It’s Only a Scandal if You’re Caught

by Farmer, Merry

  “Jack.” Bianca grinned at him, her cheeks going pink. “You’re brilliant.”

  He winked at her. “Brilliant and experienced.”

  Her cheeks flushed darker. “Yes, your experience is one of the things that draws me to you.”

  Jack’s heart flipped in his chest, then sent blood to all the places that were the most inconvenient in the middle of such an important investigation. “Minx,” he said, unable to keep his pride at her comment from showing on his face.

  Better still, the light of lust was back in Bianca’s eyes in a way he hadn’t seen for too long. If this was his thanks for bringing her along on a dangerous investigation, then perhaps he’d have to make her his partner in crime-solving as well as in marriage.

  “Here you go, sir.” The workman met them at the front gate, handing over a card.

  “Many thanks,” Jack said, reading the card briefly then tucking it into the inside pocket of his coat. “I suspect I’ll be in touch soon. You work in Earl’s Court?”

  “We work wherever the job is,” the man said.

  They moved on, retracing the path Bianca had taken when she’d followed Brickman to his place on the High Street.

  “That’s the building,” she said once they reached the busy intersection. Sure enough, a bookstore occupied the ground floor, just like Nanette had said. “What do we do now?”

  “We poke around,” Jack said, taking her hand and crossing the street.

  But poking around turned out to be more of a challenge than he expected.

  “There’s the entrance to the mews,” Bianca whispered as they attempted to appear like nothing more than a couple out for a walk down a side street once more.

  “I see it,” Jack murmured back to her.

  It should have been easy to walk into mews, regardless of searching them. Any given mews were used by several houses, perhaps everyone on the block. But before Jack and Bianca had come within a few yards of the entrance, two thick-set men with dark scowls stepped forward blocking their way.

  “You lost or something?” one of them said in a voice as welcoming as falling from a height onto gravel.

  “Just fetching my horse,” Jack said, knowing instantly what he was up against and that they were on the right track.

  The first guard shook his head. “It’s been moved,” he said.

  Bianca looked utterly baffled. “Good Lord. Do you know where to?” she asked.

  “No,” the second guard said, breaking into a grin and sweeping Bianca from head to toe with a look.

  “I paid good money for that horse,” Jack said, feigning irritation. He was irritated all right, but not over a horse. “If he’s been lost, it’s you who’ll pay.”

  “We told you lot to have them out by yesterday afternoon,” the first guard said, crossing his arms. “It ain’t our fault if you didn’t follow orders.”

  “This is an outrage,” Jack said, grabbing Bianca’s hand. “Your boss will hear about this.”

  The two guards didn’t seem impressed. Jack had all the information he needed, though. He tucked Bianca’s hand into the crook of his elbow and hurried back to High Street with her.

  “The explosives are most certainly hidden there,” Bianca whispered exactly what he’d been about to say as they stopped just outside the door to the bookshop. “And they must have been brought in recently.”

  “Overnight,” Jack agreed with a nod. “And you’re right.”

  She smiled, looking as pleased as though she’d won a tennis competition. Her smile faded quickly, though. “We still don’t have proof, though.”

  “Right again,” Jack said, frowning.

  He blew out a breath and ran a hand over his face. He glanced up and down the street, then straight up the face of the building. Nothing marked it as unusual. Nothing raised enough suspicion for Sir Edmund to release even a few officers to raid, or even to ask casual questions. But every single nerve in his body screamed that they’d found the answer, found the explosives, and that all the proof they needed was within arm’s reach.

  “Come on,” he said, escorting Bianca on. “We don’t have enough to get Scotland Yard involved yet, but we might just have enough to bring this all to an end on our own.”

  Chapter 17

  Bianca was happy. The sensation was so foreign after the last several weeks and crept up on her so subtly that she didn’t realize just how happy she was until an upstairs window opened above the bookshop and a man with a sharp frown glanced out, searching. As soon as he spotted Bianca and Jack, his look darkened.

