“Precisely.” The dowager appreciated a loyal staff. Certainly she had not revealed to Hollins the reason for her ire, or their plans to depart the next morning at dawn, or even why she’d requested an emergency audience with Lady Bella. It hardly mattered. She expected her staff’s support as her due, but knowledge of it always vindicated her. By the time Bella finally dragged her feet through the door, the dowager was beginning to be cheered by her ambitious plan. She was convinced she would fashion herself the savior of her son.
“Mother?” Bella eyed her with confusion, then glanced at the packing maid and Hollins bustling about the room. “Whatever do you require at this late hour?”
The dowager hastened to her side and linked arms as she had not done with another woman since her come out days. “I have a plan to save your brother,” she whispered, conspiratorial style. “No one must know.”
Cleo waited until Thornton was naked and atop her to reveal her sisters’ plans to him. When she finally released the words, they left her in a long, jumbled rush that scarce passed for English. Never mind, for he caught her meaning and stilled, his body hovering hot and hard over hers. His beautiful face looked as if it had been hewn of oak, so rigid had his expression become.
“What the Christ was that you just said, darling?” His voice was breathless but urgent, with an undercurrent of something dangerous. “Because I distinctly heard the word ‘sisters’ in relation to my home. Surely my ears are wrong.”
Her own body was thrumming with wanting him, so she tipped her hips up to brush herself against him. “You heard correctly. My sisters will be joining us.”
“Jesus. Why not invite your mother and father while you’re about it? Perhaps we should ask Lady Grimsby and Margot Chilton and Lady Cosgrove to join us?”
“Don’t be a brute. They’re my sisters.”
“They’re a damn nuisance.”
“They only want to protect me.”
He growled. “I’m not exactly Attila the bloody Hun, love.”
“Let’s not make a row.” She wiggled against him, reveling in the sensation evoked by the peaks of her breasts brushing against his chest. “I had something more enjoyable in mind for this evening.”
“As did I.” He caressed her cheek, then skimmed his hand down her neck and over her chest to cup a sensitive breast in his palm. “Why must your sisters plague me so?”
“I think it may be wise to have their company. At least until we decide for certain which course we shall take.”
“I don’t like it.” His expression was charming, boyishly stubborn.
She pulled his head down to hers for a lingering kiss. “They won’t interfere, I promise, and you shall have me at your mercy.”
He grinned against her lips. “If they do interfere, I’ll lock them in the wine cellar. It’s musty and my butler insists it’s got a precocious rat population.”
Cleo glossed her hands over his strong back and down to clasp his tight buttocks, guiding him into her. “You are quite a wicked man.”
Cleo slipped inside Thornton’s conveyance during the hubbub of the myriad carriages leaving for other country diversions and the rail station. Thornton let out a whoop of delight and settled her immediately upon his lap in a most scandalous fashion. Their trip to Marleigh Manor, while not terribly long in duration to begin with, passed with alarming speed for the engrossed pair. Cleo scarcely had time to recorset, rebutton, smooth hair and yes, even put her shoes back on, before the coach came to a halt.
“How do I look?” Frantic not to appear the harlot before his staff, Cleo flattened her palms over her bodice and attempted to soothe wrinkles from its stitched silk.
Thornton grinned. “Like a woman who has been well-loved.”
“Beast!” She swatted him with her reticule. “I wish to make a favorable impression. Do be serious.”
“I am utterly serious, my love. I’m afraid I was rather, er, ardent.”
“Ardent?” Her hands fluttered, erratic butterfly style. “What do you mean to say by that? What have you done?”
He cleared this throat, looking chagrined yet pleased. “Your neck, darling.”
“What of it?”
“It’s a bit…ravaged.”
“In what way?” She was glaring now, but she didn’t give a fig.
“I hadn’t time to shave this morning, for one thing.”
“I quite felt that.”
It was Thornton’s turn to glare. “May I remind you of the cause for it?”
She flushed, because she was thinking of the private moments to which he referred. She well recalled her mouth traveling a wickedly delicious path down his chest, taut stomach and lower. “I didn’t hear a complaint.”
“Christ no. But back to your request for an explanation. The lack of shaving coupled with my ardent reaction to a most debauching carriage ride…I’m afraid you have several marks on your neck and quite a bit of redness.”
