An Heir of Deception (The Elusive Lords)

by Beverley Kendall

  Alex’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile or a frown. The earl had flown through the courtship and spoke as if they were already betrothed. And truly, since when had thirty thousand pounds ever been considered paltry? Lord Cranford had all the subtlety of a mallet and wielded it with the grace of a lumberjack. But then he was well acquainted with the duke.

  “My lord, are you asking me whether I have given any consideration to courting your daughter or demanding that I do in fact court her?”

  A wash of red suffused a complexion that probably hadn’t been touched by sunlight in years. The earl appeared taken aback and didn’t speak for several moments, eyeing Alex as if attempting to gauge his true feelings on the matter.

  “My daughter is much sought after. I’m merely urging you to strike while the iron’s hot, as they say.” He said it with all the pomposity of a father who knew his daughter’s worth.

  Indeed, thirty thousand pounds.

  “Many men have already approached me for her hand,” the earl went on to elaborate. “She would, of course, be partial to your attentions, which is why this would be a good time for you to press your advantage.”

  “In other words, you have the advantage because you are excessively wealthy and heir to one of the oldest and most powerful dukedoms in all of England.

  Alex had long since become familiar with aristocratic speak; the polite way to express one’s single-minded ambition for money and position.

  Alex tempered a wry smile as he was certain it would not be well received. “Then I would urge your daughter not to refuse any further marriage offers on my account.”

  Lord Cranford’s brows lowered and his mouth flattened into a line. His hand tightened on the curved ivory handle of his cane. What followed was a silence that strained every bit of civility in his narrow-eyed countenance.

  “Are you telling me you have no interest at all in my daughter?”

  “As much as I admire her, I don’t believe we would make a good match.” Another face appeared in his mind’s eye. One with dark gold ringlets and eyes the blue of the Mediterranean Sea. How apropos she’d returned and resumed where she’d left off—wreaking havoc on almost everything in his life. But this time he was prepared. He’d not be fooled by her bewitching innocence that had so entranced him before.

  Alex could tell by the dispirited look in Lord Cranford’s brown eyes that the man would like nothing better than to be able to change his mind. “You won’t find another better than my Mary,” he warned, as if Alex had just turned down the treasure of a lifetime. “Your mother said as much.”

  Then perhaps my mother should marry Lady Mary herself.

  “I shall consider that my loss.” Lady Mary was lovely if somewhat frivolous and would have made an adequate wife, carrying out the duties of a duchess with aristocratic aplomb. But many others could fill the role just as nicely. He’d have to select someone after he’d concluded the whole affair with her.

  “Mary is still young. Perhaps—”

  “With all due respect, Lord Cranford, but on this matter, my mind is set.”

  “Your parents—”

  “My parents do not have a say in who I choose to marry,” Alex said, hardening his tone.

  The earl stared at him and then as if realizing the futility of his mission, sighed and making full use of his cane, rose slowly to his feet.

  “Very well. I shall take my leave. I have taken up enough of your time.”

  Alex stood, relieved the visit was at a close. “Then I shall bid you adieu, my lord.” Alex turned to one of the footman who never ventured far when he entertained guests—although that itself was a rarity—and now stood framed in the opening of the drawing room. “Please see the earl out.”

  With a nod to Lord Cranford, Alex quietly departed. He then made his way to his study, a place where he could bar the outside world from entry. But he didn’t bar the door, he merely closed it, instinctively crossing the room to the sideboard. He pulled himself up with a vigorous shake of his head just as his hand reached for the crystal decanter, the fingers of his other hand already curved in anticipation of the glass.

  The decanter was empty. The glass was naught but a decorative piece of etched crystal. Both had gone unused for two years. Alex abruptly dropped his arms, curled his hands into fists and strode over to the black leather armchair.

  Memories of why he sought comfort in this particular room assailed him. It was in this very room he’d so often found solace—oblivion—at the bottom of a glass of rum. When all the rum was gone, he’d start on the whiskey. He had spent hours in a day—days on end—sinking deeper and deeper under its spell.

