A Lord Rotheby's Holiday Bundle (100 page)

“
We are quite alone, my
dear.” Utley’s fingers continued to trail lazy paths along any
stretch of bare skin they encountered. “But you must have realized
why I brought you outside. Surely you recognize your own value,
Miss Matthews. Of course, one might believe you to be beneath my
touch—” he chuckled, looking at his fingers slithering over her
skin— “but I can look beyond the unfortunate circumstance of your
low birth when faced with your—ample—assets.” His gaze slid to her
bosom and held there.

She felt ill. Fully, truly ill. She’d
walked blindly and willingly into a blasted catastrophe, and now
she couldn’t see a way out. Jane pressed her eyes closed and said a
prayer for clear thought, willing her heartbeat to calm to a dull
roar. “Oh, goodness. I believe I hear my chaperone calling to me.”
She extricated herself from his touch and pushed further along the
bench, trying to put some distance between them. “You must excuse
me, my lord, but I’m sure you wouldn’t wish to detain me and risk
the consequences. Her Grace would be most displeased.” She stood
and managed two steps before he roughly took her arm from behind,
stopping her dead in her tracks.

“
And we mustn’t displease
the dowager, must we?” His low voice sounded just above her ear and
his grip tightened on her arm until it hurt. “If I’m not mistaken,
however, her intention is to find you a husband. We could ensure
such a match tonight, if you would cooperate with me.”

Jane shook violently and her breath
came out in short, desperate bursts.

His hands moved over her upper arms,
holding them close to her sides, drawing her bottom against his
thighs, where his protrusion pressed against her. “Of course,
you’ve already performed your part rather well. I intended to
coerce you to join me for a stroll outside where I could then
seduce you, but no coercion was necessary. You played into my hands
better than I’d planned.”

Utley’s strong arms forced her to turn
and face him. Outrage warred with panic as she looked up into his
eyes, hard and unyielding. The corners of his mouth turned up in a
menacing grin before he lowered his head and claimed her lips in a
painful, humiliating kiss.

One of his hands held her head captive
to his assault while the other grasped her bottom firmly, pinching,
prodding, and otherwise forcing her to move her hips closer to his
frame until his eagerness pressed firm and hot against her
stomach.

Once the shock dissipated,
Jane pushed with all her strength against his chest and broke free
from his kiss. Breathing heavily, she reached a hand up to slap him
across the face, but held herself back. She had to think clearly.
Striking him might have unintended consequences. “How
dare
you,” she uttered.
Then she backed away from him, inching toward the ballroom and
safety.

Before she reached the doorway, Utley
smirked and rubbed his chin almost as though she had struck him
instead of holding herself back. “Quite easily, in fact,” he called
out to her, then turned in the opposite direction.

Of all the ill-advised things she had
done in her life, this must top the list. Blast. And now she’d have
to return to the ballroom alone. Perhaps she could slip inside
unnoticed if she were very careful. If not, there was bound to be
more gossip. It would be bad enough for her if anyone had noticed
her leaving with the scoundrel.

Oh, who was she trying to
fool? Doubtless, Cousin Henrietta would be watching for her, since
she was
supposed
to be dancing with Utley. Already, Jane had proven to be the
center of the rumor mill’s focus for the evening, and it was still
early.

She’d be lucky indeed if every eye in
the ballroom didn’t turn to see her in her shame.

How on earth could she get out of this
newest scrape?

Jane frantically pored over various
scenarios she could present to the dowager to convince her nothing
untoward had occurred while she’d been outside with Utley, all the
while scrambling through the winding pathways of the garden as the
scents of blossoming gardenias and foxgloves wafted over her. Lost
in thought, she didn’t see the towering man standing directly in
her way until she ran headlong into him, her nose bumping rather
unnaturally against his well-toned chest.

