Margaret Moore (6 page)

With a profane curse—words she had also heard from country laborers—he dashed across the room and shoved his hand into the wash-basin.

“I’faith, woman, would you set me on fire?” he demanded under his breath.

“I’m sorry!” She set down the light and basin,
and hurried over to him. “Let me see. Is it very bad?”

With a scowl, he disdainfully offered his hand to her as if he were an arrogant king expecting her to kiss it.

Which was a most disconcerting thought.

Nevertheless, the important thing was to see to his wound.

She looked carefully at his proffered appendage. The burn mark was red and surely painful and might leave a scar, but she did not think it overly serious.

Her gaze shifted to the rest of his hand, his undeniably masculine hand, including his slender, artistic fingers that were so surprisingly strong. It was easy to envision them stroking … a musical instrument.

She shook her head as if that would curb her wayward thoughts.

“This does not look terribly bad,” Arabella said quietly as she examined the burn without touching him for what seemed an inordinately long time, the tip of her tongue resting ever so temptingly against her upper lip.

“Perhaps not to you, but it hurts like the very devil,” Neville replied in a low growl, glancing at the red mark the size of a guinea on the back of his hand, which was starting to sting.

In truth, he was considerably less angry than he might have been had she not been so pretty,
so remorseful and so scantily attired. She wore only a thin—very thin—nightdress and shawl. Her hair fell loosely over her breasts, which rose and fell in a most enticing manner, her rosy nipples visible beneath.

“You shook your head like a physician whose patient is not expected to recover.”

“A bit of hair fell in my eyes.”

He had not noticed that, perhaps because he had been wondering what might be seen if someone were to throw a basin of water over that thin nightdress.

“Since your wound does not appear to be life-threatening, my lord, I shall leave you.”

He drew on his shirt. He mustn’t frighten her with too rapid a pursuit, tempting though it may be. “You cannot go without offering an explanation for wandering about the house. And armed, too.”

“I heard a noise and wondered what it was.”

“I was as quiet as the proverbial mouse,” he said softly, approaching her as cautiously as a hunter stalking a deer.

“Precisely, my lord,” she replied with a shiver. “I thought you were one, or a big black rat.”

“Hardly a flattering comparison.”

“Again, my lord, I apologize. It was an accident. You grabbed me most unexpectedly—again.”

“And so you thought to set me alight? Is that
not excessive?” he asked, noting with great satisfaction that she seemed in no hurry to depart. “Did it not occur to you that the sight of you spying upon me was just as unexpected?”

“I wasn’t spying!”

He was pleased that she was a little flustered. “No, you were hunting with a basin. Did you intend to capture one of God’s little creatures and set him free?”

She shrugged her shoulders and clasped her hands like an errant schoolgirl. “I don’t know what I would have done if it had been a rat. I would have killed a mouse.”

His eyes widened in genuine surprise. “You sound surprisingly bloodthirsty for a Puritan.”

“Mice are nuisances, and I am not a Puritan.”

“You quite take me aback,” he said truthfully. “How could you live with your father all those years and not be a Puritan?”

She flushed, the pink dawning on her cheeks in a most becoming manner. “I could not accept all the tenets of the faith.”

“How very interesting.”

“I might ask you what you are doing wandering around the house in the middle of the night, my lord.”

“You make it sound as if I were creeping about like a housebreaker. I was in my own chamber, preparing for bed.”

She glanced at the large piece of furniture
not far from her. Suddenly, he had a vision of Arabella naked in his bed, waiting for him.

It almost took his breath away.

He reminded himself that he intended to proceed with caution.

He glanced at her boots peeping out from beneath her nightgown. “I suppose that is the height of fashionable footwear in dear Grantham.”

“I didn’t want to encounter a furry little animal in my bare feet.”

He came yet closer to her, and she did not move away. “It could have been worse than merely a mouse. I might really have been a housebreaker. What would you have done then?”

She did not look away or blush. Instead, she made the most attractive, secretive little smile Neville had ever seen.

