by Jo Beverley
“Are you sure he didn’t hurt you?” he asked in a husky voice.
She nodded, intensely aware that his hands still rested on her hip bones. In fact, his fingers were stroking her, lightly and soothingly, through the delicate fabric of her gown. This time, she couldn’t repress the shiver.
He frowned. “Are you cold?”
She shook her head, disengaging reluctantly from his embrace. He let her go, allowing his fingers to trail a path of heat as she stepped away.
“I’m fine,” she said, inwardly cursing the break in her voice.
“You don’t seem very steady on your feet, and you’re trembling. Do you want me to send for Lillian, or my mother?”
It wasn’t only Blundell who had pitched her into her current state of unease, but Clarissa would die before admitting that.
“No!” she responded a bit too loudly.
Christian looked even more concerned. She clamped down on her nerves and tried again. “Really, Christian, there’s no need to call anyone. Lord Blundell hardly touched me.”
His lips turned down in a disapproving curve. “His mouth was bleeding, and you were running like you had the devil at your heels when you charged into me. That sounds rather more than barely touching.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, remaining silent.
His mouth twitched up in a wry smile and he relented. “At least tell me what happened to his lip. Did you bash him with your fan?”
Her fan? What was he talking about?
“That,” he said, glancing at her hand.
She stared in surprise at the fan she still clutched, now a tangled mess of broken sticks and torn lace. It must have been crushed in her struggle with Blundell.
“No. I … I bit him,” she blurted out, instantly regretting it.
He looked puzzled. “You bit him?”
Unfortunately, his puzzlement didn’t last. Enlightenment dawned, and a ferocious scowl descended on his brow. He grabbed her hand and began towing her into the study.
“I’ll kill the bastard,” he muttered under his breath. “I swear to God, I’ll kill him.”
Clarissa panicked. “Christian, stop,” she exclaimed.
He ignored her. She dug her heels into the thick carpet in front of his father’s desk and jerked him to a halt.
“What?” he snapped. His eyes blazed with fury. He looked ready to go to war.
She glared up at him. He glared right back.
“Stop. It. Now.” She ground out each word.
He gave an impatient shake of his head. “You needn’t worry about it, Clarissa. I’ll take care of this.”
“Don’t patronize me. Whatever stupid male thing you’re planning, I won’t have it. I insist that you stay away from Blundell. He didn’t hurt me, and I’ll make sure I never go near him again.”
“You insist?”
He gave her a sweeping inspection, his features etched with a barely controlled savagery. Clarissa hated angry men—hated the raised voices and the stinging slaps that often came with the anger. But Christian, even in a rage, would always be Christian. He would never do anything to harm her.
She propped her hands on her hips, meeting him stare for stare. But just looking at him made her knees quake. He was so impossibly handsome and so intensely masculine that she wanted to shriek with frustration. How infuriating that the boy she had known had grown into a man who could tear her so easily from her moorings.
“You said he forced himself on you, Clarissa,” he growled. “I thought you might be exaggerating to get rid of him before I beat him to a pulp, but clearly I was wrong.”
She sniffed defensively. “I said he tried to force himself. It was just a kiss, which was certainly bad enough. The man is a disgusting pig.”
His eyes turned into chips of blue ice.
“Besides,” she added hastily, “he came out much the worse for wear, thanks to you. I’m certain he won’t come near me again.”
Christian’s anger didn’t appear the least bit assuaged. “He needs to be taught a lesson.”
“Not by you,” she said firmly. “I absolutely forbid it.”
His eyebrows arched with arrogant command, and he looked every bit the hardened soldier. If she didn’t know him so well, she would be shaking in her kid slippers. Although, if truth be told, his imperious look made her stomach flutter with a girlish excitement, which suggested she didn’t really know him very well at all.
“In case you haven’t noticed, Clarissa,” he said in a voice both dangerous and seductive, “I’m no longer a boy for you to order about. As one of your oldest family friends, I’m responsible for you. Your honor has been insulted, and under my own roof. I cannot allow that to go unchallenged.”
The flutters in her stomach turned to pangs of frustration. Honor. He meant his honor. For men, that was always what it came to. She was sick to death of it.
“I don’t care about your blasted honor,” she retorted, her temper finally shredding. “All this talk of honor leads to only one thing—women crying alone in the night. I’ve had enough of that to last me a lifetime. I won’t be the cause of anything happening to you, Christian.”
She jabbed his chest with her index finger for emphasis. “Or even to Blundell, for that matter. My honor is my own to defend. I don’t need you or anyone else to do it for me.”
As she poked at him, he stopped looking angry and started looking amused. His blasted lips twitched again, a sure sign he was holding back laughter. As brawny as he was, she still longed to box his ears.
“And don’t you dare issue Blundell a challenge,” she ground out, determined to put him in his place. “I’ll find out if you do. And … and I’ll tell your mother!”
For a moment, she was sure he was going to laugh, and she vowed to murder him if he did. But he managed to school his expression into one of polite interest.
