Finally, she had asked the Frenchman to meet her at Allie’s musicale without an invitation, willing to defy every tenet of proper behavior if it meant thwarting him. Worse, Nick had paid for the clear field at his sister’s party with all sorts of promises to Allie that he still had to keep, even though Bella had spent the whole time ignoring him to talk about the opera singer in French.
If Bella had appeared in his foyer a fortnight earlier, right after their first fight, he might have begged her forgiveness. A sennight ago, he would have been annoyed at her intransigence and therefore cold. Since Vauxhall, however, as long as she put up with him acting like her shadow, she could say or do almost anything she wanted, barring any threat to her own safety. Today, the best he could do was present a detached countenance and engage in the politest of discourse. At the worst…
He didn’t want to think about the worst.
As soon as he saw her face, his detached countenance flew out the window as though Blakeley had left it wide open.
“Bella, what is it? Are you all right? You’re pale.” He reached out to touch her, to make sure she wasn’t hurt, but pulled back his hand when Blakeley hurried in behind him, lighting more lamps and stirring up the fire.
“Enough, Blakeley. Leave us, please.”
Nick remained standing, not wanting to be too comfortable, in case Bella were only here to scream at him and he had to find it within himself to send her away. He motioned her to a loveseat, and she started by answering his earlier question, “There is no need for concern, sir. No one has been harmed.”
He stepped back, leaning his hand on the red flocked wallpaper to keep himself standing. Concern for her safety abated, he was left with no bones at all.
Her face crumpled. “Except you.”
“What do you mean, Lady Huntleigh? I am entirely well.” He couldn’t help adding, “Setting aside the bruised knuckles and sullied reputation, of course.”
“I have been a perfect beast to you, and for no good reason but my pride.” She started weeping softly, placing her face in her hands. “I never meant… I mean, Myron explained once I… I had no idea… You never deserved…” Her observations were muffled behind her hands.
He couldn’t just stand there and do nothing while she cried. He could send her away angry, but not leave her in tears. He sat down on the red velvet sofa next to her, the upholstery just a shade darker than her dress. She was nearly a perfect match for this room, the only time he had ever seen a wallflower camouflage herself in scarlet.
Rarely had Nick comforted a woman when she cried; he had never had a relationship that called for such intimacy. The last time was his fourteen-year-old sister when he had announced he was leaving to travel.
He reached out a hesitant hand to pat her on the shoulder. When he lied, “I am wholly sound. You’ve done nothing to cause me lasting damage,” she launched herself into his arms, tears now flowing like a waterspout, likely ruining his new coat. It was a small price to pay to finally have her in his arms, even if she were a little soggy. And even if he were still annoyed.
He wasn’t sure what to do, but one hand automatically reached to stroke Bella’s hair, the scent of lavender and lilacs drifting through his fingertips, and his other arm pulled her tightly to his chest, nearly dragging her onto his lap. Both her hands gripped the lapels of his coat, her cheek pressed tight against his crushed cravat.
He found himself murmuring utter nonsense: “No harm has been done, my sweet. In a day or two, it will all be forgotten. I am not at all hurt, dearest …”
Eventually, to Nick’s enormous relief, Bella’s tears slowed, then stopped. Without moving from his arms or peering up at him, she ran her hand down the front of his jacket.
“I’ve ruined your coat.”
“I’m sure Blakeley has some magic to bring it back up to snuff, good as new.”
She sniffled, so he reached for his handkerchief and held it to her nose, in imitation of his nurse when he was a small boy. “Blow.”
She sat up and took the handkerchief, dabbing it delicately on her upper lip. “Asking a lady to blow her nose in the company of a gentleman. I’ve never heard of such a thing. You are not very good at this.” She giggled slightly, and all he could do was agree with her.
“Miserably bad. No idea what to do at all.” He cleared his throat, “Are you done then?” He added weakly, “Please say you are done crying.”
