A Common Scandal (6 page)

“You’re as much a phony as I am. Look at you in your fine suit and your fine manners. What are you about anyway?”

“Are you implying I don’t belong here?” His voice had dropped to a low, dangerous growl. When an animal made that sound, a sensible person took a step back to preserve their safety. Sensibility had never been her strong suit.

“Oh, no, you belong all too well. I thought you were just putting on an act for these toffs, like me. But I can see now, you’ve been domesticated through and through. I bet I could still beat you climbing to the top of the mast, couldn’t I?”

“A fine suit of clothes hasn’t taken the edge off me. I could best you at that race. And a great many other things, as well.”

Oh.
That proclamation made several parts of her body suddenly come to life and sit up at attention. She drew in a great shuddering breath. It would be wise to back down now, end this argument and return to the safety of the ballroom. But backing down from a scrap had never been her style.

“Really? You look as tame as they come now. A veritable lap cat for Lady Julia to cuddle.”

“Be careful, Amelia. I’m no lap cat.”

“Aren’t you?”

His eyes narrowed and his lips thinned, one corner curling up into a smile like a slash through his face. A sweep of unruly blond hair fell across his forehead. In an instant, the sophisticated gentleman in neatly pressed evening wear was gone and in his place...a pirate. “Do you really want to find out?”

Amelia’s eyes widened as she felt the electric air coalesce and condense around them. It was so thick she could barely draw a breath. Her entire body trembled, anticipation and trepidation dancing a waltz down her limbs, but she forced out a careless scoff. “You might have changed, but I don’t believe for a second you’d ever be a danger to me.”

“There’s more than one kind of danger.”

Her throat constricted with nerves, and her hands fisted. “Quite a lot of talk from such an elegant gentleman.”

His voice was a gritty growl, forced out between clenched teeth. “I may have learned to slip in alongside them, but I have never—not once—claimed to be a gentleman.”

One long arm shot out to wrap around her waist, pulling her up tight against his chest. Her lips parted in shock, but before she could utter a single word, his mouth came down on hers.

Good God, what was he doing? Certainly not thinking. He was quite sure there hadn’t been a single rational thought at work when he reached out for Amelia and kissed her. Immediately, he knew he’d crossed a line and should let her go. But when she was pressed up against him—every delicious curve of her—he found it impossible to let go right away.

And then she did the unthinkable. She kissed him back.

What did he expect from the hellion he’d been sparring with for the past quarter of an hour? How could he think she would back down in the face of a little lust?

Not a little lust, it turned out. He was drowning in a veritable sea of it. His hand was on her waist, wrapping nearly halfway around its tiny span. His other hand held her head, the almost fragile curve of her neck. Her hands slipped from his shoulders up to his hair, her fingers curling in and tugging until it almost hurt. He groaned as it caused an unexpected reaction farther down, his body roaring to be set loose. Her kiss was inexperienced but enthusiastic, and any lack of nuance ceased to matter when he opened his lips over hers and she responded in kind and without hesitation. Not thinking, not questioning, his tongue swept in and found hers. A tiny, breathy moan slid from her mouth into his and he swallowed it down.

Her breasts were pressed against his chest, swelling over the edge of her bodice, making him imagine tugging it down, setting them free. He could shift the fabric off her shoulder and it would give way and give him access... He didn’t decide to slide his hand up and touch her, but there he was, his large palm over her breast, his thumb dragging across where he could imagine her nipple would be, pebbled and hard beneath the bones of her corset. Her fingers clutched into his hair again, the luxurious pleasure-pain of it sending a jolt of heat straight to his groin.

From inside the ballroom, mere steps away, came a tinkle of a broken glass and startled laughter.

Nate pulled his mouth from hers with a gasp.

For a long, heavy moment, they simply stared at each other, absorbing what had transpired. Her sparkling dark eyes were huge. Her lovely rosebud mouth was open slightly, lips pink, swollen and glistening. He squeezed his eyes shut. Slowly—achingly slowly—his body cooled and his brain began to turn again. He was still painfully hard. With a start, he realized where his hand was, still cupping her breast. Dropping it away as if he’d been burned, he took an unsteady step back and cleared his throat. Amelia’s eyelids fluttered down and she moved back, too. Her fingers came up to touch her mouth, but she quickly reached back to smooth her hair instead.