For just a moment, she pinched her
eyes closed and willed her breathing to calm. Then she slowly
looked up, inching her eyes across his perfectly starched, white
cravat and the snug black overcoat emphasizing firm muscles
straining to be set free, hoping to discover anyone there—anyone at
all, even Lord Utley again—other than the Duke of
Somerton.

Her eyes traveled over his face, the
smooth shaven square jaw, the furious scowl, and his hard eyes
(eyes that were curiously multi-colored—how was it possible for one
to be more green and the other to be more blue?) which glared down
at her.

And of course, it was none other than
the duke himself standing before, looking ready to rip her limb
from limb.

Drat.

~ * ~

Devil take it. Peter couldn’t decide
who he ought to kill first.

He could start with the minx standing
before him with eyes filled with a fascinating mix of fury, fear,
and just a hint of shame.

He could strangle his mother for
having introduced Miss Matthews to Utley in the first place, when
she knew full well the man was a scoundrel of unequaled measure. It
was bad enough that she’d instigated the entire charade by pushing
Peter to take a new bride and by sponsoring her damned cousin for
the Season.

If he were to do what he
really knew, deep down, that he should do, he could follow Utley,
the bloody bastard, to wherever he had wandered off to in the dark
of the gardens and rip his head from his body. Not only had the
bastard dared to dance with a decent, respectable young lady, in a
decent, respectable ballroom, before legions of decent, respectable
people, but he also had the audacity to take that very same young
lady from the ballroom and away from the protective eyes of her
chaperone and the rest of the
ton.
Not to mention his own eyes, but they were rather
beside the point.

The lecher obviously was planning to
do God-knew-what in order to ruin the blasted woman on her very
first night out. Which shouldn’t surprise Peter. He might have
hoped Utley would someday change, but the bastard was clearly
beyond hope.

And Miss Matthews had been bloody
stupid to agree to any of it in the first place. Clearly, she
hadn’t been paying attention to the instruction his mother had
given her or she would never have agreed to dance with the bastard,
let alone leave the safety of the public eye to go somewhere alone
with him.

Which brought him back to Miss
Matthews. Blast it.

But damnation, he most certainly could
not throttle her. At least, not at the moment.

Perhaps later.

In the meanwhile, she needed to be
handled. Luckily, Peter doubted anyone else had seen her leave for
the gardens with Utley. He had followed them out himself as soon as
he saw where the cretin was taking her, though the throng of
revelers certainly didn’t make the task of moving through them very
easy for him.

And she
had
looked as though she needed a bit
of air when he was taking her out, so any who had seen their
departure would surely assume as much. She’d looked ready to fall
over from the vapors at any moment. This little fiasco wouldn’t
necessarily cause her ruination. At least not
immediately.

He took a breath to calm himself.
There was no reason to lose his temper in front of Miss Matthews.
Doing so once in his lifetime had certainly been more than
enough.

But before he was entirely certain he
had a firm rein over his anger, she interrupted his concentration
with an imperiously arched eyebrow, tilting her head and pursing
her lips. “Pardon me, Your Grace. I was just returning to the
ballroom.” The fear had fled her eyes, leaving only unveiled anger
behind. Still, a slight tremor sounded in her voice. That likely
irritated her to no end.

He deliberately kept his response low,
cool. The last thing he needed was to alarm her further. “Were you?
And might you also inform me of the reason you took it upon
yourself to leave that very ballroom with Lord Utley only a few
moments ago?”

“
Why, no, I don’t believe I
shall. I have no intention to do any such thing.” The anger in her
gaze turned to a haughty glare. “I see no reason to explain my
actions to you, sir.”

“
Don’t you? And why, pray
tell, is that?” Bloody infuriating woman.

“
Because my business is my
own. Pardon me, if you please.” She tried to skirt around him to
the right, but he shifted to block her progress. She rewarded his
efforts with a disgruntled frown.

“
I beg to differ, ma’am.
You see, while you’re in London, you are my mother’s charge. And as
I am the head of our household, you are therefore my charge as
well, however much we may both desire otherwise.”

