15. Chapter 15

"What in the bloody hell was that?"

Callum had managed to keep his mouth closed in the carriage ride back to Nemity's townhouse. He knew well enough not to talk in front of even the most loyal servants, and he had first-hand experience with how much a coachman could really hear drifting up from below. A lot.

So he'd ground his teeth as the coach had made its way through the slow London streets.

Sensing his fury, Nemity hadn't dared to say a word to him the entire ride.

But the moment they stepped in and closed the front door of the townhouse behind them, Callum grabbed Nemity's arm and swung her into the parlour—the closest room with a door for privacy.

He slammed the door closed and let her arm go, stepping past her, but then stopped, widening his stance with his arms folded over his chest as he turned back to her, blocking her from moving deeper into the room.

"What in the bloody hell was that?" The words hissed once more from his lips.

Her look darted up to him, then fell, her stare on his folded arms. "You didn't think you were getting engaged today, did you?"

"No." The words came out low, furious. "No, I did not."

She looked up at him, her eyes wide and pleading. "I am sorry. It was going terribly with Lady Agnes and then I caught sight of you from the window and the lie…it…it just slipped out of my mouth before I could think on it. The words came out and when I heard myself say them, it seemed the perfect solution. If Lady Agnes believes me to be married soon, she won't have any objections to letting me have Georgette and Jacob. And you played the exact part of a stern master for her. I think she herself fell in love with you and was wishing she was sixty years younger."

He glared at her.

He couldn't fault her reasoning, but he sure as hell faulted her for dragging him into this debacle.

She reached out, curling her fingers onto his folded arm. "Thank you for going along with it in front of her. I know you don't want to be in this situation, but I appreciate your help. If all goes well, very few people will know an engagement was even mentioned. I would never think to trap anyone into marriage this way, much less you."

He wasn't sure if that was a compliment or a barb. "Why not me?"

"Why not you?" Her brows drew together. "Well, you have made it very clear why you are in my life and that you will be gone as soon as the source of the danger is gone. You appeared fairly confident that you will find the assailants soon, and I have grown to trust your confidence on the matter. Should I not?"

He sighed, nodding. "You should."

"This is a fake engagement only." Her hand flipped up toward him. "And you yourself said you've played many parts in your day. This is no different—playing a stern but besotted fiancé may just be your finest performance."

"If I agree to do so."

"It is just for one night, Callum. Please. You have seen those children and how sweet they are. That was Susannah's doing. Please don't let that mean hag have at them. She will destroy them."

He recognized it, clear as the sun, the type of woman Lady Agnes was and how that would play out for the future of Georgette and Jacob.

That alone made him want to help Nemity.

But he didn't care for surprises, and Nemity and her damn impulsiveness had just thrust him into one hell of a disaster in the making.

Unthreading his arms, he took a step away from her, going to the sideboard and pouring himself two fingers of brandy. He swallowed it down in one gulp, set the glass down, and turned back toward her. She hadn't moved from where she stood in front of the door.

"I will consider helping you, but it will cost you."

"Cost me what?" Her hands went behind her, her fingers tracing about the doorknob like she was ready to bolt.

He took a step toward her. "What other secrets are you hiding?"

"What do you mean? Why do you think I'm hiding anything?"

His eyebrows lifted. She was going to be coy about it? Fine. He'd ask her point blank. "Susannah's children?"

Her eyes lifted upward to the bedroom she'd left them in with one of her London maids while they'd gone to talk with Lady Agnes. "What about them?"

"You are incredibly close to those children. It is clear you love them and you are going above and beyond to ensure you are the one to take care of them."

"And?" Her shoulders lifted. "I promised Susannah I would do so. Are you not bonded by your word? Why should my word hold so little consequence?"

"Do not try to spin this away from the question, Nemity."

"What exactly is the question, Callum?"

"Are one or both of them your children?"

Her head snapped back so hard and fast it hit the door behind her. "What?"

"You heard me."

"No—what—no." Her head flew back and forth. "What in the hell are you asking me? And why in the hell would you insinuate that I had not one, but two illegitimate children that I foisted onto my best friend and her husband?"

"Did you?"

She jabbed a step away from the door, her arms swinging up at her sides. "You think that little of my character that I would make a mistake like that not just once, but twice? Once could be forgiven, but twice? You must think me a tramp of the highest order for that. I may have had scandals in my seasons, and I may have enjoyed myself with a very few select men with the utmost discretion, but for you to accuse me of this? Of blatant promiscuity?"