“To speak the truth,” she confessed with a shiver, again reminding him of her interesting state of undress, “I think I would have been more undone by a rat.”

He chuckled softly. “Perhaps I should be glad I escaped with only a minor burn and not a bashed skull.”

“I think I know the difference between a man and a mouse, so you were quite safe.”

Her shawl slipped slightly off her shoulder, but she didn’t seem to notice.

He had seen women wearing considerably
less, and yet never had he seen anything that aroused him in quite the way this did.

“Am I really safe from you, Arabella?” he asked quietly.

“Of course.”

“And you must feel safe with me, for you are still here.”

She cocked her head to one side as she studied him in a way that made him feel like a specimen about to be dissected. “I do.”

Lord Farrington had been flattered, admired and pursued by all sorts and conditions of women, yet never had he felt more gratified.

“My lord, must you quarrel so with your father?”

Any pleasure he felt dissolved. “Yes, I must.”

“But he is an old man, and I’m sure—”

“Unless you are his child—and you are not—you do not know whereof you speak.”

Her blue eyes shone with pity. “You have been from home a long time now, my lord. Perhaps he has changed.”

Had this apparently sincerely sorrowful expression been the weapon she had used to pry away his inheritance? Had she listened to his father denounce him with the same sympathetic commiseration in her big blue eyes?

He did not want her sympathy or her compassion. He wanted only what was rightfully
his, and he would not let her, or anyone, take it from him.

He strolled closer, transfixing her with his eyes. “Tell me, Arabella, do you believe what my father says of me?”

“I know not what to believe about you, my lord,” she answered hesitantly. “You are much changed.”

“And although you are not afraid of me, you do not think it is for the better.”

Her gaze wavered, and she started to back toward the door.

“You are much changed, too,” he said softly as he walked toward her. “You are a very beautiful woman, Arabella. The Devil could scarce have made a better snare for a man’s heart than you.”

She halted when her back hit the door and she could go no farther.

He came closer still, not stopping until he was mere inches from her. She held her breath, waiting for him to kiss her.

Expecting him to kiss her.

Wanting him to kiss her.

She did not know what was happening here between them. All she could be sure of was that she had never felt this way in her life—so hot, so excited and so troubled.

Then he smiled, a slow, knowing smile that made her think that he could command of her
whatever he would and she would obey, even at the cost of her immortal soul.

Taking hold of her shoulders, at last he kissed her—but not with possessive arrogance. This time, his embrace was gentle and almost tentative, as if he were asking permission to continue. Yet lurking below that tenderness was a passionate urgency.

An urgency she felt, too, and a passion that bloomed like the roses in the garden that long-ago day.

Had she not imagined this a thousand times? Was this not one reason she had lingered here?

Surrounded by the strength of him, inhaling the scent of his clean skin, she could not stop him. Not yet.

Not even when she felt his hand upon her breast. Over the flimsy fabric, his thumb gently brushed back and forth across her hardened nipple. Both astonished and aroused by his action, she moaned softly and arched, wordlessly willing him to continue, while her own hands began to explore.

His muscles tensed beneath her fingers, and he pushed her back against the door. In the next instant, his tongue thrust between her lips. Their tongues entwined with feverish desire, tasting, pleasuring.

As he pressed against her, she felt his excitement, while an ardent, unfamiliar throbbing grew between her legs.

A church clock rang out, the sudden somber note like an alarm bell.

Abruptly she pushed Neville away, staring at him with horrified eyes. Shame and guilt rushed to fill the place where desire had been.

What was she doing? her conscience demanded in the voice of her censorious father. How could she be in a man’s bedchamber, in his intimate embrace?

This incredible feeling, nearly overwhelming in its strength, had to be lust. Love could not come so quickly, and when she knew so little about the man holding her.

Neville was not that boy in the garden anymore, but a man—and she was a woman who should not be alone with him, or any man, under such circumstances.