  But not anymore. But damn, he needed a drink.

  Damn her!

  Tugging off his necktie, Alex pushed himself back into the sloping pocket of the high-backed chair. The duke would think he’s been handed heaven on earth when he learned about Nicholas. A living replica of his late beloved son would be like a dream come true. His mother, in her own dramatic fashion, would clutch her hands to her chest and cry copious tears. The ton, of course, would not only relish the scandal, they’d all but wallow in it. Something else to befall the future Duke of Hastings whose misfortunes had begun even before he’d been jilted at the altar. They’d practically rub their hands in glee.

  Damn her!

  This time, Alex refused to allow it to get that far.

  “Alfred!”

  Seconds later, his butler appeared in the doorway. “Yes, sir?”

  “Where is Conrad?” Alex inquired of his steward.

  “He’s—”

  “Never mind that. Instruct him to arrange a meeting for me with Mr. Reynolds on the morrow. Tell him the matter is urgent.” Bloody hell, at the moment not only did he require the counsel of a solicitor, he needed a vicar. Not to mention a constable to prevent him from wringing her deceitful, lying neck the next time they met, which would be soon enough.

  “I shall inform him directly, sir,” Alfred replied, but made no move to leave.

  Alex shot him an arched look. The last time his butler had worn that particular look of consternation was two and a half years ago, during one of Alex’s more memorable drinking episodes.

  For failing to monitor the inventory of the rapidly diminishing alcohol closely enough, Alfred had suffered the indignity of having his capabilities, and worse yet, his hearing called into question.

  Didn’t you hear me when I told you I needed more rum? If you weren’t so quick to run off, you’d take heed of half the things I ask of you.

  Sober, Alex had apologized for his tirade. That had been three days later.

  Now, Alfred never missed a word or a syllable, always fastidiously awaiting a nod of dismissal before departing.

  Alex curtly obliged him.

  Charlotte’s chemise was not removed but caressed from her trembling body. Cotton linens woven so tightly, she thought it was satin or silk against her skin as she lay spread like a wanton on her back, her hands kneading and caressing sinewy muscles and damp flesh.

  His finger traced her nipple in slow, delicious concentration. Her back arched as her fingers bit deeper into his shoulders. Heat ripped a fiery path from her breasts, down the dip in her belly, and then set fire to the notch between her thighs. The wanting was excruciating madness, yet she knew she would die if he stopped.

  “Does it feel good? Do you like it?” he asked, his voice rough with desire, his gray eyes dark with passion.

  His breath fluttered on her nape and his finger continued its erotic dance with her nipple, reducing her to inarticulate gasps and moans.

  She yearned. She writhed. So desperate was she to find surcease from the ache building and spiraling inside her, she was ready to beg for completion.

  “Open for me,” he said, before lowering his head and drawing a pink, beaded nipple into his mouth. His cheeks hollowed as he began to suckle. The chamber echoed her cry of delight and her moans of satisfaction. With knees bent and her feet flat on the mattress, her
legs fell open in eager anticipation and welcome.

  Easing his finger into her center, he found her slick, hot and tight. Soon another finger joined. Charlotte thrust her fisted hand into her mouth to muffle a scream. His withdrawal caused pleasure to scorch every inch of her sensitive inner flesh. Then he plunged back in. Helplessly, her hips began to move in counterpoint to his sumptuous thrusts. Soon his fingers weren’t enough for either of them.

  While he suckled her breast, pausing often to nip at her tip with teeth and tongue, he replaced his fingers with his erection. There was no easing or inexorable push, just a hard thrust, seating himself as far as he could go. Overwhelmed by the force of his possession, Charlotte whimpered, and then let out a gusty sigh of relief, of unadulterated pleasure. Her inner muscles clamped down on him hard.

  He groaned low and long. “God, you feel so good.” He wore an expression that ran the line between exquisite pleasure and torture. But Charlotte couldn’t halt the undulation of her hips as she urged him deeper, hotter. Her soft pants filled the sex-humid air. His ragged groans joined hers as he set a rhythmic pace, thrusting heavily into her with long, smooth strokes. His tongue devoured her like a lusty invader, kissing her until he learned all the hidden crevices of her mouth. Charlotte reciprocated wholeheartedly, just as hungry for him as he was for her.