She stopped her tirade, rubbing her hands across her eyes, and he could see the exhaustion playing out across her face.

She heaved a sigh. "No. No, Callum. Georgette and Jacob are not my children. I would never give up a child of mine, no matter the circumstances, no matter the scandal. I would live in exile up at Springfell without another thought if I had a child and I needed to shield him or her from the pernicious judgment of society hags like Lady Agnes." Her glare skewered him. "The judgement of people like you."

He clamped down on his tongue on her last words.

He was usually the last one to judge anyone on their actions.

But to imagine Nemity in another man's arms. To imagine her carrying another's babe. It struck a vicious chord deep within him.

Made him rear up against the very thought.

He had no right, but there it was.

He didn't want to think of her with another man. Not in the past. Not in the future.

He'd been an ass to even think she'd had illegitimate children.

She would never give up something she loved. He'd already deduced that about her. She was loyal to a fault. And she would love a child like it was her own heart beating.

Hell.In her mind, those two children upstairs were probably already hers. Probably had been since Susannah's health had begun to fade.

His look lifted to hers, his eyes earnest. "I am sorry. I should not have let my imagination run amok as it did."

"Why did it?"

"Because you yourself have admitted to affairs. And I don't like to imagine them. Don't like to imagine other men touching you."

Her shoulders fell, her body deflating of its anger at his words. She met his look, her eyes narrowing at him. "Why?"

"Because I like having my hands on you."

She shook her head, her eyes rolling to the ceiling, but a smile broke out across her lips as she let out a long sigh that turned into a groan.

He liked that he could do that—put a smile on her face and all it took was a little bit of honesty from him.

Her gaze dropped to him. "So will you do it? Be my betrothed until Lady Agnes is satisfied and allows me to have the children and bring them up to Scotland? If I get them north, I don't think she'll ever think on them again, much less ask for them. And she will die before they ever have to meet the atrocious woman. This can work, I know it can. Please say you'll do it?"

As much as he wanted to see her eyes light up when he said yes—for he'd already decided that he would help her do anything to keep those children away from that viper of an old crow—he wasn't quite done pressing this particular advantage over her. He stepped back to the sideboard and poured another swallow of the drink before looking to her.

"I'm not quite done poking my nose into your secrets."

Her shoulders lifted, exasperated. "What else could I possibly be hiding from you?"

"Lots, I imagine. You are very good at deflecting my numerous questions about your life." Holding the drink in his hand, he stepped to the middle of the room, dropping to sit on the arm of a wingback chair and stretching his legs out. At this level, they were almost eye to eye. "But I'm not asking for each and every one of your secrets, just the ones that might help me figure out who attacked you at Springfell."

She eyed him warily. "What is it you think I have secrets about?"

"It's quite clear you had a life here in London, Nem. A very full one. Friends that you adore. Susannah's children whom I think you adore even more."

"Yes. So?" She folded her arms over her ribcage.

His forefinger holding the tumbler flicked out to her. "So why were you up at Springfell Manor when all this was happening here in London?"

She turned away from him, walking across the room to look out the window of the parlour that faced the street. Carriages rolled past. Horses. People strolling along.

She was silent for a long moment. But she was considering. Finally considering telling him something of value.

She didn't turn around to him. "I had to take a break."

"A break, why?"

Her fingers reached out to softly drum on the glass in front of her. "There was an…incident."

Callum popped up from the arm of the chair and walked over to her, hovering behind her. "Another incident—as in someone else accosted you?"

"As in I was shoved into a carriage outside of the opera." She turned slightly to look at him over her shoulder. "Luckily, the heel of my slipper that night had a sharp edge to it, and I managed to kick off on the man that was inside of the carriage. Then I scrambled back down to the street before the carriage could make it down the block."

"You could have been grievously injured."

"But I wasn't."

He seethed out a livid breath. Why in the hell would she keep something like this from him? It made it damn hard to protect her. "I presume you saw who was inside of the carriage?"

Silence. She stared out the window.

He set his hand on her shoulder. "Tell me."

A sigh and she shook her head. "Lord Gwenton."

Gwenton? He searched his memory. He'd never heard the name.

"I don't know the name. Who is he?"

She turned toward him, leaning with her shoulder against the window as her arms had clasped in front of her once more. "He's German and he apparently does not know the basic customs in London society—simple things like how uncouth it is to shove a lady into a carriage to get her attention."

