A Rogue’s Pleasure (7 page)

And her concentration. Finding Robert was of paramount importance; she couldn't afford to become distracted. These ridiculous, impossible fantasies about Lord Montrose must stop.
Now
.

Sighing, she stowed the necklace, blew out the candle, and slipped beneath the covers. The sale of the pearls was to have brought the lion's share of the ransom money. After returning them tomorrow night, she must devote herself to stealing enough to redeem Robert.

Tomorrow night.

She sat up and plumped her pillow, telling herself she had no choice but to return the necklace. Lord Montrose was not the sort who made idle threats. No doubt he would hire Bow Street's finest to track Jack and her if she attempted to renege on her promise.

Throwing off the worn coverlet, she pressed the back of her hand against her damp forehead. Perhaps she really was coming down with a cold. She did feel feverish. Sleep was what she needed. She lay back down and closed her eyes, but instead of blank darkness, Lord Montrose's face drifted before her mind's eye. With his seductive brown eyes, mussed auburn hair, and the ghost of a beard shadowing his strong, sculpted jaw, he had looked every inch the irresistible lover.

But resist him I must,
she reminded herself forcefully.

Lord Montrose was a roué and the very next thing to married. Even if he were neither, the
difference in their social stations would render impossible any respectable association. Viscounts did not marry the daughters of penniless country squires. Just as well. She thought of how blithely he'd offered her his bed—as though he'd expected her to fall into it—and her cheeks burned with outrage and, yes, shame. To a man like Montrose, women were playthings, to be used and tossed aside with no more thought than he probably gave to disposing of a worn pair of gloves. That didn't alter the fact that she'd waited a lifetime for a man to kiss her like he had that night.

Until Dumfreys's assault, she'd fended off would-be suitors with ease. But Lord Montrose was no callow, country-bred boy. Judging from tonight's expert performance, he was an accomplished seducer, and yet she did not believe him to be entirely without scruples. When he'd given her his word that he would allow her to go free, she'd believed him. To his credit, he hadn't forced himself on her, although he could have easily ravished her, especially after her own appalling lack of self-control had landed her in his arms.

But the knowledge that Lord Montrose was no rapist was cold comfort. With looks like his, she was certain he'd never had to resort to force to get what he wanted from a woman. It should be a crime for a man to possess such a disarming smile. How many hearts had he used it to capture?

She punched her fist into the pillow.
Lord Montrose, you are the true thief.

Anthony emerged into the sunlight. Adjusting his eyes to the glare, he descended the granite steps from Murdock's Lending Library, a yellowed newspaper folded beneath one arm. It had taken him the better part of the morning and afternoon, but finally he'd found what he sought. He smiled in contemplation of his midnight engagement. If all went according to plan, by the end of the night he would have Phoebe's pearls in his pocket and Chelsea Bellamy warming his bed.

He had his Lady Robin in hand now. Victory would be all the sweeter for the trouble she had caused him.

 

To Chelsea, Lord Montrose's study was a typical male preserve of musty books, leather furnishings, and the faint, sweet scent of tobacco. With cravat loosened and shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, his lordship looked the part of a gentleman at his leisure—and even more dangerously attractive than he had on the previous night.

Lord Montrose tilted his chair from the desk and studied her. “So, Lady Robin, it seems you are a woman of your word.”

Facing him across the width of the desk, Chelsea unhooked the small leather pouch from her waist. Willing her hands to stop shaking, she handed it to him.

“Your fiancée's necklace, as promised.” She shivered when their fingertips brushed.

After a brief inspection, he dropped the pearls inside a desk drawer and locked it.

“Truce?” Rounding the desk, he offered her his hand.

His long fingers curled around her palm, and Chelsea's heart fluttered. Carrying her hand to his lips, he brushed her fingertips. A shudder shot through her.

Standing before him, she caught a whiff of the cool, clean scent of his shaving soap. The urge to let her fingertips trace the hard line of his freshly shaven jaw was so strong that, to be safe, she jammed her free hand inside her trouser pocket.

“I really should be going.” Her voice held remarkably steady for a woman whose insides were churning.

He released her with a show of reluctance. “I had hoped you might stay to join me in a light supper.”

Shocked, she crammed the hand he'd just released into her other pocket. “I'm afraid that is out of the question.”

“Don't tell me that you've already eaten?” His face registered disappointment.

She was about to answer yes when her stomach betrayed her with a loud rumble.

He grinned. “I think not.” Hand on her elbow, he steered her toward the door. “But we can remedy that.”

She halted. “Lord Montrose, I don't think dining with you would be wise.”

“Why not?” he asked, expression bland.

Was he mocking her?
Annoyed, she answered through pursed lips. “I should think that would be obvious. I came tonight only to return the necklace I—” she faltered, “—stole from you. I am hardly an invited guest.”

He opened the study door and held it. “That is for me to decide.”

