by Jenny Brown
Eliza had barely time to take in Lord Hartwood’s last astonishing words—his wild assertion about marrying her—when the man himself burst out of the chamber. His face was pale, except for two spots of bright color that flared under each sharp cheekbone. When he saw her standing so close to the door, his eyes widened. For a moment, she thought that he was going to discharge his fury on her. But he stopped as if balancing on the edge of his rage for a moment, then he let his burning gaze sweep across the hallway. The servants he skewered with his eyes dropped their self-appointed tasks and elbowed each other in their haste to disappear down the back staircase lest they find themselves the target of their master’s rage. Only the bravest remained.
A rush of expressions flickered over Lord Hartwood’s face, each too fleeting to be interpreted. The fury that had dominated him as he left his mother’s room dissolved first into a look of mischief as he watched the servants flee. Then, after his eyes met Eliza’s and held them for longer than was almost bearable, she saw something else—the vulnerable look of a scolded child, which vanished as swiftly as it had appeared, and was replaced at last by the cold, ironic expression she had come to know so well.
Eliza tried to imagine what she could possibly say to him, but it was not conversation he wanted. With a swift, fluid movement like a serpent embracing its prey, he took her into his arms and pulled her body close to his. The satin of her negligee rustled as he engulfed her. She could feel his tense, well-muscled body impressing itself along her own. His lips sought hers hungrily, desperately, forcing them open. When he had possessed them he began to suckle gently on them. The pressure of his kiss was so strong that her tongue was drawn quivering but unresisting into the warm, throbbing neediness of his mouth.
Had she not known that this display was only for the sake of the watching servants, she might have been overwhelmed by the depth of need she felt emanating from him. It was as if he was trying to bury himself in her, to lose himself in her softness, to blot out the pain of the interview with his mother with something that only she could give him.
His hunger tore at her, evoking needs she had not, until that very moment, known she had. Though she knew his ardor was just for show, her lips responded to his. Hardly knowing what she did, she found herself drawing his thrusting tongue into her own mouth, moaning, and making tiny, soothing sounds that seemed to be beyond her own control as his arms crushed her against his tall, hardened body. It was a strangely pleasant sensation to be held this way, to be so totally enfolded. There was so much comfort in it, despite his passion, despite his size. As he kissed her, he forced his thigh between her legs, prying them open. She could feel his male hardness yearning against the flimsy satin that was all that separated him from her nearly naked body. She felt herself grow wet in that private place below and yearned to draw him even closer, but ignored the impulse. She must not lose control, not now. Her head fell back and she felt his lips move to her throat. But she must not believe for a moment that the need she felt emanating from him was real.
This show was just for the sake of the watching servants. He felt nothing for her. She must not respond to him with her own unbridled neediness. And yet, as she forced herself back to consciousness fighting to free herself from the wildness he had evoked in her, she saw that the servants were gone, the hallway was empty, and still he held her in this deep embrace.
Her body was afire with sensations she had never before experienced. She might easily lose herself forever in his arms. And with that thought came panic. He did not want her. He had forbidden her to give in to him. He had ordered her not to fall in love with him. But the passion he had sparked in her knew nothing of his orders, it knew only his raw, male magnetism, and the way his warm, throbbing body pressed against hers and demanded she yield to him. If she did not get a grasp upon herself quickly and free herself from him, she knew she would be lost.
Summoning up all her strength, she broke from his embrace, wrenching her quivering thighs from his, and pulling away from his lips.
“No!” she gasped.
A look of shock replaced the yearning in his handsome features. He stood back from her, breathing roughly. The sound echoed in the empty hallway, almost drowned out by the pounding of her heart. Then he rasped, “You’re right. We can’t couple here. We’ll finish this in my bed.” But he made no move to leave but instead reached toward her and embraced her again.
A thrill ran through Eliza’s body. The memory rushed through her of how he’d coaxed her body that first night and of the startling sensations she’d felt as he’d explored her nakedness. Though when she remembered the alarm that had overtaken her as he’d pushed on farther, it struck her how different things were now. Something had changed. The repeated contact she’d had with him—playacting or not—had calmed the fear she had felt that first time he had held her in his arms. She wanted him now; the warmth and wetness that flooded her womanly organs told her that. He stood locked with her in a passionate embrace, breathing hard, though there was no one there to observe them. Could some of the need that she felt radiating from him be real? Could he want her as much as she wanted him, despite the vehemence with which he’d told her such feelings were forbidden?
But then he spoke, and when he did so, she had her answer. For when he addressed her his voice was far too loud-it wasn’t the quiet whisper that was all that was needed to reach her, wrapped as she was in his arms, but something else. Something the actress in her recognized all too well. A stage whisper. His words had not been spoken for her ears, just as the embrace, which had so undone her, had not been meant for her.
She turned away from him and stumbled toward his bedroom, trying to hide the sudden tears that sprang to her eyes. What an idiot she’d been! None of it had been meant for her. How could she have thought that even for a moment? That last embrace had not been for the sake of the servants, no. But it had not been for her, either. It was all an act, as he had intended it to be. Had she not lost herself so shamelessly in the lust his embrace had evoked, she would have noticed a crucial detail: When Lord Hartwood had left his mother’s chamber, he had not closed her door.
