“Pillow?” he offered hopefully.
“No, thank you. There is a bolster here that will serve.”
They lapsed into silence.
He raised himself on one elbow. “Honey, I cannot help thinking—”
“No.”
“But you didn’t even hear what—”
“No!” She gave an exasperated sigh. “You are just going to come up with one more excuse to get me into that bed and I’m not going to listen.”
“Pity,” he said, lying back again, putting his hands behind his head. “This ranks among the most comfortable beds I’ve ever lain in. I daresay I shall sleep like a babe tonight.”
“Then I suggest you stop talking and do so.”
He smiled at the pettish note in her voice.
“Good night, Honey.”
“Good night.” She said it more as a command than a good wish.
Obediently, Davenport lapsed into silence.
He waited for what seemed like an age to his tired, sore body. Finally, he was rewarded with the soft sound of Honey’s deepened breathing.
With panther-like stealth, he slipped out of bed.
CHAPTER TEN
Hilary drifted slowly into consciousness from an exquisite dream. She did not open her eyes immediately but savored the warmth and softness cocooning her. Nestling her head a little farther into the pillow, she gave a gentle murmur of appreciation.
She’d dreamed of a god fighting a stormy battle, shielding her from the tempest with his body, beating back the lightning with his mighty sword. Now, in the quiet calm of breaking dawn, the god cradled her in his arms as they floated together among the clouds.
The arm circling her waist felt strong, powerful, unyielding. The chest against her back was armor plated, solid and hard, but not cold to the touch as she might have expected metal to be. Warm. So very warm …
She felt utterly possessed. Protected. Safe.
The god sighed, his breath flowing hot over her ear. With a pleasurable shiver, she nestled back farther into him. She wanted to stay in this dream forever, secure and content.
The god muttered something and nuzzled her, tickling the tiny hairs at her nape. More thrills skittered down her spine.
His palm flexed against her abdomen; then his hand slid upward to close over her … her—
Her eyes snapped open. “Davenport!”
With a shriek, Hilary exploded from the bed in a flurry of linen and blankets and flailing limbs. The bed curtains tangled her up. She couldn’t seem to locate a break in them.
In her haste to get away from the dastard who had taken such gross advantage of her, she tumbled off the mattress, through the bed curtains, and onto the floor.
“Ooph!”
With a confused exclamation, Davenport wrenched the bed curtain aside. “The Devil! Are you hurt?”
She glared up at him, winded and gasping for breath. He knelt on the bed with his hands on his hips, naked as the day he was born.
She wanted to yell at him to cover himself, but she couldn’t speak. Her tumble had knocked the breath out of her. All she could do was wheeze and pant.
And stare.
The magnificence of Lord Davenport in daylight was a sight to behold. And to her utter astonishment, his … male member seemed to grow larger and more—oh, Heavens!—erect, even as she watched.
Her face burned, but she couldn’t drag her gaze from the sight of that strange collection of implements between Davenport’s legs.
He was a god. One of those reprobate deities who came down to earth and ravished unsuspecting maidens in their sl—
Her hands flew to her bosom. “Where is my corset?”
Her gaze sought wildly about the room. Davenport turned, giving her an excellent view of his spectacular hindquarters, and hunted through the bedclothes.
Oh, dear. She actually felt faint.
He came up with the corset and held it out, strings dangling limply. “Here.”
Hilary made no move to take it from him. “What happened in that bed last night?”
She wanted quite desperately to check her body, to make sure he had not done anything untoward. More untoward than removing her corset, that was. But she couldn’t do it while he watched.
That reminded her that she ought to object to his state of undress.
“Pray, cover yourself, my lord,” she said in a stifled voice.
Too late, she looked away. Good Lord, he was having a definite negative effect on her morals. She ought not to have stared at his masculine form like that. But it was so amazingly fascinating to look at, how could she resist?
He sighed. “If we’re not to have any fun this morning, I suppose I might as well dress. If you’d be so good as to hand me my garments?”
“Certainly,” she managed in a stifled tone.
He’d retreated beneath the bedclothes again when she returned with his clothes, dry now from the fire.
“Nothing at all happened last night,” he offered, reaching out for his garments. “Nothing, that is, except that I removed your corset—blindfolded, I do assure you—and deposited you on the bed before I myself went to sleep.”
She regarded him with a hostile glare, but inwardly she was vastly relieved. “I told you, I didn’t want—”
“Yes, well, you must blame my upbringing,” he said, throwing the shirt over his head to cover the chest that had so recently been pressed up against her. “I could not allow a lady to suffer discomfort while I slept in luxury. It wasn’t right.”
“But this morning, I was … You were…” She really ought to finish her sentences. She didn’t like the way she was so often at a loss for words when confronted with the outrageous things he did.
Yet, despite any ulterior motives, it had been kind of him to make sure she slept comfortably. She didn’t think she’d been violated. She’d heard the first time for a maiden was dreadfully painful, and considering the length and thickness of that thing between Davenport’s legs, she rather thought they were likely right.
She wasn’t sore down there. And in her heart of hearts, she knew Davenport wouldn’t stoop so low as to molest her while she slept. No fun in that, he’d say.
