Rebel Baron (34 page)

      
Brand made no reply, but rather took her in his arms and cradled her head in his hand as his lips brushed over her eyelids and rained soft kisses over her cheeks and circled her mouth. The gentle assault was not what she had been expecting. But when she opened it to gasp with pleasure, she did just what he had hoped. He centered his lips over hers and pressed them together, letting his tongue tease hers, darting and flicking, letting her follow suit as he'd taught her.

      
She responded naturally, with passion as well as with her own inbred cautiousness, touching the tip of her tongue to his, then withdrawing, melding her mouth against his even as their bodies pressed together. The kiss at the picnic had not prepared her for the feel of his body, so long and hard, so powerful. She remembered that day when he had thrown her to the ground and covered her...this was like that, only different. The danger here was to her heart and soul, not merely her physical well-being.

      
The combination of his feverish kisses and the gentle rhythm of his hips moving against hers made her blood sing. Just as he had known it would. Then why had she come out here? What self-punishing urge had led her to disregard duty and propriety, to risk her reputation? To forfeit a lifetime of struggling to succeed in business, just to meet the dare of this fascinating, dangerous man? It could only end badly, but right now she didn't care.

      
Her fingers dug into the muscles of his shoulders, and her breasts and hips pressed into the hardness of his body. Although her times in bed with Will had been very different, she knew enough of marital relations to be aware of what the decided bulge in his trousers meant. He did desire her, incredible as it seemed. And she? She felt a hot, raw ache deep in her belly, a wetness in her woman's place that had never lubricated itself when she had performed her wifely duties. Duty was the farthest thing from her mind right now. She wanted to bed this man!

      
“Ah, Miranda, my love,” he murmured against her hair. Brand fought the urge to pull it free as he'd done before, knowing there was no way she could return to the ballroom if he did. He could feel the painful heaviness in his groin and knew he had to stop soon. His point had been made. He dared not jeopardize everything by losing control now. Slowly, ever so slowly, he pulled back from her, planting light kisses along her jaw, cheeks and forehead.

      
But before he could say anything more, a catty voice purred, “Why, I declare, what a charmin' surprise. The mother's steppin' right into the daughter's shoes. Or do they pinch a bit?” Reba sauntered around the hedge with a malicious smile on her face.

      
Brand could feel Miranda's whole body stiffen with anger. Whether it was at him or at the intruder's rudeness it was difficult to say.

      
“I've always been quite comfortable in my own shoes—and my own skin. Something a woman of your morals would know nothing about, I'm certain,” Miranda replied with icy disdain.

      
Seeing a real cat fight brewing as Reba's eyes slitted, Brand cut her off before she could reply, saying, “You always were a jealous vixen, Reba, but you used to be smart enough to know when it was time to give up and move on to the next man. You had no trouble back home when the Yankees were winning.”

      
“But you weren't a baron then, Brand, honey,” she said, licking her lips. “And I didn't have any money. Of course, I still don't have as much as Mrs. Auburn.”

      
“The difference between us is far greater than our financial worth, Mrs. Wilcox,” Miranda replied. “I earned my wealth by working in the iron and shipping industries, not on my back.”

      
Reba lunged forward with a venomous oath, but Brand quickly stepped between the two women, seizing her hands and pulling her away from Miranda, whom he told, “I think it might be wise if you rejoined the revelers while I dispose of this small problem.”

      
“Small problem? I’ll be a great big ole problem if you don't let me go this minute,” Reba hissed.

      
Utterly ignoring the American witch's outburst, Miranda gave a frosty nod to Brand. She could feel her cheeks burning with humiliation as she stalked silently back toward the house, head held high.

      
Brand watched her retreat, then muttered low in Reba's ear, “If you had as much grace and integrity in your whole body as Mrs. Auburn has in her little finger, I might've been willing to forgive you for Earl.”

      
“What do you see in that dried-up old hag—besides all her lovely money?” Reba said, twisting out of his grasp and massaging her wrists. She tried one of her winsome pouts, which used to bring every man in Fayette County to his knees. It didn't work on Brandon Caruthers, now Lord Rushcroft, damn his eyes. He looked at her with a weary sort of amazement, shaking his head at her as if she were a child having a tantrum—or worse yet, a recalcitrant horse he had to discipline.

      
“Everything in life always comes down to money with you, doesn't it, Reba? Well, as you've already told me, you have plenty now, so why don't you go and find yourself an earl or a marquess, even a royal duke, and see if you can charm him. I'm no prospect.”

      
“But you loved me once, quite desperately,” she whispered, moving closer. “Oh, I don't expect you'll want to marry me and have me holdin' the purse strings. I know you're too proud for that. It's why you broke off with that silly little blond child.”

      
“Miss Auburn is more mature than you could ever imagine, and it was she who cried off, not I.”

      
Reba smiled. “We both know better, Brand. But I don't care, as long as we can be together. I'll be your mistress, even if you marry that widow woman. You'll need some warmin' up after her cold bed. See how agreeable I've become?” she purred, raising her arms to encircle his neck.

      
“I wouldn't bed you if you were the last woman between Leipzig and Lexington,” he said, taking her arms and shoving them back to her sides. “I'd rather sleep with a viper. In fact, there wouldn't be a hell of a lot of difference.” He took her shoulders in his hands and held her at arm's length, glaring into her eyes to deliver his parting sally. “If you ever utter so much as one syllable against Mrs. Auburn or her daughter, I'll scrub your filthy little mouth out with sheep dip. Do you understand?” He punctuated his question with a sharp shake that loosened the pins in her elaborate hairdo.

