Ethereally pretty but dowerless, Hilary’s mother had come from a minor branch of an aristocratic family. Her notions had never fallen into step with those of her brutish husband, however, and her spirits had slowly declined until there was nothing left.
Marigold had given up, but her daughter wouldn’t. She would find a way to attain her dream if she had to brave all of Davenport’s attempts to ravish her.
Ravish. The word held an illicit thrill, particularly in the context of Lord Davenport.
She did not want to think about that.
The threatened storm had not eventuated, leaving the air oddly sultry. Or perhaps it was the fire she’d ordered, so she could dry her hair at its heat before she went to bed.
She threw off the covers, tossed and turned a bit, pounded her pillow with the flat of her hand.
Double drat the man!
His face kept swimming up in her mind’s eye. That smiling, disreputably bruised, extraordinarily compelling face. And she’d still not caught a glimpse of his remarkable buttocks.…
A sound like the rumble of thunder made her start awake from her drowse. Disoriented, she glanced toward the window. A masculine shout made her realize that the thunder had come from inside the house.
“Oh, no!”
She leaped out of bed and flew into the corridor. The commotion had come from the guest bedchamber.
She hurried toward it and wrenched open the door.
There, stark naked with his back to her, in the midst of a pile of ceiling plaster and debris, stood Lord Davenport.
Hilary’s jaw dropped.
He was covered from head to toe in grayish-white plaster dust. He looked like a statue of a Greek god as he surveyed the wreckage, one hip negligently cocked. A David, a colossus still standing proud and tall through the sacking of Rome, with wide, muscled shoulders, a slim, tapered waist, and firm, taut buttocks.
Buttocks.
Hilary swallowed hard. Now she understood.
Her mind filled with understanding, in fact. She couldn’t seem to move or speak for understanding. Her thought processes ground to a complete halt.
He turned and saw her. “Oh, hello there.”
Her eyes popped. She opened her mouth. Closed it. David was nothing like it.
Gracious, but she’d never dreamed …
How on earth did he manage to walk around all day with that dangling between his legs? Flushing, she tore her gaze from his groin, only to fix on that imposing chest.
As easy in his nudity as he was in his clothes, Davenport gestured at the carnage behind him. “As you can see, there’s been a slight accident.”
From somewhere, she dredged up the ability to speak. “Put … some … clothes … on!”
He glanced about him, as if the notion had only just occurred. “Afraid I can’t. Your maid took my things away to see if she could get the mud out.”
Sheets. She thought of sheets, but the bedclothes were buried under the rubble.
“Ah.” He turned and reached up to yank down the bed curtain from a post that leaned drunkenly toward the bed.
The ripple of musculature in his back and buttocks as he fully extended his arm to pull down the threadbare damask made Hilary feel a little faint.
He took his time about arranging the curtain around his waist and securing it.
Dark eyes glinted at her through the mask of plaster dust as he put up his hand to brush some flakes of ceiling from his hair. He ought to appear ridiculous, she thought.
He was, in a word, magnificent.
Oh, dear.
Far too late, she averted her gaze. “You are not hurt?” she inquired, staring at the bedpost.
“No, I was lucky. I hadn’t managed to fall asleep yet, so I leaped from the bed in time.”
There was a taut silence while she wondered if the cause for his insomnia might mirror hers.
“You cannot stay here,” she declared. Talk about the obvious!
“No, I suspect you’re right about that.”
She tried to think of where else to put him. She’d have to make up another bed. And somehow draw a bath for him so he could wash all that plaster dust off.
“I apologize,” she said, though the words scraped in her throat. “It must have been a shock.”
“I’m still trembling,” he said. He held out his arms. “Hold me?”
That did not deserve a response. “I’ll order a bath, and while you’re…” She gestured with a flap of her hand, trying not to imagine that body of his, wet and naked in the tub.…
She cleared her throat. “While you do that, I’ll see to another bedchamber for you.”
She didn’t wait for his answer or look at him in the eye again. She hurried away, fighting the firework thrills of awareness his teasing request had set off inside her.
An agony of confusion dogged her as she went to fetch Trixie. Traversing corridors, climbing stairs, she scolded herself for her prurience. How much she’d wanted to stay right where she was and simply gawk at him. What a wicked temptation it had been to obey him when he’d asked her to hold him, plaster dust and all.
Ridiculous man. And she was worse, allowing herself to be caught up in his nonsense.
Even more mortifying than his nakedness was the reason behind it. Shame washed through her. What must he think of a family who let their house fall down around their ears? Her brothers refused to spend money on repairs to the old redbrick building, lavishing their income on their stables instead. Their living quarters shrank with every passing year as more rooms were shut up, abandoned to rot and decay.
Despite the need to distance herself from Lord Davenport, the desperation to get away from the Grange was greater.
Hilary lifted her chin. She could handle Lord Davenport. Once he had his clothes on again.
She scratched on the door of her maid’s attic room. She must treat Lord Davenport as a trial and a test of her good sense and self-restraint. If she could come through a journey to London with the greatest scoundrel in the country without allowing him the liberties he so clearly craved, it would be a triumph of virtue over sin.
