Julia London - [Scandalous 02] (14 page)

The words that fell out of his mouth appalled him, particularly when Lizzie laughed. She laughed!

“No, please, milord, I beg of you, donna help me!” She laughed again.

He scowled and picked up one of the pots.

Lizzie snatched it from his hands and put it down again. “All right, all right, if you want to help…” She paused and looked around. “Here, then. The thistle needs to be crushed.” She shoved a bowl and pestle at him. “It needs to be made fine or the horses won’t eat it.”

“They eat thistle?” he said, grimacing at the long, prickly, purple flowers.

“Aye,” she said and gestured to several of them. “They all need to be ground.”

Grinding thistle seemed a rather tedious task to Jack. If Lizzie were his, she’d never have cause to indulge in such labor. She’d be at her leisure, doing all the things ladies did. Not laundering. Not feeding chickens or milking cows. Not grinding thistle.

Lizzie a lady…
That absurdly forbidden thought startled Jack into picking up a small knife and cutting one of the thistles.

“May I ask you something?” Lizzie asked as he attempted to grind the bulbous flower in the bowl. “And do promise me that you will speak the truth, aye?”

He gave her a curious look. “All right.”

“Why does the prince want to see you hanged? What did you do?”

“He does no’ want to see me hanged,” Jack said. “He wants to make a point.”

“A point,” she repeated dubiously. “And you are so fearful of this point being made that you fled to Scotland and agreed to a handfasting with a stranger?”

Diah,
she had him there. Jack glanced at her again, debating. She was tying winter roses by the stems, hanging them upside down to dry. When he didn’t answer her, Lizzie looked at him curiously with wide blue eyes that would disturb a lesser man’s sleep.

Jack sighed. “All right. I shall tell you,” he said, and put the pestle down. “But I’ll no’ have any of your maidenly vapors.”

“My
maidenly vapors
?”

“Aye, aye, you know very well what I mean,” he said. “You are easily offended.”

“I am
no’
so easily offended—” Lizzie stopped herself with a groan and dropped her head back, closing her eyes for a moment. Then she straightened and picked up another bundle of flowers. “Never mind that. I would
merely like to know why you would be hanged, and I think it is my right, as I have been handfasted to you.”

He paused.

She waited expectantly, roses in hand.

This could not possibly go well, he thought. “There is some…speculation, for lack of a better word, and all of it untrue, I might add, that I…that I committed a treasonable offense with the Princess of Wales.” There, then—if she had half a wit about her, she’d understand what that meant.

But her brows furrowed with confusion. “What do you mean?” she asked curiously. “You and the princess plotted to overthrow the prince?”

“Overthrow! No, no—”

“But you mean a conspiracy, or that sort of thing,” she said, nodding her head.

“No’
conspiracy
in the manner in which you are thinking, but…” He didn’t want to say it, but Lizzie obviously had not the slightest idea of the range of treasonable offenses.
“Adultery,”
he blurted, perhaps a bit too hastily. “They say I took the princess to my bed.”

Lizzie gasped. Maidenly vapors did indeed overwhelm her—Jack knew all the signs. Wide eyes, chest moving up and down with little gasps of breath. Hands clutching the roses’ stems too tightly for want of something better to hold onto. Lizzie gasped again, whirled around, bracing herself against the table with both hands for a moment, then busying herself by madly tying string around the flower stems.

“It’s no’ true, of course,” he added, far too late.

“Of course!” she agreed in an oddly lilting voice. “Undoubtedly you never even visited her…her
chambers,
or wherever it is a princess resides.”

“Never!” he swore adamantly. “I will admit that I have
attended more than one gathering at her home, and, aye, I have a wee bit of a…a
reputation,
but I assure you, I never saw her private rooms, and any accusation to the contrary is egregious and entirely false!”

“But of course!” she cried in that lilting voice again. She put down the bunch of flowers and began to gather another bunch from a stack of them. “Why should anyone say something so very wretched? You are a perfect gentleman!”

