Beautiful Distraction (6 page)

“Violet doesn’t know about us,” Olivia whispered.

He smiled. “Are you embarrassed by me, Miss Cranfield?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head swiftly. “I just like having you as mine.”

He drew back and she realized what she had said. Stuttering, she tried to correct her overstatement.

“M-my secret,” she said. “I like having you as my secret.”

“Hmm,” he said, his voice rippling low in her belly and making her thighs clench.

He might have elaborated, but suddenly Violet was coming toward them. At her side was a tall, handsome man with a scar that stretched across his face. Olivia started, for she hadn’t even realized they’d been joined by a fourth member of their party.

“Liam, may I present to you my dearest friend, Miss Olivia Cranfield,” Violet said, motioning to her. “Olivia, the Earl of Windbury.”

Olivia shook away all her stunned and desire-filled reactions and stepped forward, offering Liam a hand. “Good afternoon, my lord. I’m so pleased to meet you. Thank you so much for including me in your invitation to Violet. I would have been gutted had we not been able to spend our planned holiday together.”

She might have been laying it on a bit thick, but if Liam had any hesitations about her being here, she had to put them to rest.

“We are happy to have you join us,” Liam said, casting a quick glance at Malcolm, rather than at her. “Some of us more than others.”

Out of nervousness, Olivia laughed, but she didn’t like that Malcolm scowled at his friend’s observation.

Liam couldn’t have cared less. He already had his attention back on Violet, and there was no mistaking just how much the earl wanted her friend. What was shocking was that Violet couldn’t seem to hide how much she wanted the man in return.

“Mal, why don’t you have Miss Cranfield shown to her chamber?” Liam asked, his gaze on Violet.

“With great pleasure,” Mal said as he offered Olivia an arm. “Shall we?”

Olivia hesitated. The moment she took Mal’s arm, everything would change again. But she did it, and she could only hope that whatever happened next was something she could manage, because she presently felt decidedly out of her element.

Chapter Five

Mal led Olivia up a very wide, very fancy staircase to an equally beautiful hallway that led to no-doubt ridiculously well-appointed chambers. Her heart pounded nearly out of her chest as she tried to control herself, remember herself and not make any mistakes in front of Mal, especially since she wasn’t yet certain how he felt about her being here.

But as if he had read her mind, he smiled at her. “I’m so glad you came with Violet,” he said softly, “I have been thinking of you since we last met.”

“You have?”

He smiled as his answer and Olivia realized in that moment that he did truly
like
her. In her world, that wasn’t always true or even wanted. And yet, here it was, clear on his face. More to the point, she
liked
that he liked her.

She was less keen on the fact that he seemed so very loyal. She’d been witness to that fact outside when he met Violet. Obviously, in his mind, his duty was to protect his friend.

And if he ever found out Violet’s true reason for being here, if he ever uncovered that she was a spy, he would be angry.

But perhaps that would never come to be. Violet seemed truly attracted to Lord Windbury, beyond any duty she was sworn to uphold. If their affair was brief and purely physical then there could be no harm to come of that.

“You are very quiet,” he said, stopping in the hallway to look at her.

She shook her head. She didn’t often indulge in spiraling thoughts when in her role with a man. How it had happened in this moment was a mystery.

“I am simply thinking of how very pretty the earl’s home is,” she lied. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a finer estate.”

“Then I’m sure you’ll like your room.”

He opened the door closest to him and motioned for her to enter. She did so and caught her breath. It was a lovely chamber, done in tasteful, muted grays and bright whites. The furniture was dark cherry.

It was elegant enough to have welcomed a queen or a duchess.

Immediately, she stepped back into the hall. “Certainly I don’t need something so large,” she said, anxiety rising in her chest.

His brow wrinkled at her refusal of the room. “If you don’t like it—”

She cut him off by spinning on him. “Oh no, it isn’t that I’m ungrateful. It’s beautiful. But…” She hesitated and heat flooded her cheeks. “Malcolm, you understand I am a courtesan, don’t you?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes. Our first conversation made that clear.”

She held up her hands and motioned to the room. The reminder
had
to make him see.

“And?” he said when it was clear she wouldn’t speak.

She huffed out her breath. So he would force her to speak her humiliation. “This room is for someone above my station, Mal. If I stay here…”

She trailed off and her blush grew even hotter.

Slowly Malcolm reached out, took her hand and guided her into the room. “If you stay here, nothing will happen except that you will have a good time.” His gaze stole to the bed. “A very, very good time, I hope. A room is a room, Olivia. It has no station.”

“Of course it does,” she whispered.

He tilted his head and leaned in closer, close enough that his breath stirred against her lips and suddenly the issue of the chamber felt far less important.

“This one doesn’t,” he said, then touched his lips to hers.

She was shocked by how gentle his touch was. She had certainly expected—and hoped—to be kissed, but she had assumed it would be like before: heated, claiming. This was…this was comfort. And no man had ever offered her that before.

She drew back in surprise and Mal stepped away. For a moment only silence hung between them, then he took her hand again and drew her closer.

“Stay in this room, Olivia. Because it’s pretty and the bed is comfortable. Stay because my chamber is just down the hall. Please.”

She found herself nodding. “Of course.”

He grinned, the expression lighting up his face and making him impossibly more handsome. She expected him to kiss her again, to tug her into that bed and show her how apparently comfortable it truly was.

But instead he slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and said, “Since your things have not yet arrived, may I show you the grounds?”

She blinked. The tension between them crackled and yet he was offering her something beyond passion.

