How To School Your Scoundrel (17 page)

“I’m quite serious. Dingleby will smoke you out in an instant, but I . . .”

“Have been raised and educated by her since childhood.” He took her hand gently. “It won’t do, my dear. We both know it.”

“But it’s my duty . . .”

“Listen to me, Luisa. I came here not to acquaint you with all this, because I assure you I have it all well in hand, and will shortly be presenting you with your little kingdom . . .”

“Principality.”

“Principality. Yes. On a silver platter, tied with a bow, everything neat and tidy, and only a husband missing. Though I believe enough time has passed, I can confide to you that I was never quite satisfied with your father’s choice of such a . . .”

“Don’t say a word against poor Peter.”

“There you have it, in a nutshell.
Poor
Peter. Hardly the epithet of an admiring wife.”

She bowed her head.

Olympia continued, “He was not unworthy, of course. But a princess needs a consort with a little more vim. A man strong enough to support her by day, to get fine, healthy sons on her by night. The sort of chap who will confound her enemies and do her dirty work, behind the scenes, so she may appear as an unsullied angel to her subjects.” He coughed. “Where will such a man be found, I wonder?”

Luisa rose to her feet. “How subtle of you. I fear the man in question, however, is already married.”

“Not for long.” Olympia opened up the bodice of his gown and rummaged inside. “There we have it. A copy of a certain legal document, which will shortly mean the liberation of both Lord Somerton and his long-suffering wife.” He held a folded paper aloft.

Luisa snatched it. “What’s this?”

“A decree nisi for the dissolution of the marriage between the Earl and Countess of Somerton, et cetera, et cetera, following a suit for divorce initiated by the wife this spring for various matrimonial causes, including adultery and brutality. Not yet issued, mind you, so keep your knowledge sub rosa. In any case, the marriage is not officially ended until the decree absolute is issued after the probationary period . . .”

“Good God.” The blood thudded in Luisa’s temples as she read the intricate lines of legal black ink. “Where did you get this?”

“Oh, the old school tie.” He shrugged and rose to his own feet in an astonishingly agile movement for a man of sixty-five years and seventy-five inches, clothed in a silk dress and crinoline. “If you must know, the judge was my fag at Eton.”

“How convenient for you.”

“In any case, I have come to ask a favor of you. Or rather, to renew a favor already granted.”

Luisa sighed, folded up the paper, and handed it back to him. “You want me to spy for you again.”

“
Spy
is such a vulgar word.”

“I will not carry tales to you. He saved my life.”

“For which I am forever grateful.”

“Except that you mean to use him for your own purposes.”

Olympia shook his head, and his lined face lost all trace of levity beneath its rouge and powder. “I mean to right a certain wrong I committed nearly seven years ago, which has imparted such irreparable grief to the parties concerned.”

Quincy lifted his head, shook his ears, and rose to his paw tips. He looked up at Olympia with an anxious whine.

Luisa bent and caressed his head, without moving her gaze an inch from Olympia’s face. “Uncle, what have you done?” she whispered.

“My dear . . .” His expression changed, lifting into jollity before her eyes. He said, in a carrying falsetto, “I am delighted, delighted to see you so well. The country air! How it heals. I was saying to my old chum Martha, I said . . .”

“Mr. Markham!”

Luisa turned her bewildered face in the direction of the voice that carried across the meadow grass. A footman was pacing toward her, every swing of his arms communicating profound irritation.

“Mr. Markham! What the devil are you doing down here?”

“Thomas. Good morning. Have you met my dear aunt, Mrs. Duke of Battersea?”

Thomas pounded to a stop a few feet away and nodded at Olympia with a granite face, as if the duke’s sparrow-topped hat and rose silk skirts were the most commonplace sight in Northamptonshire. “Madam,” he said acidly.

“Charmed,” said Mrs. Duke.

Thomas turned to Luisa. “The master wants you in his study on the double, Mr. Markham.” He placed a slight sneering emphasis on the
Mister
, because while Somerton’s gold could buy discretion among his servants, it could not buy forgiveness for a woman masquerading as a man for no good reason.

