London's Most Wanted Rake (7 page)

Jealousy stabbed him hard as he imagined her in those gardens walking with another, even if that other was her rightful husband. Those were their gardens, his and hers, where they’d first strolled, where they’d walked so many times after her salons. Never mind that they walked there with others, always surrounded by others. That was a fact a lovesick swain conveniently forgets. His mind, too, made arguments for him. She doesn’t love him. She loves you, it was you she gave her summer to. Ah, yes, the cynic in him began to rise. You and the myriad other guests who flitted in and out of the house in Fontainebleau.

The man in the dream had seen then in hindsight how he hadn’t truly had the full sum of her attentions. He was one of many. She’d made him feel special, that was all.

It would have been best if he’d accepted defeat quietly, graciously and gone home to England at that point. But his blood ran hot where the
comtesse
was concerned and Henri’s report wasn’t enough to dissuade him. Foolish boy that he was, he’d forced Henri to tell him where she might appear in public since it was clear she wasn’t going to invite him to her home. Henri had reluctantly told him she and the
comte
would be at the Luxembourg Gardens on Sunday for a picnic with friends. He’d gone and watched her from the periphery of their group, although it took all his will-power not to approach her directly.

She’d been stunning that day. She’d worn pink, a deep, bright, true pink that brought out her hair and complexion brilliantly. Around her neck, she wore an expensive diamond collar that dripped with wealth just as Henri had reported. Never could he afford such jewels, Channing had thought. He was comfortably provided for as a second son, but he hadn’t the
comte
’s wealth. Her circumstances would be somewhat reduced if she’d come with him.

He’d waited and watched for an opening, on the hope that she’d leave the
comte
’s side and he’d have a chance to speak with her. He had no luck. She’d spent the day beside her husband, a tall, dark-haired man with olive skin who looked like the Italians he’d summered with. He was well dressed, too, and full of manners. He smiled at his wife, fingered the diamonds at her throat and laughed at whatever she said.

She’d answered such attentions with attentions of her own. She had eyes for no one but the
comte
, except the one brief moment when she had spied him on the edge of the company, hanging back by the hedges. Her eyes had gone cold and she’d looked right through him as if he were nobody, as if they had not clung together so fiercely in those last moments at Fontainebleau, as if she had not considered throwing all this away for him just a few days ago. She’d made it clear in a single, heart-piercing gaze she would not contemplate such an action now. She had made her choice: silks and jewels and the sporadic affections of an oft-absent husband over the passions of a second son. The woman whom he’d believed was different from others was no different at all. The dream was over.

* * *

Channing stretched on his bed and rolled over, looking for a cool space in which to reclaim some comfort. The sun was coming up and he realised too late he’d not shut the curtains. It hardly mattered, he wouldn’t sleep again, his thoughts were churning. He remembered what had happened next. He’d gone home, his heart broken, his ideals shattered, his lesson learned: pleasure and passion were right and good as long as one did not engage in them to an emotional extent. He’d merely been a tool she’d used to assuage a need her marriage had not met. He’d rather other young men not learn such a lesson in such a brutal way and he’d set out to do something about it.

He’d formed the League of Discreet Gentlemen, a service that would save men and women alike from heartache while providing them with the pleasure they sought. He’d formed an agency, a league of gentlemen dedicated to a woman’s pleasure. There should be no more empty lives, no woman abandoned in her marriage, but, more importantly, no young men ruthlessly used and discarded when there were escorts who could be paid for the experience without jeopardising hearts and emotions.

The organisation had flourished, but not once had he told anyone the inspiration behind it, not even his best friend, Jocelyn Eisley, who had helped him. What was the point? He was never going to see her again, never going to go to France again. But fate had a way of intervening and, as it turned out, he hadn’t had to go to France to encounter her again after all. She’d come to him, ironically because of the League, the very agency he’d formed to save others from
femme fatales
like her.

He remembered her vividly, sitting in his office at Argosy House explaining her case. She had wanted to re-integrate into English society. She was widowed and wanted to be home. She’d hoped to use the Little Season and the holidays that followed as a first opportunity to show herself. She’d been a veritable ice princess with her white-gold hair and travelling gown in a deep blue; her new signature colour, no more pinks. There was an edge about her that leant her a sensual, sophisticated edge that appealed to him greatly. They were new people, different from whom they’d been in Paris. They were people who could take pleasure at will.

