“Precisely. Now I’m not excusing that wretched Brockhurst or his friends, but Revelstoke wasn’t part of the wager, was he?”
“No, but what he said—”
“He likely just said it to shut Brockhurst up. I daresay it’s tiresome to have bucks constantly trying to join his herd,” Rosie said complacently. “At any rate, his comment was in reference to some anonymous wallflower. I’m sure he wouldn’t have said it if he knew you were the girl in question.”
“But that’s not the point! A true gentleman wouldn’t say such things about any girl. He’d defend her honor and—”
“Pols, I hate to say this, but you are far too sensitive for your own good.”
Her breath whooshed from her as if she’d been punched.
“The world is not a perfect place,” her sister said matter-of-factly, “and neither of us are as naïve as we once were. Which means we must make the best of our situations. For you, that means getting over the business with Brockhurst—and by that I don’t mean setting your cap for the likes of Nigel Pickering-Parks. You need to pull your head out of the sand, dearest, and see yourself as you truly are. You won’t be happy until you do. As for me, I need respectability and status—which being a countess, and, eventually, a duchess will give me in spades. Therefore, Revelstoke is the answer to my happiness.”
Polly felt as if her insides had been scrubbed with sandpaper, the other’s observations leaving her raw. And that was before Rosie poured on the acid.
“Since Revelstoke is to be my husband, could you find it in yourself to be nicer to him? You were rather ungracious when he so thoughtfully gave you a gift,” she said.
At the chastising tone, Polly could hold back her frustration no more.
“Because that gift wasn’t meant for me,” she burst out, “and it most definitely did not belong to his mother! He was lying. I could see it in his aura.”
“I suspected as much,” Rosie breathed, her glow… delighted? “He probably brought that locket for me but gave it to you because he felt badly about interrupting your birthday party. Oh, isn’t he gallant?”
Polly didn’t think she could feel further humiliated… but she was wrong apparently. Her sister’s explanation made perfect sense. It also made her feel as if she’d been entered in a contest of pity against her will and handed the consolation prize.
To the fat, peculiar wallflower goes the locket…
“I don’t want it,” she said flatly. “Since it was meant for you, you take it.”
“No, you keep it, dear. I’m sure Revelstoke will have other gifts for me in the future.” Aglow with hope, Rosie danced to her feet. “Now you’ll think about what I’ve said, won’t you?”
Utterly deflated, Polly could only nod.
“Excellent, because I’ve exhausted my supply of seriousness for the entire year.” Rosie flashed a saucy grin. “Now I must get my beauty rest if I’m to look my best for the earl.” At the door, she paused. “And dearest?”
“Yes?”
“Once things are settled with Revelstoke, we’ll find you a proper husband too.”
“I don’t need—”
But Rosie was already gone.
~~~
At half-past two in the morning, Polly gave up trying to sleep. Sighing, she tossed aside the bedclothes and sat up, rubbing the heels of her palms over her eyes. The conversation with Rosie had stayed with her, chasing sleep away.
Her sister had claimed she was too… sensitive. Was that her true problem? But who wouldn’t feel hurt by what Revelstoke had said—what he’d done? Hurt swamped Polly, along with anxious bewilderment: Rosie had never dismissed her feelings before. The other was her best friend, her constant companion, the one who’d always understood. And now…
Anger bubbled up. This was all Revelstoke’s fault.
From the moment he’d entered Polly’s life, he’d wreaked havoc. He’d said those unforgivable things about her, mocked her when she’d caught him acting like a madman, and then added insult on top of injury tonight. Now he had Rosie in his thrall, so much so that the girl was taking his side over Polly’s. And who knew what nefarious troubles had brought him to darken Ambrose’s doorstep?
Her stomach rumbled noisily. On top of everything, she was hungry—and that is Revelstoke’s fault too, she fumed. She’d been so distracted by the blasted man at supper that she’d hardly eaten anything herself.
Disgruntled, she tossed the coverlet aside and got out of bed. Perhaps warmed milk might soothe her ruffled state; she certainly wasn’t going to fall asleep otherwise. She donned a chintz wrapper, lit a lamp, and made her way downstairs to the kitchen.