She laughed more forcefully. “I am finished for the moment. You poor man, alone in a room with a watering pot.”
He sighed in relief. “I’m so sorry I made you cry, Bell—Lady Huntleigh.” He had no right to any informality, considering, and it seemed the right thing to apologize like a gentleman until he erased any chance of the tears beginning again. “I never meant to hurt you, swee—I never meant to hurt you.”
“You may call me Bella when we are alone.” She said, more quietly, “I like it when you call me Bella. For the first time in my life, my name does not feel steeped in irony.”
He smiled inside, but then couldn’t stop the schoolboy grin. She was forgiving him, had forgiven him, and he hadn’t even had to ask. “Bella, Bella, Bella. My most beautiful Bella. And you have yet to call me Nick, in all this time.”
She blushed and looked at her hands. “I’m afraid if I say it aloud, I am liable to do so in company. You may think my marriage a mockery, but—”
“I think nothing of the sort. You may call me anything you like for the rest of our lives…” His voice lowered, and he couldn’t keep out the bit of rasp that came from swallowing what might be the first tears he had felt in decades. “As long as you never again stop speaking to me.”
She gently laid her head on his shoulder, her small hands reaching around his waist, “Oh, I vow I never will. Never have I been so foolish.”
He circled her with his arms, pulled her as close as he could, kissed the top of her head, and asked, “Now, would you like to tell me why you’ve come?” She snuggled her head in closer to his chest but made no reply. “Not that I mind, of course. Surely someone has told you by now I’ve done nothing but pine for you since you declined my proposal.”
Bella lightly slapped her hand against his arm, saying, “That is not the least bit true. You are a scandalous liar.”
“Not at all.”
She looked up at him, then, with a face filled with confusion. “You really have?” She turned her eyes away. “You have not. You will say anything to keep me from crying again.” At that, he saw tears well up. One rolled down her cheek.
“Awfully good job I’m doing, too,” he said, as he smoothed it from her face with his thumb. She swallowed hard and blinked the emotion away, eyelashes fluttering faster when he said, “If you’ve forgiven me, Huntleigh must have set things right, because I have done nothing of the sort.”
She shrugged, blushing, and admitted, “I understand now why Myron was so… especially after the… well. I’ve told him everything, which I should have done that very night, and am ashamed I put you both through such torment. You were only acting like fools because you were frightened for me, and rightly so, and I just made it worse by using Lord Malbourne to try to make you jealous.”
“Do not mistake me, sweet,” he tipped her chin up to look into her face, “I will kill him where he stands if he touches you again.”
She swallowed a squeak, but tucked her head back against his jacket and agreed, “I won’t have you executed for protecting me, though I don’t like everyone always protecting me. It’s not as though I am a helpless featherbrain, and half a crown says I can best you with a rapier.”
“I’ll not bet against you, my lady. Not today, not ever. I give you the field from this day forth.” She sat up and tucked her feet under her legs, looking at him more directly than was comfortable.
“Does that mean you will let me fight my own battles?”
He opened his mouth but managed to keep from saying anything before he gathered his wits.
“It means I won�
��t let you fight battles against me. And probably won’t stop you going after anyone else with a sword in your hand.” He raised a brow and offered the most sardonic smile he had at his disposal. “Call it cowardice.”
“I shall.” She dropped her head onto his shoulder, absently tugging at his jacket as he imagined a wife might do when trying to soothe a husband’s vanity. “And you still plan to be an overbearing fat-head whenever you please?”
“Correct,” he agreed. “The Northopes have been fat-heads since before the Reformation.”
He wasn’t sure what to say when she grumbled, twisting her fingertip around one of his waistcoat buttons, “I don’t like my own husband selling me off like a sack of flour.”
This experience he kept having with her was devastating; never knowing, one meeting to the next, how to do something so basic and innate as seducing a woman. Bella was still snuggled up with him, still smoothing her hand over his shirt front, still tucking her face underneath his chin to keep him from seeing her blush, but there was only one right way out of the trap she had set, and he wasn’t sure what it was.
