“I am relieved.” He shared a smile with Cleo and she began wondering what she would do if she suddenly had three suitors rather than the already unmanageable two.
Oh dear. Apparently given to a similar vein of thought, Tia delivered a subtle kick to her beneath the table. Cleo glared at her sister. Tia began flirting madly with Clarence in response. And it was just as well, she supposed. Although she admired their mild flirtation, she knew it was a mere fancy. The sole man in her thoughts, impossible though it may be, was Alexander de Vere.
When the opulent meal came to an end, Cleo pleaded a headache and slipped away to the sanctity of her chamber. She needed time away from everyone. Time to think about how on earth she could proceed, knowing their troubled history, despite his arrogant sneers, despite his interruption of her otherwise stable life, the fact that he frustrated her at every turn, that she could never truly have him thanks to her ill-chosen husband and despite his irreverent and shockingly improper pugilistic display in the library…
She wanted him.
The realization struck her with such force she nearly stumbled in the hall outside her chamber door. She paused, reaching up to trace the placard that had been neatly inscribed with her name, Countess of Scarbrough. For her entire adult life, it had been a mantle she wore, a title to which she gave little heed. She was five and twenty and she had never felt for her husband the inexplicable draw that pulled her to Thornton. It had been a mere matter of days and already she found it difficult to envision her world without him again, their troubled past be damned. She wanted his touch, his kiss. She wanted to wake up in his bed, in his arms, to wear the scent of him on her skin like her French perfume, to…
What was that rumbling noise emanating from her chamber? Her hand stilled on the placard and she listened to the distinct sound of a man snoring. It couldn’t be. Cleo swung open the door and stepped inside, shutting it at her back when she spotted the object of her tortured musings lying in slumber on her bed. He was clothed from head to toe in black, still wearing his boots, ankles crossed, arms resting behind his head. As she entered the room more fully, she discerned a purple bruise marring his jaw and a split in his otherwise perfect lips. The gas lights flickered low, but even in the sparse illumination they threw off, he was beautiful and tempting.
Truly, she should have been shocked to find him there. If she had the slightest bit of sense, she would wake him by boxing his ears, the blighter. He’d delivered more blows than those he’d given Ravenscroft today, yet here he was, blithely snoring away, resting on her bed as if he belonged. Worse, there was no hope for ringing for Bridget now.
Fortunately, she’d worn one of her newly designed gowns that opened down the front bodice. But that hardly solved the matter of what to do with the sleeping giant in her bed. Waking him after she’d disrobed seemed like a poor plan. On the other hand, her dress improver was altogether too tight.
Opting for sensibility, she gave Thornton a gentle shake to wake him. His gray eyes opened and he gave her a slow grin as he stretched. “Is it morning, then?”
“Sadly not.” Cleo eyed him sternly, doing her best to fortify her inner defenses. “What are you doing in my chamber besides snoring like a drunken sailor?”
“How many drunken sailors have you heard snoring in your day, my lady?”
“None,” she admitted.
“Thought not.” His grin deepened to reveal that charming dimple. “Was I snoring?”
“Loudly.” She smiled back.
“I had some of Cosgrove’s whiskey,” he confessed, sheepish. “My head hurts like the devil.”
“’Tis what you deserve for rolling about in the library as if you were a common street urchin.”
“No mercy, Cleo?”
“You had none for me,” she pointed out.
He winced. “I suppose you heard an earful, yes?”
“Of course I did.” She swatted him on the arm because he didn’t look nearly repentant enough for her taste. “Everyone assumed you had been fighting over me and I was left inventing the miserable excuse that you had come to blows over a volume of Tennyson’s poetry.”
Thornton scoffed, sitting up suddenly, the picture of affronted manhood. “I don’t even like poetry. In fact, the practice is utterly useless unless one takes into consideration the odd sonnet that gets a man under a woman’s skirts.”
His pronouncement earned him another swat, this time on his ear.
“Ouch.” He glared at her, rubbing the side of his head. “I didn’t deserve that.”
