Fanning the Flame (7 page)

"That's kind of you, my lord."

"Sleep well, Miss Whitney."

"Enjoy your evening, my lord." She tried to keep the censure out of her voice, but it crept in all the same. She couldn't help wondering where he was going, whether or not he might be visiting the woman who had lent him the dresses.

His lips curved even more. He was so damnably attractive. "I promise to do my very best." Accepting his satin-lined cape from Reggie, he whirled it around his shoulders, turned, and walked out the door.

Jillian watched him disappear into the darkness outside the house and felt a sharp pinch in her breast. She wasn't all that experienced with men, yet she was smart enough to know what that little pinch was. She had never been jealous of a man before and she certainly had no reason to harbor those feelings for this one. Aside from an occasional heated glance, Adam Hawthorne had shown little more than a passing interest in Lord Fenwick's penniless ward.

And she still couldn't fathom his reasons for helping her. Even he didn't seem to know and she was so desperately in need of his assistance that she was afraid to press him.

With a weary sigh at the terrible situation she found herself in, Jillian climbed the stairs. As the earl had promised, when she stepped into her room, Maude Flynn waited beside the bed.

"Good evenin' to ya, Mistress Winslow."

Mistress Winslow.
For a moment she had forgotten whom she was masquerading as. "Good evening, Maude." The woman was short and stout, black-haired and fair-skinned, Irish, by the lilt in her voice, a broad-hipped woman in her thirties. As she helped Jillian undress, she rattled on about every subject, from the rise in bread prices to the navy blockade. She talked about her cousin's recent employment in the cotton factory, and finally began to chatter about the earl.

"Sure'n he's a fine man, is the major. Me late husband, Tommy, was in his regiment, ya know. I was one of the lucky ones what got to go along with their menfolk—only a few of us did, ya know." She shook her head, moving a curl of black hair that escaped from her mobcap. "I was only there barely two years. Cannon misfired and killed me poor, dear Tommy."

"I'm sorry," Jillian said.

"Major Hawthorne, he come to the tent himself ta bring me the news. 'Twas several years back, ya understand, and I never heard much about him after I got back to England. Six months ago, me mother passed on, and I come to London lookin' for work. The major—his lordship—he give me a job when no one else would."

Fascinated, Jillian sat down on the tapestry stool in front of the dresser and listened as Maude pulled the pins from her hair.

" 'Course, bein' his cousin and all, ya already know the sort of man he is."

"Actually, we're very distant cousins." Lying didn't sit well, but since she was forced to play the part, she might as well learn something useful. "I really don't know much about him at all." But she would like to, and perhaps this was her chance.

"Well, one thing's fer certain—whatever they say about him—sure as the king keeps raisin' taxes, there ain't a word a truth to it."

Jillian fidgeted as Maude ran the brush through her hair, determined now to find out all she could. "I'm glad to know that, Maude. I've heard the rumors, of course." Another bald-faced lie. "I wasn't sure whether or not to believe them."

"Sure'n that's just what they are, lass, rumors, nothin' more. The ladies flock to the major's bed, always have. He's hardly a man what needs to use force. The colonel's wife, the little tart, seduced him, she did. Seen her come to his quarters with me own two eyes. Then when her husband finds out, she turns on the major, says he took her against her will. Don't see how the fool coulda believed it, her all the time pantin' after the major the way she was."

By the time Maude left, Jillian had more questions about the earl than she had answers. And her curiosity continued to build. Lying in bed in the room next to his, she found herself listening for his return, wondering again where he was and if he would come back before morning.

The clock struck midnight. One o'clock chimed before she heard the tread of his footfalls on the stairs. She relaxed a little as he entered his room, then a new thought surfaced and she was wide awake again.

But the door between their rooms didn't open and eventually her heartbeat returned to normal. Perhaps she could finally fall asleep.