“Very well,” she said, casting a quick glance at the bed.

He smiled. “Oh, don’t worry, Olivia. You and I will share that bed soon enough.”

And with that sinful promise hanging in the air between them, he led her down the hallway.

Although their walk around the grounds had been nothing but pleasant, Mal still felt the tension coursing through Olivia. It had never occurred to him that she wasn’t utterly comfortable in her place in this world. But now he could see that she was troubled by the fact she didn’t entirely “fit” in the world of earls and dukes and country estates.

And though he had been born into a gentleman’s home, he didn’t exactly feel he fit either. Yet another fact that bound him to her.

“What do you think of the earl?” he asked.

She jolted at the question and her discomfort was clear on her face. “I only met him for a moment—it would be difficult to make a judgment only from that.”

“But you’ve heard stories about him,” Mal said, looking at her from the corner of his eye. “Everyone has.”

Olivia bent her head. “Yes.”

Mal tensed. People always thought they knew Liam because they knew about the scandalous war that had been long fought between his family and the house of the Duke of Rothcastle. They talked about the carriage accident that had maimed Liam and killed Rothcastle’s sister. They whispered about the marriage that had ultimately formed between Rothcastle and
Liam’s
sister.

It all boiled Mal’s blood, because sometimes people took
pleasure
in the vicious gossip about a series of events that had been nothing but hell for his friend.

“The vultures,” she continued quietly, “label your friend as a fallen angel, broken by the death of his lover, hardened by a war, hiding like a beast. But I would wager there is more to it than that.”

Mal tilted his head. “You sum it up perfectly.”

“Sometimes one has a better view of the truth when looking from the outside in,” Olivia said with a shrug.

They were almost back to the house now, so Mal steered them into the rose garden near the back of the estate. He motioned to a narrow bench that sat under the shade of a juniper tree and they sat close together, her knees brushing his. It was an innocent enough touch, but it still made his body hot.

“I imagine you are right,” Mal said. “People are always clearer from a safe distance.”

“And in my profession, I must study the true character of those I meet, in order to guess if…” She trailed off. “I’m sorry, that is inappropriate. I’m certain you don’t want to hear about the details of my profession.”

He hesitated. “Perhaps not the sexual conquests of your past, but I imagine you were going to say you have to be a quick study of those around you to determine threats, as well as good matches.”

Her eyes went wide. “Yes. That’s exactly right.”

He smiled at her shock. “It isn’t only courtesans who employ those methods. I am Liam’s friend, but I am also his estate manager. I must also make quick judgments about those around us, to decide if their motives about the earl and his money are true or not.”

She shifted slightly. “And have you made a determination about Violet.”

Mal pinched his lips together. Normally he might have, but he had been so totally consumed by thoughts of Olivia since they met. Not that he would tell her that.

“Your friend is difficult to read,” he admitted. “But I know Liam wants her.”

She leaned closer. “And what about me?” she whispered. “What do you see when you look at me?”

What she asked for could very well reveal more than he wished for her to see. And yet he still found himself answering, “I don’t think about what anyone else wants or feels or thinks when I look at you. I only think of myself. I am utterly selfish, and I like that.”

A small smile tilted her lips slightly and she reached up to cup the back of his neck and draw him to her. Before she kissed him, she whispered, “I like it too.”

Their lips met and almost immediately the kiss stoked a fire deep in his loins that made his cock harden and his body scream at him about need and want and
now
.

He rose to his feet, dragging her with him. “Come.”

She laughed as she was dragged up a back stair and offered no resistance when he tugged her into her room. Olivia’s maid was hunched over a portmanteau and straightened up with a start as they stumbled into her presence.

Mal tensed, ready for Olivia to show that same shame she had earlier. Instead, she smiled at the girl and nodded for the door.

“Belle,” she said quietly.

The girl needed no other direction and immediately left the room with only a knowing smile as she closed the door behind her. Olivia faced him with a clear expression of desire, but not a hint of embarrassment. Her confidence made his cock swell all the more.

“Take off your clothes,” he ordered.

She arched a brow, but immediately began unfastening her dress.

“You too,” she said, her voice full of laughter despite the demand.

It quickly turned into a race to nudity. Olivia kept her gaze locked on him as they both tugged free buttons and loosened ties. He could hardly breathe as she shoved from her gown, her chemise, her slippers, her stockings, and finally stood in front of him utterly naked. Of course, by this time he was the same and she worried her lip with her teeth as she looked at him.

“I don’t know how you don’t have women lining up to bed you by the dozen,” she growled as she reached out to press a hand to his chest.

He hissed out pleasure at the heat of her touch and barely kept himself from flipping her onto the bed and fucking her without any seduction beforehand.

“Or do you?” she asked, brown eyes lifting to snare his.

He could hardly breathe and certainly couldn’t stop his hands from covering her breasts. As he began to massage lightly, he grunted, “Have women lined up for my pleasure?” he asked. She nodded with a throaty moan. “No. Not recently, at any rate.”

“What has made recently so different?” she gasped, her head lolling back as he pinched her nipples. Her legs were beginning to shake. He wanted to make them go out from under her.

“Busy,” he grunted and covered her mouth with his so they would both stop talking, stop analyzing. He just wanted to
feel
her. Beneath him, around him.

She didn’t resist; in fact, she only broke the kiss to start a hot, wet path with her mouth down his body. Her knees hit the carpet and she looked up the length of his body, stroking her hand down his chest before she cupped his cock and slowly took him into her mouth.