Our Wicked Mistake (21 page)

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Authors: Emma Wildes

BOOK: Our Wicked Mistake
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“I loathe being ignorant about anything, but especially so if you know more than I do, Miles.” There was a hint of color in Elizabeth’s cheeks, but her gaze was direct. “After all, we’ve known each other forever . . . our forever anyway. I don’t see why you can’t be forthcoming with a few details.”
Our forever.
She couldn’t have more casually selected a knife with which to cleave out his heart. “What the devil do you want to know?” he asked with hoarse brusqueness.
“What, exactly,
happens
.”
Unfortunately, he understood the request. He even understood the inquiring look in her lovely eyes, the innate curiosity that made her demand he teach her to swim, to learn how to bowl a cricket ball, how to climb a tree . . .
Not the usual interests of well-bred young ladies, which might be why so many of them bored him. Elizabeth had never been a dull companion, even in the days when he was a superior eleven-year-old and she was merely
a girl
.
What she was asking now was certainly not an inquiry a well-bred young lady might make. “I’m not,” he ground out, “going to give you some sort of a tutorial on licentious behavior. I think you have gone well beyond the pale to ask. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”
“Since when do you care about propriety, especially between us?’
“Are you being deliberately argumentative? If so, I think I’ll decline the discussion.” He was leaving, no doubt about it.
She actually stepped forward and blocked his way, “All I want is a simple technical explanation of what happens between a man and a woman in the bedroom. Why is it such a secret?”
There was a certain part of her that wondered what she was doing. It stemmed from last night, when she’d been so disordered, her world set askew, and she wanted . . . revenge.
Well, maybe not revenge. Wrong word.
Retribution? No, that wasn’t right either. She just wanted to make him pay somehow for the sleepless night when she’d sat and stared out the window for hours, try ing to reconcile that singular moment on the stairs when she’d looked at Miles and really
seen
him.
The man. The one looking at her now as if she’d lost her mind, his dark brows drawn together, his tall body tense.
Perhaps she
had
gone mad. She was attracted to Miles, of all people.
For that disquieting revelation alone, he should pay. How dare he—he who had always been so insufferable—be so handsome in his own way, with his slightly dishev eled hair and amber eyes. And now he had the audacity to look at her as if
he
were wary.
The entire situation was untenable.
All those eligible gentlemen vying for her hand, and she was thinking about Miles. In the backwash of that disquieting realization, she wanted him to pay somehow, and maybe demanding something personal from him was a sort of revenge. Petty, perhaps, but then again, she reminded herself, she actually wanted to know.
“What?” he asked, disbelief comically etched on his features.
It was a bit rewarding to see him discomforted. Eliza beth raised her brows slightly. “I assume you have first hand knowledge of what I’m asking?”
He flushed. It was barely discernable under the bronze of his skin, but she knew him, and his embarrass ment fueled her determination to put him as off balance as he currently had her. He said unsteadily, “If . . . you think for a moment I am actually going to tell you anything on this subject—”
“Why not?” She didn’t move, standing firmly in his path, wondering how she’d never noticed there were darker flecks in his eyes, or that the sensual curve of his lower lip was slightly fuller than the upper, and that when he shoved his hand carelessly, impatiently through his hair, his fingers were masculine and graceful.
“Your mother wouldn’t appreciate it, for one.” He stared down at her, but didn’t move to walk around her and leave. “Luke might have my head.”
“I wasn’t suggesting you call them in to listen. We’ve kept secrets before.”
“What the devil kind of logic is that?” he muttered.
How many women have there been?
She wondered, the twinge of jealousy unwanted but definitely there.
How many had smoothed back that wayward lock of hair from his brow and . . . ?
And what? Lain with him naked, gazing into his eyes as they touched and kissed?
It was her turn to blush at the direction of her thoughts, remembering how recently she’d been in his bedroom, dodging Lord Fawcett. “How am I not being logical? I have a few questions and you should know the answers. That is a straight path from beginning to end, as far as I can tell.” Whatever her reasons, she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of backing down. She played what might be an unfair card. “At least I know you’ll be honest with me.”
“Will I?” His gaze was veiled. “Don’t be too sure. Ask Luke instead.”
“I’m hardly going to ask my
brother.
”
“How am I so different? I’m your cousin.”
“No, you’re not.”
Three simple words. So much meaning.
He was right about the sweet smell of the flowers. It was cloying, the room stuffy in the warmth of the afternoon, the elegance of the rich furniture bathed in a somnolent glow through the sheer curtains drawn against the heat. She caught her breath, and wasn’t sure why.
“No, I’m not,” he repeated finally, so softly the words were almost inaudible. “So with that acknowledged, shall we cease this ridiculous debate? I have an appointment anyway. Excuse me.”
She watched him go, unsettled, embarrassed a little over her insistence and request, and still not sure what, exactly, prompted her irrational behavior.
When her mother came in a few minutes later, she was still there, pensively studying the empty doorway.
“I just passed Miles. He seemed a little preoccupied.”
“Did he?” Elizabeth watched her mother fuss around the flowers and glance at the cards. She added wryly, “He did leave a bit abruptly.”
“He’s busy now with his new business venture.”
“I suppose so. Fawcett will be there tonight, I imagine, darling. What will you wear?”
