A Little Deception (16 page)

Now he was creating even more wicked sensations, and the words
she’d been trained to say would not come. Her desire for this man was stronger
than anything she had yet experienced.

His mouth was upon hers again and his kisses were working
their magic. His clever hands were seeking out her most sensitive parts, gently
massaging the tops of her thighs with feather-light strokes which only seemed
to stoke her need for more, his explorations moving into the most forbidden
territory, making her gasp. She was out of control. Drowning! Drowning in hot,
sensuous pleasure!

It was terrifying and it was exhilarating.

It was sinful.

She should galvanize every ounce of restraint in order to
extricate herself from his irresistible embrace, but where was her will? She’d
never known what love and desire were until now. Arching her body, she heard
the ecstasy in her groan as if from someone far away. He moved above her, the
wild, irresistible scent of him filling her nostrils, the mastery of his mouth
working its magic as he suckled her breasts, kissed her lips. She skimmed his
smooth, hard flanks and felt more insistently the pulsing of her womb as his
manhood pressed against her belly.

It was madness but she’d do it. Give herself to this man for
this one time only; yes, take the chance for it would be the only chance of love
she’d ever get and she had a lifetime of loneliness to fill with the sustaining
memory of these burning few short moments.

She stilled as she felt him position himself at her
entrance. Trembling, she sucked in a shuddering breath as she prepared herself.
She was ready to do this. With this one man only for she …

Loved him.

Loved him for making her feel what no other man on earth had
ever made her feel. Loved the humour deep beneath his ironic, masterful façade.

He tilted his head and his words came out as a soft rasp. ‘What
did you say?’

Surely she’d not spoken of her love aloud? She opened her
eyes to see his fleeting confusion but she shook her head, arching against him,
not wanting to lose the moment now that she had steeled herself.

His breath was coming fast and shallow. Lust glazed his
expression, twisting his lips into a wicked, colluding smile as he ground out,
‘My God, Lady Chesterfield, but you are–’

On the periphery of her consciousness Rose registered the heavy
footsteps upon the stair, growing louder as they approached. She tensed,
momentarily, then cast concern from her mind as she moved beneath this man she
loved and desired, blind to all but her own desire.

A grave error she now realised as she heard the door being wrenched
open on creaking hinges, before gasping at the cry of rage that echoed through
the room. ‘What in God’s name is this?’

She felt the momentary shock of the man above her before he
pulled back and rolled off her, drawing her into his embrace to cover their nakedness.
He needed almost no time to collect himself before he was demanding of the
interloper in a low, accusing growl, ‘I might ask you the same question,
bursting into my bedchamber like this.’

She was impressed at Lord Rampton’s ability, even under such
duress, to play the cool, affronted party. Trembling, she ventured a quick look
over his shoulder and saw Charles upon the threshold, his normally pale and placid
face suffused with outrage.

Advancing to the centre of the bearskin rug which carpeted
the floor, he stabbed a finger in their direction, struggling to force out his
words. ‘What are you doing?’

Rose buried her face in Lord Rampton’s chest, her body
burning with shame as she tried to soak up all the warmth of that moment, for
it would be a cold place she was going to be living in, soon, she realised.

His lordship did not flinch as he continued to shield her. Her
brother was visibly shaking. Charles’s rages were few but unpredictable, so
when he hissed, ‘If I’d thought to bring a pistol I’d shoot you through the
heart’ she exhaled in relief, silently endorsing Lord Rampton’s rejoinder which
he uttered in a tone of unconcern, ‘I’m relieved at your lack of foresight’
before he added, ‘Your wife might have taken exception to such overexcitement
– though I would suggest a little more excitement in the marriage bed
might not have seen her here.’

‘Wife?’ expostulated Charles, his pale face mottled purple
with rage.

Rose swallowed and pressed her forehead against Lord
Rampton’s warm, hard chest,
 
dread
and weary acceptance swamping her as she felt his arms tighten when she tried
to withdraw.

Charles could have only one response to this and the silence
seemed an eternity as she awaited the inevitable unmasking. Waited for the
moment when her hopes and dreams would be reduced to cinders and she was
exposed for the fraud she was.

‘That’s not my wife.’

She groaned softly as she felt Lord Rampton stiffen in shock
at Charles’s next words: ‘That’s my sister!’

‘MISS
CHESTERFIELD.’
Miss
Chesterfield. The
name should have provoked rage; instead, Rampton was dismayed by a surge of
feeling that was so far from rage as to render him no better than a slavering
schoolboy when confronted with the object of his adolescent obsession.

‘Show her in,’ he said, struggling for the self-possession
that had always been second nature to him and tossing aside the reading matter
which had failed to engage his attention for the past hour.

So, she had come to state her terms.

Having been caught well and truly in
flagrante delicto
, he accepted he had no one but himself to blame. Experience
with women had tuned his antennae finely when it came to sensing all manner of
ruses calculated to inveigle him into matrimony. But Lady Chesterfield –
Miss
Chesterfield, as it turned out
– had slipped entirely under his guard.

Stonily he faced the door while he waited for her to enter,
the events of the past week flashing through his mind. For twenty-four hours
after she’d been hauled off by her brother, Rampton had paced his study like a
caged lion, fuelling his anger with the multiple lies and untruths she’d fed
him as he tried to relive exactly the moment at which he should have become
aware of her deception. Any half-intelligent man would have sensed that not all
was as it seemed at the very outset, he told himself.

Cynically, he had waited for
Miss
Chesterfield to call and negotiate the terms of his
matrimonial incarceration. He had practised all manner of snide and ironic
responses, while his anticipation at seeing her again had grown steadily more
unbearable.