Nate brushed his own hair off his face, flattening it where her fingers had plundered... Good God. He’d kissed her. Kissed Amelia. And not some shy brush of the lips to test the waters. That had been a full-fledged assault. He’d touched her. If the noise from inside hadn’t startled them, he might have gone much further. No, he
knew
he would have. Even now he was cursing the interruption that had kept him from pulling down the bodice of her dress the way he’d wanted to.

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. What had he done? He’d compromised her. Men had ended up at the altar for trespassing less. When he opened his eyes, Amelia was turned to the side, head bowed, eyes on the wrist of her glove as she struggled to refasten a tiny pearl button that had come loose.

“Amelia...” What could he say or do to make this right? Would she weep? Would she run to her father and reveal what he’d done? After all his careful planning, his entire future might be decided by one rash moment when lust had overruled common sense.

“Hmm?”

“I’m very sorry. I don’t know what came over me. My behavior was inexcusable.”

Amelia turned back to him, rolling her eyes. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Natty. Don’t be so dramatic.”

“But what I did—”

“I did it, too.”

“What?”

“I kissed you back. Or did you miss that part?”

“Regardless, I should say something—”

He took a step toward her but she held up her hand to stop him. “Oh, no you won’t. We’re going to forget all about it.”

Her words should have relaxed the unbearable tension in his shoulders, but oddly, it didn’t. “Forget it? But Amelia, your reputation—”

“It’s perfectly intact. Well, it’s as good as it ever was, which wasn’t all that good. Still, no damage done. Be sensible, Natty. No one saw us. The only two people who know about it are you and me, and
I’m
not going to tell.” She arched an eyebrow at him.

“No. No, of course not. I’ll be perfectly discreet.”

“See? Nothing to worry about.” She cast a glance at the doors leading back to the ballroom. “Papa’s sure to have missed me by now and he’ll have my hide if I snub Mr. Cheadle. I have get back to work on Radwill.”

“What are you talking about?”

She looked back at him. “My marriage. I’ve got to marry a title, so I’d better get to it, hadn’t I?”

Sweeping up her train in one hand, she turned and disappeared back into the crush of guests inside. Everything she’d said made perfect sense. She was following the most logical course of action for both of them. But Nate watched her go feeling absolutely sick to his stomach.

* * *

Amelia careened through the ballroom, not noticing whose elbows she banged or whose hems she trod on. Her heart was pounding and her breath was coming in sharp pants. Even though she was surrounded on all sides by bodies, she was aware of only
one
body, back there behind her on the terrace. No, that wasn’t precisely true. She was aware of her
own
body in a way she never had been before. Her palms itched inside her gloves. Her breasts felt far too confined by her corset. And underneath all her skirts and petticoats and stockings, she was trembling—her thighs and between her legs.

Natty had kissed her.
Nate
. He was right. A man who could do things like that with his mouth and hands had no business being called a little boy’s name.

Nate had kissed her. And touched her. And it had been glorious.

She’d wanted to poke at the sparking energy between them to see what might happen. Never had she dreamed such a thing could happen, or that it would be so...spectacular. He’d almost ruined it after, with his stricken, honorable expression, like he was considering doing the Right Thing or some such nonsense. Thank heavens she’d smoothed it over, because if anyone found out what she’d done with him—if her
father
found out—it would be the end of her. He seemed to be prepared to keep it to himself, however.

Now she needed to do the same. And there was the rub. She wanted to shout it from the rooftops. “
Nate kissed me and it was wonderful and every man will pale in comparison!
”

Every man. Or just the one man.

Her eyes sought out Lord Radwill on the other side of the room. There he was, as pleasant and inoffensive as he had been an hour ago. He was speaking with Lady Bishop. A rather perfunctory conversation, if she could read it properly. This was her opening. She could go pay her own respects to Lady Bishop. She could strike up another conversation with Lord Radwill. Lady Bishop would facilitate the conversation for a bit before discreetly excuse herself, leaving them alone. It was a well-used maneuver, and rather to be expected at a function like this. Still, her feet were rooted to the floor. She didn’t want to go make small talk with Lady Bishop. She had no desire to engage Lord Radwill in conversation and spend the rest of the evening subtly flirting with him.

