Never Trust a Scoundrel (20 page)

He stalked out of the room, and Grace felt a heavy weakness come over her. She clutched the table, wondering for a moment if her legs would carry her.

But no, she was not going to let that man—or any man—defeat her. She didn't know what she was going to do about Mr. Jenkins, but she would think of something. Surely if he wanted to marry her, he wouldn't besmirch her name in public. That would only make him look worse.

Yet how many more near disasters would she have before the
ton
finally heard of her many hidden scandals? There was Baxter Wells's intimate knowledge of her, Daniel's seduction, and now the threat of her mother's terrible bet coming to light. Grace had spent so much of her life trying to be above reproach, to rise above her mother's uncontrollable behavior. And now it was all falling down around her.

She left the musicale with Beverly, and then
asked to borrow her carriage. Though Beverly looked worried, she did not protest. After Grace let her off, she proceeded to Daniel's town house. He was the one in whom she'd been confiding; he was part of this whole mess. He should be the one to help her out of it.

As they neared his home, she suddenly realized how it would look for an unmarried lady to travel alone through the London night to a bachelor's home.

She rapped on the roof and waited as the carriage stopped. When the driver opened the door, she said, “Let me out at the corner and then wait for me.”

He looked at her uncertainly, and she knew what he was seeing. A woman dressed in evening finery, wrapped in a cloak, alone at night.

“Miss, are ye sure 'bout this?”

“Yes, I am,” she said briskly, barely hiding the anger that burned through her. “I just need to walk, to think. Wait here for me.”

She turned away from him and headed down the street. Daniel's house was only two doors down, and she was able to sneak down the stairs and slip around back.

As she stood on the back step of the servants' entrance and knocked once, she had a moment of clarity. What was she doing? Daniel could not solve this for her. If he discovered she felt threatened, he might do worse than punch Mr. Jenkins, like he'd done to Baxter. He couldn't keep attacking her suitors. Then there would be even more
scandal for him, this time brought on because of her, and his family would think her the worst sort of female.

She turned to leave, hoping everyone was in bed and had not heard the knock.

But the door opened behind her, and she wilted.

An older man wrapped in a dressing robe stood there, his cap askew on his balding head.

She looked over her shoulder. “I'm sorry, this is the wrong house.”

“Grace?”

She froze at the sound of Daniel's voice. He came out of the gloom from behind his servant and into the light of the candle. He was dressed in his evening clothes, all black but for his shirt and cravat. The servant looked curiously between them but backed away when Daniel reached for her arm. She didn't resist as he pulled her inside.

To the servant, Daniel said quietly, “You can return to your bed.”

Not letting go of Grace, he pulled her through the dark house, down a corridor, and into a paneled library where lamps lit the night. It had the faint smell of smoke and leather, a thoroughly masculine place.

Daniel released her and put his hands on his hips as he loomed over her, his expression tight with anger. “Would you care to explain why you are wandering London alone at night? There's been a man watching your house!”

“I didn't go home,” she said, feeling belligerent.

Though he had not been the man to threaten her, she was angry at him for being at the beginning of this whole disaster that had enshrouded her life—and angry that he'd been the first one she'd wanted to go to for help.

“He could be following you!”

“He's not.”

“What are you doing here? It can't be because of the railway ball. You could have asked your brother about his success with the women.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Was he successful?”

“He was.”

“Thank you,” she said curtly.

He gave a half smile. “That doesn't sound very grateful.”

Fisting her hands, she advanced on him. “You—oh!”

She whirled away, and then came to a stop when she saw an antique violin mounted on the wall. Her father's violin, the reason she was in this insane challenge.

Oh, she should leave; she was feeling angry and reckless, an equal mixture of despair and confidence writhing through her.

“That's going to be mine,” she said in a low voice.

He came up behind her and gripped her shoulders. “I don't think so.”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “So you think I can't resist you.”

“Not for long.”

His fingers undid the clasp at her throat, and her cloak fell to the floor.

“I have resisted every day since the beginning,” she said.

“And it's getting harder, isn't it?”

Her neck and shoulders were bare, and he trailed his fingers along her collarbones.

“You'd like to think that,” she whispered, suppressing a shiver at the pleasure of his touch. “I can stop anytime I want, but I think men are different.”

Oh heavens, what was she doing? She was in his home, baiting him, daring him to make her give in. But her anger and helplessness and desire were all coming together inside her, and she could no longer think about what would be the right thing to do.

