Ripe for Scandal (6 page)

“I’ll be back with your supper quick as I can,” the girl said as she clomped out of the room.

Sandison shoved Beau toward the slowly growing fire. She flexed her hands over the coals, wishing for the crackling warmth
of wood. There was something a bit dismal about coal. He hung up his greatcoat and tossed his hat onto the table. His silvery
hair was rumpled, strands falling loose from his queue to frame his face.

He looked wild. Like some creature out of a fairy tale. Her very own Tam Lin. He’d certainly abducted her in a forest. He
even had a white—or nearly white—steed.

Beau bit her lip and shut her eyes. It didn’t seem fair that under normal circumstances the world would never
have let her keep him, that her family wouldn’t have either. And there was nothing fair about what she had planned for him.

It was ruin or marriage. When Sandison discovered that merely retrieving her from Nowlin wouldn’t be enough to salvage her
reputation, would he baulk? Could she afford to leave him the option? Wasn’t her mother always saying that the key to managing
a man was letting him think everything was his idea?

Gareth took a seat by the wholly inadequate fire in the taproom and nursed his ale, trying—entirely unsuccessfully—to keep
his very active imagination away from what was taking place upstairs. The Pig and Whistle’s ale was bitter, but the bite was
welcome. It slowly pushed the cold out of the pit of his stomach.

Upstairs, Lady Boudicea was no doubt even now sitting by the fire wearing nothing but his nightshirt. The erotic thrill of
it was almost more than he could bear, more than he could face. Temptation incarnate.

If he were wise, he’d send fat Martha up for his greatcoat and spend the night here in the taproom, but there was no lock
on the door, and an inn full of hedge birds on a wet night was too dangerous a place to leave Beau alone.

He dropped his head into his hands and massaged his scalp. If he’d taken a carriage rather than riding, he’d have had a way
to push on despite the foul weather. If it weren’t pouring rain, they might have journeyed on as well. If. If. If. What was
it his grandmother always said? If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Gareth pushed his hair back from his face and propped
his feet up nearer the fire. As the leather warmed, steam drifted up from his boots in thin trails. His toes began to ache
as circulation returned.

They were at least two days from anywhere that she might be safe: London, her brother’s country estate, even his family’s
seat, if he were fool enough to take her there and subject her to the machinations of his father. And that was two days in
good weather. In the condition the roads were in at the moment, they’d be lucky to make any of those journeys in twice the
time.

And what would he say when they arrived at whatever destination they chose?
Good morning. So happy to have been of service. Please allow me to restore your sister to your protection
.

Her brother would rip his head from his body.

A tiny voice in the back of his mind pointed out that this was all the more reason to simply keep her for himself. Why bother
returning her when the punishment would likely be the same? Why bother returning her when it was the very last thing he wanted
to do?

His brain ran in circles, the wicked voice prompting him to take what he’d always wanted getting louder by the minute, drowning
out common sense and decency. He knew that voice. It was his father’s. Any action could be justified if one were a Sandison
of Ashburn. Even if one was only a spare Sandison.

Martha swept by carrying a tray. He rose and followed her up the stairs. They would eat and talk over Beau’s predicament,
and then he’d roll himself up in his coat and sleep across the doorway like her dogsbody.

He stepped past the inn’s maid and opened the door.
Beau was seated by the fire, combing out her hair. The dull glow was thankfully not enough to turn his nightshirt sheer. The
obvious points of her nipples through the fine linen were trial enough.

She pushed her hair aside, curls tumbling down to cover her breasts, droplets of water slowly falling from the tip of each
curl to bloom darkly on the linen.

“You can call me up when you’re done, or I can get the dishes back in the morning, sir.” Martha bobbed a quick curtsey and
hurried out of the room as the innkeeper bellowed her name from the bottom of the stairs.

Gareth eyed the food on the table. “Looks like some kind of meat pie, mashed parsnips, a very hard loaf of bread, a few small
apples, and pitcher of ale.”

Beau stared at him, silent and still, her hands clutching the ivory comb in her lap. Was she afraid of him? That would certainly
be an unprecedented first, but then so was everything else about the day.

“Come eat. We’ll muddle through this. I promise you.”

She let her breath out with a slightly giddy laugh. “Of that I’m sure.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, released
it, and sighed. When she stood, he realized that he’d been mistaken about the coals. They provided exactly the requisite amount
of light to turn the nightshirt to gossamer.

Gareth sucked in a strangled breath, blood surging through him thickly, pounding in his ears. She was beautiful. Always had
been. But the sight of her in his nightshirt infused his blood with a possessive undercurrent that boded ill for his carefully
leashed self-control.

Beau swallowed hard, throat working. Panic bubbled up. She could do this. How hard could it be to get a rake such as Gareth
Sandison to tumble into bed with her? He was always one small step away from a carnal slip, wasn’t he? She met his gaze and
held it, stepping toward him.

She’d make him happy. She’d keep him happy. Whatever it took.

She came to a stop close enough that she could feel the heat of his body through the fine linen of his nightshirt. The eyebrows
that she loved so much flexed and rose, the only part of him that hinted at escape.

She put one hand on his chest, fingers splayed out over his heart, curled them in over the edge of his waistcoat, holding
on tight. If she let go, she’d lose him. She could feel the tension in him, the way his body coiled for flight.