Only Thornton could deliver the last with such an adorable yet stiff-necked air. He had made it obvious to anyone who but looked at her that she had been making love with him in the carriage. And for his part, he did not appear particularly apologetic, his careful phrasing aside. No, she rather thought he’d done it intentionally. She would have told him so, but Cleo found she didn’t mind as much as she ought. She liked being marked as his. Still, it wouldn’t do for the servants to notice.
“I have pearl powder in my reticule.” She fished it out with a jubilant air, then daubed it onto the affected area in liberal doses. “Does it hide the redness?”
“Absolutely.”
“Are you lying?”
“Would I?”
She glared again, but the coachman threw open the door and it became too late to argue the point. Speculation belowstairs, however, would turn out to be the least of her concerns. Nothing can toss the proverbial pail of water onto besotted lovers better than the presence of not one but six unexpected and very unwanted house guests. Thornton was informed by a footman sent out at the directive of the esteemed butler, Levingood Senior, that the dowager had defied his orders and was now ensconced within, along with Lady Bella, Thornton’s cousin Ford, Mr. Whitney and, worst of all, Miss Cuthbert and her lady aunt.
Cleo caught the tail of the footman’s disclosure as she was handed down from the carriage and she caught the dreaded name. “Miss Cuthbert?”
Thornton’s jaw was clenched, a snarl on his lips. “I’ll bloody well kill her.”
“Miss Cuthbert?” she repeated.
“Not Miss Cuthbert. My damn mother. This awkward little setup has her name written across it. Though how she’s managed to bring the chit from the Lake District to Buckinghamshire so quickly, I’ll never know.”
Cleo’s heart sank to her toes. How on earth was she to live beneath the same roof with his betrothed, for heaven’s sake? Had he not promised her that he would throw the dreaded Miss Cuthbert over? What purpose could her presence at Marleigh Manor possibly serve? Why, it was horridly familiar for an unmarried lady and her aunt to establish themselves at a bachelor’s country residence. It spoke of expectations.
She took a bracing breath and slid her arm through Thornton’s, angling her lips to his ear. “Has she hopes from you yet?” Was it too much for her to wish that his words of love to her, his actions at Wilton House, had instigated a letter informing Miss Cuthbert that she was effectively thrown over? Cleo did not deem it so.
“I expect so.” He was grim. “But she will not for very long.”
“I should like to enter on your arm.” She knew she likely hoped for too much as a married woman and as his lover, but yet she felt she had claimed him and he too had claimed her. She wanted to make clear to the Cuthbert girl that her territory had been marked.
Thornton took her hand from his arm, raising it to his lips for a kiss. His expression was pained. “I would like nothing better. However, much as I hate to ask it of you, I think it better if you enter with your sisters just now, out of deference to Mis
s Cuthbert.”
She stiffened. “Forgive me if I do not hold your Miss Cuthbert in my heart.”
“I am aware. But she is innocent in this. Place the blame upon the dowager. I assure you that she will pay for this contretemps and dearly. Miss Cuthbert, while unwanted and unanticipated, should nevertheless be paid the utmost respect.”
He was right, of course, but that did not mean she liked it. And his response begged one salient question. “Am I not due respect, then?”
“Christ, that’s not what I meant, Cleo. You know better than that. You’re my…”
“Your what?” she challenged him, noting his loss. He did not know what to call her and the knowledge frustrated her, perhaps without reason, but frustrated her nonetheless. He owed her nothing, after all.
He gritted his teeth. “You are my woman. But as I have already explained, Miss Cuthbert and I had an understanding. She has no knowledge of what has passed between us.”
She smiled tightly. “Of course. If you’ll excuse me?”
As she turned on her heel to join her sisters, he caught her elbow. “Cleo, let’s not make a row of it.”
She glanced back at him, wondering how he could possibly be so thickheaded. “You’ve made a row of it, Thornton.” With that, she left him standing on his own in his drive, staring after her.
“Would either of you care to explain what the bloody hell you’re doing in my house?” Thornton addressed his inhospitable demand to his cousin and his best friend as they lounged about in the smoking room, drinking his whiskey and smoking his damn cigars.
Ford rested in a wingback, his pose indolent, feet crossed and propped on a low marble-topped table. “What the bloody hell does it look like, cousin? We’re drinking your Scottish whiskey.”