  For endless minutes, they mated with the intensity and avariciousness of new lovers, or old lovers who’d been too long apart. The chamber walls echoed their whimpers, moans and the hard slapping of damp flesh, intent on the climb to satisfaction.

  As the precipice grew closer, he tore his mouth from hers, panting and making guttural sounds deep in his throat. His hands made forays around her breast and belly, roamed down farther and found the hidden nub above her moist folds, and flicked it as he continued to pound into her, obliterating her every thought but the need for more. More of him. More of his touch. More of everything.

  He shifted his hips, and the new angle and his finger on the source of her desire catapulted her up until she was soaring and exploding in a shuddering mass. She convulsed and heaved while he found his own release, before her glide back down to earth.

  “Oh God, Alex. Alex,” she chanted into his neck when he slumped atop her, his chest heaving for his next breath. Her hands clutched his muscled shoulders and slid down to the sweaty expanse of his back to pull him close.

  And then he was gone.

  Her arms lay empty on the tangled white bed sheets. Charlotte reached out again with an urgency that bordered on desperation, endeavoring to stop the panic from taking over. Again she found nothing. That’s when the pain came and she embraced it with harsh, desolate sobs.

  “Alex. Alex. Alex,” she cried out in the dark.

  Charlotte came awake with a start, her heart a stampede of horses thundering over America’s wide-open plains. It took her a moment to get her bearings and catch her breath. She was in England in her old bedchamber. Tears wound their way down her temples.

  She had dreamed him again. Alex and their last time together. The tears rolled their course faster. The dream now came with a frequency that frightened her. For two weeks now, it had made its nightly sojourn into her sleep.

  She’d woken up hot, her senses acute and overwrought, but now the coldness seeped into every pore despite the warmth of her bedchamber. The dreams always left her this way, chilled and dissatisfied. But tonight there was something else, a prickly uneasiness. It was then she realized the source of her disquiet wasn’t the residual effects of her dream but something based firmly in reality.

  Charlotte heard a slight movement to her right. She bolted upright, her hands clutching the counterpane close to her chest. In the darkened chamber, she could only make out the shape of someone—a man—reposed in the chair close to the fireplace.

  Fear so effectively gripped her by the throat, all she could manage was a gurgled exhalation, not the bloodcurdling scream that would bring in the cavalry.

  “Don’t scream,” a male voice instructed her softly.

  For a moment Charlotte was convinced her ears were playing some sort of cruel trick on her. Had she conjured his voice up from her dream? Was she that bad off?

  He rose from the chair with an unmistakable ease and grace. Alex.

  Seconds later, he was standing by the side of her bed, half his face illumed by the faint light from the fire burning on the grate. Not like the Alex of her dreams. This Alex was solid and real, and darkly forbidding.

  “Alex—Alex what are you doing here?” Charlotte barely managed to croak out the question, hot all over once again.

  She could feel his silver gaze scoring her, unreadable, unwavering. After a nerve-wracking pause, he asked in a voice both chilling and calm, “When did you intend to inform me that you bore me a son?”

  Chapter Four

  Charlotte didn’t know what she’d expected him to say under such circumstances but what had emerged from his mouth did not even come close. The panic now flooding her left her disoriented, breathless, her mind spinning furiously as she debated how best to respond. Or rather, thought up a plausible lie.

  How can he know?

  While she sat staring at him in stunned silence, he casually lit the gas lamp on her bedside table. It was then she had a clear view of his face, his eyes burning into her when he turned from his task. Despite his tone, that calm masculine cadence, his form was taut and he stood too still. As if he was restraining some violent, volatile emotion from erupting and cracking his outward calm.

  “I—I’m not sure what—”

  “I swear, if you lie to me again, I’ll make you pay in ways you could never imagine.”

