Dangerous Diana (Brambridge Novel 3) (6 page)

But then he took a step back. With a humph, Melissa picked up her book and stared blindly at the page.
Please don’t notice that my eyes aren’t moving.
As her eyes focused she groaned silently; in her haste she had picked up the book on Cicero. She forced herself to read a page, and then another, and another. In fact it was rather fascinating. He was complaining about the boorishness of military generals. She smiled; she rather knew how he felt.

“You do know that you are reading my book, and that it is in Latin?”

Melissa dropped the book to her lap with a sharp intake of breath. It was not surprising that the earl was a sharply observant man. “Err yes. I read Latin. My father taught me. Um. He was a botanist.” It helped with the classification of flowers. They all had their Latin names. She glared unseeingly at the earl and lifted the book to her nose once more.

“Wouldn’t you rather be reading your book on,” the earl picked up the small tome on the oval table and hesitated, “naval medicine?”

“No. Please go away.” She drew in a breath.
No, don’t go away.
Clenching her fingers, she opened her mouth to speak again.

At that moment Carter returned bearing more sandwiches and followed by two footmen carrying a large green velour chair. Without a word, the earl stepped aside as the butler directed the footmen to place the chair on the other side of the oval table. Melissa closed her mouth with a snap as the footmen angled the chair to face the fire, darting curious glances at her as they did so. With a sharp word, Carter sent them away and followed them.

The earl folded his arms and loomed foursquare in front of the fire, appearing expectant. Melissa did not look up. Deliberately, even though she was about to burst, she placed another sandwich on her plate and poured herself a cup of coffee. “You had better be quick,” she said, taking a bite of the sandwich. “I’m still hungry.”

The earl unfolded his arms and flexed his fingers. “I never get sandwiches,” he muttered. Arturo, who had followed him in, jumped up on the green chair and sniffed delicately at the rolls.

As though he was a prisoner walking to his fate, the earl lifted up the dog and placed him on the ground. Turning himself around, he lowered himself into the green chair, settling comfortably with a grunt of surprise. Arturo jumped up again, and was rewarded with a biscuit. The earl himself ate a sandwich, and another, and another until they were all gone.

“Can I pour you some coffee?” Melissa asked uncertainly as she made to put the coffee pot back on the table. The earl blinked and turned a softened gaze on her which hardened as she looked at him.

“Yes. Please,” he added as an afterthought.

Quickly she poured a fresh cup of coffee and held it out, her arms straight.

As he took the cup from her, his large hands brushed against hers. Melissa looked up quickly and tensed, but a tingling fire gathered in her palm
.

“Shall we start again?” he said. “My name is Hades.” The earl coughed and gazed at her directly, the blaze of warmth in his eyes apparent again. She blinked and it was gone. “How did you become the Viper?”

She drew her arms sharply into her body and stood.

“If you will excuse me, I will not join you for dinner.” Picking up her book, she marched to the door and slipped through it. Without waiting for Carter, she made her own way blindly to her bedroom.

Without bothering to undress, she pulled back the coverlet to the bed and flung herself back against the mattress. He still thought she was the Viper! Laying her spectacles on the bedside table, she patted the sheets for her book, and sighed as she brought it close to her nose to read its title. In her haste to escape she had picked up Cicero and not the book on naval medicine.

Rolling onto her side, she rested the book on her pillow and started to read, her eyes catching on the inscription on the flyleaf.
Dearest Hades,
it began. Melissa shivered and read on, pausing only to pull the coverlets up over her body, the warm cotton sliding tantalizingly against her skin.

CHAPTER 7

Hades leant low into his horse’s mane and pressed his knees into its heaving sides. Four rides in half as many days—it was unheard of. But she… she affected him in a way he didn’t understand. She had looked like a cat, curled up in the familiar leather cushioning of his chair. He gripped at his reins as the horse flew over a log. She had been the victor in their exchange. By taking the green chair, he had just descended the slippery slope to more compromise.