  “It’s definitely time we left,” Jack said, hailing a cab with one hand and tugging her forward with the other.

  Her heart raced as Jack piled her into the carriage and when she glimpsed the man in the window turning back to say something to someone in the room. Luckily for her and Jack, the driver tapped his horse into motion, pulling them away from the building and along High Street.

  “You don’t think they knew who we are, do you?” she asked, pressing a hand to her chest as her heart continued to race, with excitement and with a paradoxical sort of joy.

  “The guards didn’t know,” Jack said, twisting in an attempt to look out the carriage’s cloudy back window. “If they reported our presence to Brickman, he’ll be suspicious.”

  “But he can’t prove anything, can he?” It wouldn’t help anyone if the very people they were trying to prove guilty of one crime and plotting another saw them coming, although if it caused them to change their plans and call off the explosion, then perhaps it would be worth it.

  Jack rubbed a hand uneasily over his face as he faced forward again. He relaxed into his seat somewhat, but tension continued to ripple off of him. “Anything is possible,” he said, almost as though thinking aloud. “Brickman could suspect my involvement, but he could just as easily believe that I’ve been neutralized by Scotland Yard.”

  “Thanks to me,” Bianca added, settling into the corner of the seat so that she could study Jack.

  He turned to her with an unreadable expression, part guilt, part affection. “If he does believe I’ve been taken out of the picture, it might make him and Denbigh bolder. And it might mean their guard isn’t up as high as it should be.”

  “So I might be an asset to you after all,” Bianca said with a satisfied grin.

  Jack’s tension broke and a smile spread across his face. “You’ll always be an asset to me,” he said. “Even when you’re being too cheeky for your own good and failing to do as your told.”

  “I will never do as I’m told,” she said, pretending to be fierce but feeling warm all over. “I’ve told you that before and I will continue to tell you for the rest of our lives, you would-be bully.”

  “Bitch,” he said, shaking his head, brimming with affection.

  It was utterly absurd that a word intended to be the very worst of insults could make Bianca feel so deeply loved and so alive with lust. Desire was another emotion she had thought was long gone after the ordeal of the last few weeks. It had been buried under anger and frustration, not to mention nausea and anxiety about the future. Feeling it again, knowing that she was still capable of wanting, of being a woman in her own right with all the impulses that had gotten her into so much trouble in the first place, was like being reborn.

  They reviewed what they had discovered on the way back to St. John’s Wood. It was so painfully obvious to Bianca that Denbigh and his lot were planning to blow something up at the post-election party Lady Claudia was supposedly hosting, but she couldn’t imagine what would possess anyone to go to such extremes of violence. It was true that Denbigh was a Liberal Unionist while Rupert and the others supported Home Rule, and it was true that Denbigh hated the Irish, particularly Fergus O’Shea. But her mind simply wouldn’t accept that anyone would resort to murder.

  “Perhaps he’s simply planning to frighten people,” she said as Jack handed her down from the cab in front of the St. John’s Wood flat. “Or perhaps he intends to make it look li
ke an attack by the Irish. You know, so that he can turn public opinion against them.”

  Jack gave her a disconcerting look, as though she were naïve, as he paid the driver and escorted her inside the building. “I’ve learned never to underestimate the motives or the intentions of anyone in my time at Scotland Yard.”

  Bianca paused once they were at the door to their flat. “I should tell Rupert and the others not to go,” she said, suddenly terrified. “I should tell Henrietta to call off the whole thing, not to let any of the May Flowers attend.”

  “Do you think she’d listen to you?” Jack asked as he pushed the door open and gestured for her to precede him inside.

  Bianca huffed. “I’m not sure she would. I would hope that she’s not that silly.” She bit her lip, marching toward to the kitchen to see if Nanette was still there, but the flat was empty. “I can’t let my family go,” she decided at last. “We have to make the plot public so that the party is called off and no one is hurt.”

