Amanda Scott (10 page)

Deciding that any attempt to argue with him in the street would prove fruitless, she held her tongue until they reached the inn yard. However, when it became apparent that he meant to haul her right inside, she said quickly, “You need not drag me in like something the cat caught in the yard, sir. I am quite capable of walking on my own.”

He released her, pulled open the main door, and made her a mocking bow, saying politely, “After you.”

“Thank you,” she said, attempting to gather her dignity. She was not quite successful. The entry hall was reassuringly empty, but when she reached the stairs, she realized she had no idea which chamber was his.

When she hesitated, he said, “Second door on the left at the first landing.”

Feeling warmth in her cheeks, she looked around and saw with relief that although candles burned in the wall sconces, and a plain brass candle holder lighted a nearby desk, the hall was still empty.

“At this hour, one rings the bell if one wants assistance,” he said.

She did not respond, too much aware that she was going with a man to his bedchamber, and fearful of what he might expect once they got there. She had been pondering what to do next from the moment he began hurrying her along the street. When she reached the door he had indicated, she dismissed a brief hope that she might somehow convince him to take her back to Edinburgh, and began to wonder instead if she could persuade him to escort her to London and to Great-Aunt Ophelia.

He reached past her and opened the door, revealing a bedchamber much like the one she had shared with Mag. A candle in a glass lamp burned low, lighting the room and revealing the bed. It was larger than hers. An elaborate green and gold dressing gown lay draped over a chair back, and a pair of Moorish slippers rested beside the bed. The coverlet was turned down invitingly.

Taking her cloak, Vexford said, “Do you need my help to take off your dress or can you do it yourself?”

She turned toward him, shivering, although embers glowed red in the fireplace. “Take off my dress?”

“Yes.” He turned away, picked up the poker, and stirred the fire to life.

“But—”

“Look here,” he said over his shoulder with an exasperated sigh, “I just paid twenty thousand guineas for you, and although you showed great skill at playing the game, I doubt that I’ll get my money’s worth. Still, one does not play and not pay, so I want no games from you now. I’m a better choice than Yarborne, certainly, and if nothing else, I’ve damned well bought your unquestioning obedience.”

Feeling colder than ever despite the reviving fire, Melissa saw from the stubborn look in his eyes that he would not listen to argument, and experience with Sir Geoffrey warned her that she might well infuriate him if she objected. She knew she could never win a physical battle with a man of Vexford’s size, and just the thought of what he could do to her if she angered him was enough to stop the protest on the tip of her tongue. He clearly was not sober. Moreover, he had said he loathed chatter. Swallowing hard but moving slowly, she reached back to untie her sash.

“Here, I’ll do it,” he said impatiently.

His big hands were warm where they touched her, though he treated her more like a doll than a woman. When he whisked her gown over her head, a sleeve caught on her bracelet, but he freed it quickly, and she soon stood facing him in her cambric chemise and her sandals.

He reached for the chemise.

“Please, sir, I-I’m chilled. May I keep it on?”

“If you like.” He knelt to deal with her sandals, then stood again and looked at her for a long minute, during which her heart hammered in her chest and she knew herself to be incapable of speech even if she could think of something to say.

He touched her shoulder. “Your skin is soft,” he murmured.

Heat from his fingertips sped to the center of her body, lighting a fire there, surprising her with its intensity. Despite the horrors of the evening, despite Vexford’s undeniable size, power, and present, nearly tactile irritation with her, she discovered that she trusted him. More than that, she wanted him to touch her. She stood perfectly still, aware, despite her predicament, of that odd, lingering sense of being protected. Anticipating the moment his fingers would move, looking into his eyes, she licked her lips, feeling strangely exhilarated by the dawning lust she saw in his expression.

