A Gentleman's Guide to Scandal (25 page)

Elinor had the carriage to herself, as Mr. Bhandari had chosen to drive and Colin to ride alongside. They stopped one night at an inn, where enough money exchanged hands to quell any awkward questions. Elinor slept lightly, half-expecting Colin to steal into her chamber, but she did not see him again until the morning. It was late the next day when they reached the Farleigh estate. Colin rode up beside the window of the carriage as they approached.

“This will be difficult to explain,” he said, brow furrowed.

“You should ask Joan for references,” Elinor said. “Discreet staff are ever so useful.”

“I don't normally find a need for excessive discretion,” Colin said ruefully.

“The best explanation is no explanation,” Elinor said. “They won't question you. Don't give them a story to pick apart; just stride in as if you own the place. As, in fact, you do.”

“I do at that,” Colin said. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I dearly hope Martin never hears about this.”

“If he does, I am going to claim everything was your fault,” she told him with a sly smile. He chuckled and urged
his mount forward. Her smile fell away as soon as he had turned from her. It was so difficult to reconcile the emotions churning within her. There was the horror at the thought of Marie's death and the vile circumstances surrounding it at the fore. But there was also that persistent desire, that longing, every time she glanced at Colin. And twinned with it, her sorrow at the sure knowledge that he was slipping further from her with each step toward home.

A rather confused footman handed her down from the carriage a few minutes later, eyes going to her ragged dress and his mouth pressing into a thin line with the effort of avoiding comment. She held her head high and swept in, then claimed the first maid she saw and asked for a hot bath and a change of clothes. The clothes appeared while she was soaking, and by the time she was scrubbed pink, reclothed, and her hair put back into a semblance of its proper order, she felt nearly human again. The dress was one of Kitty's, which meant it was too short at the hem and too tight at the shoulders, but it would do. She hesitated before stowing the egret charm in a borrowed reticule. She felt somehow reluctant to put it away.

“Do you know where Lord Farleigh is?” she asked the maid who had helped with her hair.

The girl gave a quick, cautious smile. “In the billiard room, I believe,” she said. “My Lady.”

“Good. I'll go see him,” Elinor said brightly, not inviting contradiction. Her heart was beating a little fast. It was one thing to ignore propriety when she was masked and among those least likely to care, but here, under the eyes of men and women she'd met, who knew who she was, and who—God forbid—might get word to her brother, she felt rather sick. Still, she steeled herself against the feeling. They were not done with their caper yet. They had yet to determine how, exactly, she was to return home without being noticed.

She expected to find Colin and Bhandari together, but Colin was alone, practicing shots. She paused a moment in the doorway, admiring his figure as he bent over the table, eying the trajectory of the ball he was about to strike. It
emphasized his length, the lean muscle that gave him that almost harsh look. He paused, straightened up. “There you are,” he said.

She stepped in. “Here I am,” she said.

“You look almost like yourself.”

“Didn't I, before?” she asked. She drew forward another step.

“Another version of yourself, maybe,” he said.

“And what did you think of her?”

He gave an odd smile and a tilt of his head. “I enjoyed meeting her,” he said. “But I don't think I would like to enjoy her company at the expense of yours.”

“I think I agree,” she said. “That was an . . . interesting interlude. I don't think I care to repeat it.” It might be more frightening, in a way, to be without that mask. But she felt better without it.

“The interlude isn't over yet,” he said. His grip on the cue was like a stranglehold. He would drown himself in his brooding at this rate. She felt as if she were drowning herself. Perhaps they could keep each other afloat, for a time. She closed her fingers around his.

“It can be,” she said. “We don't need to chase any more answers. We can leave things as they are, and forget.”

“You don't believe that.”

“No, I don't,” she admitted. “Perhaps before Mr. Bhandari told us what he knew, but now?”

“Now we must know who killed her,” Colin said. “However impossible a task that seems.”

She let her hands run up to his wrists, running lightly over his skin, and felt him shiver. “Do something for me,” she said.

“Anything.”

“Pretend, for a few minutes. Pretend that we can forget.”

He set the cue aside, half-turning away from her. “I don't know if I can do that. Even for a second.”

She touched his shoulder, drawing close to him. “Please,” she said.

He turned with such suddenness she stumbled back, but
he caught her wrist and drew her up short. His grip was tight, almost painful. Almost. “Ask again,” he said, his eyes locked on hers.

“Please,” she said. “Forget. Help me forget. For a little while.”

He tugged, pulling her arm to maneuver her against the side of the billiard table, using his body to trap her there without touching her. “You will have to be more specific,” he said, voice perfectly calm and cold.

She met his eyes boldly. “Kiss me,” she said.

“If you want me to do something, you will have to ask properly,” he reminded her, and gave her wrist a light squeeze.

“Please kiss me,” she amended, and leaned toward him, eager. She wanted him, and in this moment it didn't matter that he didn't want
her
. That he wanted her body was enough; that he wanted only her body made her thrill in a way that she could not explain.

He kissed her. It was a sharp, precise kiss, calculated. She pressed herself against him, eager, deepening the kiss, urging him silently to do the same. But he broke away. Trailed a finger down her cheek. “You like that,” he said.

“Yes,” she breathed.

“What do you like?”

“I like it when you kiss me,” she said.

“What else?”

She flushed. She still couldn't say it, couldn't spell it out. “We are not in the room anymore,” she reminded him. “You don't make the rules.”

