The Captain's Bluestocking Mistress (7 page)

It was all Xavier could do not to stick his head in the bucket of soapy water and drown himself for being such an imbecile.

Was grabbing Miss Downing and kissing her meant to teach her a
lesson
of some sort? What pearl of wisdom, precisely, had he intended to impart, other than if the snow didn’t ease up soon, he was going to have to build an impenetrable ice hut and encase himself inside?

He supposed he’d meant to prove that he was not an honorable man, nor a wise object upon which to pin one’s cap. A smart man would not have kissed her. An honorable man absolutely would not have done.

Why couldn’t she see that by dubbing him “hero” of this charade, he would prove himself unheroic with the mere acceptance of the role?

Heaven knew he’d been unheroic enough to last a lifetime. When he’d realized he could not be trusted around others, he had sunk to the most desperate of solutions. At first, he’d shuttered himself inside his mind. When that proved unsustainable—curse the empathy of true friends!—he’d managed to shutter himself in a tiny cottage, a solid mile from the nearest posting house.

Then
she
came along. And he’d kissed her.

The smart thing to do—the
only
thing to do—was to be heroic enough for them both. If she would not watch out for her best interests, he would have to work twice as hard. Thrice as hard. Oh, God, was he ever hard…

He groaned. If he was ever to acquit himself in some small way, she must retain her innocence. And obviously, it was up to him to ensure that happened. Miss Downing was unlikely to assist him in his mission to preserve her chastity.

She seemed to believe his home a fortress of anonymity, within which all depraved acts could be wantonly enjoyed without a soul ever becoming the wiser. As if she believed whatever happened in the captain’s cottage, stayed in the captain’s cottage.

Naïve beyond all reckoning. He shook his head. There were no such things as secrets.

He had staff that would arrive as soon as the roads were passable. She had servants—and a brother—who would at some point wonder what had become of her. If there weren’t likenesses nailed to every wall across England already. And of course, she had yet to make it home without calling attention to her adventure. He grimaced. Good Lord.

Even if he outfitted her with a chastity belt and a wimple, hundreds of people would cross her path between Chelmsford and London. People with eyes, ears, and wagging tongues. The only chance that remained of returning her home with her reputation intact was to ensure there was little reason to doubt it. Starting with never learning she’d crossed his door.

He must resume his scheme of converting her image of him into one of a mere acquaintance. It had to work. One did not seduce one’s acquaintances. While she was here, he and Miss Downing would adhere to what was proper. They’d be nothing less and nothing more than perfectly dull, perfectly
respectable
… friends.

But guarding a young lady’s reputation required more than merely abstaining from making love to her. Especially with a woman as unconventional and unpredictable as this one.

Even without succumbing to carnal pleasures, there was nothing maiden-appropriate with which to pass the time. He was a bachelor. This was his home. Very little within its walls was appropriate for a young lady. She shouldn’t be anywhere near him or the dishes. Zeus. What was he to do?

He didn’t even own a backgammon set. Yet he must ensure their one hundred percent platonic friendship didn’t degenerate to her swilling whiskey and smoking cigarillos as she tossed betting markers across a velvet card table. His cottage must remain a citadel of respectability.

Which left what? Organizing his linen closet?

Excitement rushed through his veins. No, not his linen closet. His
library
. What could be safer than a room full of books?

His chest lightened. He washed the last of the dishes and dried his hands on a towel. A library like his could take weeks to organize. He didn’t even know what was on the shelves. He’d purchased titles at whim and left them helter-skelter when he’d set off for war.

With luck, the volumes were so dusty that they’d cause sneezing fits every time they were touched. No man was less kissable than whilst suffering a violent coughing attack.

He proffered his arm. “Would you like to see my library?”

Her lips curved, but she narrowed her eyes in mock suspicion. “Dare I hope for a prurient collection of
shunga
scrolls?”

He took a step back. “I am delighted to say that I have no idea what that means.”

She laughed. “Why would you be happy about that?”

