My Scandalous Viscount (11 page)

A light sweat had broken out on them both. She was sensitive and tight, but there was no pain as his hard length thrust more deeply into her passage. She felt completely free with him and thrilled to his every growl and groan, audible evidence of how much he was enjoying her. He moaned her name as she straddled him, braced on her hands above him.

She splayed her palm against his chest. “Are you really mine?” she whispered.

“Goddamn right I am,” he ground out, his teeth clenched with pleasure. “Anytime you want me.”

His answer flooded her with a burning wave of passion. She leaned down to consume his mouth in a nigh-barbaric kiss. He grasped her buttocks and pulled her down more firmly onto his iron shaft. She gasped at his depth inside her, the size and power of his taking.

He sat up after a few moments; she had to shift her position to accommodate, kneeling across his lap, facing him. With his hands planted behind him, he lifted his hips up and down, giving Carissa the ride of her life. Her eyes closed, her head tipped back in abandon. She clung to his broad shoulders while he drove her on and on toward her climax.

As she looked into his glittering eyes, the pleasure and the sweetness of the life ahead of them took her by surprise with a flood of welling emotion that seemed to come out of the blue. Surely he would think she was a quiz, but she couldn’t help it; in the throes of passion in her wedding bed, tears filled her eyes, as if the formidable walls she’d so long built around her heart had suddenly burst wide open.

It was only then, in that moment, that she gave herself to him without reserve. But Beau was too wise a lover to find the tears of her release anything but beautiful.

As though he could sense exactly what was going through her mind, he reached gently for her nape and drew her lips to his while the tears ran down her face.

Her gasps were ragged with more than physical release as his kisses coaxed her toward the quivering brink of climax. Pleasure overwhelmed her from every direction, inside and out; she felt like she was falling, but he was there to catch her in his strong, sure arms.

She cried out, rather a sob, and clung to him with desire shooting upward like a burning star through her body, to her heart, piercing through her very soul.

With the fire of his lips against hers, the shattering realization hit her that love was not lost to her, after all. The betrayal she had suffered had once made her vow never to love again, but she knew tonight she had been wrong. Love’s exquisite bond was worth another try.

She embraced him more tightly, barely aware of the cries of pleasure that filled the room as her own, until they faded and Beau moved her slowly, tenderly onto her back. And then, resting on his elbows, he reached his climax, too, with a few hard, deep, and passionate strokes.

He gathered long fistfuls of her hair, winding them round his fingers—as if to wrap himself in her—not hard enough to hurt. He buried his face against her neck, moaning with release. His groans enveloped her, every muscle going rigid while he convulsed and filled her body with his seed. She welcomed it blindly, longing quite to her own surprise for her future as the mother of his children.

As sanity gradually returned, and the slackened weight of him grew heavy, leaden, atop her, she smiled to herself. Following him that night at the theatre—her snooping—had surely been the best mistake of her life. “Oh, husband,” she purred at last.

His lips taut with emotion, Beau kissed her brow and wrapped his arms around her. She could still feel him trembling. But he said not a word.

Chapter 10

S
ometime later, Beau sat in the chair near the window in the darkness, staring at his bride asleep on the bed. Physically, he was well satisfied, but mentally, he scarcely knew what to make of that experience. The mystery of Carissa had just decidedly deepened.

A kiss told a man many things about a woman, making love to her even more so, and as of this moment, he barely knew what to make of the beautiful stranger he had married.

She slumbered in sated exhaustion, having fulfilled her wifely duties beyond his wildest expectations.

Beau was confused. He was not quite sure what had given it away . . . not so much their physical joining, but perhaps her lack of inhibition. He had reveled in her passion at the time, delighting in her enthusiasm, but afterward, it had begun to make him wonder.

And as the glow of pleasure wore off, reality had started setting in, questions gathering like storm clouds in his mind while Carissa fell asleep.

Now he sat studying her from across the room, darkly troubled by her failure to mention anything he might want to know about this. Yet at the same time, gazing at her, he had never felt more tenderness toward any creature, more protectiveness.

Staring at her in his bed, he knew that she was right where she belonged, but beyond that, he really did not know what he was supposed to think or feel.

As much as he hated being lied to, though, he could understand why she would try to get away with this deception tonight.