Most gracious God, we humbly beseech thee…
“Don’t be silly. I paid for a sack of diamonds.” He kissed the top of her head, waiting for the inevitable outburst. When it didn’t come, he continued, tentatively, “Diamonds of the first water, I might add.”
She slipped the top button of his waistcoat in and out of its mooring. “I will never in my life be a diamond of the first water.”
It was excruciating to be so regularly tested—surely by vengeful goddesses—with the emotional vulnerability of a woman, which he’d never really cared to understand. It was more than a wrench to admit the lack in his code of honor. He had no idea how to keep her happy, but for the first time in his life, it mattered.
“Come now, you know I could have bought a thousand wives in an Arabian bazaar for the price I paid for you. And I would still have my herd of camels and my flock of goats.”
She snorted, “Goats. You have the most ridiculous notions.”
He put a finger across her lips. “And given my rather extensive investment, I think it only right to question why you are here alone. Your husband and I agreed—”
“Stop,” she declared, as she pulled herself away, “Stop.” She held her hand up to keep him from saying another word. “Any variant of ‘your husband and I think it best,’ will see me leave for Saltash tonight and never speak a word to either of you again.”
Nick wisely stopped talking, so she scooted back over to him, curling her hand under his arm, grasping his sleeve. He buried his face in her hair, and she mumbled into his waistcoat, “Myron said you were nursing a broken heart, but you two have been as thick as thieves and might say anything to get your own way. There is no reason a man like you would be heartbroken over me.” She sounded only the slightest bit hopeful, which saddened him, but for the chance to soothe her with his hand across her shoulder, and a small kiss on her forehead.
“You know perfectly well Huntleigh won’t lie to you about me; I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked.” While part of him wanted to give Huntleigh a smack for implying Nick was vulnerable, he felt one of the cracks in his heart healing. “And my lady, if you wish to retain my favor, you will have to stop saying, ‘a man like you.’ Otherwise, I will think you far too familiar with incurable rogues.”
He kissed the top of her head again as she giggled, “You are incurable. But that is not what I meant at all.”
“Indeed?” He tipped her chin up. “You don’t think me a rogue?”
“Oh, you are a rogue, Sir.” Her eyes danced. “I’m afraid there is no question of that.”
“Excellent. I would hate to think I was gaining a reputation as a milksop.”
“No… of course not…” Her dancing eyes stopped twinkling, as though a partner had stepped on her foot, and her face took on the hue of a radish. “I just meant… someone so… you know…” She dropped her eyes and allowed herself a very slight whimper.
He gave no quarter. “Someone so what?” he teased. “Important? Dignified? Noteworthy? Irrefutably Ducal?”
She tipped her head at the teasing note, questioning his intent, and finally, when he could no longer hold in the laughter, pushed his arm, almost toppling him off the couch, resulting in naught but a deeper belly laugh.
“An awful man, far too full of yourself. No shame at all.”
He chortled, “And here I thought we might need more time to become acquainted. Let the honey month begin.” With that, he lifted her across his lap, pulling her as close to his heart as he could.
His fingers drifting across the nape of her neck made her shiver against his chest, wriggling against him. She probably didn’t even realize how enticing she was, innocently trying to find a way to be closer than their clothes would allow. The only thing keeping him from opening her dress, pulling up her skirts, touching and tasting her—taking her—was his dubious stab at honor and fear she would equate him with Malbourne, grabbing what he wanted, taking advantage. Instead, concern for her dignity held back one of Nick’s hands, respect for her person the other. The rest of his body struggled under the sensual assaults she unknowingly created.
There was only so long he could remain a gentleman, and the time grew ever shorter.
“So, if you know I am a rogue…”
“Yes?” she asked, looking up, her eyes flashing nervously.