He fixed her with an imperious stare. “Whatever it is, I doubt it is something proper.”

“Who would want a
proper
library?” Her eyes widened and she tilted her head. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those pretentious sorts who only purchases books with the hope of impressing callers with their size or title.”

“I never meant to show anyone my library, so, no, I am not so lowly a creature as that. However, I haven’t laid eyes on my books in well over three years, and I couldn’t begin to tell you what I might have thought worth perusing at that time. Essays on irrigation methods? Travel journals? French poetry? I imagine there’s a few of everything upon those shelves.”

She hesitated, clearly tempted. “I recognize this as a blatant attempt to avoid other outlets for amusement.”

“And yet you cannot resist.” He turned her toward the door and offered his arm once more. “What if the snow should melt by noontime? You might never get another chance to discover the hidden secrets of a captain’s library.”

She slapped her hand onto the crook of his arm in resignation. “You don’t fight fair.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” he said quietly. He hoped she never would.

She released his arm when they reached the library and preceded him into the room. He followed close behind. As soon as he entered, she pulled the door closed behind them.

He arched a sardonic brow. “Was the empty cottage not private enough, madam?”

She arched a brow right back. “Have you met my cat?”

His gaze jerked to his shelves in horror. It was one thing for his books to be dusty… and quite another for them to be a pulpy, fur-sodden mess.

Fortunately, all seemed to be in order. Perhaps too much in order. All the titles were upright and even, with nary a cobweb to be found.

Curse his competent staff.

Miss Downing began a slow examination of the room. Xavier lit a small fire with his flint and then settled onto the chaise longue to watch.

She wasn’t just beautiful. Everything about her was bewitching and larger than life. Her huge brown eyes. Her mane of wild, curly hair. Her pouty lips and curvaceous figure. Her literate, clever mind. The sheer force of her will. Her single-minded intensity. How seductively she walked. How sweetly she kissed.

He gritted his teeth. This was Operation Platonic Friendship. He was not to think about the taste of her mouth or the sway of her hips.

They needed to spend the entirety of the day discussing Wordsworth and Voltaire. Or rather, something less… provocative. He didn’t want to make a good impression. Perhaps he ought to engage her in a lively debate on whether library books were best catalogued by size or color.

“What do you think of my collection?” he found himself asking instead.

“Well…” She poked her head from around a corner. “The topics are varied enough, but at least half have never been read. The pages aren’t even sliced.”

“You can do the honors, if you’ve found something you’d like to read.” He adjusted a small pillow and stretched out upon the chaise longue. He didn’t much care who sliced the pages, but if offering her the privilege made him seem like a good friend, he’d be happy to lend his knife.

Eyes sparkling, she bounced in place. “I can read anything that I want?”

“As long as it isn’t…” He hesitated. What had she mentioned earlier? Sugar? Shogun? “…
shunga
scrolls.”

The corners of her mouth quirked. “Nobody reads
shunga
scrolls. They just look at the pictures.”

He cut her a flat look.

She gave an innocent flutter of eyelashes and selected a book from the shelves. “Lie back down. I’ll read something to you. How about the
Odyssey
in original Greek?”

He couldn’t even remember purchasing it. “Do you mind if I snore?”

“I hope you do. But I’ll translate aloud in case you manage to stay awake.” Rather than take another chair, she perched at the foot of the chaise longue with her back toward him. “Ahem. Page the first. ‘
Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero…’
”

There. Xavier relaxed his head against the cushion. Nothing could be more respectable.

Or less stimulating. He hadn’t actually intended to snore, but neither had he anticipated the level of mortal dullness in which Miss Downing read aloud. She could not have infused less life into her tone had she merely been counting sheep.

He might have told her not to bother translating since it wasn’t doing either of them any favors, except he saw no advantage to being rude. His goal was to be perceived as a friend, not the enemy. Enemies could incite passion.

Miss Downing’s monotone could only incite slumber.