  Jack sighed, shrugging out of his coat and hanging it on the stand by the door. “Exposing the plot and foiling it before it happens is definitely something I’ve considered,” he said.

  “But,” Bianca prompted, crossing back to the stand while unbuttoning her own coat.

  “But this could be the last chance to catch Denbigh in a criminal act, one that could lead to proving he was behind the attack on Fergus O’Shea,” he went on, taking her coat and hanging it beside his. “Sir Edmund is determined to keep me as useless as possible in my new position. The only reason I’m able to follow up on the leads I have now is because they’re still fresh. If we stop Denbigh now, he’ll only plan something else. Something I won’t have any access to. And if I know Sir Edmund the way I do, he’ll bury all investigations into Denbigh’s guilt so deep that we’ll never be able to get justice for Fergus.”

  Bianca crossed her arms. “So you’re saying that we have to let my family and the majority of my friends walk into extreme danger in order to catch a would-be murderer and bring him to justice?”

  Jack’s face pinched with uneasiness. “I could try to make Sir Edmund see the light,” he said. “No one should be put at risk.”

  “They won’t be put at risk,” Bianca said, her smile and her confidence growing. “Let them walk into that party, blissfully ignorant of any danger. You and I will be there to stop Denbigh in his tracks and bring him to justice.”

  “You and I?” Jack said, his uneasy look melding into a smile. He stepped closer to her, running his hands up her arms in what felt like a prelude to pulling her into his arms. “Do you imagine that the two of us could singlehandedly stop this disaster from happening and win the day?”

  “I know we can.” She leaned toward him, resting her hands on his chest. “Isn’t it what we’ve said all along? The two of us against the world?” She tilted her head up, lifting to her toes, silently asking for a kiss.

  Jack slipped his arms around her. “I’ve missed you,” he said, his voice decidedly heated.

  “I’ve been right here the whole time,” she said, knowing full well that, in many respects, she hadn’t been. She was there now, though, in his arms, acting in accord with him, pulsing with the energy and potency he’d always made her feel.

  He slanted his mouth over hers, kissing her with a passion she’d missed desperately. She responded with equal passion, slipping one arm around his side and bringing the other up to rake her fingers through his hair. She sighed, sliding her tongue hungrily against his and exploring his mouth with boldness. There was no point in being a fainting violet or playing coy when she knew exactly what she wanted.

  “I’ve missed you,” Jack said again, but with an entirely different implication.

  His hands swept over her sides, tracing her curves as though reminding himself of everything she had to offer. He cupped her breasts but wasn’t content to stay there for more than a few seconds before sliding down to her backside and squeezing her against him. He was already aroused and growing harder by the moment, and Bianca couldn’t resist slipping one hand between the two of them to stroke his growing erection.

  “Minx,” he panted between wild kisses that took her breath away. “I should have known being with child wouldn’t keep you from your wicked ways.” He began to back her toward the bedroom.

  “Nothing can keep me from my wicked ways where you are concerned,” she said with a teasing grin.

  He backed her as far as the bedroom door before pausing, his body going tense.

  “Are you certain you feel well?” he asked, his ardor giving way to concern. “The baby—”

  “I’m fine,” she said. The constant hint of lingering nausea was hardly noticeable with so much excitement and joy coursing through her. “All I need is you,” she went on, stepping backwards into the bedroom and dragging him along with her by the lapels of his jacket. “I need you around me. I need you in me. I need you to make me cry out with pleasure.”

  “Whatever you need,” he said, his devilish smile returning.

  They reached the side of the bed and he pulled her back into his arms, pressing her tight against him before devouring her with another kiss. Bianca’s heart raced with need, thrilled that he was just as demanding as he’d always been with her. His kiss showed no mercy, dominating her and making every fiber of her body ache with passion. He knew exactly how to master her in a way that made her feel adored.