  Such a threat should have been either raised in fury, or delivered low and menacing. Alex’s voice rose not a notch while it maintained an even tone. His eyes, however, told an altogether different story. They flashed like lightning strikes displayed in the kind of thunderstorm that could split and fell a hundred-year oak and bring down rain enough to flood a town from cellar to roof.

  How could he know with such unshakeable certainty? She had expressly told him Nicholas was three, which made fathering him impossible. But it was obvious he did not believe that.

  With her eyes now fully adjusted to the gas light, she could also see his swarthy complexion held a dark-red hue beneath the surface. Charlotte swallowed as she debated how exactly she should respond. How could she respond?

  “He—”

  Alex must have sensed her coming denial because in the next instant he loomed above her, his proximity shrinking her back into her pillows. His face was all chiseled planes of rage, his lips curled back against his teeth.

  “Don’t you dare lie to me. Not again. Not ever again,” he growled, deep and dark.

  His tone frightened her, as if a mere gossamer thread of control checked a bottomless well of rage.

  “Alex.” His name emerged a whispered plea, a calming tone of reason.

  He pulled slightly back, enough to bring the full of him into sharp focus. Drawing in a breath, his gaze raked her form and it was as if fire and ice had decided to do battle. In a rare show of glacial strength, ice won.

  Charlotte shivered in response and the skin on her arms gave way to gooseflesh.

  His mouth tipped at one corner but in nothing that came close to a smile. Perhaps its not-so-distant relation irony or mockery.

  “Had Charles not been traveling the year we were betrothed, you would have met him,” he murmured in the same conversational tone one might adopt when discussing one of life’s mundane trivialities. “One day, I shall show you a portrait of him when he was Nicholas’s age. Had I not known it an impossibility, I might have mistaken Nicholas for his.”

  Even if Charlotte had the ability to speak, she had no idea what she would say. Denial at this juncture would be pointless. She’d been found out.

  “When was he born?” he asked quietly, bracing his hands on either side of her face and closing the gap between them. “And this time I want t
he truth.”

  As if the truth was alien to her tongue, she started to speak several times before the word finally emerged breathless and broken. “January.”

  He said nothing for several seconds, just held her captive in his flat, empty stare before lowering his head until his mouth brushed the lobe of her right ear. “See, that wasn’t so hard was it?”

  Arousal, razor-sharp in its intensity, cut her next breath as sensation spiraled at the fleeting touch of his lips and the warmth of his breath at her ear. Dear God, it had been so long since she’d been so intimately touched. Dreams were, after all, just dreams. Reality was…intoxicating.

  He straightened and stood towering above her, his broad shoulders blocking much of the light. She felt his absence like a cold draft on feverish flesh. A sound, a mocking laugh, rumbled from his throat. “You’ve been back not yet one full day and you look starved for it.”

  The it being the cause of her quickened breath and the way her nipples perked to lurid attention. The act of sexual congress.

  Not quite finished provoking her, he continued on, his voice all faux commiseration. “The journey back must have been long.”

  Despite his words and tone, his gaze ran hotly over her. She wasn’t alone in her physical response. He was just slightly more adept at concealing his. Her gaze dropped to the discernible bulge in the front of his trousers. Or perhaps not.

  Turning her head didn’t stop the heat from flooding her face in shame. She hated that he knew. She hated that she’d reacted to him like a woman deprived of a man’s touch for five long years.

  “Were you dreaming of me?” It wasn’t so much a question as a silky taunt.

  Charlotte didn’t answer and didn’t dare look at him. She couldn’t bear to see the smug smile accompanying his words.

  “Did you know you cried out my name in your sleep?” No longer did his tone hold that thread of jeer, it was now dark and husky.

  She edged her head in his direction. He was staring down at her, his eyes half-mast, his bottom lip shiny as if he’d given it a surreptitious swipe with his tongue. While he held her gaze, he lowered himself to her side, the rub of his thigh now pressed along the length of hers. Fine Indian muslin proved pitilessly insufficient protection against the senses-reeling effect of the contact, even with his leg encased in black wool.