Scoundrel in My Dreams

by Celeste Bradley

  She bristled like a blue-eyed little hedgehog. It always made him smile.

  “And what, pray tell, is wrong with Lord Byron’s work?” She made a grab for the novel.

  “Sentimental twaddle!” He waved the book out of her reach.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Well, it’s my sentimental twaddle. Give it to me.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You adore Byron, I’m sure. All silly little girls adore Byron.”

  She folded her arms, her lips pursed. Still, Jack knew he had not gone too far, for her eyes were sparkling. “What do I have to do to get my book back?”

  Jack tugged on the dark braid that lay carelessly over her shoulder.

  If he weren’t already engaged to her sister, he might have asked for a kiss. Just in fun, simply to make Laurel blush, of course.

  “Let’s see. I could make you pick me an apple from the top of the highest tree in the orchard. . . .”

  She raised a brow. “The apples are not yet ripe, my lord. Of course, since green apples will make you sick, I shall be happy to pick as many as you’d like.”

  “Vindictive wench,” he accused fondly. “Perhaps . . . I could have you steal a bone from the cur that guards the gatehouse?”

  She fluttered her eyelids. “Of course, my lord. Patches is a dear friend of mine and will gladly share a bone with you. I look forward to watching you gnaw the dirty thing.”

  His laughter made her smile, and for a single moment he saw a foreshadowing of a beauty that would make Amaryllis’s touted splendor fade from any man’s memory. Good lord, what a stunner!

  Enough play.

  He put the book back into her hands but kept his grip on it. “Please, tell me you only intend to read this poem steeped in the irony in which it was surely written?”

  She released the book with a half smile. “Look at page twenty-nine.”

  Curious, he flipped the book open and paged to that passage. In the margins he saw a precise, penciled note. He squinted at the tiny writing as he read aloud. “ ‘Doesn’t anyone else realize that Byron is chock-full of—?’ ” Jack blinked and raised a brow. “Nice young ladies don’t use that word!”

  Laurel slipped the book from his hands and clasped it innocently to her flat bosom. “Did I say I wrote that?” Then she strolled away to the sound of his admiring laughter echoing in the hall. She cast him one last flashing smile over her shoulder before she turned the corner.

  Jack’s own smile faded abruptly. “Damn.” He rubbed his face with one hand. “When the lads catch on, it’s going to be hip deep in suitors around here.”

  Lucky lads.

  Now, standing in the dark attic, with the circle of candlelight showing him only a glimpse of delicate cheekbone and round, pale shoulder, Jack could scarcely remember the man he’d been—yet he could recall every word he’d ever spoken to Laurel.

  How could he have pretended he didn’t notice her? How could he have pursued empty-headed Amaryllis and let such a treasure lie unclaimed?

  Yet he had claimed her, hadn’t he? He’d known it was Laurel the moment he’d touched her, tasted her, enveloped himself within her—yet such was the power of willful self-delusion that he’d walked away from her thinking that his life was over because her sister didn’t want him.

  Laurel’s hair was down, and the heavy curling length of it flowed over the piled bedding and trailed over one nearly bare shoulder.

  Bare? Yes, but for a tiny muslin cap sleeve, her shoulder was bare. Where was her gown? Ah, hanging on a peg on the wall. Jack pulled the hideous thing down. Laurel should never wear black. Like Amaryllis, she was too alabaster. She needed color to warm her skin and set off her rich dark hair. Black was the color of death, of mourning.

  I mourned my daughter! I shall never mourn my parents. Never!

  Thoughtfully, Jack hefted the dull, black gown. No, there was no need for black. Laurel should wear all the colors of spring, for all the springs she’d missed in her despair.

  For all the springs his actions had caused her to miss.

  Laurel woke to the faint scent of beeswax in the room. Impossible. Jack had left her no candles. Her chamber was as dark as a tomb in the late night hour.

  Crossing the distance to the wall with her hands held out before her, she felt for her gown. There was nothing there.

  Frantically she swept her hands back and forth. Finding the peg and feeling it empty, she felt for the others and found them empty, too.

