“I’m sorry about the baron.” Lord Mitchell joined her at the fireplace. “He doesn’t hold his liquor well. Soon he’ll be soused, and then no one is safe from his ramblings.”
“Thank you, but it’s not your obligation to apologize for him, milord.” She looked past him to Gabriel, talking and laughing with Dolly and several other guests.
“Forget him. Shall I get you a beverage?”
“Wine.” She looked at him.
“You’d like a glass of wine?” he asked.
“No. I had brought a special port for this evening, and I forgot to instruct the servants as to when to serve it. Will you excuse me, please?”
“Wait, I’ll go with you.”
Carmody skirted around everyone in the room, not stopping to talk to anyone. Recalling Reginald said he’d had the port wine stored in the pantry, she went there.
“I don’t see it,” she groaned. “Where would it be? It was extremely expensive, the best available.”
“Remain calm, milady. It’s quite possible one of the servants just set it out of our sight.” He took to moving sacks of corn meal, bags of sugar, and barrels of flour.
“I can’t imagine them hiding it up there,” she said when he stepped on a crate and searched the top shelf. “Oh wait, maybe that’s it there.”
Carmody pointed to a pot that looked to be in front of a small box.
Lord Mitchell reached for it. “I don’t think I’m close enough.” He stretched his fingers.
When they landed on the pot, a crack resounded in the small space, and he came crashing down off the broken crate he had used as a stepstool.
“Oh my!” Carmody knelt down next to him. “Are you all right?”
Frances appeared in the pantry doorway. “Milady?”
She stood there with her gray hair all tucked beneath a white cap and stared at Carmody and Lord Mitchell on the floor, not a glimmer of shock on her face. But then, she had worked for Carmody a long while, and Carmody didn’t think she could surprise the woman.
“There. Maybe this woman can help.” Lord Mitchell got to his feet, brushing his hand over his sleeve.
“Oh dear, you’ve a stain.” Carmody looked closer at the dark spot on the front of Lord Mitchell’s waistcoat. “I told Lord Laramore more cleaning needed to be done. I don’t know why it is he doesn’t keep a full staff with him instead of making do with just Silas.”
Lord Mitchell examined the spot she pointed to.
“By Jove, you’re right.” He took the jacket off. “I think it might be jam or something. Maybe from a jar that leaked on the shelf.” He turned from Carmody and addressed the servant. “Madam, Lady Laramore was looking for a special case of port wine. Do you know where it might be stored?”
“Why no, milord. But the wine is usually kept in the cellar,” Frances answered.
“I was told it was put in here.” Carmody sighed. “Although I suppose someone might have moved it.”
“Do you want me to find it?” Frances asked.
“Yes,” Carmody replied. “That would be most helpful.”
“I’ll need to know what kind of wine it is since I had not seen it packaged with your other luggage. And going by last season when we were here, I know for a fact his lordship has many crates, barrels, and bottles stored down there.”
Carmody looked at Frances for a second. “Never mind. I’ll go get it. I can’t describe the stuff. Reginald picked it out. Go back and tend to whatever it was you were doing, and here, please see if this spot can be cleaned off Lord Mitchell’s waistcoat.”
“Yes, milady. I know just the way to vanquish that little splotch.”
“Thank you, Frances,” Carmody called as the woman left.
“Seeing how I’m without my waistcoat, I’ll go with you.” Lord Mitchell took Carmody’s arm. “Lead the way.”
“Well, I’ll try. I know the stairs are this way through the kitchen. However, I’ve never been in the cellar, so I hope it’s easy to find the right area.” She took him to the door.
“Here, let me go first.” He picked up a candleholder on a shelf inside the stairwell and lit it.
They went down the steps slowly. At the bottom, they turned right into a narrow passage. Several yards ahead, they had to make a choice in turns. Lord Mitchell walked to the right again.
“I think I’ve found the wine area,” he announced.
Carmody moved into the room and waited while he lit several more candles on a table. A resounding thump of a door closing echoed from behind. Someone had shut the kitchen door leading to the cellar.
