Chapter 2

Two

Grant ran the pad of his thumb over Lady Brookfield's inner thigh and frowned. The mole she had professed concern for while they'd been in the ballroom was nothing more than a small dot on her lily-white skin. The widow barely suppressed a mewl of delight as he sat back in the chair, took in the view, and realized what she really wanted.

"There is nothing wrong with this mole, Lady Brookfield," he said as she continued to stand before him, her foot propped on his knee. The hem of her ballgown was raised above her garter.

Though nearly ten years his senior, Lady Brookfield was beautiful and shapely, and if he was at all in the mood for a rendezvous, he might have been tempted. But he was not. He didn't want to be at this ball, let alone in this bedchamber's sitting room. The only reason he'd accepted Lady Dutton's invitation was to get his father off his back. The man had been insufferable as of late, and earlier that evening, he'd made things infinitely worse. The command for Grant to find a woman to marry still echoed in his head. That he'd already been married once did not signify to the marquess. Nor did Grant's vow to never remarry.

The marquess wanted a grandson, who would keep the title in the immediate family. So far, none of Grant's three older brothers had produced anything but girls, and his younger sister, though married three years now, had not been able to conceive.

Lady Brookfield rolled her ankle, tugging his trousers and yanking his mind away from his current troubles. "Are you quite sure you shouldn't take a closer look?" she said, drawing the hem up another inch.

On some level, he'd known she'd only been trying to get him alone in a room, far away from the crush. Newly out of mourning, the rumors at the clubs were that she was making up for lost time. As Grant's reputation savored strongly of loose morality, he was an obvious choice. He didn't always care to curb the assumptions people made regarding his character, as it both nettled his tyrant of a father and kept young debutantes and their mothers from looking his way during the Season. Safer for everyone, all around. However, his libertine status often caused him more annoyance than it did pleasure.

He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. "I can see everything just fine as you are, my lady, and you are not the owner of a potentially cancerous mole."

She pouted, the little moue an implicit invitation. He swallowed a sigh. Sometimes his reputation was more trouble than it was worth.

At the sound of the sitting room door opening, Lady Brookfield's foot, awkwardly massaging his thigh, went still. Grant looked to see who'd joined them. This was the very reason he did not ever dally with debutantes. Getting caught in a dark room with one of them would lead to a date at the altar, whereas getting caught with a widow would only lead to a roll of the eyes and perhaps a scowl of distaste—both of which the intruder who now pressed her ear against the door, unaware she'd entered an occupied room, would certainly do when she saw him.

Grant cleared his throat. "This is me announcing myself, as I have been told a gentleman should."

Lady Cassandra Sinclair's back went rigid. The last time he'd seen her, she'd chastised him for his failure to reveal himself inside the morning room at Hugh Marsden's home. Not that Grant had been given the chance to so much as part his lips before she'd rushed into the room and burst into wretched sobs. He'd deliberated staying silent and letting her cry. She might have left quickly after her tears dried up. But he'd been too concerned with why she was crying to trick her.

Now, she turned slowly, eyes wide, and saw him in the chair with Lady Brookfield's leg still on full display. Cassie's lips parted in shock, then slammed together again as the scowl he'd predicted emerged.

The widow lowered her hem, and to Grant's relief, withdrew her foot. She smoothed her skirt and fiddled with tendrils of curls framing her face as she cut a hasty path toward Cassie and the door.

"Wait." Cassie held out her hands. She placed her ear against the door again, and after a moment, she stepped aside. Tucking her chin, she looked at Lady Brookfield with meaning. "You haven't seen me, and I haven't seen you. Yes?"

Lady Brookfield gave a small bow of her head. "Agreed, my lady." She then whipped out of the room. Cassie closed the door and locked it behind her.

Grant stood from the chair. "What are you doing in here?"

She hushed him and held up a palm, still listening through the wood. When her shoulders dropped, she turned to scowl at him full on. "I could ask you the same question. But I won't because it's perfectly clear what you were doing in here."

