries of the household discovering them and away from the scrutiny of his friends. It also gave her an opportunity to pry into his past.
“When we were at the house, you said you wanted to remember happier things here.” She licked the clotted cream from the top of her pastry. “Did you live at Caldon Manor at some point?”
Nick watched her tongue moving over the cream. “I didn’t live there.”
“Then why does it hold bad memories?”
“I know some of the people who live in this town. And if you don’t stop licking at that, I’m going to see what that tastes like on you.”
Her eyes widened, and she put the pastry down. She actually wanted him focused on her questions, not on intimacy—that would come later. Preferably when all her questions were answered, but he seemed to be deflecting her before she’d really started.
“You’re going to have to be more forthcoming than that, Nick. I don’t want to pry, but you leave me with more questions than answers. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to tell me what it is your trying so hard to keep a secret.”
His hand trailed up her leg. He was trying very hard to distract her. “I’m not trying to keep secrets, Amelia. You know I’m private about my past.”
“That’s very much the same thing. How can I ever expect to know you fully if you want to hold back the things that make you the person you are?”
“The things in my past might have shaped me along the way, but they did not make me the person sitting before you.”
She didn’t agree with that but refused to give in to his need to argue.
“Does Victoria know what happened in your past?” she asked, clearly challenging him.
“Victoria has seen and done things that would leave you shocked and with an entirely different view of her.”
“I doubt that. I can’t picture myself ever liking one of your old lovers.”
“When you put it that way . . . ”
Nick dipped his finger into the cream she’d been licking a moment ago. “Now, about that cream.”
She scooted away from him and waved her finger back in forth. “Give me one answer first.”
He came toward her, a determined glare hooding his eyes. She slid back for every one of his crawls forward, never letting him get as close as he wanted. He stopped and sat on his haunches, the cream still on the tip of his finger.
“One?” he said, the thread of uncertainty in his voice undeniable.
“Just one.”
“Then ask me again what you want to know. Just don’t ask me about Highgate.”
“Why were you whipped as a boy? Was it your mother?”
Nick shook his head. “That was two questions.”
“One derives from the other.”
“My mother never raised a hand against me. As for the other, that happened at the all-boys school I attended.”
The place, he didn’t need to remind her, where he’d been sent with Shauley, only to have unspeakable things happen to him. Why hadn’t she guessed that was where he’d been whipped?
“I did not please the vicar when given instructions. He thought he could beat the willfulness out of me.”
“I’m so sorry.” She really hadn’t expected that as an answer. Reaching for his hand, she brought it up to her mouth and kissed it.
“It was a long time ago, Amelia. But now you know why I don’t like talking about it.”
“I almost regret asking.”
He’d appeased her curiosity for now. But she wondered how much more she could learn about him before they left Highgate.
“Don’t be sorry.” He waggled his finger. “Now, again, I must ask about this cream.”
She tried to swat his hand away as he came over her, forcing her back onto the mountain of pillows they’d tossed onto the floor for their makeshift indoor picnic.
They were both laughing as Nick smeared the cream down her sternum. Their laughter died when he shoved the chemise from her shoulder and kissed it, following her collarbone across and then working his way over the line of cream. He didn’t stop there; he smeared it over her nipples and then sucked her like a babe.
Nick did show her all the places that cream could be put and licked up. They were both a sticky mess by the time dessert was done. The pillows hadn’t fared much better. After a shared bath, they eventually found their way to his bed.
Nick sat up with a start. He covered his eyes, feeling a megrim, feeling like he’d sweated through another nightmare. He reached for Amelia, but she wasn’t next to him in the bed. Cracking his eyes open, he got a good look around the room.
Amelia wasn’t with him at all.
The bedside lamp was turned over and broken, the glass shards littered on the floor. A table was knocked over, and the washbasin had crashed to the floor at some point, as bits of porcelain and water were washed across the floor.
It took a while to realize that the incessant pounding was not his head but someone at the door. Nick stumbled across the room, aware he was naked only when he threw open the door and the wife of the inn’s proprietor screamed at his appearance. Her husband tugged her behind his robust form.
Nick’s head was spinning, and it took everything in him to stay on his feet
. His shoulder crashed into the doorframe as he tried to get a clear view of the man standing in front of him.
