Untouched (11 page)

Slowly, she turned. Lord Sheene leaned indolently against the wall near the door, his arms folded across his chest. His

expression was shuttered but she read the anger blazing beneath his sangfroid.

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He was her only ally against Lord John’s evil. She needed him to trust her. She needed an hour unshadowed by fear.

Futile to list what she needed. The stark reality struck that what she needed above all was survival.

What would survival cost?

“You cannot think I’m in league with your uncle,” she said in a broken voice.

“I cannot think otherwise. You and he shared a long, apparently fruitful conversation and he reeked of self-satisfaction

when I saw him step into his coach a few moments ago. Tell me—what’s the next scene in this farce?” He sounded as

though he didn’t care but a muscle jerked spasmodically in his lean cheek, eloquent witness to temper.

She felt as though she’d been shaking forever. She was too distraught to dissemble. “I am to cozen you into my bed.”

His haughty expression didn’t alter. “Surely that was your cause from the start. No need to exert yourself with this show

of desperation. Your terrified act duped me once before. The repeat performance isn’t nearly so effective. Perhaps eschew

the vulnerability and adopt a more seductive manner.”

Grace flinched. He sounded like he hated her. If he truly believed she connived with his uncle, who could blame him?

She met the marquess’s burning eyes, frantically searching for some goodwill, some trace of the man who had been

almost cordial less than an hour ago. “My lord, I’m in trouble.”

He smiled, a grim twist of his beautiful mouth. “You most certainly are, Mrs. Paget. Especially when my uncle realizes I

stand by my vow not to touch you.”

“You won’t help me.” The words emerged as a thread of sound. Something clenched inside her like a cold hard fist. She

felt lost in an endless desert.

His inimical gaze flicked across her as if she were eternally beneath his notice. The look was terrifyingly similar to the

one his uncle had cast upon her. Then a smile conveyed rejection and triumph in equal measure. “Help you, madam? How

may a poor madman help you when he cannot help himself?”

“You have to believe me when I say I don’t conspire with your uncle.”

His response bit at her like a whiplash. “On the contrary, my dear Mrs. Paget, I don’t have to believe anything you say.”

“I’m telling you the truth,” she insisted in helpless despair.

“Truth?” He gave a short, contemptuous laugh. “You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“I beg of you, my lord, help me.”

His expression hardened and his mouth flattened with implacable rejection. “You waste your time with these theatrics. I

told you—I’m awake to your deceit.”

Weak, useless tears welled up. She could see that nothing she said would convince him she wasn’t his enemy. All hope

was lost. All hope had been lost from when she’d set out to find Vere in Bristol.

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She stumbled toward the door. She didn’t have the strength to argue with the man she must seduce. The man who had

never liked her, most emphatically didn’t want her, and who now quite obviously loathed her.

He turned his head as she reached him and spoke with a detachment she knew was feigned. “Just tell me one thing, Mrs.

Paget—are you my uncle’s lover?”

She stopped as if she collided with an invisible barrier and stared at him aghast. For the first time, she really believed he

was out of his mind.

Another woman might have slapped him. But she was too astonished for outrage.

As her shocked silence extended, he straightened away from the wall and brushed past. She didn’t move as she listened to

him stride out of the cottage. His rapid steps suggested he couldn’t bear to breathe the same air as she did for another

second.

Matthew stretched out as far as he could—not bloody far enough—on his awkward sofa and listened to Grace pace in the

room above. It was late, past midnight. As if to prove him right, the hall clock chimed two. He hadn’t slept. From what he

heard upstairs, neither had she.

They hadn’t met since he’d challenged her with being his uncle’s mistress. For the first time, she hadn’t come down to

dinner. He wondered if she’d eaten, then chided himself for caring about the artful trull’s well-being. She could sulk up

there until Kingdom Come as far as he was concerned.

Burning anger still choked him. Anger with her. And with himself for allowing her to sneak under his barriers. He’d

always known she was his uncle’s creature, a superb actress ready to go to any length to convince her unwilling audience

of one. God knows she’d even drugged herself to nausea to achieve that last touch of verisimilitude.

Yet she’d gained his cooperation, his friendship, his trust. Or at least she’d been on the verge of gaining those things. If

he hadn’t emerged from the courtyard in time to see his uncle drive away, he might have fallen into her warm, fragrant

trap.

He’d wanted to kill her then.

He rolled over on the couch, but five nights’ experience told him there was no comfortable position for a man of his

height. Savagely, he punched the cushions under his head.

What use lying awake and stewing over her duplicity? He should be inured to treachery. Betrayal had dogged him for the

last eleven years. Hers was just one more instance, and scarcely the most significant.

Although that wasn’t how it felt.

A step creaked. What the hell was she doing? Perhaps she wanted a walk, unlikely as the hour was. He’d welcome

surcease from her damned endless pacing.

She paused outside the salon. The door squeaked faintly as she pushed it open. Immediately, he lay still, feigning sleep.

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His senses were always abnormally sharp around her. He heard the uneven saw of her breath, the rustle of her clothing.

Not the rasp of the silks or satins that seemed to constitute her wardrobe. No, this was something softer that whispered as

she moved.

She crept inside, then paused in the center of the room. He dared a quick look under his lashes. She wore something pale

and filmy so he had no trouble locating her.

She’d never approached him at night. Clearly, Lord John’s visit had incited her to take the initiative. What other purpose

could bring her here silent as a ghost? His uncle had ordered her to bed him and like a good little puppet, she danced to

the tug of the strings.

The reminder of his uncle stirred his anger. Thank Christ. Otherwise, he’d have leapt to his feet and grabbed her, damn

the consequences.

