Tempt the Devil (32 page)

“Do you know the Duchess of Kylemore was safely delivered of a daughter in May?”

“This is Kylemore's estate. That sort of news doesn't count as town tattle. Tell me about Roma.” Then a horrible thought briefly banished her barbed resentment. “The Rentons didn't find out about her meeting me, did they? I swear I never intended her harm, Julian.” The name escaped before she could stop herself.

If he said anything smug about her slip, she'd hit him with one of the large copper pans hanging above the range. But he didn't seem to notice. Although she knew that of course he had. Those acute eyes and the even sharper brain behind them didn't miss anything.

“No. Roma's visit to you remains secret, thank God. Although she'll have a reputation as a jilt.”

“She broke the engagement?” Olivia frowned in puzzlement. “You don't sound very upset.”

He shrugged. “The boy always struck me as a prig and a bore.”

“Compared to you, he probably is,” she couldn't help saying.

He gave a short laugh. “A low blow, my love.” He ignored the killing scowl she shot him and continued. “She's still so young. And immature even for her years. It was a brilliant alliance, but I'd rather she made a match with someone of similar spirit and intelligence. The more I got to know her and the more I saw of the stuffed shirt she attached herself to, it seemed an unequal pairing.”

“I think she looked for someone to replace you. Someone to give her the family she felt you'd stolen from her.”

How she'd missed talking to him like this. How she'd missed the vital reality of his physical presence. How she'd missed everything about him. Frantically, she threw up a barricade against the softness creeping into her heart. She had no future with this man. She had to remember that.

A shadow of regret crossed his striking features. “Perhaps you're right. She and I have become much better friends. Although she still rides like a bloody loaf of bread. Imagine a daughter of mine so inept in the saddle.”

“The scandal of her rejecting Renton must have been awful. Is she all right?” Olivia hated to think of the girl suffering society's disapproval.

“All right?” A wry smile curved his lips. “She's in the pink. And sporting a completely new wardrobe, all based on what you wore this season. You've become a rather powerful influence.”

She sought and failed to find resentment in his voice. “You must hate that.”

“Only because it reminds me you ran off. But then, I hardly need reminding of that.”

“Julian…” she began in warning, backing toward the unlit stone hearth, although he made no overt move to touch her.

He spoke before she could complete the reprimand. “I must say I prefer this new dashing Roma to the sulky chit I came home to. She's set on becoming an original. I'm sure she'll find some fellow to take her in hand before she goes too far. Now if only she learned to ride the way you do, I'd be a proud father.”

There was a fondness in his voice that hadn't been there when he'd mentioned his daughter before. Olivia smiled. She didn't wish him ill, even if she couldn't be with him. And she knew how the estrangement with his family had gnawed at his happiness.

“I'm glad. And your son?”

“William's getting there, especially now he's lost his ally against me in Roma. At least he's willing to spare me a word these days. Turns out he didn't like Renton either.”

“So you achieved what you wanted with your return to London.”

“You could say that.” His words were slow and considered.

He still stared at her. It should make her uncomfortable. After all, she looked like a peasant, and he came to ask for what she couldn't give. Yet it seemed perfectly natural that his eyes followed her so closely. Just as it seemed perfectly natural to share what troubled him and rejoice that at least one of his sorrows had found relief.

“Is that why you delayed your return to Vienna?”

“I'm not going back to Vienna. I've resigned my post.” He paused and drew a deep breath. “I've bought a chateau in France where I'll breed horses.”

“France?” The question emerged almost inaudibly. Shock stiffened every muscle. “I thought you wanted to stay in England.”

“My plans have evolved.”

“What about your estates?”

She tried to tell herself that none of this concerned her. She'd left him and had no intention of returning. England. France. Timbuctoo. He was equally lost to her wherever he settled. She had no reason to feel her life ruptured just because he meant to live in another country. For goodness sake, she'd assumed he was already back in Vienna.

“William takes over once he finishes at Oxford.”

“Wouldn't one of your houses here be more convenient for you, for your family?”

He picked up the tankard and turned it in his hands, watching the fading light gleam on the pewter. “After all the years on the Continent, England is too hidebound for me. I had a romantic dream of my homeland and I'll always love it, but, no, France will suit me better. The property is in Normandy. Close enough for regular visits. From either side. All my arrangements have my children's full approval.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

A wry smile twisted his mouth. “I didn't say immediate approval. But after much discussion, I've brought them around to my point of view.”

To hide her unreasoning distress, she injected a note of derision into her question. “So the dazzling, notorious rake, the Earl of Erith, sets up as a mere farmer?”