He bent to whisper in her ear, his voice low and husky, “Then why have you come here all alone in this succulent dress? Were you hoping to confirm what the other wives say?”
She tried to look stern, but between her squirming and stammering and giggling and blushing, there was no remote possibility. She squeaked and tried to slip away from him, but he held her firmly. When she tried again, he abandoned his principles and trapped her legs with one hand.
“This is entirely improper!”
“Yes, it is, my sweet.” Her legs across his thighs, kicking in a counterfeit attempt to escape, disarrayed the nap of the velvet sofa as thoroughly as she disordered his mind when he pulled her head down for their first kiss. In confusion, she twitched sideways, but he was implacable. As soon as their lips touched, she moaned just slightly, and when he tipped her head for a better angle, her rigid posture loosened, and her hand tightened on his shoulder.
Running his fingers up the back of her neck, tangling her hair in his fingers, pulling just hard enough that her mouth opened the tiniest bit, he tugged at her lower lip with his teeth and ran his other hand down her arm when she stiffened at the touch of his tongue on hers.
“You haven’t kissed like this before?”
She shook her head slightly.
While he contemplated, in a bit of a daze, what she might or might not know, she finally said, “I obviously know how… babies… are made and it isn’t meant to be… er… titillating, except in penny dreadfuls, and certainly not in the Bible.”
He was appalled at Huntleigh. Absolutely appalled. Perhaps it was a question of generation, or the man’s overblown sense of piety, but it was inexcusable. Nick had assumed a sailor would have been taken in hand by a whore at some point to learn how to satisfy his wife, but apparently not an Anglican sailor. It was incomprehensible some randy Frenchman or Latin lover hadn’t seduced her years past.
However, it worked to his advantage. Husband or no, Bella was as close to virginal as any experienced married woman could be. No wonder she still blushed.
“But it is… different… with you than Myron. I wonder if it might not be so… if it might be… different.”
She shook her head, hid her face in one hand, put up the other as though she would erase her words from an invisible slate.
“Oh, never mind. Just kiss me. Please? You can do… that thing… if you want,” she pleaded behind her hands in a way that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He sat back to put at least a few inches of space between them, and placed his hands on the cushions.
When she peeked through her fingers to find him watching so closely, he said quietly, “I think, my dear, you can count on me being different from your husband if he has neglected the appropriate titillation—beginning with the passionate kiss. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It just takes getting used to. I think you’ll like it if you let me.” He gently separated her hands from her face, curling them into his, rubbing her palms with his thumbs.
She relaxed enough to let him kiss her again very lightly and slowly, warming her lips against his. He let his tongue tip gently explore the crease, rubbing his thumb gently across her downy cheek. Eventually his tongue reached hers, and six lifetimes later, she met him tentatively halfway. Her face and hair were silky under his hands, shoulders and arms loose and supple, kissing him until she was whimpering softly, he turning steadily more demanding until her body was pliant, held tight against him by her will, not his.
He jerked himself back, dragged himself away, his hand on the back of her neck, breathing as though he had run a mile. He had never in his life been this aroused after one kiss. He had never in his life been this aroused.
“If I don’t stop now, my love, I will carry you to the bedchamber across my shoulder, and Blakeley will give his notice.”
Wiggling on his lap to find a more comfortable position, she stopped suddenly when her hip encountered his erection behind the placket of his breeches. Biting her lower lip, she dropped her eyes, and he was afraid he would embarrass himself by releasing inside his shirttail. Her face reddened, and she twisted away just slightly.
“Well,” she huffed, glancing at him with her eyes tipped up, cheeks rosy and rounded with a nervous tease, “If you’d rather keep your butler than your rakish reputation…”
He tweaked her nose between thumb and index finger. “Hush, woman. Without Blakeley, who would keep me from ruining myself utterly, and you in the process? He is the only pretense I have to respectability.”
“He must not be very good at his job, then, as your respectability is hanging by a thread.”
Royal Regard Page 26