There were many men who would be screaming at her right now and bundling her back to her family in shame.

Whatever his faults, however, Beau had never been a cruel man, especially to females.

Damn it, he was supposed to be a spy. He should have researched her before getting himself into this.

And when would I have had time for that?

It had been a mad scramble from the moment he’d swept her off to Dante House to save her life.

He half feared he had been absolutely played.

But the likelier reality was that he’d let himself be blinded by lust. Every time he had looked at Carissa Portland, he had wanted her. Were there cues he could have noticed if he had not been thinking with his cock where she was concerned?

Then a cold knot of dread formed in the pit of his stomach as he wondered if this shocking, wedding-night revelation was just a taste of things to come.

Good God, what if he had married a woman who’d prove as unfaithful to him in the future as his mother had been to his father? Would his passionate redhead make a cuckold of him? Was he doomed to walk in his humiliated father’s footsteps? Yet how could he, of all people, ever honestly complain, after his own past dalliances with other fellows’ wives?

He probably deserved it.

Aye, maybe this was naught but ironic Fate repaying him in kind for his own past as a libertine. He knitted his brow, his jaw clenching in defensive anger.

Very well, so he wasn’t a saint. But
he
had never tried to hide that fact from her.

Carissa, on the other hand, had attempted to deceive him, even as she gave herself to him, surrendered. It was bloody low of her. It went to a question of character, in his view. A lack of honesty. A lack of judgment. And a definite lack of respect. Did she take him for a fool?

It was insulting to see she really didn’t trust him.

At the moment, he didn’t trust her, either.

Beau closed his eyes, rubbed his brow, and after a long moment’s fight with himself, decided by an act of will that he was not going to get angry about this.

He was tempted to use his subtle interrogation skills to coax the truth out of her tomorrow. He could easily work on her bit by bit until he had the whole story.

But he recoiled at the prospect of using his spy training on his wife. She wasn’t a bloody Promethean.

No.
Let her come to him and speak her piece when she was ready. He thought of the automaton clock, and his lavish inscription, and realized the least he could give her was a little time.

Until then—he couldn’t help it—he’d be wary of her, too, until she willingly laid her cards out on the table.

He knew it wouldn’t be easy for her. She had already said herself that she didn’t trust anybody. But forcing her to give him the details, humiliating her with the fact that he knew she was lying, or hurting her in any way was unacceptable.

Sooner or later, he swore to himself, he’d win Carissa’s trust.

After all, if there was one thing he was absolutely sure of, it was that she had not meant any harm.

She never did. Not when she had followed him into the alley. Not when she’d got herself stuck in the wall.

The memory of her checking herself for spiders made him shake his head while his heart clenched.
You’re a walking calamity, girl.
But you’re my calamity.

Besides, it was important to keep this in perspective. Between Nick and the Home Office, he had so many other, larger problems right now, the last thing he wanted to do was to go to war with his wife when they had been married barely twelve hours.

With a grim, uncertain sigh, Beau got up from his seat by the window and returned to join her in their bed—which, he supposed, he had made, so he’d better lie in it.

Settling into his spot, he took her into his arms and held the lovely, maddening creature; Carissa slept on his chest, peaceful as a child.

He kissed her head much too tenderly in spite of himself, even as he noted in surprise how much it hurt to suspect strongly, if not to know for a fact, that she had given herself to someone else before him.

So, he mused uneasily, this was the pain he had caused those other men, casually bedding their women.

Now that the proverbial shoe was on the other foot and he had learned his little bride was not a virgin, he had a life-altering realization, forced to confront the truth of his
own
past behavior. No preacher’s sermon could have changed him more than the shame he felt in that moment, now that he truly grasped what he had done to others, as it seemed he was finally reaping what he had sown.

How could he not have seen it before? he wondered. But he had not wanted to see it, carefully blocking the wrongness of it all from his mind as he took his pleasures where he liked and went on his merry way.

But now his eyes were opened, and he was revolted at himself. The great libertine was distraught with contrition in the silence, while Carissa’s chiding from that night at the theatre rang in his ears.
Do you ever think of the heartache you must cause these women?

Of course, he had never meant any particular harm, but he could no longer ignore how callous he had been.

How destructive, in his selfishness.

