The Reckless One (22 page)

She shrank back, eyeing him fearfully.

“I found th-this in a box at the bottom of the—the chest in my b-bedchamber!”

“Impossible!” He’d had all of Janet’s belongings removed and stored in the farthest reaches of the castle.

Nothing of hers remained in these inhabited wings. Unless Janet herself …

“Why
did you dress as my first wife?”

“I found the
arisaid.
Someone had told me the story of the first ball held at Wanton’s Blush”—her lip trembled—“and how your wife didn’t come down and your guests went searching for her. I heard how they first found her scarf and then spied her but before they could get to her body, it was swept out to sea. I’d heard, too, how devoted you were and I thought—” She hesitated. “It just seemed right that for this last masque she should be here, too.”

The aunt’s gaze flickered nervously between them. “She didn’t mean any harm. It’s my fault if she’s offended you. I should have asked her who she was impersonating.”

“No,” Carr replied. “I know she meant no harm. I was taken aback because I had been thinking of wives and marriage and how very alone I am.” He reached out and secured one of Favor’s hands. It lay limply in his own. “Then to suddenly hear my wife’s name on Miss Donne’s lips … ! It seemed more than happenstance, indeed, a sign.

“Ah!” The aunt clasped her hands at her ample bosom in an attitude of rapture.

Favor wet her lips. “I cannot begin to fathom your meaning, sir,” she whispered.

“Really? I can,” Fia pronounced. Carr looked around to find his daughter standing at his elbow. She was dressed all in silver and white satin, even to the slight mask over her eyes. Long, soft feathers plaited in her hair nodded in the soft currents of air. More feathers covered her shoulders and the long, tight sleeves of her dress. She’d dressed as the Swan Princess.

“I have years of experience in interpreting everything Carr says. Should I translate, Miss Donne?” Fia asked.

“Ah, Fia my dear,” Carr acknowledged her coldly. “Forgive my daughter, ladies. One would think she was fresh from the nursery with such manners. I’m afraid I’ve overindulged her. She continually makes the unwarranted assumption that she is welcomed everywhere.”

Instead of being cut to the quick as he’d intended, Fia laughed. He should have known his sarcasm would be lost on her.

“Don’t fret, Carr. I shall take myself off before you”—she glanced at Favor—“end up on your knees.” Before he could respond, she drifted away.

“Whatever could she mean?” the aunt chirped.

“I am sure I couldn’t fathom,” Favor said forcefully. Her skin had turned very pale.

“Soon you will not have to fathom anything. I will reveal all.” He gazed tenderly down at her, cursing himself for dropping the love potion. Ah, well. The night was young. He’d simply refill the vial and return. Or he could try …

“Mrs. Douglas”—he smiled respectfully at the old woman—“though I am a man in the prime of my life and one of both experience and sophistication, I find myself in the odd position of having to beg your leave to be private with your niece.”

“Oh?” The aunt blinked myopically. “Oh. Oh
no,
sir! Thomas would never forgive me were I to countenance such goings-on. My niece is a well-brought-up young girl, sir, not some light-skirts!”

So, the fluffy little lap pisser dared lift her lips and reveal her ancient teeth at him, eh? “Of course. How thoughtless of me.”

“Thoughtless, indeed, sir. And one gets only one chance to be careless with so lovely a lady.”

Carr turned irritably toward the male voice, prepared to spear the interloper with a quelling glare. He found himself staring into the broad tanned throat of a … well, damned if he knew what the Goliath-sized creature was supposed to be. A jinn, perhaps.

The newcomer wore a long coat in an oriental style, made of bronzy satin figured with geometric patterns. Over one broad shoulder hung a plum-colored cape. A huge turban wound above a face stained dark as a Moor’s.

Jinn or Turk, Carr thought, eyeing the scimitar suspended from the man’s waist. He looked up and met the rogue’s interested gaze. He was unfamiliar. “You must have come with Highgate this afternoon, sir.”

The tall man inclined his head.

“I don’t have your name.”

“You may call me Mahomet.”

“May I?” Carr stretched his lips into a host’s smile. “How gracious of you.”

’Struth! Whose idiot idea had this bloody masque been anyway? Everywhere he met impertinence. He’d had enough of it. He’d find out this bastard’s name tomorrow, if it still interested him. Right now he needed to refill that vial.

