Kathryn Smith (18 page)

Reaching out, Moira gave Blythe’s arm a thankful squeeze. “I will not, but I am going to see if I can find someplace to be alone for a moment. Will you excuse me?”

“Of course. In fact, I’ll tell you where you can find some privacy.”

Following Blythe’s directions, Moira left the ballroom by a side door and found herself in a dimly lit corridor. She walked down to the second door on her right and slipped inside.

There were no lamps lit in the room, but the curtains were open, allowing the moon and the outside lamps to cast a silvery glow along the softly painted walls and elegantly pat
terned carpet. Crossing to the window, Moira skirted a low table and a sofa to press her forehead against the cool glass.

Why had she fallen to Lady Dumont’s level? Why had she opened her mouth? Why couldn’t she have been one of those cool, elegant ladies who let everything roll off them? Instead, she had to act like she was Minnie’s age.

“What is this I hear about you impugning my manhood?”

Oh dear Lord. He had heard already? How had he managed to find her? And why hadn’t she heard the door open? The man was as silent as a ghost.

Moira didn’t even turn. “I could not help it.”

“Could not help it?” Wynthrope’s incredulous tone grew louder as he approached. “Could not you have said something a little more flattering?”

Moira turned to face him with a frown. “Such as what, that you
are
equipped like a stallion?”

He grinned. “At least a bull. A ram perhaps.”

The tension drained from Moira’s shoulders as she realized he wasn’t upset with her at all. In fact, he seemed every bit as amused as Blythe had said he would be. “I am sorry.”

His grin became smug. “And jealous. Do not forget jealous.”

She scowled again. “I am not!”

He came closer, so close that she could smell the warmth of his skin and the soft spice of his soap. “Of course you are. She wouldn’t have been nearly as successful in goading you if you did not feel threatened by her.”

“I do not feel threatened by that overly busty pigeon,” she insisted hotly, then added, “That’s not her real hair color you know.”

His grin grew. “I know.”

“How—?” Then she realized and her face blazed. He had shared her bed, of course he knew her “natural” hair color.
He probably knew all kinds of intimate secrets about the Lady Dumont. “So is that where you spent the last five days, with her?” Oh dear. Perhaps she was jealous after all.

Suddenly Wynthrope was all seriousness. His hands came up and caught her by the shoulders. “There has been no other woman since I met you. And I fear there never will be again. Not one that will ever compare to my black queen.”

Moira opened her mouth to reply, to tell him that was the sweetest thing she ever heard, but she never got a chance, because he covered her mouth with his own and kissed her. And he kept kissing her until her bones turned to putty and she forgot where she was.

Suddenly the last five days didn’t matter. He had missed her, and she apparently had ruined him for all other women. Who could ask for more?

Not long into the new year of 1819, Wynthrope decided he’d had enough of sharing Moira with others. Common sense told him he shouldn’t be alone with her. It would just make things more difficult later if he was alone with her, and yet he didn’t care about later. Tonight all he could think about was
now.
He wanted to enjoy what time he had left with her, however long that was. He wanted to enjoy her, because it was true that he would never meet another woman quite like his black queen.

“Did you enjoy the evening?” he asked once they were in his carriage and on their way home.

Across the carriage she nodded, her head wobbly on her neck. “I did, thank you. You?”

He smiled. “Aside from the jokes about my privates, yes.”

She giggled. It was the strangest sound coming from her. “I am sorry about that.”

“I can tell.”

Suddenly she lurched across the carriage at him. Luckily
she didn’t have far to go because her feet tangled in her cape and sent her sprawling in his lap. Only his quick reflexes kept her from tumbling to the carpet.

She laughed again as he arranged her on his legs. “I drank too much champagne tonight.”

That was probably going to be the understatement of this next year. “Did you?”

“Yes.” Her eyes were bright and slightly unfocused in the lamplight. “You are a remarkable specimen of manhood, you know.”

Biting his tongue to keep from laughing, Wynthrope simply nodded. “Indeed. Though not as remarkable as a stallion.”

She rolled her eyes. She looked so young when she did that, although the motion seemed to throw off her equilibrium. She wavered on his lap. “Why would you want to be? There’s not a woman in all the world who would want to make love to a horse.”

