Seducing the Rake (Mad, Bad and Dangerous Heroes) (20 page)

While Morland watched in irritated silence, the duke took Chessy’s hand and raised it to his lips for a kiss.

Damn the man!
Weren’t there enough hardened flirts and keen-eyed widows about? Did he have to go campaigning after a woman but newly arrived in London, a woman who had no idea of the rules by which such games of seduction were played?

Watching Chessy’s hand tremble beneath Wellington’s lips, Morland curbed the impulse to charge from the shadows and call the duke out summarily. After all,
he
had not been deputed Miss Francesca Cameron’s protector. And judging by the look on her face when they were together, he was the
last
person she might have chosen for such a role.

Morland’s jaw tensed as Chessy looked up at Wellington. He felt a sudden bitterness that she had never angled her head and studied
him
with such a look of admiration. Perhaps the chit had a preference for older men, he thought grimly.

He watched the duke bow over her hand, then turn away, no doubt to fetch refreshment. Still hidden, Morland saw Chessy look around her. For the first time he saw her face in the full glow of the score of wax candles gleaming on the wall.

She was impossibly beautiful, her violet gown subtly complemented by gold and violet braiding at sleeves and hem. Her cheeks were delicately flushed as she bent to smell a potted orange tree in full bloom.

 At her neck hung a double strand of pearls clasped by a beaten gold plaque of dragons and precious stones. When Chessy straightened, candlelight struck the hammered gold, casting light around her in a soft nimbus.

She was exquisite and unforgettable. How could she ever have considered herself plain, even as a shy fifteen-year-old?

Driven by a tenderness he could not name, Morland stepped from the shadows.

Chessy started. Her fingers locked at her sides. “How long have you been there? “

“Not so long. I am sorry to startle you.”

Chessy’s color fluctuated wildly. “Were you eavesdropping? Did you expect to hear military secrets betrayed by my clever probing? Or were you simply hoping to see me disgrace myself?”

The gardenias in her hair trembled with every word. The dragons on her golden medallion seemed to quiver and fly. Her cheeks took on a positive riot of color.

Morland thought that he had never seen her look lovelier.

He was on the verge of demanding where she’d gotten such a bloody ramshackle notion of his character and his intentions, when he realized that she’d gotten it from
him.
From his importunities in her backyard and his inexcusable conduct in her kitchen after that.

How had he managed to bungle everything so badly within mere hours of meeting her again?

He bit back an angry reply and moved into the candlelight. The crisp white linen at his neck shone in striking contrast to his immaculate black evening attire.

Chessy stiffened. “Go away! I am just beginning to enjoy myself, and I don’t care to be lectured at or interrogated.” And then, as she saw the determination on his face: “The duke will be back any second, you know. He’s only gone to fetch me some ratafia. Whatever that is.”

Morland’s eyes were unreadable as he looked down at her. “I’m afraid you will be sadly disappointed, my dear. My godmother, the duchess, will nave him cornered any second. That’s why she sent me in here, in fact. Although I begin to suspect…” He did not finish.

He took a step closer.

As he did, Chessy withdrew an equal distance.

One blond brow rose. “Never say you’re afraid, my dear.”

Chessy scowled.
“Afraid?
Of
you?
What would give you such a sap-headed notion as
that
?”

Morland skirted a wicker settee, cornering her neatly against the bank of windows edging the conservatory. “Because I can see that you are trembling. And a pulse is pounding at the curve of your throat.” His eyes darkened. “But perhaps you flee in boredom. I have not the duke’s great presence and reputation, after all. I am desolated to inform you that he is a married man, however lax he might appear in those vows.”

Chessy’s cheeks flooded crimson. “How—how
dare
you! Who are
you
to censure me, you who—” She stopped abruptly, her hands clenched at her sides.

The little ivory fan in her fingers snapped cleanly in two.

“You appear to have broken your fan, my dear.” Morland’s voice was low, as soft as a caress.

“I’m
not
your dear. I am
nothing
to you! You lost the right to use those words to me ten years ago! Now please go.” Her chest rose and fell sharply as she struggled for control.

Morland was fascinated by that wild rise and fall as the phoenix and dragons trembled against the sweet curves beneath the purple silk.

And suddenly blind recklessness seized him. “How do you know
what
you are to me, stubborn one? In ten years many things might change.” His lips twisted in a bitter smile. “For me they most certainly have.”

Chessy inched sideways, only to stop when the thorns of a potted rose bit into her shoulder.

Morland smiled darkly. She was well and truly cornered now, and she knew it.

“Go
away!
How much more plain must I make myself? I do
not
desire your presence. I do
not
desire your conversation. And I most certainly do
not
desire your attentions!”

Her color was deliciously high, and a muscle at her neck flashed whenever she spoke.

He wondered what it would feel like to tongue that satin inch of skin. He ran his fingers idly over a blushing rose petal, wishing it were her he was stroking so intimately.

Chessy’s eyes followed each slow, suggestive movement. Her tongue inched out and touched the underside of her top lip.

Morland felt an ache build in his groin. He was going to die if he didn’t stop this. And he was going to die if he did.

“Oh, you’ll have to make yourself
very
plain with me, Cricket. Subtle snubs won’t work, I’m afraid.” He watched with interest as her fingers locked against her chest, driving the ivory curves above the gown’s tight bodice, where the pearls rose and fell upon her naked skin.

The pounding in Morland’s blood became a roar. Dimly he realized that he was not quite rational at that moment, that he was about to commit an indiscretion that he would seriously regret in the morning.