“You most certainly did.” She became aware she was shaking her finger at him as her governess had done, but she couldn’t seem to upbraid him without a wagging digit, so she continued. “You are a rotten man. All you’ve done in the last few days is to make trouble for me. First you closeted me inside a darkened room and undid my bodice—”
“You liked that.”
“And then you found your way into my bath. But you couldn’t leave it at that, oh no. You had to fight with the most notorious man in the realm over me, then throw me to the gossips while you got silly on whiskey. And now you’re in my bed talking about using sonnets to seduce ladies—”
“I said nothing about ladies.”
“Which is even worse,” she huffed, swatting him again for good measure. “You hide beneath a pose of coolness and unimpeachable honor, but you are truly a rogue at heart.”
Thornton gave her a smoldering look. “Guilty as charged, I think. Care to kiss me?”
Of course she wanted to kiss him and that was entirely the problem. Did he not realize how difficult she found it to be in his presence without touching him? Even now, she yearned to be wrapped in his arms. Certainly, she wanted to oblige him, God help her. Instead, she ran a light finger over his split lip. “Does it smart?”
Thornton winced, ruining the raffish air he’d created on the bed with his bruised face, slight shadow of a beard and sleep-mussed hair. “The damned earl has an impressive right hook.”
“I had Bridget take you a poultice.”
“The bloody thing reeked of medicine. I couldn’t stomach it.” He kissed the finger that had stilled over his gorgeous mouth. “The gesture was most appreciated, however.”
Unable to stop herself, Cleo swayed into him, pressing her face into the deliciously scented skin of his neck. His arms caught her to him in a tight embrace and he hauled her onto the bed so that she lay atop him. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes. She felt him nestle his face into her hair. His hands stroked her back. Beneath her lips, his pulse thrummed. She kissed the vital cords of his neck, breathing deeply of him, savoring him. The effect he had on Cleo frightened her.
She tipped her head back to gaze at him. “Thornton, what are we playing at?”
His gaze met hers, a wry smile curving his lips. “The games of men and women.”
“I do not think I can do this,” she said with bare honesty.
Thornton’s hands stilled. “We are both of an age.”
He would not be serious with her, then. Men always strove for humor whenever real emotions got into sight. Rather than argue, Cleo opted for a change of subject. “Did you know Lord Cosgrove sacked the poor footman?”
“Footman?”
“The one who began the chant,” she explained, recalling it all too well. Thornton, Thornton, Thornton.
“The Cockney lad who wanted me to beat Ravenscroft to a ‘bloody pulp’, you mean?”
“Just so. I expect he forgot himself in the hubbub.”
“He and at least half a dozen others were chanting my name.” He had the nerve to grin as if he’d enjoyed himself. Which he probably had, the cad.
“Likely only because of its ease,” she scoffed with an unwanted touch of laughter in her voice. “Fewer syllables, you know.”
“Or because they knew a victor when they saw one.” His grin grew into the same bold smirk he’d worn earlier that day in the library.
Cleo tapped his nose. “You are too much, my
lord.”
He kissed her finger again, his eyes darkening with a serious intent. “Cleo, I’m sorry to have made you the object of speculation. I assure you it wasn’t my aim.”
She searched his gaze for meaning. “What was your aim, Thornton?”
“My aim in attending this house party was to please my mother, who requested my distinguished presence here to ease my sister’s transition into society.” He gave a rueful laugh. “My aim in the library remains questionable, however.”
“I have little doubt my husband shall hear of it,” she murmured.
“Again, I apologize. I too have little doubt that news of our contretemps will find its way to his ears.”
“I don’t think I care.” She was aware of the implications of her words. Surely it was wrong of her to feel this way for a man of such short acquaintance, their long-ago engagement aside. Surely she should be ashamed of her boldness, of her desire for him. Yet she couldn’t summon even a crumb of conscience.
“I know I don’t care.” He caught her hand and pressed another kiss to her palm, then her wrist, stopping at the pulse there. “Your heart thrums fast, my dear.”
She swallowed, inexplicably nervous now that she had taken the inevitable leap. “I should tell you that I have never, save a few misplaced kisses throughout the years, been unfaithful to Scarbrough.”