Chapter 9
“If you learned to kiss like that while acting Lady Teazle with the vicar I will have to change my poor opinion of country life,” Lord Hartwood said. He had led Eliza, still stunned from their encounter in the passage, into his bedroom, and after closing the door had flung himself upon the high bed where he lay back upon the cushions. The candlelight amplified the look of mischief that was now in complete possession of his handsome features.
Eliza made no reply. She stood by the doorway, uncertain of how to proceed, eyeing the languid lord sprawled upon the bed with the same degree of caution she might have given a growling mastiff whose owner had assured her that his dog didn’t bite. But as surely as if she had been confronting a slavering hound, she knew herself to be in danger. When she had stood before Lord Hartwood in his office in the bright light of day it had been easy to assure him that she would allow him to take no further liberties with her person, that she would guard herself from any foolish emotional involvement, and that she had joined him in his dubious scheme for reasons both practical and rational.
But it was night now, and the logic that had seemed so compelling in the morning was impossible to follow as the candlelight flickered fitfully over his supine form. The kiss that had seared her with its passion might well mean nothing to him. It might be just another move in the chess game he was playing with his mother. But she could not so easily leave it behind.
With a leap of painful insight, she understood for the very first time why a decent woman should never let herself be found alone with a man. The danger in such an unchaperoned encounter did not lie only in the man, in his handsome, taunting face, in his practiced seducer’s tricks, but in herself. Her exposure to Lord Hartwood had changed her in some way she had not expected. It had stripped away a mantle of protection that until now she had not known was guarding her. And without it sh
e felt herself exposed to dangers she could not clearly imagine but whose power she could no longer doubt.
“You are silent, Eliza,” Lord Hartwood said, the teasing tone in his voice replaced by one of gentle concern. “Did I frighten you with my display of passion?”
Eliza made no response.
“I did,” he said soberly. “It is understandable. I frightened myself, too.” He raised his head from the cushions. “I suppose I should scold you, for you promised me you wouldn’t again tempt me to violate my principles, and once more you have. But I haven’t the heart to scold you. Nor will I threaten you with dismissal—Yes, I saw that fear flit across your face.” His face held an unaccustomed look of kindness. “You may hold yourself blameless. You shall earn your money yet, though I will have to tread carefully if I am not to fall prey to your irresistible charms.”
Eliza bristled, sensing that he was making fun of her and feeling that his levity did not mix well with the consternation his embrace had caused her. “I gave you my promise that I wouldn’t give in to you,” Eliza said stiffly. “And I intend to keep that promise. I am a woman of my word.”
“I am relieved,” Lord Hartwood said, with an ironic lift of his eyebrow. “But how novel it is for me to reproach a woman for her assault upon my virtue. I grow more reconciled every hour to my decision to include you in my plans. You are an unending source of pleasure to me.”
“And to your mother, too, I would wager.”
“Ah, yes. My mother.” He sat up in the bed. “Since, along with the rest of the household, you had your ear pressed up against my mother’s door, you must have heard her give her blessing to our marriage.”
“I heard all she had to say to you.”
“Then what think you? Should you like to be my Lady Hartwood?”
Eliza bristled again, his teasing suddenly intolerable. “Marriage is no joking matter. Your mother spoke of it only to insult you, and you responded to her in kind.”
“But though our words were said in anger, the argument I made her was compelling. Is it not true that the only difference between the woman who sells her body for one night and the one who sells it for a title is the term of the contract?”
“Perhaps, but that’s just one more reason for a woman to stay single.”
“Then you will not marry me? I am very rich.”
“There is a limit to what I will do, even to disoblige your mother.”
Lord Hartwood fixed her with a considering gaze, his mahogany eyes deep and unfathomable. “The surprises, it seems, will never end! I have proposed to my mistress and she has refused me.”
“I am not your mistress,” Eliza said with sudden annoyance. “Nor were you truly proposing. Save such theatrics for your mother. There is no one here to impress with your outrageousness.”
“Only you, my little seeress,” said Lord Hartwood quietly. “And you, it seems, I shall never be able to impress.”
His warm brown eyes were so open, their expression so transparent, that for a moment Eliza could have believed that there was more to his joking offer than he had let on. But she would not fall for such tricks again. It was all a game to him, a game that was becoming more painful to her by the moment. Uncontrolled, the emotion he had kindled in her boiled up, transforming into something new.
“Do you ever stop playing?” she demanded angrily. “Or is everything a childish game with you?”
“Everything is always a game to me,” he replied sharply. “I thought I had made that clear from the outset of our connection. It was you who said that my Leo nature made me a man who lived for love, not I.”