“Let's see who can stop,” he said.

And then he turned her around and pushed her back up against the wall. His mouth came down on hers, holding her trapped.

And she reveled in it. She kissed him back fiercely, letting emotion and passion wipe away all her conflicted thoughts, her worries for the future. In that one moment, all she knew was that she loved him, that she'd come to him for help, though in the end, she could not risk asking him. She had never found a man who excited her more than he did. And if when their two weeks were over, he left her—

She wanted to love him; she wanted to punish
him for making her feel this way. So instead of accepting his kisses and caresses, she instigated her own, exploring his mouth with her tongue, letting her eager hands roam over his chest and slide beneath his coat and unbuttoned waistcoat. His muscles were hot and hard, and when she found his nipples through the fabric of his shirt, he moaned into her mouth.

The coat and waistcoat joined her cloak on the floor, and she pulled his shirt out of his trousers and slid it up his body. As he struggled to take it off over his head, she did what she so enjoyed having him do: she took his nipple into her mouth and sucked on it. Beneath her hands, the muscles of his abdomen convulsed.

“Grace.” Her name was a hoarse prayer on his lips.

She suddenly shoved hard, and he fell backward onto the sofa. She came down on top of him, but the sofa was awkward, and in trying to get as close as possible, she ended up straddling him. He stopped breathing on a groan as he arched his hips up against her.

Though his trousers and her drawers still separated them, they moved against each other, rubbing. He grabbed the lower bodice of her dress and tugged until her breasts popped free of the low corset. For just a moment, they hung above his face, and then he greedily took one in his mouth. She cried out and moved even more frantically against him.

He cupped her head in his palms and pulled her down until their lips met. Against her mouth he murmured, “Let me come into you, Grace. Let me love you.”

Those words were like a rain shower of reality. He meant he wanted sex, but those words—the tenderness of his voice—

She reared back. “No.”

D
aniel came up on his elbows. “No?”

Grace's hips were still molded to his. He could feel her dampness, and the way her body cradled his erection, so close to the center of her, where he ached to be.

He rubbed his cock against her, moving in a way he knew she would like. And she gasped for him, her face contorted for him, her head thrown back above her naked breasts, but her passion was being overcome by remorse.

She almost fell as she climbed off him. Turning her back, she tugged her bodice back in place while he narrowed his eyes at her. What had he done? How had she been able to stop herself when he had been lost with her in his arms? Never in his life had a woman been able to separate him from his thoughts, from his rationality.

But it had not been the same for her. She'd been able to stop as if he meant nothing to her.

And he finally had to admit that that hurt. And it wasn't because he wanted to win this crazy challenge.

He wanted her. He wanted her to want him, to need him.

I can't give in, Daniel,” she said huskily, then bent over to search through his discarded clothing for her cloak. When she straightened, the look in her eyes was bleak and determined, even proud. “Whatever you men do, I can't give in.”

You men?
What the devil did that mean? “Grace, you can't leave here like this.”

“I have Beverly's carriage waiting down the street. I'll be fine.”

“But the man watching you—”

“He's no longer watching me.”

He didn't understand her sudden bitterness. “Just because you haven't seen him—”

But she was already fleeing down the hall, and he hadn't even had the presence of mind to get dressed so that he could chase her. All he could do was follow her progress through the windows as she ran out the back door and around to the front of the house. He saw the carriage not two doors down, and only when she was safely inside did he feel relief.

But there was no relief for the rest of his body. He yearned for her; but she did not feel the same for him.

Two more days left to the challenge. He sensed it might be all he had left with her. Was that what he wanted?

 

Grace spent the morning listlessly answering letters from friends back home. She didn't want
to go out and risk Jenkins and Daniel coming face-to-face over her in public. The only bright spot to her day was Edward's obvious happiness. He was whistling whenever he walked by the library where she was working. When she'd asked him about the ladies he'd met, he said it was too early to discuss it, but the smile on his face almost brought tears to her eyes. At least one of them was happy. He left before luncheon, and she was miserably alone again.

As she'd known he would, Daniel came to visit her in the afternoon. With sudden inspiration, she left him waiting a long time for her in the drawing room. The piano took up much of the space, and she wondered if it drew him. She cautiously crept to the doorway and peered in. Daniel was standing at the window, but she saw him look over his shoulder at the piano. She leaned back against the wall before he could see her, and then a few minutes later, she looked in again. He was rifling through the sheet music that she'd left out.