“For the love of Scotland,” Jack said irritably, and strode forward, putting his hand on Lizzie’s to still it. “I did no’ take Princess Caroline to my bed. I’ve naugh’ been less tempted in my
life.
But the situation in London right now is rather tense, what with the Delicate Investigation—”

“The what?”

“The rather delicate investigation into the princess’s behavior. With the Lords Commissioners examining the accusations against her, more accusations are flying about and most of them untrue. Someone is disgruntled with me for reasons I canna guess, and has chosen to make a false accusation.”

“You canna guess,” she said, her voice full of disbelief.

Why was he working so hard to convince this little fairy of the glen? “No,” he said evenly, “I canna guess.”

She snorted.

But Jack had had quite enough and suddenly caught her by the shoulders, forcing her around. “What do you know of me truly, Lizzie? How can you judge me so quickly and thoroughly?”

“Thirty years and unmarried?” she said derisively.

“Aye?”

“Does that no’ sound like a rake to you, Jack?”

He bristled. “I was reared in a household that was made most unpleasant by
marriage,
” he said harshly. “Couple that with the fact that I rarely meet an unmarried woman whose interest in me extends beyond my purse, and you will understand why. Why are
you
no’ married at the age of three and twenty? Should I assume you are a loose skirt?”

“Why did you kiss me, Jack?” she demanded, tossing the loose bundle of flowers aside. “
Why
did you kiss me? Was it because you fancied you
loved
me?”

“God’s blood, what are you—”

“Oh, I’m no’ so foolish to believe it, if that is what you think. You kissed me because you are a
rake,
Jack, in every manner and deed! And if you did no’ do what they accuse you of doing, I’d wager you came perilously close!” She pushed his hands from her shoulders. “Close enough to warrant hanging you.” She turned back to the table.

Jack grabbed her by the shoulders again and forced her around. The movement caused a curl to fall over her eye, which she defiantly blew away. It fell right back, and Jack was suddenly filled to absolutely bursting with the desire to kiss her again. “I kissed you, Lizzie, because, just as I told you, I was, for reasons that suddenly seem
quite
mad at present, drawn to you! I kissed you because you are beautiful and alluring, and you are a woman and I am a man! But I did no’ kiss you to satisfy some carnal beast.” Although he wouldn’t mind in the least satisfying the carnal beast. “If you turn that wee nose up at me once more, I will remind you that you esteem me, too.”

“
Esteem
you?” She tilted her head back to look up at him. “You think well of yourself, sir! I have tolerated you! I have done only what I must to survive!”

Oh, this provincial little glen nymph was vexing! Jack was accustomed to women who were demure and skilled
in the art of subtle flirting, not the sort who spoke frankly and unabashedly. He looked at her lips. Succulent, dark lips that called on every male sinew in him to refrain from kissing her again. “Would you truly have me believe,” he said gruffly as he slid one hand to her neck, to the point where it curved into her shoulder, “that you merely tolerated my kiss? That you did no’ find it the least bit stirring?”

Her eyes turned a dusky blue, but her gaze did not waver. She slowly lifted her hand to his wrist and closed her fingers around it. He expected her to yank his hand away, but Lizzie surprised him. She gripped his wrist tightly, almost as if she were afraid he would remove his hand. He could feel her skin warming beneath his palm. When she swallowed, he could feel it beneath his thumb. Their argument was suddenly forgotten; Jack’s gaze drifted down to a bosom concealed behind a blouse and more thick wool, but the curve of it strained against the fabric. It was, by some strange and devastating measure, more enticing than a bosom bared to him.

The carnal beast stirred inside Jack, that beast that defined him every inch a man. It was a beast that could drive a man to do unfathomably stupid things, and he felt it with alarming and erotic intensity. It confused him. On the surface, Lizzie was not the sort of woman who typically attracted him, but, God in heaven, she had. She’d attracted him as the sun attracts all living things to turn toward it.

She was still holding his wrist, but he moved his hand down, to the swell of her breasts, his eyes never leaving hers. She drew a slow and tantalizing breath that lifted her chest.

“Would you truly have me believe you donna want me to kiss you again?” he asked low.