He crossed his arms and angled his head to stare down at her. She was a few inches shorter than him, and yet she persisted in acting as if she hovered high above him and everyone else.

"I was inspecting the lady for a worrisome mole, that is all," he replied. "Who are you hiding from?"

"None of your business."

"Are you in any trouble?" He considered that she might have been trying to escape an overly amorous man. He took a few steps toward the door. But stopped. What was he going to do, charge out there and confront someone who could then place him in a room, alone, with the unmarried young woman? His blood went to ice at the thought. He'd worked too hard to avoid any situation like that.

"I'll only be in trouble if I'm found in here with you," she replied, echoing his own thoughts a little too well.

He gestured toward the locked door. "Then you should leave. Immediately."

Cassie only lifted her chin and stalked toward the fireplace. A few logs had been burning when he and Lady Brookfield had come in, the room selected by some secret knowledge the lady had possessed. The thought occurred to him that she'd arranged for this room in advance. The lusty minx.

"I rather think you should leave, sir." Cassie speared him with a glare over her shoulder. "Unless you are waiting to inspect another woman's worrisome mole."

"Why, do you have one you'd like me to take a look at?"

Suggestive and sarcastic remarks came naturally to him, and something about Cassandra Sinclair made delivering them so much more satisfying. Especially when she blushed and scowled at the same time.

"You are a disgrace. Lady Brookfield is a widow," she hissed. "Have you no shame?"

"I am ashamed of many things." He made his way toward the fireplace, enjoying the little steps she took to the side, to avoid him. As if proximity would make any difference. Should anyone come breaking through that locked door, it wouldn't matter if he was on one side of the room, and she the other. She would still be compromised.

"Like how earlier, I had something in my teeth while I was speaking to Lady Dutton," he said, tapping his front incisor. "Right here. Fleck of pepper, I think it was. Utterly embarrassing."

Cassie stared flatly at him, unamused. Which only made him smile wider.

"Oh, come now, Lady Cassandra. I didn't lure Lady Brookfield into this room to have my wicked way with her. She lured me."

Cassie let out a high bark of laughter. "Oh, that is rich. You, sir, are a superficial rake."

"Believe me or don't, but I am telling the truth. Another truth is that you are hiding in here to escape some man's attention."

She hardened again, her arms crossing at her waist. A protective motion.

"A suitor?" he guessed.

She closed her eyes. "My brother would be ecstatic if I allowed it."

Ah.The duke. "Fournier's looking to fob you off then?"

Cassie opened her eyes. The sooty gray color of them suited her black look. "No one needs to fob me off. I am more than capable of seeing to my own independence, thank you."

It was established knowledge that the duke's sister had avowed herself to be forever unmarried, and for a little while, it had lit up the ton like a firecracker. No one could quite understand why she was so averse to marriage, and no one had really believed she would stick to her commitment. However, over the last few Seasons it had become increasingly evident that she was not moving from her position. The talk had faded, but the disappointment had not abated. To be young, gorgeous, wealthy, and devoted to a future of spinsterhood seemed unnatural to many.

While Grant knew why he would never take vows again, Cassie's reasons mystified him. So much about her did. She was a harridan, to be sure, but not in any cold way. On the contrary, she was a flame. Erratic and opinionated, she had made it more than clear what her opinion was of him.

"Your own independence?" he repeated as he went to a table of cut crystal decanters. He poured himself a liberal amount of whisky. "You make it sound as if you don't rely on the duke's fortune."

Every additional comment from his lips seemed to ignite more of her wrath. It was for the best. The sooner she left this room in a blaze of annoyance, the better. Locked doors only kept out those without keys.

"It is my fortune?—"

"The income of which is allotted to you by the duke. I know how it works, Cassandra. I've an income of my own, meted out by the marquess."

Who had just threatened to sever it should Grant not find a woman by the first of the year to marry. His stomach clenched in instinctive revulsion and not a small amount of fury.

