Chapter 9

The night could not be over soon enough. As soon as the last guest left, Quinton could pack himself up into a coach with a crate of whisky, tell the driver to dump him and the crate over the edge of the known universe, and drink himself into a stupor on the way there.

I want you to belong to me.

A sentence sent from Lucifer himself to torment Quinton. Where had she stumbled across it? Why had she picked it up? Why had she flung it at him as if he could make heads or tails of it, as if it weren’t a powder keg exploding in his chest?

Damn her.

She conversed with a large group across the drawing room from the dark window where Quinton stood. Those around her laughed, an easy sound that floated to him on golden candlelight only to turn noxious, suffocating when it wafted round his head. She stood between Lady Susan and Miss Bradford, setting them at ease, no doubt. As he could not.

Damn her.

She’d cut him to ribbons this evening. He found himself flayed and bleeding and losing life. First because she’d been at the mercy of Pepperidge’s assaults and Quinton had wanted to grab him by the cravat, drag him across the dishes, and toss him out the window. Then because she’d pointed out his callous indifference to the women he should be courting. Not a superficial wound, that one. He’d hurt the young Miss Bradford, terrified her according to Lottie. No good.

The killing blow, though?

I want you to belong to me.

What had she meant? She couldn’t really want him. Not with how he’d treated her the last several years. Brutal barbs and cold callousness. She’d never hinted… not since that day in the woods. He’d only considered himself. His inability to forget their kiss. His fascination with her lips to desertion of all others. Had… had she been cursed that day, too?

No, she must be playing with him as a cat toys with a mouse. Not a great metaphor, him being the mouse and all, but humiliatingly accurate.

More laughter from her and the group around her. What did they discuss? He should be doing as she did—charming the ladies and their parents. He straightened his cuffs, checked his hair in the warped, evening reflection of the window, and joined the others, slipping between Lottie and Lady Susan.

“Oh, my lord,” the latter said with a quirk of the lips, “Lady Charlotte has been telling us a story about you.”

Hell. “Which one?” He eyed the top of Lottie’s golden head. If she looked up at him, he’d be able to see his fate in her eyes. What humiliations was she heaping upon him?

Lady Susan tapped a black lace fan on his arm. “The one about the kitten.”

He frowned. “What kitten?”

Finally, slowly and somewhat menacingly, Lottie tilted her head back, her gaze seeking his. “Your kitten. Snow.”

“I didn’t have a kitten. You did.” A midnight black cat, scrawny and scrappy, that she’d inexplicably named Snow.

“Snow only became mine after you gave him to me.”

“I…” The memory clicked into place. He’d been chasing her with the cat. She’d been six or so and he eleven, and he should have known better than to chase a girl with a cat, claiming it would eat her soul up.

She fell—stockings torn, knees and palms red and bloodied.

He hit his knees beside her, bruising them, shaking his head. “No, Lottie. It’s not going to hurt you. It’s a regular old cat. See?” He shoved it into her lap. “Just pet him. You can have him.”

She hesitated, then hid her face in the cat’s fur, wetting it with her tears.

“I’m sorry, Lottie. I’m sorry. Do you want him? He likes you. He’s yours now.”

I want you to belong to me, she’d said not more than a quarter hour ago. Like his cat had once belonged to her. He was no tame puss, though.

He cleared his throat. “Oh, yes, I remember now.”

“‘Twas quite sweet of you, my lord.” Miss Bradford spoke without lifting her gaze from the floor.

“Lord Noble has ever been sweet as a biscuit.” Lottie fluttered her lashes. “He was always following after me in childhood.”

The she-devil.

“Someone had to keep you from falling from trees and drowning in lakes and crawling into fireplaces.” He crossed his arms, his voice a low, annoyed grumble. He couldn’t look away from Lottie’s shining eyes, and everyone stared at them. Not him. Them. Lottie spun a particularly enchanting picture, didn’t she? The childhood friends standing side by side in adulthood, dedicated to one another now just as they’d always been.

What a peddler of lies she’d become. And what for?

I want you to belong to me. She certainly weaved a picture of a man and woman belonging. Lies.

Her fingers brushed his elbow. “I owe you my life, then, it seems.”

Why did it feel as if every set of eyeballs in the room flew to that point of meeting? Her fingertips. His elbow. All the proper layers between them of jacket and gloves and shirt. Yet… it seemed the improper axis around which the entire drawing room rotated.