Chelsea hesitated. To accept his invitation would be to chart a perilous course. But over the past twenty-four hours, her body seemed to have developed a will of its own. She laid her
fingers atop his, butterflies dancing in her stomach. He linked his long fingers through hers, and her hand disappeared in his warm grasp.

“You needn't fear discovery.” His other hand on her back, he guided her through the sconce-lit hallway. “I have dismissed the staff for the night, including Chambers.”

Recalling the frail, black-clad old man she'd seen answering Anthony's front door the day before, she asked, “I gather Chambers is your butler?”

“My uncle's butler.” He paused, then amended, “My butler now, I suppose. Fellow must be in his eighties. He's blind as a bat and creaks like carriage springs when he walks, but I haven't the heart to retire him.”

A sliver of light showed beneath ornately carved double doors. Releasing her hand, Anthony opened them and led her inside a large dining room with cream-colored walls, emerald velvet drapes, and plush carpet patterned in hues of cream and jade. The faint smell of fresh paint hovered. The night before, she hadn't stopped to admire the chamber's beauty, but now she found her gaze straying. Roundels depicting scenes from classical mythology dotted the intricate plasterwork ceiling. Flames flickered in the wall sconces above a burl walnut sideboard laden with food.

Lord Montrose stood in the center of the room, the pride of possession shining from his brown eyes. “Do you like it? It's one of the few rooms in this mausoleum that comes close to being habitable.”

Habitable indeed. Chelsea thought of the shabbiness of Oatlands, Robert's legacy—assuming he survived—and her heart tugged. Rotting woodwork and a leaking roof, veritable calamities a few weeks before, were now the very least of her worries.

Aware of her host watching her, expectant, she suppressed a sigh and answered, “It's splendid. The most beautiful room I've ever seen.”

“I'm glad you approve.” He led her to the end of the long table where two places had been set, a brace of candles between them. “Right now, the thing I like best about this room is that there's no one here but you and I.” He pulled out a shield-back chair. “So, you see, you shall be quite safe.”

Safe? Alone in a chamber veiled in candlelight and shadows with an unrepentant rake and a brain brimming with foolish fantasies, Chelsea had never felt less safe in her life. Everything about the room and the man standing in its center radiated romance.

Wanting to clear the air before matters got out of hand, she said, “I should tell you that, if you're planning to seduce me, you're wasting your time.”

He smiled his mesmerizing smile. “I appreciate your candor, Lady Robin. Now that you've broached the subject, I must confess that the thought had crossed my mind, but I assure you that I shall respect your wishes. I meant what I said last night, that it is not my custom to force my attentions where they are unwanted.” He gestured toward the sideboard. “But it would be a pity for all this to go to waste, don't you agree?”

Disarmed, Chelsea found herself returning his smile. “The toast I had for breakfast does seem rather a long time ago.”

His smile broadened. “Even fierce knights of the road have to eat. Besides,” he added, his connoisseur's gaze sweeping over her, “you look like someone who could benefit from a good meal.”

She surrendered with a grimace, slipping into the chair he held out. “After such a gracious invitation, how could I possibly refuse?”

She quickly laid her napkin on her lap to cover the smudges on her trousers, the legacy of nights spent climbing garden walls and prowling alleys. She might have no designs on Lord Montrose, romantic or otherwise, but she was woman enough to wish for something pretty to wear. And to think Robert had always cared for clothes far more than she had. How smart he'd looked in his uniform, the creases of his spotless white trousers ironed as sharp as knife blades. Imagining how bedraggled and filthy he must be by now—if indeed he still lived—she felt tears burn the backs of her eyes.

Fortunately Lord Montrose had moved to the sideboard, affording her a moment to compose herself.

“Sending the staff to bed does have one disadvantage—namely, that we shall have to fend for ourselves. This is my first time waiting at table, so you'll have to bear with me.”

A bottle of wine had been left to decant. Slinging a napkin over his arm, he carried it to the table.

“Reputedly a very fine red Bordeaux. I hope 'tis to milady's liking.”

He gave a servile bow before bending to pour, and Chelsea couldn't help but smile. How charming he was, how amusing.

He stepped back. Awaiting her verdict, his dark eyes glinted with mischief. His playfulness was contagious, and Chelsea found her mood lightening. Falling in with the game, she swirled the liquid around her glass before raising the rim to her lips.

“It is rather…wonderful.”

Reminding herself that red wine always gave her the headache, she set down the goblet. She couldn't afford a muzzy head tomorrow just as she couldn't afford to become tipsy in his lordship's presence. He'd promised he wouldn't force himself on her, and she trusted him to keep his word. Herself she trusted far less.

“I am pleased you like it.” He finished filling her glass, then reached for his own.

“Wellington sent it along to cheer me while I was convalescing. I've been saving it for more than a year now, waiting to celebrate a special occasion.”