After a while, he let his eyelids drift closed. It had been a long, cold night filled with nothing but vivid waking dreams. He had been exhausted from the moment he rolled out of bed. Her tone was pacifying in its relentless uniformity, the words forgettable and relaxing.

He
almost
didn’t notice when she skipped from Calypso to Circe in the space of a breath. Her low words droned on without hitch. His eyes flew open. How could she have turned thirty pages at once without noticing? How could she have skipped the
Trojan horse
without noticing?

Sleep forgotten, he propped himself up on one elbow to glance over her shoulder at the text.

And roared. “What the
devil
are you reading, woman?”

She jumped, her cheeks flushing a rosy pink. “You said I might read whatever I wished.”

“You said you were reading the
Odyssey
!”

“I said I would read
you
the
Odyssey
.” She motioned him back to his pillow. “
I’m
reading something else.”

“That’s not ‘something else.’” Heart galloping, he reached for the book.

She held it aloft with her other hand. “You can’t have it. I’m right in the middle.”

“Absolutely not,” he ground out. “That’s
The Memoirs of Fanny Hill
, and it’s not fit for human eyes.”

Her brows arched. “Then why do you have it?”

“Because I’m inhuman! Give me the damn book or I’ll—”

“Oh, lie back down. You were almost asleep. I’ve already read most of what you’re afraid of, so there’s not much harm in reading the rest.”

He collapsed back against the chaise and covered his face with his hands. No wonder the woman’s storytelling abilities had been execrable. She’d been quoting from memory whilst reading an entirely different story. One in which an innocent country miss was procured by a bawdyhouse madam and then descended into a life of erotic abandon.

“What part are you at now?” he rasped, his throat dry.

“Mmm. Fanny is peering through closet curtains at the proprietress’s boudoir. This is after she spent the night in the same bed as Phoebe. How that girl failed to guess Phoebe’s trade as a whore after the woman kissed her and stroked her and brought her almost to the edge of relief is completely beyond all credulity.”

Xavier kept his hands over his eyes and groaned. He, too, could recite a few literary passages from memory. Not one of them was appropriate for platonic friendships.

“I’m now at the part where Fanny espies an erect male member for the very first time.” Miss Downing’s voice turned conspiratorial. “I can certainly understand her excitement and curiosity, as I haven’t had the pleasure myself.”

Lord save him. He moaned into his hands. Things had somehow got even worse. His mission hadn’t failed after all. Instead, he had accidentally become the-friend-to-which-she-shared-all-erotic-secrets. Platonic was worse than lovers. Platonic was hell.

“Here, I’ll read the next part. See if you remember it.” The chaise creaked as she straightened her spine and took a deep breath. This time, her voice was low and throaty, as rich and seductive as wine.

“‘
The madam’s sturdy stallion had now unbuttoned, and produced naked, stiff and erect, that wonderful machine, which I had never seen before, and which, for the interest my own seat of pleasure began to take furiously in it, I stared at with all the eyes I had…’
”

He sprang upright, snatched the novel from her fingers, and hurled it across the room.

His bluestocking glared at him in high fury. “Must you be so vexing, Captain Crotchety? I was just getting to the good part.”

“You want to know the good parts?” he exploded. “Fanny watches them rut, is aroused, brings herself to pleasure, spies on yet another trysting couple, becomes overset with lust, and throws herself at the first lone male she comes across. There. It’s spoiled. There’s no point in reading it.” He leaped to his feet and yanked her to hers. “No more library. I might have a chess set somewhere. We’re going to play a nice respectable game of chess even if we’re missing a few pieces. I’ll whittle new ones if I have to.”

“You don’t have to be so disagreeable,” she muttered, shaking her arm free from his grip.

Oh, yes, he did. It was either disagreeable or naked, and he was perilously close to choosing the latter.

He locked the library door securely behind them and turned his back on the maddening, stimulating, delectable Miss Downing. His blood raced just from looking at her. He wasn’t abstaining from seduction for his sake, but for hers.

It was the only thread of decency he had left.