“You cannot be unfaithful to a man who has no faith. Know that.”
“Thornton, would you—”
An insistent knock at the door swallowed the words she’d been about to say. Thornton groaned. “Is it your blasted maid with yet another poultice? Hang me if it is.”
“Cleo!” The hiss from the corridor was unmistakably Tia’s. “Cleo, Helen and I must speak with you at once. Do let us in!”
“It’s not my blasted maid, it’s my blasted sisters,” she whispered.
“Pretend you’re sleeping.”
“The gas lights are on.”
“They can’t see that beneath the door.”
“They’ve been known to lower themselves to the floor to peek,” she warned.
“In their corsets?”
“We can see you’ve your light on,” Tia trilled. “Stop trying to avoid us.”
“I told you so.” She rolled away from him and slid to the floor, frantically straightening her skewed bodice and fluffing her flattened skirts. “Hide somewhere,” she ordered him when he remained lounging on her bed.
“Where would you have me?” With a sullen frown on his lips and his black clothing, he appeared disreputable and delicious. Yes, there was his word once more. She found she rather liked it.
“Cleo!” The knocking grew louder.
“A moment,” she called to her dratted sisters. “Get in the bathroom,” she directed.
“Right,” he grumbled, swinging his long legs to the floor. “Going. Don’t mind me. I’ll just sleep in the bloody tub for the evening whilst you chat away with your sisters.”
She glared at him before hurrying across the chamber to the door. With one last cursory smoothing of her hair and skirts, then a glance to be certain he’d truly hidden himself, she pulled it open. Tia’s eyes narrowed. Helen looked suspicious.
“What took you so long to answer the door?” Helen demanded.
“I was writing in my journal,” she lied.
“You don’t keep a journal,” Tia countered.
“Of course I do. ’Tis where I keep my innermost thoughts.” She took a step back and gestured for her sisters to enter. “Come in, you sorry lot.”
Her sisters did as they were bid, Tia scarcely waiting for the door to close before she sniffed the air. “It smells of a man in here. Cleo, are you entertaining without telling us?”
She wondered if her guilt showed on her face. “I’m sure you don’t smell anything at all, you odious creature.”
“Enough squabbling,” Helen interrupted, asserting her august elder sister role. “The real reason we’ve come,” she emphasized, ruining her presentation by poking Tia in the ribs, “is to make certain you have weathered the storm, so to say.”
Her annoyance at the intrusion abated as quickly as Lord Cosgrove could quaff a few drams of good Scottish whiskey. “It is sweet of you to check on me. I am as well as can be expected. I dare say Scarbrough has done worse.”
“Of course the bastard has.” Tia patted her on the shoulder. “It’s time you had a scandal of your own.”
“A scandal?” Cleo winced. She hadn’t thought it that bad. Well, not precisely, anyway.
“You don’t expect anyone to truly believe the earl and the marquis fought over a volume of Tennyson, do you, darling?”
“Tia.” The admonishment came from Helen, but too late.
“What?” Tia shrugged. “’Tis true.”
“Of course not,” Cleo admitted with a rueful smile.
“Really,” Tia went on, “Tennyson. No man would fight over something as over-valued as poetry, least of all his. Horses, perhaps. Women, naturally. Tennyson? Absolutely not.”
Cleo glared at her younger sister. “You needn’t overdo it, Tia.”
“Well, it was a terribly stupid excuse.”
“Tia.” Helen poked her in the ribs again.
“Ouch.” Tia rubbed her bodice, frowning at Helen. “Your fingers are quite sharp, you know.”
“Perhaps if it had been Shakespeare,” Helen suggested.
“No, I fear Tia is right in her assessment and not even old Will could help me to extricate myself from this scrape.” Cleo sighed.
“Even so, it’s rather unheard of.” Helen beamed. “Two men coming to blows at Lady Cosgrove’s house party! You may be lauded as the epitome of the modern woman.”
“But I am not a modern woman. Not at all.”
“No one will blame you,” Tia agreed, “particularly not with that sordid story circulating about Mrs. Giroux taking tea in your Mayfair house.”
