After the Kiss (12 page)

“Please,” she said. “I would rather Julian did not find me like this.”

He caught the pleading look in her eyes, fought a battle with his better judgment, and lost. He came back inside and quickly closed the door behind him.

He did not bother to hide his irritation at being forced into such a discomfiting predicament. He put his balled fists on his hips and said, “What kind of game is this?”

She gathered up her dress and clutched it against her bosom again with both hands. She kept her head high, her tawny golden eyes on his, but he watched an enticing flush begin just above her nearly exposed breasts and race its way up her throat to land as two red spots on her cheeks.

“I … this is not … I wish I could sink into the floor.” She paused, blew out a breath, and continued, “But since that is not possible, I earnestly ask your help in restoring myself to the guise of respectable gentlewoman before my cousin returns.”

He fought back an indulgent smile and said, “When do you expect him?”

“I have no idea when Julian left or when he will be back. I have noticed, however, that he has company.”

“Company?”

Her lips pressed flat. She glanced fleetingly at the tousled sheets through the open bedroom doorway.

“Ohhhh,” he said. “Company. I see.” Apparently Julian’s ladybird had left evidence of her existence. Too bad for Julian. And Miss Sheringham, of course.

“Would you help me, please, Captain?”

She turned her back to him again, before he could explain why he must refuse. Then he did not want to.

Her back and bare shoulders—what he could see of them above and beyond the fragile white chemise—were lovely. She had attempted buttoning the dress, but only three buttons at the base of her spine were closed. The rest of the dress lay open, with nearly a dozen buttons undone.

Marcus had always been enticed more by the promise of what lay hidden from sight than by a woman’s blatant nudity. It was fun to imagine what he would find, and then to uncover the promised delights. Miss Sheringham had presented him with a charming package that was impossible to decline.

His balled hands uncurled. He took his time walking to her, the sound of his Hessians echoing on the bare wooden floor. He saw the rising tension in her shoulders as she sensed him coming closer, saw the quiver of expectation in her flesh.

When he reached for the puffed sleeves to draw them up, she jerked. “Shh,” he said in a silky voice. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I am not afraid of you.” She stared straight ahead, and her shoulders squared even more.

Marcus smiled. “Very well. Stand still while I do this.”

The instant his fingertips touched her flesh, she whirled around to face him. He was forced to let go of the button he held or tear it off.

She backed away several steps and stopped, bosom heaving as though she had just run a race. “Perhaps I will wait for Julian, after all.”

He gave a lazy shrug, his eyes hooded. “The choice is yours.”

She looked down at herself, and an almost comical expression of dismay appeared on her face. “Oh, dear. I cannot meet Julian like this! Not with you here. He will never understand.” She turned her back to him for the third time. “Hurry. Please, hurry!”

Marcus realized she had a point. Julian could return at any moment and misconstrue the situation. Nevertheless, Marcus was not inclined to rush. He intended to savor Miss Sheringham’s lovely dishevelment for as long as he could.

Eliza kept reminding herself to breathe, but even when she did, it was difficult to suck air into her constricted lungs. How could she be attracted to such an irritating man? Why did the mere brush of his fingertips send frissons of sensation skittering down her spine?

The answer was simple enough. It was difficult to ignore such perfection in form and features and almost impossible to believe—except that he stood before her in the flesh—that the Beau had been so generously blessed by nature. An aquiline nose. Large, wide-spaced, bluer than blue eyes under arched brows. Blond hair that fell rakishly over his forehead in a Brutus cut.

And of course, the blatant evidence that he was physically aroused by her. She had tried not to look, but the transformation had been fascinating … and frightening.

Hurry, hurry! I do not want to feel like this. I am in love with Julian. I always have been, and I always will be. It is only
because I am so inexperienced rebuffing rakes that I am overwhelmed by these unwanted feelings. Oh, please hurry!

The Beau took his time.

She felt the buttons being done up one at a time, with an interminable pause between each. At this rate, it would be time for supper before he finished. She jumped when his knuckles brushed her flesh once more.

“Be still,” he said in a husky voice.