Olympia raised a mild eyebrow, missing nothing. “You had better get on, then, my dear nephew.” He took Luisa by the shoulders and gave her a smacking kiss on each cheek. “There you are! Run back to your earl, there’s a good fellow. Punctuality is godly. I’m off on my holiday. Do look out for a postcard or two, for I shall be sure to write.” He turned to Thomas’s sour gaze and waggled his fingers. “Good-bye, Mr. Thomas. Mind you take good care of my favorite nephew, or I shall be quite, quite angry with you.” A step forward, a hint of menace.
“
Quite
angry, Mr. Thomas.” A step backward, all bright and cheery once more. “Off you go! Good-bye!”

Thomas turned and walked back across the grass.

“Follow him, my dear,” said Olympia quietly. He slipped something into her hand. “If you need to reach me.”

“Uncle . . .”

But the Duke of Olympia was already putting up his frilly pink parasol and straightening his skirts. “Until we meet again!” he called out, waving his hand.

T
he Earl of Somerton was scribbling furiously at his desk when Luisa entered the study ten minutes later. He looked up and threw down his pen. “There you are! Damn it all, Markham, where the devil have you been? I sent for you ages ago.”

“Walking outside.” The room was hot under the full glare of the morning sun. Luisa removed her coat and tossed it on the armchair. “What’s the matter?”

“I’ve found them.”

Quincy leapt up onto her jacket, turned twice, and settled himself in the center of the brown tweed with an exhausted sigh. He placed his nose on his paws and stared up at her with reproachful eyes.

She turned slowly. “Found them?”

Somerton was folding up a paper with hard strokes. “They’re in Italy. Philip’s nursemaid was given the boot in Milan for being with child. No doubt her ladyship believes it to be mine.” His mouth curved into a sneer.

“My lord.”

“We’ll depart for London at once, and prepare for our journey from there.”

“Our journey?” Luisa swallowed heavily.

He looked up. “To Italy, Markham. They were last seen in Florence.”

“I . . . I’m going with you?”

Somerton’s urgent face stiffened into its familiar mask, the one he wore when assailed by emotion. “What the devil does that mean? Of course you’re going with me, Markham.”

Luisa shook her head, quite slowly, giving herself time to choose her words. “Sir, I cannot be a party to this expedition. I must beg to be excused.”

Somerton’s hands, which were raised to fold the paper, dropped back to the desk. “That is quite impossible, Markham. You’re coming with me.”

“I can’t, sir.”

He pounded the desk. “You will! You must.”

“You can’t ask this of me, sir.” She straightened her spine, straightened her courage. Her brain, still reeling from the information imparted by Olympia, tried to make sense of this new development. Lady Somerton was in Italy. She couldn’t go to Italy. What might Somerton have planned? She dreaded to know. And there was everything else, the desperate hope now revived in her heart: How could she go to Italy, when her people needed her?

“Why the devil not? You’re my secretary. I need you.” Somerton’s voice cracked slightly on the last words. Quincy’s head lifted from his front paws at the sound.

Luisa whispered, “What do you mean to do to her?”

“To her? I don’t mean to do anything to her, except to find out where she lives, to ensure my son is safe. It’s Penhallow I want, by God.”

Penhallow. Her cousin Roland.

Luisa curled her hands behind her back. “Don’t do it, sir. In the end, revenge harms most the one who perpetrates it.”

Somerton barked out a laugh. His eyes were so dark and hard, Luisa felt their despair in her bones. “As it happens, I don’t give a damn. I don’t care if I bleed for it. Penhallow must pay. By God, why do you think I’ve gone to all this trouble, all this time? For
her?
” His voice was scathing.

He stood behind his desk, large and brutal and snarling, the way a wounded beast might snarl to protect himself. Luisa watched his face, the proud bones of him, the broad planes and dark hollows. No, he wasn’t handsome. He was something beyond that, something ancient and austere, carved by a pagan hand.

I need you.

Her heart beat in hard, slow thuds that numbed her ears. She licked her dry lips. “For whom, then?” she said softly.

He held her gaze without moving, except for the steady rise and fall of his massive chest, a little too rapid. His black eyes watched and watched, taking the measure of her. “Whom do you think?” he said at last.

“For yourself. For the revenge you think your honor requires.”