It had not taken long for them to fall into bed, into whatever room was convenient. The winter holidays had been heated and the new man he’d become, the man who sought pleasure with detachment, had finally bedded the woman of his rather naïve dreams.

Channing rubbed his eyes against the sun streaming through his window. His head hurt and his cock throbbed for an impossible woman, one that had spurned him. Yet his body still wanted her and he had to go downstairs, eat breakfast and pretend it didn’t. Or maybe not. A thought came to mind as his head cleared. Perhaps the best way to get her secrets out of her would be to seduce them, not an entirely unpleasant prospect. He could bed her as long as he didn’t mistake it for something else. For that, he’d need a plan.

Chapter Seven

H
e was going to have to apologise, too. Principle and practicality demanded it. On principle, he’d not behaved the way a gentleman of the League should have, no matter who the client was. On the level of practicality, alienating Alina didn’t help him determine her business with Seymour. He ought to be seducing her trust, not turning it away like he had last night.

Channing knew how he wanted to do it. There was to be an egg hunt in celebration of the Easter holiday after breakfast that morning. Already, Lady Lionel was starting to circulate through the places where people lingered over morning coffee and tea with an urn full of names. Everyone was to draw for a partner. He would make sure he drew Alina’s name. If he was going to be successful with her, this would be a case of keeping one’s friends close and one’s enemies closer. Alina was somewhere in between.

Channing put on his best smile and approached Lady Lionel with a light touch on her arm. He kept his voice low and private. ‘Might I have a quiet word with you?’ He drew her into the hall away from the other guests. She would not appreciate every male guest engineering their partners for the egg hunt. ‘I have a favour to ask. I would like to partner the Comtesse de Charentes, if I may? I am sure you could arrange it,’ he said, implying that she was a hostess of great skill.

She blushed under the flattery. ‘I don’t know, it’s not how the game is supposed to work.’

Channing nodded. ‘I understand, and while I would love to partner any of the ladies, a circumstance has arisen where I need to make amends with the
comtesse
.’ Lady Lionel looked interested now. She could smell a bit of gossip in the wind, a fair trade for his request. Channing pushed on. ‘I fear I may have offended her last evening after cards and I do not want her to feel uncomfortable for the rest of the house party.’ That was all true and a safe admission that would not show Alina in a poor light. As a member of the League, he was sworn to discretion even if Alina was not.

She smiled. ‘I think we could make an exception in this case.’ She moved over to the console set against the wall and dumped slips of paper out with names carefully printed on them. Channing helped her sort through them, looking for Alina’s. ‘I don’t know the
comtesse
well,’ Lady Lionel began. ‘How is she enjoying her return to England?’

The lady was fishing for more gossip and trying to determine just how well
he
knew the
comtesse
. Channing was too savvy of a player to fall for such a basic ploy for information. ‘I assume she is doing well—she is here, after all.’ Lady Lionel would hear the compliment in that. ‘Ah, I’ve found her name.’ Channing held up the slip of paper. ‘A thousand thanks, Lady Lionel.’ Now all he had to do was wait for Alina to come down.

* * *

She came down at the stroke of eleven and not a moment sooner. He’d not expected her to. Alina wasn’t a breakfast eater, nor was she an early riser. She would have chocolate and toast in her room and take her time with her
toilette
before showing her face to the world. It was always worth the wait. Today was no exception. She descended the stairs in a sea-foam walking ensemble with dyed-to-match kid boots that peeped from beneath her skirt. She carried a straw leghorn in her hand for protection against the sun, but for now her platinum hair was on display, carefully put up in what looked to be a casual up do, but what probably took Celeste the better part of the morning to fix. It was the kind of arrangement men’s fingers itched to take down.

Lady Lionel was already calling for gentlemen to find their partners. Channing moved through the crowd of milling guests to her side before she could make her way towards Roland Seymour. Along with apologising, he was determined to figure out exactly what sort of business she hoped to conduct with him before it went any further.

‘
Comtesse,
I believe we are partnered for the event.’ He swept her a gallant bow and she shot him a thunderous look.

‘You arranged it, I am sure,’ she replied frostily.

Channing gave her a boyish smile. ‘Of course I did. You’re the best partner here and I want to win. The prize is jewellery of some worth. Other than that detail, Lady Lionel is being secretive about it.’ He dropped his eyes to her neck, to the spot where her delicate collar bones almost met. If they were alone he would have touched her there, but it was far too intimate a move to make in a crowd.

