The Last Hellion (46 page)

Then one of the dogs darted forward, a ball in its big jaws. He dropped it a safe distance from Susan. "Woof!" he said.

Warily, Susan advanced and sniffed the ball. After grumbling to herself a bit more, she took it in her mouth and trotted to the door. The other dogs followed.

Vere met his wife's gaze. "Those fellows will do anything for you-know-what,"

he said. "I'm amazed they didn't crawl on their bellies." He gave Lydia his arm and they started up the stairs.

"They're not going to get any you-know-what," she said. "Not today, at any rate.

She isn't in season."

"They're softening her heart in advance," he said.

"She's an aberration, you know," Lydia said. "Oversized, and the wrong color.

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

That's why I got her for practically nothing. Her antecedents are suspect. You may not want to breed her with your pedigreed lot."

"Mallorys aren't as particular about bloodlines as Bal-listers," he said. "You, for instance, had rather have an illegitimate son as your father because, bastard or not, he at least has noble blood in his veins."

"I shouldn't care if my father had been sired by a chimney sweep," she said.

"What mattered was that he truly loved my mother and made her happy, and did his damnedest to be first rate at what he did. It's character and effort that count with me, not bloodlines."

Vere would have argued the point—for everyone knew the Ballisters were the greatest snobs in the world—but they'd reached the first floor and were turning into the family wing, and teasing banter was impossible while his heart thudded so painfully.

The walls were covered with pictures—not the masterpieces of portraiture and landscape that adorned the public rooms, but drawings, watercolors, and oils of a much more informal and intimate nature, capturing generations of Mallory family life.

Halfway to the master's apartments, Vere paused before the picture he knew would be there. He had not looked at it in eighteen months. He looked at it now.

His throat tightened. His chest constricted.

"This is Robin," he told his wife. It was hard getting the words out, but he'd expected difficulty and made up his mind to bear it. "I've told you about him," he went on. "Lizzy and Em have told you about him. Now you see him."

"A beautiful child," she said.

"Yes. We've other pictures, but this is the best of the lot." The tightness was easing. "It's the most like him. The artist caught his smile—the one Robin Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

seemed to keep mostly to himself, as though he knew a private joke. Charlie had the same smile. God help me, what an idiot I've been. I should have taken it with me. How can one look into the boy's face and not see sunshine? Lord knows I needed it."

"You didn't expect to find sunshine," she said quietly.

He met her gaze, discerned understanding in its blue depths. "I'm not sure I would have found it if you hadn't taught me how. I've talked about him, listened to Lizzy and Em talk about him," he continued, his voice growing surer, steadier.

"It's grown easier as the days pass. All the same, I wasn't sure I could look him in the eye today. I hadn't done well by his memory, poor lad. It was death and decay and a black, cold rage I'd carried about with me in my heart instead.

Unfair, when the boy gave me , nothing but joy for six full months." His gaze returned to the portrait. "I'll always miss him, and so I'm bound to grieve from time to time. But I have happy memories. So many. That's a blessing. And I've a family to share them with. Another blessing."

He could have lingered before the portrait with her and said more. But there would be plenty of time for lingering, for talking, for sharing memories.

At any rate, he'd already made up his mind what to do, and that must be done first.

He opened the door to the ducal apartments and led her through the passage to the bedchamber.

It was an enormous room, as befitted the head of the family, yet a warm one.

Late October sunlight burnished the golden oak wainscoting and glimmered in the golden threads of the rich blue drapery adorning both windows and bed. The bed was immense and ornately carved. It had been built centuries earlier for a visit from James I.

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

"The last time I saw this bed was when I watched Robin depart for the hereafter," Vere told his wife. "My last memory is of a little boy dying in it. I can carry that memory in my heart now, along with others. I wasn't too late. I was there for him when he needed me. It's a bittersweet memory, but not impossible to bear."

"I have some of those," she said.

She, too, had watched at deathbeds, clung to hands of loved ones, felt the pulse weaken and fade as life departed.

"Your mother, your sister," he said.

She nodded.

He closed the small distance between them.

"This will be our first memory in this room," he said. "I want it to be perfect. It must set the tone for the rest of our life here together. Because this is
home
."

She looked at the bed, then up at him. Her mouth turned up ever so slightly.

She understood.

His gaze drifted downward.

She wore one of her new frocks: a pale lavender pelisse-robe that buttoned all the way down to the hem. "So many buttons," he murmured as he brought his hands to the topmost one. He brought his mouth to hers as well, and kissed her.

It was long, slow, and deep, and all the while he was unbuttoning, slowly, to just beneath her waist.

Then he eased away from her mouth and sank down onto his knees, and continued his work, but more quickly.

When he was done, he looked up at her. She shrugged out of the garment, let it drop to the floor.

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

She moved toward the bed, darting one quick but devastating glance over her shoulder. She leaned against the bedpost for balance and reached up under her petticoats.

He watched, still on his knees, mesmerized, while her silken drawers slipped to the floor. She loosened the ribbons of the petticoat bodice, and the neckline drooped over her corset, baring her breasts to a tantalizing hairs-breadth of the nipples.

She turned, slowly, and clasped the bedpost with both hands.

He rose, not at all slowly, and stripped to the skin. Over her shoulder, she watched him, her ripe mouth still curled in the tiny devil's smile.

He went to her. "Wanton, Your Grace. You've become wanton and depraved."

"I've had an excellent teacher," she said softly.

He cupped her breasts, trailed kisses over her shoulders and back. He felt her shiver with pleasure, and he shivered and burned inwardly with impatience.

"I love you," she said. "Take me like this."

She pressed her beautiful rump to his loins.

