A Duke's Wicked Kiss (Entangled Select) (42 page)

The footsteps paused. “Why not?”

“Because…because it would be worse than beating me into submission.” Too late, she heard his throaty chuckle at her admission that his mere touch left her boneless. He was going to try and tease her out of her anger.

“Will you marry me, Suri?”

That was a response she hadn’t expected. She dizzied. How had he drawn closer to her without her hearing his footsteps? And, oh God, if he wasn’t going to try and buy his way into her good graces. Well, she could play his game. “Bad timing, Ravenswood.”

“Damn it, Suri, you had better start calling me by my Christian name.”

Now they were getting somewhere—the humor had left his voice. She envisioned him standing on the bottom step, leaning a hip against the round wooden ball topping the balustrade, and glaring at her back.

“How many bedrooms are in this lodge of yours,
John
?” She crossed her arms over her chest at the hard emphasis of his name and felt a devilish smile coming on.

“Ten. Why? Would you like to try them all?”

A little quiver ran through her at the idea. “No. What I would like is for you to give me this place,
John
. Along with about fifty acres of surrounding land.”

“Give you the lodge? Bloody hell. What for?”

She decided now was a perfect time to change the subject. “Who did Edward go off to London to meet up with?”

“Traehaern.”

“What?” She nearly jumped around to face him, but she held herself in check. One look at him and all she was trying to accomplish would be thrown to the four winds. “Edward has gone off to become a spy?”

“He’ll not have a better teacher,” John answered. He’d stepped closer. She could tell by his voice. “By the way, when Edward joins Traehaern, they’ll be off to find your brother.”

“Trent and Edward are going to do Rupert in?”

He laughed. “No, they’re out to find George for you.”

Dear God! She pressed shaky fingers to her lips. It was either change the subject again or weep. “Your mother said she was exceedingly hard on you but protected James. Why is that?”

After a pause, John spoke. “If forthright honesty is what you are after, Suri, I’m all for it.” His voice held a unique tenderness she hadn’t heard expressed before. “James’s preferences ran to blue-eyed blonds. Of the male variety, to be specific. Mother saw me as the one to provide heirs, so she bore down hard on me.” He snorted. “Thought it would make a man of me.”

The air escaping Suri’s lungs couldn’t have gone unnoticed. His confession, laced with fierce loyalty to his brother, nearly spun her around to face him, but she held herself in check or she’d be in his arms and up the stairs. God, but he undid her. “Yet your brother became a spy? Doesn’t that require a more masculine nature?”

“You did not know my brother or you wouldn’t have said that. Besides, after Traehaern got ahold of him, James learned a great deal about acting the man. As a matter of fact, he reveled in fooling everyone into thinking he was anything he chose to be.”

She stilled at the shock that traveled through her. “Trent is one of…is of James’s ilk? I wouldn’t have guessed.”

A hearty chuckle erupted from behind her. “Tanush, the warrior, is celibate. It comes with the training. But Traehaern? Make no mistake, my dear, the man adores women. So much so, the only thing keeping him from mixing business with pleasure and doing himself in is Tanush, his highly trained alter ego.”

“Thank God. I would’ve lost faith in my own sensibilities.”

John laughed, soft and throaty, and the air above her head moved. She caught his scent, felt his heat. He was right behind her, nearly touching her, and a flood of love washed through her, nearly toppling her barriers. She shored up her resolve. Intent on setting a boundary in their relationship, one not many women could hold a man to, she wasn’t about to let him place a finger on her, not until she gave him leave to do so. When he stood there, not touching her, abiding by her terms, her respect for him took on new layers and anchored her heart to his forever.

“I love you, Suri, and I refuse to lose you over what Edward said.” His voice cracked. “Nor must I mislay my brother in the process. He needs to go now, but hopefully, he’s doing so knowing the door will always be open to him here.”

Oh God.
Still, she waited, not moving.

