“Royston and I know his family well.” Her answer was stilted, not as if she was trying to hide anything but rather as if she was just as puzzled as the other women and didn’t quite believe the explanation herself. “The earl’s on a committee with Chesney’s father in the Lords.”
Several I sees sounded in time to nodding heads. A political connection. Of course. Which satisfied their curiosity.
Until Miranda Hodgkins chirped, “I heard he left Blackwood Hall last night after dinner and went out riding all by himself. All night.”
And that made him seem suddenly even more mysterious, brooding, and dashing to this group of hens. A clack and clatter of whispers rose up.
Josie’s heart leapt into her throat in panic. If they started asking questions about why he’d been out last night, how long until someone realized that she, too, had been missing?
Miranda nodded with authority. “Tom, the groom, said he didn’t return until after dawn.”
“Really?” Lady Agnes Sinclair frowned. “I wonder what he was doing—”
Lady Tinsdale interrupted, “Or whom he was sneaking out to see.”
“Which could explain his sudden arrival in Lincolnshire.”
“And why he’s been so frequently absent when—”
“I’d heard he’d killed a lion with his bare hands.”
That brought the conversation to a skidding halt.
All the women turned in their seats to stare curiously at Josie for making the unusual comment, as if she were on exhibit at the British Museum. Or in a carnival. Their curiosity was pricked even further by the fact that she so rarely said anything that called undue attention to herself.
Now she’d done it. In her rush to distract them, she’d brought trouble straight down onto her own head. She cleared her throat. “I only meant—”
“Truly, with his bare hands?” a familiar and oh-so-masculine voice drawled with amusement from across the room. “That’s quite a feat.”
Her face reddening with mortification, she glanced up and caught her breath as dark-blue eyes found hers. Those same eyes that now haunted her dreams.
Thomas Matteson leaned against the doorway and grinned charmingly, his arms folded across his broad chest and looking for all the world like the rakehell, war hero, or royal savior—or even lion-killer—they’d just declared him to be.
But Josie knew better. Behind that handsome façade lay a snake. And if she wasn’t careful, he might just bite.
“And who is this fierce hunter?” he pressed, much to the delight of the tittering women and much to Josie’s chagrin. “Do I know him?”
“Lord Chesney.” Lady Agnes Sinclair smiled, genuinely pleased at the perfect timing of his arrival. “I’d thought you’d gone fishing.”
He returned the woman’s warm greeting with a nod. “I changed my mind when I saw the Carlisle brothers heading toward the river with crossbows.”
Elizabeth Carlisle gave a long-suffering sigh.
“So you decided to join us women instead.” Lady Denton waved her hand. “Do come in then and have some tea.”
“Actually, I thought to go riding and wondered if any of you ladies wanted to join me.”
“I’ll go with you!” Miranda glowed with excitement.
Thomas’s cool smile stated clearly that the invitation was not meant for her, his gaze sliding from the overeager girl to Josie. Along with every other curious pair of eyes in the room. Oh no.
“And how about you, Miss Carlisle?” he offered casually. “Will you join us?”
Drat him for causing a scene! He was focusing the unwanted attention of every gossipy hen in the room right on her, and the devil knew it, too. Most likely he’d issued the invitation just to watch her squirm. Reparations for last night’s encounter.
When she didn’t answer, he persisted annoyingly, “You gave me the honor of a waltz at the dance and didn’t complain when I stepped on your toes.” More giggles went up from the ladies. “I thought I’d repay the kindness with a ride.”
Lady Denton let out a loud chortle as Josie’s cheeks flushed a hot scarlet color that no one in the room could possibly have missed.
“Her?” Miranda’s face fell. “Why, she can’t even ride! She fell off her horse just last week, right in the middle of High Street. Everyone saw her!”
“Did she?” Thomas’s mouth curled into a self-pleased grin. “Well, then today seems a perfect opportunity for a riding lesson.”
The collective weight of the women’s eyes landed on her to catch her response. Her spine stiffened. “I’m sorry, my lord, but I’m not dressed for riding today.”
“Perhaps”—their gazes swung to him—“a walk in the garden.”
Back to her—“I wore the wrong shoes, too, I’m afraid.”
Then to him—“A drive in the phaeton, then. I insist.”
Back to her—Goodness! She felt like a player in a tennis match. Her head was beginning to spin. “I really couldn’t possibly.” When he began to open his mouth again, she had no choice but to declare firmly, “No.”
The room froze, all the ladies holding their breaths to see what his reaction would be to such a blunt refusal, although none of them would have dared presume she’d ever have accepted such an invitation from a noted rake in the first place. Especially not when sitting by her mother, who watched the entire exchange with a curious expression.
“Well, then.” No one else seemed to notice the mischievous gleam in his eyes, but of course Josie did. She couldn’t help but notice everything about this man. Drat him. “Perhaps another time. Enjoy your afternoon.”
And with that he ended the tennis match, although Josie couldn’t have said which one of them had emerged the winner.
“Ladies.” He gave them a smile as if completely unaffected by her cut. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll grab a pole and join the men after all.”
Sketching a shallow bow to the room at large, he turned and left.