Then she dropped her hand to her side and turned to the others, face bright. “He has not always been heroic, though. Would you like to hear about the time he sent me off in a rowboat to the middle of the lake without a single paddle to bring me back to shore?”

Quinton groaned. A chorus of enthusiastic approval rose around them, and he tried to keep his hands from curling into fists.

“Oh!” A startled exclamation from the side of the room, punctuating the musical shatter of china on wood.

His elbow bumped into Lottie’s arm as they both turned to look. His mother stood, staring bewildered at the broken cup at her feet.

Quinton pushed toward her. “Are you hurt?” he asked when he reached her side.

Lottie followed swiftly, reaching toward his mother. “How may I help?”

His mother put a hand to her forehead and forced a laugh. “Slippery fingers. But we’re short a cup now, and oh Lottie, I’ve ruined the tablecloth. You deliberated so long over which one to use, and you found the perfect one, and I—”

“Oh, not perfect,” Lottie insisted. “In fact. There’s one much better. Will you excuse me to find it? I’ll go speak with Mrs. Poppins.” She rested a hand on his mother’s shoulder. “I’ll return shortly.”

She stopped briefly to reassure the guests that Lady Noble was fine, everything was fine, and the conversation quickly returned to previous levels as Lottie left the room.

“Are you sure you’re not cut anywhere?” Quinton asked.

His mother shook her head. “I’m not. Merely embarrassed. Thank goodness Lottie is here. This is twice she’s saved me tonight.” Her hands shook as she wiped them down her skirts. “I admire her confidence. She’ll make some lucky man a lovely wife. Just not Pepperidge.” Her nose scrunched, then smoothed as she gave him a smile. “Go. Entertain your guests and charm the ladies. Soon Lottie and I will have an engagement ball to plan.”

He nodded and returned her smile, but it felt like a twisted wound across his face. And his steps heavy as bricks as he returned to stand between Lady Susan and Miss Bradford. And his gaze even heavier on the door through which Lottie had disappeared.

“Excuse me.” He sketched a bow to the group without explanation and left. Where’d she gone? She’d done this to him, soured him. She needed to know that. He looked left, then right down the hallway. A door at the end stood slightly ajar, pale light spilling a shaft onto the wood flooring. She’d been in there with his mother today, planning all the details, her voice drifting through every crack in the house to find him out, ruin him, drive him mad.

He strode through the door before he’d entirely made up his mind to do so, and she popped up right from where she knelt scratching Princess’s ear. The butler’s room was abandoned but for her, the dog, and a nearby table piled high with fabric. The tablecloths, presumably, almost with a life of their own, spilling over the edge and draping to the floor. He slammed the door behind him and stalked toward her.

She jumped as the door shook, whipped around to face him, and leaned her hips against the table, wrapping her fingers round its edge until her knuckles blazed white. Her blue eyes were wide with a hint of panic and a deluge of determination. No matter her level of determination, she could not escape.

Princess lifted her head and whined as he stepped over her, trapped Lottie against the table.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

“Helping your mother, naturally.”

“The stories of our childhood.”

“Those old things?” She turned to face the pile of tablecloths once more. As if their memories were no more than a gown that didn’t fit, rags to be discarded. Of no significance. “No harm in them.”

“They put Miss Bradford at ease.”

“But not you, I venture to guess.” She eyed him over her shoulder, her expression—no doubt sly—hidden by the curls at her temple.

“Not me.”

“You’re angry.” She swiveled her head away from him once more, giving him the smooth, graceful column of the back of the neck. “With me.”

“Of course I am. You’re playing a game.”

“Am I winning?”

He leaned a hip against the table edge right next to her, so close he’d barely have to move to touch her. A breath could do it—collision of arms and legs, chest and belly, through exhalation.

He didn’t touch her. He barely breathed. “What do you think to win is what I want to know.”

“I told you.”

You belong to me.

He knocked the words away. “A tease to get under my skin. A stratagem to confound me.”

She shook her head, sending candlelight bouncing in the thick pile of her curls. “You’re terribly obtuse.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Am I?”

“The stories are only to remind you, to let everyone know who knows you best.”

“You think that’s you? Ha. You know me not at all.”

She raised a brow. Her hands, held lightly at her belly, reached out, found the buttons of his waistcoat, and trailed sparks of life up his abdomen. He didn’t want this, didn’t want her touch. Didn’t want to have to lie to himself about not wanting it.