But the clear memory emblazoned on her brain of him standing amongst the rubble in all his naked glory made her doubly thankful that Trixie was going with them.
As if in answer, the maid’s tremendous snore greeted Hilary as she opened the door.
She smiled wryly at the notion of Trixie lending her either propriety or moral support. Ah, well, she was better than nothing, Hilary supposed.
* * *
Davenport was vaguely embarrassed at all the fuss. But he was covered with plaster and he couldn’t see himself retiring to bed again in this state.
He said, “Please, do not trouble yourself further, Miss deVere. You ought to be in bed.”
She dismissed his objections. Clearly, she was humiliated by what had happened and determined to set all to rights.
So he let Honey and the saucy little maid bustle about. They roused one of the stable hands to boil water and carry it up.
All the while, Davenport tried to catch Honey’s eye, to draw her aside, but she was having none of it.
He even flexed his muscles a few times in an experimental manner, just to see if she was covertly watching him, but she had firmly averted her gaze. She didn’t speak to him the rest of the night.
The bath seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to fill, with the sullen stable hand rubbing his eyes and slinking backward and forward with bucket after bucket of steaming water. They’d brought him to another bedchamber, this one more decrepit than the last.
Honey made up the bed with her own fair hands, shooing away his attempts to help.
He watched her, all wifely efficiency, and thought of the excellent meal she had conjured from nothing that evening. She would make some fellow a good helpmeet.
That led him to wonder what she looked like naked, a place all stray thoughts seemed to lead him at the moment, much as all roads led to Rome.
Soon
er or later, he was going to find out. Sooner, rather than later, if he had his way.
Whether it was a scientific theorem or seducing a woman, when Davenport found a matter worthy of his attention and effort, he did not give up until he’d achieved his aim.
Honey thought the trip to London would be the end of their acquaintance. He knew it was only the beginning.
When all was ready, he took her aside and said in a low voice, “You go to a lot of trouble on my behalf. Thank you.”
“It is no trouble,” she said, addressing his left ear. “I must apolog—”
“Never mind that.” His mouth kicked up at the corner. “I’d have ten ceilings fall on my head for the privilege of seeing you in that night rail.”
Despite her icy demeanor, a delicious blush stole into her cheeks. She crossed her arms in front of her pretty bosom.
That was better. He’d prefer a blush of sexually aware embarrassment to one of painful mortification. She was a proud little thing. It was no easy matter for her to suffer the indignities her brothers inflicted on her.
One more reason to take her away from all of this.
“You’ll adore Rosamund, you know,” he said. “Everyone does.”
She bit her lip, and he endured a kind of sweet pain that he could not, at this moment, do anything about the way she mangled that poor feature when she was anxious.
“I hope she likes me,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Of course she will,” Davenport responded. “Now, much as I should wish to keep you here, that would be selfish. You must go to bed, my dear. We have a tiring journey ahead of us.”
He couldn’t stop himself. He chose a moment when the servants had temporarily left the room, grasped her by the shoulders, and swiftly, softly kissed her forehead.
He heard her gasp, felt her stiffen. He drew back and gazed down at her.
For an instant, her eyes remained closed. Then they fluttered open, gleaming pools of brandy lit by candle flame. Confusion warred with a smoky sensuality that sent hot blood rushing about in his body.
She came to herself and darted a quick look around.
“I wish you would not touch me,” she said, though her tone lacked all conviction.
“I can’t help it,” he said. “You have this dreadful effect on me. My brain closes down completely.”
“If I didn’t think I must be one of legions who have that effect on you, I might be flattered.”
He didn’t think it wise to explain to her just how different she was from those legions. He gave a helpless shrug.
Her gaze fixed on his chest with the movement and he laughed in silent enjoyment. She was endlessly entertaining. His delighted anticipation of their journey to London increased with every moment.
“Ought you not be going now?” he suggested. The final bucket of water had been disgorged into his bath. “Or would you like to stay and scrub my back?”
A series of expressions flitted across her face, all of them conflicting.
“Good night, my lord.”
The words were pronounced in her most withering tone.
By contrast, he remained quite alarmingly unwithered long after she left. So unwithered, in fact, that he declined assistance from either servant with his bath. He’d be obliged to scrub his own back, for his genitals did not seem to be taking Honey’s no for an answer.
The silhouette of her lovely, lithe little body beneath that worn night rail had him worked up into a fine state.
When the servants departed, he dropped his makeshift covering. Sinking into the steaming water, he began to scrub vigorously at his chest.
Before he’d finished removing the plaster dust from his torso, the redoubtable Trixie popped her head around the door again. “Beg pardon, my lord, but I was wondering if you be needful of anything else.” She said it with a wink that left him in no doubt of her meaning.
His parts had withered quite nicely until her avid stare stirred them up again.
Davenport dropped a washcloth on top of his privates and sat up.
“Actually, Trixie my girl, there is something you can do for me.”
He smiled his most charming smile.