But as he stood inches away from her, with the rich scent of her gardenias intoxicating his senses, Morland found he didn’t give a bloody damn
what
might happen on the morrow.

Because there was only now, only this night. Only this moment of reckless, blinding magic that he had waited ten years to experience.

He meant to find out just how sweet she would taste, how soft she would feel, when he—

His eyes narrowed on the full lip that she was savaging between her teeth.

“My lord—Tony—”

It was the husky, breathless way she said his name that finally did him in. Suddenly he had to hear her say it again, only this time while she was crushed against him and he explored the warm silk of her mouth.

And neck.

And the scented hollow of those maddeningly lush breasts.

He caught her locked fingers and brought them to his chest, kissing them slowly. “You’re trembling, Cricket. I would have thought it very warm in here.”

Chessy’s color seemed to bleed away. “Tony—my lord—don’t! I don’t want this, not any of it.”

“Too late, Chessy. I’ve waited ten years to do
just
this.” The earl caught her wrists with exquisite gentleness and pinned them against the glass. One hard hand rose to trace the tense curve of her jaw. “And suddenly I find myself immeasurably hungry. For one thing only …”

Gently he touched the gardenia anchored at her ear, then bent forward to inhale its exquisite fragrance. “
For you
,” he whispered against her skin.

His body was only inches from hers. Through the haze of his desire he saw the muscle flash at her neck, saw the tension that locked her slender shoulders. “And I think you want it too, Cricket.”

“
Don’t call me that, not ever.” There was an edge of desperation to her voice.

“Why not?”

“Because—because it’s not fair!”

“Are such things ever fair, my love?” He ran his fingers along the curve of her ear, then anchored her chin in his palm. “I might lodge the same complaint against you. Because one sight of you has left me shattered.”

Trapped in the shadows, in a world turned upside down, Chessy could only stare up at him blindly. What had happened? What had changed her?

For she
was
changed. Her heart was pounding wildly, and her body seemed to belong to a stranger.

A reckless stranger.

She shivered as the earl detached one gardenia and carried it to his lips. His eyes never left her face as he kissed the creamy petals.

“It suits you, Cricket,” he said huskily.

Caught against the cool bank of windows, Chessy trembled as he worked the flower into the buttonhole nearest his heart.

Suddenly she was too hot. Too cold. Too
close.

She shoved at Morland’s hand. “I don’t—we shouldn’t be here.”

“Yes,” he said huskily. “Right now, Cricket.”

And then, as her pulse beat a wild, path through her chest and her heart missed a dozen beats in a row, Chessy swayed. He caught her with his arm, with the strength of his chest and the hungry line of his taut thigh.

And in that moment she
needed,
just as much as he did. Logic and common sense could not hold against this need.

Dimly she realized that his head was descending. His eyes were dark with an intensity that she found terrifying. That she also found irresistible.

She closed her eyes. “Do not do this, Tony.”

“I must.” He brushed the arch of her lip with aching gentleness. His lips found the soft curve of her eyelid. “Here.” Slowly he nibbled his way down her cheek and across to the corner of her mouth. “
Here.”

Chessy caught a ragged breath; her mouth trembled. She wanted to feel his against it.

Then there was nothing. Only warm, scented air. Only aching, hungry skin that raged for more.

Her eyes flashed open.

He was standing immobile, the lines at his mouth and forehead stark. His hair glowed with hints of fire in the light of the dancing candles, and Chessy was mesmerized by the dangerous gleam in his eyes, by the sensual curl of his hard lips.

She swallowed, unable to speak, unable to breathe. Unable to string two clear thoughts together at the sight of the raw emotion in his eyes.

“Just once,” the man she’d loved forever whispered. “Just
once.
For all the sweet dawns we spent picking up shells along the beach. For the lazy afternoons we swam alongside your father’s boat.” A muscle flashed at his jaw. “And for the nights. For all those nights when I sat awake wondering how it would feel if I—”

His hot gaze swept her face. “If I touched you, if I tasted you everywhere, the way I was dying to do. But you were too young.” He waited, searching for an answer Chessy found herself powerless to give.

She had to deny him, had to pull away. She should be thinking of her father and her own future. Not
this.

But first she had to find out if what she’d felt in the kitchen had been just a dream, like the others she’d lived on for ten years. Her fingers splayed apart against his chest, no longer tensed in protest. Her eyes rose to his mouth.

Her lips parted, ever so slightly.

Morland groaned. His hands closed over her shoulders, holding her captive as he closed the heated space between them. “My dearest Chessy,” he whispered.

At that moment a shrill falsetto of laughter burst upon the peace of the conservatory. Instantly Morland pulled her back into the shadows behind a dwarf palm.

Bloody hell! Louisa Landringham in full sail! Now they were well and truly sunk, Morland thought sourly. No one in London had a more vicious and unrelenting tongue than Louisa’s.

His fingers tensed in warning on Chessy’s back. He was relieved that she did not try to pull free.

“You say they came in here? The Duke of Wellington and that—that
creature
in purple. The one wearing an outlandish necklace.” The
ton’s
reigning beauty gave a brittle laugh. “Unless my eyes fail me, they have also managed to disappear, my dear Reginald.”

Lady Landringham peered intently into the shadows along the rear windows, a hardness about her green eyes. “Just as the Earl of Morland seems to have disappeared,” she said slowly.

Morland’s fingers tightened. Behind him he heard a faint scratching. Two shadows exploded from the greenery and bounded across the floor.

Louisa’s eyes widened in horror. She opened her mouth to scream, but her companion cut her off deftly with a palm to her heavily rouged lips as a mouse dashed through the open doorway with a ginger-striped cat in hot pursuit.