“Is this what you’re looking for, milady?” Lord Mitchell tapped a case on the table.
Carmody moved alongside him. “I don’t know. The case doesn’t have any print on it.”
“Then I’ll open it.”
Carmody felt the stir of a cool air whisk around her. While Lord Mitchell retrieved a pry bar from the corner of the room, she listened to odd sounds the house made. A shiver raced up her spine. The dark didn’t scare her, but she still had an eerie feeling about her surroundings, and she knew it was only because of what she learned Lord Laramore could do with transforming into a tiger. How did a woman get use to such an oddly interesting abnormality?
Chapter Nine
Gabriel followed the scent of his wife through the house. In the pantry, he saw an overturned crate smashed into splinters on the floor. Reason fought with imagination as he noticed Lord Mitchell’s scent too. He followed their path to the kitchen. On the back of a chair hung Lord Mitchell’s waistcoat. It tipped the scales in the dreaded favor of his suspicions.
If he were a normal man, with no inherent beastly traits of obsession, he might have turned back. Only, he was an animal inside, and the farther he got down the stairs, the more he decided he was doing what any man would do—confronting the lovers.
The smoky odor from the candlewick the others had lit interfered with his sense of smell. It forced him to listen more. A crash pricked up his ears. He hurried down the last steps. His first thought had been to burst in on his wife and Lord Mitchell. But what would he say to express insult? Lord Mitchell was known to be a very good swordsman and had won a fair share of duels. Gabriel didn’t want satisfaction in that way. First, because he knew it would distress Carmody. She wasn’t a bloodthirsty type of woman. Second, he didn’t have enough skill with a sword, and third, he wasn’t ready to die.
He took a turn to the left and shed his clothes. Transforming into the tiger, he eased down the passageway where he heard the sounds of fornication going on. Grunts and groans grew louder. He padded along a little quicker.
“There, I got it in,” Lord Mitchell declared.
The white-striped fur on Gabriel’s back stood on end as anger reared.
“Oh, you’re so wonderful,” Carmody gushed. “I can’t believe how hard that was to fit in there.”
A growl rumbled in Gabriel’s throat. He stopped in front of the doorway to the wine room.
“I would have never been able to open that crate myself.” Carmody declared just as a snarl escaped Gabriel’s mouth.
His sight was perfect in the dark. Lord Mitchell has pried open a crate to which Carmody lifted a bottle of wine up to the candlelight and then lowered.
“Did you hear that?” Lord Mitchell started to turn.
Gabriel leaped past the archway, out of sight. Carmody was just getting her wine, not having sex with Lord Mitchell; he chided himself for his imaginings.
“I didn’t hear anything.” The nervous flutter in her voice told Gabriel she actually did. “Let’s just take these two bottles upstairs, and if we need more, I’ll send a servant.”
Gabriel backed farther into the dark. He was at a dead end with no place to hide. There would be a great deal of explaining if he shifted back into a naked man. At least as a cat, he’d not embarrass Carmody.
Lord Mitchell came out first, carrying two bottles and the candle lighting the way. Carmody followed.
Gabriel grab
bed her dress with his teeth.
“Oh!” Carmody squeaked. Her arm swung back, and her hand landed on his muzzle.
“Is there a problem, Lady Laramore?” Lord Mitchell had already moved ahead a dozen feet.
“N-no. No problem. I just thought I should check that the candles are extinguished.” She flicked her hand, smacking Gabriel’s nose, making him release his grip on her gown. Then she hurried ahead to Lord Mitchell. “Would you go ahead and let my guests know I’ll be along shortly?”
“I think I should wait.”
“No. Please go on. I’d…I’d like to be alone a few minutes.”
Gabriel noted how well his wife lied. It brought him to think again about her assertion of chastity.
“It’s dark.”
“There are more candles just a few feet away on the table. I’ll be fine.” She actually pushed the man.
Gabriel had never felt as predatorily attracted to a female as he did then. It raised his level of sexual sensitivity.