“I do no’,” she said, but she shifted almost imperceptibly closer.

He smiled a little. “Your words belie your actions, lass.”

“You think you know so very much,” she said.

“I know,” he said softly, bending his head, putting his lips so close to hers, “that you are wishing my mouth would touch yours,” and he teased her by almost touching hers. Lizzie tried to touch hers to his, but he moved—enough to keep her from touching him. “I know that you would like my hand to touch your flesh,” he said, running one hand down her rib. “And I know that just about now, you are feeling the dampness of your longing and your body is pulsing in lovely anticipation of it. And I know, Miss Lizzie Beal, that if I kissed you now, you would succumb, freely and eagerly.”

Her lips parted at her soft intake of breath. Her gaze fell to his mouth.

“Ask me,” he said softly.

“Ask you?” she whispered.

Jack moved again, so that his mouth was next to her ear. “
Ask me to touch you
.”

Lizzie did not ask, for that highly charged moment was interrupted by the sound of the door opening behind them, the clearing of a throat, and the unavoidable “Beg your pardon, miss.”

Jack would kill him. He would kill old Kincade with a pestle.

Lizzie shunted away from Jack. “Aye, Mr. Kincade?”

“Mr. Maguire has come requesting an audience.”

“I’ll be there straightaway. Thank you.”

“Shall I send the missus to help in here?” the old man asked.

“That’s no’ necessary, Mr. Kincade. Lambourne has offered to lend a hand.”

Jack winced at that as Kincade’s measured steps moved out of the hothouse.

The slightest hint of a smile curved Lizzie’s luscious lips. Her eyes were shining with feminine triumph as she stepped away from Jack. At the door she paused to glance at him over her shoulder, but as Jack had yet to find his tongue, she put a hand to her hair, tucking the loose curl into the bandeau, and walked out.

He watched her walk away, watched the sensual sway of her hips, and felt their rhythm in his veins.

When he could see her no more, he looked at the pots of thistle that needed to be ground.

He had just crossed his own line.

M
r. Maguire was a man with very little meat on his bones, which Lizzie had always found ironic, given that he was the proprietor of a rather large mercantile in Aberfeldy. Mr. Maguire was hoping he might collect the debt Lizzie owed him for flour and oats.

He apologized profusely for having to ask at all, as if he were somehow imposing on her, when in fact, she had imposed on him. She quickly and sheepishly wrote a bank draft for the ten pounds she owed him and asked him to stay for tea, but he assured her he had to return to Aberfeldy before nightfall.

With the bank note tucked securely in his coat pocket, Mr. Maguire stood up and offered his bony hand to Lizzie. “Thank ye kindly, Miss Beal. I’d no’ ask—”

“No, no, please,” she said, lacking the energy to go through the round of apologies again.

He gave her a gap-toothed grin and shook her hand. “Then allow me to offer my sincere felicitations on your handfasting. You’ll no’ worry about money when it’s made permanent, aye? The wife and I, we look forward to making his acquaintance at Candlemas. Ah, but that reminds this old head—your uncle asked that I give you venison. It’s in my cart, it is.”

“My uncle?” Lizzie asked, confused. “How very kind
of him.” She forced a smile. “And how fares Mrs. Maguire?” Lizzie asked brightly, changing the subject before he could say more.

By the time Mr. Maguire had catalogued all of his wife’s health complaints, she’d shown him out. Mr. Kincade had the venison and the propreiror hauled himself up on his horse and trotted away from Thorntree, scattering the chickens and rooster as he went.

Lizzie watched him round the bend. She hardly felt herself just now—her usual worries filled her brain as they always did, but crowding in around those worries and pushing them aside were thoughts of Jack. Tomorrow she would be forced to sit at his side, and these unwanted, shamelessly bold thoughts of him would fill her brain.

Ask me to touch you.

She walked back into the house, but as she turned to close the door, a few errant snowflakes made their way in through the opening. Lizzie gasped softly as they scudded across the floor. There was an old Highland saying that snowflakes in the house meant that someone would be departing before Candlemas.