Her scent called to him, tempting him to forget everything except that she was close enough to touch. His hands balled

against his sides.

If he touched her, he’d take her.

He resented her. He mistrusted her. But he couldn’t deny he wanted her.

He didn’t know how long they waited. He, pretending to sleep. She, trapped between fleeing and advancing. All the time,

his unruly flesh swelled and rose, insisting she was his for the price of reaching out his hand.

“I know you’re awake,” she said huskily.

“Yes.” He gave a heavy sigh and sat up, placing his bare feet flat upon the floor. Although it was dark, he dragged the

blanket across to cover his nakedness. “What do you want, Mrs. Paget?” he asked wearily, running his hands through his

hair.

“I don’t know.”

That was a lie. They both knew why she was here. She was his uncle’s obedient cipher. But God help him, she sounded

so innocent and bewildered. He tried to revive his earlier rage but he was too dizzy with lust.

“Sweet Jesus,” he muttered to himself rather than to her. He couldn’t take much more. He stood, hitching the blanket

more securely. She gasped and lurched back. Copulation might be her goal but she seemed less than reconciled to the

idea.

The darkness was dangerously intimate. He leaned across and lit a candle to dispel the web of awareness between them.

A futile hope. He was always aware of her.

She’d tied her thick dark hair into a glossy plait that fell across one shoulder and dangled between her breasts. Under her

transparent ice-blue night rail, the outline of her slender body was visible.

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She kept her gaze lowered. Even so, she must have sensed where his eyes dwelt. To his reluctant regret, she wrapped her

arms around herself, covering her chest. It was a characteristic gesture she used when she was frightened, or at least

pretending to be so.

“You’re safe enough,” he said in a dismissive tone, praying it was true. “I can restrain my manly passions.”

“You don’t have any manly passions,” she said sullenly.

“What?”

He stared at her, startled. A flush of color seeped under the creamy skin of her face.

“No, I meant…That is…” She took a deep breath and at last looked at him. Unbelievably, he watched the beautiful eyes

widen and fix on his bare chest. Her color rose higher and her tongue flickered out to moisten her lips. Her arms dropped

loosely to her sides as though she offered herself. If he hadn’t known better, he’d believe she found him as compelling as

he found her.

She wrenched her gaze up to meet his. “I’m sorry. I referred to your interactions with me. I mean, I’m sure you have

manly passions. Every man…” She trailed off. She glanced away and her attention focused on the rumpled sofa. “I didn’t

know you slept down here.”

He shrugged. “You occupy the only bed in the house.”

“I know.” Again she licked her lips, pink, moist, succulent. The simple action tightened the coil of lust inside him. “Or I

know now. I looked for you upstairs but only one chamber is set up for sleeping.”

That explained some of the restless movement he’d heard. The picture of her pursuing him through the darkened house

was evocative enough to stop his breath. Thank God for the blanket around his waist or his unwelcome visitor would have

no doubt about his manly passions.

He bent his head in an ironical bow. “Until your delightful advent into my existence, I hadn’t expected to entertain

guests.”

She flinched at his sarcasm. His brain kept telling him she was a deceitful little cat. His heart stubbornly insisted that

every time he attacked her, he should be horsewhipped.

Right now, though, even the most obstinate part of his mind found it hard to credit she was quite the lying witch he

believed her. She followed his every move with her drowned dark sapphire eyes as if unsure whether he meant to tumble

her or strangle her.

Although if she were genuinely reluctant, she’d cover her body with a robe. If she were genuinely reluctant, she wouldn’t

be in this room at all. He forced his gaze away from the tantalizing shadows beneath her flat belly.

“I want to talk to you,” she said in a reedy voice.

“Do you?” he asked unhelpfully.

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She wasn’t here to talk. There was only one reason she stood before him in her delightful dishabille. She contrived to

seduce him as his uncle had commanded.

Now the time had come, and she was unable to complete the act. He mocked himself for that burning instant when he’d

imagined she felt the first sparks of desire.

“Yes.” There was a pause while she sought some reason to explain disturbing him in the middle of the night. Then in a

rush, “It’s not fitting that you sleep here. You’re the Marquess of Sheene. You should have the bedchamber.”

Aha, he thought, fighting the urge to tell her to stop talking and just do what she’d come for. Perhaps she meant to lure

him to her bed first. He cast a derisive glance at his inconvenient couch. She’d certainly be more comfortable under him

upstairs.

Then she confounded him as she almost always did. “I could sleep in here.”

So she wasn’t inviting him to share the bedroom. He had no right to be disappointed. As long as his will held—and it

wavered by the second—he had no intention of tupping her.

“No, keep the bed,” he said shortly. How could he bear to sleep where she had slept? The idea was too evocative, fatal to

his will.

“Your uncle said you’d been ill.”

His laugh was humorless. “Of course I’ve been ill. I went mad.”

The serious gaze didn’t falter. “No, he said you’d been ill this last year.”

“I see you were in the mood for confidences.”

She studied him with that damnably steady regard as if she meant to uncover his every secret. He had a strange

premonition in his gut that she’d succeed. “Your uncle is an evil man,” she said softly.

That startled him. “Most people find him charming. Even I did, when I was a boy.” Then an unwelcome thought struck

him. “Did he hurt you?”

His uncle rarely descended to violence. He had Monks and Filey and a host of other bullies to enforce his will when he

wished to exert physical coercion.

She shook her head so the plait slid beguilingly along the valley between her breasts. Jesus, she was spellbinding. How

could he fight her? He reminded himself that she was his uncle’s instrument but the idea was no longer so convincing.