Her eyes flashed. “Indeed.
Nonetheless, you fail to remember that I’ve obtained my majority. I
may certainly speak with any gentleman with whom I see fit, and
even go for a stroll in the gardens of a night, should I so deem it
appropriate.
Without
deigning to request your permission, Your Grace.”

“
And you call that
scoundrel a gentleman, do you?” A raging fire was building in his
chest, boiling like a kettle over a fire, and he fought to tamp it
back down. Miss Matthews was becoming a devilish nuisance, causing
reactions within him that no one had ever done before, damn it all.
“Do you know who he is, ma’am? Do you know anything about Lord
Utley at all? Or any of the myriad gentlemen present at the ball
this evening, for that matter?”

She started to pipe in with a
response, but he cut her off.

“
No. You don’t. And since
you are so dreadfully unaware of anything related to these
gentlemen’s reputations, you have been relegated to my mother’s
chaperonage. For your own protection, ma’am.” Peter’s voice had
risen so loud, surely someone within the ballroom would hear him
soon. He deliberately lowered it again, taking a deep breath to
regain control. “You’re to do as she says in order that you don’t
make an unwarranted mistake. If left to your own devices, you’d
likely ensure your own ruin if this jaunt into the gardens is any
indication. You’re most certainly not to take it upon yourself to
accept a dance with one of the most notorious rakehells in Town,
nor are you to then proceed to situate yourself entirely alone with
said ‘
gentleman
’
without the knowledge of your chaperone, or anyone else. Yet you
thoroughly ignored her on this matter—”

“
I most certainly
did
not
ignore
Cousin Henrietta on any matter,” Miss Matthews spat out at him with
sparks in her eyes. “She introduced me to Lord Utley, and she saw
no harm in my dancing with him since
you
had sent him over for an
introduction. We both complied with your guidance,
Your Grace
.” Miss
Matthews took the tiniest step forward until she stood only a
hair’s breadth away from him, wagging a finger in his face. “If
anyone here is to blame for anything, it is you. You’re the one who
set this all in motion.”

“
You and my mother were
both terribly mistaken if you think I’d have sent anyone like Utley
for an introduction. How she could possibly think I would approve
of such a thing, I’ll never be able to fathom. But I’ll deal with
her later. You, on the other hand, must be dealt with
immediately.”

“
Dealt with.
Dealt with?
Why, you
arrogant popinjay!” She took another step toward him, stepping on
his toes in the process and shoving him backward with no small
amount of force—a fact that surprised him—and matching him step for
step as he backed away. “I am not some green chit barely out of the
schoolroom. Nor am I one of your siblings. You have no right to
order me about in any way. You will kindly remember that in
future.”

Never in his life had he struck a
woman before, not even one of his sisters when they were children,
yet he found it difficult to restrain himself from that very
atrocity at this moment. Her impudence stung.

“
And you would do well to
remember, Miss Matthews, that as long as you live beneath my roof
you are under my protection and therefore must abide by my
decisions.”

“
Well, perhaps I should not
live beneath your roof any longer, then.” She crossed her arms over
her chest, which only served to plump up her already breathtaking
bosom before his eyes.

“
Perhaps not. Nevertheless,
you currently do, so my word is law.”

Her fury shone through in a great huff
and a flash of her eyes. Dear Lord, she was beautiful when she was
angry. Almost like a siren.

Peter shook his head, as though to rid
it of such thoughts. Thinking along those lines would get him
nowhere. “And my word is that you are to avoid all contact with
Lord Utley from this moment on. For that matter, you’d better
reject any attentions from Mr. Aldous Forster or Lord Tansley,
should they attempt to pay you court. Maybe a few others as well.
I’ll let you know as I think of them. But I might never secure you
a husband if some nefarious scoundrel ruins your reputation before
you have a chance to make a decent match.”