“That doesn’t make you any less than a gentleman,” Juliana said fiercely, appalled that he thought less of himself for helping Thalia in the only way that could help her. “You are doing it for a noble cause—to save an innocent young woman from a life of despair.”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” he said, stepping next to her. “There’s nothing noble about what I’m going to do. And I’m sure as the devil not doing it for Thalia.” His hands once again closed around her upper arms and he yanked her next to him. “I’m doing it,” he growled, “for you. And that’s the only reason I’m willing to risk my neck. For you, no one else.”
A quiver of delight shot through her, but she quickly suppressed it. His reasons didn’t matter, she reminded herself earnestly. What mattered was that he was willing to do it and that Thalia would be saved.
Clearing her throat, she said, “And I thank you. I know it was unreasonable of me to have asked you to undertake such a task in the first place, but I am most grateful.”
“Unreasonable,” he said tightly, “is not accepting my marriage proposal.”
“Um, I don’t remember that you actually proposed,” Juliana pointed out. “You told me that we would be married.”
“Is that what this about? You want me to propose?” The incredulity in his tone almost made her smile.
“No, it—”
“If you say that word one more time, I won’t be responsible for my actions,” he snarled.
Too aware of that sinful mouth just inches above hers, too aware of the disturbing heat and flutter between her thighs his very nearness caused to think clearly, she remained motionless in his arms. That he was holding on to his temper with an effort hadn’t escaped her either and she sought for a way to end this increasingly volatile situation.
Impatiently, he shook her again. “Why won’t you marry me? Tell me what you find so objectionable.”
“Oh, Asher,” she cried softly, “I don’t find you objectionable in the least.” Her hand cupped his cheek. “If I wanted to marry, you would be the very man I would want as my husband.”
He turned his head slightly and his lips brushed her fingers. “Then why are you refusing me?” he asked huskily.
How to explain, she wondered miserably. How to explain that she liked her life the way it was. How to make him understand that she was happy in her cottage with Mrs. Rivers, her old nursemaid; she was happy arranging her life as she liked, happy to spend her money and time as she saw fit—with no one to gainsay her.
Having lived under the fist of first her father and then her husband, she relished the freedom she had these days. While neither man had ever been a tyrant, she was always conscious that her fate lay in their hands. In the years since her husband had died, she had learned to treasure her independence, and the idea of giving it all up, of seeing the reins of her life that she now firmly held placed in someone else’s grip was almost more than she could bear.
She loved Asher. She admitted it. She had been in love with him a long time—probably since childhood. But she didn’t want to marry him, she thought stubbornly. The notion of never seeing him again, or worse of watching him marry another woman, made her heart ache and her resolve waver. She’d never thought she’d face this dilemma and hadn’t really examined the choice she would make. Some day would she regret turning him down? Was her independence dearer to her than marriage to the only man she had ever really loved? Could she really turn her back on love?
“Damn it! You have to marry me,” Asher said forcefully, tired of waiting for her reply. “I’ll speak with your father tomorrow.”
Juliana stiffened. “I think you forget that I am of age and that my father has no say in whether I marry or whom I marry,” she snapped, her temper rising. And then she said the very worst thing she could have. Her chin lifted and, oblivious to the hint of challenge in her voice, she said, “You can’t make me marry you.”
Scarlet waves actually flashed in front of Asher’s eyes. His hands tightened on her arms and he jerked her next to him. A second before his mouth came down hard and hungry on hers, he muttered, “Oh, yes, I can. And I will.”
Chapter 11
Cloaked by the night, Asher leaned against the oak tree outside the library at Ormsby Place and studied the towering dark shape in front of him. The hour was approaching midnight and he’d already made his rounds double-checking that the servants had done as he assumed they would and with the master gone, had retired to their own quarters. They had.
Earlier, wanting no surprises, he’d shadowed the marquis on Ormsby’s ride to Apple Hill and had waited until Ormsby had disappeared inside the house before he made his next move. Ormsby’s horse had been taken to the small stable beyond the main house and once the Apple Hill servant had thrown some hay into the manger and seen that there was water in reach, he’d departed, leaving the horse tied in the stall.
Familiar since childhood with the place, it was easy enough for Asher to slip into the stable and the stall. The horse, a fine chestnut gelding with one white foot, snorted at his intrusion, but he quickly soothed the animal. He’d come prepared for the task at hand and brought forth his tools. Picking up the rear right foot of the horse and waiting until the gelding offered no further objections, he loosened the shoe. With luck it would come off within minutes of leaving Apple Hill. Putting the foot down, he patted the horse gently on the flank and disappeared into the darkness.
Thinking about the loose shoe as he stared at the impressive silhouette of Ormsby Place, he smiled. A thrown shoe wasn’t a catastrophe, but it would certainly slow Ormsby’s homeward journey. Not that he expected the marquis to return home for several more hours yet—he just wasn’t taking any chances. He was impatient to have this job over and done with because once he had those damned letters, he could concentrate on a certain bullheaded, obstinate, utterly desirable young widow.
Just the mere thought of Juliana sent a shaft of lust coursing through him and he wondered how he’d been able to tear himself away from her hardly less than twelve hours previously…especially without getting her to agree to marry him. He scowled.