No, the diabolical man wanted her complete, fully conscious surrender.
But he wouldn’t get it.
Still, she was just the tiniest bit disappointed she hadn’t been fully awake most of the time he’d been touching her that morning. If she’d had the least presence of mind, she would have pretended to be asleep for longer.…
Hilary frowned, annoyed at the tenor of her thoughts. Davenport was corrupting her. The sooner she parted ways with him, the better for her virtue and her peace of mind.
Her gaze slid to his hands as he tied his cravat before the mirror. She thought about where one of those hands had been only minutes before, watched with some fascination as he deftly manipulated the cloth into the semblance of a fashionable style.
It was a black cravat, no doubt one of Mr. Potter’s finest. Somehow, the black neck cloth seemed more in keeping with Davenport’s general air of disreputableness. He hadn’t shaven in two days (at least), and while his bruises were fading, they were still clearly discernible, even beneath the two-day stubble that shadowed his jaw.
He looked like a highwayman or a pirate. Not that she’d ever seen either species of male in the flesh. But there was a swashbuckling arrogance to him that grew more pronounced the more disheveled his appearance became.
He did not look like a man who had lain beside a female all night and innocently kept his hands to himself.
That was when she decided she didn’t actually want to know more about what he’d done to her, if anything.
He’d been looking at her intently while she lost herself in unfinished sentences. “Honey, there is no need for outrage over a bit of innocent fondling. A man cannot help what he does in his sleep, you know.”
She bristled. “I daresay you thought I was someone else.”
“Quite likely,�
�� was his cool response. “You did not seem to mind. Not at first, anyway.”
“That’s because I thought you were—” She clamped her mouth shut. She couldn’t possibly tell him she’d dreamed him into a god. That would give him an altogether too puffed-up sense of his own importance.
“Never mind,” she muttered.
He stared at her, eyes gleaming with speculation. “Interesting.”
To head off any more questions at the pass, she reverted to her schoolteacher manner and sent Davenport downstairs to fetch their hostess. She needed help with the dratted corset.
Davenport did not even open his mouth to tease her or offer to play lady’s maid.
She wondered why she felt an odd sense of disappointment at his forbearance.
* * *
By the time they reached the hallowed streets of Mayfair at a little after ten o’clock that evening, Honey was sagging where once she had sat bolt upright and prim. Davenport was tempted to encourage her head to rest upon his shoulder, but they were almost there, after all, and he was fatigued, too, and amorous stratagems could wait.
They had slept much later than Honey could have wished in that pink, frilly bedchamber at Mrs. Potter’s cottage. Then it had taken the better part of the day to arrange for the horse to be re-shod, after discovering it had cast a shoe during the confusion of the storm.
Despite the day’s frustrations and sundry other unavoidable delays, he’d managed to be true to his word and Honey had not been obliged to spend yet another night on the road in his company.
Despite the significant amount of time she’d had to devise one, she had not come up with a plausible explanation for her journey to London alone, in the company of the devilish Lord Davenport.
Finally, she agreed to tell Rosamund an expurgated version of the truth. Rosamund was bound to understand and take pity on the poor female who’d been forced to endure so many undeserved misfortunes—not least of which was having to deal with him for the past two days.
Davenport looked forward to a quiet evening getting Honey settled at Tregarth House, before bathing and changing his clothes. His coat was dusty from the road, his shoes muddied, and his borrowed cravat limp. After tonight, he never wanted to wear evening dress again.
But he was doomed to disappointment. Upon reaching Rosamund’s London home, Davenport was obliged to jockey for position with a press of other conveyances.
Honey blinked sleepily. “Are we there?”
“We will be, if I can just—” He shot the gig toward a gap in the traffic, scraping the wheels of a barouche going the other way.
A coachman shook his fist and yelled abuse after them, but Davenport ignored him. He maneuvered the smaller vehicle, weaving in and out until he finally pulled up outside Tregarth House.
Lights blazed, both inside and out. Footmen lined the pavement, ready to assist guests up the stairs. Linkboys loitered, their torches at the ready, while they traded insults with coachmen and burly bearers of sedan chairs. A thick, roiling stream of guests in feathers and silks, black coats and pristine dove-gray pantaloons flowed into his cousin’s house.
“Well,” said Davenport. “This is unexpected.”
* * *
Fatigue threatened to crush Hilary. Her bones were shattered by the constant jogging of the horse and the motion of the badly sprung gig. Her head pounded and felt strangely light at the same time. They hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She’d refused to let Davenport stop for sustenance because she couldn’t bear the thought of staying another night with him somewhere on the road.
And they’d made it. They’d reached their destination.
For some moments, she did not quite comprehend the noise and bother. Drowsing by Davenport’s side, she’d half-hoped that once they reached Tregarth House her hosts would be from home. All she wanted—longed for—was a simple supper and a wash and a nice, soft bed to sleep in. Alone.
That would not be possible, of course. The forthcoming confrontation was perhaps the most important of her life. If only she could persuade Griffin deVere, Earl of Tregarth, to champion her cause with her guardian, she might enjoy the season she so desperately craved. And if she might also coax Lady Tregarth to sponsor her, she’d have her wish come true.
