Ben stared doubtfully at me.
It was a story as old as Cain and Abel, but Ben was an only child. He’d never been shown up by a sibling or made to feel second-rate, and I was too proud to admit my own jealousy of Helen simply to convince him. “You may scoff all you like,” I said airily, “but I’m going to Bow Street with this notebook and my suspicions.”
“I realize you want to clear your sister, but I can’t let you do it by pointing the finger of suspicion at John.” Ben stretched out a hand. “Give me the notebook.”
My mouth fell open. “Give it to you? Why should I do that? Finders, keepers!”
“You’re not taking it to Bow Street, Barbara.”
I stuck the notebook behind my back. “Well, I’m certainly not giving it to you. Find your own clues. This one’s mine.”
Instead of growing angry, Ben stared back at me, his lips quirking slightly. A twinkle in his clear gray eyes announced he took the vehemence of my refusal as a challenge. “I could always take it by force, you know.”
A little thrill went through me at the note in his voice—half threat, half cajolery—but I merely scoffed, “Ha!” Surely he wouldn’t dare.
His smile widening, Ben stepped closer, and only conscious effort kept me from moving backward in retreat. “You don’t think I could?”
Having felt the iron muscles under his coat in the cupboard the night before, I had every certainty he could take the notebook from me without turning a hair. But I raised my chin and said with false bravado, “No, I don’t. If you so much as try, I’ll scream.”
His eyes danced. “And bring the whole house running to discover us alone in your bedroom? I don’t think so.” In a move as quick and fluid as a panther’s, he reached around me and seized the wrist I’d thrust behind my back.
“Oh!” I was so surprised he’d actually dared—and that he’d moved in so close, my breasts were crushed against his chest—sheer instinct made me whack him solidly with my free hand.
He immediately dodged away, lifting a hand to his temple. “Ow.”
I sprang toward him in horror, realizing my blow must have landed in the same spot where he’d been shot that afternoon. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—”
Ben made a grab for the notebook, wresting it from my hand. “Got it!”
So that bid for sympathy had been nothing but a trick? And I’d believed him. What a devious, underhanded thing to do. With a strangled cry, I threw myself on him, furious.
Ben lifted the notebook aloft, too high for me to reach. Straining to snatch it back, I ended up pressed against him from knees almost to shoulders. My thighs were against his hard thighs, my bosom all but flattened against the unyielding wall of his chest. With not even the thickness of petticoats between us, every lean, muscular inch of him seemed to scorch through my nightclothes. I’d never before been face-to-face with a man this close—even in the cupboard, it had been too dark and too cramped to know with certainty exactly what was where—and the startling intimacy of it struck me so forcibly that for one flustered second, I left off fighting in surprise. He seemed so big and strong and unmistakably male.
Fortunately, I snapped out of it before he could realize how badly he’d rattled me. Ashamed of my momentary weakness, I began pummeling his chest and shoulders with my fists. “Give it back!”
He plucked me off him as if I weighed no more than a feather, holding the notebook out of my reach with one hand while setting me at arm’s length with the other. “Uh-uh-uh,” he chided. “I got it, fair and square.”
“You call that fair?” I lunged against his restraining hand, struggling breathlessly to get at the notebook. “Just because you’re stronger than I am doesn’t give you the right to have your way in everything.”
He grinned as his sleepy gray eyes raked up and down the length of me. “Now, now. You wouldn’t want me to think you a sore loser, would you?”
Too late I realized that, without my stays, my struggles were giving my bosom a decidedly unladylike jiggle. His smug amusement only added to my anger. How dare he overpower me? How dare he make me feel more laughable than I already was? And how ridiculous I must look, dressed in a tatty old nightgown and an even tattier wrapper, struggling futilely against this handsome, arrogant and prodigiously stronger son of a duke.
Suddenly something my brother Jack had taught me flashed into my head, a surefire method of self-defense in case a man should ever try to force unwelcome attentions on me. Use it only as a last resort, Jack had warned me solemnly. Well, if Ben could stoop to dirty tricks, so could I.