The cavernous basement room was warm, the air redolent of delicious smells. Embers glowed in the cooking hearth, the precisely hung rows of pots and pans glinting in the light of Polly’s lamp. Making a trip to the larder, she returned with a jug of milk, a leftover slice of Em’s cake, and a bowl of plump cherries. She nibbled on the fruit, pouring some milk into a pan to warm, when a faint rustling noise made her freeze.
It was coming from the dark corridor beyond the kitchen… the stillroom? Her muscles tensed, and she listened for more of the furtive sounds. She told herself it was just a mouse, but when more rummaging noises emerged, her pulse beat in a rapid staccato.
She grabbed hold of the closest weapon; with her hands wrapped around the handle of a cast-iron pan, she moved stealthily toward the stillroom. She’d do a quick reconnaissance, summon help if necessary. As she neared, she heard shuffling, glass tinkling… the sound of a clandestine search? She peered cautiously into the stillroom—and her breath clogged her throat. In the flickering dimness, she made out a large, menacing shape hunting through the shelves.
She gulped. Time to get help.
She began creeping backward down the hallway when a floorboard squeaked beneath her slipper. Through the pounding panic, she thought she heard a man’s voice, and she turned to flee down the corridor. She made it to the kitchen when a vise-like grip closed around her arm.
“Let go of me!” She swung her weapon with all her might. She made contact, the force of impact vibrating up her arm.
“Hell and damnation,” the burglar swore.
Panting, she raised the pan again—only to have it yanked from her grip. Even as she drew air to scream, a hand covered her mouth, her back colliding against a wall of muscle. Her hair in her eyes, she struggled blindly, kicking out, trying to escape by any means necessary.
“Desist, you Amazon,” a low voice growled in her ear. “It’s me. Revelstoke.”
The words took an instant to penetrate.
“Rblsmuck?” Her words were muffled by his hand.
“Aye. Now if I release you, will you please refrain from waking up the entire bloody house?”
The instant she was free, she spun around, stumbled back. There was no mistaking the earl’s sardonic features. In the dim kitchen, his eyes glittered like midnight sapphires, a night beard darkening his lean jaw. The scruff and his billowing linen shirt, which hung open at the collar, made him look like a dangerous pirate.
Wrapping her arms around herself, she struggled to calm the anarchy of her breath. “What on earth are you doing skulking about?”
He set her makeshift weapon down upon the kitchen trestle. “I wasn’t skulking. I was looking for something.”
“In the stillroom?”
“I woke up with a devil of a headache, if you must know. I didn’t want to disturb anyone at this hour, so I came in to look for willow bark powder. My housekeeper always keeps some in the stillroom.” He ran a hand through his dark hair and winced.
When he withdrew his hand, she saw that it had blood upon it.
“D-did I do that?” she stammered.
“It’s nothing. I’ve a hard head, and trust me,” he said wryly, “it has encountered harder surfaces than your pan.”
Remorse percolated through her. She’d assaulted Revelstoke… made him bleed. Whatever she might think of him, she’d n
ever wish him physical harm.
“Come with me,” she said.
His brows lifted. “Where are we going?”
“To get you fixed up.” Turning, she led the way back to the stillroom.
Chapter Nine
This was undoubtedly one of the most surreal moments Sinjin could recall—and that was saying something, given what he’d been through in the past month. There was a dream-like quality to the scene: sitting on the edge of the work table, he felt as if he’d landed in a magician’s laboratory.
Lamplight illuminated the bottles of potions lining the shelves of the stillroom, showing off their rainbow hues. A large apothecary’s cabinet dominated one wall, and the magician’s daughter was there, rummaging through the cupboards. She had her back to him, and he couldn’t deny that it was a lovely view. Free of its usual confines, her hair fell in a thick, wavy cascade to her hips, the mix of gold and bronze as lush as a Titian painting.