  She kicked her bare foot into her valise. Had she packed it instead? Dropping into a crouch, she ran her hands over her valise. Open?

  Open and very nearly empty.

  Both of her gowns were gone.

  She shivered as the walls of her prison seemed to close about her in the darkness. How had he known? Had Melody innocently told him of the key?

  The key! It still hung from its ribbon about her neck, warm from her body heat, clunking against her breastbone.

  She wrapped her fingers about it, gripping fiercely. “To hell with you, Lord Jack Redgrave!” she muttered furiously. “I’ll run naked if I must!”

  The midnight silence was so complete that Laurel’s own heartbeat throbbed in her ears. She’d crept from her attic room by feel, the remains of her belongings in the valise clasped tightly in her fist. Now at the bottom of the attic stairs, she waited with her ear pressed to the door, listening. After several minutes—and then a few more!—of not a sound heard, she pushed at the latch and let herself into the hallway. Two shielded sconces held low-burning candles, just enough to cast a dim light. It seemed bright to her eyes.

  The room just to her left was the one she’d heard Melody calling from. Before approaching it, she took a moment to lift the glass chimney from the closest sconce and pilfer the candle stub. Armed with light, she swallowed and stepped closer to the door.

  Jack would likely be inside. She couldn’t allow herself to be distracted from her mission and she couldn’t allow anyone, not even Jack, to stop her. She would steal enough of his clothing to get her outside; then she could buy a gown when the shops opened. She hated to part with a penny unnecessarily, but a gown could hardly be considered a luxury at this point.

  Stop nattering to yourself and open the blasted door.

  Taking a deep breath, she pushed the latch and slowly swung the door open. Thankfully the hinges didn’t make a squeak and she was able to cast the light of her candle slowly about the room to get her bearings.

  It was a sitting room, cozy and overstuffed, although oddly cluttered, as if things were in there that didn’t belong. An armoire stood pushed against a wall, and stacked about it were piles of hatboxes.

  Lady’s hatboxes. Curious, Laurel bent and held the candle low over the lid of one of them. An elaborately looping L adorned the lid like a maker’s mark. Since Laurel was a female and resided in England, she knew precisely what that mark meant. Her brows rose, impressed in spite of herself.

  Lementeur. Box after box of Lementeur’s latest headwear.

  Another time her fingers might have itched with acquisitive fancy. Now, however, she merely noted that either Jack had changed a great deal since she’d known him or he had a woman in these chambers. Brown’s Club for Distinguished Gentlemen was getting more outré by the moment! At least she would not have to flee in trousers.

  With one hand shielding the candle held in the other, Laurel pressed the latch of the far door and let it swing open of its own weight.

  In the dim half-light, she could make out a large room that contained a large bed. Again, the furnishings seemed a bit haphazard, as if disarranged for some reason. She saw rolls of something lying on the floor near the door. Wallpaper?

  Stepping closer, her breath held in her chest, she peered closer to see a man and a woman in the bed. The woman was small and lovely, with a long, thick dark braid down over her bare shoulder. The man was dark as well, but he was wider than Jack and not nearly so thin. In fact, he was rather pleasantly thick with muscle.

  Jack’s rooms were
one floor below. He’d told her that but she had been too furious to listen.

  This couple, whoever they were, had nothing to do with her daughter. She must have been mistaken about Melody’s voice coming from these chambers. Stepping backward, she started to make her way back out of the room.

  Then she noticed another door in a side wall. In the same moment, she stepped down on something soft. Bending down, she let her fingers part enough to make out a knotted wad of linen discarded on the floor.

  Laurel’s eyes filled and she clutched the rag doll close with one hand. Moving as swiftly as she could without making a sound, she crossed the carpet to the next door. Reaching a shaking hand that still dangled the rag doll, she pushed down on the latch.

  In the next room, she found the nursery of her dreams. The spacious room was filled with color and joy and everything that could bring a child cozy pleasure. Forgetting her need for secrecy, she stood in frank awe as she raised her candle high to see more.

