The Dangers Of Deceiving A Viscount (20 page)

“Yes, something has happened. I am in desperate need of asylum.”

“Asylum?”

“Unfortunately,” he said, stepping inside her room, “I am hopeless in social situations. I find them tiresome and tedious. I’d much rather be in a Bedouin tent listening to the masnawa.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“To tales told very poetically.”

“But you should be with your guests,” she said, hurrying to the door. She peeked out into the hallway and, apparently satisfied that no one was about, quickly shut the door and turned around to face him. “You are the host,” she admonished him, as if he might possibly have forgotten.

“It is a deplorable lack of manners, I agree,” he said jovially, and looked around the room and at the gowns in various stages of tailoring. “They will hardly note my absence, and I shall not leave them long.” He glanced at Phoebe from the corner of his eye. “I heard you singing.”

“Oh.” A blush stained her cheeks and she suddenly laughed. “I regret that I am not particularly accomplished.”

Not particularly? Not at all.

“Greer—my cousin—she is an accomplished musician. She possesses all of the family talent, it would seem.”

“Ah. Is there more to your family besides the accomplished cousin?”

Phoebe looked startled by the question. “Family?” she echoed, as if she were having trouble recalling.

“Mother? Father? Sister or brother?”

“Ah…” She looked anxiously at her feet. “Ahem.” She pushed a hand through the wild curls of her hair. “Well…my cousin, of course”—she glanced up—“the, ah…the accomplished musician.”

“I think we’ve established quite clearly that you have a cousin.”

“Yes. Well. I…I have a sister.”

He nodded.

She shrugged a little.

When it was clear to him she meant to say nothing else, he asked, “No mother or father?”

“Deceased,” she said with a quick affirmative nod.

A young widow practically alone in the world, was she? Why that knowledge made him think of her body beneath the dressing gown was unfathomable. “How long have you been widowed?” he asked bluntly, taking a step toward her.

Phoebe frowned a little and folded her arms tightly across her chest. “Did you really come here to ask after my family?”

“No,” he said honestly. “I can’t rightly say why I came. Frankly, I am trying to work it out whilst I distract you with questions. Humor me, will you?”

He could see her silently debating it. After a moment, she said, “More than a year.”

She seemed uncomfortable speaking of it, but Will, who had taken in the wild curl of her hair, the soft glow of her skin, and her very appealing state of undress, had crossed some invisible line. “Do you miss him?” he asked quietly, unsure of what answer he wanted.

She colored, glanced down at the floor. “I…” Her voice trailed and she did not finish her thought.

Obviously, she mourned him, of course she did, and he was being incredibly callous in asking her about her husband. Nevertheless, he took another step toward her. He was standing so close that he could smell the scent of her perfume. He put his hand on her arm. “More than a year is quite a long time to be without the company of another, is it not?”

She gave him a hard look. “I am not without company.”

“Perhaps. But the company of a sister or cousin is a poor substitute for the company of a lover. Then again…perhaps you mean to imply that you have a lover to warm your lonely bed.”

The blush in her cheeks deepened. “That…that is a very private concern,” she stammered.

No lover, then. Will was ridiculously pleased by the realization, as well as baffled by it. How was it that a widow as beautiful as Phoebe Dupree had not been lured into an affair or even marriage by a powerful, wealthy man? Didn’t every man see the beauty he saw in her? How could they not?

“And what company do you keep, sir?” she asked, challenging him.

He smiled. “My own.”

That earned him a ladylike snort and a pert toss of her head. Ah, but the woman intrigued him as he’d never been intrigued before. He felt an unrelenting need to know everything about her, to hear her speak and laugh, to see her smile and eat and ride and read—whatever she did in the course of her day, he wanted to see it.

He shifted closer once more, standing so close that she had to tilt her head back to see him. He took a strand of her loose hair in his hand and ran his thumb down it, feeling the silk of it. “Do you desire a man’s touch?” he asked, using the end of her hair to trace a line from her shoulder to the open throat of her nightgown, and down to her breast. “Do you miss having a man in your bed?”

She gasped softly. “Good heavens, will you try and seduce me at every turn?”