It had been thus with Lady Elsa Dalston. She had taken, and taken and taken, until Hades had had nothing more to give. Hades shivered and hunched. She had rejected him, just as he had been about to make her his bride. He gritted his jaw and jerked at the reins, slowing the racing horse. Melissa would be allowed no further quarter, Viper or no.

The horse was in no mood to slow. Pulling and heaving at the thin leathers in his hand, Hades turned the horse toward the exit to the park and thundered hard towards home. But the Hill Street house was not the haven he had left it. From the outside he could see that the customarily drawn drapes in the front room were open and as he pushed open the large front door, loud singing filtered up the servant’s stairs from the kitchen.

He stood for a few moments in the large hall, but still the singing did not abate. “What is going on?” he thundered.

Carter scuttled into the hall and coughed nervously. “Nothing my lord, just a little spring cleaning.”

Hades frowned at the butler and resisted the urge to growl. “Where is she?”

“In the study… but…”

Of course.
Whacking his riding whip against his thigh, he crashed through the door of the study and stopped abruptly.

She had done it again. Melissa’s small body lay curled up in his chair, her slippers on the floor and her glasses lying on the oval table. His book on Cicero was nowhere to be seen. And she snored; the cleaned low-cut gown he had captured her in barely containing her breasts that rose and fell as she breathed deeply.

Hades resisted the urge to go any closer. He closed the door quietly and, stepping back into the hall, thrust his whip on the hall table. Carter and four footmen stared at him, all incongruously armed with small dusting brushes.

“What?” he roared, unable to contain himself. The men scattered fearfully and mercifully the singing from the kitchen stopped. Head down, he stomped into the front room and sat down in a red velvet chair, the twin of the green one that now sat in his study.

Carter knocked and edged his body to just inside the door. “A…Are you sure she is the Viper, sir?” he asked, his eyes wide.

“What do you think, Carter?” Hades asked dejectedly.

Carter clasped his hands together and his face adopted a dreamy look. “I don’t think she is, sir. She seems far too nice. I think she was a debutante at one point too. She keeps reading all of the medicinal tomes you have, and has already cured Charles’ cough.”

“Mmm I heard. He still can’t sing. Perhaps she can work on yours next.”

Carter blinked at Hades’ unexpected joke. Hades sighed. No one ever expected him to have a little levity. Least of all himself.

“And yes she was a debutante. I danced with her myself, as a matter of fact.”

“She must have been an excellent dancer.” Carter’s eyes unfocused, and his arms came up as if holding an imaginary partner in his hands.

Hades frowned. He couldn’t remember much about dancing with Melissa apart from being angry with Freddie Lassiter and Melissa saying her name was Diana.
And drowning mesmerized in her eyes of course
. Where had her spectacles been then? His frown deepened. And why had she according to rumor refused at least ten marriage proposals and attempted to marry Lord Stanton?

Carter coughed, and his arms fell back to his side. “I think you will find that your young lady is awake, sir.”

Hades uncrossed his legs, blinking fiercely. His young lady? The important thing was that she was now awake. He had some questions he needed to ask her.

He re-entered the study, glancing towards the leather chair. But she was not there. She stood on the highest step of the library chair, fully extended trying to reach a book at the top of the flora and fauna section.

With an oath, he crossed the room quickly and, grasping her by the waist, swung her to the floor. As her feet touched the carpet, she gasped softly and stood as rigid as a board. But still he kept his hands on her waist.

“What is the Viper to you, Miss Sumner?” Hades needed to know, had to know. What if she was the Viper’s woman?

“The Viper is nobody to me.” Melissa’s voice dipped and strengthened. “I do not know who he is.”

Hades started to remove his hands. She was lying. He could tell it in the sound of her voice. But she stepped forward and pushed his hands back onto her waist.

“If I kiss you, will you let me go? Will you let me leave here?” she asked in a low voice. Hades could not say anything. Nothing had robbed him of his senses before such as this.

In the silence she removed his hands from beneath hers, and stepped away, leaving him oddly bereft, as though he should have taken the chance when he was offered it. But then she returned, dragging the library chair behind her. With supple grace, she stood on the first rung and leaned forward and hesitantly brushed her lips slowly against his. His breath hitched at the fleeting contact, but almost matter of factly she stepped down off the chair and made to put it away again.