* * *
This was not a household in which servants were up before dawn, lighting fires, drawing curtains, dusting, and making ready for the day. Hilary was reasonably certain she and Davenport had another hour or so, at least, to be gone.
She dressed and ordered Trixie to pack her meager belongings, then lay and light the kitchen fire.
While Trixie tended to the kitchen hearth, Hilary raided the larder and packed a hamper for the journey, then hurried down to the stables. There she found Billy the stable hand already putting the horses to the ancient traveling coach.
“Do you think it will run?” she said, eyeing the vehicle dubiously.
“Should do, miss.” The boy showed not the slightest curiosity about where his mistress might be going at this hour and why she’d need to resurrect this ancient coach to do it.
She supposed she’d have to take his word for it. Really, there was no other alternative. Hiring a chaise in the village would cause gossip, and neither she nor Davenport had the funds to do it, in any event. If she could just get to London without anyone seeing her in Davenport’s company, she’d be safe.
Thus, the hamper. They must change horses, of course, and have this pair sent back to the Grange. But she need not alight from the carriage for that. She’d chosen a hat with a veil, and since she was not at all known on the road to London, she was reasonably certain of passing unnoticed. If only Lord Davenport kept to his promise not to punch anyone on the way.
She hurried back to the house, to find that her escort still had not risen. The fire burned brightly in the kitchen hearth, but Trixie hadn’t reappeared. Perhaps she was seeing to her own packing.
Impatience gnawed at Hilary. She glanced at the clock. If his lordship didn’t make haste, her plans to get to London within daylight hours might be ruined.
Unable to stand the delay, she raced upstairs to his bedchamber and scratched on the door.
No answer.
Unwilling to knock more loudly in case someone might hear, she turned the knob and slipped into the room.
He slept.
Thankfully, the big body that had kept her awake far into the wee hours was covered this time by sheet and coverlet. Only one arm, strong and muscular, was flung carelessly free.
He looked … sensual in repose. Abandoned, as if he’d thrown himself into the arms of sleep.
She supposed he’d had a rough time of it over the past twenty-four hours. A kind woman would let him slumber on.
But Hilary was not kind. She was desperate.
“My lord,” she said. “Lord Davenport. Wake up.”
He did not stir.
She took one step toward the bed.
“Please wake up.” She said it as loudly as she dared but got no response.
He was dead to the world.
Hilary ventured as far as the bedside. His hair was still damp from his bath. She noticed he had not managed to remove quite all of the bits of plaster from the dark tangle. Her fingers itched to do it for him, but she forced herself to hold back.
As if he were made of hot coals, she poked him, a quick jab to the shoulder with her index finger. His skin was smooth; the muscle beneath it, hard.
Still no response.
She glanced toward the tub by the fireplace and saw that the water in his bath was a cloudy gray. He ought to have had a change of water, but the lateness of the hour had made that impossible. Considerate of him to dismiss the servants as soon as the bath was drawn.
Her eye alighted on a ewer on the washstand. Upon peering inside, she saw that it contained clean water. A fresh towel hung over the washstand rail, ready for use. At least he could finish his ablutions before they set out.
She slid a quick glance at him in the looking glass.
And caught him watching her.
The gle
am of dark irises was so quick, she might have missed it if her attention had not been so narrowly focused on him.
The blackguard had been feigning sleep.
“Lord Davenport,” she said imperiously. “You must get up. We must be away.”
Her only answer was a soft sigh. He rolled over, muttering something as if in the midst of slumber. The covers twisted, slipping down to reveal the solid, beautifully drawn line of his back, a hint of the crevice at the top of his backside. A strategic maneuver, she thought.
He rolled again, onto his back, the covers winding low around his hips.
Lord, but the man was a peacock!
Ire rose, crowding her chest. This was all a game to him, wasn’t it?
Well, it wasn’t to her.
With a grim set to her mouth, she picked up the ewer and marched over to the bed.
Without hesitation or mercy, she upended the ewer over his head.
Icy water gushed forth, splashing, soaking the pillow, all but drowning him.
He made a sound that was half gasp, half roar, and bolted upright, the covers pooling around his waist.
“You baggage!” he sputtered.
“You were awake the whole time.” She slammed the ewer down on the bedside table. “You were watching me.”
“If I’d thought you’d bloody well—,” he began, wiping water from his eyes. Suddenly he broke off as if struck by the absurd picture he must present. He began to laugh.
“Keep your voice down,” she hissed.
She saw too late, moved too slowly. One arm snaked out to catch her around the waist. He pulled her down with him on the bed, making her wet, too.
The next thing she knew, he’d flipped her to her back and was looming over her, the water from his sodden hair dripping in her face.
He brought up one hand to shove the wet tangle out of his face. The laughter died out of those dark eyes and the intent look that had so undone her on the road outside replaced it.
With his thumb, gently, he wiped a droplet of water that had settled, cool, against her lips.
Her breath caught. Her brain seized.
He lowered his mouth to kiss her.
London's Last True Scoundrel Page 6