“Well, that was certainly interesting,” Lady Denton exclaimed, her old but sharp eyes settling on Josie from across the room.
Knowing the ladies expected some sort of comment from her and that they wouldn’t turn their attentions away until she’d given one, Josie waved her hand dismissively in the air. “He only wanted to avoid my brothers while they’re armed with crossbows.” Faint chuckles rose at that, all of them knowing well the antics of the Carlisle brothers. “You can’t blame a man for wanting to keep himself from bodily harm.”
“I don’t think it was harm which concerned him bodily,” Lady Denton muttered with scathing wit.
Oh, Josie wanted to die! She felt the burn as her cheeks turned scarlet. But the other women only laughed halfheartedly at the innuendo, too stunned—or too jealous—that the focus of Thomas’s attention had been on her.
Beside her, though, her mother stiffened with embarrassment. A pang of guilt struck Josie’s chest because the game of cat and mouse that had sprung up between her and Thomas was now affecting her family. She doubted she would ever be completely sure of her true place among the Carlisles, but she loved them all with every ounce of her heart and never wanted them to be hurt.
“Best to avoid him, my dears,” Lady Denton warned, her now serious gaze passing between Josie and Miranda, all her previous teasing gone.
A wave of frustration poured through Josie. Heavens, hadn’t she been trying to do exactly that since he arrived? But fate—and Thomas—clearly had other plans. Yet she had to hold out only for another three days until the party ended and he returned to London, and she would never have to be bothered by the infuriating rascal ever again. Although even as she reminded herself of that, it wasn’t relief she felt but inexplicable sadness that he should be leaving so soon.
“As Lord Chesney said, he was simply attempting to return a kindness,” she insisted, hoping to diffuse the unwanted attention he’d poured squarely onto her head. “I assure you that there was no other purpose behind his invitation.”
A li
e. He believed she’d played him for a fool as the highwayman, so he’d returned the embarrassment. In spades. But she didn’t let her expression show one bit of annoyance with the infuriating man.
“Knowing me—and the size of my brothers,” she added to bolster her point, which earned her several chuckles from the group, “he never truly expected me to accept.”
And certainly he hadn’t. Not after the last conversation they’d shared, when he’d threatened to arrest her.
Yet everyone continued to stare at her as if suddenly seeing her in a new light. A light that would draw the attention of someone like Thomas Matteson. Although an attraction to her might have been the furthest thing from the truth—a marquess and an orphan? Hardly!—she couldn’t let the ladies continue to believe in any kind of connection between them. Her secret life as a highwayman couldn’t stand close scrutiny, and she still had one more father to make pay his share before the end of the party, which was coming more quickly than she’d realized.
“I’m not certain that Chesney is the sort who takes no for an answer,” Lady Tinsdale commented wryly, and her innuendo sent up a new round of giggles.
“Well, then, he isn’t my sort,” Josie retorted, fussing with her embroidery to hide any trace of the lie in her expression. Thomas was exactly the kind of man she’d always dreamt about capturing her heart…well, except for the fact that he wanted to arrest her. “Unfortunately,” she declared in a loud, prim voice, “his reputation is dangerous to my reputation.”
Based on the ladies’ titillated whispers and laughs, that cutting remark had put an end to their embarrassing teasing and assured them that she possessed no interest whatsoever in the dashing marquess…except for her mother, who continued to stare at her as if she didn’t quite believe her.
When the talk turned to the latest fashions, however, Elizabeth Carlisle’s attention returned to the conversation.
Josie released a silent breath, feeling as if she’d just escaped a trap. But when she returned to her embroidery, her hands shook as she pulled through the needle. She remembered the feel of Thomas’s hard shoulders beneath her hands, the softness of his black hair between her fingers, and his mouth—oh, that sensuous, wicked mouth! It had been somehow both demanding and coaxing at the same time, kissing her in delightfully scandalous ways until she’d melted against him like some shameless wanton. God help her, she’d thought of little else since last night’s encounter but of letting him do that to her again.
Her mother leaned toward her with a concerned frown. “Are you all right, dear? You’re flushed.”
Josie’s shoulders sagged in defeat. Whom was she fooling? Thomas was far more to her than a dance partner and a bored rake who’d focused his attention on her. And if she didn’t remove herself from the drawing room soon, every lady at Blackwood Hall would discover that as well.
“I need some air,” she mumbled, and set the embroidery aside. “Excuse me.”
She was on her feet and through the door before her mother could stop her, and before Thomas could come back and make her another offer she couldn’t refuse so easily.
When she reached the hallway, she turned and fled in the opposite direction from the one he would have taken toward the front door. A quiet room, that’s what she needed. A place where she could sit, collect herself, and hide away like a coward for the rest of the afternoon.
With a soft groan, she pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. She was insane to let this man affect her like this, the same man who wanted to arrest her. She would simply have to find a way to avoid him, or hide whenever possible, or…perhaps a kiss every now and then couldn’t hurt too badly, could it?
No, she thought, sighing heavily, not even that. She couldn’t be weak and off guard around him again, no matter how much she craved his kisses, no matter the aching thrill that blossomed inside her with even the smallest touch from him. Good Lord, if he could do all that with a just a kiss, what would it feel like if he—
“Josephine.”