He wanted only to tell her what he thought of her.

So he assumed.

But she had not come, and that had been worse.

After three days he had snapped. Arriving unannounced, he
had confronted a pale and patently uncomfortable Sir Charles in his study and
stonily dictated the terms of a marriage contract. He was a man of honour and
he had compromised a lady. She was the clear victor in their final round; she
had more than just pinked him. Now he must pay the price.

Rampton had been prepared for a rambling defence from Sir
Charles of his sister’s behaviour. And, if Sir Charles were in a robust mood,
perhaps a healthy lashing of recrimination for Rampton.

But when the young baronet said only that his sister did not
wish to marry him Rampton was at last moved to anger.

‘Doing it too brown, sir!’ he declared. ‘She engineered that
little scene so that I’d have no choice but to suffer her joy as she
leg-shackled me on her triumphant progress towards the altar!’

Sir Charles, looking white around the gills, concurred
miserably, ‘I know, I know. But she’s made me tell you, expressly, sir, that
she has no intention of holding you to marriage. That, in fact, she does not
desire it.’

‘Does not desire it?’

He could not believe it. It was all part of the charade.
There was a trick involved somewhere, though right now he could not see it.

Not want to marry him?

Why, every unmarried female participating in the social
whirligig was there with only one thing on their minds and most of them saw
waltzing off with him as the ultimate feather in their caps.

Not want to marry him? When she’d gone to such pains to
ensnare him?

The very notion was preposterous.

He would not believe it.

The sad truth was, he had not the words to respond. Naturally,
he should hoist her on her own petard and take her at her word. Simply leave
town for the Continent as had been his initial plan, and that would be that. An
end to the matter.

The problem was that while common sense dictated this as the
correct course of action his damnably errant heart started playing up to such a
degree he needed to see her just one more time to conclude that he was as
fortunate a man in escaping parson’s mousetrap as any who’d been tricked by the
feminine wiles of a calculating female. His parents’ patently unhappy union was
a reminder that a wife was a ball and chain for life; not an irritant that
could be dispensed with when the desire took hold. Rampton looked forward to
many years during which he could sow his wild oats and indulge his
predilections for a variety of women before he succumbed to the allure of the
one extraordinary creature who would satisfy his needs for both wife and lover
for his remaining years.

Clearly, a woman who had tricked him with such calculation
did not answer the criteria but he was determined to make the best of it.

Now, seven days since that fateful afternoon in the tower
room and the scheming
Miss
Chesterfield
was about to walk through that door. His stomach should be churning in anger at
the prospect of coming face to face her. Fury should be boiling in his veins.

Instead, he felt his heart hammering and his palms go clammy
- even though he knew that the long delay in seeing him again must be
attributed to the fact that she obviously had a particularly assiduous man of
law looking into Rampton’s assets and what might be demanded as a matter of
honour.

Now the damnably alluring, deceiving Miss Chesterfield stood
before him. She looked proud and defiant, that strange combination of strength
and fragility piercing his armour, dissipating his anger and whipping up the
desire to enfold her in his arms. Except that the look in her eye warned him to
have a care.

‘My brother conveyed to you my feelings about the idea of matrimony
with you, my lord?’

He was silent while he tried to make sense of her barely
suppressed anger. Her beautiful mouth was compressed, her breathing shallow,
while her eyes bored into him with something that felt uncomfortably like
recrimination.

As if she were the wronged party.

Nothing could have been more calculated to drive him to
fury. The longing to hold her tenderly was replaced by an overwhelming urge to
shake – no, kiss – some sense into her.

He reined in his anger. ‘A pity, then, that you took matters
to such extremes. Lady Barbery’s diamond necklace? Was that to ascertain the
level of my affections? You were testing me, weren’t you, Miss Chesterfield? To
see how easily I would dispense with common sense in order to come to your
rescue.’ Rampton snorted. ‘A bold risk, but it paid off.’

She had been staring at her boots, still having refused his
offer of a chair, but she raised her eyes at this. ‘My sister-in-law … Helena …
said she thought she recognised Lady Barbery’s necklace in a parcel that
arrived from an unknown admirer. I know nothing more than that.’

He saw her attempts at appearing discomposed: the slight
tremble of her hand as it went to the thin gold chain she wore round her neck.
He was not taken in.

She said, ‘My Lord, do you not think it possible that Lady
Barbery herself was behind this malicious act, designed to make me appear the
culprit? I believe she was very upset when you gave her her congé … is that not
the term?’

‘Pah!’ Rampton swung to face the window and balled his
fists. The thought had occurred to him at the time but it had since been buried
by Miss Rose Chesterfield’s far greater treachery: her devious husband-hunting
methods, which had caught him like a fool. ‘Catherine and I parted amicably
enough, though I’ll concede she may have felt ill will towards you, having
usurped her in my affections.’

She inclined her head. ‘Then the theft of her necklace
remains a mystery. It must have been motivated by jealousy but since no harm
was done and I shall be returning to the West Indies next week there is perhaps
no longer the imperative to solve it.’

‘Good God, are you out of your mind?’ The expletive was out
before he could stop himself. He had not expected this. Without thought he
acted on his overriding instinct which was to keep her here. She was so very
appealing in her guise of distress and he had grudgingly to admit that he was
finding this interview more diverting than he’d expected.

Trying to maintain his composure he asked through gritted
teeth, ‘Can you really suppose I am so devoid of honour that I would not insist
on marriage between us?’