“This is my house,” he said. “I am always the one who makes the rules, here. Which means that this is all my responsibility. My desires. You can ask for anything, because I am the one in charge. Do you understand?”

She paused, unsure. She had been trained for so long not to think of such things, not to desire them or admit her desires. Not to ask. But they were his rules, and she was only being obedient. It made it easier. It made it exciting. She could be bold, because it was obedience.

“What do you want?” he asked her again, softly.

“I want you to touch me,” she said. She hesitated. “I want you to take me, Colin.”

It was his turn to still, his hand against her neck, his face an inch away from hers. “Are you certain?” he said. “The risk—”

“Can be diminished,” she said. And laughed. “And if I am to bear a child, we certainly have the resources and cleverness to arrange for its well-being without admitting to the circumstances of its conception.” The thought of having a child was a joyous one, whatever the circumstances. The thought of having his child—

It was better not to chase that thought.

“We must be clear on one point,” Colin said. “If you bear my child, I will marry you. There is time before the wedding to be certain. But if you are with child, I will not allow it to be a bastard. Do you understand?”

She rested both her hands on his chest. Her body craved his touch, but she could not let her desire make this decision. He had a right to such a demand. And she could have him, without the risk, could enjoy him as they had already enjoyed each other. Was it worth the cost, after all? Could she survive, married to a man she loved who did not love her in turn, in exchange for this pleasure?

She couldn't focus on the question. She could only think of how he felt against her, of the heat of his hand where it scorched her neck. “I want you,” she said. “Whatever the cost.”

“Cost,” he echoed, and smiled wryly. “Well. I shall do my best to see that you do not have to pay it.”

She wasn't certain what prompted the bitter edge to his words, and she didn't have time to contemplate it. He spun, moving away from her, and shut and locked the door.

Oh, good Lord. It hadn't been closed before, had it?

He chuckled when he turned back to her. “Don't worry. No one's been by. That I noticed. Now. Where were we?”

The front of his breeches would have been an obvious reminder if she had somehow forgotten in those few seconds. She slid her hands down his torso, but he caught her before she could run them over his erection.

“You said you wanted me to touch you,” he said. “You said nothing of touching me in turn.”

“But—”

“I insist,” he said, and spun her. She fetched up against the side of the billiard table, catching herself with both hands. A delicious feeling coiled in her core. “Don't move,” he instructed her, and pressed his hands over hers once, briefly, to emphasize the point. She turned her head. He clucked his tongue. “Don't move, I said,” he reminded her, and she tensed, forcing herself to stare straight ahead, anticipation making her skin come alive with phantom sensation. She could not see him, but she could feel him, hear him moving behind her. He did not touch her for an agonizing moment, and then his fingertips grazed the back of her neck. She sucked in a breath, but his touch roved upward, and then came a tug at her hair. He dropped a pin onto the lip of the table, beside her hand. Then another.

“There are a great deal of pins in my hair,” she warned him. She didn't know if she could survive long enough for him to remove all of them.

“You are more pins than patience, I think,” he said, his lips against the back of her neck. She arched back against him, but he only laughed and drew away.

The next pin, he trailed down her neck. Then two ghosted across her bare arms, and then one nipped along the collar of her dress. The cold metal made her skin turn to goose bumps; the touch made her heart beat quickly, made her long for more.

“Please,” she said, remembering. He kissed the place where her neck met her shoulder, bit down. She cried out, pushing back against him, just as he pulled the last pins free, her hair now hanging loose and wild around her shoulders. “Please,” she said again, as his teeth found her earlobe.

“You are still distressingly clothed,” he reminded her.

“I don't care,” she said. “I want you.” She was burning with it, ached with it. His hand darted around her body, skimming her hip, and slid between her legs, pressing hard through her dress. The heel of his hand ground against her sex, and she moaned, moving against it.

He gave a harsh yank at the collar of her dress, forcing it and her thin corset down, baring her breasts. His erection pressed against her back, and she grinned—his breath was no less uncontrolled than hers, his desire no less potent. “You want me,” he echoed, his voice hoarse. “You want me to take you, do you?”

“You don't need to take me,” she whispered, shutting her eyes. “I'm yours already.”

He gave a sound like a growl and pushed her forward, guiding her to brace her hands against the table. Then he was rucking up her skirts around her hips, and his hand was between her legs again, fingers sliding through the wetness at her cleft. His touch sent a jolt through her, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out too loudly.

“I do still have servants,” he reminded her, desire and humor setting his voice at an odd pitch. “Try not to startle them.”

He slid two fingers inside her with the final word, and she clamped her lips together to keep the sound from escaping them. He moved in and out of her, and her hips moved with him. She could feel her climax building, and her fingernails dug into the fabric of the table.

Then he withdrew. She let out small sound of protest, but the rustle of cloth promised that her pleasure was not to be long delayed.

The head of his cock pressed against her, and his hand followed the curve of her spine. “I will have you, this once,” he said, and thrust forward.

He slid into her slowly, tenderly, and even that motion was nearly enough to push her over the edge. She moaned, and he echoed the sound, beginning to move slowly within her. She did not want him to be tender or slow. She moved with him, urging him to move faster, to thrust hard against her. His fingers found her nub again, and matched his rhythm as he complied. She shut her eyes, letting everything but the exquisite sensation of his movements within her disappear.