With deliberate steps, he walked around the corner of the desk and crossed the rug toward her. The sunlight flashed across his face as he passed through the beams from the window, and then he stopped, in shadow, a foot or so away from her. So close, she could reach up and lay her palm against the sleek weave of his charcoal gray waistcoat, shielding the muscles of his chest. So close, she could see that his eyes were not quite black after all, but a dark rich brown, like the deepest molasses. Her breath left her body. She could not look away.

“Haven’t you guessed by now, Markham? I have no honor.”

The heat of his body touched her skin. “Yes, you do.”

“Then possibly, Markham, you understand nothing about me.”

She lifted her chin. “Yes, I do. I understand you better than you understand yourself. If you had no honor, you would have ruined me by now, knowing I was a woman. Instead you’ve let me continue on as before. You’ve ordered your servants to go along with my disguise. You’ve protected me, without even inquiring why.”

“Ah. You raise an interesting point, Markham.” Without breaking the charged gaze between them, Somerton lifted his hand and played with the folds of her necktie. “I’ve spent a great deal of time, far more than I should, wondering why you persist in this charade of yours, when we both know what lies beneath the costume.”

He was steering her deftly away from her question, and she knew it, but she was powerless to return. She was too conscious of his hand on her necktie, his warm gaze fixed on her. “Because, as a woman, I cannot remain under your protection.”

“That is not precisely true, Markham.”

“I
will
not remain under your protection as a woman, then.”

His nimble fingers were loosening her necktie, brushing the skin of her throat. He was inches away now, and his voice dropped even further, almost a whisper, stirring the thin atmosphere between them. “Markham. Did you really think you could hide from this forever? Live with me, by my side, without the two of us coming together?” His thumb pressed into the hollow of her throat. “Did you think this necktie of yours, this jacket and waistcoat, would protect you from the inevitable?”

Luisa tried to take a step backward, but his other arm slipped behind her waist and held her in place, like an iron bar.

“You want this, too, Luisa. You want me. You wouldn’t have stayed with me if you didn’t. But you’re afraid, aren’t you? You’re afraid of giving in, afraid of losing yourself in my bed. You go on wearing your neckties and think it’s enough to keep me at bay. As if that could make me want you less.”

“That’s not true.”

“Don’t be afraid, Markham. Luisa. Don’t be afraid of this. Have you never lain with a man before? I’ll be gentle, I swear it. I’ll worship you. Let me serve you.” The necktie fell apart. His large hand slid around the side of her throat. “Use me. Use my strength. God knows, I can give you that, at least. Whoever you’re hiding from, he’s no match for me. I will kill with my bare hands the man who threatens you.”

His words made her blood boil over with primitive heat. “I’m not afraid,” she said.

“No?” He seized the back of her head and kissed her.

The suddenness of his kiss froze her chest, froze her arms and her thoughts. As if she had been picked up without warning by an ocean wave and carried along its crest, with no idea where she might land.

His mouth was hard and hot and desperate. It hurt her lips, even as her belly ground against his, as the tips of her fingers tingled, as her flesh loosened, as her tongue reached out to find him.

“Christ,” he muttered. “Markham. Sweet Christ.” His lips softened into a caress, allowing the kiss to deepen and slow, allowing his tongue to slide luxuriously around her, his breath to mingle with her breath. Luisa had never felt anything so sensual, so deliriously intimate as the velvet stroke of Somerton’s tongue against hers.

Want.
The word screamed in her brain. She wanted
this
, she wanted more, she wanted
him
. Had wanted him for months, had craved him since she first walked into his study in Chester Square. Her breasts, crushed beneath their linen bandage, constricted by layers of shirt and waistcoat and self-control, felt as if they might burst from the pressure of her yearning.

A man to get fine, healthy sons on her by night.

Oh, God. She was lost. Her hips moved into his; her right knee lifted all by itself, sliding upward against his massive thigh. She was kissing him, kissing Somerton, and her insides were liquid, and she was opening, opening . . .

Oh, God. She was lost. She shouldn’t feel this, she shouldn’t want this. She was a widow, she had shared a bed with another man, with her husband, not nine full months ago, a good, clean, virtuous married bed. This was a different embrace, a different universe of sensation. This was sinful, this was dark and delicious and . . .

