Dangerous to Hold (9 page)

She’d already decided that there was no point in hiding the fact that she wrote for
The Journal.
The sooner he realized that she was exactly who she said she was, the sooner he would bow out of her life.

“I write for
The Journal”
she said, “articles, essays, that kind of thing.”

“I don’t think I understand.”

For what remained of the drive to Emily’s house, Catherine explained it to him. He was torn between admiration and shock. “A. W. Euman,” he said. “That’s very clever. It means ‘a woman,’ of course. Damn, I’ve
even read some of your articles. I didn’t know women thought about such things.”

It was the sort of compliment she despised, but she kept her tongue between her teeth. “Thank you,” she said.

“But
The Journal!
I’m truly impressed. It must have been difficult to convince the publisher—Melrose Gunn, isn’t it?—to take you seriously. No offense, but you are a female.”

Catherine said sweetly, “On the contrary, it was Melrose who convinced me to allow my essays to be published. You’ll meet him tonight. He’s Emily’s cousin. That’s how we met—at one of Emily’s Thursday-night receptions. You do realize, my lord, that I’m telling you this in confidence? No one must know that A. W. Euman is a female.” And she wouldn’t have told him if she hadn’t been desperate.

“Why not?”

“Because no one takes a female seriously.”

“Melrose Gunn takes you seriously, doesn’t he?”

“Melrose is an exceptional man,” she said.

They talked at length about the kind of articles she wrote, and at one point, Marcus asked her: “On the night I met you, is that what you were doing, research for one of your articles?”

“It was,” she said.

“That’s why you were at Mrs. Spencer’s house?”

Amy had written to say that Wrotham had been asking questions and she had denied all knowledge of the lady he had described. “It was a hoax,” she said. “Someone, quite deliberately, sent me to the wrong house. It happens sometimes. That’s why I carry a pistol.”

In mounting confidence, she answered each question he put to her and a few he hadn’t thought to ask. She didn’t want him returning later when something else occurred to him.

When the carriage pulled up in front of Emily’s house, she gave him her most appealing smile. “I’ve answered all your questions, my lord. I trust you will keep your side of the bargain.”

He helped her out, and held her wrist when she would have taken a step away from him. “Our bargain,” he said, “was that I wouldn’t see you again if you didn’t wish it. Before the night is over, I hope to make you change your mind.”

He loved the worried look that came into her eyes, and was even more tickled when she bared her teeth at him. “I wouldn’t bet on it,” she snapped, snatched her wrist back and marched ahead of him toward the front door.

Catherine needn’t have worried that anyone would pass judgment on her finery. She was in good company. It seemed everyone had donned their best to meet Wrotham. Some of the ladies were so dressed up she hardly recognized them. Pale white gauzes were very much in evidence, as were white silk stockings at ten shillings a pair, and elaborate coiffures held together with posies of silk flowers. She felt quite ordinary. The gentlemen, meanwhile, were sporting the oddest-looking waistcoats, some striped, some heavily embroidered, and some she couldn’t begin to describe. It turned out that Marcus was the most conservatively dressed person there, which annoyed her. She felt as if he’d deliberately set out to make fools of them all.

She felt a surge of relief when Melrose Gunn came forward and swept her away on his arm. Melrose was in his late thirties, a very distinguished looking gentleman with silver threads in his dark hair. He was the most eligible bachelor in her circle, and in many ways, the sum of everything she admired in a man. He respected her intelligence, was interested in the things she was interested in and encouraged her to write about them. Catherine had known him almost as long as she had known Emily. He had asked her to marry him and Catherine had refused—and not only because she wasn’t free to marry anyone. The truth was, Melrose was too tame for her, and if he really knew her for what she was, the poor man would take to his heels.

“I see you arrived with Wrotham,” he said.

She accepted the glass of punch he got her. “Yes. He brought me here in his own carriage. Wasn’t that kind of him?”

Melrose, hearing something odd in her voice, gave her a sharp look, then returned his gaze to the group surrounding Marcus. “I suppose women find him attractive,” he said carefully.

