A Wicked Pursuit (21 page)

He looped one arm around her waist and pulled her from her feet and onto the bed and against him. She came effortlessly, curling her hands over his shoulders and flexing her fingers as she kissed him. He thrust his fingers into the silk of her hair, pulling it free of the knot at the back of her head and scattering hairpins over the coverlet. He kissed her so deeply, with such hunger, that when their lips parted briefly, both of them were gasping for breath.

“Don’t ever say such things, Harry,” she said in a fierce whisper, resting her forehead against his as her hair streamed around them both. “Don’t ever say things like that again, ever.”

“I won’t,” he said, his hand sliding restlessly along the length of her back.

She nibbled lightly on his lips, sheer, teasing torment, then pulled back again, shifting away from him.

“Your leg,” she said breathlessly. “I can’t hurt your leg.”

“You won’t,” he said, pulling her back into his arms to make her forget his leg and any other reason she might have for not kissing him.

“But what if I—”

His mouth swept down on hers again by way of an answer, and to silence her worries. He would never doubt her, not after this. Well,
never
might be too strong. At present his brain was incapable of considering the future, and focused entirely on kissing her in the present, and wondering how long it would take to undo the long row of buttons on the front of her habit’s jacket. If only he could stand, he would have her freed of the entire rig—jacket, petticoats, shirt, stays, hoops, and shift—and have her naked in a matter of minutes.

Naked: no, as much as he wanted her, he couldn’t think like that. Not yet, anyway. This wasn’t a mistress. This was Gus, and she was a lady. So why in blazes were they on each other now like stoats in the spring?

And why was he wasting time even thinking such thoughts when she was making the most wanton little moans into his mouth as he kissed her, when she—

“My lord Hargreave,” called the voice on the other side of the bedroom door. “Miss Augusta. A word, if you please.”

Gus tore her mouth away from Harry, and whipped around toward the door.

“That’s Royce,” she whispered breathlessly. “He wouldn’t dare interrupt unless it was important.”

“Go away, Royce,” Harry called back over her shoulder at the closed door, not letting her go. “Miss Augusta and I are discussing the future of the Whig party in relation to the House of Lords, and cannot be disturbed.”

Her eyes widened, and the ever-practical and serious Gus actually giggled, clapping her hand over her mouth to keep back the sound.

“I regret the intrusion, my lord,” Royce said mournfully. “But this is a matter of importance. You have a visitor, my lord. His Grace the Duke of Sheffield, my lord.”

“Your
cousin
the Duke of Sheffield?” Gus gasped with dismay. “Here? Now?”

Without waiting for an explanation, she wriggled free of Harry’s embrace and scrambled from the bed. With the frantic efficiency of all women caught—or nearly caught—in the act of doing something they shouldn’t, she smoothed her skirts and rebuttoned the two buttons on her jacket that Harry had undone.

“Why the devil should Sheffield be here?” Harry demanded, more frustrated than embarrassed.

Yet he could already hear his cousin’s voice in the hallway, loudly inquiring why poor Royce didn’t open the damned door. Gus had scarcely time to coil her hair back into a knot before Sheffield opened the door himself and came striding into the room.

“Harry, you rogue!” he exclaimed, beaming as he came forward to the bed. “Look at you here, as fine as a Turk!”

As unhappy as he was at being interrupted with Gus, Harry couldn’t help but grin at Sheffield. Although technically a much-removed cousin, he was close enough in age to Harry that he’d always seemed more like a favorite older brother. They shared a physical resemblance, too, both being tall and dark with blue eyes, broad shoulders, and devastating smiles.

And, of course, they shared an obvious devotion to their dogs. If Harry was glad to see Sheffield, then Patch and Potch were equally delighted to see Sheffield’s portly white bulldog, Fantôme, lumbering faithfully alongside him with his pink tongue lolling from his grinning mouth.

But while the dogs were busily sniffing and licking one another in joyful reunion, Harry saw at once that greeting his cousin was going to be much more complicated. Despite Sheffield’s heartiness, his eyes betrayed him, and he was clearly shocked by Harry’s appearance. That in turn worried Harry. Here he’d believed himself to be much improved, if not exactly back to his old self. Was he really as changed as that?