Once again, she leaned out of sight, unable to keep a silly grin from her face. She'd been right about him and his music. But more minutes passed, and he didn't play. When she looked in again, he was pacing.

Disappointed, she took a deep breath, shook her skirts into place, and serenely walked in. “Good afternoon, Daniel.”

He stopped and stared at her, and she found she couldn't remember what she'd meant to say. The awareness between them always caught her
by surprise, as if she kept expecting it to lessen. He looked down her body, and she let herself look down his.

“I have not changed in just one night,” she said softly.

He came toward her. “Which is a good thing. I don't suppose you'd close the door.”

“No.”

He shrugged and stopped before her. “I can still taste you,” he whispered wickedly.

Heat rose inside her, and she knew she was blushing.

“I want to taste you everywhere.” His voice was low and urgent, as if he hadn't meant to say those words but couldn't help himself.

She could have swooned. She had to stop this before she fell into his arms in broad daylight.

“I've sent for refreshments,” she said, striving for a normal tone.

He arched a brow, giving her a slow smile. “Your defenses can't work.”

She lifted her chin. “They have so far.”

“True.”

When he came toward her, she stepped away, toward the piano. “I saw you looking through the sheet music.”

Wariness appeared briefly in his eyes, before his usual polite mask settled into place. It bothered her that he felt he had to hide what he was thinking from her.

Of course, she was hiding many things from him.

“And don't tell me you don't listen to music because your mother doesn't,” she continued calmly. “That just doesn't ring true to me. Surely the fact that your father was a composer, and that he died when you were so young, makes more sense.”

He opened his mouth, but whatever he meant to say, he seemed to think differently. “You'd think so,” he began, “but that's not true. I was proud of my father's music. It was what I had left of him, and playing it made me feel closer to him at first.”

She held her breath, and then finally encouraged him with, “At first?”

She kept expecting him to laugh away her concern, to pretend it didn't matter. But they stood facing each other in the center of the drawing room, and he didn't retreat.

“Is this what you need from me, Grace? Painful truths from my past?”

“I don't know why I need it, Daniel. But…” She trailed off uncertainly. How could she tell him that he needed to understand himself?

“Very well, then you'll hear it,” he said without expression. “I think I gave up music because of Mother, not my father.”

She frowned. “You've already said that your mother won't listen to music anymore, and that you—”

“Let me finish. When my father died, my mother didn't know how to handle her grief. She'd spent her married life at one with her husband's artistry, full of the same passion for creating music
as he had. But where he succeeded, she never had, though she tried in so many different ways. And she seemed fine with that, as if someday she would learn enough to succeed at her dream. When my father died, I don't know if music provided a bridge to his memory, but for whatever reason, she immersed herself in it for months. I barely saw her, except at meals, and even then she would be distracted, as if she could not escape whatever feverish energy she'd created. This went on for months.”

Grace barely breathed, so afraid of interrupting Daniel's confession. He hadn't given up music because he associated it with his father or because of the rumors of his mother being a murderer—music had taken away his mother at a time when he needed her the most.

“When at last she finished the symphony she was composing, she was exhausted and beginning to come to terms with my father's death. She hadn't necessarily meant for the symphony to be exposed to the world, but a friend showed it to a conductor without her knowledge, and suddenly she was being hailed as the next great musical genius.” He smiled wryly. “And I was angry.”

“You were young and confused,” she said softly, touching his arm. “You'd lost your father, and I'm sure it seemed like you'd lost your mother, too, since she was so preoccupied.”

He shrugged. “I didn't want her to go back to something that had hurt her—hurt us.”

“You stopped playing because you didn't want
to remind her about music,” Grace said, “in case she'd become caught up in it again. Were you worried she would?”

“For a while,” he admitted. “And then I was sent to school. The first time I came home, I ran to the music room, but the sheets still covered everything.”

“Like they do now.”

He nodded.

“Do you ever wish that you—or she—would rediscover music?”

But that was one step too far. He only grinned and reached for her, pulling her against his body.

“I am an adult now. There are more pleasurable things to do with my time.”

His breath on her face, his warm, hard body the length of hers was once again stealing away her will, her resolve to resist him. He leaned down to kiss her, and she let him, glad that he'd shared something so private with her.