“Fine.” I tossed up my hands. “You win.”
Ben looked faintly surprised and perhaps even a little disappointed that I’d given up so easily, but he immediately let me go. “Good, because I wouldn’t want—”
I brought my leg up sharply, kneeing him in the groin.
It worked like magic. Ben doubled over instantly. The next thing I knew, he was hunched over with one hand on the bedpost, literally gasping in pain.
Despite what Jack had told me, I hadn’t expected the tactic to work that well. At first I wondered if it was another of Ben’s tricks. But the notebook had slipped forgotten from his hands, and the choked sounds he was making certainly sounded like real pain.
“Unhhh,” he groaned.
I stooped to retrieve the notebook, eyeing him askance. Suffering contorted his face. “Are you all right?”
“Oh, God...uhhhh...” He gasped for a few more seconds before he managed to straighten, grimacing. “I can’t believe you...” He groaned again and eased himself down to a seat on the bed. “Are you mad? Do you have any notion how much that hurts?”
I regarded him with my hands on my hips. “If you’re going to resort to superior strength, you have to expect me to seize whatever tactical advantage I can.”
“At least I was taking care not to hurt you.” Wincing, he shook his head in bewilderment. “What’s wrong with you? It was only a game. A silly, childish game.”
Something about the way he said it—What’s wrong with you?—made me want to snap back, You started it! But he looked sincerely confounded, and only moments before he’d been gasping in pain. Under his thick, dark hair, I could even make out the place where he’d been shot that afternoon. In a flash all the fight went out of me, replaced by a stab of remorse.
Papa had been right when he’d said Ben and I would add up to a regular Punch and Judy show, and it was all my fault. I’d never been a gracious loser. I hated for anyone to get the better of me. My brother Will had once joked that he was afraid to poke me in the ribs with a finger for fear I would come back at him with a bayonet. Why did I have to insist on winning every skirmish? Just now, I’d known the scuffle with Ben was merely a game, yet I’d treated it like a fight to the death. Why couldn’t I simply let things go now and then?
Chastened, I sat down gingerly beside him on the bed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize...”
“You know, there’s a reason they call it a low blow.”
“Yes, I see that now.” I sat in repentant silence for a time before meeting his eye. “I don’t know what came over me, except that we were fighting and you were so much better at it than I was and—”
“Stop calling it a fight,” he said with a grimace. “Good God, do you seriously think I go about strong-arming females?”
“I wasn’t thinking at all. I was too furious for that. It seemed unfair that you should be that much bigger and stronger than I am.” I shook my head, appalled at myself. “I know I overreacted, but when I feel pushed to the wall, I have to push back. I can’t help it. I’m not sure why, except—well, things seem to come so easily for other girls, while I’ve always had to fight tooth and nail for the slightest advantage.”
Instantly, I wanted to bite my tongue. I wasn’t just speaking of our silly tussle. I meant all the injustices in my life—Cliburne and Helen and what my father had said at dinner tonight. Pretty, soft-hearted girls might be spoiled and cosseted
and showered with affection, but their no-nonsense sisters never were. I had to stand up for myself. No one else was going to stand up for me.
I’d never intended to admit my feelings, though, and certainly not with such a note of self-pity in my voice. And to make such a humbling confession to Ben, of all people... Why must I pour out my insecurities to him? I never said such things to anyone else. But Ben was the first man I’d ever met who seemed to take my outspokenness in stride instead of making me feel hopelessly unfeminine.
The tightening of his jaw was the only acknowledgment he made of what I’d said, but it seemed to me his aggrieved air eased.
“I’m sorry,” I said for the second time.
“I’m sorry too,” he replied after a pause. “I am bigger than you. It just never occurred to me you might see what we were doing as anything but a bit of foolish larking about. I mean, if I’d really wanted to take advantage, I could have—”
I searched his face. “You could have what?”