“A man came in here, sir. You were making a racket. Had to call the local magistrate when you didn’t stop the noise.”
“I’m sorry . . . what racket?” He didn’t remember a single event since he and Amelia had crawled into bed, too exhausted to even bother with the blanket. He did remember helping Amelia into her chemise; she’d insisted on wearing it in the event that someone came to the door and she had to run back into her adjoining room.
He recalled that much. After that . . .
“We’ve been banging on the door a good twenty minutes. Thought we were going to have to break it down. You’ve turned over the room, Mr. Riley. You’ll have to pay for the damage.”
Nick turned back to his chamber, trying to focus on the mess. He spotted his trousers on the floor and stumbled over to the chair to pull them on. Hand against his head, he tried to recall what had happened. His hand came away wet; when he focused on his hand again, it was to see blood smeared across it.
“Shit,” he cursed aloud.
He closed his eyes and tried to recall the last thing he remembered. He and Amelia had gone to bed. He hadn’t fallen asleep for quite some time, too worried the memories of this town would drag him under, into a nightmare that would wake the whole inn. But he hadn’t dreamed.
There was a different kind of fog clouding his head, not from the remnants of a nightmare but from the blow he’d received.
“Twenty minutes, you say?” Nick looked up to the man still standing in his door. The proprietor’s wife had left.
“I don’t need trouble here,” the man said.
Nick rubbed his hand through his hair, feeling a bump at the back of his head. Had he fallen? No . . . something had hit him.
“My companion?” Nick asked.
At least four other people were in the hall, looking into Nick’s room. He glared at them, though he couldn’t stare long, as his vision was going in and out.
“Saw her thrown into the back of a carriage. That’s why we sent our boy to get the magistrate. Don’t think she was awake, as the burly man holding her carried her over his shoulder without much fuss from her. My wife saw him; got a good look at his face, she did.”
“Did your wife recognize him?”
“Can’t say she did.” The proprietor bent down to retrieve Nick’s shirt. “I got daughters, sir. You need to be dressed. There’s other women staying here too, and I don’t need my inn’s reputation tarnished more so from tonight’s events. You’ve caused quite the ruckus.”
“I’m sorry. I’m having trouble recalling what happened.” Nick shook his head as though that would clear his mind, but it didn’t.
“Nick!” Landon came charging into the room, his sleeping cap still on and his shirt unbuttoned. He’d dressed in a hurry. He stopped in his tracks and glanced around at the damage to Nick’s room. “What in hell happened here?”
“Asked myself the same thing. I think someone took Amelia.”
“Miss Grant?” Landon asked. Nick nodded. There would be no delicate way to explain why Amelia had been in his room. He didn’t even try or pretend that it was of an innocent nature. It was what it was and if anyone had a problem with that, he didn’t mind giving them a goose egg to rival his own.
“Fetch the proprietor’s wife, Landon. I need a description of the man who took her.”
“You didn’t see anything?”
He shook his head. Now that the fog was clearing from his mind, rage started to take its place. Who would dare? He could think of only two people, one of whom knew he’d be in Highgate shortly after the sale.
“Now listen here,” the proprietor said. “You can’t go running things how you see fit. I have a business to attend here, and you’re scaring off my patrons.”
“I will pay for everyone’s room tonight, as well as a late evening repast, to give them time to settle from the excitement.”
The man’s mouth snapped shut. “How do I know you’re going to be good for that kind of money, sir?”
“If I wasn’t, would I have bought the old Caldon Manor in Highgate?”
“You’re the man who bought it? The buildings in town too?”
“I did. Now will you let my friend and associate retrieve your wife? I have some questions to ask her.”
“I’ll get her myself.”
Landon came into the room, tucking his shirt into his trousers and properly buttoning it. “Do you know who did this?”
“I suspect, but until it’s confirmed, I don’t know where to look.”
“Why would they take Amelia? Does she have information they need? Is it to do with the purchase of Murray’s lands?”
Nick scrubbed his hand over his eyes.
“To get back at me.” To make him suffer for ever succeeding. This was all on Shauley.
The proprietor’s wife stepped into the room. “Sir, my husband said you needed a description of the man I saw abscond your secretary.”