He grinned at that assessment. "Why did he need to get your attention?"

"Because he had it once and then he didn't anymore."

"Another broken heart?"

"Please, don't be silly." She waved her hand between them. "The man should not have been so careless with his heart if it was so easily broken. I attended several balls he was at and I talked to him at length—as long as one can at a ball—a grand total of three times. That was it. I thought him interesting, until his thick accent and overbearing manner began to wear upon me. I avoided him, and he didn't appreciate that—hence trying to get my attention outside of the opera."

"How would that have turned out for you if you hadn't been wearing sharp-heeled slippers that night?"

"I don't even bother to think on it."

His look hardened on her. "Yet you think enough on it to have kept the information from me."

"It was inconsequential."

"So inconsequential you needed to escape to Springfell?"

Her glare shot back at him. "I took a break from society. That is all. Lord Gwenton has left London, I was assured of it."

"Left London for where?"

"No." Her head leaned to the side, shaking. "You cannot seriously think he was the one behind my abduction at Springfell?"

"He tried to steal you away once, so I don't know what to think. But a detail like this—it is a fairly damn important detail, Nemity." He heaved a sigh, running his hand through his hair. "And I think you believe in people far too generously, while you don't think enough about how you affect them."

"How I affect them?" Her brows lifted high. "Three times. Three times I talked to the man."

"Yes, and how many times did I talk to you before I was imagining kissing you? Touching you?"

Her jaw dropped with a quick intake of breath.

"Exactly. You may not ask for the attention, but it finds its way to you. So you need to be damn well aware of what that could mean and how you need to be protecting yourself. Men are not kind. Men are not nice. Men are sick, randy, rutting bastards to a one if they can be, and it gives them far too much entitlement to take what they want. Men aren't to be trusted. Ever."

Her stare cut into him. "Do all those things apply to you?"

"Whether they do or not is a moot point."

"Oh, I think it a very valid point." Her hands shifted to rest at her waist. "Are you different or are you a contemptible bastard like the rest?"

"I am who I am. I have blood on my hands, so yes, to some, that does mean I am a contemptible bastard. And to others I conduct myself with a code of honor that allows me to sleep at night."

"And which man are you with me?" The blue of her irises sparked with fire, the violet rings around the edges deepening.

"I think you already know the answer to that."

She took a step closer, craning her neck so she could stare up at him. "What if I want to hear it?"

His jaw shifted back and forth as he met her stare. "If you need to hear that I want to wring your neck when you drive me to bedlam with your obstinate subterfuge and your willful ignorance—yes, you do."

Her lips tightened.

He leaned in over her before she could say a word. "You also drive me to bedlam with your damn smiles and your laughter that makes me think I wandered into a dreamy field of poppies and sunshine. You drive me to the brink of madness when my fingers are roving over your body, your skin, and making you scream under my touch. Those are the moments I would sell my soul for. But do I adhere to a code with you?" His look sank into her. "Yes. I have to. I am here to do a job, and I have to respect that."

She stared up at him, the heat in her blue eyes now unmistakable. "You're not only soft under your growl, you're actually a gentleman, aren't you?"

"If I am, no one but you has ever managed to see it in me."

She nodded, licking her lips, her voice a husky whisper. "But I do. I do see it in you. I see what you can be—at least to me."

With those words she reached up and wrapped her hands around his neck, pulling herself upward to meet his lips.

He shook his head as he slid his hand behind her. "The window."

She looked over her shoulder at the window they could be seen through from the street, then yelped as he lifted her up, and curled over her, laying her onto the floor.

For a timeless moment, he hovered over her, staring at her face, falling prey to the lust palpitating in her eyes. Lust for him.

Her mouth parted as her hands lifted up, curling around his neck and her fingernails dug into his skin.

He descended on her slowly, the touch of her lips under his like the sweetest honey. But as slow as he wanted to go, that first taste of her sent every nerve in his body into mayhem.

The kiss turned rabid, her hands going savage at his clothes, tearing off his coat and waistcoat, then ripping up his lawn shirt.

It wasn't until he was bare from the waist up did she slow, pulling away from the kiss for a moment as her eyes dipped down his body, her fingers trailing down his chest.

Then in a sudden rush, her hands dropped to his trousers, pulling open his fall front.

He cock wasn't complaining, but he stilled himself for a moment, smoothing hair away from her face. "We don't have to do this. I'll help you no matter what."