But for now that was far less important—and less complicated—than introducing Sheffield to Gus, who was hovering uncertainly and still fussing with her hair.

“Sheffield, may I present my hostess here at Wetherby Hall, Miss Augusta Wetherby,” he said. “Miss Augusta, my cousin, His Grace the Duke of Sheffield.”

“Welcome, Your Grace,” she said, blushing prettily as she sank into the required deep curtsey for a duke. “You honor my father’s house.”

“Your servant, Miss Augusta,” Sheffield said, bowing gallantly over her hand. “My family is most grateful to you for the generous hospitality you have shown Harry in his time of need. I can see he has been well looked after.”

Trust Sheffield to know how to put a lady at ease, thought Harry. “‘Looked after’ sounds as if I’m some mongrel dog found by the crossroads, given a bone and an old blanket in a box near the fire,” he said. “The pure truth is that Miss Augusta saved my life.”

Her blush deepened. “Oh, Harr—that is, my lord,” she stammered, not nearly as adept as the men were at this polite game. “I fear you’re exaggerating my role.”

Harry smiled, striving to reassure her even as she stood out of his reach. “It’s no exaggeration, not at all.”

“You were feverish, my lord,” she said. “I venture that you misremember. Your Grace, I hope that you will join Harr—his lordship and me for supper, and be my father’s guest here at the abbey.”

Sheffield bowed. “I accept both invitations, Miss Augusta.”

“My family is honored, Your Grace,” Gus said. “If you will excuse me, I will go speak to my cook, and make the other arrangements for rooms for you.”

She curtseyed and backed from the room. Harry could sense how relieved she was to have this excuse for her escape, but he still couldn’t help missing her acutely the instant the door closed after her.

“So tell me of your leg, Harry,” Sheffield said, settling into the armchair beside the bed that Harry regarded as Gus’s. “I’ve come clear from Paris to hear your version of the tale.”

“I was thrown by a horse and broke my leg,” Harry said. “This is a fine season for Paris. How are Diana and the children?”

“Diana is as beautiful as ever, the children are thriving, and Paris was most agreeable,” Sheffield said. Fantôme whined at his feet, and with a grunt he hoisted the dog onto his lap. “Or at least it would have been if I hadn’t returned to discover most of London discussing your hapless adventures. Sir Randolph will be joining us here tomorrow, so there’ll be no gilding of the truth.”

Harry sighed, leaning back against the pillows so that he stared up at the pleated canopy overhead, and not at his cousin. He might as well tell Sheffield the truth, or at least most of it. His cousin likely knew the majority of it already, anyway.

“Very well, then,” he said. “The ungilded truth is that I came to this house last month intending to ask for the hand of the Honorable Miss Julia Wetherby.”

“A lady who’d tempt any man,” Sheffield said, rubbing Fantôme’s pointed ears and making the dog drool with happiness. “Alas, she knows it, too.”

“I learned that,” Harry said. “Unfortunately, I had to be tossed by her father’s hellish horse first. She discovered that her love for me did not include me with a broken leg, and she . . . left me for the more flourishing pastures in London.”

Sheffield frowned down at the top of Fantôme’s head. “You do know that it’s expected she’ll now marry Southland?”

Harry shrugged, and tried to sound cavalier. “Southland is welcome to her. I consider myself to have made a fortuitous escape.”

“Yet you haven’t, Harry,” Sheffield said. “You’re still here in her family’s house, which must be a damned uncomfortable place for you to be.”

“It’s not at all,” Harry said. “Gus looks after me most excellently.”

Sheffield looked up at him over Fantôme’s wrinkled forehead. “I assume that
Gus
is a familiar endearment for Lady Augusta?”

“It is,” Harry said, feeling his face grow warm. He’d marched right into that one, hadn’t he? “But it is not an, ah, exclusive endearment. She is widely known as such by her family and close friends.”

