“Does that worry you?” she asked, and tried to make her tone light and playful. “Are you here to ask me my intentions when it comes to your friend?”
He smiled at that quip, but his tone was still serious when he said, “It may not be my place, he might even be angry at me for doing it, but I am the closest thing to family the man has left. So I suppose yes, I am concerned about your intentions. Are you coming to Derrick in a real interest? Or are you a bored Society lass, interesting in slumming with a man you see beneath you? Because Huntington doesn’t deserve to be used.”
She flinched at the question and set her jaw. “I know you are a very intelligent man. I know you know about me, because I don’t think you’d approach me without having at least ten moves planned out in this little chess match we’ve begun. So you must know, as everyone knows, that the last thing I am is a Society lass, bored or otherwise. I’m just a duke’s bastard sister, Mr. Barber, brought here to assuage some guilt Robert has about the disparity of our upbringing. Or perhaps in some foolish attempt to match me with a man of substance, because my other half-brother recently married after receiving Robert’s assistance.”
She stopped talking because she realized she was rambling and giving out information she hadn’t meant to share. Barber was quiet as she turned away, heat burning her cheeks, and stared at the fountain a few paces away along the pathway. She gathered herself and dared to look at him again. His expression was impassive.
“I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I know Huntington doesn’t deserve to be used.” She took a long breath. “He seems to be an honorable man.”
“He is,” Barber said softly, and then he took a step toward her. “As is your brother, Nicholas Gillingham.”
She froze at the mention of Nicholas. She’d already slightly explored the connection between the men with Derrick, but Barber knew her brother, too. “You served with him,” she said.
Barber nodded. “It was my great honor, yes.”
She shifted. “And you said you and Derrick—Mr. Huntington—were among those with him when he was injured.”
“Yes.” Barber’s expression went far away. “Our commander was a useless man, too important to make good tactical decisions. He set up camp in an area too exposed, near volatile munitions. Gillingham had no faith in him and saw the intense danger. He took over operations and moved the lot of us before there was an explosion. He was badly injured, as were a good many of us. Despite his own injuries, Derrick was the first man at his side. Your brother saved us. And Derrick saved him, in turn.”
She could feel the blood draining from her cheeks with every word. Nicholas had been so close-lipped about the cause of his injuries. She knew he was being considered for a title, thanks to his saving of the very commander Barber maligned, the son of a viscount who was a close friend to Prinny.
“Derrick saved my brother,” she whispered, and tears stung her eyes.
Barber nodded. “So you can see why I am protective of the man.”
“Yes,” she pushed out past pursed lips. “I knew you two served with Nicholas. I-I didn’t know about the rest.”
Barber shrugged one shoulder. “Huntington doesn’t celebrate himself. It’s not his way. But now you know, so you’ll do with that information what you will.”
She glanced up at the house, knowing Derrick was in there somewhere. Knowing that she needed to go to him, as soon as possible and just…she didn’t know what. Talk to him? Touch him and have it be unrelated to the Fox or his case? Just see him?
“The afternoon is getting late,” she said. “I should go in and ready myself for supper.”
“Ah, yes. It is nearly that time. Of course, Miss Oliver, I’ll leave you to your preparations.” He motioned toward the path with a partial bow.
“I’ll see you tonight,” Selina choked out, but she was already moving away from him, toward the house. Toward the man she wanted to see so desperately. Toward a connection she feared because it had nothing to do with the lies as the Fox and everything to do with the heart of the woman she truly was.
Chapter 12
Derrick stood glaring at the mirror, straightening his cravat for what felt like the tenth time since he’d tied it. It had been years since he had a valet, since he’d fully abandoned his grandfather’s grander plans for him. A decade, perhaps.
He was well capable of shining his own boots and dressing himself. But the cravats…
“Bugger,” he grunted as he unwound the contraption and started over in tying it.
Well, the cravats were still a struggle. He almost had it finished and was trying to find a place to tuck a sloppy end of fabric when there was a knock on his door. He crossed to it, still fiddling with the neckwear.
“Barber, if that’s you, I’m going to need your assistance because you know I’m rubbish at—” He threw the door open as he spoke and then skidded to a halt. It wasn’t his partner there waiting for him. It was Selina.
She was wearing another blue dress, another opportunity for her eyes to pop like fine sapphires. This one had short puffed sleeves, a scooped neckline and a gauzy overlay the cascaded over her curves like a waterfall.
“Selina,” he whispered like a fool. “I…I didn’t think, I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting you.”
She slipped past him into the room without asking his leave, and she stood there in the middle of the small space, looking around her. He slowly shut the door, closing them in the same way they’d been in the library. His hands shook as he turned toward her, so he clenched them behind his back so she wouldn’t see.
She met his eyes and there was something different to her stare. Something softer, something warmer.
“Selina?”
“You saved my brother,” she whispered, her voice cracking and barely carrying across the room.
He caught his breath and couldn’t help but stiffen at that declaration. A spoken fact, not a question. “Barber has been talking,” he said with a shake of his head. When she nodded, he said, “I wish he wouldn’t.”