There was only one possibility of that.

Lizzie made her way to her small suite of rooms, and there she threw herself facedown onto the bed, her eyes squeezed shut.

After a moment she rolled over onto her back and pressed a hand to her collarbone, precisely where his hand—warm and large and powerful—had rested against her. The feeling that had exploded inside her when he’d touched her so delicately had taken her breath away.

She hadn’t caught her breath yet, and she might have languished all day trying, but there was still much work to be done.

Lizzie wearily pushed herself up and made herself continue on, with that strange, tingly sense of anticipation inside her, just as he’d described.

Jack did not actually grind the thistle, although he did, in uncharacteristic fashion, consider it. But he dismissed the notion quickly—he could not bear the thought of being brought so low. So he called Dougal in, who he guessed might be more familiar with such a mundane task.

He left Dougal with the excuse that he was hungry. In the house once more, he happened to pass by the open door of the drawing room and noticed Newton inside with Charlotte. Something about the two of them engaged in a tête-à-tête made Jack slow his step. Newton apparently had the ears of a bird dog, for he suddenly turned his head and leveled his gaze on Jack.

Miss Beal looked at Jack, too, releasing what could only be called a put-upon sigh, and turned her head to the fire.

“I beg your pardon,” Jack said. “I heard voices….”

Newton came to his feet as if he expected Jack to bolt. Miss Beal sighed and looked at Jack. “Please come in,” she said curtly.

Jack did not want to go in. He glanced uneasily up the corridor, wishing for Dougal or Kincade, anyone who might divert him.

“Please, milord,” she added.

Bloody hell, then. He stepped warily across the threshold as Charlotte eyed him skeptically, her mouth turning down at the corners in a frown. “Do come in, sir,” she said. “Please donna make me shout.”

He wasn’t trying to make her
shout.
“I beg your pardon, I was just passing by,” he said, gesturing to the corridor.

“There is hardly anyplace to pass by
to
. Come in, will you?” she asked, clearly perturbed at having to ask again.

This was immensely uncomfortable; Jack was clearly intruding. “My apologies for disturbing you.”

Charlotte ignored him and said stiffly, “I should like to invite you to dine with us tomorrow evening. We will have four at our table who would like to acquaint themselves with Lizzie’s…ah, mate.”

He was shocked. The invitation was so warmly given that Jack could hardly think of a thing he’d rather do—except, perhaps, gouge his eyes with knitting needles or throw himself beneath the hooves of stampeding bulls.

Charlotte frowned at his hesitation. “That is…we will have wine before supper and dine at eight.”

“Thank you, but I…I would be…”
Tortured. Plagued.

“’Tis no’ an invitation,” Newton rumbled. “There are bounty hunters as near as Aberfeldy looking for you now. The laird believes you will appreciate the need to keep your neighbors and family close.”

“No’ entirely, but I shall be delighted,” Jack said, inclining his head.

“Lambourne, may I inquire—is it true?” Miss Beal asked. “Are you acquainted with the Prince and Princess of Wales?”

Jack was beginning to wonder whether he might have been spared a problematic handfasting if he’d told the men who’d captured him in the forest he was personally acquainted with the Prince and Princess of Wales. “I am.”

“I have read that Carlton House is quite magnificent. Have you seen it?”

“I have.”

“Is it very big?”

“Astoundingly so.”

She twisted in her seat as much as she could and looked at him curiously. “I have read that it cost more than one hundred thousand pounds to refurbish.”

Newton suddenly coughed harshly and turned his head toward the hearth.

“I was no’ privy to the cost of it,” Jack said, “but I should no’ be surprised if that were true. It is very grand. Are you familiar with the French neoclassical style of architecture?”

Miss Beal shook her head.

He took a tentative step into the room. “It is based in the Greek style but, as with everything French before the revolution, the interpretation is very grand. One enters through a portico held up by massive columns. The entrance hall is two stories high, made of marble, and shaped on the octagonal.”

“Marble?” Charlotte repeated, her eyes growing wide.