When she bent over to search in another drawer, he was met with another revelation. As prim as her wrapper was, it clung faithfully to what was inside. The belt cinched around a ridiculously tiny waist. The robe flared to accommodate sweetly rounded hips and, as she leaned over more, the material stretched over her derriere for a taut and transcendent instant.
By Jove. He’d been right about her figure. Her dowdy frocks hid a fortune of feminine bounty.
A buffle-headed sensation stole over him. He must be woozy from the injury… or from the enforced celibacy. Yes, that must be it. Blood loss combined with pent-up seed would make any man crazed.
Get it together. You need Kent’s help, and you’re not going to get it by ogling his sister like some randy schoolboy.
Although it hadn’t been easy, he’d laid out his situation to Kent, asking for help. The investigator, to his credit, had seemed to take the story in stride. Perhaps it was the fact that he considered himself indebted to Sinjin for rescuing his daughter. Either way, he jotted down the information in a notebook, stopping Sinjin now and again to ask for clarification.
Kent’s neutral posture and patient questioning had made it easier for Sinjin to talk about that night. He’d divulged every detail he could think of, including his belief that his whiskey had been drugged and the distinctive male voice that had surfaced in his dream. He supposed some might think that he sounded like a lunatic, yet Kent had lived up to his reputation as a fair and deliberate man who didn’t jump to conclusions.
He’d refused to take a retainer fee, saying that he needed more facts before deciding whether or not there was a case to take on. He’d agreed to interview Nicoletta on the morrow to get her side of the story. He’d also taken Sinjin’s concerns about being followed seriously and allowed him to stay the night.
Sinjin was grateful to his host, even if his guest quarters were situated above the stables. He understood the other man’s caution. If he were a husband, papa, and brother, he wouldn’t want himself spending the night under the same roof as his womenfolk either.
By the time Miss Polly returned bearing a tray, his somber thoughts had helped to rein in his wholly unsuitable reaction to her. She set the tray down next to where he was sitting on the table and handed him a paper sachet.
“Here you go. Willow bark,” she said.
Unfolding the paper, he downed the contents in a practiced gulp. When she offered him a glass, he took it, the cool water washing away the bitterness.
“Thank you,” he said.
She regarded him with pursed lips. “I’ll have a look at your head now.”
“That’s not necessary—”
“Hold still.”
Ignoring his protests, she reached up, tugging his head down gently. She ran her fingers lightly through his hair. At her probing touch, he felt a line tighten from his gut to his balls.
“Oh, dear,” she said with obvious remorse. “There’s a bump forming already.”
Luckily, his untucked shirt covered his loins, where the bump was growing larger by the moment. Seeing her worried expression, however, he felt an odd twinge in his chest. Perhaps it was the novelty of a female evincing concern over his welfare. He was not used to being coddled. His fleeting memories of his mama’s tenderness were tainted by the fact that she’d abandoned her own sons. Whenever he chanced to hear the lullaby she’d sung to him, the longing that welled was bittersweet.
As for his stepmama, he hadn’t received an ounce of kindness from her. He’d been a rough-and-tumble boy, and she and His Grace had treated his injuries with scathing lectures, eventually packing him off to Creavey Hall when they no longer wished to deal with him. At the school, his feats had earned him beatings from the staff and respect from his wild cronies, who crowned him their leader. His scars became badges of honor, a symbol of neck-or-nothing rebellion. The females he later consorted with claimed that the rough marks enhanced his virility.
But Polly Kent, the odd creature, seemed genuinely disquieted by, what was for him, a negligible hurt. He could only imagine what she’d say if she saw the scars on his back… not that she ever would.
Gruffly, he said, “’Tis but a scratch.”
“You’re dripping blood onto the table.”
“I have plenty to spare.”
“Hold still, or you’ll only bleed more.” As appeared to be her wont, she showed no sign of deferring to him. She fussed with something on the tray, returning with a handkerchief. “This may sting a bit.”
“What are you—bloody hell.” The sudden burn blurred his vision. “What in blazes is that?”
“Spirit of witch hazel. Our physician recommends it for cleansing wounds.”