“I’m glad he did,” she said.
He let out a long sigh. “Selina—” he began, but before he could finish, she crossed the distance between them in three long steps, wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a kiss.
He couldn’t resist her, even if he’d wanted to try. But he didn’t want to try. He just wanted this, so he sank into the kiss, angling his mouth to deepen it, exploring her mouth with his tongue, tugging her harder against his chest. Her fingers clenched against the back of his head, driving through his hair, massaging his neck, and he couldn’t control the low moan that exited his lips at the sensation of her touching him.
“We don’t have time to do this,” he whispered against her mouth.
“No, not the way I want to,” she agreed. Then she pushed back away from him and there was that wicked smile again. Intoxicating and maddening as it lit up her face. “But I can do this…”
She punctuated that statement by easing her hand between their bodies and cupping him. She stroked him, once, twice, and his head lolled back almost against his will as he groaned out her name. Pleasure streaked up his cock, into his balls, made his legs shake. It was more powerful than anything he’d ever experienced before.
He realized, somewhere in that fog of sensation, that she was unfastening his fall front. Her fingers closed around his bare flesh, hot and tight and certain as she rubbed him harder. Her mouth found his, her tongue tracing the crease of his lips, her breath hot against his mouth.
Then she stepped away and pointed to a chair. “Sit.”
He blinked, dragged back to reality by the sharp order of a woman he could break with his passion if he wanted to. Except she kept breaking him, this petite sprite. And he liked it.
He sat as she’d asked, slouching a little to give her a place to perch as she fucked him. Only she didn’t take it. She grabbed a pillow from his bed and dropped it between his splayed legs. She kept eye contact with him as she sank to
her knees on the pillow and then leaned up to grab his cock again.
“Selina,” he said, this time with more urgency. Only he couldn’t do anything else because she was just so damned good at what she was doing with those magical fingers. And just when he thought it couldn’t get better, she leaned in and traced the head of him with her tongue.
His eyes flew open and he stared down at her. She was watching him as she circled that pink tongue around and around the sensitive head, wetting him so that the friction of her hand disappeared. And then she took him into her mouth completely and stars burst before his eyes.
She sucked him gently, swirling her tongue over him as she sucked him in long, slow strokes. He found his hips lifting and she accommodated him, drawing him deeper and deeper into her throat as her pace increased. His legs shook, he gripped the armrests of the chair until he feared he could rip them from their moorings, and all the while, he was lost in sensation. Powerful pleasure unlike anything he’d ever felt rocked his cock, his entire body. His heart throbbed, his back arched, the pleasure built, brick by brick, until there was a wall ready to explode.
He lowered a hand against the back of her head and she smiled against his cock, increasing her pace.
“Selina, I’m going to—” he grunted. “I don’t want to make you…”
She ignored his pleas, working him all the harder, and it was too much. It was everything. With a cry in the quiet, he came, his entire body rocking with pleasure. She took every drop of him, continuing to swirl her tongue around the exquisitely sensitive tip of his cock and drawing the intense sensation out further, even long after he’d been drained dry.
Only when he went limp in the chair did she let his cock from her lips with a wet pop and smile up at him. “That was…delicious,” she whispered, and that same cock twitched with the wickedness of this remarkable woman.
“That was outrageous,” he corrected. “I am no monk, but I’ve never come that hard before.”
Triumph crossed her face. “Very good, then I suppose I win a prize.” She pushed to her feet and walked to the basin across the room. She washed her hands and then looked at herself in the mirror where he’d been straightening his cravat earlier. She fiddled with herself, smoothed the fresh wrinkles in her gown.
“I won the prize, darlin’,” he drawled as he got to his feet, testing his shaky legs to make sure he wouldn’t fall over.
She grinned at him in the reflection of the mirror. “Why, Mr. Huntington!”
He cleared his throat as he tucked his cock away and straightened his own clothing. “Why did you talk to Barber about your brother?”
She froze for a beat and then faced him. “I didn’t exactly,” she said softly. “I saw him in the garden and we walked together for a while. The topic came up somewhat naturally. After all, Nicholas is something we share in common.”
“I suppose,” Derrick said, but wasn’t certain of that explanation.
“I met Nicholas when I was eleven.” Her expression was faraway. “He was sixteen and had only just found out that he was one of Roseford’s bastards.”
“Did the previous Roseford introduce you?” Derrick asked, clinging to this moment of vulnerability like a lifeline. She offered him so few of those—she was always on guard.
“No.” Her laugh was brittle. “Certainly not. He didn’t give a damn about any of us. My stepfather told me who Nicholas was, actually. Probably to hurt me.”
Derrick wrinkled his brow, for her pain was just at the surface. Pain and anger. At her father, at her stepfather. And he began to understand, at least a little, why she had said she’d been on her own for most of her life.
“Why would he want to hurt you?” Derrick asked.
Her gaze darted to him, and for a moment wild terror lived in every flicker of her face. He could read it like a book. She’d said too much, revealed too much, everything was dangerous. She would do anything to escape.