What the devil was wrong with her? he wondered sourly as he watched the house. That she cared for him, perhaps deeply, he had already surmised. Juliana would never have allowed him to make love to her if she wasn’t halfway in love with him, and just as importantly, she never would have entrusted him with her sister’s problems if she didn’t trust him.
So why wouldn’t she marry him? She had to know that he was not a drunkard or a gambler…. Well, he was a gambler when the need arose, but she didn’t know that. He owned a fine estate. He wasn’t unhandsome. He was clean about his person. He was good to his grandmother, his siblings, kind to dogs and animals…. He grinned. By God, he was a paragon of virtue—any woman would have been thrilled to marry him.
So why hadn’t Juliana thrown her arms around his neck and given him the answer he wanted…and expected. He winced at that last. Mayhap that was the problem? He’d been too confident? Rubbing his jaw, he considered that idea but dismissed it. No, it was something else, but damned if he could figure out what and he sure as hell wasn’t going to find any answer in the next few minutes. He had a house to break into and letters to find and steal.
He pushed Juliana from his mind and brought all of his concentration back to the matter at hand. Gliding like a shadow, he slipped across the expanse of lawn and a second later was opening the door to the library.
Stepping inside the big room, he paused and though nothing but darkness met his gaze, he glanced around. Almost like a tiger testing the air, he breathed in the scent of the room and, finding nothing to alarm him, Asher walked straight to the wall where the Gainsborough painting hung. Silently, he removed it from the wall and rested the big painting against the empty fireplace.
Lighting the small candle he’d brought with him, he looked at the safe and grinned. Within moments he had it open and was rifling through the contents. His fingers closed around t
he Ormsby diamonds and he sighed. He didn’t dare steal them tonight—when word of the theft of the diamonds spread, and it would, Juliana would know exactly who had snatched them. Thwarted again, he thought wryly.
He shrugged, left the diamonds where they were and moved onto an oilcloth-wrapped packet. His ears pricked for any sound of trouble, he untied the leather binding and opened the packet. It was filled with several letters and he quickly skimmed through them, looking for Thalia’s. As his gaze skipped over the various letters searching for Thalia’s, a frown creased his forehead. Thalia wasn’t the only one Ormsby was blackmailing. Hmmm.
Thalia’s letters, all three of them, he discovered about midway through the stack. Wasting no time, he shut the packet, retied it, slipped it into his pocket and closed the safe. Another moment later, the Gainsborough was carefully hung back in place and he had blown out his candle. A few long strides later, he was out of the library, the door closed snugly behind him. Taking a quick assessing glance around the area and seeing or hearing nothing to alarm him, he sprinted for the concealment of the oak trees. Less than three minutes after that, he was on his horse and riding for Fox Hollow.
In his rooms upstairs at Fox Hollow, Asher stared at the long, oilcloth packet he had laid on the table next to the chair where he sat. He had stripped down to his breeches and shirt and was sipping from a snifter of brandy. Set on the table next to the packet, a large candelabrum, all six candles lit, cast a bright, flickering light over the oilcloth parcel.
Feeling as if he was confronting Pandora’s box, Asher put down his snifter and gingerly picked up the packet and after only a moment’s hesitation, opened it and began to study the letters and notes it contained. The contents were revealing and his assumption that Thalia wasn’t the only person to be bent to Ormsby’s will because of indiscreet and foolish scribbling was made apparent.
He didn’t read the entire contents of each letter, just enough to confirm his suspicions, but it still took time. Several minutes later, he had two stacks of paper on the table beside him. The shortest contained only Thalia’s letters, the other and far larger, the remainder. Thalia’s he picked up and, walking over to the small mahogany chest positioned near the door to his bedroom, with a bit of muscle, he lifted the chest, knelt down and ran his fingers over the stretch of wooden floor he had exposed. Feeling the very slight edge he was looking for, he worked at it, until he was able to pry it up. A narrow space beneath the floor was revealed and he placed Thalia’s letters in it. He carefully replaced the short section of oak planking and tamped it down to hide its location, then replaced the small chest. Everything in place, he considered the placement of the chest, making certain that no sign that it had been moved was apparent. Satisfied that Thalia’s letters were safely hidden until he could give them to Juliana, he turned away and walked back to his chair.
Picking up his snifter, he swallowed some brandy and looked at the remaining stack of letters, thinking of his next move. While all of the letters would be damning and embarrassing to the individuals who had written them, only the scribblings of two of the people troubled him and he again divided the stack into two. The larger stack of letters he would see was returned to the various owners. He would have preferred to use Hannum to deliver the individual letters, but his butler’s features were too distinct and Asher was determined that the return be done anonymously. Still Hannum would prove useful in selecting which of the servants from Fox Hollow could be entrusted with the delicate task.
His gaze settled on the other two letters and he sighed. One was from a prominent member of Parliament and the other from a well-known general currently serving at the Horse Guards in London: both verged on treason and Asher knew just the man to take care of the problem. These letters he dared not trust to a servant. He grimaced. He was going to have to undertake their delivery himself and it might prove tricky.