"Your situation and my own are not alike in the least, Lord Thornton." The mossy green silk of her gown shimmered in the firelight, the flames casting a warm golden glow over her skin. The bodice was free of any lace to obscure her decolletage, and Grant forced his attention to lift from the pillowy mounds, now heaving with irritation.

"You're correct, we are very different," he said. "I actually do have an independent income of my own, considering I'm a physician."

Not that his physician's income even reached to the shins of what Grant lived on from his annual inheritance.

Cassie's arms uncrossed, and she balled her hands into little fists. "Oh yes, Dr. Mole Inspector, how impressive you are."

The barb unexpectedly stung. Being the fourth son of a marquess, he'd been of little significance to his father, and thus, was allowed to enroll in medical school. The idea of spending his life as nothing more than a gentleman, plying society and politics and taking weekends in the country for shooting had been dull enough to make him panic. Medicine gave him a focus. A purpose. The marquess had, he'd later confessed, believed Grant would see sense and drop out of university. Either that or fail miserably. When he hadn't, his father had been livid. It was disgraceful to work, Lindstrom had seethed. Any profession was a stain that could not come out in the wash.

Yes, Grant's calls to peerage homes were mostly for things like gout and megrims and venereal diseases, the plagues of the rich, well-fed, and sedentary. Most of his patients were men, too, the ladies too scandalized by his reputation to permit him. But his true work, the most rewarding work, was something he couldn't speak of. The charity clinic he ran in Whitechapel under a false name had to remain a secret, and not only because the marquess would disown him. His regular patients would also disavow him. No upper-class swell would stand for sharing a doctor with poor, working class Londoners.

Likening him to nothing more than a mole inspector was facetious of Cassie, but the thorn stuck in just the same.

"I don't have to prove my profession to you," he said. "If you'll excuse me, one of us needs to leave, and it appears I am the only one possessing any good sense."

He broke away from her, only to dig in his heels at sounds of voices in the hall. They were nearing the door. And then, the doorknob jiggled.

"What's this?" came a woman's exclamation. "I didn't leave it locked."

Cassie gasped, then clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle it. Grant's stomach reached somewhere toward his knees. Bloody hell. The doorknob jiggled again.

"Do you have a key or don't you?" came the voice of an impatient man.

"Of course, but I am certain I didn't lock it."

Grant backed up and instinctively grabbed Cassie by the wrist.

"What do we do?" she whispered.

There was no time to contemplate and only one place to go. He pulled her toward the open doors to the bedchamber, off the sitting room. It was dark, without a single lamp lit, but they made it safely inside before the telltale click of the door's lock gave way.

"Pour me a drink, darling," the unknown woman said as Cassie wrenched her arm away. She was breathing loudly, no doubt on the verge of panic. And well she should. He was beginning to feel the touch of it himself. The man and woman, whoever they were, had likely only come here for one reason—to employ the bed that he and Cassie were currently standing next to.

Thankfully, this room had a door to the hall as well. Grant hurried to it, Cassie on his heels. But the knob was stuck.

"Unlock it," Cassie whispered.

"I would if I could," he whispered back. Damn it! What was wrong with the bloody thing? He twisted it again and again; searched for a lock but found none.

She pushed his hand out of the way. "Let me."

"Oh yes, because your touch is magic," he muttered while she fiddled with the handle. It had to be permanently locked and sealed.

A privacy screen across the room could shield them but reaching it would require them to dash in front of the open doors to the sitting room. Too risky. There was another door to their left, perhaps to a boudoir.

The knob on that door gave. "In here," he whispered to Cassie who hadn't yet given up on the sealed door.

In the sitting room, the woman giggled and moaned.

"In here, now," he whispered harshly.

He stepped into the darkened room and realized it wasn't a boudoir at all. It wasn't even a room. It was a shallow, slim closet. Almost as soon as he stepped in, he'd reached the end of the space. Shelving pressed into his back and shoulders as he turned to face the entrance, and when Cassie dove into the closet with him, she collided with him, treading on his toes. Grant leaned around her and shut the door as softly as he could. Cassie shifted, attempting to push away, but there was no room. Her heels banged into the door, and the noise of it blared in his ears.