“Come now, Phoebe,” he said with a chuckle as he pushed the hair behind her shoulder and brushed his knuckles in the place her shoulder curved into her neck. “We are not innocents, you and I. We understand what pleasure can exist between a man and a woman, and as we are both without such pleasure at this time…perhaps we might agree to a mutually satisfying arrangement.”

Her eyes widened with surprise; she drew a breath that lifted her chest. Will leaned forward, touched his lips to her temple. “If you miss a man in your bed…I am at your service.”

He heard her breath catch; he slipped his hand under her chin, lifted her face, and kissed her deeply with the promise of what would come. When he lifted his head, Phoebe’s eyes were glittering.

She took another, steadying breath and released it so quickly that a wisp of her hair lifted. “You are depraved,” she said breathlessly, but her color was high, and her eyes full of desire. “What could you possibly mean to suggest? That I abandon my virtue for the sake of your pleasure?”

“No,” he said, and kissed her other temple. “For the sake of your pleasure. Let there be no doubt, madam…if you desire it, I will give you more pleasure than you can possibly bear.”

She did not breathe, she did not move, just held his gaze.

Will kissed her. She stood stiffly, her lips pressed together. Just when he thought it was apparent she was not going to fling herself in his arms and agree to his outrageous proposition, as he absurdly hoped, she opened her mouth beneath his.

Elation surged through him; he abruptly swept her up in his arms. She held her arms at her sides, not touching him, but she returned his kiss, her tongue touching his, her breasts pressed against him. He could feel himself growing hard, and he moved against her, letting her feel how his desire for her surged through his veins.

When he did, she made a whimpering sound in her throat. Her hands came up to his head, his shoulders, his arms, and she kissed him like a woman who had been stranded in the same wilderness he’d been in for months now.

He would have made love to her there had not the niggling thought of his guests downstairs invaded his brain. He slowly put her on her feet, touched his hand to her cheek, and lifted his head.

“I will never agree to such an immoral arrangement,” she said breathlessly.

Will almost laughed. He gave her a wink that suggested he knew otherwise, and let go of her. He walked to the door, but paused there to look at her once more.

Phoebe was staring at him as if she couldn’t determine if he was man or beast. She was hugging herself, a slight frown of confusion on her face. “I won’t agree,” she said again.

“I think you will,” he said, and with one last look at her in that arousing state of dishabille, he added, “Or I shall die trying to change your mind.” With that, he made himself walk from the room before he took complete leave of his senses.

I t was madness. Insanity. Yet it was the most tantalizing offer Phoebe had ever received in her life.

She lay in her bed, staring at the window and watching the moon’s light drift across the floor. She could not stop thinking of the way Summerfield had touched her, or the way he’d looked at her—the memory of it made her shiver.

Once, Phoebe had confided to her mother that the way some men looked at her made her feel uncomfortably exposed. She felt ashamed when they looked at her in such a manner, as if she were somehow inviting their lust.

“Oh, darling,” her mother had said sympathetically, “you are a beautiful girl. I daresay no woman in the ton is more beautiful than you.”

“Really, Mamma,” Phoebe had said, feeling herself blush.

“It is true. And men are creatures of the flesh—nothing pleases them more than looking upon a beautiful woman. But one day, a man will look at you not with lust in his eyes, but with fever.”

“Fever!” Phoebe had echoed, pausing in her painting to look at her mother. “He will be ill?”

“Not at all! What I mean is that a man’s lust is a hunger for the flesh, a burning for carnal pleasure, which, when pursued in the right circumstance, is quite nice,” she’d added with a mysterious smile. “But a fever, Phoebe,” she said, sinking down on the ottoman and taking Phoebe’s hand in hers, “a fever is a different sort of hunger altogether. When a man looks at you with fever in his eyes, he is burning with a thirst that consumes all of him, not merely a single part. His hunger is not just for your flesh, but for your heart and soul. When you see it, you will know it—because you will feel that fever in you.”

“Mamma,” Phoebe had groaned. Her mother was quite enamored with the world of ladies and gentlemen and the coquettish sport between them. She often waxed lyrical about the affairs of the heart. Phoebe had assumed her mother was crafting her poetry again and was refusing to understand her particular dilemma.

