Louise Allen Historical Collection (12 page)

‘After you, Mrs Halgate,’ the valet said. ‘We must not keep his lordship waiting.’

Lord Brandon—would she ever get used to it?—was indeed waiting for them, radiating the impatience he seemed able to convey despite his outward calm. He clicked his fingers at her porter and set off with his small entourage straggling behind him.

And he was walking far too fast, his limp getting worse as he ignored the need for caution, or, presumably, the pain.

‘My lord!’

He stopped, turned. ‘Yes, Mrs Halgate?’

‘Would you be so kind as to proceed more slowly, my lord? I have wrenched my ankle on these cobbles.’ Meg managed a pained smile.

Ross narrowed his eyes at her, then turned and walked on at a more moderate pace.

‘He’s going to be a challenge to dress,’ Perrott observed out of the corner of his mouth. ‘I don’t suppose I can persuade him to stay with the uniform. He’ll be selling out, I have no doubt.’ He walked on, studying Ross with frank professional interest. ‘At least I won’t have to pad anything.’

No, Ross certainly did not suffer from spindly calves, narrow shoulders or a pigeon chest. ‘You’ll need to talk him into a lot of shopping,’ Meg murmured back. ‘He hasn’t a decent shirt to his name.’

It did not take the expression on the young valet’s face to make her realise her error. ‘You know him already?’

‘I came over on the same ship from Bordeaux,’ Meg confessed. ‘I have nursing experience and I dressed his leg when he first boarded—that is a nasty bullet wound.’

‘I see,’ was all Perrott said. Meg hoped profoundly that he did not, and that he would keep his mouth shut about whatever speculations he had formed.

‘I had no idea he had a title,’ she added, hoping that made the acquaintance seem even more remote.

‘His father was the third Baron Brandon,’ Perrott told her as they picked their way around a spilled basket of herring. ‘A big man with a nasty temper, very hot.’

‘Well, his son is very cold,’ Meg said. ‘From what I have seen,’ she added cautiously. ‘There was an incident on board and he dealt with it ruthlessly and with all the heat of an ice house.’

Perrott gave a snort of amusement, then sobered. ‘He doesn’t seem too worried about the existing staff. His old lordship must have had a valet and there’s definitely a housekeeper in residence. What is he going to do with them?’

‘Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.’ Drat him—now she felt guilty as well as confused. Ross was proving nothing if not autocratic; he did not appear to have given the question of the existing servants any thought at all. Surely he would not just arrive and turn them out?

He came to a halt in front of a long, low whitewashed building with a statue of a red lion projecting out over the street. ‘Where are your possessions, Perrott?’

‘At my lodgings, my lord, not ten minutes away.’

‘Then fetch them. We leave at one.’

Meg followed Ross inside, her porter at her heels, to find him already ordering a private parlour and a noon meal. The landlord quite obviously realised who he was, from the obsequious
my lords
that peppered every sentence.

‘Toadeater,’ Ross snarled before the parlour door had quite closed on them. ‘Well, Mrs Halgate? And why are you looking at me as though I’ve grown another head?’

‘Because I am so confused, you may as well have done! You really are the most outrageous, arrogant man, Ross Brandon.’ Meg put down her reticule and stood right in front of him. ‘I say goodbye to
Major
Brandon and the next moment
Lord
Brandon is taking over my life. Has it not occurred to you that there will already be a valet and a housekeeper and that she will not be best pleased to have some unknown assistant wished on her? You have no idea if I will be halfway competent to run whatever sort of establishment you are dragging me off to, and neither do I, come to that. I told you I would not accept money—’

‘I did not drag you.’

‘Well, I could hardly stand there in the middle of the employment exchange and say, “This is so sudden, my lord. One moment we are sleeping in the same bed and the next you are employing me”, now could I? I expect I will be back there tomorrow looking for a proper position, so I needed to leave with some dignity. Why make me go through this farce when you know I need to earn some money quickly? And why,’ she added, recalling another grievance, ‘did you not tell me you are a baron?’

‘Because I do not want to be a damned baron,’ he snapped back. ‘And because I want you.’

There was no chance to step back and no hope, once Ross’s hands had banded on her upper arms, of pulling free. She was lifted up on her toes as he bent his head and then he was kissing her as though to bend her to his will by sheer force of his sexuality. His tongue was possessing her mouth, his hips were thrust against hers, leaving her in absolutely no doubt that he was more than ready to simply toss her on to the couch and take her, and the deep growl that vibrated through her spoke of nothing but a savage need that he was barely containing.

R
oss showed no sign of needing to draw breath. Hanging in his grasp, Meg was afraid, outraged and shockingly aroused. Somehow she got her hands up, clenched her fingers into the cloth and buttons of his uniform jacket and clung on while he ravaged her mouth. He wanted no tender give and take, that was the only thing that was clear to her reeling brain as he freed her arms, clasped her buttocks and lifted her against the rock-hard ridge that was so exciting her.

Yes, yes, yes
, the words chanted in her head as the taste and smell and heat of him overwhelmed every other sensation, every coherent thought.

There were coloured lights against the darkness of her closed lids, a strange buzzing in her ears. Air. She needed air or she would faint. Meg pulled back her head just enough to breathe and with the air came reality.

This could only lead to one thing. The clamouring voices in her blood still shrieked
yes
, but she fought them, got her mouth free, dragged down more air and managed to say, ‘No.’ It was a whisper, hardly audible above the thud of her pulse. How could she trust her instincts after last time, after James? How could she risk entangling her life with another man when her future was so precarious?