Muslin tickled his swollen rod, a maddening torment that made him laugh hoarsely. In public, she could freeze a man with one blast from those ice-blue eyes. In private, with him, she was all fire, the most wanton of harlots.

He dragged up her skirts. "Like this, Duchess? Is this how you want me?"

"Yes, like this. Now."

He cupped her, tangled his fingers in the silken curls, and found liquid heat.

Now
, she'd said, no more patient than he was.

He entered her, and took her as she wanted, because it was what he wanted, too.

She understood.

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

He'd wanted this room to echo with cries of passion, and laughter, and love words. They were not tame and decorous beings, either of them, by nature. They were defiant and fearless and hot-blooded. They were not quite civilized and never would be.

And so they made love like the passionate creatures they were, and when they tumbled onto the bed, they made love again. And again. Fiercely, joyously, noisily, shamelessly.

And when, finally, they lay limp with exhaustion, their damp, naked bodies twined together, the scent of their passion hung in the air, in the mixed gold and crimson light of the setting sun, and the sounds of their lovemaking seemed to echo in the room.

"Now, there's a memory to warm an old man in his old age," Vere said. "And to give a fellow reason to live to a very old age."

"You'd better," she said. "Otherwise, I shall find someone else."

"If you try to find a replacement, you'll be sadly disappointed," he said. "I can't be replaced. I'm the only man in all the world who possesses the right combination of qualities for you." Lazily he stroked her breast. "You can turn your Ballister stare upon me all you like, but you can't petrify me. You can knock me about to your heart's content without worrying about doing any damage. You can perpetrate any sort of outrage your wicked mind conceives and be sure I'll join in, with a will. You're a troublemaker, Lydia. A Ballister devil.

Nothing less than a Mallory hellion would ever suit you."

"Then you'd better stick with me for a very long time," she said. "Else I'll follow you into the hereafter."

"You would, too." He laughed. "You wouldn't quail, even at the mouth of hell, with flames spewing at you and demons howling. But I'll do my best to put that Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

off as long as possible."

"I can ask no more," she said, "than that you do your best."

"You may be sure I'll make a first-rate effort to be one of the long-lived Mallorys." He trailed his hand down to her belly. "For one, I'm vastly curious to see what sort of monsters we'll produce."

She laid her hand over his. "I am, too. It would be a grand thing, wouldn't it," she added softly, "if we started a baby on this day, our first day together in this house, in this bed. A child conceived in love, in the light of the sun…" Her mouth quirked up. "And altogether uninhibitedly."

"A child would make a fine keepsake of the occasion," he said huskily.

"The finest." She tangled her fingers in his hair and brought his face close to hers. In her cool blue eyes, twin devils danced, the ones only he could see.

"Maybe," she whispered, "just one more time. I know there's no way to make sure—"

He kissed her. "You may be sure, madam, that I'll do my damnedest."

He did.

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

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Top

In the 1829 edition of the
Annual Register
, under "Births, July," the following notice appeared:
20. At Longlands, Northants, the duchess of Ainswood, a son
and heir
.

The future duke, christened Edward Robert, was the first of seven children, of assorted genders. Some were fair-haired and blue-eyed, some dark-haired and green-eyed.

But they were all hellions, each and every one.

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

Dear Reader,

Coming next month from Avon Romance are terrific stories—historical and contemporary—beginning with
Perfect in My Sight
, the latest from bestselling author Tanya Anne Crosby. Sarah Woodard and her cousin Mary had vowed never to wed, but Mary breaks that vow. Now, she has died under mysterious circumstances, and Sarah travels to meet her dear cousin's husband for the first time. Sarah has no reason to trust Peter, but she begins to find it impossible to resist his charms…

If you like western settings, then don't miss Karen Kay's
White Eagle'd Touch
, the next installment of the Blackfoot Warriors series. Katrina is a wealthy English socialite travelling west; White Eagle is the proud and powerful Blackfoot warrior who once saved her life. Together they find an unforgettable love that spans their two worlds.

For fans of Regency settings, don't miss Marlene Suson's
Kiss Me Goodnight
.

The devilishly charming Marquess of Sherbourne never expected to be so entranced by radiant redhead Katherine McNamara, but her fiery kisses quickly ignite passion's flame in this seductive, sensuous love story.

And if you prefer a more modern setting, don't miss
Baby, I'm Yours
by Susan Andersen. The last place Catherine MacPherson ever expected to find herself was sitting on a bus, handcuffed to a sexy bounty hunter, with only a suitcase of her twin sister's shrink-wrap clothing to wear. Sam MacKade doesn't care how irresistible Catherine is, he doesn't believe for a minute that Catherine
isn't
her Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

showgirl sister. Will Sam solve this case of mistaken identity and lose his heart at the same time?

Look to Avon for romance at its best! Until next month, enjoy.

Lucia Macro

Senior Editor

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

Award-winning author

Loretta Chase creates a deliciously

enthralling Regency romp

She Needed to be Tamed…

She was a breathtaking firebrand, and Vere Mallory, the notorious Duke of Ainswood, had never seen anything quite like her. Although he thought he was rescuing Lydia Grenville from the clutches of a renowned wastrel, he quickly discovers she is
angry
at his interference! Amused by the sultry hellcat's fury, Mallory vows to teach her some humility—in life and in love.

He Was Just the Man to Do It.

Lydia Grenville was fuming. She was determined to
save
womankind from disreputable rakes like the infamous Mallory, not to succumb to his scandalous charms. She finds herself overwhelmed by the the scintillating sensations he brings to her body, but when she discovers that he has bragged that he's going to

"tame" her, Lydia vows to fight his advances… but nothing prepares her for the surrender she finds in his arms.

"Loretta Chase's writing, like her characters's view of romance, is 'a curry spiced with excitement and humor.' Great reading."

Pamela Morsi

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion

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