  Then she spied the bed. The headboard was carved with two swans, swimming toward each other, their long arching necks forming a heart shape between them. Beneath the headboard, she spied a head of dark curls on the pillow, the tiny body curled into a ball beneath the thick coverlet.

  My daughter.

  And now she would be with her daughter forever, just the two of them.

  Twelve

  Having filled her gaze with Melody for several minutes, Laurel couldn’t help gazing curiously about the room.

  Everything in sight was either charming or cozy, every fabric soft and colorful, every toy special and imaginative.

  This room was exquisitely complete in every detail. The others outside remained in a hectic state of disarrangement. Those people, whoever they were, had put Melody’s happiness and comfort before their own.

  Laurel set the candle down upon the dainty nightstand and lowered herself to sit upon the floor, her feet curled beneath her. Gazing at the round cheeks of her child, flushed with sleep, and the way her riotous curls were tamed into babyish braids for bed . . .

  Melody was loved. This room, this absolute fantasy of a child’s every possible desire, these toys made with love, the drawings done in a boyish, scribbling fashion, signed “Evan”—how could this be the same house where she herself was held prisoner by the man who had betrayed her so unbearably?

  These people who loved Melody so—who were they? A boy named Evan, some chess aficionado who hoped to pass on the love of the game, that handsome man and that beautiful woman in the enormous bed, surrounded by luxury—what had they to do with Jack?

  There was so much that Laurel didn’t know.

  However, there was one thing she was sure of. She would never be able to offer such a heavenly sanctuary to her daughter. All she could offer was a fugitive life, on the sparest of incomes, likely always fleeing the long arm of the Marquis of Strickland’s power.

  Not only was Melody loved, but she herself loved these people also. Laurel could see it in the way the gifts were grubbily treasured, lined up lovingly close to where Melody slept. Laurel could imagine her bidding each drawing and rag doll and carved creature a fond good night before climbing into her darling little bed and drifting off to sleep, safe and adored.

  She, Laurel, was a stranger to this tiny girl. To be stolen away in the night would terrify and shock her. It would be the vilest of kidnappings, from her babyish perspective.

  Laurel knew she must wait. She must make Melody want to come with her. She didn’t truly want to live as a fugitive, didn’t truly want that for Melody. Laurel wanted her child to have all the best, a good happy life, not one on the run.

  I won’t take her until she loves me. I won’t take her until Jack agrees to let us go.

  That would take time. And care, and ingenuity. She must turn her attention to Jack, discover what he wanted, and how to convince him.

  Leaving the room, she turned back for a last lingering gaze at her beautiful, marvelous child. It would be worth anything, even putting herself back in prison, to be able to take her child far, far away from this world that she loathed so much.

  In the stillness of the deepest night, Bailiwick woke from his usual stunned-ox variety of sleep to find small cool hands running over his naked chest.

  Since he was not usually the swiftest thinker when first awakened, he was rather pleasantly surprised that he had no trouble snatching those hands from his body and rolling over on top of the intruder in one smooth motion.

  She gasped, a small brush of minted breath against his stubbly cheek.

  Fiona. Fiona pinned beneath him, her roving hands secured against the mattress on either side of her head by his hands. He lay full upon her and felt every marvelous feminine swell of soft flesh pressing into his harder form. Where he lay between her legs was very warm and even a bit . . . damp?

  His body responded again, this time before his mind could recall that he was trying very hard to prove to Fiona that he wanted more than simply a taste of her ample physical charms. When she felt his sudden and ferocious erection rise and press into her plump thigh, skillful Fiona twisted herself adroitly into a more exact position and wrapped the aforementioned thighs about Bailiwick’s hips before he could pull away.

  “There’s a lad,” she murmured in husky approval. “Time to give poor lonely Fiona something to write home about.”

  He dared not release her and roll off, for he would wager she’d be on him again faster than Balthazar on a sugar lump. He hadn’t the slightest idea why Fiona wanted his particular . . . er, sugar lump, but he did know that his Fiona was a woman of considerable determination.

  She swiveled beneath him. There was nothing but the thin knit of his drawers between her damp center and his throbbing . . . er, sugar lump.