Ross did not seem to hear her, but buried his face in the curve of her neck, his big hands sliding round to cup the weight of her breasts. The touch felt like naked skin on skin. ‘No,’ Meg said again, on a sob, and hit him, hard, on the ear.

Any other man would have reeled. Ross merely lifted his head and looked down at her. ‘No?’ He must have seen the conviction in her face, for he opened his hands and stepped back. ‘Meg, I am not playing with you. Won’t you be my mistress?’

‘
No!
Of course not. What are you thinking of? What am
I
thinking of?’ she added distractedly. ‘I am not your mistress, I do not want to be your mistress.’ Meg hit him on the chest with her clenched fist, a thump for every sentence as though she could make herself believe her own protestations. Ross was silent, accepting her blows without trying to parry them. ‘You stalked me from the quayside, caught me in a position where I could not refuse to come with you. You know I need money—’

‘No.’ He spoke at last, frowning as her final, halfhearted blow faltered and she stood there, one hand on his chest, her breath coming in sobs. ‘It was not like that. I realised, suddenly, that I could offer you a position, one where you would be safe.’

‘Hah!’ Meg snatched back her hand. ‘Safe?’ She was not safe from her own desires, let alone Ross’s.

‘It wasn’t until just now, when I realised just how bad this felt… Oh, Meg. I don’t want this title, I don’t want this life. I don’t want to be here. You are the only thing I know I do want, just at this moment. The only point of reference I’ve got.’

‘Then why are you here?’ she demanded. ‘Why come back if it makes you feel like this?’

There was a long silence while Ross seemed to be asking himself the same question. ‘Duty,’ he said at length. ‘Duty. There have been Brandons at the Court for three hundred years. The land is mine and my responsibility. The people are my responsibility. The damned title is my responsibility. My brother’s dead; I cannot even tell myself I can leave it to the better man any longer.’

The bitterness shook her out of her own anger and confusion.
The better man.
Had he really thought that about his own brother? ‘And you reach for me like another man might have reached for the brandy bottle or the laudanum,’ she said, thinking aloud.

‘No, I am not seeking oblivion.’ Ross’s dark eyes rested on her face. ‘I want you, not a drug. Did I hurt you, Meg?’ He reached out and ran his right forefinger with surprising gentleness across her swollen mouth.

‘No,’ she lied. ‘I was kissing you back.’ She moved away, went to sit at the table near the window. It was easier to manage when she was beyond the possibility of touching him, beyond the temptation of these new feelings surging through her. Why had she never felt like this with James, even though she had believed herself in love at first?

This was wanton, however, utterly wanton and she would not put herself back in a man’s power again. She needed to be free, her own mistress, not his. She needed to be independent, to find her sisters, to start again. She needed to fight this romantic yearning to trust him and surrender to him or she would be as much at a man’s mercy as she had been with James. ‘I must go back to the agency. Do you think your lawyer would write me a reference? I realised when I got there that I do not have any.’

‘No, because I will not ask him.’ Ross came and sat opposite her. ‘You will not be my mistress, Meg? You kissed me back just now, you admit it. You do not seem repelled by me as I thought you must be.’

‘Repelled?’ She stared at the harsh face. ‘Never that—I hope I have more sense than to be blinded by superficial beauty. You know I have responded to you as I should not have done.’ His mouth twisted in something that might have been a sardonic smile. ‘But, no, I will not be your mistress.’

‘Then be my housekeeper. You may change your mind.’ Meg opened her mouth in denial, but he overrode her. ‘I will not touch you unless you ask me to.’

Meg felt her face flame. He knew she was attracted to him, she had just admitted it, but even if she had not, he must have realised. But he could not have realised how new and frightening the overwhelming reaction to his caresses was. Surely it was wrong to feel like this without love? It was certainly dangerous, for the only thing it could lead to was a broken heart and along the way she would have been distracted from her quest, weakened in her need to be self-sufficient and independent. She no longer felt strong enough to risk everything for love, not when it was hopeless.

Meg fell back on common sense. ‘You already have a housekeeper at your home, surely.’

‘The Court is not my home, it is the place where I must live,’ he said bleakly. ‘And the housekeeper in residence will leave, today, with a good pension. With you, or without you, I won’t have that sour-faced harridan in the house. My mother was intimidated by her, I imagine my father hardly cared, provided the place was run efficiently, but I’ll not have her brooding like a black spider below stairs.’

‘And your father’s valet?’

Meg kept talking, anything rather than face the dilemma before her. Could she live in the same house, even for a few weeks, knowing what it was to be in Ross’s arms? She would feel that hard, angry mouth on hers every time she looked at him. But if it were a means to an end, if it would give her the financial security to search for her sisters, then perhaps it would be worth the longing and the struggle to keep her feelings to herself.

‘He is an elderly man. I will pension him off too. If he wants one of the estate cottages, then he’s welcome to one.’

‘I cannot stay for long, you know that. I must find Bella and Lina.’ She picked up her reticule. ‘I should go back to the agency, explain that we decided mutually that I would not suit.’

‘I can give you a secure place and a salary that would allow you to employ a Bow Street Runner to send after your sisters.’ Ross propped one foot on the fender of the empty grate and laid his arm along the mantelshelf, not looking at her. ‘He could start at once, travel faster than a lone woman, follow them if they have moved away. You are out of touch with England. You need help to search.’

Meg put down her reticule again and stared at his bleak profile. Bella, Lina… And she could send a man at once, if Ross would advance her salary. When the Runner found them she could go to them just as soon as she had paid Ross back, or they could come to her. But it would mean staying with Ross, close to all that temptation and attraction, even if it was only for a month or two.