But last night, she believed she had seen a hint of the fever her mother had described in Summerfield’s eyes. Moreover, she’d felt the fever in herself.

Nevertheless, how could she possibly consider his offer? She would be ruined if she agreed—or would she?

Elizabeth Montague had once boasted to Phoebe and Ava that she’d had a lover long before she was married, and when she did marry, there was not a breath of scandal. Elizabeth may very well have been untruthful with them—Phoebe and Ava had debated the possibility more than once. But Phoebe had seen Elizabeth in the company of Mr. Grant on several occasions and had believed they truly were lovers—there was an intimacy about them that she perceived was more than friendship.

And then again, Miss Beverly Randall had engaged in an affair with a notorious rake, and the ensuing scandal was quite severe. Her family sent her to Cornwall, where, as far as Phoebe knew, she remained to this day.

There had certainly been consequences for Miss Randall, and Phoebe was a fool to think she would suffer any less.

Except for one small thing—Phoebe had something neither Miss Randall nor Elizabeth had had in the course of her affair: anonymity. As far as anyone in Bedfordshire knew, she was the widow of a Frenchman and indentured to Wentworth Hall for a time. She could, were she to completely abandon her morals, engage in an affair with a man and no one would be the wiser…

Save a future husband.

Assuming there was a future husband. And if there was, Phoebe was old enough to have heard more than one way to explain a lack of virginal purity on one’s wedding night. Not every woman found it to be messy and distasteful. Ava had said there was a bit of a sting, but nothing quite as dramatic as they’d heard from others. In fact, Phoebe knew of one woman who adamantly avowed that strenuous exercise—horseback riding in particular—could take one’s virginity just as easily as a man.

Dear God, was she actually considering his offer, then?

Of course she wasn’t! It was ridiculous to pretend for even a moment that she was! Yes, but…but she really did desire him—oh God, how she desired him—more than any man she had ever known.

She had a fever.

The next morning, Will rode Fergus into the hills, where the remnants of the first Earl of Bedford’s castle still stood. The wild horses had moved up the valley, to the ruins, where the grazing was still good this late in the summer. As usual, Fergus sensed the other horses first, snorting and lifting his head, flattening his ears as they neared them. They were feeding in what Will supposed was once a lawn, near a meandering stream. A little foal had ventured too far from his mother and galloped awkwardly back to her side when he saw Will ride into the dale.

Will swung down from Fergus, discarded his coat, then removed the saddle from Fergus and heaved it over his shoulder. With his free hand, he grabbed the extra saddlebag that held the bit, bridle, and reins.

He was feeling on top of the world, and smiled when Apollo snorted at him as he calmly walked forward. “Good morning, you bloody beautiful beast,” he said, and dropped the bag with the reins. He shifted the saddle from his shoulder and held it out, inviting Apollo to sniff it. Apollo was accustomed to seeing it now, had even felt it on his back. But today Will intended to cinch it. Tomorrow he would ride.

Apollo sniffed the saddle, then dropped his head to the saddlebag, looking for apples.

Will had those, too.

As he worked, he spoke softly to Apollo, teaching him the commands he would eventually learn in the course of being saddled, such as Lift your head, and Steady now. And as Will began the process of cinching the saddle at the underbelly of the horse, he said to Apollo, “You and I have come quite a long way, my friend. It has taken some coaxing, but I believe we will have a fast friendship and long acquaintance.”

Apollo looked over his shoulder at Will, eyeing him dubiously with his enormous brown eye, then neighed and dropped his head to the grass once more as Will carefully tightened the cinch.

Jane was ecstatically happy that afternoon, twirling about in a half-finished ball gown, admiring her form and chattering on about having made the acquaintance of John Remington, whom she declared the most perfectly charming and handsome gentleman she’d ever met.

“And what of you, Alice?” Phoebe asked, squeezing in her question when Jane paused for a breath.

“She did not speak unless spoken to,” Jane said.

“That is not true. I spoke at length with Samuel Remington, but you were smothering John Remington with all your silly chatter and did not take notice. I even spoke to Caroline Fitzherbert’s younger brother.”