A Perfect Gentleman (34 page)

Her green cloak was folded over the back of his chair, and she was leaning over, far enough that Stony could see right down her gray silk bodice to the vee that formed between her breasts. The fact that he noticed, and that his mouth went dry despite the wine, was one reason they shouldn't be alone here like this. Another reason was that the rumor mill would be working overtime as it was.
If anyone saw Wellstone bring Miss Kane home sans chaperon, the tongues would wag even harder. If one of the neighbors saw him escort Ellianne to her door—and not come out—there would be hell to pay in the morning.

Thanks to Blanchard, Ellianne's reputation was already hanging on to respectability by a thread. It might be a golden thread, but it was still fragile.

“Stop fretting about what society is going to say,” she told him when he repeated his concerns. “I do not. And I have no relations other than Isabelle to be embarrassed by a stain on the family name. My mother's family is already ashamed of the Kane connection, so whatever I do cannot affect them. I'll go home, that's all. I never intended to stay in London this long, and I never need to come again.”

“But what about me?” He looked away while she wound a strip of linen around his hand. “My honor is at stake, too, you know, and I have to stay here. So does Gwen, who will be crushed that her friend is exiled. As for me, my reputation does matter, especially when no one wants to entrust their sisters or daughters to my care after all the recent blunders.”

“Do you have to do that? Work as an escort?”

“What other employment is there for a gentleman trained to be an idler? I did try gambling, but I do not have your head for numbers, and my lands do not earn enough yet to support themselves, if I had enough experience to manage them properly. The army is obviously out of the question, so what would you have me do, turn highwayman?”

Ellianne was not one to see romance in road pirates. Nor could she envision the viscount's sunny smile hidden behind a mask, threatening, “Your money or your life.” Goodness, what if he shot someone? His victim's carriage could roll right over him as he lay on the ground. “No, I do not think you are suited to the life of crime.”

“I only need to work for a short while more, at any rate. Then my father's debts will all be paid and Wellstone Park will start earning income instead of taking every farthing I make.”

“That you don't give to the girls' home.” She nodded in understanding and approval. “What are we supposed to do, then, to restore your good name? Get married? Lady Val was hinting about such a course while we waited for the carriages to take us home. Of course, that would be a moot question, since marriage to me would mean an instant end to your financial difficulties. You would not need a good name to find work, for you would not be seeking a position.”

“A man always wishes to be proud of his name. If he is not known as an honorable gentleman, he is nothing.” He tried to see her face, but her head was turned away as she rewound the roll of bandage. “Would it be such a bad idea?”

“What, an end to your employment or our marriage?”

“The match, of course. We rub along well, for the most part.”

“When you are not trying to act superior.”

“And when you are not trying to rule the roost.”

She acknowledged their competition for the upper hand with a smile. “But you do not wish to marry. You have said it many times.”

He was not so closed-minded, Stony told himself, that he could not consider another position. “Neither do you. You have said it as often.”

Ellianne was beginning to think she could change her mind, under the right conditions. Marrying to save her reputation and his pride was not one of those conditions, however. She pushed the candle aside, now that she did not need its light to see his injured hand. She did not need for him to see the disappointment on her face. “But there is still the money.”

He did not pretend to misunderstand. “Of course. The money. You would always worry that I was wedding you for your fortune.”

“And you would always worry that I wed you because I was desperate for a title. Besides, you would resent that I had most of my funds tied up, out of your control.”

“That would show a lack of trust, wouldn't it?”

“Or caution.”

“Or wisdom, knowing my father's history. I would not blame you. But that makes no difference. I have never believed a man should live off his wife's income.”

“Well, I certainly do not believe he should! Nor do I think a woman requires a title to prove her worth.”

“Fine, then we are agreed. We should not marry.” Stony did not know if the decision relieved him or wrung his innards. He was certainly feeling an ache that was not from his bruised knuckles.

“Fine,” Ellianne concurred. “We shall weather the storm of gossip without setting sail on the sea of matrimony.” Now if only someone would toss her a lifeline before she drowned. She tried to sound happy, or at least keep her voice steady past the lump in her throat. “If the talk gets too uncomfortable here, you can always come visit Fairview on a repairing lease, to see how my schools are run. And bring Gwen too, of course, for I shall miss her most severely.”

She had not mentioned missing him, Stony thought.

“She will enjoy herself, I promise,” Ellianne was going on, hoping to convince him to visit, “for we are not entirely isolated. There are the local assemblies, and the finest families in the neighborhood would delight in having a viscountess at their entertainments. We do not make such a business out of socializing as you do in the city, but we do hold frequent dinner parties and dances.”

“Would you dance?”

“At small gatherings, yes, for enough time has passed to show respect for Aunt Augusta. Besides, how could I resist, when I would have the handsomest, most elegant escort the county has ever seen? Why, it would be worth every shilling I had to pay, to see the look on the old tabbies' faces.”

“You would not have to pay me,” he said in a low voice, pouring himself another glass of wine. “The money truly does not always matter.”

“Have I hurt your feelings once again? I did not mean to. I only wished to encourage you to come. If that is the only way…”

“Some things are worth doing for free.”

“Like dancing with me?” She laughed. “But you have no idea if I am a competent dancer. After all, what if I wished to lead in the waltz?”

He laughed back, showing the smile that captivated females from six to sixty. “I'd be surprised if you did not. Come.” He held his arms out. “May I have this dance, Miss Kane?”

“What, here? Now?”

“Why not? We are already accused of far worse.” He began humming, and Ellianne stepped into his embrace, hiding her blushes by lowering her head. They waltzed around the worktable, barely having space to twirl in the long, narrow room. They managed.