She wriggled her shoulders to rid herself of the pleasant tingle of feeling that lingered.

“I cannot finish if you will not stand still,” he said. “You are going too slow!”

His hands grasped her shoulders, and his thumbs pressed strongly against her back in a circular motion. It felt exquisite. She bit back a moan of pleasure, knowing she should not be letting him do this.

Eliza had seldom seen the need for most of Society’s restrictions, but a chaperon would not have been amiss just now. She fought the urge to lean back against him. She wanted to feel his hands everywhere, all over her. No wonder gentlemen were required to keep their distance, if this was the result!

“Relax, Miss Sheringham. I can see your shoulders are all bunched up.” The Beau applied more soothing pressure with his thumbs. Then his hands sieved through her hair and moved it forward over her shoulders.

“What are …” The sound came out as a hoarse whisper. She cleared her throat and finished, “… you doing?”

“Your hair—have I mentioned it is quite lovely?—was in my way. I need to see what I am doing.”

It sounded perfectly innocent. An inner voice warned her it was not. An instant later she felt the Beau’s lips nuzzle the crest of her shoulder.

She started to lurch away, but he caught her by the shoulders with powerful hands. He held her firmly, but gently. She stood paralyzed. Why was she not struggling? She wanted to be free, didn’t she?

Eliza tried to speak, to tell him to let her go, but her throat was clogged with feeling. Her breathing was erratic. Her heart pounded. “What do you want from me?”

“Only a kiss,” he said, his warm breath tracing the route he intended to follow. From her throat … to her ear … to her temple … down her cheek … to the very edge of her mouth.

She shivered uncontrollably as his warm, moist breath caressed her flesh. She had never felt anything quite so exquisite. Eliza reminded herself he was a rake, schooled in seduction. She was willing to break the rules—to a point.

“You have taken two kisses already,” she protested in a quavery voice.

“One more. On the lips.”

“I … I …”

She would never know what answer she might have given. A noise at the door froze her in place. She stared in horror as the doorknob begin to turn.

The Beau, apparently more experienced at having his lovemaking interrupted so precipitously, finished the top three buttons in two seconds flat and took a step to her left an instant before Julian entered the room.

Eliza breathed a guilty sigh of relief that Julian
had not caught the Beau kissing her. She saw the myriad expressions flash across Julian’s face at finding her in his rooms. Disbelief, delight, dismay. Then confusion, followed by suspicion.

If only she had done things differently, brought a different dress, stayed in Julian’s clothes. If only the Beau were not such a scoundrel! She shot him an angry, scornful look, realizing too late how Julian might construe it.

Her gaze skipped back to Julian, who had indeed been watching the byplay. His face darkened ominously.

She did not need the Beau’s male perfection. She wanted only Julian, with his dark brown eyes, his black hair that needed a trim, his broad blade of nose and high cheekbones and slashing black brows. His beloved face, his features that had so appealed to her, were contorted now by doubt and accusation.

Her nose burned, and her eyes blurred with tears. She blinked furiously. She was not the sort of miss who turned into a watering pot at the least provocation. But her meeting with Julian was not progressing at all as she had imagined.

The Beau was first to speak. He was probably used to being caught with a lady in dubious circumstances, Eliza thought cynically.

The Beau smiled as though he hadn’t a care in the world and said, “Hello, Julian.”

His simple greeting was not nearly enough to allay Julian’s suspicion. “What in bloody hell is going on here, Marcus?”

Julian knew the Beau. And the Beau knew Julian! He had addressed Julian by his first name
.

“You two know each other?” she asked, aghast.

“Julian and I are best friends,” the Beau admitted with a shrug.

“
Were
best friends,” Julian corrected.

“You purposely deceived me,” Eliza said, her eyes locking with the captain’s. “Why?”

“I was doing what I could to help out a friend,” he replied.

Do you mean me? Or Julian?
she wondered.

His eyes begged forgiveness. She supposed rakes never asked in words. She had actually opened her mouth to offer pardon when Julian startled her out of whatever hypnotic trance she was in. Offering pardon? To the
Beau?
What had she been thinking? He should rather ask pardon of her!