He caught both shoulders in his large hands and pulled her close, bending to kiss her. She could smell brandy on his breath now, but the heat she felt in his fingers was as nothing to what swept through her when his lips touched hers. Her body pressed against his, and a hunger awoke in her such as she had never known before. When he picked her up and carried her to the bed, she did not protest, not even when he put her down and the welts and bruises left by Sir Geoffrey’s whip nearly made her cry out. Vexford’s touch continued to stir feelings she had never imagined, and burning curiosity soon blotted out the pain. Knowing she could not stop him, she wanted to feel his hands caress her body, to learn what he would do and how he would do it. She wondered, too, what he would expect of her.

He was impatient. His hands moved swiftly once he had laid her on the bed, catching the hem of her chemise as he moved over her, and pushing the garment to her waist. His right hand slipped between her legs. Her breathing stopped. She felt a little like she had in the stable, as if she were watching, not participating. Then she felt his fingers, tentative at first, before they moved more purposefully. They opened her, slipped inside, then suddenly went still. He, too, seemed to stop breathing. Then, slowly, a finger moved, and an aching pain made her gasp and cry out.

Snatching his hand back as if it had been burnt, Vexford leapt to his feet. “Good God, you’re still a virgin!”

She sat up, bewildered. “Well, of course I am.”

“There’s no
of course
about it,” he snapped, pushing his left hand through his hair to the back of his neck and glaring down at her. “Hell and the devil confound it! What am I going to do with you now?”

Q
UICKLY REFASTENING HIS BREECHES
, Nick stared down at the disheveled Miss Seacourt, trying to collect wits still fogged by brandy, and swearing to himself that he would never touch the stuff again. He had been feeling its effects more and more ever since he had entered the warm room.

Looking up at him, wide-eyed, her lower lip trembling, her clothing still rucked up around her waist, she seemed to realize that she was partially bared to his view, for she reached quickly to cover herself, wincing as she did.

He said gruffly, defensively, “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No,
you
didn’t, not really.”

The emphasis bolstered his suspicion that she was in pain, and he remembered the way she had winced and nearly cried out when he had put her on the bed. He had thought at the time that she was merely playing more games, but now he wondered if it might not have been something else.

“Who did hurt you?” he demanded.

“That is not important now.”

“I’ll decide what’s important. If you’ve been hurt, I want to know.”

“It’s none of your affair,” she said, wincing again when she sat up and tried to arrange her clothing.

“Everything about you is now my affair,” he said grimly. “I just bought you at auction, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“You said that before. You can’t really own me, you know.”

“The devil I can’t. I’ve just paid twenty thousand guineas for the privilege.”

“I don’t believe you. Did you really pay that much?”

“Of course I did! You were right there. You heard the whole thing. By heaven, you begin to make me think you must be demented.”

“Perhaps I am,” she said, moving cautiously, apparently undecided as to whether to stand or not.

“What the devil do you mean by that,” he demanded, “and why are you squirming about like that if you are not hurt? Come now, let me see.”

“No!” she shrieked, scrambling away on the bed when he reached for her.

With a snort of exasperation, Nick caught her, dragged her off the bed, and stood her upright. “Stand still,” he ordered, giving her a shake. “It will do you no good to fight me, for I mean to know what’s wrong.”

“You’ve no right!”

“We’ve already plucked that crow.” He turned her with one hand and reached down to raise her shift with the other.

Desperately, she yanked the shift from his grasp, dancing back to keep him from catching it again. He still held her arm, and her gyrations were making him dizzy. Straightening in an attempt to regain his equilibrium, he glowered at her.

Quickly she said, “I’ll tell you! Papa was angry when he found me in the stable. H-he had told me to stay in my room, and he … he …” She paused, licked her lips and looked away, then said flatly, “If you must know, he whipped me.”

“Good,” he snapped, releasing her arm. “Stout fellow. Didn’t think much of him before, but now I make him my compliments. You undoubtedly deserved it.”

“Well, it was your fault,” she retorted, pushing a loose strand of hair from her face and glaring back at him.

“It was no such thing.”

“It was. If you hadn’t stopped me, I’d have been safely in Cambridge by the time he returned, instead of still standing there in the stable with you.”