Lord Mitchell complied with Carmody’s request. The candle he carried dimmed the farther he got away from the wine cellar room.
Alone at last, Gabriel slinked his way around Carmody as she slowly crossed the room. The scent of her sex wafted at nose level. He wanted her now, and he’d not take no for an answer. As the flame on the candle Carmody lit began to glow, Gabriel reared up on hind legs and changed into a man beside her.
She smacked him on the arm. “Stop doing that, Gabriel!”
“Surprising you?”
“Yes. While I can accept this magical feat of yours, I’m still not comfortable with you not giving me some warning.” She turned away. “Can’t you wait until I ask for you to change?”
He set aside his serious concerns about his wife’s involvement with Lord Mitchell for a moment and shifted back into a tiger. It gave him a better advantage anyway. As the animal, his senses were acute.
“Oh, Gabriel! That’s what I mean. You keep altering your appearance just to annoy me, don’t you?”
Gabriel inhaled deeply. Yes, he had the scent of her sex cataloged in his brain. But was there anything attached? Had Mitchell’s mouth been places it shouldn’t have?
Recollections of Carmody’s excitement about gifted hands came right at the point they had talked of Mitchell. Did she really mean Reginald’s talents for throwing a party, or had her statement been a slip of the tongue?
His wandering thoughts returned to Carmody. He went forward, backing her to a cask of wine. Jumping up, he trapped her against the wooden barrel’s surface. She stared at him, wide-eyed, with something more than fear. Her breathing increased in speed so she panted lightly, the air puffing against his snout.
“You don’t frighten me, Lord Laramore,” she said with a tone of conviction.
“Good,” he replied the instant he shifted into a man, still trapping her between his arms instead of his forelegs. “Now, tell me, do I excite you as much as Mitchell does?”
“Lord Mitchell?”
Gabriel didn’t believe her coy play of innocence. He lowered his head and sniffed beneath Carmody’s jaw, looking for a hint of Mitchell’s slobber on her. When he found none, he rubbed his lips along the silk-textured length of her neck.
“I don’t know w-wha-what you’re talking about.” Little catches in her breath made him sweep around to the other side of her face.
“I want to feel you naked against me,” he whispered.
“Our guests,” she weakly objected.
He licked around the delicate shell of her ear. “They’ll wait.”
He took her second whimper as a yes and turned her so her back was to him. The fastenings of her gown were easy to undo. He pressed his lips to her warm nape where her hair swept up in a neat coiffure. Raking the gown from the rim of her shoulder, drawing it down, he kissed his way across her shoulder.
“Gabriel.” She murmured his name as he twisted her around.
He pulled her face to his and held her head. “Are you still agreeable to giving me an heir?”
“I d-don’t…” The touch of fear in her voice concerned him. “Yes, milord.”
Gabriel should have backed away from her, except the heat of her body rubbed him in the wrongfully right way. His cock throbbed and ached to find a place in the dark and moist sanctuary of Carmody’s tight sex.
The ribbon on her chemise fluttered about in his hand as he released the fastenings and opened the lace-edged fabric. Carmody squirmed, unable to control herself. Gabriel flexed her right nipple, alternately squeezing her breast. His manipulation, teasing her with imposing sensations, produced fervent sounds of enjoyment. It made him want to curl up with her on the floor and let out his contented purr. With gentle guidance, he pulled her leg up along the outside of his thigh. He slid his other hand down her side and brought the hem of her chemise high enough to feel the warmth of her belly meet his cock.
“Hold this up,” he instructed.
She did, and he bent slightly, grasping her other leg at the back and lifting her up from the floor. Her legs naturally folded around his hips. He pushed her back to the wine cask and used it as a prop as he maneuvered his erection into her.
“You overwhelm me, milord.” The heat surrounding her flushed face drew his mouth.
He rocked into her. Kissing in accord with the flex of his hips, their lips parted and rejoined. In his hunger for her, he separated her lips with the thrust of his tongue. With every swipe at the cavern of her mouth, he drew out the flavor of her hums.