He took in an audible breath. “I won’t give you excuses for my faulty behavior, only the truth, my love. I was exhausted. I’d been through hell and back all these months, and all I could think of was getting back to you. What a shock Edward’s words had on me after the night you and I had spent exploring one another again. I had never known Edward to lie. Christ, he thought me dead. You thought me dead. Why wouldn’t there be something that had grown between you two? Any man with half a heart would fall in love with the likes of you. And despite Edward’s drunkenness, his heart is fully intact, if not a bit fractured at the moment. When he told me you were promised to him, that you shared the same bed, the idea of having lost you to my own brother was too much to bear. My foul temper got the best of me, and any common sense I had left took wing and flew. Forgive me.”

She closed her eyes while despair released its ugly grip, let it run out her pores until there was nothing but love trickling into the empty spaces left behind. Silence now countermanded the storm raging outside. She slid her hand to her own shoulder and rested it there in invitation.

After a moment, the tips of his fingers tenderly touched hers. She bent her face toward her shoulder. His knuckles grazed her cheek, drugging her. His other hand found the curve of her neck. He trailed a fingernail lightly along the column sending an explosion of sensation running through her. The softness of his caress consumed her.

“I love you, Suri.” His murmur held a note of wonderment.

“And I love you, John.”

He set his lush mouth to her neck and followed the track of his finger, laying ghost-soft kisses along her skin. And then his hands reached around and made quick work of the buttons on her wet jacket. He slid it off her and dropped it to the floor without breaking the steady pace of his honeyed kisses over her skin. “Will you forgive me?” His rasping words set fire to the air.

She bent her head to the other side, until her cheek nestled in his clean-smelling hair. “Yes,” she whispered, piquant pleasure drifting through her. “But I shall keep the lodge.”

He nipped her shoulder and left her knees without muscles or tendons. A throaty chuckle fanned heat over her skin that called her closer to him. “We do think alike, don’t we, love?”

His hand slipped through her blouse and found a breast. “Just this morning I decided that here would be a perfect place for your school.”

“You knew what I wanted the lodge for all along? You played me.” She whipped around.

He was all sultry mischief and sensuousness, his wicked mouth glossy from what he’d been about, his eyes drinking her in. “Touché. Now marry me.”

Had she won anything after all?

When she only stared at him, he took her hand and placed it against his hard arousal, his countenance suddenly serious. “Don’t think what I’ve got you touching decides anything for me.” His hand dropped from hers and went to his chest, his fingers tapping the space over his heart. “Here’s where you’ll find my level of devotion.”

She blinked hard against sudden tears. Lord, he was something.

He grazed a knuckle over her cheek, brought it to rest beneath her chin and lifted it, his gaze piercing the depth of hers. “But no matter how hard you search inside me, Suri, you’ll go to your grave never fully comprehending the depth of love and respect I have for you. My intention is to spend the rest of my life helping you know a bit of it. Now tell me you’ll marry me, damn it.”

She had won after all, hadn’t she? But then, so had he. They were now evenly yoked.

Gazing at him, her hand pressed tighter to the hard length of him. “Marguerite told me the foul word you used against me doesn’t always have to be so terrible, given other circumstances.” With a tilt of her head, she said, “Perhaps we could explore various connotations of the word?”

He grinned, slow and lusty. “Only if you marry me.”

She matched his smile. “I wouldn’t think of doing anything less.”

E
PILOGUE

R
AVENSWOOD
P
ARK –
N
INETEEN MONTHS LATER

“Good morning, Eades.”

“Your Grace.” Eades gave his perfunctory dip of the head and handed Suri a silver tray containing the day’s postings. She nearly giggled. He didn’t so much as blink at the pink and silver sari clinging to her curves. The buzzard never missed a thing, but he acted as though he’d seen nothing unusual.

She lifted three letters from the tray and her heart, already in the clouds, soared even higher—the first one was from the
Times
and addressed to Marguerite. The second carried Trent’s name on the back with a London address. The third held a seal bearing a crown. That would make the third official missive in as many weeks, and John had said nothing about them. Something was afoot. “Is his grace in the library?”

“I believe so, Your Grace.”

“Would you kindly tell him to meet me under the apple tree?”

“Indeed, Your Grace.”