Her eyes met his, two hard, glittering blue gems. But they did not glitter from a sense of mischief. ‘Do you think jewellery is apology enough? That you can just throw me a pretty trinket and all will be forgotten? That’s a pretty big assumption, especially since we haven’t won yet.’ Was she thinking of other times she’d traded jewels for apologies?

‘No, I mean to apologise so all will be forgiven.’ In the background, he could hear Lady Lionel going over the rules of the egg hunt. He drew Alina to the side, away from the crowd. ‘I am sorry for last night. It was poorly done of me.’

She arched a pale brow. ‘Is that all? You aren’t going to follow it up with all the reasons why you behaved poorly? No justification of your actions?’

She was trying to bait him. Channing folded his arms and smiled, refusing to bite. ‘You’re such a jade.’ He knew the kind of apology she was talking about, the kind that came with a ‘but’ statement and it would have been simple enough for him to have added:
I am sorry I behaved poorly, but your lack of forthcoming information prompted me to such bad behaviour.

‘That’s how men apologise, isn’t it?’ she answered tartly.

‘Not all men, not me,’ he answered her challenge evenly, but his body was starting to become aroused by those flashing eyes and that sharp tongue of hers, which he could definitely put to better use than trading barbs in Lady Lionel’s hall. ‘There’s no need to play the jade with me, Alina. You know me.’

‘Yes, I do and that’s all the more reason to be suspicious of your apology.’ She tapped a long, well-manicured finger with its perfectly filed and rounded nail against her chin. ‘It does make me wonder—what is it that you want, Channing, that you would be willing to apologise for it?’ They were playing a different sort of game now, a seductive teasing one where they were competing for the upper hand.

Channing leaned an arm against the wall over her head, bringing his body close to her, his mouth at her ear, and took an outrageous chance. ‘You. I want you, right now up against this wall.’ He did. More than he wanted to know about Seymour, more than any other consideration, he wanted her viscerally, physically. The remnants of last night’s dreams were riding him hard. ‘I want to drag my hands through all that platinum perfection until the pins fall out. I want to feel your legs about my waist, gripping me, squeezing me as I plunge into you.’ He kissed the spot beneath her ear. ‘I want to feel you come apart with me inside.’

He was being arrogant, but she needed to know he was no plaything and that she was not in charge, not completely.

Her eyes darkened, her pupils widened. The pulse at the base of her throat did a rapid beat. She was not immune to this game. ‘Do you think you’re the only man in this room who wants that?’

‘I think I’m the only man in the room who can have that.’ Channing took a soft bite at her ear lobe.

She gave a throaty laugh that sounded more of midnight than midday and Channing wished they were anywhere else but a back corner of Lady Lionel’s hall. Alina ran a finger down his chest. ‘I see you are still London’s most-wanted rake, women falling at your feet everywhere you turn. You can’t help yourself, you never could.’

‘Do I detect a moment of sentimentality?’

‘You detect the game about to start.’ Alina side-stepped away from his arm just in time as the crowd started to move towards the doors in an excited wave of motion, but not so excited that someone wouldn’t have noticed them standing inappropriately close together.

‘Which game would that be?’ Channing couldn’t resist as they joined the throng.

She tossed him a hard stare, but she wasn’t angry. Far from it. The next question was what could he do about it and where? The egg hunt would certainly lend itself to answering the ‘where’. Whether Lady Lionel intended that to be the case or not, there were definitely possibilities, there always were when couples were paired up outdoors and given permission to wander off, especially if one was a rake and knew where to go. Strawberry picking was another good activity for mischief, too, come to think of it. But that would have to wait for another time.

Channing scanned the wide lawn. ‘Everyone else is heading west towards the bridle trails. Let’s head east towards the lake.’

They discreetly separated from the crowd and went towards the lake, a move that paid off in competitive terms. Lady Lionel’s staff had hidden more than three hundred decorative eggs on the grounds and Channing and Alina encountered three of them in various places on their way to the water.

‘Aren’t they adorable!’ Alina held one egg-shaped casket up to the sun, letting the glass and paste decorations catch the light. ‘There’s a clasp, too.’ In her excitement she looked for a moment like the girl he’d first met in Paris. ‘Do you think it’s the one with the prize?’

Channing laughed. ‘I hate to ruin your fun, but all the eggs have clasps. You’ll have to open it and see.’