She froze in her steps. As she slowly faced him, she narrowed her eyes to slits despite the sudden racing of her pulse. “You.”
“Me.” Thomas leaned casually against the doorway of the morning room. He’d been waiting there for her, devil take him! He’d known she would flee the drawing room after he left, to escape him. Just as he’d known she would turn around and come back when he called out to her. And she had done exactly that. Like a moth to a flame.
Her shoulders sagged. A very pathetic moth.
He gave her a smug grin. “Changed your mind about that ride after all?”
“You know I haven’t.” Her lips pressed into an irritated line although she wasn’t certain who raised her irritation more—he for trapping her or she for so foolishly walking straight into his snare. “Why did you embarrass me like that in front of the ladies?”
His smile faded. “My apologies. That wasn’t my intention.”
Despite the sincerity on his face, she didn’t believe him. “Then what was it?”
“An attempt to get you alone. You’ve been avoiding me all day.”
And she would keep right on avoiding him for the next three days, too, until the party ended and he rode home to London. No matter how difficult staying away from him would prove.
His lips twitched. “Something told me that unless I issued a direct invitation in front of the others that you’d find a way to be conveniently elsewhere when I came to call.”
She sniffed haughtily. “You were correct.”
When her cutting remark garnered her only an amused half grin from him, fresh aggravation rose inside her. To think that she’d once been worried he’d prove nothing more than a cad, like all the gentlemen before him—she would have laughed at the absurdity of it all, if her heart hadn’t been aching so badly.
She glared at him. “Unless you plan on sending for the constable right now, I would prefer if—”
In a quick movement, he stepped from the doorway and placed his fingers against her lips to silence her as he glanced over her shoulder. “Someone’s coming,” he said quietly, taking her elbow. “In here.”
He pulled her into the room and out of sight just as a footman entered the hallway. As he began to close the door, she stopped him.
“Blackwood Hall isn’t the stables or a hunting cottage,” she reminded him, backing away to remain by the open door. “I have my reputation to protect.” Although he seemed to be set on destroying it.
His brow jutted upward with amusement. “You mean your alibi?”
She ignored his barb, if not the swift stab of distrust in her chest, which upset her more than she wanted to admit. A part of her—an utterly mad part of her—was still attracted to him. But she might as well be shooting arrows at the moon for all the hope an orphan had with the son of a duke. Especially one set on arresting her.
“Someone will see us,” she scolded, aggravated that he was proving to be as devious as all the men before him who’d pricked her interest. “And I just left a roomful of women gossiping about what a rakehell you are.”
Giving in to her nod to propriety—and thankfully not bringing up how much more being arrested would ruin her reputation than being caught with him—he retreated to the far side of the room and sat on the edge of the deep windowsill.
“A rakehell?” His eyes gleamed devilishly. “Why, thank you.”
She scowled. “That was not a compliment.”
“Well, we rakes take our compliments however we can get them.”
Instead of being angry that he’d turned her words against her, she couldn’t help her admiration of his quick mind, nor the pull of him. Unable to stop herself, she took a step farther into the room.
“So,” he drawled, “you were talking about me.”
“Speak of the devil,” she muttered, which only seemed to amuse him more. “They were talking about you,” she corrected pointedly. “I was listening and trying to sort fact from fiction.”
“And what did
you decide?”
“That killing a lion might not be so far from the truth.”
A slow grin crossed his face, and despite her anger at him, she felt an answering flutter deep inside her. Pathetic moth that she was, she took another step closer.
“And what did the ladies say about me?” He leaned forward, fixing his dark gaze on hers like a siren song and drawing her forward another step.
“Lots of things.” Another hesitant step, until she stood close enough to touch him simply by raising her hand. Her heart thumped, and she knew she’d stumbled right into his trap. But at least now she knew why the cat fell prey to its curiosity. Because it simply couldn’t help itself.
He smiled impishly. “Anything interesting?”
She hesitated, because a proper lady would never utter the words—but since when had she ever been a proper lady? “That you keep a mistress,” she said quietly, more to hide the unbidden jealousy in her voice than for secrecy. “An opera singer.”
“Baseless rumor,” he replied in the same secretive tone.
With a forced shrug, feigning disinterest, she raised her hand and plucked the heavy drape framing the window where he sat, just inches from his shoulder. “Then she’s a Parisian actress.”
“Another baseless rumor…regrettably.”
Her hand stilled for just a beat as she flinched at the tightening in her chest. Oh no—that was definitely jealousy. Immediately she was aggravated with herself. With whom he spent his time or wished to spend it was absolutely none of her concern…except that she inexplicably wanted him to spend that time with her.
She shrugged again as if his comment meant nothing. And truly, didn’t it? Why should she be jealous over him, of all people? “They said you saved Prinny’s life.”
“Also a rumor.” His eyes sparkled mischievously. “But I started that one.”
Despite herself she smiled at that, then waved her hand idly in the air to indicate the foolishness of the next bit of on-dit. “The silly hens also said that you’d killed a man.”
How I Married a Marquess Page 12