He hoped Roxbury was still in London; there was a good chance that he was. The old duke, with his net of gentlemen spies cast far and wide, was unlikely to travel far from the center of the web. Wellesley’s ejection of the French Marshal Soult out of Portugal in May had been encouraging news, but the volatile situation in Spain had not yet been resolved. Asher would have wagered a bit on blunt that living amongst the Spanish guerrillas were more than one of Roxbury’s adventure-mad gentlemen and that those same gentlemen would be sending periodic reports to London for Roxbury’s perusal. The war between Austria and Napoleon was also not yet settled and Asher had no doubt that again, at least one or two of Roxbury’s men, acting as the old duke’s eyes and ears, would not be far from the fighting. No, Roxbury would not stray far from London.
Asher considered the problem, finally deciding that seeing the two letters were placed in the duke’s hands shouldn’t be overly difficult. He smiled faintly. He’d slipped into Roxbury’s town house once already; doing it again should be child’s play.
A yawn took him. He had several busy days ahead of him and with the visit from the Sherbrook family darkening his horizon, the trip to London and back would definitely be a hasty one. Especially, he thought ruefully, when I have a decidedly reluctant lady to convince to marry me.
His mind drifted to Juliana and her refusal to marry him. He was still baffled by it, but was undeterred. He grinned. The chit should never have issued that challenge….
Juliana was very aware that she had made a tactical error by flatly refusing to marry Asher. And issuing him a challenge to make her marry him, she admitted wearily, even if it had been unconscious, had only made the prospect more enticing to him. After he had left that night, she fled upstairs terrified someone would see her and guess what she had been about. Abby had left candles burning in the sconces on either side of the door and a warm glow met her as she entered the room. Shutting the door behind her, she leaned back against it, her breathing rapid. She was safe. No one had seen her.
Pushing away from the door, she forced herself to cross the room and stand in front of the cheval glass. One look in the cheval glass revealed that she had been right to be frightened of being seen. Her gown showed clear evidence of having been hastily donned, her hair hung about her face in wild tangles, her lips were red and swollen, her pupils dilated and there was a sultry cast to her face. Seeing her, no one could doubt that they were looking at a woman who had just been well loved. Or, she thought furiously, a doxy just risen from her lover’s bed!
Turning away from the damning image, she rushed over to the pitcher and bowl that sat on the small pale green marble-topped table on the far side of the room. Tearing off her gown, she threw it on the floor. Her chemise followed and she kicked off her satin slippers as if they stung her feet. With trembling hands she poured water from the pitcher and snatched up the clean cloth and the bar of flowery scented soap lying next to it. Forbidding herself to think of Asher and what they had done together, she spent the next several minutes washing away all signs of her recent activities. Only when her entire body was scrubbed and sweetly perfumed from the soap did she cease her efforts.
Abby had laid out her white linen nightgown and a pale pink robe on the bed and, picking up the nightgown, she slid into it thankfully, leaving the robe lying there. She brushed her hair into order and, feeling a bit more composed, picked up her gown and chemise and examined them. To her great relief, beyond being rumpled both garments were fine and she laid them on one of the dainty chairs in the room for her maid to attend to in the morning. Asher had taken the handkerchief with him; all the incriminating evidence had been disposed of and she breathed easier.
Juliana blew out the candles by the door and the room was plunged into darkness. Climbing into bed, she clutched a pillow to her chest and curled her body around it. Like a wounded animal she lay there, her thoughts chaotic.
Tonight she had made love with Asher Cordell…in her father’s library! She, who set herself up as mentor to her younger sister, she, who prided herself on the way she lived and had always comported herself like the proper young woman she h
ad been raised, in a moment of intoxicating passion, had acted with all the morals of a Covent Garden whore! Astonishment mingled with shame churned through her. Astonishment because she could hardly believe she had acted that way and hot shame because she had been unable to resist the temptation Asher presented.
But she didn’t regret it, she realized dazedly. Not one second of it. No, she could never regret those wild moments in his arms. Never. Never regret knowing his kiss and the magic of his body moving, possessing hers. She would treasure that joining, treasure the memory, but it could not, must not happen again. In the future, she would guard against any opportunity for him to weaken her will. Becoming his mistress was unthinkable, but she was aware how effortlessly it could happen. The need to know again the glory she had found in his embrace would never go away. She knew that and she could only hope that she was strong enough to resist the temptation to find out if her memories and reality were the same.
His offer of marriage surprised her. The idea of marrying again had never entered her mind and she had been astounded to receive a proposal from him. Her lips twisted. Asher’s offer of marriage, she admitted, was the least of tonight’s surprises.
Her uninhibited response to his lovemaking was a revelation to her. Where had that eager, passionate woman come from? During the years of her marriage, she had enjoyed, or at least, hadn’t found the marriage bed distasteful or a chore. But tonight, with Asher, it was as if the woman who’d lain so passively in William Greeley’s bed and the woman who had writhed and moaned beneath Asher Cordell were two different beings. Remembering Asher’s urgent lovemaking, the way she had reveled in his touch, his caresses…a flush covered her entire body and an insidious aching warmth flooded her.
Passion Becomes Her Page 17