“Very.” This was no lie. She couldn’t understand his appeal, but she knew she wasn’t immune to it, in spite of the fact that she neither liked nor respected him. That’s what made him so dangerous.

Melrose sipped his punch slowly. At length, he said, “They say he is a womanizer, as his father was before him.”

She patted his arm affectionately. “If you want to warn a woman away, Melrose, you’re going about it all wrong. Don’t tell her that a man is a womanizer. She always thinks
she
will be the one to reform him. What you have to do is remind her that he is a
married
man. That will do the trick every time.”

Marcus saw them laughing together from across the room. He was too polished to let his curiosity show, too honest to deny that he felt a stab of annoyance at the gentleman’s proprietary air. Before an hour had passed, he’d discovered discreetly from Emily all there was to know about Melrose Gunn and his relationship to Catherine Courtnay. Catherine was her dearest friend, Emily told him, Melrose was her cousin. She had reluctantly accepted that the two would never make a match of it; they’d been friends too long.

As the evening went on, he continued to probe for information about Catherine. What he discovered was that she’d lost her mother when she was twelve; she’d been raised by a killjoy, horror of an aunt; and that her sister had eloped never to be heard of again when Catherine was fourteen years old. He already knew about her father’s untimely death in Portugal.

He thought of the other women he knew and tried to image them in Catherine’s place—living alone, forced to
earn their bread—and he couldn’t do it. It surprised him that she had not taken the easy way out and married Melrose Gunn, who clearly would have jumped at the chance to make her his wife.

He wasn’t able to say more than a few words to Catherine all evening. As the guest of honor, he was very much the focus of attention. In contrast to his godmother’s ball and all its boring, insipid conversations, here religion and politics were argued with relish, even by the ladies. Everyone had an opinion on everything. By the end of the evening, he began to think there was something to be said for boring, insipid conversations after all.

He did not come face-to-face with Melrose Gunn until he and Catherine were leaving. Catherine introduced them. Each man studied the other with carefully concealed dislike, but managed to be polite. Marcus knew that Gunn was staying over at the Lowries’, so there was no question about who was taking Catherine home. Marcus thought that was too bad since he would have enjoyed besting the man.

He chuckled when he entered the carriage and took the seat opposite Catherine’s. He rapped on the roof and the coach moved off at a sedate pace.

“What’s so amusing?” she asked. Her hair was falling down and she began to rearrange it.

“Mmm? Oh, territorial rights. I thought I was above that sort of thing.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No. You wouldn’t.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because you’re a female.”

There was an odd silence. Something came and went in his eyes. Catherine stopped fussing with the cluster of flowers in her hair. His breathing was audible. A breath caught in her throat and held.

“What is it about you?” he asked softly.

He’d barely taken his eyes off her all evening. He’d never seen such coloring in a woman. An artist could not have captured that warm halo of hair, the subtle tint of her skin. He’d watched the fluid way she moved, studied
the animation on her face, and the way her hands gestured when she was discussing something that interested her. He knew he was drawn to her. He admired her, respected her. She appealed to the chivalrous side of his nature. But here, in the intimacy of the closed carriage, with her flowery perfume filing his nostrils, something moved in him, something dark and primitive that made him want to reach out and take. Only one woman had ever held him enthralled like this. Catalina.

“I must be going out of my mind,” he muttered, and reached for her. “No, don’t fight me. I’m not going to hurt you. Just be still and let me … let me …” He drew her to his side of the banquette and lowered his mouth to hers.

Her eyes had been drawn to him all evening, and she’d tried not to be taken in by his careless charm. She’d watched that mobile mouth smile a lot, and the blue in his eyes become vivid when he was amused by something. She’d tried to remain immune, really tried, but he had a way of combing his fingers through a lock of dark hair on his brow, brushing it back, a gesture she remembered from Spain, and something inside her had softened. Now, in the warm cocoon of the darkened coach, she found herself softening even more. She didn’t feel like Catherine. She was Catalina again, and he was Marcus, before she’d discovered who he really was.

