Untamable Rogue (Formerly: A Christmas Baby) (5 page)

“Stop that!” he said, giving her own nether end a stinging slap.

Larkin screeched, and fought to be free, and he slapped her again. “Keep it up, Larkin Rose,” said he, and I will slap you, every time you slap me.”

She kept it up. He did too, slapping her harder than she could ever slap him, until she stopped, and he took to keeping his hand there, flat against her, bold as brass, if you please, his rising movement making it feel as if he were stroking her, there, on her private bottom.

Lark stopped touching him at all then, so he would remove his own hand, for his touch had started a kind of wild rebellion inside her body, an insurgence she did not take to the shivering likes of.

“Put me down,” she said, with less command and more plea in her voice. “I do not like being up here, any more than you like having me here. I promise not to bolt again.”

Ashford snorted. “Tell me another.”

Being draped over the man who had been the center of her dreams for years gave new meaning to the word “intimate” as it had been imagined, once upon a time, as regards to Ashford, himself, and the role he played in her own secret world.

“You have no right—”

“As your husband, I have every right. You are my property now to do with as I please.”

“As you belong to me,” she said, taking a path that surprised even her, “according to the laws of God, and man, and that means all of you, including your hind end.” She slapped his bottom again, hoping to get him to put her down.

“As every part of you is mine to slap, or beat, or stroke,” he stressed, letting the word linger, though Lark was not as afraid as she thought she should be, but exhilarated and … cast as if afloat.

Panic and something more rose in her. Yes, her bottom was his to touch. As all of her was his to do whatever husbands were wont to do with their wives. If she knew what that was, precisely, and if she could be sure that a great deal of blood must not be involved, she might breathe easier again … or perhaps she would not.

CHAPTER FOUR

As she remembered the brutality her sister had suffered at the hands of the man she thought she loved, panic rushed Lark in bold strokes. She prayed that her faith in Ashford would be confirmed, no matter how dangerous he had appeared at several moments during the course of the evening just passed, and that he would not hurt her in the way her sister had been hurt.

Ash must have sensed her fear in some way, because he held her tighter of a sudden, almost as if with the reassurance of a protector.

No, she thought, denying her own foolishness, he held her in that way, only to keep her from sliding off his shoulder and down the bloody stairs.

Before another minute passed, he carried her into a chamber Prinny himself might happily occupy. The marble around the fireplace shone a tawny gold, a rich color that perfectly matched the veins in its cream marble trim. Did God create matching marble for the gratification of the wealthy? Lark wondered.

“Here we are, my gunpoint bride,” he said with obvious resentment. “The master bedchamber.”

Oh, she did not like his tone, Lark thought. “Why did you seek a wife if you do not actually want one?” she asked, to turn her skittering thoughts from bedchambers, especially his.

“My grandfather’s money will not come to me unless I have a wife.” He set her on her feet. “It appears as if destiny meant for you to take on that exalted role.”

“Money,” she said, with as much disdain as he had employed. “I should have known. There must be a great deal of it in the offing, then.” She was thinking of Micah again, realizing he might now have a decent future. What would the boy think of this place? The main stair-rail alone would make for some superb sliding, safe landing and all, carved as if to bow and kiss the floor.

“Money, yes, of which I have little at the moment,” her bridegroom admitted. “Fortunately, however, I do have enough to purchase a nicety or two, like soap, praise be. Grimsley, good man,” Ash said, as his valet appeared. “Have my big copper slipper bath filled at once.”

His valet looked her up and down, and narrowed his nostrils, as if he could smell her from where he stood, though he was too polite to say so. “
Your
bath, My Lord?”

“Do we have a problem, Grimsley?”

“No, My Lord. That is to say, ah … of course not, but I would dare to offer … Cook or Mim? Either, could set up a bath in the scullery, say, or before the kitchen fire?”

“Here, said I—” … Ash struggled against the spinning in his head. “And, here, I will say again. At once, whether you please or not. And bring the brandy.” Ash regretted his swollen head, a remnant of his evening’s entertainment, but what could a man do in such a case but raise his chin and scowl?

Grimsley regarded him as if he were daft, then he regarded his bride, with no less horror, and gave up the fight. “Very good, my lord.”

His bride, Ash saw, regarded her new husband as if he had sprouted wings and taken flight. She retreated as far as the wall at her back. “Had me a bath just last week,” said she, with so much humility, he would be a fool to lower his guard.

“Nevertheless, you stink, and if you fight me on this, well, your clothes, I could throw on the fire, but you, I might be forced to drown.”

“You cannot burn my clothes; you’ll leave me without a stitch? What kind of depraved man are you?”

“I am the degenerate who married you at gunpoint. Have you never heard of a husband’s privilege?”

“I do not recall hearing that wife-drowning was a husband’s privilege.” Lark dropped her arms to her sides in an expression of futility. “The stink-maker was Da’s favorite sow. She got loose before you come today. Had to chase her all the way up Market Street. Lost her twice, before I got me a riding hold on her. Slippery, don’t’cha know. I don’t usually smell so
terrible
bad.”

“Only half so bad, then? Happy to hear it. You rode a pig, you say?” Ash coughed to hide his grin, cringed at the pain in his head, and knew he must still be sotted. “No wonder my eyes watered all the way up the stairs. We
will
throw your clothes in the fire.”