Chapter Five

Another hour passed. Jillian punched her feather pillow, but sleep still refused to come. Too many thoughts swirled through her head, too many questions about the earl. Most of all, too many fears of what might lie ahead.

Dear God, if they didn't find out who the real killer was, she could yet wind up in prison!

The minutes ticked past, but her eyes remained open. In the room next to hers, noises began creeping in. First the restless shifting of covers, then the creaking of the mattress. The sounds grew louder, turned into quiet moans that seeped through the wall between the rooms.

Ignoring the fact she wore only a borrowed cotton night rail, Jillian swung her legs to the edge of the bed and walked over to the door. She pressed her ear against the wood.

Through the ornate paneling, she could hear the sounds more clearly. Blackwood, apparently in the throes of a nightmare, the moans so tortured, so filled with pain, she simply couldn't let them continue.

Steeling herself, calling herself a fool, she reached for the silver doorknob. Almost hoping the door was locked, she turned the knob and quietly eased it open. Blackwood's big four-poster bed lay in shadow, but a shaft of moonlight streamed in through a high, partially open window, and she could clearly see the earl's broad-shouldered figure on the mattress.

The covers were shoved below his waist and she saw that he wore no nightshirt. His body was slick with sweat, perspiration gleaming on smooth dark skin corded with ridges of muscle. His chest was wide and muscled and covered with a mat of black curly hair that formed a thin line down his flat stomach and disappeared beneath the sheet.

She told herself to look away, to turn round, walk back into her room, and simply close the door. But fascination held her rooted beside the bed. Aside from her father when he was ill, she had never seen a man's bare torso before, and her father's gray-haired chest surely didn't look like this one.

Blackwood's arms were roped with muscle, and as he shifted restlessly on the mattress, his biceps flexed and knotted. A long, crescent-shaped scar slashed across his side and, like the one along his jaw, she wondered where it had come from.

The earl moaned again and Jillian froze.
Go,
shouted the voice inside her head.
Turn round and leave before he sees you.
And she might have, if he hadn't cried out so pitifully just then.

Jillian moved closer. Leaning forward, she tentatively touched him. "Lord Blackwood?"

"No . . ." he whispered, tossing his head from side to side. "Forgodsake, no . . . not . . . not so many . . . men."

Jillian reached down and gripped his shoulder, very gently tried to shake him awake. "My lord?"

His hands shot out and a startled shriek escaped as long fingers wrapped around her shoulders. The next thing she knew, she was flat on her back in his bed, the earl's hard body pressing her down in the deep feather mattress. His eyes were glazed as if he still didn't see her, his muscles so taut they quivered.

"Adam . . . ?" she whispered, the name coming out of nowhere, bringing his eyes to her face. The glazed look remained as he focused on her lips. She saw heat and need the instant before his mouth crashed down over hers.

Jillian's lips parted on a startled gasp and his tongue slid into her mouth. It was hot and wet and it fired little tremors of heat that crawled over her skin. Her breasts flattened out beneath the heavy weight of his chest and her nipples tightened. The dampness of his sweat-slick skin seeped through her thin cotton nightgown, and something warm curled low in her belly. Lean hips pinned her to the mattress, and she could feel the sinews flexing in his long, powerful legs. Her eyes widened as she realized the heavy, hot hardness nestled so intimately between her legs was his arousal.

Oh, dear God!
The knowledge set her in motion. Frantically, she shoved at his chest, trying to push him off her, Maude's words ringing in her head.
The colonel's wife
. . .
she says he took her against her will.

Fear sank into her stomach—the instant before he let her go.

Jillian scrambled up from the bed, breathing hard and fast, her whole body trembling.

Blackwood swore foully. "What the hell are you doing in here?" Sitting up in the bed, he raked a hand through his damp black hair, shoving it back from his forehead. The scar along his jaw glinted in the moonlight, making his features appear almost brutal.

"You were . . . you were having a nightmare. I was trying to awaken you."