None of the gentlemen at home ever held her this closely. No couples she'd seen dance in London let their bodies touch this way, her bosom to his solid chest, her legs to his firm thighs. The dowagers would have conniptions. Ellianne would have another memory to take home with her.

She pressed daringly closer, her cheek nestled against his chin, breathing in the scent of him, the spices and soap and a bit of sweat from the fight with Blanchard. No wine's bouquet was more intoxicating.

Stony sighed and brushed her hair with his lips, feeling the satiny texture. He sighed again, which threw off the tempo of his humming, which had Ellianne swaying when she should have been turning, which made them bump into the table.

“I warned you I was not a proficient dancer,” she said, laughing, with her backside against the wooden table.

“You are perfect.” He did not step away or release her, but pulled closer, so that his lower body was hard against hers and his legs pressed against either side of hers. He began to pull pins out of her hair, then comb through the freed braids with his fingers, smoothing and stroking. “Perfect.”

Ellianne could feel her long hair fall to her shoulders and down her back. She shut her eyes, entranced by his motion, by his so-evident appreciation tight against her. Stony might not love her and might not want to marry her, but heaven—and Ellianne—knew he wanted her.

Almost as much as she wanted him. She was a spinster virgin of impeccable morals…and immediate, inexplicable, indescribable needs. “Closer,” she murmured.

“Any closer and we'll both get splinters from the table.”

Timms would never permit rough edges on his work surface, and what were a few splinters anyway? Ellianne pulled Stony closer, wrapping her own fingers in his golden curls.

“A man can resist only so much temptation, sweetings.”

How much was too much? His touch on her hair was Ellianne's limit. She did not want to resist her own inclinations anymore. “Closer,” she insisted.

He smiled and lowered his head for a brief kiss. A smiling kiss, a happy kiss, but not the earth-shattering kiss they had shared before. Ellianne wanted the ground to tremble, at the very least.

“What Blanchard said, you know, was not true.”

He was back to drawing his fingers through her hair, watching the carmine colors shift in the candlelight. He thought he would never grow tired of touching her hair, watching it float around her like a scarlet veil.

He could only imagine how it would look against her bare skin; Lud knew he could not grow any harder.

“Stony,” Ellianne said with a tinge of impatience.

“Hmm?”

“Blanchard lied about me.”

“Of course he did, and about Captain Brisbane and Lady Val and me. I don't think the dastard cared a whit for the veracity of his statements, only how much trouble he could stir up.”

“But what he said, that I am as cold as an ice sculpture, that was not true at all, you know.”

Now he laughed outright. “Oh, I know that full well, my dear. How could I not know it, when you are setting off sparks that a typhoon's rains could not extinguish? When you are starting a conflagration in my brain that nothing but your lips can quench? You, Miss Ellianne Kane, are a fraud. Under that prim and proper exterior of a banker's daughter beats the heart of a wanton. A beautiful, alluring wanton, who can heat a man's blood with one green-eyed glance. But you are still a lady, not a mare in heat, twitching her tail. And I, unfortunately, am still a gentleman, not a stag in rut. I do not despoil innocent maidens, especially not ones who have endured an emotional evening and perhaps a surfeit of wine. I should be going.”

“No.” She moved her hips against him. “I am neither in shock nor inebriated. Stay, please.”

Stony could not have left if the roof collapsed around them. He kissed her again, a long, searing kiss this time. The earth might not have moved, but the heavy table certainly did. “You, cold? Hades should be this cold.”

Ellianne was unwrapping his neckcloth, aching to touch his bare skin. Stony pulled her hands away. “No, sweetings. You are playing with fire.”

“I am not playing.”

“Deuce take it, we cannot.”

“Why? I am old enough to know my own mind, and now I seek the experience other women have enjoyed for years by my age. Or do you not wish to…?”

“Wish to? I must have used up a hundred shooting stars, fifty Christmas puddings, and thirty birthday candles wishing for you in my arms.” He placed her hand between them, on the front of his trousers, to reassure her of her desirability, or perhaps frighten her. “Do you understand how much I wish to continue?”

Instead of being frightened, she left her hand where it was, learning the shape of him. He was learning what being boiled in oil must feel like. He did not know whether he was coming or going. Literally. “This is wrong.”

“Just this once cannot be so wrong, just so I know what I am missing. Goodness knows I do not want to be your mistress, waiting for you to grow tired of me, or having to share you with any number of girls. Oh, and I swear there will never be recriminations.”

“There might be consequences, dash it.”

“A baby?” she asked with a sense of wonder, squeezing the source of the possibility. “I never expected to be a mother.”

“And you won't be expecting now, if I have any say in the matter. Ellianne, we cannot do this!”

To move her hand and that sweet torment, he pressed her back down on the table. Now her legs straddled his, though, which was no less torturous for him. “We cannot,” he repeated once more, leaning forward to kiss her eyelids, her nose, her mouth, her neck, and that damned vee at her neckline that he'd been watching all night. Her arms wound around his neck and his back, holding him so tightly he was strangling. No, that was his neckcloth. He pulled it off and threw it to the floor. Ellianne started to wrap her legs around him too, to keep him close to her, close to the need she could not express, but she was sure it bore Stony's name.

He groaned. How in heaven was he supposed to walk away when the devil was dancing in his brain, and below? To stop her long, slender, graceful legs from driving him past endurance, he touched one. That was a mistake. Her skirts were in disorder, and his hand touched silk stocking, taut over smooth muscles. He raised his hand—and her skirts—higher, to feel the satin garter, which he deftly removed. It joined his cravat on the floor. He had to feel her skin, just an inch of it, just for a minute, that was all. He might expire right in the butler's pantry if he didn't.