Her lips yielded beneath the pressure of his, then parted to the gentle persuasion of his tongue. His fingers brushed through her hair, dislodging pins and flowers, and he wrapped thick strands of silk around his hands, binding her to him. Her scent, her taste, her flavor filled him so completely that he wanted to drown in her.

She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for this quickening of the senses. There was a roaring in her ears, her heart was thundering against her ribs; her head was spinning. With a helpless moan, she wound her arms around his neck and clung to him.

His hands slipped inside her cloak, kneading her waist, her hips, her thighs. It wasn’t enough for him.
He wanted to get closer. The kiss became wetter, hotter. It was too intense. They were going too fast, too soon.

He drew away, and their eyes met and held as they looked at each other in silence. The coach swayed, bringing them closer, and she drew his head down to renew the kiss.

He hauled her across his lap, and his hands raced over her, learning her intimately. She went limp in his arms, allowing him whatever he desired.

He knew what it was to want a woman, but never like this. This wasn’t easy; this wasn’t pleasure. This was madness. He wanted to take her here, in the coach, and possess her so completely that she would know she belonged only to him. She would always belong to him.

He felt like a man rushing headlong toward the edge of a cliff. This wasn’t him, or if it was, he didn’t recognize himself. She had never been with a man before. He couldn’t take her with all the finesse of a rutting bull. He had to get a hold of himself. He had to slow down and make this right for her.

His fingers curled around her hands and drew them gently from his neck. Her long-lashed eyes blinked up at him. He tried to smile. “Catalina …” he began.

In the next instant, she had thrown herself to the other side of the coach as far from him as possible. “I’m not Catalina! I’m not your wife,” she cried out. “I’m not.”

Marcus pressed a hand to his eyes. “Forgive me. It was a slip of the tongue. Your names are so similar. I meant ‘Catherine’ of course.”

He wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth. Somewhere in that fervid embrace, Catalina and Catherine had merged together in his mind. It was an unforgivable slip, one that had never happened to him before, and it left him feeling as awkward as a callow youth caught in the act with his first woman.

Her voice was throbbing with emotion. “You shouldn’t have kissed me. I shouldn’t have let you.” She
breathed in a steadying breath. “Oh God! How could I have forgotten you are a married man?”

He wasn’t going to go into that right now. He said, “You have nothing to be ashamed of. The guilt is all mine.”

Tears were shimmering in her eyes, and he wanted to gather her in his arms and kiss them away. He could well imagine her response if he dared lay a hand on her now. “Bloody hell!” he muttered, and raked a hand through his dark hair, brushing it impatiently from his brow. He stared at her long and hard, fisting and unfisting his hands. He wanted to kiss her again, touch her, finish what he’d started. His body was still heavy with desire, still aching.

Suddenly rising, he reached for the door handle. “We’ve got some talking to do,” he said, “but not here. We’ll talk when we get to your house, where there are chaperons.”

She cried out when he pushed through the door, and cried out again when he swung himself up on the roof of the carriage. For one harrowing moment, she’d thought he was going to throw himself onto the road. When he slammed the door shut with one foot, she sagged back against the banquette and cupped her burning cheeks with both hands.

He was dangerous, far more dangerous than she remembered. She hadn’t even tried to turn him away. She’d been putty in his hands. How could a man do that to a woman? Not just any man. This was
Wrotham!

She touched a hand to her bruised lips. She was still trembling in the aftermath of that kiss. No man had ever made her feel like this, made her ache with wanting him. She didn’t want Wrotham. Wrotham, she feared and hated. But Marcus … Oh God, she was so confused.

She heard the crack of a whip, and the coach suddenly shot forward. She made a grab for the window frame to steady herself. Above the thundering of the horses’ hooves, the whip cracked again. Outside the coach window, shapes and shadows slipped past, as they headed down the hill to Heath House.

When they came to a halt, the door opened and Marcus helped her alight. He saw that her eyes were smoldering again. If they had been alone, he would have given her something real to smolder about.

He hid his smile as he escorted her to the front door.