Lord, but she really was naive in some respects. “How about a bull or a ram?”

She wrinkled her nose as she squirmed against him. Even being a drunken fool she could still make him harder than anyone else ever had. “Or those. Why would you even want to be compared to such animals?”

“Because every man wants to think his manhood is huge, the biggest his woman has ever had.” It was a universal truth, and she scoffed as though it were utter nonsense, which he supposed it was. But it didn’t change the fact that when the time came for them to make love, he wanted to be the best lover—the biggest lover—she’d ever had.

“Manhood,” she repeated. “It sounds like some kind of head covering.”

Wynthrope tilted his head in contemplation. “I suppose it is, in a way.”

She leaned against his chest, her weight a slight, delight
ful pressure. “Why is it so important that a woman thinks you are big?”

Had her husband taught her nothing? For all he’d heard about how wonderful Anthony Tyndale had been, he didn’t seem to have been much of a husband—not in the way Wynthrope thought he ought to have been. “Because much of a man’s confidence resides in his crotch.”

Her eyelids were heavy from drink. “That’s just ridiculous. Women judge men based on their character, not their endowments.”

She obviously did not know some of the women he had known, which was probably a good thing.

“We often judge ourselves based on our endowments.” Foolish, yes, but there were very few men alive who didn’t wonder if their “equipment” was up to the task at one time or another.

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Well, I’m going to judge you based on your character.”

He breathed in the sweet scent of her perfume and was overwhelmed by a sensation of keen and desperate longing. “Not my character.”

She pressed her bottom against him. “Shall I judge you based on something else?”

His heart cracked at the humor in her voice. How she had changed since he first met her. She was so amusing, so open and wonderfully brazen at times.

He brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek. She was so soft, so fair. “Not that either.”

She drew back, gazing at him as seriously as one could when their eyes couldn’t quite focus. “What shall I judge you on then?”

“Kisses,” he suggested, seizing the first thing that came to mind. “Judge me based on my kisses.”

She smiled. “I like that. I like your kisses.”

He curled his hand around the slender curve of her hip. “I like kissing you as well.”

Moira lowered her head. “Kiss me now.”

Wynthrope didn’t need any more encouragement. Here, in the gently lolling darkness, he raised his face to hers and allowed her to claim his lips with her own. She tasted of champagne and vaguely of cucumber sandwiches. Inwardly, he smiled at the combination. She had eaten like a horse tonight, but perhaps he shouldn’t judge her based on her appetite.

She looked as though she had put on a little weight—and he liked it. There was no need of her being so slim, not to fit some kind of ideal someone else had leveled on her. But even if she never got any bigger, he would still adore her. She was perfect just as she was, and no matter how she looked, she would still be perfect to him.

She broke their kiss and stared down at him with wide eyes. “Let’s make love.”

His head bounced on the squabs. “What?” Good God, he couldn’t have heard her correctly.

“Let’s make love,” she repeated.

“Here?” His voice actually cracked.

She shrugged. “Here. My house. I don’t care.” She pressed herself hard against him.

Sweet Christ, she must be more foxed than he thought. “Not here.”

“My house then.” She moved to kiss him again.

He stopped her, holding her at a distance with his hands on her shoulders. “Not there either.”

She actually pouted. “Why not?”

He chuckled. The moment was so preposterous, he had to. It was either that or cry. He had a woman he wanted as he wanted air practically begging him to take her, and he refused to do it.

“Because you are drunk, that is why.”
And I’m not certain
I can make love to you now and then screw you later
. And he was going to screw her. Screw her out of a tiara.

“Don’t you want me?” Everything about her betrayed her hurt—her expression, her plaintive voice.

The fissure in his heart widened. At this rate the rotten little nut was going to crack in two. “More than you will ever know.”

“Then take me.” Her hips undulated, grinding her against his aching cock. “I want you to.”

He bit back a groan. God, surely this noble gesture would go far in keeping him from the pits of hell when his time came. “You are too foxed to know what you want. Trust me, you would regret it when you’re sober.”

