The Earl's Mistress (32 page)

Elbow propped on the table, he made a careless motion with his hand. “Merely curious.”

“But why is it,” she said, “that you get to be
merely curious
by asking me a thousand probing questions about my past, and I’m not allowed to question the slightest thing about yours?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Isabella scooted her chair back and sighed. “Never mind,” she said, rising. “Anthony, I don’t think I shall have any tea. I feel very tired tonight. And I think we both know that I need to go back to London soon.”

He had jerked from his chair as soon as she’d stood. “I beg your pardon,” he repeated, this time more harshly. “I did not mean to ask
a thousand probing questions,
Isabella. I assuredly didn’t mean to give offense.”

“Nor did I,” she said tightly, “that day by the brook. I asked a question I thought any woman had a right to ask of her . . . her
lover
—though you were under no obligation to answer it.”

“No, and I damned well didn’t, did I?” he returned.

“No. You did not.” Then she sighed again. “That is my very point, Anthony.”

“Your point escapes me,” he said a little tightly. “What does our conversation by the brook have to do with anything? And by the way, Isabella,
are
we lovers?”

“I don’t know what we are.” She gave the faintest lift of her shoulders. “I only know that it’s hard for me to invest my heart in this—whatever one calls it—when I haven’t the right to even . . .” Her words fell, and she simply shook her head.

He had come around the table, and snared her wrist. “To what?” he demanded. “What, Isabella, do you want of me?”

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “Well—pleasure. I can’t deny it, for you’d know me for a liar. Yes, I want you. But the pleasure serves only to confuse me, I think.”

“Then that makes two of us,” he said darkly.

“Then why not leave me alone?” Anger flared in her eyes, deepening their color to blue-black. “Just stop . . . pursuing me, or whatever it is you’re doing. Stop asking me questions, spying on my house, and dragging me off like some savage. I can handle Everett—he’s nothing but bluster. What I fear I cannot handle, Anthony, is you.”

“Damn you, Isabella,” he rasped. “You madden me.”

He jerked her against him then and kissed her until she shook. He kissed her with his mouth and his hands, plumbing deep as he stroked her.

He kissed her until her knees began to tremble and her hands were sliding beneath his coat. And when her nails curled into the hard flesh of his shoulders, he cupped her buttocks in one hand and lifted her crudely against his erection.

“There,” he rasped. “Does that promise pleasure enough for you? Is that truly all you want of me?”

“No, it is all
you
want,” she retorted, her breath still fast. “I’m not good at these lovers’ games, Anthony, which you seem to wish to play.”

“Oh, no, Isabella, I am not playing games with you,” he growled. “I never have done. I have been straight and honest with you from the beginning. And I have told you
exactly
how things are going to be.”

She swallowed hard, then nodded. “Well, you’ve never lied to me, that is true.”

“Why is it I suspect you of splitting hairs here, my dear?” he said, refusing to release her. “If you don’t wish to answer my questions—if you want sex with no attachment—then by God, Isabella, I am definitely your man. Ask anyone who knows me.”

“I don’t have to ask.” She pushed him firmly away. “I have known it firsthand.”

He forced himself to step back, shocked to feel himself shaking with rage . . . or something—not fear, he prayed. And yet there was underneath it all a bone-cold terror that he might lose her entirely.

The kettle was boiling now—blowing steam hard into the room. He went to the hob and jerked it off, almost burning his thumb. He braced his hands wide on the mantelpiece, head hanging.

“
You are mine, Isabella,
” he growled without looking at her. “You are
mine
—and you ever will be. Do you hear me?”

“No,
I
am
mine,
” she said, her voice hard and steady. “You do not own me,
my lord,
and be damned to you.”

He turned around then, rage exploding as he stalked toward her. “No, perhaps I do not own you, Isabella, but until I gave it up, I bloody well held the lease, didn’t I?”

“You
bastard
.” She slapped him then, a cracking good blow across the face that sent his head snapping back a little.

He stalked toward her, backing her against the kitchen wall. “Oh, you are going to pay for that, Isabella,” he said, catching her chin in his hand. “And you know what I mean, don’t you?”