“Yes.” Nick stood, perhaps too quickly, because Landon had to catch him around the waist so he didn’t totter right over onto the floor.
“There was two, you see . . . ” And Nick did see, as she gave him the description of a man who could only be the inspector.
Even better, he suspected exactly where they’d taken Amelia.
“Landon, procure some horses. I need to see if the magistrate is here yet. We have some business to take care of.”
This was something he should have done years ago. As for the inspector, he would enjoy gutting the man if given the opportunity. No one threatened the people under his protection, especially Amelia.
One minute she’d been curled up next to Nick in bed, the next . . . even her brain couldn’t figure out the finer details. She remembered a sack being put over her head and trying to grab onto something with which to hit her kidnapper, but she had only succeeded in knocking over the washstand as she was thrown out of the room she shared with Nick. Then she was dragged over ground with rocks and gravel before she was thrown over someone’s brawny shoulders, just before being tossed into a carriage. She’d blacked out after that and had only come to when the inspector slapped her across the face, leaving her cheek stinging even now.
Amelia faced her kidnapper like a crazed woman. Her hair was half tumbled out of its braid and felt like a tangle of knots over her shoulders. Her chemise was torn in too many places to bother taking inventory.
Her arm hurt where the inspector had grabbed hold of her and hadn’t bothered to let go until he’d tied a dirty rope around her wrists and arms and hung her on some sort of hook suspended from the low ceiling. The cabin was a single room. It housed a small cooking hearth on one side and a bed on the other. Shelving hung on the wall, with minimal supplies by the door. Other than that, she didn’t see anything that would tell her where she was.
“What do you want from me?” she asked, her voice hoarse from having cried for the past half hour, if not longer.
“Can’t you figure it out?” he said, leaning back in a wooden chair, studying her like one might a prized mare.
Bile rose in her throat. She knew that look. She had seen it in other men’s eyes. The men her brother had allowed to touch her.
“Did you know my brother?”
He tsked at her question.
She was pulling at straws, but how else would she figure out just what kind of trouble she was in, if she couldn’t at least figure out what this man’s connection was to her life.
“What do you want?” she repeated with more force. She didn’t understand what this man had against her. Or what his purpose was. Did he intend to kill her? “Were you responsible for my brother’s death? Did you kill him?”
“You’ve got too many questions. In case you didn’t notice, I’m not answering them. Maybe if you ask the right questions, I’ll give you a break.”
“Where’s Nick?” she asked, suddenly realizing he might have been h
urt . . . or worse. Oh, God, if he had met the same fate as her brother, she didn’t know how she would survive that news.
“Don’t worry about him. You worry about you. Now, what do you think it is I want from you?”
“I don’t know,” she sobbed. “Please. Let me go. I’ll give you whatever I can. Just let me go.”
“You disappoint me, Amelia. Here I thought we were old friends.”
“Did you kill my brother?” she asked again. She needed the answer. Needed something that might explain why she was here.
“As much as I would have liked to do, I can’t take the credit. That was arranged by a mutual friend.”
Amelia tugged at the rope burning her wrists, trying to work her hands through the loops, but she only accomplished burning her skin with every twist.
“I wouldn’t bother trying to get out of those knots. You’ll only hurt yourself more.”
She didn’t care if she had to break her hand to get free; she would do whatever she needed to find a way out of this situation.
“Who is our mutual friend, Inspector?” She was beginning to think he was not an inspector, but an imposter who had come into her and Nick’s lives to ferret out information on them.
“You wound me, dearest.” He came at her again, his large frame bearing down on her like a bull taking charge. He slapped her across the face, making her ears ring. “You will address me as Inspector Laurie.”
“Are you really an inspector?”
“Of course I am. How else could I go about town wearing my uniform?”
“Why do you want to hurt me?” Amelia’s lips quivered, but she held back the sobs that wanted to escape.
“Here I thought you were smarter than you let on.” He stood so close that she could feel the heat coming off him in sickening waves. And that closeness made her want to vomit all over him. She held back, swallowed against the bile rising in her throat, knowing that if she lost control that would surely drive him over the edge he was walking with sanity.
Desire Me More Page 20