Oh, God. Lost to all shame.
Peter.

Poor Peter, eclipsed by the black sun of Somerton.

Somerton’s lips left her mouth and traveled to her ear. “You want me. Say it.” His hands cradled her head, his legs had planted themselves on either side of hers, like Roman pillars. Trapping her, protecting her. “Say it. Say it, and I’m yours to command. Your lover, to pleasure you in bed, to give you every possible luxury. Your right hand, to smite your enemies.”

She whispered, “You don’t know what you’re promising. You don’t know who I am.”

“Do you think it matters? The only thing that matters is that you’re mine, Markham. I protect what’s mine, whatever the cost. If it kills me.”

She was drowning in sensation, drowning in the dark heat of him. Her hands were traveling up his muscular back, sliding beneath his waistcoat. His lips came down on hers again, and she groaned into his mouth.

“Markham.” He pulled her face away. His voice was low and rough. “Stay with me. Come with me to Italy. I can’t do this without you.”

“Do what?”

“Finish it off. Slice this . . . this rotten limb from my body, once and for all. Rid myself of the corruption. Once he’s dead, the wound will close, and you . . . with your pure heart . . . by my side . . . in my bed . . .” His hands were stroking her bristling hair, as if to flatten it to her head. He kissed her again, with aching gentleness. He whispered, almost impossible to hear: “Help me, Markham.”

Your pure heart.

She yanked back from his embrace. The coldness of his absence shocked her; the look of sudden pain on his desire-flushed face made her throat hurt. “No! No, I can’t.”

His chest was heaving, as if he’d run for miles. “Why the devil not, by God? Your loyalty is to me.” He reached for her again and growled, “You’re mine, Markham. We both know it. At my side, in my bed.”

She held up her hands, palms outward. “I’m his cousin!”

Cousin.

Cousin.

Cousin.

The word seemed to echo about the room. No turning back now.

Somerton flinched. “His
what?
”

“His cousin. I’m Roland’s cousin.” She took a step backward and straightened her waistcoat. Her heart was still beating madly, in desire and fear and the imminence of her exposure before him. The weight about to fall at last.

Somerton’s eyes were narrowing, his body already tensing, as if anticipating the blow to come. His arms crossed against his chest, and his voice was cold and deadly.

“Explain yourself, Markham.”

Say it.

She lifted herself up in defiance. “My last name isn’t Markham. I haven’t got a proper last name at all, because I don’t need one. I’m Her Royal Highness Luisa, Princess of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof, and Lord Roland Penhallow is my second cousin.”

“By God,” whispered Somerton.

His hands dropped to his sides. He stood stock-still, his face now drained of blood, his eyes stark and open with shock.

Behind her, Quincy made some movement, rustling against the upholstery of the chair.

“It’s not true,” said Somerton.

“You know it is.”

“You haven’t the slightest accent.”

“My mother was English, and so was my governess. English is my first language.”

He shook his head. “No. By God. Not the damned German princesses. It’s not possible. When was it?”

“October.”

He swore.

“October, when my father was murdered, and my governess brought us to England,” said Luisa. “To my uncle’s house.”

“Your uncle.” His hand slapped his thigh. “You’re Olympia’s niece. He planted you here.”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

His eyes. Oh, God, his eyes. His expression, so soft with desire a moment ago, had hardened with calculation, each angle sharp, lips thin and tight. But it was his eyes that hurt her.

“Your dear old aunt in Battersea,” he said.

“Yes.”

“All this time.”

“I never betrayed you. I never told him a single secret. He never asked for that.” Her conscience pricked her. “Except once. Your letter to Mr. Wright. Because of Roland, you see. I know he was vile, he was deceiving you with your wife, but . . . he’s my cousin, and I couldn’t just stand by . . .”

Without warning, Somerton whirled around and slammed his fist into the wainscoting. An inhuman roar split his lungs apart.

“Please believe me. I never did you harm. I never would have done you harm. You must believe that.”

Another roar, not quite so loud. As of despair, instead of anger.

His hands slid up the wainscoting to rest on either side of his head, fingers spread, palms against the plaster wall. The sunshine tumbled unheeding through the window to his right, turning his hair a rich dark brown on one side, an inky black on the other.