She stepped out under the hot sun and waved when she saw a bright yellow column of color standing taller than the array of colorful flowers in the garden.

Marguerite waved back.

“I see you had the nerve to wear your sari in this awful heat as well,” Suri said upon approaching her sister. “It becomes you. But then you always did look good in yellow.”

She handed Marguerite the letter from the
Times
. “I would suspect it’s in regard to the advertisement you placed for the extra help. I do hope we’ve had a decent response. With only a fortnight to go before the school opens, and with all those orphans due in, I’m beginning to get a bit concerned.”

Marguerite opened the missive. Her eyes widened. “Dear heavens, a few responses? Try one hundred and twenty-five!”

Suri’s hands flew to her mouth. Tears pricked the back of her eyes. “Surely we’ll be able to find fifteen or twenty good people out of that number.”

She had to swallow to get her next words out. “At last, Marguerite, my long-held dream has come to pass.”

“Indeed it has.” Marguerite gave Suri a hug, picked a blossom from the garden, and tucked it behind Suri’s ear. “I’m ever so proud of you.”

“I couldn’t have accomplished all this without your genius at work. See you for the noon meal?” At Marguerite’s nod, Suri headed for the pasture and the apple tree where John’s parents once held their discussions—and where John and she now held court whenever it was their turn to butt heads.

Things hadn’t been easy for her sister and Jeremy. But life had settled in with a regularity that had given them both the peace they needed to go about the process of healing from their loss. Hardly a day went by without Jeremy remarking on his father. There were still times when he wept, as did Marguerite, but as the months passed, those days grew further apart while talk of fond memories regaled.

Lost in thought, she looked up to find herself at the tree—and John already there with Shahira on her back in the grass, her paws in the air like a kitten, the emeralds and diamonds in her collar sparkling in the sun. Suri’s heart turned over at the sight of her husband—as it always did. With his back against the tree, arms folded over his broad chest, he watched her through heavy lidded eyes.
Just like that first night in Delhi.

A quiver stirred in her belly. She turned her head and offered him a provocative smile. “Tell me something, John. Was it me you watched dance in Marguerite’s ballroom that first night in Delhi, or was it everyone in general?”

A slow grin curled that luscious mouth of his. “Only you, my dear.”

“You have two pieces of mail.” She waved them at him. “One is from Trent.”

“Open it.”

“The other is very official looking.”

“I’ll read it back at the house.”

She studied him. “Why is it I can know the contents of Trent’s letter, but not government posts that appear with regularity?”

John’s oh-so-wicked mouth that still turned her insides to butter, tipped up at one corner, but he said nothing. Blast it, he wasn’t going to tell her a thing, which only confirmed her suspicions—something was definitely in the air.

She scowled. “Don’t tell me you are back in the game?”

One brow arched. “Have you been snooping into my affairs, madam?”

A shaft of fear scurried down her back. Tears, too quick to form, clogged her throat. What the devil was wrong with her of late? It took nothing to send her emotions flying about. “You cannot, John. You have responsibilities…obligations desperately needing your attention right here at Ravenswood Park.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I thought you’d retired. Why are you receiving missives?” She waved the letter at him again. “This carries the queen’s seal. You’d better not think of leaving me and going off—”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Since Edward’s departure I am formally in charge of seeing to the sheep’s dung and horse manure, my dear. I may have retired from active service, but I admit to wanting a finger in the pot as an advisor. Some things never leave the blood, I’m afraid. If ever there’s a need to travel to the head office, you’ll be by my side. Now open Traehaern’s letter.”

The wave of tears that had threatened to spill over moments ago receded as quickly as it came. “The two of you don’t have secrets?”

“None. Read it aloud.”

She tore into the letter like a child at Christmas. “Oh, my. It seems Rupert didn’t spend my inheritance as he’d claimed, and is suddenly quite eager to see it safely in my hands. Trent suspects it might have something to do with him mentioning an investigation into Rupert’s financial affairs. Trent informed my brother that he is the prime suspect in the misappropriation of certain partnership funds concerning five other gentlemen, and that it would behoove Rupert to otherwise have a clean slate.”