"God's blood." He started to get up, realized he was naked, reached over and grabbed his burgundy silk dressing gown off the back of a nearby chair. Jillian turned away as he shrugged it onto his broad shoulders. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

She thought of his punishing kiss and tried not to remember the heat that had flooded her stomach. "Not really. Were you . . . were you dreaming about the war?"

His gaze swung to hers. For a moment he didn't answer. Finally, he nodded. "The memories aren't pleasant."

She wondered exactly what those memories were, but she didn't ask. It was clear he wouldn't tell her. "Last night I dreamt of the earl, lying there in his study, his chest covered in blood, but the dream soon changed and we were sharing the good times again."

"You were lucky." He turned away from her, roamed with restless grace toward the dresser along the wall. Pouring water from the porcelain pitcher into the bowl, he splashed his face, raked water through his wavy black hair, then blotted the droplets with a white linen towel.

His gaze returned to where she hovered near the door as if she meant to escape, which was close to what she was thinking.

"I didn't mean to hurt you. You startled me. Then you called me Adam and I . . . I thought you were someone else."

Color rose in her cheeks as she remembered the passionate kiss. "The woman who lent me the dresses?"

"No."

Her chin inched up. "Perhaps, then, you dreamt of the colonel's wife."

A hard glint appeared in eyes so blue they looked black. "What do you know of Maria?"

She shrugged, tried to appear nonchalant. "Nothing much. I know she made accusations . . . falsely perhaps. I know you may have suffered unjustly at her hands. I wonder if that is the reason you decided to help me."

He ranged toward her, his strides long and panther-like. He stopped directly in front of her. "Perhaps it is."

She tilted her head to look up at him. "I give you my word your faith in me is not misplaced."

Blackwood flicked a glance at the bed. His mouth barely curved. "Perhaps, in time, you'll give me more than your word, Miss Whitney."

Jillian swallowed, tried not to tremble. "I-I believe it is past time I returned to my room." She turned and started walking in that direction and Blackwood made no move to stop her.

"Thank you for your concern tonight," he said softly as she reached the door. "But perhaps next time you should consider the consequences."

Jillian barely nodded. Continuing into the room, she hurriedly closed the door.

Adam paced the study, waiting for Rathmore, and the woman who had invaded his life like an enemy force. Since she'd come into his room the night before, he couldn't seem to get her out of his mind, and discovering her part—or lack of it—in Lord Fenwick's murder was fast becoming an obsession.

He told himself it was simply that he wanted her so badly and he couldn't pursue that course until he knew for sure she was innocent of the crime.

It was late afternoon. Adam walked over to the sideboard and poured himself a brandy. Ever since Jillian's appearance in his room last night, he'd been edgy and out of sorts. He could still remember the feel of her body beneath him, the softness of her breasts against his chest, the delicate curve of her hip bones, the feminine vee of her thighs as they cradled his arousal. The wanting had been so fierce it made him ache to think of it. He'd wanted to lift her nightgown, spread her shapely legs, and bury himself inside her.

He wanted that still.

Dammit to hell, what he needed was a woman, a female who would satisfy his lust with no strings attached, and he knew the very one. Lavinia Dandridge, Marchioness of Walencourt, was a wicked little morsel whose needs ran as hot as his own. Her husband remained in the country for the Season, blissfully unaware of Lavinia's proclivities, or perhaps too exhausted from his futile efforts to satisfy his wife to care.

Adam took a sip of his brandy, mentally reminding himself to send Lavinia a note as soon as his meeting with Rathmore was concluded. Perhaps the lady would be free for the evening. After a few hours at the theater—if they left her house at all—he could enjoy a night of debauchery in her more than willing arms.

A corner of his mouth edged up just thinking about it, then a firm knock sounded at the door and more serious matters intruded. Reggie showed Clay into the study, preceded by Jillian Whitney, whose worried blue eyes and obvious fatigue sent a shaft of guilt straight through him—and immediately shot his plans for tupping Lavinia straight to hell.