“I'm looking forward to it. And I'm going to travel. My bride has a yen to see foreign lands.” When he looked up, his eyes were clear and brilliant with unalloyed happiness. “Olivia, I'm getting married.”

W
ith a broken cry, Olivia recoiled. Her head rang as if someone had cuffed her. Julian's words echoed in her ears.

Married? Of course he wanted to marry. He just didn't want to marry her.

Shaking, blind, she fumbled for the back of one of the sturdy rush-seated chairs. She couldn't fall. She couldn't. It would be too humiliating. But her knees felt like string, and the mist that blocked her sight thickened to the same deep gray as Julian's eyes. The workaday room faded from view. She tumbled down a long tunnel toward a dark abyss.

Dimly, through her suffocating distress, she heard a clang as Julian dropped the tankard. Then a resounding clatter as the chair she lurched after overturned onto the stone floor.

He was going to marry another woman. How could she bear it?

Four months ago she'd set him free. He must have devoted the time since to finding a suitable wife. An exemplary
creature to become the new Countess of Erith. A woman to live with him and establish his home and be a mother to his children and—oh, God, she felt sick—give him babies as Olivia never could.

She swayed. Why on earth couldn't she breathe? She had to breathe. Her lungs seized up. And she was cold. Deathly cold.

“Olivia? Olivia, my darling, it's all right.”

Through an unseeing blur, she felt strong arms encircle her. Then further disorientation as he swept her high in his arms and carried her through to the hallway.

He would marry someone else.

She shivered so hard that nothing could keep her from clinging to his familiar warmth. Not even the devastating news of him taking another woman as his wife.

“Put me down,” she croaked through lips that felt like they were made of cotton.

He ignored her. Perhaps didn't even hear her. “You must have a damned parlor. I refuse to talk to you in the bloody kitchen any longer.”

He would marry someone else.

Over and over the poisonous words pounded in her brain. Still she couldn't comprehend them.

He shouldn't carry her as if she belonged in his arms. He shouldn't call her his darling. He shouldn't even talk to her alone. He should be in London courting his bride.

He cradled her as if she were the rarest treasure. Conscience prompted her to protest at how he held her. But she'd never been a hypocrite, and she wouldn't start now. She curved her arm around his neck and rubbed her cheek against his chest. Under her ear, his heart thudded slow and steady.

Life and awareness seeped back. She studied his strong profile. His cheekbones seemed more pronounced, as though he'd lost weight. And his expression conveyed a bleakness that indicated he hadn't smiled much since she left him.

Fantasy, all of it. He hadn't been pining for her. He'd been wooing another woman.

“I'm too heavy.” Her voice sounded raw and cracked.

He gave the short laugh she loved, as though he were amused despite himself. “You're perfect.”

He swung her through the narrow doorway to the parlor and ducked his head under the low lintel. “This is more like it.”

“I can stand,” she said without great conviction.

“No. You'll only faint on me again.” He sank down into the armchair before the fireplace and settled her in his lap.

“I didn't faint.” Her legs had gone rubbery, her vision had faded, and she'd felt like she was about to collapse, but she hadn't fainted. Olivia Raines never fainted.

“If you say so. For God's sake, woman, stop wriggling.”

Oh, what was the use? She subsided with a despairing sigh. Her frantically beating heart immediately quieted. She was fatally weak but she couldn't bring herself to end the exquisite moment. The wonderful scents of sandalwood and Julian surrounded her, promised pleasure, bypassed anger and shock.

“That's better,” he said softly, burying his face in her hair.

She shut her eyes and let his presence wash over her. The joy was fragile, deceptive, wrong, but she couldn't pull away. This was the nearest she'd come to happiness in all the endless, dour weeks since they'd parted.

“Julian, don't torment me,” she begged in a broken voice. “It's too cruel.”

“Cruel? That's damned rich. Woman, you've given me four months of complete hell,” he said raggedly into her hair. His arms tightened with a convulsive movement that told her more than words just how much he'd missed her.

She couldn't fathom what he wanted. He said he'd found a wife. He informed her he left for France. Yet he held her so close and so tenderly, as if he never meant to let her go.

She hooked her fingers in his shirt and leaned her head on his shoulder. His arms firmed, keeping her safe.

Foolish illusion.

Some thread of reason insisted she stand up, be brave, send him away. He wasn't for her. He'd never be for her. He must return to his bride. Then perhaps she had a chance of gleaning some contentment from the dank, colorless years ahead.

He must go.

But not yet. Dear God, not yet.

Hard to believe he belonged to someone else. The bond that had united them during those long passionate nights in York Street seemed as strong as ever. Stronger now that it had been tested in separation and anguish.

