Seducing the Rake (Mad, Bad and Dangerous Heroes) (37 page)

With a sharp hiss the thin slipper tore in two.

It struck Chessy as funny somehow. Slim and immobile in the beam of light, she stood staring at the jagged edges of black silk while laughter welled up in her throat.

Big silver tears followed, coursing down her pale cheeks.

There in the dim light, in the room rich with the smell of lemon and freshly cut roses, she studied the ruined slipper. Her last one.

Yes, it was funny somehow. Horribly funny…

Her laughter echoed from the high attic walls, ragged as the edges of silk in her fingers. Then the sound changed, grew deep and raw. Chessy sank down to the polished floor, her silly slipper caught tight in her fingers. She was crying only for her slipper, she told herself fiercely.

And perhaps also for her dreams.

For the father she could not find and the mother she had never had.

But as the frayed silk slipper grew wet with her tears, she knew it was a lie.

Someone was banging on the door.

Chessy pulled the pillow from atop her head and squinted up into the darkness. Was the ship under siege? Or had her father merely forgotten to toss anchor again, and let them drift off in the currents?

Chessy blinked and sat up in her bed. “All right! I’m coming—”

She rubbed her eyes and reached for the breeches that always hung over the bulkhead just beside her cot.

They were gone.

The banging grew louder. “Coming, Father!”

Was it Han Sung’s pirates again, chasing them for treasure? Or was it that rogue privateer O’Neill, looking for booty?

Dizzily she came to her feet. Again someone banged on her door.

“Miss Chessy? You awake yet?”

Chessy frowned. “Swithin?” She pushed from bed and tugged on the robe she found at the foot of her bed. And then she froze. Her face turned pale with remembrance.

Not Macao, but London.

And her father…

She ran to the door and pushed it open with trembling fingers. “What—what is it, Swithin? Have you heard anything—anything more about—?”

Swithin shook his head. “Not from them as has your father, miss. Nor did I mean to wake you, neither, but—well, you see, I can’t turn him away any longer.”

“Him?” A strange humming invaded Chessy’s blood.

“Lord Morland, miss. Been here already three times this morning, he has. Looking none too happy neither. Especially when I told him as how you wasn’t receiving guests.”

Chessy’s mouth went flat and tense.

“You’re not going to say nothing about what happened between you two while you was at Half Moon Street?”

She shook her head. “Don’t—don’t ask, Swithin. It’s all done with anyway.”

The bleakness in her tone made the old servant frown. His face turned grim. “It ain’t right, miss. I said it before and I’ll say it again. It ain’t bloody
right.
You shouldn’t otter be roamin’ about the London roofs searching for that blasted book. Your father has friends, you know. Lay the matter before them and let ‘em—”

Chessy sighed. Her fingers tightened on the belt of her robe. “Please, Swithin, don’t let’s argue. Not again. There’s not one of them I could trust in such a delicate matter. And that leaves only me.”

From far below she heard the drum of boots. A hard voice rang up the stairwell. “Tell her I won’t go away until she comes out, Swithin!”

A shudder shook her. Dear heaven, when would it all be over?

“T-tell him I’m—I’m indisposed. I couldn’t possibly see anyone today.” It went sorely against the grain for her to use such an excuse, but Chessy found she had no better one at hand.

He wouldn’t dare crash into her bedroom, at least.

The harsh male voice boomed up once more. “And tell her if she doesn’t come down in fifteen minutes, I’ll come up there and
carry
her down!”

Swithin shook his head. “Had a fair idea how it was with him when he first arrived, miss. All bloodshot and disheveled he was, and it not a minute after daybreak.” He stopped, waiting for Chessy to add some comment. When she did not, he shrugged. “Told him you was sick. Then I told him you wasn’t wishful to see him. But the earl didn’t seem of half a mind to believe any of it, miss. Not that I’m much surprised. I’m a man as has eyes in his head, for all that.”

Chessy glared at the banister as if it were the source of all her problems.

“He’s been kicking up his heels in the drawing room for an hour now. It’s his third visit of the day, and he’s looking positively murderous. Maybe it would be better if you—”

Chessy’s fists clenched and unclenched. Damn the man! Why, oh, why wouldn’t he just let her alone!

Abruptly she thought of the gardenia he had kept in the buttonhole of his shirt. The tremor in his hands when he had stroked the hair from her cheek and then kissed her.

Softly.

Thoroughly.

Then hungrily, so hungrily that she…

“Oh, very well,” she said unsteadily. “I’ll see the wretched man. I can see that’s the only way I shall ever be rid of him!”

~ ~ ~

Precisely fifteen minutes later, Chessy swung open the door to the sunny salon. Her sprigged muslin dress was creased and threadbare, the oldest of the gowns she had brought to London. Her slippers were very little better.

Some angry demon had made her choose the clothes so that her business might be done with that much quicker.

She knew she looked the veriest urchin. Her face was pale and her hair was riotous and her eyes were dark-rimmed.

But she raised her chin in an imperious tilt and strode across the room proudly.

Morland stood before the window. He looked paler than usual, and there were lines of strain about his eyes, but otherwise there was no sign of the recent wound he had endured. And for some reason the sight of his perfectly tied cravat, his immaculate damask waistcoat, only made Chessy angrier.

At her step, he turned.