He chuckled and tried to pull her back into his arms. “Come, Arabella, there is no need to pretend for me.”

She twisted, now desperate to get away from this sinfully tempting man, otherwise she would be no better than the weak-willed female her father had always said she was. “Do not touch me again, or I shall rouse the entire household!”

His brow furrowed as he stepped back. “I do believe you are in earnest.”

“I am! Your father is right. You are a loathsome lecher interested only in his own base desires!”

“Yet you are pure as the driven snow?”

Never had she felt less pure.

As if to prove that she was as wicked as he, Neville reached out and yanked her into his embrace. He kissed her again with fierce passion, and his hips slowly gyrated against hers, exerting a pressure that made her legs feel weak and her heart race.

She shoved him away. “Let go of me!” she demanded with all the firmness of purpose she possessed.

For she was good. She was moral.

All those times her father had chastised her—he had been wrong. She would prove that he had
always
been wrong!

“Is that what you truly want, Arabella?”

“Yes!”

“Or what?” A cold, hostile smile came to Neville’s face. “Perhaps you could have me thrown in prison for attacking you. How convenient.”

“Convenient?”
she gasped incredulously.

His chilling smile disappeared as anger filled his eyes and voice. “If I were what you think, I would not stop now. I would rip that flimsy nightdress from your body and take you whether you fought or kicked or if I had to keep my hand over that lovely little mouth of yours to smother your screaming.” He snatched up his jacket, baldric and hat. “But I am not so evil, no matter what my father might
think, so I will let you go even though
you
came to
me
, lingering in your near-nakedness. At least I am not a hypocrite.”

Arabella opened her mouth, ready to denounce him, when he held up his hand. “Spare me your protestations of innocence. You only waste your breath.”

He strode past her and grabbed the door handle. He turned back to run a scornful gaze over her. “With a body and kisses like that, you should do very well in London. I’faith, your breasts seem made for the palm of a man’s hand.”

He grinned mockingly. “And no matter how you dissemble, you do like such exciting diversions, don’t you, my dear?”

Before she could protest—if she
could
protest—he pushed her away and marched from the room.

She ran after him but halted at the door.

What was she doing? She had nothing to say to him.

“Ho, there! What’s afoot!” the earl bellowed querulously from his room at the other end of the corridor.

Quickly she blew out the candle and rushlight, and stood panting in the dark. She must not be found here, not at this hour and in her nightdress, yet she was trapped in Neville’s room, for she could not get back to her own without being seen.

She glanced at the high bed. If she was desperate, she could hide beneath it.

“Neville, is that you?” the earl demanded.

“Father, there is no need to wake the entire street,” Neville drawled with absolutely no indication that he had been angrily denouncing someone moments before.

“Do you think this is a tavern or a bawdy house that you can come and go as you please, disturbing everybody?”

“It was my understanding, Father, that I could continue to reside under your august roof.”

“Not if you are going to behave as if this were a common inn! It is a mercy Arabella did not hear you.”

“If she did not hear me, I fear the same cannot be said of your immoderate tones, Father.”

“How dare you talk to me like that? Get out! Get out of my house! Go to your bawds and whores and gamesters. They will not care how late you carouse. And they’re probably so drunk, you couldn’t wake them if you tried.”

“Am I to understand you are banishing me from this house?”

“Since you are not fit to live among decent people, yes!”

There was a moment’s pause, then Arabella heard Neville turn and start to return to his bedchamber. She held her breath.

“Where are you going?”
“To collect my things. I trust you will allow me that.”

“I will have Jarvis bring your clothes to you. Or to your mistress.”

“He may bring them to Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre tomorrow. If I am not there, Richard Blythe will take charge of them.”

“That debased rogue!”

“Then he must be a fitting companion for me,” Neville replied. “Good-bye, Father.”

So calm, so cold! Even her father, usually so reserved, had expressed some tender sentiments toward her on his deathbed when he knew he would not see her again, yet Neville apparently felt nothing at being cast out of his father’s house.