“You have an exaggerated notion of how fast that hack would have taken you to Cambridge, my girl. Even Prince Florizel and Quiz don’t run fast enough to have carried you there that quickly.”

“I suppose they are your racehorses. Maybe I couldn’t have got there so fast, but you know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t. How badly did he hurt you?”

“I am quite all right, thank you.”

“Miss Seacourt, you are trying my patience. I want to know how badly you are hurt, because I need to decide if I should send for a doctor.”

“I do not need a doctor.” Her words were tensely measured, and he could tell she was angry, but she also seemed wary, as if she were afraid. The thought startled him. He knew that many men feared his temper, but he did not think he had ever frightened a woman. He had certainly never done so purposely. And he was not even angry now, not with her. Exasperated, perhaps, but not angry. She was too small and feminine to stir real anger in any man. He wondered what sort of a fellow Seacourt was, that he could whip someone so slender and fragile-looking. Although he had told her he could understand her father’s action, he did not understand at all. He had snapped at her out of aggravation, nothing more, and he had not meant the words he had spoken. What he thought of Seacourt did not bear repeating.

She was still watching him. Realizing that if she really was the gently bred young woman she appeared to be, she might well believe she had reason to fear him, he said, “I won’t hurt you, and if you don’t want a doctor, I won’t send for one. You will have to forgive me if I do not seem to be acting sensibly tonight, but the fact is that, thanks to the way you behaved earlier, I took you for a different sort of female.”

“Doubtless a sort more to your liking,” she said.

He rubbed his forehead, aware of an incipient headache, and decided the excess brandy had been incredibly stupid, not just a grave mistake in judgment. Smiling ruefully, he said, “Let’s just say that if I am going to be stuck with a female in my bedchamber at two o’clock in the morning, I’d prefer to have one who understands the rules of the game, and who can play her hand with confidence.”

“I do not understand you, sir. I am not here by choice, and I’m certainly not playing any game. I cannot imagine why we are even talking about this, for there is nothing to discuss. At this point, there can be only one acceptable course to take.”

“You are right,” he said with a sigh. “Have you got a maid?”

For a moment she looked startled, but then her countenance cleared and she said, “Papa hired a girl from a posting house near the Carter Fell turnpike to serve me during our journey.”

“Why on earth did he have to hire an inn servant? What happened to yours?”

“W-we left her behind.” She bit her lip, and he was sure she was leaving out the greater part of her explanation, but he had small interest in servants at any time, and no time to delve into such details now.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Now, look here—”

“Papa told her to find somewhere else to sleep tonight—other than my bedchamber, that is—and said I would not require her services. He sent her away because … because of what he meant to do to me, and he told her to ask the landlord for a pallet in the attic or some such thing.”

Restraining himself with more difficulty than ever from expressing his opinion of Seacourt, Nick said, “I’ll have to roust out my man in any event, so I’ll tell him to find her. What’s her name?”

“Mag, but why do you want her?”

“I want her to accompany you to London, of course.”

“Are we going to London?”

“Immediately,” he declared. “The sooner we’re away, the better, for I certainly cannot keep you here.”

“I suppose not,” she agreed. “Could we perhaps go to Edinburgh instead?”

“Good God, no! Why on earth would I want to do that?”

“Well, my mother and stepfather live there, you see, and—”

“A stepfather, eh?” He dimly remembered that she had mentioned one before.

“Yes, I have lived with him these past nine years. What I told you in the stable about being abducted was quite true, you see. Papa came and took me away.”

“As your father, he had every right to do so, however. In any event, I am not driving you to Edinburgh or anywhere else that would keep us on the road for three or four days, so you can put that notion straight out of your head. You’ve got family in London, too, haven’t you? Didn’t Seacourt mention a great-aunt?”

“Well, Great-Aunt Ophelia does go to London for the Season, so I expect she will be there soon if she is not already, but—”

“For the Season! I know you said that earlier, but Seacourt said the woman is eighty-six years old. Surely, you must be mistaken.”

“No, I’m not. For the past few years she has accompanied my cousin Charley.”