Her murmurs were fuel to his arousal. He ground his groin against her, forcing himself deep into her clenching channel as she screamed out in that final moment. He’d never tire of hearing her in the throes of ecstasy.
Chapter Ten
Carmody stopped in front of the small mirror hanging by the kitchen’s back door. Gabriel didn’t say much when he let her down to stand on her own feet. The silence between them gave her a chance to think, and that turned out not to be so good. The only thing he had wanted to know was if she still would give him an heir.
“Shall I announce dinner, Lady Laramore?” Frances asked, startling her.
“Will it hold up to a short wait?” She needed a moment alone to pull her thoughts together. The long night before, the trying day of discovery, and her husband’s spontaneous desire of her in the cellar had drained her of energy.
“Yes, milady.”
Carmody went out the door and circled the house to the gardens. The scent of roses in the evening gave her a soothing reason to sit on the stone bench just outside the maze. She looked up when she heard someone approach.
“Lord Mitchell.” Carmody let out the breath she held. “I thought you might have been…never mind.”
Gabriel wasn’t interested in her feelings. He’d made that clear to everyone at the party. His concern hovered on getting her pregnant and nothing more. She no longer linked all the enthusiasm in his endeavors as something meaningful between them.
“I saw you out here from the window in the sitting room.” Lord Mitchell told her.
“You and my other guests must think me a horrible hostess.”
“Nonsense. You invited that ill-mannered buffoon Baron Scrimshaw,” Lord Mitchell stated with the polished voice of a diplomat. “And as such an oaf with his choice of topics, he’s kept everyone’s focus on what he might say about them.”
“Not all what he said about me is far from the truth.” She reached out and picked one of the pink roses hanging from the trellis alongside her.
“May I?” He motioned to the space on the seat next to her.
“I’m afraid I did too much today, and I’m worn out.” She scooted over, allowing him space to sit.
“But your first party of the season is going well. All the best of society is here, so don’t let what the baron says worry you. Just because he prefers to be undignified does not mean the rest of us don’t know he’s wrong. You are a beautiful, kind, well thought of young woman, milady. The baron has always had
a bad temperament, although, he did seem to express resentment toward you.”
“He’s getting even for misconstruing my flirtations last season. I’m afraid he thought my friendliness was an audition to become his mistress. Once I set him straight, I avoided him at other social engagements. He took offense, and now I suspect he feels this night is his vindication.”
“Everyone in there knows the baron. They’ll not take the lout’s comments very seriously.”
“I shouldn’t have tried to have this party so soon after my arrival, and I wasn’t at all prepared for the viscount’s reaction to my presence. I really thought intruding on his time here might get him to take notice of me more. Of course, in a way, he did. Nevertheless, I think his plans and mine are very different for the future.”
“At least you tried, and now you can move on, knowing what it holds in regards to your relationship with your husband. Or mayhap, you’ve considered an alternative.”
“Like what?”
“Annulment.”
“Wouldn’t I be the talk of the ton?” She shook her head and sighed, sure she could never consider that drastic a measure.
“It would be a challenge, facing everyone afterward, but I assure you, I’d be happy to smooth over any rough spots by being your constant escort.”
“That wouldn’t be necessary, Lord Mitchell. I have Reginald for that.”
“He is your cousin. I was thinking of giving the ton a different impression.” He took her hands in his, stroking his thumb over her knuckles in an intimate way.
Carmody looked at him, realizing the underlying reason to his offer. While sweet and kind, Lord Mitchell wasn’t a suitable match for her. His tall, lanky frame, the deep set of his muddy brown eyes, and his rutted pale complexion were not agreeable to her tastes. Shallow as it may seem, he wasn’t attractive. However, she had no wish to alienate his friendship or insult his pride. She’d come to think of him as close a friend as his sister. How had she not seen there were underlying reasons for all his attention when she visited Dolly?
“I’m trying to avoid talk, Lord Mitchell, not spur it on with a scandalous affair,” she said with a small lighthearted laugh, pretending he was joking with her. “I’ve already done something for which I’m not proud of.”
Seducing His Lordship Page 8