A wanton smile curled onto her lips. "That is exactly why I do want this—want you." Her hand wrapped around his shaft, sliding up the thick length of it. "And I want all of you this time. You deep inside of me."

He swallowed, having to catch his breath. Nemity did what she wanted, and she was always honest about it.

That she wanted him—all of him—it ripped open a part of him he didn't know existed. Something from the bowels of his soul that wanted—needed to make sure she felt this as he did. This unmanageable fire between the two of them that looked to scorch him at every turn.

His head dropped, and he kissed her, imprinting himself deep with every swipe of his tongue, every mewled sigh of hers that gave him breath.

Balancing on his right hand, he reached down with his left and dragged up her skirts, baring her legs.

Her right leg bent upward, and he traced the bare skin up from her ankle, to her knee, and he shifted inward, trailing his fingers along her inner thigh until he reached her folds. His middle finger slid inward, finding her already slick with want, and he swiped along her folds, finding her nub. Her body jerked with the touch, arching, and he circled the center of her pleasure until she was pulling herself up on him, her lips on his chest, gasping with every stroke.

He switched to circling her nub with his thumb and thrust one finger into her channel. Pumping. Two fingers and her legs went wide, welcoming him. A third finger filling her and a silent scream shook her, near to coming.

Her hand pushed up on his left arm, her voice breathless. "I want you. You, deep inside of me."

His mouth dropped to hers, searing a kiss on hers. He pulled up just enough to get words out, his lips brushing against her. "Hell, Nem, are you sure?"

She nodded, lifting her head to kiss him with even more fire.

Her hand shifted between them, grabbing his shaft, and she guided the tip of it to her entrance. Both of her hands came up and she wrapped them under his trousers, spreading across his butt.

Finding her lips once more, he drove into her in one solid thrust.

Her hips bucked, a carnal rasp vibrating from her.

Damn, she was tight. So damn tight clenched around his cock. It was all he could do not to come at first contact.

Her hips swiveled under him, demanding friction, and he withdrew, driving down into her again. Several more slow thrusts, and the pressure of her nails on his backside told him she was ready for more.

He increased the pace, slamming into her, a breath away from savage, and all she did was prod him faster. Wrap her legs around him. Arch her back to meet him with every thrust.

Until she was shaking, desperate for release as her nails scratched along his back, begging whispers flooding his ears.

Slipping his arm beneath her lower back for better leverage, he lifted her hips and drove into her with desperate intention. Raw. Three massive thrusts where his cock ravaged that sensitive spot deep within her, and she screamed, her body splintering.

Her inner channel constricting hard against his cock, he barely managed to pull it free before he fractured, his seed spilling onto her inner thighs.

She reached down, pumping him, drawing every last bit of his cum out of him, before her arm fell around his neck and she dragged him down to her face.

He picked her up, spinning them on the floor so he was on his back and she was on top before their lips could meet.

Her body still quivering, he kissed her, breathless, gentle, for she was a delicate prism of glass he didn't want to break. No matter that he'd just ravaged her body, punishing it in ways that he should have taken more care with.

Her body long atop his, it felt like an angel had landed on him, wanting to meld into him for warmth, for protection, for forever.

This.

In this moment. He could be another person. Live another life. A life he could actually enjoy. Embrace.

He could feel it in his chest, a living, breathing thing that begged to be set free.

Even if it could never actually be.

She moved, nuzzling her nose into his chest. Inhaling. Satisfied.

The moment slipped from him without warning, ashes scattering to a freezing wind.

He lifted his hand to the back of her hair, burying it in the lush thickness of the waves. "How many more secrets are you hiding from me, Nemity?"

Her head shifted, her cheek landing on his chest as her fingers traced down from his neck to circle the tattoo inked above his heart. "Not nearly as many as you obviously are."

He closed his mouth, inhaling.

She'd never mentioned that she thought he was hiding anything. But she was far cannier than he'd first given her credit for.

She saw the details of the world around her, the horror and the deceptions, but she chose again and again to rise above it, to choose optimism, to choose happiness.

That wasn't idiocy. It was its own kind of intelligence.

A survival skill like no other.

It made her look strong, if not flighty. When it was really her fooling everyone around her into thinking everything was fine.

Even when it wasn't.

The strong didn't get devoured. The weak did.

A basic of survival.

Nemity was more of a match to him than he'd ever imagined.

Not that he could allow more to this than what it was. A tryst. That was all it would ever be. Could ever be.

And he'd better start wrapping his head around that reality, no matter how these fleeting moments felt.