Not fair.
Grasping her again by her waist with his strong hands, he pulled her back towards him and bent his head. Her mouth was round in surprise. Without giving her any time to protest, he plundered her sweet mouth with his. She tasted of coffee and hazelnuts. With a groan, he deepened his kiss. Melissa moaned beneath him, and her hands stole up to rest lightly on his shoulders—

A cough at the partially opened door stopped him from going further. He had been about to push Melissa into the bookshelves and work his way down to her sweet-smelling neck and then…
damn Carter for never knocking
. Releasing Melissa, he stepped away and she collapsed like a rag doll to the floor.

He squared his shoulders and stared at the fireplace. “I think you will find,
madame
, that in the end it was I that kissed you. And no. You cannot go. You have something to do with the Viper, and I want to know what it is.”

Melissa looked up at him, her spectacles askew on her nose, her skirt splayed out across the floor. He laughed harshly. She had tried to play him and he had taught her a lesson, the one that Lady Elsa had taught him.
But gods, the sweetness of her lips!

Pulling the study door open he strode into the hall. “Next time knock, Carter,” he said angrily to the bulging eyes of the butler. Hades needed something to drink again. And then he was going out to the Temple of Muses bookshop. There was nothing like a dry book to take one’s mind off… off… well things one
didn’t
want to think about.

The Temple of Muses Bookshop didn’t help. Even the musty smell of books didn’t console him. It smelt like the study at home.

Hades roamed among the dark, double stacked shelves, picking out books at random, ignoring the other customers that paid him startled glances as he brushed roughly passed them. He had a copy of everything in the military section, everything in the strategy section and he wasn’t interested in anything else. 

“Earl Harding, sir?” The elderly gentleman at the counter bobbed him a quick bow as Hades paused by the door.

“Yes, Harry?”

“We have that order you made last week, De Re Militari by Vegetius. Would you like to take it now?”

“Oh, yes of course.” Abashed, Hades walked back into the shop to the long mahogany counter
.
Melissa was fuddling his brain. He’d been waiting for De Re Militari for weeks. He leaned on the polished wood with his elbows and stared at the humorous bookend the counter clerk had enterprisingly displayed.
‘I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.’
Hades snorted and rubbed at his face with his arm.

“Very popular that’s been.” The clerk tapped the bookend. “The book it’s from less so. It’s by a woman. I think her name is Austen.”  He shook his head and stepped down into the backroom behind the counter.

“Harry?” Hades lifted his voice slightly.

“Yes, sir?” The clerk bustled back with a book wrapped in brown paper.

“You don’t happen to have anything else new in in the back there? Anything to do with military? Strategy?”

The clerk shook his head. “I keep everything new for you my lord. But this week, what you see in the stacks is all we have. And I believe you already have a copy of most of them.”

Hades hesitated. “Have you anything on flora?”

“Flora, sir?”

Hades shuffled his feet. “Yes. Flowers and such like.”

“I don’t know. I’ll just take a moment to look in the back. It’s not really our normal fayre.” The clerk ducked back into the room behind the counter. “Is this a new theme of reading for you, my lord?” His voice filtered softly out of the back room, the sound deadened by the many books in the shop.

Hades took a furtive look around the shop. Strangely, most of the customers seemed to have made their way to the ends of their shelves and loitered shamelessly, one eye on the books, and an ear pointing in the direction of the counter.

He turned back as the clerk staggered back into the main part of the shop and dropped the pile of books on the counter.

“I’ve got a bit of everything here, my lord, but they all go together so I don’t really want to split them up.”

Hades shook his head. “I’ll take them all. Put the flowery ones in a separate parcel. It’ll make it easier to carry.”

“Of course sir. And might I say that is a mighty fine Dianthus Carrolus.”

“What?” Hades started. “What did you say?”

The clerk took a step back from the counter, his face paling. “Your carnation, sir. I thought it was your newfound passion for flowers that—” His voice trembled to a stop as Hades looked down at the carnation that Carter had pushed in his button hole and frowned.