Her fingers made their lazy way up his chest, slanting sideways, dipping into the small waistcoat pocket there. Her fingers grazed along his body, and then she tucked them safe into that pocket near his frantic heart. “It’s purple, isn’t it?”

“What’s purple?” His voice was raw.

“The handkerchief hiding here. It’s lavender, is it not?”

“No.”

She pulled it out, waved it in all its lavender glory before his nose. “You’re right. I don’t know you at all.”

“A lucky guess.”

“How so? A guess made by a strange acquaintance would be made on the same facts everyone has at their disposal concerning Viscount Noble—a stoic sort of man who runs wild only in his carnal pursuits. Wears only dark colors, no frivolous knots in his cravat. That information would not lead such an acquaintance to guess lavender. Do you know how I knew, Quinton? Not guessed, knew?”

He didn’t want to know. He bounced off the table’s edge, stepped toward the door.

“I gave you a lavender handkerchief for your sixteenth birthday because it’s the color of your favorite flower. And you’ve used one of a similar color ever since. Cleverly hidden. But I look for it. See it peeking out sometimes from that pocket. I know you.”

Striding away from her, he waved a dismissive hand in the air. “Go marry one of your suitors, Merriweather.”

“There are no more suitors.”

The words cut his stride in two. He stopped one shoe not quite on the ground. Gently, he placed it down and turned.

She took a halting step toward him. “Erstwhile proposed. And you’ve booted my final remaining suitor out the door. He’ll not likely continue his interest. Not that I’m interested in him.”

His mouth went dry, but he managed to say, “Erstwhile proposed, and you said…”

“No.”

“Why in hell would you do that?”

She inhaled a shaky breath and straightened one glove just below her elbow, a gesture she often used to seek calm, to bide her time as her mind whirred away behind a placid expression. When she finally spoke, it would be without any hesitation, stutter, or prevarication. He knew her, too.

“He wouldn’t kiss me.” She abandoned the hem of her glove and gave her attention to him instead.

“Because you wouldn’t accept his proposal.”

“No. I refused him because he refused to kiss me.”

Following Clearford’s Guide had not worked in Erstwhile’s favor, it seemed.

“And”—she took another shaky breath—“because I’ve decided to court you.”

Her words were more violent than a punch, so he swung back. “No.”

“Yes.” A step forward, the brave, foolish woman.

“You can’t court someone who doesn’t want to be courted.” But damn if he did want it, a little bit, to be pursued by the woman he wasn’t supposed to want. And did. Desperately. “You’re doomed to fail.”

“I may very well fail, but at least I’ll have tried.”

“You adore failure, then?”

“I adore a challenge.”

Why did that spark lust like a raging river through him, tightening every muscle, burning his own determination to ash, shaking his sleeping heart until it yawned? No good. He found his anger and wrapped it tightly about him. “Why in hell’s name would you?”

“Because you were mine once upon a time, and then you shut your heart up behind a thorny wall, and I’ve not been able to get in since. And because you woke me, Quinton. You took my first kiss and taught me desire, and I cannot put that needing ache back to sleep.”

Then satiate it with another man. What he should say. But he couldn’t.

“I want you.” Not a hint of doubt in her voice.

“I’m not the same man.”

“Because you’ve slept with every willing woman in London?”

“Yes.” More than that. The distance he’d grown between them was purposeful, made of so much more than a decade of careless raking.

“Then sleep with me. I do not want to be perfect, virginal Lottie any longer. Ruin me. Why do you think I’ve been after kisses? I want to know what it’s like, physical pleasure. And for a woman like me the only safe place to acquire that knowledge is in the marriage bed.”

“I’m not marrying you.”

A pink flush stained her cheeks in bright spots. “Why not me?”

“Because I can’t!” He hissed the words. Had they been alone, truly, without guests down the hall, it would have been a yell that echoed off the walls and through their flesh. He couldn’t because she remained his weakness, and he had to put all soft things aside, put her aside. He paced away, raking fingers through his hair, trying to pull forth the words he knew he must say. He hated them. Yet he let them slip through his teeth. “Find another man to fuck you.”

“No.”

The single word brought him to a standstill yet sent the room spinning.

“You are the only man. Your words challenge and infuriate me, but you never let up. And that… the acknowledgement of my strength… I need it. You save me from headaches and unwanted advances. You see my grief when no one else does. You’re the only man whose kiss has ruined me, made me.”

He heard the soft footfalls of her approach. Then he felt the brush of her arm as she rounded him. Then she stood before him, her lovely, heart-shaped face tilted up.