That made it worse. He was obviously going to ignore everything she said. She closed her eyes, breathing through her anger—and fear, apparently, because once she closed her lids a horrifying image came to life in the darkness. With chilling clarity, she saw Christian stretched out on the ground, a bloody wound in the center of his chest.
Jeremy had died from a bullet to the chest. In all her nightmares, he looked exactly like that.
She gasped, opening her eyes. The room whirled about her and she staggered. Christian’s hands shot out to keep her from falling.
“Clarissa! What the devil—”
With a quiet oath, he swept her into his arms. She knew she ought to protest, but she couldn’t even muster a squeak.
Striding across the room, he gently deposited her in a leather armchair by the fireplace. He hunkered down in front of her, taking her cold hands in a comforting grip.
“It’s all right, sweetheart. If that’s what it takes to make you happy, I won’t challenge Blundell.”
Sweetheart?
She ignored the shock of pleasure that one little word gave her, focusing instead on her anger to restore her strength.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, tugging her hands away. Whenever he touched her like that, her mind went sideways in the most disconcerting fashion.
He gave an exasperated shake of the head.
“Oh, ye of little faith,” he replied sardonically. “I give you my word.”
She snorted, and his eyes narrowed with a dangerous intensity. A prickle of apprehension slithered down her spine. Perhaps she had challenged him enough for one night.
“Oh, very well,” she said in a grumpy tone. “I believe you.”
“I should hope so,” he said dryly. “Not that I won’t be keeping an eye on Blundell. And if he touches you like that again, I won’t be answerable for my actions.”
Her frustration spiked. “Christian, I already told you—”
“Hush,” he said, laying a finger across her lips.
All rational thought fled her brain.
His finger left her mouth and traced a soft path along her chin
. He touched her with such tenderness that it brought a sting of tears to her eyes.
“I know how difficult this last year has been for you. And I know how much you hate violence,” he said quietly. “I would not add to your distress. If Blundell makes any trouble, I promise I’ll tell you before I take any action.”
She stared at him, at sea in a swirl of conflicting emotions.
“It’s just that I miss Jeremy so much,” she tried to explain. “I can’t help seeing him … all alone on that battlefield. If anything were to happen to you …”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’m as tough as boot leather.” Rising to his feet in one fluid motion, he said, “Now, you must promise me something in return.”
“What?” she asked suspiciously, trying to ignore how big and handsome he looked as he stood over her.
He pulled her to her feet. “You must promise to drive in the park with me tomorrow. Just the two of us.”
She started to protest, but he cut her off.
“It’s my condition for capitulating to your wishes. I won’t take no for an answer.”
She bit her lip, buffeted once more by those annoying emotions. As ridiculous as it sounded, he threatened her peace and security in every way possible. He shouldn’t be able to make her feel so unlike herself, but he did. It was mortifying, as was her overwhelming impulse to say yes.
“What are you afraid of, Clarissa?” he taunted softly. “It’s just a spin around the park with an old friend.”
“I’m not afraid,” she scoffed, determined to reassert herself. “But I don’t want people to gossip about us.”
“Then we’ll go earlier in the day. That way, only the nursemaids and the children will see us.”
He grinned—a beautiful, boyish grin. One she remembered all too well. “Give over, Clarissa. It’ll be fun. Just like the old days. You do remember having fun, don’t you?”
Her inner defenses collapsed. She did remember, and that was exactly the problem.
Chapter 4
Clarissa strolled along the meandering path through Hyde Park, intensely aware of Christian beside her. He cast a mocking glance her way, then nodded at a group of nursemaids and their charges—a cluster of little boys and girls pelting about the lawn of a nearby sheltered grove.
“See, Ladybird? Not a gossip or an old biddy in sight. Just a few nursery maids and their innocent darlings. No one who could be bothered to take notice of little old us.”
She only just managed to hold back a sigh of relief. He was right, of course. No person of fashion would be seen in the park at this hour of the morning, which was precisely why she had insisted on it instead of a drive later in the day. Christian hadn’t been pleased that she preferred a walk to a drive, but she’d stuck to her guns. The thought of sitting up next to him on the high perch of his curricle in a public display made her shudder. Even Blundell, who had been in his cups last night, had noticed Christian’s flirtatious behavior. God only knew what the gossips would say if they saw her tooling about town in his dashing carriage.
A penetrating shriek from the direction of the grove interrupted her thoughts.
Christian jerked his head around in search of the source of the commotion. “That’s the most appalling noise I’ve ever heard. Who’s getting murdered?”
Clarissa pointed across the lawn. “I believe the culprit is that little girl. One of those grubby boys yanked on her braids.”
He snorted. “You never screeched like that when I pulled your braids, did you? I think I would have remembered if you had.”
“I didn’t, but only because most of your crimes were so much worse. Shrieking about the occasional hair pulling hardly seemed worth the effort.”
A wicked gleam lit up his eyes. “Crimes such as?”
“Hmmm,” she murmured, pretending to think about it. “There was that time you put salt in my tea. Quite a lot of it, I remember.”
“I would never do anything so underhanded,” he protested, trying to look innocent.
“You would and you did. And what about that time you snuck over from your estate to our manor house—which you did on a regular basis, as I recall.”