To my surprise, he slipped one hand behind my head and gently pulled me to him, his lips coming down to meet mine. I was so astonished, I...well, I went completely limp. There’s no other way to describe it. What other reason would I have to let him kiss me that way? Why else would I have leaned into him, practically melting into his embrace?
I’m so weak, I thought dizzily. He knew I was only bluffing when I told him I’d scream...
His lips were gentle at first, but they quickly grew surer and more insistent when I didn’t push him away. His hand in my hair caressed my scalp. My heavens, but he knew how to kiss. He was such a prodigy, even my bones seemed to be dissolving into liquid.
A blissful eternity passed before Ben lifted his head, his heavy-lidded eyes smoky. “I could have done that.”
I gulped. He’d certainly proven his point. Though temporarily I might manage to gain the upper hand, he had the power to vanquish me in the end. Lacking the strength to pull free, I simply sighed and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Oh, Ben...”
At this sign of surrender, he grinned and kissed me again.
Years before, at Miss Pritchard’s Academy, I’d tried to prepare for my first kiss by practicing on a pillow. The attempts had been both disappointing and sadly uninstructive. My pillow hadn’t had strong arms that wrapped around me and held me tightly. My pillow hadn’t groaned almost imperceptibly when I wiggled against it. It hadn’t smelled like almond shaving soap or had breath that quickened as the kiss went on. Most of all, my pillow hadn’t kissed me back.
Since then, I’d been kissed twice, once by a friend’s brother during a house party and once by a slightly drunken escort during a drive home from the opera, but neither time had been anything like this. Ben bore me slowly backward on the bed. Propped on his elbows, his weight pressing me down into the feather mattress, he opened his mouth. Though I’d never kissed that way before, I eagerly followed his lead. It was the single most thrilling moment of my life—the clean, manly scent of him, the heaviness of his body atop mine, the slightly rough wool of his evening clothes against my bare skin, and most of all, his astonishing, breathtaking expertise.
His tongue stroked mine, sending a shock of pleasure through me. He slid a hand inside my wrapper, cupping my breast through the thin linen of my nightgown. On the fringes of my conscience I knew I ought to stop him, but when would such an Adonis ever hold me this way again?
It’s just a game, I reminded myself. A bit of foolish larking about. Lending the proceedings an air of perfect unreality, the clock in the passage outside my room began to chime midnight, as if I were in a fairy tale and kissing Ben were part of the enchantment.
Despite the earlier low blow, he’d clearly made a quick recovery, for his anatomy worked like a charm. For the second time in the two days I’d known him, his erection strained against me. In the cupboard I’d jumped away, but this time I pressed closer, tilting my pelvis up to his.
It all left me panting, so that between kisses I could only gasp for air. He dropped his head, spreading the neck of my nightgown wider, kissing the spot where the swell of one breast began. “God, you have the most amazing—”
But I never did learn what it was he found amazing, for in midsentence I let out a yelp and shoved hard at his shoulders.
He jerked back, his expression a mixture of irritation and surprise. “What the devil—?”
I stabbed a frantic finger over his shoulder. “There—look! Someone’s watching us!”
Ben turned his head, following the line of my accusing finger, and evidently saw the same thing I did. There was a tiny opening in my bedroom wall, a peephole that remained illuminated for only a second longer before whoever had been spying on us snuffed out his candle, extinguishing the pinpoint of light that had first caught my eye.
Ben jumped to his feet, instantly in battle mode. “Who has the room on the other side of that wall?”
I scrambled to pull my nightclothes back into order, my thoughts in confusion. “No one. It used to be Helen’s room, but she moved to the larger bedchamber across the corridor after my brother Rowland left to set up his own establishment.”
Ben snatched up the candle on the mantel and charged for the door.
“Wait!” I called after him sotto voce, terrified he’d rouse the rest of the house.