The usual blithe excuse that everyone did it withered into dust. To be sure, any private doubt about his ability to stay faithful to his wife in the future promptly disappeared.

This small taste of the kind of anguish he had caused his fellow man was enough to put him off the ton’s favorite sport forever.

He shuddered and held Carissa closer, fervently glad to be done with that sort of life.

As he lay there, he tried not to let his outraged male pride obsess over the question of who the hell had had his wife before him.
I’ll tell you one thing,
he thought as he stared into the darkness.
Whoever he was, if he forced her, he’s a dead man.

Chapter 11

A
t breakfast the next morning, their second official day of being married, Carissa stared across the table, trying to read Beau.

His handsome face gave away little. His easy smile was firmly in place. There was only the slightest hint of a shadow behind his eyes, but he was gallant and polite and could not have been more solicitous. She felt the warmth between them and tried to put her fears aside.

He didn’t notice.

When he passed the sugar for her tea before she could ask for it, she smiled gratefully but sensed some hidden sentiment behind his calm mask, and her worries persisted. He seemed . . . distant, ever so slightly.

God.
Had she been too free with him last night?

But she had wanted to make him happy.

Nevertheless, guilt for deceiving him was making her jumpy—as if she weren’t already nervous enough about meeting his parents today. Her jangled nerves left her with little interest in her breakfast, but the morning room was pleasant, filled with sunshine that sparkled off the silver and the pastel-colored china. Beyond the window, a bright spring day beckoned out in the garden.

She told herself for the tenth time that everything would be fine, and just when she had started to settle down, Beau spoke up and scared the blazes out of her. “Before we set out today, I feel I really must warn you about Mother.”

She looked up from her barely touched plate in surprise. “Warn me?”

He stirred a bit of milk into his tea, ignoring the morning paper the butler had just brought him. “When you meet her, try not to take it personally if she needles you. The truth is, I’m afraid, she doesn’t believe any woman on earth would ever be good enough for me. It wouldn’t matter if you were a royal princess. So, if she’s hostile, take it with a grain of salt.”

Carissa raised her eyebrows. “Very well.”

“We’ll only stay a few minutes. Pay our respects, let her get her first look at you, then we’ll set out for Hampshire.”

She shook her head uneasily. “You can’t blame her for being angry. I still don’t understand why you refused to invite your parents to the wedding.”

“Why, so they could ruin it for us with their fighting?”

“To leave them out was barbaric. They’ll probably blame me.”

“No, trust me, they’ll know full well why they weren’t asked. We’ve been through this many times. If they could act like adults around each other, it would be different, but they would’ve turned it into a spectacle, and God knows what sort of havoc they’d have wreaked.”

She heaved a sigh. “So, what should I expect from your father?”

“He won’t give you too much trouble. We’ll spend a few days in the country with him. I’m eager to show you our family estate.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing it.” She paused, gazing into her teacup. “It’s a shame your parents aren’t able to get along. Was it an arranged marriage?”

“No, from what I’m told, they were madly in love early on, but within a few years, they could hardly stand the sight of each other.” He shrugged. “I really don’t know why, or which of them was the first to start having the affairs.” He looked at her strangely. “All I know is that when I was chosen for the Order, it was the last straw for my mother. Father gave his approval, and she never forgave him for it. It didn’t seem to matter to her that it was what I wanted, too.”

“Hmm.”

He seemed anxious to change the subject. “We should get going soon.”

She put her fork down, wondering what she was in for today. “I’m ready.”

Before long, they were in the entrance hall, where Beau held her pelisse for her. She shrugged it on, then he accepted his hat and walking stick from the butler.

“We won’t be long, Vickers,” he said, as they headed for the door.

“Very good, sir.” The butler opened it for them, revealing not only the bright spring day beyond but a visitor, who had just arrived.

The man stepping down from the carriage had a lanky, narrow frame and a pale face, pinched and haughty. He cut a somber figure like a churchman all in black. He swept off his top hat when he saw them, revealing a shock of greasy dark hair. “Lord Beauchamp! I’m so glad I caught you,” he called, striding toward them.

Carissa felt her easygoing husband tense at the sight of him, and this was enough to intrigue any lady of information. “Mr. Green,” he greeted their visitor with a subtle edge to his voice. “To what do we owe this honor? Poor timing, though—I’m afraid we are on our way out.”