She might be the world's greatest fool but she believed he still loved her.

Even if that was true, what good would it do? Her price for staying with him hadn't changed. Although it would break her heart anew to spurn him a second time.

He raised his head and looked at her with a gleam in his eyes. “You smell like strawberries.”

“I've been making jam.”

“Ah.” He tilted her chin up. “Let me see.”

Her heart kicked into a gallop and she waited in trembling anticipation for what surely must come next. A better woman than she would tell him she didn't want his kisses. But she'd missed him so much. What could one kiss matter? Surely fate owed her just that small measure of joy before it flung her into frozen misery once more.

Slowly, giving her time to deny him, his head lowered. The gray eyes were radiant, his lips parted on a soft breath. When he gently pressed his mouth to hers, the heavenly sweetness made her melt.

Softly, he tasted her. A honeyed flick of his tongue. The lingering touch of his lips. A kiss unlike any he'd given her before. Almost…
innocent.

Too soon he lifted his head. Trembling in a fever of unwilling need, she waited for him to return, to push sweetness to passion. He'd enlisted passion before to convince her to stay with him.

“Mmm, delicious.” His lips curved into a smile that held the same gentleness as the kiss. Her wayward heart paused in its headlong race, dipped and skittered to a stop.

“Julian…” she whispered in a choked voice.

She struggled to remember his engagement, but he was here and the woman, whoever she might be, was shadowy and indistinct. Closing her eyes, she fought back a surge of tears.

As if he realized how close she was to breaking, he wrapped his arms around her again and pressed her face into his chest. Her heart began to beat in time with his. She still tasted his fleeting kiss, headier than any wine, on her lips. For so long she'd yearned for his touch. Now she rested in his arms and let the stolen minutes tick by.

“I brought you a present,” he said eventually. His voice sounded grave, the way it had when he told her he loved her.

Bitter disappointment surged up, slicing through her brief ease. Did he mean to bribe her, as he'd once tried to bribe her with rubies? “More jewelry?”

“No. But I'll buy you every diamond in London if you want me to.”

“I don't.”

She knew what she wanted. It wasn't the glittering baubles she'd flaunted as badges of triumph over a despised sex.

“I'll still buy you every diamond in London,” he murmured, nuzzling her ear. A thrill ran through her and she shivered even as she tried to stifle the response.

“I'll throw them away,” she said hoarsely.

He angled his head so he could see her face. “Reach into my inside pocket and take out the paper.”

“If it's the title to a house, I don't want that either.”

A glint of amusement lit his eyes. “That's a relief. It's not the title to a house.”

Nobody else teased her. Why did she have to fall in love with the one man in Creation who did? “Julian Southwood, you're the most annoying man I've ever met,” she said grumpily.

“Undoubtedly,” he said with another of those odd little grunts of laughter. “Inside pocket, Olivia.”

She slid her hand under his coat and fiddled until paper rustled under her fingers. She felt his breath catch then accelerate as she touched him through his shirt.

Her fingers closed around the document. Slowly, taunting him with her lingering touch, she drew it out.

“What is it?”

He stared down at her with an intent and unfamiliar light in his eyes.

She'd mocked him when she said he was too old for boyish charm, but right now he seemed young, unsure.
Shy.
A word she'd never thought to connect with the urbane Earl of Erith.

His eyes shone with a tenderness that sliced right to her aching heart. His expressive mouth was soft and hovered on the brink of one of his marvelous smiles. She caught herself from leaning forward to kiss him, although everything in her ached for the taste of his lips.

He tilted his head toward the paper. “Well, read it.”

Reluctantly, she unfolded the document. He obviously made some extravagant gesture to compensate for his forthcoming marriage, or to convince her to return as his mistress.

The day faded but the late summer twilight offered enough light for her to decipher the spidery writing that covered the sheet.

Even so, she had to read it three times before she realized what she held in her shaking hands.

When she looked up at him in shock, his embrace tightened as if he were afraid she'd flee now she knew why he was here.

“It's a special license,” she said blankly.

“Yes.” The blaze in his eyes almost blinded her. Or perhaps the helpless tears that dimmed her vision made it hard to see.

His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. With a pang, she realized this supremely confident man was nervous about her response. The thought was wrenchingly touching.

And lent her a calm certainty she'd never before experienced.

She reached out and stroked his lean cheek. “Ask me, Julian,” she whispered.

He cleared his throat once. Again.

But his voice when it emerged was deep and sure and full of truth. “Beautiful, clever, wise, wonderful Olivia, love of my heart, will you marry me?”