Feeling as though she had stepped into a fairy tale, she heard a bemused voice, her voice, ask, “What are we celebrating?”

“I haven't decided yet.” He raised his glass, enigmatic smile fraught with possibilities.

“To your health, Lady Robin.”

To Robert's health
. Chelsea touched her glass to Lord Montrose's, and the crystal met with a soft ting. Even before the soft sound died, she found herself wondering what supper, if any, Robert was having. Was he making do with bread and water at the same time she was about to indulge in—her guilty gaze swept the sideboard—a feast?

Lord Montrose sipped his wine, apparently oblivious to the mental jousting going on between her epicurean self and her contrite conscience.

Lowering the glass, he exhaled. “Very fine indeed.”

His tongue darted over his lower lip. Even battling her guilt, she couldn't help but recall the strange, heady sensation of that moist member intertwining her own. The temperature in the room spiked. She tugged her collar.

“But I am forgetting my manners.” Setting down his glass, he reached for her plate.

“Allow me.” He carried it to the sideboard.

“Lord Montrose, you must not wait on me.”

With a household staff reduced to two—Jack and the cook—she was accustomed to
labor, and to serving herself. Never in her most outlandish fantasies had she imagined being attended to by a dashing viscount. It was almost too much—certainly something to tell her grandchildren about. On second thought, perhaps not.

“Anthony,” he corrected. She caught a flash of white teeth before he turned to lift the lid off a large silver serving platter. “I hope you like salmon in shrimp sauce.” He lifted the lids off two other dishes. “If not, there is also roasted chicken or, if you prefer, Florentine rabbits.”

There was enough food to feed a multitude. Thinking once more of Robert, she bit her bottom lip. “Lord Montrose, are you certain that I am your only
guest?
”

He grinned at her over his shoulder. His very broad shoulder. “I didn't know what you would like, so I had my chef prepare several dishes.”

Telling herself that she must keep up her strength for Robert's sake as well as for her own, she swallowed her guilt. “In that case, perhaps I should have some of everything…except for the rabbit,” she amended, in deference to her childhood pet, Mr. Wiggles.

His shirt strained across his back as he carved the bird. Fascinated, Chelsea watched the ripple of muscles beneath the fabric. Her gaze dropped lower. His buff-colored breeches accentuated every curve of his slender hips, firm buttocks, and muscled thighs. Obviously his self-indulgent lifestyle did not extend to gluttony.

“Jacket potatoes?”

“Yes, please.”

“Gingered carrots?”

“A few.”

He lifted the lid off a porcelain tureen. Bending over it, he sniffed the steam, pulling a face.

Chelsea giggled. “What is it?”

“Creamed spinach, I believe.” Turning to her, his expression registered skepticism. “Care for some?”

She hesitated, and then confessed, “I've never been overly fond of spinach, creamed or otherwise.”

“Personally, I detest the stuff. And, because I find myself wanting to please you in all things, I shall remove this offending vegetable from our presence forthwith.”

He carried the tureen over to the open window. Brushing aside the sheer curtain, he called, “Look out below.” His head and shoulders disappeared outside.

He turned back inside with the emptied dish, a schoolboy smile lighting his face.

Chelsea burst out laughing. “Do you always act so…impulsively?”

“No, not always, although I am a great believer in following one's instincts. Whenever I've ignored mine, I've usually ended up with the devil to pay.”

His smile faded like a summer sun slipping behind a bank of clouds. He set her full plate before her, and then turned to serve himself. Studying the rigid set of his shoulders, Chelsea wondered what memory had triggered the sudden change.

When he took his seat next to her, at the head of the table, his scoundrel's smile was securely in place.

“Bon appétit.”
He handed her the basket of rolls.

Chelsea barely tasted the succulent dishes that passed her lips. Instead, her hungry gaze devoured every facet of Lord Montrose's face—the way his auburn hair fell over his high forehead, the sculpted planes of his nose and jaw, the way the tanned flesh at the corners of his
eyes crinkled when he smiled. The knowledge that, after tonight, she would never see him again imbued the intimate meal with a bittersweet poignancy.

He speared a carrot on his fork. “I like your hair that way.”

Hoping that she hadn't been caught staring at him like a slack-jawed schoolgirl, she fumbled with the white satin ribbon that moored her waist-length hair. “My hair has always been the bane of my existence.”

“I think your hair is beautiful,” he said with conviction.

Her eyes fell to her plate. She shook her head. “Having red hair is a nuisance. As a child, I could never get away with the slightest prank, chiefly because I could be sighted a mile down the road. I was the only one in the neighborhood with hair this color. Not even my brother…”

What am I doing?
Agitated, she tugged at a loose curl.

“Permit me.”

He reached over and tucked the renegade strand behind her ear. The memory of the previous night was still achingly fresh, and his light touch turned her insides to pudding.