She swallowed hard and nodded, her inky black lashes sweeping down almost modestly.

“Christ, is that what you want?” he growled. “Is that really what this is about? Or are you just hurting me out of spite?”

She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “I . . . I am not spiteful,” she said, her eyes tearing a little. “But you are cruel. And I don’t know what I want. You—I want
you
. I wish I did not. You confuse me, and I just—”

He kissed her again, hard and swift, forcing her head back against the wall. With one knee, he shoved her legs apart, wedging himself against her as he thrust. Desire pooled red hot and heavy as he pinned one of her wrists to her side.

She maddened him.
Good God, this one was going to break him, he feared.

Just then, there was a sound near the top of the stairs. Nanny. Her voice carried, as if she was speaking to someone as she descended.

Shaking, Hepplewood released Isabella and stepped back. “Get upstairs, Isabella,” he ordered.

“Up-upstairs?”

“To your bed,” he growled. “Take down your hair, take off your clothes, and get that plump, pretty arse of yours between the sheets—and don’t you dare lock the door on me. And by the time I’ve left your bed tonight, you will know with exquisite and unerring certainty
exactly
what it is you want from me.”

CHAPTER
16

W
hile waiting for the house to fall silent, Hepplewood spent the next hour praying he’d not overplayed his hand with Isabella.

Upstairs, he kissed Lissie goodnight and read the girls a silly story from her favorite book, grateful that Jemima and Caroline did not roll their eyes at the insult. Then he went down to the parlor, where Anne sat darning, and drank three fingers of brandy while looking out over the carriage drive that encircled the house, wondering if perhaps he should be on it and headed homeward—away from here and what he feared he was about to do to Isabella.

“Penny for your thoughts, old thing,” said Anne from behind him.

He threw back the dregs of his brandy. “You would be wasting your money,” he said.

She sighed, and after a time, her fabric stopped rustling. “Are the girls asleep?”

“I expect so,” he said. “They had quite a romp today despite the rain. Thank you again, by the way, for bringing Caroline. You were right; she’s made a good friend for Jemima.”

“This has been a pleasant adventure for all of us,” said Anne. “They are lovely girls, aren’t they? Jemima and Georgina, I mean? And Mrs. Aldridge—her life cannot be easy, can it? Perhaps this has given her a bit of respite. So . . . thank you for that, Tony.”

He snorted and poured another brandy. “Yes, ever the altruistic one,” he muttered, “that’s good old Tony for you.”

“Well, you’re more altruistic than most men,” said Anne evenly, “and a good deal more than you credit yourself. But there—I can barely catch my breath as it is; I shall save it for the staircase.”

“A good plan.” He watched her reflection in the window as she gathered her sewing. “Going up, then?” he said.

She came to stand alongside him. “Yes, I’m for bed,” she said on a yawn, circling a hand affectionately around his arm, “if you don’t wish to talk? About . . .
anything
?”

He gave a bark of laughter. “You would be horrified,” he said. Then, his gaze distant, he bent to kiss her forehead. “Goodnight, my dear. Sleep well.”

“Goodnight, Tony.” She started from the room, crossing the front hall with her neat, quick steps. But at the foot of the staircase, Anne turned and looked back at him.

“I think you had better ask Mrs. Aldridge to marry you,” she said out of nowhere. “She won’t go on like this, Tony. I really don’t think she has it in her.”

He turned all the way around to face her, harshly lifting one eyebrow. “Go on like what, precisely, Anne?”

Anne had the grace to blush. “Well, being . . .
not
married.”

His ire stirring again, he opened his mouth to give Anne the tongue-lashing she deserved, then shut it. There was little use in denying the obvious.

“The lady is not my mistress, Anne,” he said grimly, “if that’s what you suggest. And to be honest, I don’t fancy watching another wife die in childbed. Felicity damn near broke my heart, and I didn’t even love—”

He stopped and pinched hard at the bridge of his nose.

Anne came back into the parlor, her expression softening. “Tony, there’s but one way to ensure a woman doesn’t die in childbed,” she said, “and it has nothing to do with a marriage license—or how much you love them.”