“Our houses were only a few miles apart,” he said. “I liked to come by and visit you.”
“Torture me, you mean. Like the day you got into my bedroom and stole all my shoes.”
He laughed, a deep, rolling sound that shot thrills of pleasure all the way to the soles of her feet. The morning sunshine picked out flecks of gold in his light brown hair and gilded his tanned skin to bronze. He looked like a young Greek god—so full of vibrant life that it made her head spin.
“I didn’t steal them,” he said with a grin. “I just hid them for a little while.”
“In the stables, as I recall. It took me days to find them. I wanted to kill you.”
Actually, his ridiculous prank had made her laugh, especially since it infuriated her father. Not that Christian gave a fig about that. He’d been on the receiving end of her father’s wrath on many occasions, but had always shrugged it off. His fearlessness as a young boy had astounded her, and she had admired him for his courage.
“But you didn’t kill me,” he said, gently brushing his hand down the length of her spine. His touch and his warm smile created an air of intimacy around them, as if they shared a delicious secret. It made her feel youthfully awkward, and she had to resist the urge to pull away from him.
Instead, she cleared her throat and adopted a tone of matronly disapproval.
“The worst was when you put a toad in my jewelry box. My heart stopped when I opened the lid and it jumped out at me. If I could have laid hands on you at that moment, I most certainly would have killed you.”
He laughed outright at that. “But that was my way of showing you how much I liked you.”
She frowned and came to a halt in the center of the path.
“You liked me? What do you mean?”
He arched an eyebrow. “What do you think I mean?”
She stared up at him. His gaze, flaring with laughter and warmth, flickered over her. Tiny crackles of energy danced along her nerves. “You were only fourteen,” she exclaimed in a breathless voice.
He gave her a lazy and utterly sensual smile. “I was a very mature fourteen.”
She gaped at him, bewildered by the sense that she was tumbling through a strange landscape—one both terrifying and wonderful. He held her gaze, his eyes no longer laughing, but still full of a heat that made her skin prickle.
“Ladybird,” he murmured in a husky voice.
“Stop calling me that!” She snatched her hand away from his arm and fled down the path, heading in a blind rush in the direction of Grosvenor Gate. In seconds, Christian had caught up with her, grasped her hand, and placed it back in the crook of his elbow. She wanted to pull away, but he held her firmly against his side. Heat flowed between them, thickening the air in her lungs, trapping the words of rejection in her throat.
But what was there to reject? He hadn’t offered anything.
She managed a weak protest. “This … this is ridiculous.”
“What is, sweetheart?” he asked quietly.
The simple endearment drove a spike of longing and pain through her heart. Only Jeremy had ever addressed her like that. Jeremy, the only man she had ever loved. And yet, when Christian spoke to her in that low, rumbling voice, and held her close to him, surrounding her with his seductive, masculine strength …
She pulled in a frustrated breath and threw her free arm out in a circle.
“This. Us. You, acting like—” She broke off, trying to find the right words, the words that would make him stop doing whatever it was that made her wish for things she could no longer have.
Gritting her teeth, she ordered her pounding heart to settle, then met his gaze. He looked calm and watchful, completely in control. For some reason she couldn’t explain, that frayed her temper until it broke into pieces.
“Christian, why are you was
ting time with me?” she snapped. “Don’t you have better things to do than toddle around the park with boring old widows?”
He drew her to a halt, turning her to face him. She suddenly became aware that they had walked into the shade of a secluded stand of trees, away from the open lawns of the park. The playful shrieks of the children had faded, a peaceful silence taking their place. The bustle of the city seemed distant. Only the coo of a mourning dove calling for its mate intruded on their solitude.
Christian tilted her chin up with a gloved finger. His features were stern, even remote, but his eyes smoldered with a fierce emotion, an intensity that unnerved her, making her stomach flutter.
“You mustn’t talk about yourself that way, Clarissa.” His low voice held a note of command. “Not to me. I won’t allow it.”
She stared wretchedly up at him, at a loss for words. The hard lines of his face gentled. He stroked his finger along the edge of her jaw, the texture of his leather glove a whisper of velvet across her skin.
“Shall I tell you why I won’t allow it?” he murmured.
She struggled to find her voice. To find her wits. “Yes … no. I … don’t know,” she replied, cringing at her awkward response.
He studied her, then shook his head, looking rueful. “Maybe later. You’re not ready to hear what I have to say.”
She blinked, deflated by his answer. Whatever it was that he wanted to tell her, she knew it would frighten her. But a part of her brain—her heart—yearned to hear it.
Yearned for him.
Transfixed and horrified by the thought that had popped unbidden into her head, Clarissa didn’t resist when he guided her back along the path. Silence fell between them, weighted and full of meaning—for her. She hadn’t a clue what Christian was thinking.
After waiting minutes for him to say something, she could no longer stand the silence. If one of them didn’t speak, she might very well succumb to a fit of the vapors and run screaming from the park.
Or box Christian’s ears.
Taking a deep breath, she blurted out the first thing that came into her head. “Captain Archer, when do you return to Portugal? Very soon, I would think.”