She gave a wide smile. ‘It doesn’t ruin my fun to know there are prizes in
all
the eggs.’ She flicked the clasp open and gave cry of delight. ‘Bon bons. Two of them. Good, I’m hungry.’

‘Hey, one of those is mine. It’s not my fault you didn’t eat breakfast,’ Channing protested with good humour.

She shut the egg and her eyes danced as she studied him. ‘Very well, you can have one, but first you’ll have to catch me.’ And she was off, skirts in one hand, egg in the other, her laughter floating back to him on the breeze. It was like being in Fontainebleau again before everything was ruined.

He was happy to give chase and she led him a merry one into the woods on the edge of the lake, around tree stumps, over logs and back out again until he had her breathless and cornered in the summerhouse—or was it she who had him cornered and breathless? He suspected the latter. ‘You planned this,’ he accused with a laugh, bending over, hands on knees, to catch his breath. ‘You knew exactly where you were going.’

Her hand was at her waist as she tried to steady her breathing. ‘I knew where I was going, I just didn’t know if I’d get there. I thought you had me at the tree stump.’ She set down their little basket of eggs on the table, her eyes still twinkling with amusement. ‘In fact, I don’t think you’ve technically caught me yet. We’re just standing here. That doesn’t qualify as a catch.’

Channing grinned wolfishly. This would be short work. The table was between them and an old cushioned sofa behind Alina.

There were two choices. They could dance around the work table for ever or he could go over it.

Alina started to dart a bit to the left, clearly opting for the former, but Channing vaulted the table and seized her about the waist. The momentum of his surge easily carried them to the sofa and he pinned her with his body, both of them laughing hard.

After a moment he rose up on his elbows and peered down at her. ‘There, that should qualify as a catch.’ God, she was beautiful looking up at him with those blue eyes and her hair falling about her shoulders. Celeste would be so disappointed, or maybe not. Perhaps the art of those coils was that they were meant to come down.

‘Now, about those bon bons.’ She started to shift out from under him, but he wasn’t ready to let her go, not with those hips wriggling against his. ‘Not so fast, my wicked tease,’ he scolded. ‘I will claim a victor’s prize first.’

‘I thought the bon bons were the prize.’ She moved beneath him again, but he could tell it was purposely done. The little minx knew precisely what she was doing.

‘Perhaps I have something sweeter in mind.’ Channing whispered, pressing his lips to the column of her throat. He moved the trail of kisses up to claim her mouth, then the delicate line of her jaw, the tiny lobe of her ear.

‘Channing—’ she breathed beneath him ‘—don’t start something you can’t finish.’ There was hope there and a warning, too, a warning for them both.

‘Shh. No talking.’ Channing returned to her mouth and covered it with his own.

* * *

No talking
. It was an easy enough of a command to comply with. As if she could talk
or
think when being kissed by a master!
The
master. Channing wasn’t the first man she’d bedded, but he was the only man she’d found pleasure with. Part of her had started this game today to see if that pleasure still existed, could still be called up between them. She wished it could be different, she wished she didn’t want him so much. Beyond the pleasure, he was bad for her, so very bad because nothing could come of it as he’d proven so astutely a year and a half ago. But it was hard to remember that when he pressed his body to hers, when his mouth claimed hers, when his every touch ignited a fire in her blood, his every word a provocative promise.

She arched against him, her arms twining about his neck. It had been so long and she had asked for this, made the opening overtures for this with her invitation to chase. He was going to hold her to that. Well, that was fine. She made a hasty negotiation with herself. She could have the pleasure as long as that was all. No more fanciful notions of what lay beyond the pleasure, no more reading into it.

His hand moved to her skirts. Yes, she wanted them up, wanted her legs free to bend around him, to invite him in. Her body was hungry for this even as her mind tried to encourage her to take its advice. The warning she’d uttered was as much for him as for herself. But it was no use. Her hands worked the fastenings of his trousers, eager to push them over slim hips, eager to free the hot length of him.

Her hand closed over him, urging him into position. Channing gave a hoarse laugh. ‘My dear, have patience, I know where it goes.’

‘Then show me.’ Her own voice was as throaty as his with need and excitement over what would follow. It would be rough and fast; circumstance and need dictated the necessity of such a coupling. One did not risk a languorous coupling in an unprotected summerhouse where anyone could walk in on them, especially when the grounds were teeming with guests. Still, there would be pleasure at the end of it.