His bride bit her lip, charming the muzzy bejesus out of him, while a swift swing of emotions—shock, awareness, curiosity—marched across her tri-freckled nose and furrowed her gull-winged brows. “I can hardly appear naked before the world.”

Ash raised a brow, bringing that pomegranate stain to her cheeks in the process, and chuckled, while she took to tracing a fleur-de-lis in his carpet with the toe of a tattered slipper.

“You do know that you’re wearing two different shoes, and that the rest of the world wears matched pairs?”

That brought her Scot’s temper to the fore. “They’re shoes, ain’t they? They keep me feet warm, don’t they? Try fighting a rag-picker and see how many matched pairs you come off with!”

“I’ll buy you a dozen matched pairs,” Ash said, surprising himself. He cleared his throat and shook his head free of the surge of sympathy that had overtaken him on her behalf. What cared he for the smelly schemer? “You can wrap up in a bed-sheet for all I care, until I make other arrange—no, wait, I can spare a dressing gown.”

At her look of gratitude … or adoration, Ash felt a burst of warmth that radiated outward, until he could hardly bear the burn. He moved a safe distance away and regarded her curiously. “What do you look like under all that soot?”

“My mother, I’ve been told.”

As Ash made to reply, Grimsley and two maids arrived with buckets of hot water. “Fill my bath and be quick about it,” he ordered, and his bride yelped and made for the hall. “Catch her, damn it!” Ash shouted then he swilled the brandy Grimsley had poured and took chase.

After a lengthy dash around the third floor, and a side trip to the fourth and fifth, Ash carried Lark, screaming, kicking and pummeling, down the hall and into his dressing room, where he unceremoniously dropped her, stinking clothes and all into a bath full of steaming water.

Ash knelt and tried to keep her there. “Quick, Grim, throw in as much soap as you can find. The way she’s thrashing, she’ll whip up a froth and wash herself, clothes and all.”

Ash had never noticed before that Grimsley could not stand without swaying, or was it the? Ash wasn’t certain. The room, he thought, his stomach churning fit to rebel again. Drat the woman; she was already discomposing him. He was exhausted from chasing her and his head throbbed from the sound of her screeching.

Ash dunked her under, just for a moment silence.

“You might be sorry for this night’s work tomorrow, my lord,” Grimsley dared as he dropped three bars of French milled soap into Larkin’s bath. “If you do not mind my saying so, you are somewhat in your cups.”

“Do you think so?”

“About which, my lord?”

Ash laughed. “I already regret it, Grim, but what can a man do. I married her you see.”

Grimsley paled and Ash made to explain, until he realized that he’d nearly forgot to let Lark surface, and when he did, she rose like a vengeful sea goddess and knocked him flat on his arse.

“I have had a great deal of experience with the male of the species,” she screamed like a fishwife, rising fully dressed, soaked and shaking with rage, “and you Ashford Blackburne are of the lowest variety.”

Ash met her head on then ducked to evade the facer she tried to plant him. “I won her in a card game,” he shouted to his valet above her screech of indignation.

“I am no prize,” she shouted.

“Obviously.” Ash pushed her back under.

“Good God,” Grimsley said, clearly unsure as to how he could extricate his master. “You won, my lord, and got that, er, her?”

She rose and tried to stand but Ash forced her to sit. “Uh … no, I lost. She’s a consolation, of sorts.” He held her by the shoulders to keep her sitting.

“What … what are you going to do with her?” Grim asked above her sailor’s curse.

“Bathe her … to begin with.”

“And send her away?” Poor Grimsley, he looked and sounded so hopeful.

“Ouch!” Lark had landed a blow to his jaw. In retaliation, Ash poured the remaining contents of the hot water bucket over her head. “I suppose I could, though I have need of her if you will remember. Here, help me unfasten some of these clothes.”

His hellcat bride did not agree with the notion. Though thrice wounded, Grimsley nonetheless persevered and attempted to help, without success, so Ash sent him away.

For good or ill—ill more like—Lark was his wife, and in the event he actually succeeded in his current quest to rid her of her clothing, he would not be flaunting her in the flesh before another.

Grimsley, of all his staff, would never speak of this night’s work. Loyal to a fault, Grim had been with him through his bloody days under Wellington’s command. He’d evaded bullets and bayonets and helped Ash off the field after his horse went down, when he might otherwise have been left to perish. Loyalty was Grimsley’s motto.

Ash attempted to strip Larkin himself, wishing he had a whip and a chair to hand, as he’d seen at Astley’s back when he thought his worst problem was finding a bride, before he knew that taming one could be the death of him.

Him? Wed to a guttersnipe, a smelly, foul-mouthed pig-chaser, a card-sharp’s scheming daughter? On the other hand, a schemer might understand his scheme to win his inheritance; a schemer might be more than willing to strike a bargain.

He needed to fulfill the will. Would Larkin Rose McAdams—no, Larkin Rose Blackburne, now—God help him. Would his new wife help him in his ultimate pursuit, he wondered, once she knew
all
the requirements?

Unfortunately, before he could inherit, he would first have to prove to his grandfather that he had made a good match, never mind getting his bride with child before Christmas, which stipulation said bride had yet to learn, and which blessed event would never take place if he could not bathe her before he tried to bed her.