He wanted to throttle the bastard. “As I can see. But you could be drinking my whiskey in town, or at any other of no less than half a dozen places. Why the devil are you here? You don’t even like the country.”
Ford shrugged. “I rather fancied the thought of shagging a dairy wench.”
Jesse leaned against the sideboard and grinned. “Your cock’s going to rot off if you don’t exercise some restraint. In truth, Lady Bella suggested we accompany her and the dowager to the country.”
“Bloody traitor and one to talk too,” Ford objected, glaring at Jesse. “You’ve been sniffing round Bella’s skirts like a damn dog in heat.”
Jesse slammed his whiskey down onto the sideboard. “You puppy! I have not been sniffing anyone’s skirts.”
Thornton had heard quite enough. “Shut up, the lot of you! Ford, stay away from dairy wenches and take your sodding boots off my table. Jesse, stay away from my sister or I’ll cut your bollocks off.”
Ford blew a careful ring of smoke. “Who’s shoved a poker of self-righteous indignation up your arse?”
Thornton plowed a hand through his hair and stalked to the sideboard to pour himself a glass of whiskey too. If he had to suffer, he may as well get good and sotted. “She’s angry with me,” he muttered.
Jesse raised a brow. “Your sister?”
“Not Bella. Cleo, you ass.”
“What have you done to bollix it up?” Ford grinned, clearly enjoying Thornton’s pain.
“It’s not what I’ve done.” He tossed back a healthy gulp of whiskey. “It’s my nuisance of a mother. She’s brought Miss Cuthbert here.”
Jesse gave a sympathetic wince. “That’s a bit of a delicate situation.”
Thornton drank some more. “Delicate does not begin to describe it. She’s furious at me.”
Ford raised a brow. “Miss Cuthbert? Didn’t think she was the furious sort. She always seems so deuced cold.”
“Not Miss Cuthbert, you dolt. Cleo.”
“Hell.” Understanding dawned on Jesse’s face. “You brought Lady Scarbrough here and now we’ve all turned up, including your fiancé. Christ, what a mess.”
“She’s not my fiancé.” He felt the need to qualify that much, if nothing else. He had never proposed to Miss Cuthbert, nor had any formal betrothal agreement been drawn up between himself and her father. He was glad for that now, for it could not be so. But he did dread the telling of this to Miss Cuthbert, particularly since she was now under his roof, obviously expecting to be treated as his betrothed while his lover was also under his roof, expecting to be treated with equal deference.
“You may want to refill your glass,” Ford suggested.
“We are all of us expected to dinner tonight.” He was grim. “You two may want to refill your whiskeys as well.”
“Bottoms up, old boy.” Ford drained his glass.
Cleo was informed by a servant that there would be an informal gathering in the drawing room prior to dinner that evening. She’d been given a chamber near Thornton’s but not close enough to garner whispers. To the outside observer, she was a guest along with her sisters, nothing more. Certainly not the woman who had been held in Thornton’s arms each night, not the woman to whom he pledged his love.
She dressed for dinner with attention to detail, choosing a delicate royal blue evening dress with ochre lace overlay and hand beading. It had an underskirt of frothy blue silk that peeked beneath lace rosettes. At her neck, she fastened her favorite necklace, a diamond star. She directed Bridget to take extra care with her hair, which was ultimately styled high with diamond clips winking from within a drop of perfect curls. Even Cleo had to admit, when she surveyed the results in her mirror, that she looked very fine.
But when she walked into the drawing room flanked by her sisters, she lost every crumb of confidence within her. The dowager waited within, along with Bella and two other ladies. One, dressed in drab lavender silk and wearing a turban atop her gray hair, appeared to be a relation—perhaps a mother—acting as chaperone. The other could only be the dreaded Miss Cuthbert.
The dowager performed a stilted round of introductions and Cleo took the opportunity to study her rival. Miss Cuthbert was not at all the sort of woman she had imagined. She was tall and willowy, her waist a startling wasp silhouette that did not even appear human so small was its circumference. Her hair was an icy blonde, arranged in a rather severe chignon, her oval face pale and dotted with the slightest smattering of freckles. Her yellow dress too was plain, devoid of almost all ornamentation but a few pleats at the bodice and a line of ivory buttons. The overall effect was that she looked wan and sallow, almost as if she had been brought forth from a sick bed. Miss Cuthbert’s face was pretty but not beautiful. Somehow, Cleo had expected a gorgeous, voluptuous woman had captured Thornton’s interest, not the drab, tense woman before her.