Ben kept going. He forged so quickly for the door that the resulting draft blew out the candle he was carrying, plunging the room into darkness. As I groped for the tinderbox and spare candle on my bedside table, Ben’s footsteps pounded toward the room next door.
My hands shook as I fumbled blindly with the flint. I heard an inarticulate exclamation from the other side of the wall, then the muffled thud of something—a body?—hitting the floor.
Abandoning the tinderbox altogether, I dashed out into the blackness of the passage just as a looming figure came barreling out of the unoccupied bedroom. He shoved me roughly aside as he made his escape, sending me sprawling. My feet went out from under me, and I landed so hard that the fall momentarily knocked the air from my lungs.
I gulped in a ragged breath and struggled to my hands and knees. My heart pounded in terror as I groped for the open door. “Ben?” I croaked into the darkness.
There was no reply.
Chapter Ten
Ben
When I came to, my head was in Barbara’s lap. It was a devilishly agreeable way to regain consciousness, really, given that her russet hair was hanging loose about her shoulders, she was dressed in soft, sheer nightclothes, and my face was only inches from her bosom. Unfortunately, the pounding in my head kept me from fully appreciating this stroke of good fortune as it deserved.
“Damnation,” I said aloud. “Don’t tell me I was shot again.”
She’d been gnawing her lower lip, but at this she broke into a smile of such relief, one might have thought she’d been waiting expressly for me to wake up and curse at her. “No, this time you were ambushed and hit over the head with a cricket bat. But you’ve been out for nearly five minutes. Just a few seconds longer, and I would have cast my reputation to the winds and gone for a doctor.”
It all came back to me then—receiving her letter and making up my mind to see her in person, her theory that my cousin John had killed the footman, the tantalizing glimpses her open robe had afforded of her long legs and high, full breasts, our brief wrestling match over the notebook...and then that glorious interval of kissing her on her bed.
Though perhaps I’d only dreamed those kisses. This was Barbara, after all—stubborn, unpredictable, independent Barbara. Surely she couldn’t really taste that sweet, or be that thrillingly soft and eager.
I had no idea how far things would have gone if the Peeping Tom hadn’t intervened. Even now, I could feel the dull ache of unsatisfied desire. Or was that merely a reminder of earlier, when she’d kneed me in the stones?
I winced and sat up. The room seemed to pitch and roll, but I got the better of the sensation, moving to sit with my back against the wall
. “Is my head bleeding?”
“It’s stopped now, but it was.” She glanced down at her lap, and I saw I’d left bloodstains on the front of her nightclothes.
“Sorry about that,” I said, and she blushed rosily. “I suppose whoever hit me got away?”
“I’m afraid so. He knocked me down on his way out, and by the time I’d picked myself up, struck a light and made sure you weren’t in any immediate danger of giving up the ghost, he was long gone.”
He’d knocked her down? My hands balled into fists. I’d see he paid for that. “Did you get a good look at him?”
She shook her head. “I have the impression he was tall and dressed in black, but it was so dark and it all happened so quickly, I’m not even certain of that much. I could kick myself for not getting a better look. Judging from the way he hit you from behind, I assume our Peeping Tom and Sam’s killer are one and the same man.” She studied my face, her own pinched with worry. “Is your head very painful?”
It was throbbing, and I knew I was going to have a thundering headache in the morning to go with the ache in my bollocks, but perhaps I could convince my mother I was only suffering from a few drinks too many. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the wall behind me. “It’s not so bad.”
“Good.” She rose. “Then if you can manage without me for a minute or two, I mean to run downstairs to see if anyone else spotted your attacker.”
I caught her by the wrist. “No, don’t. He may still be in the house. I’ll go.” I made to climb to my feet, but a wave of dizziness hit me. The room tilted violently, sending me toppling back against the wall.
Barbara leaped to take my arm and ease me back to a seat on the floor. “You’re in no condition to negotiate the stairs. Even if you were, you can’t go roaming about the house as if you own the place. Anyone might see you, and I don’t just mean the intruder.”
Alyssa Everett Page 11