“Get your hands off my sister!” Edward's voice thundered.

Grace stumbled backward and saw Daniel's face become impassive.

“Banbury,” Daniel said, as if they'd just met pleasantly on the street.

Grace turned to face her brother, guilt and worry clogging her throat, making it hard to speak. “Edward, it was only a kiss.”

“It's more than that, and I know all about it,” Edward said, stalking into the room and passing
her to face Daniel. “Jenkins approached me at my club.”

Grace groaned, knowing that Mr. Jenkins had chosen his revenge well. “Edward—”

But he ignored her to say to Daniel, “I can't believe I was beginning to trust you and your so-called advice.”

“I have never steered you wrong,” Daniel said calmly.

“No, you were only trying to distract me while you pursued my sister. My God, did you even tell her what crude right you'd won from my mother?”

“No,” Daniel said.

But Edward had turned away from Daniel in time to read Grace's expression and see the truth. A bleak sadness crossed her brother's face. “Grace, why didn't you tell me? Were you embarrassed?”

She raised a hand to stop Daniel from speaking. “I was hurt and humiliated, Edward,” she said. “Daniel and I had agreed that we would not marry. I didn't think it mattered.”

“Not mattered?” Edward cried. “Our mother tried to give you away like you were property!”

She put a hand to her mouth and felt the first tears leak from her eyes.

“It's like a sickness that even I can't avoid,” he continued bleakly. “I have tried so hard to put it aside, and though some days it's easier than others, I still was able to do it. But Mother didn't even try.”

“And can you trust your restraint so well already?” she asked. “I don't even trust my own.”

“You don't gamble,” he scoffed.

But then comprehension raced across his face, and he turned angrily back to Daniel. “It's you, isn't it? You are the man testing her restraint. My God, I trusted you, when all along you've been trying to bed my sister.”

“Edward!” Grace cried.

Daniel stepped toward her brother, and suddenly she could see the terrible result if she let them at each other.

“Daniel, you must leave!” she said heatedly. “This does not concern you. This is about the lack of trust between my brother and me.”

As she'd guessed, that made Edward turn back toward her, his expression affronted. “Grace, what are you saying?”

She took his hand and realized he was trembling. “Daniel, please leave.”

He nodded to them both and left the room. Grace and Edward were frozen in place until they heard the front door close on the ground floor.

Grace took Edward's other hand, and she was at least relieved that he didn't pull away. “I haven't told you everything, it is true,” she said, her voice shaking. “I didn't want you to know what I had to do to retrieve the violin.”

“Oh, Grace.” He winced and closed his eyes. “Not that damn violin again.”

“It was all we had, Edward! The property was gone. I could find employment, but you—”

“You don't think I can work if I have to?” he demanded, trying to pull away from her.

She clutched his hands harder, needing to be connected to him. “But I didn't want you to have to! You're a gentleman, Edward, and I wanted you to be able to live the life you've grown up in, just like our father. The money from the violin would help.”

“You told me you could persuade him to give it back to you,” he said, his face paling. “Grace, what did you promise him for the violin?”

She took a shocked breath. “You think I would sell myself for it? Edward, I would never—”

“Then what? I didn't buy that balderdash about redeeming him from the beginning. I thought you were wasting your time. But that was only a convenient lie to mask the truth, wasn't it.”

“It was desperation on my part, yes, but I truly believed it could work. He's a good man, Edward, and if I could have made Society see that—”

“Grace, tell me the truth!”

She jerked at his harsh tone, stung. Tears were flowing freely down her face, stinging her eyes, dripping to her bodice. “He didn't need a wife, but he wanted a mistress,” she said raggedly.

Reddening, Edward turned toward the door as if meant to defend her against the world, but she had a death grip on his hands.

“Listen to me! I refused, of course, and he knew I would. He was trying to provoke me because it's what he does best. I told him he could never convince me to be his mistress. He thought he could.
One thing led to another, and we agreed on a—a challenge.”

“A wager, you mean,” Edward said.

The disappointment in his face broke her heart.

“Oh Grace, I thought you were immune to the terrible need Mother and I share.”

“I am—or I was. But it…seemed so easy to win! He said that he could seduce me into willingly being his mistress, and I told him it was impossible. After everything that had happened to me with Baxter Wells, I thought this was too easy to win. And we'd have the violin, Edward. Its purchase would let us have our own home again.”

“Are you saying that he has not—that you have not—”