“And you want to kiss me again,” she said, certainty in the set line of her jaw, in the clip of each of her words.

“No.” He nearly choked on the denial and closed his eyes to block out her soft, sure gaze.

“If you insist.” Said with a sigh. “But at the Woodward ball…”

He opened his eyes. “What happened?” Damn his brainbox, he still couldn’t remember. Sometimes in dreams the feeling of a soft pink lip beneath his thumb lingered… “Did I kiss you?”

Another sigh. “Not a thing happened, Chance. A grave misfortune if you ask me.”

Thank God. But the pure relief coasting through him… swelling by gratitude that he’d not kissed her or by the fear that he had kissed her. And forgotten it. To kiss and forget Lottie Merriweather. That was the grave misfortune. But he’d not. Thank God.

No! Hell. He had to get away from her. She sent double blades of longing and dread through him, and he could not predict which would prove the deadliest.

He backed away from her. “I’m not the man you seem to think I am. A protector. Your knight.” He made sure to sneer the words. An act. For survival.

“If you say so.” She wandered back to the table with the clothes as if she were strolling through a garden, unbothered. “Your mother will wonder what’s taking me so long.

Her complaisance boiled him to a breaking point. “You’re not listening to me.”

She rummaged through the cloths. Still not listening. Humming. Her generous hips swayed slightly, making him hard. He wanted to show her. Needed her to know how hard he was. Not just of body but of soul. He could be no other way.

“Listen to me,” he demanded, storming across the room until his front pressed against her back.

Still, she ignored him, ignored the feel of their bodies bleeding into one another—curves and muscle and heat.

“The pink, I think,” she said, not even a hitch in her voice. “It’s an entirely different color scheme from before, but—”

He reached around her and swept all the bloody tablecloths to the ground. She squeaked, but he wasn’t done. His hands fit around her waist, and he lifted her, plopped her hard onto the table. Keeping his hold on her, he leaned close, whispered in her ear, “You think you know me? You think I’m secretly enamored of you, concerned to a frenzy for your well-being?”

Her chest froze on a deep inhalation that pushed her sumptuous breasts high, straining against the low bodice.

“I’m concerned with one thing,” he told her.

“What’s that?” Her voice shook.

“My own pleasure.”

She shivered, as if he’d run a finger down her spine. Or his tongue across her nipple.

“I’m not going to kiss you, Merriweather. Don’t ask for it.” He raked her skirts up and stepped between her legs. “Scared?”

“No.” Her shiver entirely gone. She spoke only with clear certainty like a sun falling bright and sparkling on new-fallen snow.

He’d shake her, though. Himself, too, in the process. But it must be done. To show her, prove to her. She did not know him. Tracing his fingertips up her thighs, he told himself that’s all this was—a warning. And when he flattened his palms and rounded her full hips, squeezed, shooting a bolt of lust right to his core, he almost believed it. “Now are you scared, Merriweather?” He was.

“No.”

He dropped to his knees. “At least”—he pressed his nose to the inside of her knee, just above the pink silk stocking and the pretty little garter tied in a perfect bow, and inhaled, tried not to cry at the utter perfection of her soap and sugar scent—“I won’t kiss you on the lips. Scared now?”

“Never.”

Of course not. He licked her creamy inner thigh, then nipped it, hoping to leave a mark, a bit of himself on a part of hers he could never truly claim. “You say you want to be kissed, made love to. Fairy tales. You have no idea how—”

“Less talking, Chance.” Her hands fisted in his hair, urged his face closer to her center. “I want to know. Everything. Now.”

Very well. Now. Just this once. To prove to her.

He lifted his gaze and caught hers. She leaned slightly backward, bracing herself on her hands behind her, and as she tilted her head forward to watch him, her perfectly coiled curls bobbed around her face, catching the light. He wanted to muss them, tease them into a wild nest, stoke them to softness once more, watch the golden strands run like liquid through his fingers.

He wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

“Well, Chance?” she asked, breathless.

A challenge. He could never back down, not when Lottie challenged him.

“Are you ready, Merriweather?” he growled.

“More than you can know.”

She laughed, a breathy sound that tightened his hands around her waist. He pulled her hips to the edge of the table, then kissed her, the skin just above her stocking, his mind wandering higher, to that warm center of hers. But he kissed the side of her knee first, then her inner thigh. He must only be patient to get where he wanted to be. How many years had he been patient? He could last a few moments more. He’d place a kiss where he’d always wanted to. Soon.