The Turk shouldered his way past Carr to Favor’s side. She stared up at him with wide-eyed trepidation. “If I might have the pleasure of this lovely Scottish lassie’s company I can promise nothing more unacceptable than a dance.” Though he spoke to Mrs. Douglas his eyes never left Favor’s pale face. “Miss?”

“Ach,” demurred the auntie, clucking fearsomely. “I don’t know you, sir and—”

“Ah!” The tall Turk swung his head around, displaying a very large, very white set of teeth. “But I came with Highgate, one of Lord Carr’s special friends! Surely that’s voucher enough?”

He’d caught the old bitch off guard and she knew it, Carr thought. His eyes narrowed appreciatively on this unexpected rival. Mrs. Douglas didn’t dare refuse him now lest she insult her host.

“Miss Donne?” The Turk held out his hand.

Slowly, mutely, Favor nodded and laid her hand within his great, strong-looking paw. His fingers closed tightly on hers.

And she clenched his in turn.

“Ah! Allah blesses me!” The tall Turk laughed in triumph and took her arm, sweeping her into the crowd as he led her to the ballroom. Immediately, Mrs. Douglas mumbled an apology and hied off in pursuit, leaving Carr alone.

Yes. He would still be interested in the man’s name come the morrow. He felt certain of it.

“You must be mad!” Favor gasped as Rafe swung her in a dizzying circle. “Do you know who that was?”

“Who? The fellow in the lilac wig?” Rafe caught Favor’s hand and laid it on his forearm. He kept his own hand over hers, his fingertips lightly stroking her wrists, sending shivers of pleasure coursing up her arm as they commenced the sedate promenade the dance prescribed.

“Favor?” His sherry-brown eyes warmed with knowledge.

“Hm?” Favor murmured, distracted by his caresses.

“Is that the fellow you meant?”

“Hm … ? Yes. Yes! That, my boy, was Lord Carr.”

He drew back in mock horror. “Say not so! The Demon Earl himself? But where is his tail? His horns?”

“Who could see horns under all that hideous purple hair?” Favor muttered, winning Rafe’s laughter. She eyed him severely. “Aye. We’ll see how amused you are when Carr has you hauled out and whipped until your back is nothing but shredded flesh.”

He grinned. “Would you care?”

She felt herself blush and looked away. “No.”

“You would.”

She heard the tender smile in his voice and could not deny him. “Yes.”

His hand pressed hers and she listed toward him, pulled by a need to be nearer, much nearer than this too public place allowed. A sense of urgency underscored that desire.

Carr was going to offer for her. Possibly tonight, but if not, soon. He’d all but declared himself already. Wherever he’d gone, soon he’d come back and expect her to fawn over him. As would Muira.

She couldn’t be here when he returned. She glanced at Rafe. A lightness of expression had gentled his aggressive profile. Her declaration had pleased him because, she suddenly understood, he cared for her. She sensed it in the deepest part of her, knew the truth of it just as surely as she knew …

“I love you.”

His head whipped around. He pulled up short in the middle of the dance floor, arrested in midstride. He gripped her arms, turning her to face him. He stared down at her, his brows snapped together in concentration as he searched her face.

Around them the other couples, thrown out of their patterned dance, milled and hesitated and finally split and flowed on either side of them, leaving them an island in a river of streaming satin.

“What?”

“I love you, Rafe. You knew that though, didn’t you?” she said simply.

“No,” he said faintly. “No. I didn’t.”

He looked up as though searching the heavens for inspiration. She tugged lightly on his arm; they’d already attracted far too much attention. Like a sleepwalker, Rafe moved back into the dance steps, his rhythm wanting, his steps mechanical and graceless.

On the far side of the room Favor glimpsed Muira’s furious mien, her glare lethal enough to kill at any closer range. If Favor had her way, that’s as near as Muira would come to her for the rest of the night.

She looked up at Rafe. He still appeared bemused. She supposed she ought to feel like a slattern for being so forward. She didn’t. She’d no time to be less. She had one night. This night.

There would be no happy ending for her and Rafe. He was a thief and an escaped prisoner, without family, future, or even, she suspected in spite of his denial, a surname. Not that he need envy those.

She had a family … a clan to which she owed a debt that only one act could repay. She’d a surname … which kept her chained to her past as inescapably as Rafe’s manacles had once chained him to the prison walls. And she had a future … as Lady Carr.