“I want to know what you are doing here alone with my cousin,” Julian demanded.

The Beau was clearly incensed by Julian’s antagonism.

Eliza leaped into the breach. “Captain Wharton accompanied me to London,” she said matter-of-factly, “and was kind enough to wait here with me until you arrived.”

Julian’s scowl, and a sharp, narrow-eyed glance at the Beau, told her she had said the wrong thing, but she did not understand why it was wrong.

“Miss Sheringham means my batman, Blackthorne’s twins and I escorted her to London,” the Beau amended. “We were never alone together on the road, Julian. And we have been here a mere half hour waiting for you.”

“Alone?” Julian queried.

The Beau nodded, tight-lipped.

The glare remained on Julian’s face. “Where is your maid, Eliza?” he demanded. “What are you doing in a gentleman’s apartments? What were you thinking, brat?”

He had called her brat. Was that all Julian thought of her, when she loved him so much?
Eliza’s stomach was in such turmoil, she feared she might cast up her accounts. She swallowed back the acid in her throat.

“I left my maid at Ravenwood. I came on horseback, Julian, since that was the fastest way to get here. I had to see you on a matter of utmost urgency.”

“You could have—should have—used the post to send for me.”

Eliza felt the tears scalding her eyes. There was no stopping them now, however much she blinked. She had hoped for a better welcome from her cousin. In the past, he had always grinned and given her a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek.

But their last meeting had been two years ago, when she was a child of fifteen. She was no longer a child, even if he still called her
brat
. A stone wall of propriety was stacked high between them. She had never felt so alone in her life. She stared at Julian, her heart in her eyes, willing him to reach out to her.

But he said nothing. Did nothing.

“I will excuse myself, Julian, so you may speak with your cousin alone,” the Beau said.

“Wait, Marcus!” Julian said. “I cannot … Eliza and I should not be alone together.”

“If you wish, I can wait outside the door,” Marcus said.

Julian shoved a hand through his dark hair, Ieaving
it standing on end. It was not at all unattractive, Eliza thought.

“Damn you, girl!” Julian muttered. “What a coil!”

“I must speak with you alone, Julian,” Eliza said, struggling to keep her voice steady, even though her heart was breaking.

Julian shot the Beau a helpless glance, apparently trying to convey some message that Eliza could not make out. A second later, the reason for Julian’s apprehension shoved open the door and took a step inside.

“What’s this, lovey? More company? An orgy, is it? That’ll be a coin or two more from your pocket. But the more, the merrier, I always say.”

Julian sank into the chair by the door, dropped his head in his hands, and groaned.

Eliza could smell the cheap rosewater from where she stood. She felt nauseated. This doxy was the woman Julian had taken to his bed.

She put a hand to her mouth and stiffened her knees to keep them from crumpling out from under her. The Beau caught her by the shoulders and held her upright. She resisted the urge to turn to him for comfort.

Eliza was too fascinated by the creature in the doorway to look anywhere else. Julian’s doxy looked surprisingly similar to those she had seen downstairs, her cheeks rouged, her eyes lined with kohl. Her lips were berry red, and her breasts were barely contained by the thin fabric of her gown. The cloth clung to her as though her slip had been dampened. Were those dark spots really her …? Oh, dear.

Eliza turned without thinking and hid her face against the Beau’s shoulder.

Above the steady thump of the Beau’s heart, she heard Julian send the woman away. And then Julian’s angry voice saying, “I think perhaps you should pay your respects to my brother, Marcus, and your addresses to Miss Sheringham.”

“You are making a mistake, Julian,” she heard the Beau say, his voice rumbling in her ear. His arms stayed around her, comforting her. He made no move to release her, merely explained, “Miss Sheringham turned to me because I was closest to her. You could see as well as I that she was about to faint. What would you have me do?”

She heard Julian make a warning sound in his throat.

The Beau hurried on. “There is no need for a declaration from me, I assure you. No one knows of Miss Sheringham’s indiscretion in coming to your rooms unchaperoned besides me, and I have no intention—”

“What possessed you to bring her here, man?” Julian blurted. “You must have known it was no place for a young lady!”