“I only need a moment, sir.”

They could not have left then if they wanted to, for the man had parked his carriage at an angle, blocking their own against the curb.

“I’ve come to return your documents,” he said.

Beau stepped forward quickly. “You brought them here?”

“Why, yes.” Mr. Green started to offer them to him, but paused and raised an eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”

Beau’s mouth flattened to a taut line. He glanced at the carriage. “No harm done, I suppose.”

“What is it?” he countered.

“These are sensitive documents, Mr. Green, as you well know. Yet it doesn’t appear you’ve taken the proper precautions.”

“I’ve brought them to you personally, hand delivered. What more can you want?”

“Your word that no unauthorized person has seen them?”

“Of course not!” he said, while Carissa marveled at this exchange and tried to get a peek at those important papers. Their visitor lifted his chin. “I’m not a fool, my lord. I only wished to do you a convenience.”

I doubt that, Beau’s tense posture seemed to say.

“Of course,” Mr. Green continued, “I had another purpose in coming.”

“Of course you did,” Beau said under his breath.

“I have a question I’d like you to answer.”

“Can’t it wait? As you can see, my lady and I are on our way out.”

“Miss,” their visitor finally acknowledged Carissa with a begrudging tip of his hat.

“Mrs., actually,” she corrected him with a broad smile, hoping that a whiff of feminine charm might ease the tension between the two men.

Instead, Mr. Green looked at Beau in astonishment. “You’ve married? But I was not told of this!”

“I wasn’t aware I needed the government’s permission,” he said crisply.

Green’s eyes narrowed. “Felicitations, my lord.”

Beau turned to her, impatience sharpening his handsome features. “My lady, this is Mr. Green, one of our esteemed MPs.”

“How do you do,” she said, but the man’s faint, reptilian smile left her cold.

“Mr. Green, this radiant creature is my wife, Lady Beauchamp.”

Carissa smiled fondly at Beau, while Mr. Green made odd, uncomfortable noises. “A private word with you, my lord?” he inquired of her husband.

Beau said nothing but excused himself from her company briefly with a light touch on her elbow, then he stepped aside to speak privately with their unpleasant caller.

Carissa stepped back into the threshold of the doorway while Beau went toward the waiting carriages with Mr. Green. Pretending to search in her reticule for something, she strained her ears for all she was worth to listen in on their low-toned exchange.

“Don’t assume getting married is going to make you look any more respectable to the committee, Lord Beauchamp. I’m happy for you, of course, but we are not so easily fooled.”

“What do you want?” Beau replied tersely. “Why are you here? My next appearance before the panel is a week hence.”

Green’s belligerent stance eased somewhat at Beau’s refusal to flinch. He stepped back a little and adjusted his coat with a nervous tug. “I have a question for you regarding one of Warrington’s missions.”

Kate’s husband!

“What is it?” Beau asked darkly.

“You’ll recall how one of the King of Naples’ favorite courtiers ended up dead. If the Order gave the duke clearance for this killing, I have no record of it.”

Beau scoffed, looked at the sky, and folded his arms across his chest. “You think he just did it for fun?”

Green’s anger flashed. “Do you really want to know what I think, Lord Beauchamp?”

“By all means.”

“I
think that you fine gentlemen of the Inferno Club are so drunk with your own power and your own dubious talents that you feel entitled to go running around Europe doing whatever you please, including cutting down anyone who stands in your way. And why shouldn’t you? There are never any consequences. The Crown has given you carte blanche.”

“Everything we do is in service to the Crown,” he bit back.

“Is it? I am not yet entirely convinced. You claim that is the case, and so the Order’s long, august tradition would have us believe. But now that we understand how much latitude Virgil Banks let you have, who knows what you might have been doing out there on your own? Or what you might be planning next?”

“Oh, now we are the conspirators? The Prometheans are the threat, Green.”

“If they really exist.”

“Would you like to see the scars that prove they do?”

“Of course not.” Green flicked a distasteful glance over him.

“No? Shall I not offer up my body to the panel, too? You noble inquisitors want to probe everything else about our agents’ bloody lives—”

“Just get me the proper documents that show who authorized Warrington to kill the Italian. I want to see the chain of command.”