But instead of pulling away, his hands gripped her hips. His thumbs circled on her hip bones, pushing and pulling the fabric
across her skin. Heat flooded through her. She felt warm for the first time in days.

“What are you playing at, brat?” He sounded dazed, not confused but disbelieving.

She opened her mouth to speak but found herself pushing forward, reaching up to kiss him instead. Her hands slid over his
shoulders. His locked across the small of her back. Action was almost always the best choice, and if any situation in her
life had ever called for boldness, this was it.

His mouth took hers, hot and savage, a forlorn hope of a kiss. She pulled him down to her, one hand locked in his hair. She’d
been kissed before, but she’d never been devoured. Had certainly never wanted to respond in kind.

His grip on her tightened, and he dragged his mouth away from hers. “Your brothers will kill me.”

She leaned in, cheek to cheek, lips touching his ear as she spoke. “I won’t let them.” She pressed closer. She could feel
his—her mind went blank for a moment, and she forced herself to find the right word—his manhood… his… his
cock
swelling against her belly. A blush burned her cheeks even as a triumphant thrill worked its way down her spine. His protest
was nothing but bluster.

“If you don’t want me, you should have left me to Nowlin.” Lord knew that should goad him into action. She kissed Sandison’s
jaw, dragged her teeth along it, bit his lower lip softly. “In for a penny, in for a pound. I’m ruined either way.”

Sandison pulled his head back, twisting his face to one side, but his hands didn’t leave her. “Not if I get you safely back
to your family,” he said, each word coming out as though it hurt.

“There’s no safe return.” Beau pressed her advantage. “Not this time. Nowlin snatched me from Pall Mall in the middle of the
afternoon in full sight of half a dozen members of the
ton
.”

His breath hissed out of him. Beau cupped his cheeks in her hands and held his gaze with her own. “You can put me on a coach
to London in the morning or you can run with me to Scotland.”

“So I can play the villain or the scoundrel?”

A smile forced its way out, stretching her mouth in a grin that she couldn’t even hope to mitigate or hide. “You’d be a secret
villain. No one need ever know you had anything to do with my escape from Nowlin.”

“You’d know.” His voice was tinged with anger. “I’d know.” For the briefest moment, she thought she’d lost the gamble, and
then his hands flattened over her hips, fingers dipping to touch the dimples that bookended her spine.

Beau pulled loose the knot of his cravat while he stood frozen, as still as one of the standing stones at Avebury. She let
the scrap of linen slip through her fingers and fall to the floor.

“Scotland?” Beau held her breath, waiting for his reply.

“Scotland.” The word ground past his teeth like an animal clawing its way out of the earth. His mouth took hers with frantic
need, lips and teeth clashing, tongue dancing, teasing. Beau locked her arms around his neck and kissed him back.

He was hers.

CHAPTER 7

S
he was his.

Gareth fisted his hands in the fabric of his own nightshirt and dragged her to the bed. He might be damned as a villain and
scoundrel both, but he just couldn’t bring himself to care.

Beau caught her hands in his coat and shoved. He shrugged out of it, letting it lie where it fell. She clawed open the buttons
of his waistcoat and yanked his shirttails out of his breeches. He broke off kissing her long enough to toss his waistcoat
aside, push off his braces, and yank his shirt over his head.

She didn’t give him time to divest himself of his boots, let alone his breeches. She pulled him down onto the bed, hands roaming
over his back, nightshirt already riding up around her hips, long, pale legs begging to be touched. He slid a hand up along
her thigh until it came to rest where her thigh met the buttock. Sweet, impossibly soft skin rising to meet flesh that was
softer yet.

He buried his face in the crook of her neck. Dragged
his open mouth up to the sensitive spot beneath her ear, where he bit down lightly. She gasped and arched, fingers gripping
his shoulder blades as though she might rip them from his body.

Her earlobe beckoned, and he obligingly took it between his teeth, hand sliding over the top of her thigh, knuckles grazing
the exquisitely soft flesh where leg met groin. Damp curls. Slick folds. The sensitive peak at the top of the cleft that ruled
a woman’s pleasure.

Gareth swirled his finger, and Beau made a strangled sound in the back of her throat. He continued the caress, fingers sliding
between her thighs, down to the entrance to her body. Her flesh was hot, damp with her own juices, but the delicate web of
her hymen was unmistakable.

Icy reality hit him full force. For all her wit, experience, and bravado, Beau was still very much a virginal daughter of
the aristocracy. Gareth took a deep breath, cursing silently as the scent of her flooded through him, making his cock pulse
and ache. He forced himself to break off the intimate caress, to thrust both hands safely into the blanket beneath them.

Her arms locked about him, preventing him from rolling off her. “Don’t stop now. You can’t possibly stop now.”

The pleading note in her voice nearly broke him. “I can’t possibly continue, brat. The fact that I trespassed as far as I
did is bad enough.”

Beau struggled out from under him. She pushed her hair back from her face and stared at him with dawning horror. There it
was: sanity reasserting itself.

“You don’t want me. Oh, God.” She sounded sick, heart
broken. Gareth’s own somewhat-damaged heart skipped a beat.

“Not want you?” The words raced out of him of their own accord. “You’ve no idea how badly I want you, Boudicea.”

Beau’s head snapped up at the use of her full name. Her damp eyes met his, passion sparking deep within them. She reached
for him. Gareth caught her wrist and held her off.