The Heart of a Hellion

by Jess Michaels

  And then he pulled away and she felt his cock at her entrance. She pushed back, forcing him to the hilt as he grunted out a curse that echoed in the room. He gripped her hips, digging his fingers in hard enough that she would surely bruise, and then he fucked her. Hard. Fast.

  She continued to touch herself, gripping him, grinding against him and her own fingers, and the third orgasm nearly caused her to lose consciousness. She pushed her face into the pillow, screaming as her entire body convulsed, milking him. He let out a low moan and then he was gone from her twitching body, his hot seed splashing across her lower back as he came with a trembling cry.

  He collapsed over her, his sweat mingling with her own, his arms hard and strong around her, his mouth against hers as they panted together in sated bliss.

  She allowed herself to relax into him, let her breath match his. This wouldn’t last. She knew it. But she was going to bloody well enjoy every moment until the last.

  He left hours later, in the middle of the dark night, sneaking from her bed with whispered promises and heated kisses. And as her door closed, Selina snuggled into her covers, reveling in the beauty of what they’d shared. It had been perfect and lovely and unforgettable. It had changed her, but she could accept that change because it was for the better. She would never again be the Selina she’d been before that night.

  She didn’t want to be.

  She was about to lean over to snuff out the candle he’d lit to help him find all his scattered clothing when the door to the adjoining chamber came open. Vale stood there, leaning in the jamb, staring at her.

  “Well, that took long enough,” she murmured.

  Selina felt heat flood her cheeks and tucked the sheets higher around her breasts as she struggled to a seated position. “Please tell me you weren’t sitting in that room listening to us the whole time.”

  One of Vale’s fine eyebrows arched. “Why? Are there things you told him that you wouldn’t want me to know?”

  “I could ask you the same,” Selina returned. “I know you spoke to him about me. Enough so that he had a lot of pointed questions about you. About me and our past.”

  Vale’s brow lowered. “He had questions about me after I spoke to him?”

  “Yes.” Selina let out an exasperated breath. “Which you shouldn’t have done at all, Vale.”

  Vale speared her with a glare. “Well, he snuck into your chamber and found me there. What was I supposed to do? Blush and bow away and leave it at that?”

  “Yes!” Selina pushed from the bed and grabbed for a dressing gown she’d draped across the back of her chair a few hours before. “That would be more fitting a servant.”

  “I’m not your bloody servant,” Vale snapped.

  Selina was brought up short by the sharpness of her partner’s words and pivoted to face her. She’d known Vale a long time. Even before they began working together. Vale had a bite to her. A hardness that could cut or maim if the other woman wished it to.

  When it flashed, it was instant and heated. But it was always short-lived. Vale could erase the anger from her face with a blink, just as she had now that she had aimed that anger at Selina. It was gone from her face, leaving impassive boredom in its wake.

  What Selina had never understood was whether Vale continued to stoke the anger in her chest in those moments or truly let it go.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, reaching for Vale’s hand. Her friend allowed her to take it. “I’m not trying to imply you are my servant. But he thinks you are. Everyone here does.”

  “I suppose you are correct,” Vale said. “But you must know how dangerous he is if he’s turned his investigative mind to you and to me.”

  Selina worried her lip. Yes, when she thought of Derrick, she thought dangerous. Just not in the way Vale thought it. But it wouldn’t do to reveal that to her partner. She had to be managed, manipulated. Good thing that was Selina’s specialty.

  “That mind was easily turned away by my bedding him,” Selina said, and the fact that it was true stung. She’d bedded him because she wanted him. And yet part of her knew that it had also been to control him.

  And she hated how that fact tainted those powerful moments between them.

  “There may not be a way to fuck him every time he suspects something about us,” Vale said softly.

  “But—”

  “No!” Vale’s tone grew sharp again. “No buts, Selina. This is threatening us both. You were supposed to get that necklace tonight from Lady Winford, but you didn’t. I’ve never known you to miss your shot when you took it.”

  Selina shifted. Christ, she didn’t want to have this conversation right now. Not when she was still warm and tingling from the night with Derrick. The pleasure faded with every moment she talked to Vale, replaced by cold, hard realities she didn’t want to face just yet.

  “I mistimed the entry, that is all,” Selina said. Lied. After all, it had been her distraction that had kept her from her quarry as much as bad timing. “The maids haven’t gone into the room until ten-thirty for a few nights, so I assumed it was their pattern. Tonight they were in at ten-fifteen.”

  Vale folded her arms, and Selina could tell she was wary of that explanation. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to end up transported. And friend or not, I’m not going down with you.”

  Selina flinched. “I’d never ask you to.”

  Vale crossed the room to her and caught her hands. Her expression gentled at last. “If I’m hard on you, it’s because I’m worried. Let’s get Lady Winford’s necklace and get out. Stop pretending there’s something in this world for you, in this family. Stop getting seduced by handsome investigators or some vision that you could ever be truly accepted by the duke and his wife.”

  Selina bit her lip hard enough that she tasted the faint hint of blood. It was better to have that physical pain than the emotional one Vale was causing with her words. After all, she wasn’t wrong, was she? Selina didn’t belong here. And if any of the people who claimed to care for her ever found out what she truly was…

  Well, they wouldn’t love her anymore, would they?