“Luke understands that I am not interested right now in an agreement with his lordship.” Elizabeth plucked a rose from an arrangement and idly twirled it in her fingers. Her hand shook slightly from the recent confrontation. What
was
she interested in? She wasn’t sure, but it didn’t include flowers and poetry and meaningless compliments.
She
was
worried it might include Miles.
Her mother carefully set down one of the vases and turned. “I understand the season is a whirlwind, believe me. I remember my bow. Importunate gentlemen and salacious gossip and all the staring eyes. It can be daunting.”
“It’s not precisely overwhelming, but I admit to a certain degree of confusion.” The declaration seemed appropriately neutral, though confusion took on a whole new meaning after the night before and the telling moment on the stairs. “Most of my friends seem to know what they want. I am not as certain. Lord Fawcett, for all his fortune and pleasing looks, is not what I envisioned in a husband.”
“By the fortuitous circumstance of your brother’s fortune and his open mind, I am sure you are not going to be coerced to accept a proposal you don’t want. Now, then,” her mother said with elegant aplomb, crossing to sit in a chair and reach for the bellpull, “shall we sit and have tea and wait for the callers? You can entertain me by telling me what you’ve heard about Lady Brewer. I know little about her except for the remarkable display she and Luke put on the other evening. It isn’t like him to flaunt his private life. Do you have an indication why he would? What does Miles have to say about it?”
The sequence of rapid questions was a relief, as the subject wasn’t
her
social life, but the reference to Miles made Elizabeth swallow and wait a minute before answering. “How would I know what Miles is thinking?”
“You always do, darling,” her mother said simply.
Not any longer
, Elizabeth thought grimly, recalling the look on his face when she’d impetuously challenged him earlier.
Not any longer.
“I think it all could be rather more complicated than you imagine,” she murmured.
Chapter Sixteen
H
e wasn’t given to romantic gestures.
Then again, maybe he should at least acknowledge he was tempted to make one and get it off his mind, though Luke wasn’t sure how much he could presume. He eyed the glittering case, the contents showing all colors from the palest aquamarine to the deepest scarlet. One of London’s most fashionable stores, the establishment had an understated opulence, with velvet-lined cases and a discreet storefront on a popular street. Here, gentlemen could purchase gifts for their wives or their current paramours, depending on the depth of their purses. It was a very
expensive
and exclusive shop, and a man needed deep pockets to afford it.
His reasons for choosing it were even unclear to himself.
The topaz earrings, he decided, to match the elusive hint of darker gold strands in Madeline’s hair. They were extravagant in price, yet tastefully elegant. And undeniably unusual—like the beautiful woman currently occupying his thoughts to an unsettling degree. He turned to his companion. “What do you think?”
“I think I have never seen you contemplate a jewelry case before as if it were actually a weighty life decision.” Regina lifted a brow in an amused arch. “And I do adore the topaz eardrops, if that is what you are asking. What woman wouldn’t? They are exquisite. And very old, if I am to judge. Elegant. I like the phallic shape of the stones.”
Phallic shape.
Only Regina would say that particular phrase in such a blasé tone.
The hovering clerk, sensing a sale, smiled ingratiat ingly. “They are antique, my lord. I am told they once belonged to an Etruscan princess.”
Luke didn’t precisely trust the story, but the gold filigree was superb enough it might be true, and to him the stone simply had a lovely cylindrical symmetry. Italian gold smiths were rare artisans back to antiquity, and he wanted to surprise Madeline. He’d address that impulse later. For now he told himself he was Madeline’s lover and was duty bound to bestow a gift or two. “I’ll take them. Please have it delivered to this address, with my compliments.”
“Yes, my lord.” The delighted clerk took the slip of vellum.
“And that,” Regina said, tucking her arm in his as they went toward the door, “will be fodder for the gossip mill for days. You are usually more discreet. She must be special.”
She was. Unfortunately, she
was
. He didn’t need the complication.
“Since when do you pay attention to gossip?”
“Since you started seducing pretty young widows. Which I happen to know is against your principles.”
“You have a quaint interest in my social life for some one so secretive about her own.” He shot Regina a wry glance. “I make it a point not to ask you. Can’t you ex tend me the same courtesy?”
“I am secretive for a very good reason. Besides, I’m older, you don’t order my life, and we aren’t talking about me. Viscount Altea is just a name. You mean more to me in another role, that of Luke Daudet, and I want to know what
he
is thinking.”
He was a worldly man and guessed Regina had had lovers in the past, but she didn’t choose them from the
haut ton
. Since he was her brother and loved her unconditionally, whatever made her happy was fine with him. Her private life was her own. They had always existed in a state of mutual camaraderie because they allowed each other distance. “Hmm,” he said noncommittally.
“Is she?” Regina gazed up at him as they stepped outside the shop onto the busy thoroughfare. Bond Street was always full of pedestrians, and today was no exception.
He deliberately misunderstood, putting off his answer. “Is she what?”
“Special.”
Yes
, a voice in his head unequivocally answered.
No
, his pragmatic soul argued back. She was captivating and sensuous, and in Madeline’s arms he experienced a unique sense of luxurious pleasure. Maybe it was because though she wasn’t an innocent, she was definitely not experienced at dalliance either—far from it. A fatalistic sense that he was going to hurt her had existed from the first moment they met. “Since you are so persistent, I admit she’s different.”

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