“Indeed,” Jack said, as Newton quietly crossed to the window and returned with a chair. “There is a dual staircase that curves upward,” he said, sketching it with his hands, “and sculptures made in the style of the Greeks line the octagon.” Without missing a word, Jack moved forward. He continued to describe the opulence of Carlton House as he flipped the tails of his coat and took a seat close to Charlotte.

Whether she noted it or not was hard to say—her pale blue eyes were riveted on him, and her eagerness to hear what he was saying was obvious. She hung on every word, and at one point her eyes seemed to fog, as if she were seeing Carlton House, perhaps even walking through it as he described it.

Suddenly Jack wanted to give her every single detail, to let her truly see it through his eyes. He described the private apartments of the Prince of Wales, of the Crimson and Satin drawing rooms. He described the Throne Room, the Blue Velvet Room, the music room that opened onto a lush garden, and the massive dining room. When he’d exhausted his description of the house itself, he began to describe life within Carlton House, and the
beau monde.
He promised to give her a book he’d carried with him. It was
Cecilia,
by his acquaintance Frances Burney—a fictionalized account of the world of privilege.

Somewhere in the course of it, he felt Charlotte begin to thaw.

The discovery that Dougal had been left to grind the thistle needed for the animal’s fodder caused an uproar with Mrs. Kincade. It seemed he’d made quite a mess of things, and Mr. Kincade had fetched his wife to help. “Miss Lizzie will be undoing for a week what he’s done,” Mrs. Kincade said bitterly.

Lizzie doubted it would take that long, but she offered to prepare Charlotte’s tea while Mrs. Kincade swept up the mess. She sent Dougal to find his captive.

Lizzie was carrying the tea down the corridor when she heard voices coming from the drawing room. Accustomed to silence in the afternoon while Charlotte sat and brooded, Lizzie drew up, listening.

That was Jack’s voice. Charlotte must be beside herself, Lizzie thought, and hastened her step.

She crossed the threshold of the drawing room and stopped mid-stride. The three of them—Newton, Jack, and Charlotte—looked at her expectantly, as if she’d interrupted them.

Then Charlotte suddenly smiled. “Lizzie! Come,
come! I knew you’d be along. You will no’ believe what his lordship has been relating!”

His lordship?
Smelling a scoundrel, Lizzie marched across the room and deposited the tea service on the table.

“He’s been to Carlton House,” Charlotte continued far too eagerly. “Where the Prince of Wales resides! And he’s given me a book. It is about the
haut ton.
Do you know what that is? It is London’s highest society. Come and sit, Lizzie—you should hear what he tells!”

Oh aye, if only there was ever a moment in her day to
come and sit.
“No. Thank you,” she said, her gaze going to Jack. “There is too much work to be done.”

One corner of Jack’s mouth tipped up ever so slightly. “I could wait until Miss Lizzie is available,” he said. “Perhaps over supper tomorrow, aye?”

“Oh yes! That would be exciting!” Charlotte said.

Shocked, Lizzie looked at her sister, noting that Newton smiled kindly at Charlotte—
smiled
—as if to encourage her!

Something disastrous had happened at Thorntree in the last several days. Lizzie’s world, as she knew it, had turned completely upside down and was skipping off toward the sun, destined for a grand collision.

“Lizzie, Mr. Kincade tells me there is a bit of Papa’s wine in the cellar,” Charlotte suggested. “What do you think?”

This couldn’t be happening. This man would not sit at her table, smiling at her in that way he had of making her feel weak, regaling them all, ingratiating his way into their lives, only to escape at first opportunity and leave her to relive the small moments when her flesh had heated, her heart had pounded, her palms had dampened. Those moments in which she’d felt absolutely
alive, could believe herself alluring, could believe in excitement again.

“Lizzie?” Charlotte said uncertainly.

“Splendid!” she blurted with false cheer. “We shall make a soirée of it, shall we, Charlotte?”

Jack looked entirely too pleased with himself.

It was more than she could bear, and Lizzie strode from the room.
When would Mr. Gordon come? When would he come and save her from this madness?