“At your service, sir. It’ll take a few days.”

“Very well. But don’t tempt me, Beauchamp. I’m sure you feel the Order is quite innocent in all things, but that is part of the problem. You don’t even see the threat you pose. It’s time you all were held to account, and if the Crown won’t do it, the House of Commons will, and the Home Office. We are no longer living in medieval days, if you haven’t noticed, yet you and your kind still seem to think you are a law unto yourselves.”

Beau just looked at him. “Careful, Mr. Green. You are starting to sound like your old mentor.”

Green narrowed his eyes and decidedly backed down.

He flicked his gaze toward her. “Felicitations once again on your marriage, my lord. She’s very pretty.”

How dare you comment on my wife?
Beau’s glare seemed to say, but to Carissa’s relief, he kept his aristocratic indignation to himself.

When the haughty MP had driven away, Beau remained by himself a moment longer, bringing his anger under control. Carissa watched her husband worriedly.

He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and pivoted toward the house. Marching toward her, he sent her a distracted smile intended to reassure. “I have to go and put these papers in the vault. I’ll be right back.”

She nodded, but waiting for him, she was unsettled by all she had overheard. It sounded like little Mr. Green was out for their blood, especially Warrington’s. Poor Kate!

She wondered if Daphne and the others knew about this Home Office investigation . . .

When Beau returned, Carissa took his arm.

He laid his hand over hers and gave her a trusty smile. “Come, let’s take your new equipage out for a drive,” he said lightly, but she saw the worry in his eyes.

The sunshine glittered off its polished brass fittings, and the horses pawed the ground prettily, as though eager to show off their paces, but Carissa pulled her husband closer. “Are you all right?”

“Of course. Why?”

She eyed him dubiously, feeling very protective. “I take it that unpleasant little lizard man is with the investigation.”

“He’s in charge of it,” he admitted with a glum look askance. “Some people should never be given power. They enjoy it far too much.”

“I noticed.”

“Ah, don’t fret, my dear. All will be well. I just have to dance to their tune for a while until they’re satisfied.”

“If there’s anything I can do to help you with him—”

“No.”

“Perhaps we could charm him? Invite him to dinner. Expose him to good Society? Make a generous contribution to his next campaign?”

“Er, darling, that’s what they call corruption.”

“Really?” she exclaimed. “I was only being polite!”

He let out a chuckle and, to her relief, began to relax. “No, it’s all right. Don’t worry about the ‘lizard man.’ I’ve got him well in hand.”

“Are you sure? It sounded like he’s out for Warrington’s blood.”

“So, you were eavesdropping again. I should’ve known. And which of us is the spy here?”

“I couldn’t help it! Does Kate know?”

Beau heaved a sigh. “It’s not just Warrington they want. The truth is, they’re after all of us. It’ll be fine,” he said, but it didn’t sound fine to her. “Territorial squabbles between the Order and various branches of the government have been going on for eons. This is just the latest round.”

“Is there anything at all that I can do?”

“Just hold your tongue about it. I mean it, wife,” he warned her sternly. “Under no circumstances are you to speak of this with anyone. Not even the other wives. The ladies already have enough to worry about, knowing their men are off on a dangerous mission abroad. The threat was rather severe, which was why we had to spirit them out of London so quickly to stay for a while at one of the Order’s secure country estates. It’s a beautiful villa, where they are both comfortable and safe, being guarded round the clock by some of our best men. But there is no need to disturb them with all this. Especially now that Lady Falconridge is with child, I don’t want her getting a shock.”

Carissa nodded soberly, absorbing this.

“I promised Rotherstone and the others that I would look after their ladies. Frankly, I don’t want them bothered with any of this until everything’s been cleared.”

“I understand.”

“Good.” He lifted her hand and gave it a kiss.

She was silent for a moment, racking her brain for some way she could be of assistance, nonetheless. “Maybe my uncle could help you. I know he’d be willing. He likes you.”

“In spite of himself?” Beau flashed a wry smile. “Don’t worry, I just have to be patient, answer their questions, and put up with Green a little while longer. I’m sure the Regent will call an end to this nonsense soon. And—when it’s over—I’m taking you on a proper honeymoon trip.”

“Are you, indeed?”