“Why does anyone do anything?” she said, her tone back to breezy and without a care. She moved away from the mirror and past him to the fire, where she stared into the flames. “The point is that I later created a situation where I could meet Nicholas. I don’t know what I expected, but he was…he was so kind to me. Like I was his true sister, not just half-blood. He has meant the world to me ever since. And I thank you for saving him. For saving the part of me that would have died with him.”
Derrick let out a shaky breath and moved to her. He caught her shoulder and turned her back toward him. She stared up at him with those hypnotically blue eyes boring into his very soul, and for a wild moment he wished they could stay in this room together forever. Just the two of them. No one else.
“Your brother is the bravest man I’ve had the pleasure of knowing,” he said, his voice low and rough with emotion that always came when he thought of the war and those who had been lost and changed by it. “It was my honor to do even the slightest bit in keeping him alive.”
Her lower lip trembled, and he thought she might talk to him more about herself, about her brother, about the truth that he could see now lived just below her surface. But then she cleared all of that from her expression and instead laughed as she reached up to touch his cravat.
“It looks like I ruined this with my ardor,” she said, and it was apparent all other subjects were now closed.
He tried not to be hurt by that fact and instead smiled down at her as she started to untie the mess of a knot he had created. “I would not allow you to accept the blame for that. I am a notoriously bad cravat tier.”
She smoothed the long swatch of fabric, then lifted up on her toes as she began to rewrap it around his neck. “You could have allowed me to take the blame. I never would have known the difference,” she said softly.
He looked down at her with a laugh. “But that would have been a lie.”
Her brow wrinkled partly in concentration, but he also saw that this subject troubled her. “And you’ve never told one of those in your life?”
He tensed, thinking about his upbringing. His stern parents, obsessed with honor and reputation. To the point they would select reputation over their own son, taking his grandfather’s side when a choice was demanded. “I was raised not to do so. But I’m certain I have.”
She smoothed the cravat gently and then her gaze darted from his. “There you are, Mr. Huntington. Fine as can be.”
He pivoted to the mirror and found she had tied him the perfect knot. Even his valet long ago had not done such a superb job. “Fine as can be,” he repeated.
There was a jingle of a bell in the distance, and she looked up at him with a smile. “And there is the bell to call us all to supper. We must go.”
“May I…” He hesitated. “May I escort you, Selina?” He held out his elbow as he asked.
She stared at the outstretched arm, focused intently. Then she lifted her gaze to his and nodded. “Yes.”
She slipped her fingers into the crook of his elbow and he guided her from the room, first being careful that no one would see them in such a compromising position. And it had compromised a great deal at that. Her perceived virtue, both of their positions in the household…and the precarious hold he still had on control.
“He’s very handsome.”
Selina jolted from her distracted state, staring down the long supper table toward Derrick, and glanced toward the lady at her side. The Duchess of Crestwood, Meg as she insisted all her friends call her, was smiling at her with a knowing expression.
“Who?” Selina said, but her tone was weak, indeed. She’d been caught ogling the man who had imbued her every fantasy with life since his arrival here.
How could he not, after what they’d shared? Those moments before supper had been highly charged. Even now she could feel the hard, heavy weight of him in her mouth, taste him on her tongue, the sounds of his moans were still loud in her ears. She had loved stealing his tightly wound control with her mouth and her hands.
She’d liked even more the way he look
ed at her after it was over. With passion and desire, of course. But with more than that. He looked at her like she was a fully formed person, a rare thing in the world of men. So rare that she had gotten away with stealing under their noses.
That fact sobered her.
“Mr. Derrick Huntington,” Meg responded softly. “But you know who I mean. You are just playing coy with me. It is your business, of course, but he is quite the catch.”
“I’m not trying to catch anyone, Your Grace,” Selina muttered as the footman took their plates away in preparation for the final course.
The duchess nodded slowly. “Yes. You are very independent.”
“Is that a slur in your mind?” Selina asked.
“Not at all!” Meg set her fork down and pivoted slightly to face her. “Gracious, I have nothing but admiration for your self-sufficiency. I suppose it is a failing of our group of duchesses. We’re all deliriously happy in our marriages, so we are always looking for ways to marry everyone else off.”
“I do not think you would be very successful in marrying me off,” Selina said with a smile to her companion, because she liked the duchess quite a bit. She’d watched Meg go through a scandal with her head held high and continue to fight for anyone bullied or treated badly. “And…yes. Mr. Huntington is very, very handsome.”
Meg laughed. “And it never hurts to look.”
Selina tipped her glass toward her. “That is something I can drink to.”
They clinked their glasses, and for a moment Selina’s humor improved. Until, that was, her gaze flitted past Derrick and found Lady Winford. She and her husband were chatting with the Duke and Duchess of Sheffield. That kind couple did not look pleased with the results in the least, but they were managing out of politeness.
Selina’s gaze drifted to the countess’s neck. She wasn’t wearing the Breston necklace. Not yet, at any rate. Her palms itched at the thought of the piece. It was the reason she was here, after all. It was easy to forget that when Derrick touched her, but it remained true.
The Heart of a Hellion Page 12