“I will not.” She was so defiant, so sure.

“Yes, you will.” Now they were arguing about it. Could this get any more farcical? It was bad enough that he was denying himself the only thing he had wanted in a long time. Hell, he had told her weeks ago that he planned to bed her, and now that she was offering herself, he couldn’t do it.

She was going to regret knowing him bad enough some day, he didn’t want to add to it. His conscience wouldn’t allow it.

Reason must have broken through her drunken fog. Either that or she saw that there was no convincing him. She slid off his lap onto the seat beside him.

“If I were sober, would you do it?”

He smiled as she rested her head on his shoulder. “In a minute.”

She yawned. “Good. I was worried that maybe you had lost interest in me.”

Wynthrope swallowed against the lump in his throat. “Never.”

Her only reply was a contented “mmm.” A few minutes later
they stopped at her house and Wynthrope carried her snoring form inside, leaving her on the sofa in the parlor, a blanket over her. He didn’t trust himself to carry her to her bedroom. If she woke up and asked him again to make love to her, he didn’t think he’d be able to resist. He was only human, after all.

He arrived home tired and with a heart more confused than it had ever been. He could rant and rave about how unfair his life was, but somehow he didn’t think it was unfair. Somehow it seemed fitting that after all the awful things he had done, he be denied something sweet and good.

Christ, North was right. He did sound like Devlin. It could be worse. He could sound like Brahm. Then he would know he was in real trouble.

He entered his apartments and kicked the door closed behind him. He didn’t bother to light a lamp as he flicked the lock into place, but rather stripped off his coat and began tugging at his cravat. He had given his valet the night off as it was a time for celebration.

He was unbuttoning his waistcoat when he realized he wasn’t alone.

“Good evenin’, boyo.” Daniels rose from a chair in the shadows and moved into the beam of moonlight streaming through the windows.

“Damn it, would you stop sneaking into my home?” With a sigh of frustration, Wynthrope tossed his coat and cravat onto a chair. The last thing he needed tonight was Daniels on his back.

“I hope you were out stealing my trinket for me.”

He ran a hand over his face. He was so tired. All he wanted was to crawl into bed and pull the blankets over his head. “I have yet to discover where she keeps it.”

The older man leered as he casually closed the distance between them. “Then why aren’t you there right now, swiving the answer out of her?”

Had Daniels been this crass when Wynthrope had liked him? Or had it been some façade that he had thought of as a father? He had undoubtedly seen what he wanted to see in this cold bastard, not what truly was.

“I will get it.”

Daniels thrust a finger in his face. “You had better. I’ve been patient because of our past relationship, but I’m not going to wait much longer. You get me that damn tiara on your own, or I’ll make you get it.”

Bravado took hold before Wynthrope could stop it. He pushed Daniels’s finger aside. “Just how do you propose to do that?”

The old man smiled, the face of a sweet old man with the soul of a devil. “Be a real shame if anything happened to one of those brothers of yours, or one of their wives.”

Ice crept into Wynthrope’s veins. “You wouldn’t.”

Daniels shrugged his bowing shoulders. “Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t. Perhaps nothin’ will happen to them at all. I’ve heard stories about you and Lady Aubourn. I’ve seen how much time you spend at her house. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Did ye think I wouldn’t put two and two together and figure out there was more goin’ on than you scoping out a pigeon? You’d have no one but yourself to blame if she met with a little accident.”

Wynthrope’s spine straightened.

“Course, it would make it easier for you to steal the tiara if she was out of the way. Maybe that’s the way to go. What do you think?”

Jaw tight, Wynthrope fought to rein in his temper, despite the murderous urges rising in his breast. “I think you had better leave Lady Aubourn out of this.”

There was that damn charming smile. “But boyo, ’twould be you who was responsible. If you just do what I want no one will get hurt, but if you don’t, someone’s going to bleed,
and a woman as frail-lookin’ as the viscountess is liable to break real easy.”

What little control Wynthrope had snapped. He struck out, catching the older man square in the jaw with his fist, knocking him back into the sofa. Seizing him by the lapels, he dragged Daniels to his feet, pulling back his fist for another strike.