“What?” Cleo was properly outraged. How dare Scarbrough install his mistress at Cleo’s respectable home? It was unthinkable.
“Oh dear.” Tia frowned. “I suppose you hadn’t heard that one.”
“No.”
“These days gossip is passed around more than naughty French novels.” Helen patted Cleo’s shoulder. “Think nothing of it, dearest. It’s probably not true anyway.”
It probably was true, which they all knew, but none of them mentioned. Sometimes, truth is best left unspoken.
“Darling, are you certain you’re perfectly well?” Tia’s countenance grew serious, concern furrowing her light brow.
No. The truth was she quite feared she’d gone mad and the rest of the world had yet to realize it. Was it really she who had brought an infamous rake and the brooding marquis to blows in the library? How was it that Thornton waited for her in her bathroom, that even now she wished to shoo her sisters into the hall so she could be alone with him? How was it that she’d gone from hating him to…well, not loving him. But certainly, the enmity between them had dissipated in favor of a grande passion that could be the unraveling of them both. No, she didn’t really think it hasty or melodramatic or even terribly gothic of her to deem it such. Not a bit.
In fact, her life was beginning to take on a disturbing similarity to a Shakespearean play. She knew not yet if it was to be comedy or tragedy, but she rather hoped for the former.
“Cleo?” Tia’s voice interrupted her reflections.
She sighed. “Actually, my dear, dear sisters, I fear I have the megrims.”
Helen’s eyes narrowed this time. “You needn’t pretend to have the headache for us, you know.”
“It is all too real, I swear it,” Cleo told her sisters in half truth.
“Well.” Tia examined her with a knowing air. “I suppose we should leave you to your sleep. We wouldn’t want your megrim to affect you unjustly. Whenever I have an attack of the megrims, I find that it is best to sleep through them.” She made a pretty moue of horror. “Fortunately for you, Cleo, you have no husbandl
y demands to worry about this evening. Does she, Helen?”
Helen sent Tia a conspiratorial look that Cleo did not miss, nor was she meant to. Her sister smiled. “I should think wifely duties are the last thing on dear Cleo’s mind this evening. Are you sure you wish us to leave you, Cleo?”
“It is best, I think,” she said weakly, wishing she hadn’t been cursed with such clever sisters. She loved them, but they could be more merciless than the most cunning of foxes. Thankfully, in this instance, Helen and Tia were willing to retreat rather than finish their hunt. They exchanged good evenings and she saw them out the door just as the faint rumbling began again.
Snoring. A hasty trip to the bathroom confirmed that Thornton had once again fallen asleep, this time on the corner chair where Cleo rested her towel while she was in the bath. She called his name, but he didn’t stir, so she approached him and gently shook his shoulder. Though none of the gas jets had been lit in the bathroom, light crept in from the chamber, bathing him in a golden glow.
His eyes blinked open. “Mmm?”
“Thornton, they’ve gone,” she murmured, uncertain of how they were to proceed.
“Who?” He appeared genuinely perplexed as he sat up straighter in the chair and stretched his arms above his head. He gave a loud yawn punctuated by a belch. “Do excuse me, my love. That was quite rude of me. Quite—” He hiccupped. “Quite bloody rude.”
Oh dear. He’d gone from mildly foxed to thoroughly inebriated in all of ten minutes. Just how much of Cosgrove’s whiskey had he consumed?
“My sisters have gone,” she supplied, “but it’s of little consequence now. I fear you’ve indulged more than I thought.”
“I may have tippled a bit while I was waiting,” he admitted with a crooked grin and gestured to a bottle on the floor at his side.
“You duffer!” His confession earned him yet another swat. “How could you?”
“Boredom?” He shrugged.
She made a noise of suffering.
“Was that a growl, my love? How naughty of you.”
“Stand up,” she commanded, losing her patience with each passing moment. Cleo had been on the brink of giving herself to this man and he’d merely been on the brink of finishing their host’s whiskey collection. “We’ve got to get you to bed. I’m afraid it’s the only answer to your particular circumstance.”
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