The sun fell full upon his taut face. She saw a muscle flash at his jaw. He moved slightly, shifting his weight to favor his good leg.

At that moment Chessy had a clear notion of exactly what an accomplished performer he was. She knew his knee must be paining him above a little, yet he refused to make any concession to that pain, nor to the newer wound at his arm.

In spite of her knowledge of his pain, she could not allow her heart to soften.

“My lord.” Her voice was stiff. “You are recovered, I see. My congratulations.”

Morland’s sapphire eyes blazed down into her face. “With your help I am. I have come to give you my thanks.”

“There is no need, I assure you.” Chessy turned away to arrange an errant bloom in a crystal vase, thankful to escape his keen gaze.

So it was that she did not notice the hunger that swept the earl’s face, the bleakness that darkened his eyes as she turned away from him.

“Your admirers are persistent, I see.” He stared sourly at the fresh clusters of roses that filled the corner table. “My compliments.”

When Chessy did not turn back, his face hardened. “I wonder how they would feel if they knew you had spent a day and two nights in my company. My reputation for conquest is vast, you know. And since we both know the reality of all that transpired last night…”

Chessy’s fingers tightened on a vibrant yellow rose. “So?”

“So, my dear, you have been compromised. Thoroughly. Without hope of redemption. The only question now is what we are to do about it.”

“Do?” Chessy gave the rose a tug. “Nothing, I imagine.” She was pleased with the chill of her voice.

Morland’s eyes glittered as he smoothed his gloves between his fingers. “Nothing?” He gave a harsh laugh. “How long do you think matters will stay hidden?”

“Long enough. I shall be leaving London very soon, you see. I pray you will not concern yourself with my trivial affairs.” She turned slowly, her face pale but composed. “And now, if you are quite finished—”

“Finished? No, by heaven, I’m
not
finished!” Morland strode across the room and jerked her into his arms. His burning eyes raked her face. “You can’t get out of this scrape as easily as those others, Cricket. You were seen
—we
were seen. Not only at my house but at the duchess’s conservatory, it seems.” He caught back a curse and fought for some semblance of control. “And so you would do me a very great honor if you would consent”—his jaw hardened—“to become my wife.”

A vein was beating at his forehead, just below the dark gold comma of his hair.

Numb, immobile, Chessy found herself studying that quicksilver flash of motion. He was very handsome, she thought in a detached sort of way. His brow was high, but not too high. And his eyes were so startlingly blue…

“Wife?” Her voice rose, dim and very faint in her own ears. “I-I believe not.”

The vein at his forehead seemed to pound faster. “You little fool! They’ll slash you to ribbons! They thrive on gossip such as this! They’ll leave you in pieces before they’ve even had their breakfast chocolate! By midday, the scandal will be all through the
ton.”

Chessy made a low sound of protest.

Morland’s fingers tightened. “Marry me, Chessy.” He felt heat flare where her breasts brushed his chest. “Marry me, damn it! Now! Today!”

Chessy’s face was unreadable. “Just like that? A bloodless, formal contract? We repeat some words, and then you go your way and I go mine?”

Morland’s lips tensed. “If it is your wish, I shall not … impede you.”

Chessy felt a pain block her throat. “You to spend your nights with your Germaine, and I to conduct my own liaisons, just as long as it is all most discreet?”

“I don’t propose to deny you what I would enjoy myself, if that’s what you mean.”

Chessy paled. “I see.” Her hopes fled. How could she have thought…

“Well, you can take yourself and your pompous proposal and just—just fly into the Thames!”

Morland’s fingers bit into her shoulders. “You have no choice, Chessy. Not this time. This is one scrape I can’t get you out of. It’s beyond wishing or changing this time, for we were seen. And—the Duke of Wellington was across the street when you left on Swithin’s arm. He saw quite enough to guess what had happened.”

Chessy tensed in his arms. “No—he couldn’t have!”

“I’m afraid he did. And unfortunately the old martinet’s eyes are sharp as an eagle’s. He has already been around to see me. Raked me over the coals most royally, I can tell you. And as if that weren’t enough, the duchess came to put in a word or two. Damned crusty she was too.”

Chessy swayed at this new onslaught. How had it all gone so wrong? Was he now to be dragged down, forced into some bloodless contract for the sake of propriety?

“It’s not fair!” she said tightly.

“Life is often unfair, Chessy. I would have thought you knew that by now,” he added harshly.

Chessy stiffened. “I don’t care. And I won’t do it, do you hear? I won’t marry you!”

“It’s
your
reputation that will be in shreds, my girl. Mine is too tattered to suffer any further damage. But you are the one who’ll be mocked, shunned, gossiped about.”

A chill slid over her. So it was to be just as before. Once again the sneering faces. The cold, cruel taunts.

She raised her chin defiantly, shrugging off his hands. “I shan’t be in London long enough to care, I assure you.”

Morland’s eyes hardened. Damn! Why was none of this going as he’d planned? How could she have lost all her feeling for him? At the very least she ought to have acknowledged the gravity of their situation and shown some hint of appreciation for his offer.

But there she stood, pale as glass, her eyes glittering and distant. And she was wearing that damned awful dress that should have made her look ridiculous.

Instead, it only made her look utterly vulnerable, intensely fragile.

And blinding beautiful—to
him,
at least.