  “I know,” she whispered.

  Vale sighed. “I hope you do. Now I’m going to bed.”

  Selina kept her back to her friend as she slipped past her and left the room. When she was alone again, she lifted her hands to cover her face. Vale had only said exactly what she had to hear. Only reminded her of what she already knew deep in her heart.

  That this place, that these people…they were all an illusion. And reality was that she was the Faceless Fox.

  But it was also that the moment she took the necklace, every dream she’d been living in would be over. And there was a place deep within her chest that didn’t want that moment to come.

  Chapter 15

  Derrick stared at the pages of the journal before him and the list he had begun to compile in it. Although the list had to do with his investigation, he was not writing it in an official capacity or within the pages of the reports he and Barber were keeping. This was his private journal.

  He frowned at the handful of items in the list. What was he doing? That was the question of the week, it seemed. And could be addressed to a dozen circumstances. What was he doing hiding this information from Barber, his partner and friend? What was he doing asking these questions? What was he doing going to Selina Oliver’s room and taking her until her legs shook?

  What was he doing leaving afterward instead of staying with her until dawn, until noon, until a new year, until a new decade?

  He shook his head. His mind felt like a maze and he a helpless rat trying to find its way to the goal. Only he didn’t know what the goal was and the maze kept changing.

  “Mr. Huntington?”

  He jolted at the sound of a voice at the door and looked up to find the Duchess of Roseford standing there, watching him.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said as he lunged to his feet. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I tried saying your name a handful o
f times.”

  Derrick blinked. In his profession, it was dangerous not to always be aware of one’s surroundings, and this woman had managed to surprise him without even meaning to do it. That was how distracted he was. How compromised.

  “I should be the one to apologize, Your Grace. I was obviously overly involved in my work.” He motioned her into the makeshift office the Duke of Roseford had provided for them during their stay here.

  “I had forgotten what a pretty view of the stables this room has,” the duchess said as she moved to the window and looked out over the expanse of green outside. “I hope it is a comfortable space for you and Mr. Barber.”

  “It is, Your Grace,” he said with an inclination of his head. “And a very kind offer from you and your husband that we be allowed to use it. I happen to agree about the view. I do love watching your man train the horses in the paddock there.”

  She smiled as she fully faced him. She was a truly lovely woman with her dark hair and bright eyes. She had a kind face, open and welcoming, never judging. He understood why Roseford had fallen in love with her, for both her external and internal beauty.

  “Was there something you needed, Your Grace?” he asked, trying to refocus on matters at hand.

  “Yes.” She sighed and trouble flickered across that face now. An emotion she wasn’t capable of covering any more than any of the others. “I had rather hoped you and Mr. Barber would be together.”

  “Barber is currently…” He cut himself off. The lady might know the generalities of his investigation, but there was no reason to inform her of the specifics and frighten her. “He’s in the middle of something. But I promise I will share whatever you tell me with him.”

  She nodded. “Of course. This morning one of Lady Winford’s maids approached our housekeeper with an item she had found in her mistress’s chamber while she was making the bed. A glove, Mr. Huntington, but not one belonging to Lady Winford.”

  She dug into her pelisse pocket and withdrew a long, white satin glove, and held it out. Derrick stared at it a fraction of a moment, his heart sinking. He didn’t want to touch it. He didn’t want to take it, but he had no choice. The satin caressed his fingers as he whispered, “I see.”

  “Now, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t think much of it,” the duchess said, her face drawn and lips pinched. “Laundry sometimes is done together in the washroom and items are mixed up, someone could have dropped it and it was mistakenly returned to the wrong room, a dozen other scenarios I cannot think of in the moment. And perhaps those reasons are still valid. But since you and Mr. Barber are here to investigate someone wanting to steal from Lady Winford, there are also more sinister explanations, so I thought it important to turn the item over to you.”

  Derrick nodded. Everything the duchess said, every other explanation rang true. They could have been the answer to almost any other item of clothing being misplaced in Lady Winford’s chamber.

  But they didn’t explain this one. Because he recognized the glove. He had peeled it and its partner from Selina’s slender hands not twelve hours before. He peeked surreptitiously in the inside lining when the duchess bent her head, and there were the initials he’d seen the night before that confirmed he was correct.

  Selina’s glove found in Lady Winford’s chamber. She’d had them both when he seduced her, so the only time this one could have been left there was after he departed her bed in the middle of the night. Not left by a laundress or lost by a careless partygoer.

  He swallowed and pushed the glove into his pocket. “You are right, it is probably nothing,” he choked out. “But I appreciate you bringing it to me. Barber and I will look into it.”

  That was a lie. He had no intention of showing Barber the glove. Just as he had no intention of sharing the list he would add the glove to as evidence. The one in his journal that organized every tiny shred of evidence that could possibly prove Selina was the Faceless Fox, not some bored nobleman or angry footman.

  Selina. His Selina.

  “Was that all, Your Grace?” He heard the tension in his voice, but hoped the duchess didn’t know him well enough to hear it too.