She owed her clan that. But she did not owe Carr anything. Including the privilege of breaking her maidenhead. That gift she would insist on giving in love, not sacrifice. To Rafe.

“Let’s leave here,” she whispered.

“What?” Dear, reckless, baffled Rafe.

“I want to be alone with you. But if my aunt makes it across the ballroom—a task she’s presently engaged upon—I guarantee she’ll keep me by her side the rest of the night.” Rafe looked in the direction she indicated. Muira had waded into the thick ring of spectators lining the dance floor. Her step was determined, her mouth grim. “Not only will we be unable to share another dance but we won’t trade another unchaperoned phrase.”

It was threat enough. Without another word, Rafe took hold her arm, pulling her after him as he strode toward the opposite side of the room.

Muira elbowed her way through the last of the posing and primping fools that stood between her and the dance floor. She was sweating profusely under the layers of stuffing and wadding that formed “Mrs. Douglas’s” matronly figure. Dark rings circled her armpits and she could feel the paste, made of sweat and powder, trickling down the side of her face.

Damn the girl to bloody hell! Now she’d need to go and repair her makeup before the welt on her cheek was laid bare. And where was the little bitch anyway? A moment ago she’d been panting up at that big, dark-skinned man as if she’d seen Robert the Bruce himself. And him looking down at her like a starving man at a feast …

She scanned the dance floor. It only took a few minutes to discern that they were no longer on it. Furiously, Muira began stalking the perimeter of the room but the crush was growing by the minute and soon she could see nothing.

She’d no choice but to give up. No one knew Wanton’s Blush better than she, but the castle was huge and the places they might have gone too numerous to count. Besides, Carr would reappear soon. She couldn’t take the chance of Favor’s being with Carr unchaperoned. She didn’t trust the chit not to make a bloody hash of it.

No. She would just have to wait, bide her time and bite her tongue. If Carr asked after Favor, she’d make excuses he would swallow. She’d spent too many years half-starved and half-frozen, plotting and planning and begging and stealing her way to this place, to this point in time. All for the sake of her clan. For the McClairens.

And tomorrow she would make sure Favor McClairen understood just what that meant.

“You don’t even know me,” Raine said. He clasped her shoulders lightly, pushing her back against the tapestry-covered wall. They were in one of the castle’s solars, a chamber attached to what had once been the private quarters of Lizabet McClairen, the first lady of Maiden’s Blush.

Favor touched his face. “I know you.”

He shook his head in patent disbelief. She was young and he’d befriended her in a place populated by predators. Of course she thought she loved him.

“I am”—
dying with hope I know to be hopeless
—“honored by your words.”

The gentle comedown he’d hoped to give her did not have the desired effect. She smiled tenderly.

“I should hope so. I don’t give my heart readily.” One fingertip swept along his lower lip. “Lud, you have a beautiful mouth.”

“Stop that!” He sounded panicked, which he was. “You’re mistaken. You must be. How can you give a thief and blackmailer, a man you mistrust—and with ample cause, I do admit—your love?”

“Had I any choice perhaps I would heed your sage advice,” she murmured, “but my heart, graceless thing, did not ask my opinion. It loved without first seeking my counsel.”

“You speak too sweetly and wake a craving for more such words.”
Such sweet words that I would give anything to believe.

He dared not move. Her hand brushed down his chin and traced his jaw, trailing a lightning strike of sensation. She covered the pulse beating at the base of his throat with her palm.

“Think you so? ’Tis you who make me a poetess then. And I thank Him who gave me so canny a tongue. But I must return the compliment yet complain, for, in truth, sir, your tongue has its own sweet tricks that I do crave to learn.” Her other hand had moved up, unbuttoning the ancient Persian coat and pulling loose the strings tying his shirt.

“How can I get you to divulge your secrets? I would recite you more poetry but, sir,” she whispered, “longing takes my breath away.”

He groaned. His eyes shut. Her hand burrowed under his shirt, stroking his naked chest.

It was all too much.

With a growl, he wrapped his arms about her waist. He lifted her slight form, imprisoning her between the wall and his body. His mouth slanted over hers, his tongue thrust between her lips, seeking and finding the sweet, warm interior and—blessed bounty!—her own eager tongue.