As he spoke, something in his eyes shut down. The warmth that had filled them only a moment before was hidden behind an icy veil. And as he hid himself from her, it struck her with more force just how foolish she had let herself become. The hurt she had seen in his eyes and their warmth had tricked her into hoping the need she felt emanating from his body was truly a need for her. She had taken it as the first tentative sign that he might, in truth, be learning how to love. But that was only her own need speaking. A Leo need not learn to love. He might just keep on playing—like a mischievous child who would never grow up—playing game after game, as this man before her did, through every moment of every day.
But she could not afford to let him see the extent to which his casual play had transformed her from a sensible woman into a swooning girl. In a tone as cool and ironic as his own she said, “I begin to think I underestimated the power of Sir William’s new planet on your Leo Sun. My aunt held that people with Uranian natures had something explosive in their personalities that made them love to shock or surprise. No wonder they call you Lord Lightning! In one evening you have forced your mother to dine with your mistress, and not only with your mistress, but with your father’s mistress as well. Then you called your mother a whore and nearly coupled with me on her doorstep. Surely you must have set a new record for playing childish tricks.”
“My tricks, as you call them, have hurt no one who did not deserve it.”
“No? Well what about the trick that you played on me, Your Lordship?”
“What trick do you accuse me of?”
“You told me the terms of your brother’s will forced you to bring your mistress with you. Had that been true, your mother would have known in advance that you would be bringing along a mistress. Yet clearly she did not. She was too offended by my appearance to have had any inkling of what you planned. How foolish you must think me to have believed such a cock-and-bull story as that your brother’s will demanded you bring a mistress with you in order to claim your inheritance.”
He looked away, his guilty expression confirming that her suspicion had been correct. He toyed with his neck cloth for a moment before replying, “You misunderstood me. I said only that your presence here would help me better enjoy my inheritance. And so it has. The will does demand my presence here for a fortnight if I am to inherit and enjoins the same condition on my mother if she is to retain her home, but it put no other conditions on me. Still, you cannot deny that I am greatly enjoying the effect you are having on my mother. So you see, what I told you was true. To be able to enjoy myself when forced to spend time with my loving mama, I did need to bring along a mistress.”
“So you will defend yourself with casuistry?”
“I have no need to defend myself at all,” Lord Hartwood said. “You wished to come, and I let you. You are being paid well for your services. I, in turn, wished to confront my mother with her hypocrisy and could think of no better way to do it.”
“Then why did you not trust me with your true intent, instead of deceiving me as to your motive for having me accompany you?”
“I thought you wouldn’t come with me if I was more forthright.”
“Perhaps I wouldn’t. But now that I know that you weren’t honest with me, I am troubled. Your mother does seem convinced that it was you and not James who ruined that poor girl. Did you lie to me about that, too, Your Lordship?”
His eyes darkened with fury. “If a man were to call me a liar as you have just done, I would have to call him out and kill him.”
“Then it is fortunate that I am a woman, so you do not have to add murder to your list of sins. But you have already admitted you were not truthful with me,” Eliza responded with effort keeping her voice even. “So what reason do I have to believe that it was really James who ruined that young woman?”
He leaned toward her from the bed, his body taut. “Surely you more than anyone should have had ample proof that I do not delight in ruining innocent young women.”
She paused, abashed. That much was true.
“If you cannot believe what I tell you now, we had best call off this farce,” he said, his voice dangerously quiet. “These are the facts: I never met the girl James ruined. Never. And if I had, I wouldn’t lie about it. Unlike James and my dear departed father, I do not hide my sins. What I have done, I have done in public for all the world to see.”
The
passion in his voice caused Eliza to take an involuntary step backward. “But if you are innocent,” she asked, “why didn’t you defend that innocence when first she accused you? Why didn’t you refuse to take the blame?”
“And be the reason James lost his chance to marry his wealthy heiress and rescue our family from the morass of debt my father had plunged us into with the purchase of that damnable necklace? The damage was done. I did not wish to see my family ruined. Perhaps it was the wrong decision, but I was only seventeen when I made it. Besides, how could I prove my innocence? The girl was dead. James and I were the only ones who knew the truth of the situation. James had no compunctions about lying—nor did my mother have any interest in establishing the real truth about who had ruined the girl.”
He let out a sigh. “All my life, my mother preferred to believe that it was I who was at fault in any situation, rather than her favorite, James. Even when I was a schoolboy she had me whipped for James’s misdeeds.”
“She did that?”
“Many times. One time, when I was but ten, James stole some firecrackers and set them off in church. He was thirteen, three years older than I, and he ran with a group of wild friends. But still, she blamed me. She whipped me until I bled and then kept whipping me. I still carry the marks of her switch on my back. I can show them to you if you think that I am lying about this, too.”
“That won’t be necessary!” Eliza protested, appalled. He must have seen the shock in her eyes, for the fury drained out of his own and when he spoke again now it was with a certain desperate sadness.
“You are right when you say that I turn everything into play. I tease my mother with these slight reminders of the way that she has treated me, though I know she will never admit to the truth. I brought you with me and decked you out in that accursed necklace to remind her of who it was who really ruined our family. I paid Mrs. Atwater to come to dinner for I wished my mother to remember that though I may be a libertine, the profligacy that ruined our family wasn’t mine.”