“Does your quack happen to be employed by the devil?”
“Lean your head down, if you please.” There she went, paying him no mind again. She might try to disguise herself as a wallflower, but nothing could hide that stem of steel. “It’ll only take me longer to finish if you don’t.”
He yielded, gritting his teeth as she proceeded to set the rest of the wound on fire. He tried to distract himself… and found it absurdly easy. For in her quest to have her way with him, dictatorial Miss Polly had ended up standing between his splayed thighs. The scent of her hair—apple blossoms and honey—wafted into his nostrils, his mouth watering. With his head pulled down and her hands raised as she fussed with his wound, he had an unobstructed view of her bosom, and what a bosom it was.
Her modest bodices were a crime. The lapels of her chintz wrapper, however, confessed the true story: like the Red Sea, they parted to the holy power of her breasts, which were undoubtedly divine. The fine muslin of her nightgown couldn’t hide the shape of those magnificent bubbies, perfectly round and full, made to fill a man’s palms. As she moved about, swabbing his scalp, the lovelies gave a saucy bounce for which he’d endure a hundred other injuries for the privilege of seeing.
Christ Almighty, Polly Kent has a fine pair of tits.
His cock, that randy beast, twitched with interest. He was no stranger to lustful thoughts, but what was foreign to him was this sense of… curiosity. Over a female, of all things. Women were hardly a novelty, and reading their signals was a skill he’d honed over the years. They usually wanted one (or more) of the following from him: money, sex, or marriage. He was generous with the first two and never with the last.
Miss Polly, however, remained an enigma, a bundle of contradictions. Why did she care about his injury when she obviously couldn’t stand him? And why would she choose to cloak her loveliness with dowdy clothes? Was she as prudish as she made herself out to be—or as passionate as her body’s promise?
Not that he’d ever find out. He needed to get involved with a virgin like he needed to get shot in the head. The only honorable outcome of dallying with an innocent was wedlock, and God knew he wasn’t equipped to be a husband. Marriage, intimacy, emotional entanglements of any kind—he wanted none of it. Especially not with an interfering little prude who’d made him feel like a fool more than once, who wouldn’t even accept a damned
gift without questioning it.
The subject of his musings took an abrupt step back, and against his will, he found himself in the thrall of her clear, blue-green gaze. For an odd, prickling instant, he fancied she could see through him—through the twisted maze of his inner workings to the devils at his core…
She jerked her wrapper closed, tightening the belt. “You’re patched up. Now why are you here?”
He gathered himself. “I told you. The headache.”
“I meant what is the purpose of your calling here tonight? And, please,” she said with a dismissive shake of her head, “don’t say it is social. Why did you wish to speak to my brother?”
It was her damned acuity, he decided, that had bothered him from the start. She had a way of making a man feel transparent—laid bare. Her perceptiveness had the opposite effect of flirtation: it felt unmanning and unpleasant. If she wished to ward away suitors, her keenness was a better shield than her frumpy get-up would ever be.
“If I have business with your brother, it’s not really your concern, is it?” he said.
“Anything that involves my family involves me.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and he’d wager his stables that she was oblivious to how that gesture thrust her tits up, emphasizing their spectacular size and heft. Of course, that led him to wonder about her nipples, if they would be plump or shy, fair as her skin or rosy as her lips… which were, unfortunately, still moving.
“… especially when your actions raise the hopes of my sister,” she was saying. “She doesn’t deserve to be dallied with by a hardened rake. I know the type of man that you are, my lord, and I doubt you have an honorable bone in your body.”
Her last words cut his lustful musings short. Normally, he didn’t give a damn what people thought, but her judgmental assumption got his back up.
Therefore, he drawled in a tone designed to annoy, “Ah, the fair Miss Primrose. She is a side benefit of this visit, isn’t she?”
“She’s not a side benefit to you or any other man.” Her eyes weren’t so calm and clear any more. Good. “Are your intentions toward her honorable?”
Never Say Never to an Earl (Heart of Enquiry Book 5) Page 8