  She shifted and her smile grew a little tighter. “I suppose it isn’t, especially since Mr. Barber isn’t here.”

  His heart dropped. God, had the duchess guessed the glove was Selina’s too? Was she suspecting her sister-in-law, as well? What would that do to their family? To the fragile bonds he could see Selina creating with her brother and his wife?

  “You have been spending a great deal of time with my sister-in-law, Mr. Huntington,” she said at last. “I would be remiss as a friend to her and a guardian of sorts if I didn’t speak to you about it.”

  He blinked as those words sank in. This wasn’t about the Fox at all. The duchess was inquiring about intentions. And that was just as fraught a conversation, wasn’t it? What were his bloody intentions beyond merely stripping Selina naked and pleasuring her until they were both sated? That was as far as he’d ever taken it in his mind, never allowing for more, no matter how she captivated or tormented or matched him.

  And now he had to take into account his suspicions, as well. His poor mind was more of a jumble than ever.

  “Mr. Huntington?” Her tone was more concerned.

  He shook his head. “I apologize, Your Grace,” he said. “I suppose I should have been expecting this line of questioning. I just assumed it would come from the duke.”

  The duchess laughed. “Robert is observant about a great many things, but with relationships it’s sometimes impossible for him to see what is right in front of him.”

  “And you haven’t pointed this out to him,” he said.

  She inclined her head. “Not yet. If I do, he’ll decide to become protective, and that might not be the best course of action. I’m trying to determine what that is myself.”

  “Well…” Derrick shifted. “I think I would be a fool to deny that Miss Oliver and I have become friends since my arrival here.” He drew a long breath to calm his heart and make himself use his skills to read her. “Do you disapprove?”

  There was a hint of a smile that tilted the corner of her lips, a brighter quality to her expression. Happiness, joy. She liked the idea of Selina having someone show an interest. She liked the idea that it was him.

  And his heart, regardless of everything else, warmed. The expression said a future with Selina could be accepted by her family. Immediately he regretted the feeling. What future could they have?

  “I don’t,” she said softly. Her mouth twisted. “I wonder how much she’s told you about…” She trailed off. “Selina hasn’t always had the…the easiest life.”

  Derrick caught his breath as he thought of Selina’s offhand comment that she had been alone for a long time. Her similar suggestion that in her world loyalty was hard to come by. Both those statements were on his list of reasons to suspect her, but they also sat heavy in his heart.

  What had happened to her to make her think and feel those things?

  It was as if the duchess read his mind. She shook her head slightly. “That is her story to tell, not mine, but the crux of it is that she shouldn’t have had to endure what she did. Perhaps she hasn’t always made good choices because of it. But I think she deserves happiness and joy and love more than anyone I’ve ever known. She deserves a future.”

  Derrick stared at his hands, clenched before him. “A future,” he repeated. “I cannot tell you that I know the future, Your Grace.” He waved around the room at the piles of paperwork, evidence. “Obviously, I have a complicated life.”

  “Everyone has a complicated life, Mr. Huntington,” the duchess said with a soft smile. “If I’ve learned anything in the past few years, it’s that. Even the duke and I had a rather fraught past.”

  “You did?” He could not hide his surprise at such a notion. The two always seemed in such perfect accord, it was hard to imagine them otherwise.

  She laughed. “Oh yes. Before we married, I despised
Robert. I might have even wanted a little revenge on him.”

  His eyes went wide and he stared at her. “What?” He shook his head. “I beg your pardon, that was rude of me.”

  She shrugged. “I brought it up. And it’s true. I thought him the devil. And he is, as he’ll proudly tell you if you ask him. But he’s not the devil I once thought him to be.” Her expression softened. “And he is my heart.”

  Derrick shifted. He’d heard other friends in love describe their objects of affection as being their heart. It had never rung true to him before. The heart had always been a muscle to him, an organ. It was only poetry that labeled it as more.

  But something had shifted in him. When the duchess said it, it felt more real to him, both because he had observed her with her husband and also because he was beginning to understand the concept. Selina was making him a convert.

  And he suspected her of being a thief.

  He rubbed his eyes, wishing he could scrub away his doubts as easily.

  The duchess took a step in his direction. “All I’m trying to say is that complicated is not insurmountable. But only if you decide to overcome it.”

  “Yes,” Derrick said softly, for there was nothing else to say.

  She shook her head. “Don’t mind me, Mr. Huntington. I’m a romantic at heart and I like you. It makes me a bit more meddling than perhaps I should be.”

  He forced a smile for her to ease her mind. “That you like me means a great deal, Your Grace. It’s obvious you’re an excellent judge of character. And I do appreciate, once again, all of your assistance and that of the duke.”

  She held his gaze a beat, then inclined her head. “I should leave you to your work. If you’ll excuse me.”

  He gave a slight bow. “Good day, Your Grace.”

  She slipped from the room, leaving him alone once more. He moved to the window and stared out again at the stables and the training yard and the endless green grass of the grounds, but he hardly saw any of it now. Not when there was so much weighing on him. Selina’s glove. Selina’s heart. Selina, Selina, Selina.