She denied him nothing, either by word or act. He swept her loose frock from her shoulder, baring one of her breasts to his greedy eyes. He cupped the firm pale globe gently. She whimpered with pleasure, pushing the tightening nipple against his palm.

Hungry, desperate and half-dazed with the unexpected heat of her response, he lowered his mouth and swirled his tongue against the silky brown aureole. Her hands came to life on his shoulders, biting deep into his muscles as her gasp set the ripe flesh to jiggling against his tongue. He suckled greedily, sweeping a hand under her buttock and lifting her higher against the wool-softened wall. The rich, crisp cloth of her skirt crumpled in his fists. Gossamer lace drifted over his arms. A creamy smooth thigh slid beneath his hand.

“Yes,” she whispered rapturously, her eyelids fluttering half shut. “Please. Yes.”

“Yes,” he echoed, his lips sliding to the outer arc of her breast. He would drown in her physical response.

“Oh! Please. Don’t stop,” she pleaded when he sought a less urgent pace and he, both supplicant and sovereign, gladly complied.

He rucked her skirt up about her waist, inhaling sharply when he felt the warmth of her mons press tight against him, separated from her nakedness only by his breeches’ thin material. Instinctively, he thrust against her.

Her mouth parted, revealing the erotic unevenness of her front teeth. He rolled his hips and her thighs fell apart.

“Make love to me,” she said.

Love.
Dear God. Yes, he wanted to make love to her, to love her, to give her some of the physical pleasure he knew this act could bring and in doing so find for himself that deeper …
something
he suddenly had cause to believe existed.

He had to think but he couldn’t, not with her dampness seeping through his breeches and her gaze sultry and inviting. He tore his mouth from hers. She made a sound of protest. Lightly, he clasped her chin, turning her face away and resting his forehead on the wall beside her head. She took his free hand and fitted it to her mouth.

“I want you.” A siren call. She didn’t know what she asked.

Once, a decade earlier, she’d saved his life. He wouldn’t ever again be the cause of her anguish or her guilt. He couldn’t bed her and risk ruining her future. While he put no great store in virginity, most men did. And Favor, if what she’d told him had been true, had nothing else to offer a groom but the presumed paternity of her child. She herself had once told him it was the only thing of value she owned.

Bloody, bloody son of a bitch! If only he’d found the bleeding jewels. If only her name wasn’t McClairen. If only she would tell him to stop …

But she didn’t. She nipped the tender pads at the base of each finger before sucking on his thumb’s knuckle. “You have the most beautiful hands. I want to know what artistry they might work on my flesh.”

Good intentions faded. His clasp on her chin became a caress. “You don’t want this. It isn’t going to lead to some blessed union, Favor,” he rasped out. “I have nothing. Nothing at all to offer you.”

“You have your name,” she suggested in a whisper as fearful as it was hesitant.

God, yes. His name. “I assure you, my name would be no recommendation to you.”

She came back with a reply at once. “I don’t care.”

“I do! Damn it, don’t you think I want to feel you under me, around me?” he ground out. “I want to drink your cries, I want to make you scream with pleasure. I want to take you. Now. Here.”

“Yes!” One of her long thighs climbed up his leg and hooked over his hip. She rocked her pelvis against him. Desire careened through him, splintering his resolve.

“You can’t. We can’t.” His breath had grown thick in his chest; his body burgeoned with need.

She tipped her upper body away from his and yanked his shirt open. Her expression was heated with desire, fixed with determination. She started at his throat and worked down his chest, her fingers flowing over his pectorals, her nails raking through the soft hair, past the thickened V of fur low at his waist, beneath the waistband of his breeches. He held his breath.

Her hand closed about his cock. He jerked at the contact, impaled by want, torn by conflicting desires. A rumbling growl issued from deep in his throat.

“You’re a virgin,” he panted, his eyes hot and accusing. It was an act of masochism holding himself still like this, fighting to retain his self-control.

Her hand tightened into a silky fist and slid down over his throbbing shaft. Sweat shimmered on his forehead and above his upper lip. His body trembled. She leaned back, still holding him, and whispered, “No, I’m not.”

Her words shredded what was left of his resistance.

It ought to make no difference. He still had nothing to give her, no future, no name, no recompense for a childhood destroyed. But if he had nothing to give her, at least he couldn’t hurt her by taking her virginity away.