“Indeed,” Sheffield said, his voice purposefully bland. He leaned forward and plucked one of Gus’s hairpins from Harry’s coverlet. “Broken leg or not, I can imagine how excellently she is looking after you.”

“Stop there, Sheffield,” Harry said sharply. “It’s not like that.”

Sheffield smiled and leaned back in the chair, gently running his palm along the dog’s side. “So you intend to marry the lady?”

“Damnation, it’s not like that, either,” Harry said, his happiness at seeing his cousin rapidly fading. “Once you come to know Gus better, you’ll understand.”

“What I understand, Harry,” Sheffield said, “is that if her father weren’t such a doting, empty-headed ass about Lady Julia, he’d already be outraged by how familiar Miss Augusta is with your bedchamber. She is a viscount’s daughter, not a scullery maid. If you’re not careful, you’ll have Wetherby here with the banns all read and a musket at your back.”

He found another of Gus’s errant hairpins and held it up to Harry. “Unless, that is, having been spared one Wetherby daughter, you will be content with the other.”

Harry grabbed the hairpin and tossed it on the nearby table. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to marry Gus specifically. In his present state, he didn’t want to marry anyone. No woman would want a bridegroom who was a prisoner of his bed, and not in an interesting way, either. How could he even consider marriage when he wasn’t able to stand before a minister?

“What will make me content, Sheffield,” Harry said, scowling darkly, “is to have you mind your own affairs.”

Sheffield smiled, refusing to fan Harry’s temper.

“You needn’t listen to me, Harry,” he said evenly. “But I understand your father is on his way back to England as fast as his passage can be arranged, and I am certain he will have his own ideas about your situation.”

“From Naples?” Harry asked, stunned. He hadn’t requested his father’s return, and he wasn’t sure he wanted it. It wasn’t that he didn’t wish to see his father—they got along much better than many fathers and sons—but he could imagine all too well Father’s humor after being interrupted on his leisurely pleasure-tour of Italy to hurry home because Harry had toppled from a horse. Hell, he’d never hear the end of it.

“From Naples,” Sheffield said.

“But that could take weeks,” Harry said, for once hoping for a long passage for his father. “Months, depending on the winds and seas.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Sheffield said. “The sooner we can remove you from here and take you back to London, the better. Tomorrow, after Sir Randolph’s visit, would be ideal. You’re welcome to stay with us, if you wish. Diana would love being able to fuss over you, and the children would regard it as the greatest fun imaginable.”

Harry didn’t say anything. He had a sudden, nightmarish vision of what recuperating at Sheffield House would be like, with his cousin’s ever-cheerful wife never leaving him alone, and his two small sons swarming over his bed with their toy soldiers and animals.

“I’m sure she’d do her best to keep you entertained,” Sheffield continued blithely. “Sir Randolph will call on you daily to tend to your leg, your friends can visit to cheer you, and you can put the inconsequential Miss Augusta from your thoughts for good.”

At once Harry was ready to defend Gus. “I’ll thank you not to refer to Miss Augusta in that fashion.”

Sheffield sighed. “I’m sorry, that was a bit harsh,” he said. “But be rational. Your predilection for fair-haired beauties with large breasts is no secret. If you were to come across Miss Augusta in the company of your past conquests, you would not so much as notice her.”

Harry couldn’t deny that past full of lushly endowed blond ladies. They’d been his weakness for as long as he’d taken notice of women, and they of him. But Gus was different—not that he seemed able to describe how to Sheffield.

“It’s likely circumstances that have drawn you and the lady together,” Sheffield said with more generosity. “She has shown you great kindness while you have been here, and it’s natural to feel gratitude in return. But you’ll see the shift in your attachment as soon as you’re parted. It will be for your own good, and hers as well. Once we have you safely back in London, then—”

“That’s enough, Sheffield,” Harry said curtly. “Enough. Gus will be back any moment. I’m not discussing this further with you.”

But Sheffield simply smiled, his hand resting on the now-sleeping dog’s broad back.

“We will, Harry,” he said. “And I don’t intend to leave this house without you.”