      
With smoldering fury in her eyes, Reba nodded, too furious to talk. She stood rooted to the ground, glaring daggers at his retreating back until his long strides took him out of her line of vision. Then she set to pinning her hair up. The wretched man had quite ruined it, and she had no maid to fix it for her! She stamped her foot with fury, only to send the yellow curls tumbling down in disarray once more. She stamped again and glared into the flickering lights in the direction which he had gone.

      
If looks could kill, Brandon Caruthers, the tenth Lord Rushcroft, would be a dead man.

* * * *

      
Brand searched the room for Miranda without luck. When he saw Lorilee, he quickly approached her to see if she knew where her mother had gone.

      
“I'm afraid she pleaded a headache and made her excuses. She just departed, leaving me under the watchful eye of Mrs. Horton, who will see me home,” Lori answered, a smile bowing her lips. “You must've made quite an impression out in the garden if her flaming cheeks were any indicator.”

      
“I'm afraid it was Reba Wilcox who can claim the credit, at least for part of it,” he said grimly.

      
“Oh, dear! You mean she had the temerity to go snooping after you and create a scene?”

      
“That's what Reba does best,” he replied with a sigh.

      
“Well, the ball's just begun and supper won't be served until midnight. So, if you were to go after mother, just to check on her well-being, you understand...” Lori let her words trail away suggestively. “Oh, yes, and Mr. St. John assured Tilda they couldn't possibly be home before midnight either.”

      
He grinned at her in spite of himself. “Remind me never to get on your bad side, Lorilee. You'd put Machiavelli in the shade. Perhaps I should introduce you to some of my friends in Parliament so you could give them lessons on how to outmaneuver the opposition.”

      
“Mother would flay me if I helped the Conservatives,” she said with a conspiratorial wink. ‘‘Now do hurry along and you might just catch up with her coach before she can barricade herself inside our city house.”

* * * *

      
Miranda huddled against the heavy velvet squabs in her carriage, massaging her aching head as she tried not to think about what had just transpired in the garden. The scene with that Wilcox tramp was mortifying in the extreme, but the woman's behavior was no worse than she expected of a woman of her character. It was how she herself had behaved that truly appalled her.

      
“How could I have followed him out into the darkness like some witless debutante and then...” She shuddered. If they had not been interrupted—indeed, if he had not had the sense to end that brief charge of passion—she would’ve done anything he wished, even fallen to the ground right there in the Falconridge gardens and let him take her!

      
But that had not happened. He'd regained control of his wits and broken the spell. Brandon had exercised restraint while she had not. The very worst of it was that she still wanted him! Miranda hugged herself and felt the bitter sting of tears caught in her lashes. What a fool she was to hope for such uncontrolled youthful passion. For romantic love at her age. Absurd.

      
That part of her life had passed by, and she had never had the opportunity to experience physical pleasure...if, indeed, there was any for a woman of decency. According to Queen Victoria and all that Miranda had read, the lot of a respectable wife and mother was to endure her husband's touch as a duty. But she burned and ached in ways that she had never imagined before Brandon came into her life.

      
Brash, reckless foreigner, Rebel Baron from across the Atlantic, he had awakened a side of her that had lain dormant since her seventeenth birthday...the day she was affianced to Will Auburn. She'd spent the years after that repressing the embers of her youthful curiosity. But Brand had fanned them into a raging fire with the intensity of his tiger-eyed gaze, his callused hands, his searing kisses.

      
She should be ashamed, but all she could feel was bitter regret for all she would never know...could never know, if she wanted to retain any vestige of self-respect. “But I don't care. I don't care anymore,” she whispered brokenly, hugging herself, not quite certain what it was she did not care about. Her respectability?

      
Or the shame that would come after a night with the Rebel Baron? She blinked back tears. He'd been the one to come to his senses. There would be no night together for them. Whom was she deceiving? Only herself.

      
The silence inside her spacious carriage was broken by the soft clip-clop of the horses' hooves and the creak of heavy leather harnesses as the driver took her home. Home to that great ugly mausoleum, paean to wealth and influence. It would be cold and deserted. She'd given the servants the night off. Even Tilda had surprisingly accepted Mr. St. John's offer to attend a theater performance.

      
Steeling herself to enter the empty house, she rapped on the roof as the driver approached it. When he opened the trap, she said, “Just take the carriage around to the mews after you let me off by the porte cochere. You needn't wait, Ralph.” She did not want him to see that she'd been crying. Servants did gossip, and she wanted no curiosity...or pity.

      
“Very good, ma'am,” he replied as she closed the trap.

      
She alighted and stood for a moment as her carriage clattered down the cobblestones toward their mews off the back alley, putting off entering the desolate place where she lived. Then she heard the loud sound of another carriage approaching at a very swift pace. Turning, she was startled and somewhat alarmed when it swung into her drive and the coachman reined in. The major had warned her never to be out alone like this. But she'd been too upset to think of her own safety.

      
She was all alone in the shadows beneath the porte cochere, one foot poised upon the first step. Her latchkey was buried inside the foolish little beaded reticule she'd carried to the ball. She was so used to servants opening the doors for her that she'd not even bothered to take it out before dismissing the coachman. Frantically she began to dig to the bottom of the bag, fumbling in the darkness.

      
Then suddenly the coach pulled away. Miranda blinked and peered through the leafy darkness of the shrubbery as she grasped the key and extracted it from its hiding place beneath a silk handkerchief. That was when she saw his silhouette, tall and slim, a man dressed in formal evening attire but without a top hat. Even before he began walking toward her, she recognized him.