He dropped his hand, hating how cleanly Anne saw through him. She always had, damn her. It was the reason she’d so cheerfully given up marrying him, no doubt.

He cleared his throat a little roughly. “I know, logically, that you’re right,” he said. “But you must excuse me if I cannot see my way clear to . . . oh, for pity’s sake, Anne.
Go to bed.
We are not having this discussion.”

“Fine. We are not having this discussion.” Anne took his hand and squeezed it hard. “But childbirth is a risk every woman runs in order to have the one thing she craves as desperately as she craves a good lover—I mean by that a good husband, preferably. And in running that risk, it is best if you let the lady in question choose.”

He turned back to the window. “There is no lady in question here, Anne,” he said. “Go to bed. You—and that babe you are carrying—need rest.”

“Yes, we do,” she said. “So I shall plead fatigue and sore feet for the foolishness of what I’m about to say next, Tony.”

“What?” he snapped.

Anne sighed. “When Mrs. Aldridge gives you the boot—and she will—I am going to take her under my wing and introduce her to every eligible bachelor I know. And I know every member of the Commons, old boy, and entertain most of them in my drawing room at least once a month.”

“Oh, come on, Anne!” he said. “The girl is a beauty. If she wished to be married, she would be.”

“She thinks no one will have her,” said Anne. “Fenster has cast a constant shadow—no, a constant threat—over her happiness. But Fenster will be dead soon, though what he thinks will scarcely matter if Philip and I embrace her as his cousin’s widow. We should have done so years ago; I just never spared it a thought. But when I do, Tony . . . when I put my mind to it . . .”

“No, you never fail at anything, do you, Anne the Almighty?” he said dryly. “I know all about your political maneuverings. Go ahead then. Name your weapons.”

“Well, Philip’s brother Edward,” she suggested. “He’s newly widowed, and a—”

“—a dead bore,” Hepplewood interjected. “You’ll have to do better than that, old girl.”

She rattled off six more names, all reasonably wealthy, highly regarded gentlemen—and not a one of them, he inwardly considered, capable of giving Isabella what she craved. They were political dilettantes, mostly, who would merely kowtow to her beauty and put the woman on a pedestal. Or worse, humor her.

Isabella did not need to be humored. She needed a strong man with a strong hand. She needed, at least once in a while, to feel free to yield control to someone she could trust. And unless he missed his guess, she was bloody damned tired of being the only capable person in the room.

She had told Lady Petershaw she would never remarry. He halfway believed that was true. Perhaps her short union with Richard Aldridge had shaken her so badly that she never wished to throw in her lot with another man as long as she lived.

But she damn sure needed one in her bed.

He drank down the rest of his brandy and set the glass on the sideboard with a firm
thunk
.

“Go to bed, Anne,” he said again. “I was a fool to throw down the gauntlet. Go ahead and marry off Mrs. Aldridge if you can. I wish her nothing but happy.”

“Oh, not
now,
” said Anne lightly. “I love you too well to break your heart. I shall wait until she washes her hands of you. That way, I shall feel less guilt.”

He returned to his post by the window, but it was too dark to see anything now. After a time, Anne surrendered to his silence and went on her way up the stairs. But she had raised an ugly point, and one that had been nagging at him.

He was selfish. Selfish where his needs and his desires were concerned and unable, it seemed, to stop himself where Isabella was concerned. He had justified dragging her up to Greenwood by telling himself it would be easier to watch over her, but it would have been better for her—and far easier on his heart—to have simply hired another brace of armed guards to watch her and her sisters.

But he had chosen not to do that.

Worse, he had just lied to Anne. He would never let another man touch Isabella. He would do whatever it took. Yes, he would marry her if he had to—if she threw down an ultimatum—and he would do it out of selfishness. Perhaps he could live without her, and survive by merely watching her from afar, but he would never willingly watch her go to another man’s bed.

And it was out of selfishness that he waited until the house was still and the moon high, then crossed the dark passageway between their bedchambers in nothing but his drawers. Pushing open her door on faintly creaking hinges, he was assailed by Isabella’s scent. He could see her in a shaft of moonlight that cut through the open drapes, sitting half up in bed, her eyes open wide.