This was a disaster. Radwill was perhaps the best option she’d encountered yet. There he was, ready and waiting, and all she could think of was that scoundrel back on the balcony. She couldn’t do this. There was no time for distraction.

Just as she was shaking off the last of their encounter and resolving to join Lady Bishop and restart her campaign, someone tapped on her shoulder.

“Miss Wheeler?”

Lady Evelyn Sanbourne, the only daughter of the Earl of Tewsbury, gazed expectantly at her, with none other than Lady Julia Harrow at her side. Lady Evelyn’s eyes were lit up with some sort of unholy glee. Had someone seen them after all? Was she about to be called out as the trollop she was in the middle of this ballroom?

Lady Evelyn reached out for her hand, grasping it in her surprisingly strong grip. “Oh, Miss Wheeler, you’re the very person I was hoping to see tonight.”

“I am?” Lady Evelyn was hardly a bosom friend. In fact, they were little more than nodding acquaintances and she’d always assumed Lady Evelyn resented having to acknowledge her at all. She was a tall, robust young woman, with an attractive face, a head full of thick, light brown hair and an outsize sense of her own importance. While Evelyn wasn’t especially malicious, Amelia had found her to be spoiled and rather self-absorbed. She wasn’t the nastiest debutante in London, although she was close friends with that shrew, Kitty Ponsoy.

“Oh, yes!” Lady Evelyn enthused. “We’re having a house party at Tewsmere in September and you simply must promise to attend!”

“Oh...I’m not sure.” Amelia stalled. She knew very well what was behind this invitation. It was what lay behind most invitations she received from proper young ladies. People invited Amelia because she was bound to say or do something outrageous, which was always entertaining for them. But tonight she wasn’t feeling inclined to be the dancing monkey for a bunch of Society misses, certainly not at a house party that would last for a week, without a friendly face to make it bearable.

“You are not allowed to refuse me, Miss Wheeler. I’m quite desperate. It’s Papa’s party, you see, and he’s invited all these dreadful bores from the House of Lords, so they can go shoot things and discuss parliamentary issues. I simply must round up some young people to keep things lively or I shall go mad. Please promise me you’ll come.”

Amelia opened her mouth to refuse again, but then Lady Julia, of all people, appealed to her. “Please say you’ll come, Miss Wheeler. We shall be quite dull otherwise.” Lady Julia had been something of an enigma since she first made her come out. She was twenty-four, or thereabouts, quite past her prime as a debutante. She was an earl’s daughter, and reasonably attractive, so her continued unmarried state was something of a mystery. It might have something to do with her manner. While not arrogant, there was something reserved about her, as if she was observing everyone around her without ever truly engaging. Amelia thought she must have crossed paths with Lady Julia a hundred times before but she still knew almost nothing about her. Except her father was an earl and now Nate seemed to fancy her.

“I would have to speak to my father...”

Lady Evelyn sensed an opening and pounced. “So many delightful young gentlemen have already promised they’ll attend. Robert Ponsoy, Anthony Batchelder, Will Thistlethwaite, you know...that whole Cambridge gang. And tonight I’ve managed to coax Mr. Cheadle and Lord Radwill into coming.”

Lord Radwill.
A house party. A week in close company. It was an opportunity to secure him she couldn’t pass up.

Amelia smiled brightly. “You make it sound like such fun. Of course I’d love to come.”

“Oh, how delightful! I’ll send ’round the formal invitation tomorrow. We’ll have such sport! Say, you’re acquainted with Mr. Smythe, aren’t you?”

Did the flush of horror she felt through her whole body manifest itself on her face? “Um...yes. We were friendly as children.” Lady Evelyn stepped forward and curled her hand into the crook of Amelia’s arm. Her green eyes were bright and the expression on her face was rapacious. “Then I’m sure you won’t mind at all if I impose on you to convince him to come.”

“You want me to invite Mr. Smythe to come?”

“Oh, I’ve already invited him, but he was entirely too diffident. Please convince him to come.”