  “Fiona . . .” He was mad to push himself away. Completely barkers.

  Yet somehow he did just that. Rolling away from her clinging hands and determined thighs, he flung himself off the narrow cot and stood there in the chill room in nothing but his third-best drawers and the embarrassing evidence of just how very much he did want what she offered so freely.

  Too freely.

  He’d sworn he wouldn’t take until he could give. He’d vowed to himself that he would prove to her that she was worth more than a bit of a thrill between the sheets. No one saw what he saw—not even her.

  “You’re not turning me away again.” She said it flatly, as if it had never happened before. Looking at her, sitting up in the bed with the sheets pressed to—but not quite concealing!—her full breasts, with that hair like shining midnight flowing down over sweet milky flesh, Bailiwick realized that quite probably she’d never been refused much in her life.

  He ran a hand over his flushed face, willing his poor sheets to crumple just a little higher, please, just enough to cover that perfect pink nipple; oh damn, now he could see them both—

  “No.”

  She licked her lips. His drawers protested that they were never meant to stretch thus.

  “I thought that were just because Himself put the fear of God into you. Samuel told me there’s rooms in that attic where you can howl like a banshee and no-one’ll hear—”

  Bloody Samuel. Bailiwick promised himself that Samuel wouldn’t be visiting any secret attic love nests for a very long time. “I’m telling you . . . no. I won’t have you climbing into my bed.”

  Arched black brows drew together and anger flashed in those beautiful eyes. “Why? You sent for me! You wanted me here bad enough then!”

  “I want you here.” God, this wasn’t going to go well; he could already tell. But he couldn’t tell her what he wanted. She wasn’t ready to hear it—and he couldn’t ask it. Not yet. She’d only laugh at him. He was nothing but a gawp, a looming, lowly underfootman. Not enough brains to rise far in the staff. He might never be enough for a beauty like her. Still, it would kill him if he didn’t at least try. “I just don’t want you here.”

  She lifted her chin. “I’ll not be askin’ aga
in, Mr. High-and-Mighty Johnny Bailiwick. You can count on that.”

  She slithered out from beneath the covers and had her nightdress over her head in a flash. Bailiwick watched mournfully as her perfectly lush heart-shaped buttocks disappeared from his sight. If he mucked this up, he’d never see that magnificent arse again!

  She tossed him one last scornful look over her shoulder as she stalked from his room. “You’ll be sorry, you great lummox!”

  He already was.

  Not all of Jack’s dreams were nightmares.

  He sprawled across his bed, his naked body too hot for the covers. His breath came quick through his parted lips. His mind might slumber, but his body lived every moment of the dream. His cock lay thick and rigid against his flat belly and his skin gleamed with sweat.

  Jack wrapped his arms about her, clasping her close as he rolled between her virgin thighs. Still lost in her panting, pounding heartbeat state, she seemed barely aware as he pressed his thick erection to her wet, swollen core. He replaced his hand with his mouth, kissing her deeply as he held her head in his two large hands.

  She wrapped her arms about him and kissed him back.

  Jack thrust, hard, a single forceful motion.

  Her wail of surprise was lost in his mouth. He held her as she clung to him, shaking from the shock.

  He’d never taken a virgin before. Regret stung a part of him, but he shut it off. He would wed her soon, so it scarcely mattered. Tonight or their wedding night? He would choose tonight. He would choose this blinding, spontaneous explosion of passion, this abrupt and welcome gift of ecstasy.

  With his cock deep inside her—she was so tight around him it was nearly painful—he kissed her mouth, her face, her hot tears from her cheeks. Her hands were small and fierce as she clung to him. He was grateful for that. She could have pushed him away.

  Would he have stopped if she had? His mind was blurred with lust and echoing need and the last, agonizing shreds of his nightmare. He closed his eyes and kissed her again. The lust and need won, driving out the nightmare like an exorcist.

  He clung to that, clung to her. She had the power of a goddess to save him from his own demons. Inside her body, inside her mouth, the hot, wet, tight feel of her, the warm, sweet taste of her, he was whole. He held them before him like a sword and shield, holding back the darkness.