  She undid the button of his jacket and pushed it from his shoulders, all the while trying to maintain their kiss. It was next to impossible to kiss and undress at the same time, and within seconds, kissing was abandoned as they fumbled at each other’s clothes.

  “You should dress like this more often,” Jack teased her as he made quick work of the simple buttons of the blouse Bianca had borrowed from Nanette.

  Bianca laughed. “I’ll have a whole new wardrobe made up,” she said as she tugged his shirt from the waist of his trousers and up over his head. “Just like Lord Malcolm made you get all new clothes.”

  He peeled off his shirt and tossed it aside, then went to work on the hooks of her corset. “I wonder what Lord Malcolm would say if I kept my wife dressed in working-class clothes all the time. Or better yet, dressed in nothing at all.”

  Her corset popped free. Jack dropped it to the side, and moments later, her skirt and petticoats joined it.

  “He doesn’t get a say in how we live our lives,” she insisted. “Not anymore.”

  She followed her words by unbuttoning Jack’s trousers and pushing them and his drawers down over his hips. His magnificent cock jumped up, standing tall and thick with desire. Bianca had missed the way he felt in her hands and the way he caught his breath and groaned when she played with him. The sounds he made fired her blood even more now after waiting so long to hear them again.

  “I have half a mind to throw you back against the bed and have my way with you to see how many times I can make you come,” she purred, cupping her hand around his balls.

  “I thought you wanted me inside you,” he answered with equal intensity.

  She glanced up at him, coyly shrugging with one shoulder. “What if I want both?”

  A grin spread slowly across his face that matched the heat in his eyes. “Have I been saddled with an insatiable wife?”

  “Of course you have.”

  True to her word, Bianca pivoted so that she could push him just enough to make him lose his balance and sit heavily on the bed. She pushed him again until he splayed on his back. Seeing him laid bare for her that way, ready and just submissive enough to make her feel powerful, sent liquid heat pooling in her sex.

  She took care of the awkward work of removing his shoes and tugging his trousers off completely as quickly as she could, peeling off the rest of her clothes as she did. Then she nudged his legs apart and leaned over him, bracing her hands on either side of him.

  “Well isn’t this an interesting reversal,” she said, one eyebrow arched.

  “You’ll be astride me,
riding me like a champion jockey in no time,” he said with a cocky grin.

  His arrogance sent heat shivering through her and made her want to do exactly what he said. But she hadn’t had him for too long and she wanted to enjoy every moment, every inch of him.

  “Is that what you think?” she asked, lowering her voice to a deep hum.

  “I know it,” he said.

  She answered by lowering her mouth to his shoulder and kissing her way to his chest. She swirled her tongue around his nipple, grinning at the way he caught his breath. He stopped breathing all together when she raked her teeth over the tight nub. Tension and need rippled off of him.

  The temptation to climb onto the bed with him and take what she wanted exactly how he had spelled it out made Bianca impatient. She kissed her way down the flat of his stomach, shifting her hands to stroke his hips, and then closing one around his shaft to lift it as she kissed lower. His skin was heated and salty, and she licked him just above his hip bone in a way that made him let out a breath on a groan.

  That was nothing to the sound he made when she stroked her hand to the base of his erection and kissed his head, though. She moved as slowly as she could, fighting the urge to tremble with desire. She licked his tip, tasting the moisture that had formed there, then kissed him gently. She closed her mouth around him and teased the underside of his head with her tongue, waiting until he was writhing with impatience.

  “You’re the devil, woman,” he panted, trying to arch his hips so that she would be forced to take more of him in.

  “I know,” she answered with a throaty laugh, then resumed driving him mad.

  She gave him what he wanted, but slowly. The taste of him caused her to ache more and more with need. Inch by inch, she took him deeper into her mouth, withdrawing each time to kiss or lick his tip, intentionally testing the limits of his patience. He breathed heavily, making sounds that were caught between groans and laughter, but were undeniably sounds of enjoyment.