He took her shoulders into his hands and held her still. "Do not move."

Christ. To be found like this, not only in a bedchamber but in a sodding closet, would spell disaster. Fournier would demand he marry his chit of a sister, and while that would certainly make Lord Lindstrom happy, Grant would be stuck. Trapped. Attached to a woman who made no effort to conceal her rancor for him.

Their uneven breathing filled the small space, and he became distinctly aware of the front of Cassie's body against his. Not only that, but when she'd slammed into him, her palms had come up between them. They were now pressed against his chest. The woman's incessant giggling from the sitting room, as her beau no doubt plied her with his hands and other unsavory appendages, corkscrewed through him. Hell, if the pair of them came into this room and bandied about on the bed together, while he and Cassie stood like this, listening… It would be a torture unlike any he'd ever imagined.

He closed his eyes and tried to inhale and exhale evenly. With her hands bracing herself against his chest, she had to be able to feel the thrashing of his heart. It was getting hot in here. As he steadied his breaths, the scent of sun-warmed fruit brightened his senses. Apricots? Grant angled his nose toward the crown of her hair.

"What are you doing?" Cassie whispered.

"Have you always smelled of apricots?"

He'd never stood this close to her—at least not since that ungainly embrace years ago at Fournier's country home, Greenbriar. Grant had just pronounced Audrey, now the Viscountess Neatham, safely on the mend after a bullet had grazed her leg. Cassie's relief for her widowed sister-in-law had been so stark that she'd thrown herself into Grant's arms in gratitude. He still remembered the shock of her body firmly clinging to his, and even more shocking, his frozen response. He'd gone rigid—just as he had at the first brush of her body here in the closet. However now, his hands, which had been clutching her shoulders to keep her still, drifted loosely toward her elbows. While in the sitting room, he'd removed his gloves and tucked them into his jacket pocket, so his palms were now free to explore the smooth skin of her arms.

"Stop that." Cassie started to wriggle, but just then, the woman's voice grew louder as she entered the bedchamber. Grant gripped Cassie tightly again to immobilize her, but he needn't have. She'd gone to stone and no longer even breathed.

The lady hummed and giggled, most likely in thanks to copious amounts of champagne. At the familiar sound of someone relieving themselves in a bourdaloue, Grant thanked the lord he had not dragged Cassie behind the changing screen, for that was certainly where the lady had gone.

His eyes began to adjust to the pitch black of the closet, and after some rustling and more giggling, the lady returned to the sitting room.

"Release me," Cassie whispered, flapping her arms. They smacked into shelving.

"Move again and they may hear you."

"Then at least stop groping me."

"I do not grope."

"You needn't hold me this tightly."

"Woman, stop speaking. They will hear you."

"Do not call me?—"

Grant lifted one hand from her arm and clapped it over her mouth. Immediately, she thrashed her head side to side to dislodge it.

"What was that?" The man's voice reached them, and Cassie ceased struggling. Her hot breath huffed against his palm. In their struggle, one of her legs had slipped between his, bringing her thigh dangerously close to his groin. Whether she planned to injure him didn't matter—he felt himself beginning to respond. He wanted to move, ease her away, but couldn't, not without making noise.

"Nothing, darling," the woman replied at last. "Let's return, I want more fizz."

Grant exhaled, and when the couple left, he leaned forward to open the closet door. He pushed Cassie's body from his, and they all but tumbled out.

"My God, woman! Did you want us to be discovered?"

She glared as she emerged from the closet. "Of course not! Why are you so angry? I'm the one who's just been pawed in there!"

"I do not paw women." His temper rose with wild recklessness. "And unless you wish to be caught in a compromising situation and forced down the aisle to a groom who looks curiously like me, you should leave. Now."

"Happily," she spat, starting swiftly for the sitting room. But then she stopped, and with a viper's speed, reached out and pinched him hard on the shoulder. "That is for groping me!"

Cassie disappeared as Grant swore and rubbed his shoulder. The bloody menace!