But—
“A ball?” She shot upright and turned an accusing gaze on Davenport. “Your cousin is holding a ball tonight and you did not remember?”
He shrugged. “Slipped my mind, what with all the drugging and kidnapping and ceilings falling in.”
There was a touch of asperity in his tone. Far from chastening her, his clipped answer touched her on the raw. “Only think how we must appear,” she said. “How are we going to get in there without anyone seeing us?”
He looked down his nose at her, and now she saw the Westruther in him, the inbred arrogance that did not give a fig for anyone else’s opinion.
“Why, through the front door, of course, like everyone else.”
But Hilary’s wild survey of the grand terrace house had borne fruit. “The area steps. We’ll go down through the kitchens.”
“That we certainly shall not.” He bent a severe gaze on her. “You need to stop bowing and scraping and scuttling around like a brown mouse, hoping no one notices you. You are not a servant.”
“But look at me,” she cried. “Any self-respecting servant would rather die than appear like this. Besides, I’m not dressed for a ball.”
He gave her person a cursory inspection. “You look perfectly proper to me. And of course you’re not dressed for a ball, but—”
“You promised no one but your cousin would know you’d escorted me to London without chaperonage,” she hissed. “You promised my arrival would be inconspicuous.”
She clutched her reticule and swung her legs to the side. “I’m getting down here.”
They were still some distance from the front door.
“You will not,” said Davenport calmly. “You’ll wait until I’ve handed the reins to a footman and you will enter through the front door with me. Damn it, if I can carry off a bruised phiz and an evening rig I’ve worn for the past two days you can carry off a neat little traveling costume, even if it does belong to Mrs. Potter’s Daisy.”
But the last sentence was spoken to her back as she nimbly hopped down from the gig.
“Honey!” Davenport called after her, in a warning tone.
She ignored him and stepped her way through the carriage wheels, horses, and piles of manure to the pavement, making a beeline for the area steps.
The kitchens were a maelstrom of activity, in the center of which dwelled a temperamental Frenchman, the very cliché of continental chefs. He had a haughty air and pinched nostrils and a habit of abusing everyone who came within a three-foot radius of his person in a torrent of idiomatic French.
Hilary had no idea what to do, now that she’d breached the castle walls, so to speak.
Would Davenport come to find her? Or would he wash his hands of her, disgusted with her lack of backbone?
It was typical of an aristocratic male like Davenport that he wouldn’t consider other people’s opinions. He could do anything, the more outrageous the better, and still people would clamor for his notice. He was a belted earl with prosperous estates at his command, after all. He had no idea what it was like to be a poor dab of a female with no style or connections, and to be a deVere on top of that.
There was little time to be resentful or to stand about wondering where she ought to wait for him. A bustling cook maid thrust an apron into her hand.
“From the agency are you?” she said briskly. “You’re late. Not but what we can do with every pair o’ hands we can get down here.”
Before Hilary could protest or explain herself, she was holding a paring knife and a potato and adjured to peel that lot quick smart or Monsieur would have her head.
With only the smallest sigh, Hilary set to work.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Davenport was accustomed to startled lo
oks and speculative stares wherever he went. Coming back from the dead seemed to have that effect on people, so he didn’t pay too much heed to the crowd’s reaction as he moved inexorably toward his goal.
He resisted the urge to bark at them to take themselves off out of his way. Instead, he smiled his devil-may-care smile. That, together with his raffish appearance, did much the same job.
He fought a path to the top of the stairs and entered the ballroom, where the butler gave him a slightly harried look when he refused to be announced. “Need to speak with her ladyship. Won’t be a moment,” he said as he sighted his quarry.
Rosamund, blond, exquisite, and heavy with child, stood in the receiving line, looking radiant. Her husband was nowhere to be seen, but her former guardian, the Duke of Montford, was by her side. With him, Lady Arden, matchmaker extraordinaire, smiled graciously on the guests.
“Jonathon! I’d no notion you’d be here tonight.” Rosamund’s deep blue eyes showed first delighted surprise, then doubt as she absorbed his appearance. “But what happened to you?”
He clasped her outstretched hands in his and said in a low, urgent tone, “I need to speak with you, Rosie. When can you get free?”
Consternation sketched across her porcelain features. “As you can see, I am somewhat in the middle of things, but … I know. Why don’t you lead me out for the first waltz?”
He grimaced. Waltzing. His idea of a hot bath, a brandy (or three), and bed seemed to recede farther into the distance.
“In the meantime, go up and ask Dearlove to see to your clothes,” Rosamund said in a lowered tone as more guests approached. “You look disgraceful, even for you, my dear.”
She nodded and smiled her society smile in firm dismissal and he was forced to move on to the head of the Westruther family, the Duke of Montford.
“Your Grace.” Davenport made an elegant, deeply respectful bow, allowing only the expression in his eyes to mock the courtesy. Montford had become his sister Cecily’s guardian when Davenport had been thought dead.
Unlike his Westruther cousins, Davenport had never been obliged to submit to the duke’s rule. That did not mean, however, that the duke refrained from meddling in Davenport’s affairs.
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