“Lady Scarbrough, a pleasure to meet you.” The girl dropped into a poor curtsy.
Cleo inclined her head. “And you as well, Miss Cuthbert.”
Cleo, Tia and Helen settled into seats and faced a most awkward tête-à-tête. The other woman—an aunt, the dowager had said—resembled nothing so much as a terrier. When she smiled, it appeared more of a grimace.
“The dowager has been telling us that you are all directly from Lady Cosgrove’s country house party. Did you find the entertainments to your liking?” she asked, aiming a particular frown at Cleo, or so it seemed.
“Quite,” Tia answered, her voice cool.
“Utterly,” Helen intoned.
“Most delightful,” Cleo added.
Miss Cuthbert cleared her throat. “Lady Scarbrough, I believe you must have made the acquaintance of my dear friend, Miss Margot Chilton. She said as much in her many letters to me over the last fortnight.” A calculating gleam lit her brown eyes.
Cleo stiffened. The girl’s unspoken suggestion was clear. That she was bold enough to imply she was aware of what had transpired between Cleo and Thornton was most surprising. “Indeed? I must confess that I’m not a familiar of Miss Chilton’s.”
“Oh? It is strange then, for her to have remarked upon you so often.” A serene smile curved Miss Cuthbert’s lips.
“Not so strange,” Tia inte
rrupted, ever coming to Cleo’s rescue, “for one given to gossip.”
Miss Cuthbert’s mouth thinned. “Perhaps you are correct, Lady Stokey.”
“Miss Chilton has always been a pleasant young lady” the dowager interjected. “Why, I dare say she would not lower herself to vulgar gossiping.”
“Of course not,” the aunt added. “Miss Chilton is of fine family.”
“Indeed.” Cleo pasted a bright smile to her mouth to hide her inner laughter. “Her father, Lord Chilton, is a paragon.”
Lord Chilton was an infamous drunkard. Her sarcasm was not lost on anyone except perhaps the dowager and the aunt, both of whom nodded in agreement, one warily and the other approvingly. Cleo wondered with a great sense of inner despair where on earth Thornton was. This mincing conversation was horrid.
“Where is his lordship?” Miss Cuthbert asked the dowager, seemingly reading Cleo’s mind.
The dowager’s face pinched in a comical fashion. “Detained by estate matters, my dear. Have no fear. I understand from Levingood Senior that he shall be with us momentarily. I am sure he did not wish to keep you waiting, Miss Cuthbert. Aren’t you sure, dearest Bella?”
Thornton’s sister had not spared Cleo a glance until that moment, when she locked gazes with her. “My brother adores you, Miss Cuthbert. I am certain he is doing his utmost to hurry and join us.”
As if on cue, Levingood Senior opened the door and announced Thornton, Fordham, and Mr. Whitney. Thornton entered first, resplendent in all black evening clothes, but he carried himself with a looser air that she recognized. He had been drinking with the boys. Cleo did not mistake it. The coward. Detained by estate matters, indeed.
“Ladies.” Thornton bowed. His cousin and friend did the same. “Shall we proceed to dinner?”
“That would be lovely,” simpered Miss Cuthbert.
Cleo wanted to throttle her. Instead, she clenched her teeth and pierced Thornton with a glare. He met her gaze and looked hastily away. The rotten man. To make matters worse, Miss Cuthbert made certain she made her way to the dining room on his arm, eschewing the order of rank. Thornton did nothing to dissuade her, as of course he could not. What had seemed like a madcap getaway for the two of them had multiplied into a horribly awkward house party. She had quite lost her appetite and she would sooner pluck out her eyelashes than suffer a dinner with Miss Cuthbert fawning all over Thornton while she was powerless to stop it. Unfortunately for her, she was not offered an alternative. Pleading a headache would be too obvious and would only serve as a victory for Miss Cuthbert.
Heart's Temptation Series Box Set: Books 1-3: A Steamy Historical Romance Collection (Heart's Temptation Box Set) Page 20
