Lord Suitor (2 page)

She
bit her lip as she tried to open her eyes. They didn't want to cooperate, and
she suddenly realized why.

"Why
am I blindfolded?" Was that weak and whinging voice really hers?
"Take it off at once." There, surely that sounded more in command?

It
seemed not. Someone laughed.

"Sorry,
sweetheart, nothing doing. It's in your own best interest not to see anything.
Look to the wall while the gentlemen do their work."

Tessa
wasn't a Birch for no reason. Hadn't her maman survived to escape the terror
and come to England from France? She wasn't going to listen to some smuggler—for
she was sure that was who he was, the gentlemen being another name for those of
that ilk—telling her what she could and couldn't do. Suddenly, she realized her
hands weren't tied. With as much stealth as she could muster, Tessa put her fingers
behind her head and fumbled with the knots there.

Her
captor laughed quietly. "Oh, no, you don't want to do that, you
know." Large and calloused hands took hers and held them tightly.
"Best to stay in the dark. About everything. Even about who is doing
this." Strong lips met hers, and his tongue teased and demanded entrance to
her mouth, thence to mesh and dance with her own.

Tessa
had
thought she'd opened her mouth to
object, but once he deepened the kiss, all thoughts of protest disappeared. The
tingles and shivers that invaded her body were like naught she'd ever known and
she wanted more. Lots more. Involuntarily, she leaned toward him, and his hands
tightened before he ended the kiss to speak in a thick voice.

"No,
sweetheart, no more or I won't be responsible for my actions." He put her
off his lap, stood up, and pulled her up onto her feet.

Damn this blindfold. I want to
see him, to touch him.
She
hardly dare formulate the thought "to touch him
.
"
How forward am I?

Well,
if he wouldn't cooperate, she'd have to take the initiative. Tessa wasn't her
mother's daughter for nothing. She moved their linked hands until she came into
contact with the rough jacket she'd felt against her cheek earlier, and
searched for the lapels. Once she found them, she held on to them, stood on her
tiptoes to get a better purchase, and tugged hard. It was like trying to move a
rock. She lost her balance and swayed forward to fall against a hard and
undoubtedly male body with a bulge that caressed her tummy. She gasped, and he
laughed.

"You
see, sweetheart, my staff aches to be inside you."

It does? I wonder what that would
be like?
Luckily
Mijo, her maman, had explained all about the intricacies of a male and female coming
together in such a manner, in great detail. And said very frankly it was for
pleasure as well as procreation. She'd even given Tessa the intimate details of
how not to increase unless she wanted to.

Tessa
rubbed against him again, and he groaned. "You are playing with fire."
Tessa gasped as his fingers slipped under the neckband of her gown and stroked
the swell of her breast. She needed to touch him, and with reckless abandon she
tugged at the hem of his shirt and released it from the waistband of his trousers
to find the hard hair-covered skin of his midriff. She curled her fingers into
the hairs as she discovered how smooth the skin under them was.

He
chuckled. "To play unsighted is such sweet torment, eh?"

Tessa
splayed her fingers and dipped her pinkie into his navel. As much as she wanted
to move it lower and discover just what a staff felt like, that was a step too
far.

"Sweetheart."
His fingers found her nipple and tightened on the hard nub.

Tessa
pushed into his hand and moaned. "Oh, more." The sweet sting was
almost perfect, but it wasn't enough. "Please, more."

"Do
you know what you're asking for?"

She
didn't, but she wanted to find out.

"Maybe
you could show me?" Blindfolded as she was, Tessa felt bold, intrepid
even.

"Maybe
I could at that." His hand moved, and she felt momentarily bereft before her
world spun again as he lifted her into his arms. This time the way he cradled
her was that of a lover not a captor. His feet crunched on the ground, and then
he stopped and Tessa found herself lowered onto something soft.

"I
don't think my gentlemen friends thought this would be used in such a way, but
to me it is a fitting bed for you, my lady."

Cold
air hit her legs, and Tessa realized he, whoever he was, had lifted her skirts.

What
was she doing? How reckless and unlike her normal take-no-prisoners self. Why
the sudden change of heart? With an unknown man. All the horror stories and
warning her maman had told her came rushing back. Strangely it was not the
thought of murder that was uppermost.

"I
have no sponge or vinegar," she said in a breathy voice.

"I'll
take care of it," he promised. "Trust me, sweetheart."

He could be a murderer or a
traitor, or...
Long
fingers stroked the soft skin at the top of her legs and ruffled the hair over
her quim.

Or a perfect lover.
 
Tessa decided she intended to find out.

Chapter Two

April 1815, Birch
House, London, England

The Moon Curse

"Pay the price. The heart of
ye child to be liftin' the curse. Dare ye risk it?"

"So,
you see, my children, we must be careful." Theo, Lord Birch spread his
hands wide. "We have managed reasonably well up until now with the money
your maman brought with her when she escaped the Terror. However, even with
careful investing, it can only go so far." He sighed. "I, of course,
was nigh on penniless when she decided to be my savior."

Mijo,
his wife, gripped his hand. "
Mon
coeur
, I rather think it was you who rescued me. As for your impecunious circumstances?
They were no fault of yours, and believe me, you have worked wonders." Her
voice still held a charming French accent. "Our workers are cared for, our
buildings in good repair. You have done all that is necessary. I say, you have
indeed worked miracles, for you were worsted by your brother before I came on
the scene."

They
all knew the story of how Mijo had escaped the French Revolution and Theo had
captained the boat that brought her to England. That Theo's brother had made bad
investments, taken his boat out in a storm, and was presumed drowned. Then like
all the best romances, Mijo and Theo had fallen in love.

"And
perhaps I didn't help by bringing the curse to our family," Mijo said.

"Curse?
What curse?" Amalia, the youngest at seventeen and enjoying the heady
delights of her first season, jumped up and down on her seat in excitement.
"Ohh, how exciting, are we doomed?" She earned herself a stern glare
and a rebuke from her mother. She sat down again with a thump. Dare poked her
on the arm, and she stuck her tongue out.

"Children,"
Theo said. "Hush. The curse is a nothing."

Mijo
winced, and he stroked her cheek. "My love, you did what you had to. I
regret nothing."

"What
curse?" Amalia said again.

Dare
put his hand over his sister's mouth. "The one of having nosy, noisy,
ill-mannered younger sisters. Ouch, hoyden." He removed his hand and
sucked the skin. "Only vixens bite."

"You
mean we're paupers?" Marie-Therese, known to all and sundry as Tessa, was
nothing if not blunt. She ignored Dare's mutterings and the theatrical gasp
from Amalia, who everyone knew had the makings of a prima donna on the stage of
the Globe. "Broke? Up the River Tick, ready to be thrown onto the
streets?" She was appalled, not least because she'd had several seasons
and refused more than a handful of offers. At the advanced age of twenty-five and
the eldest, albeit by a mere ten months, she was, she opined, on the shelf and
happy. From what she had seen, men were more trouble than they were worth. Resolutely
she blanked out the one night that didn't agree with her surmise. "You
should have reined us in, Papa. All of us."

She
looked at each of her siblings in turn who nodded their agreement, except
Amalia, who merely looked mulish.

"You
are my children, and I do as best I can."

"Your best is perfection,”
Mijo said. "The curse, my children, was in the gold I acquired in France.
I managed to hold on to it, as I escaped, but some say it was cursed many years
ago. Some words were inscribed on it." She cleared her throat.
"The Moon Curse. "Pay the price. The heart of ye child to be liftin'
the curse. Dare ye risk it?"

"Sounds
like mumbo-jumbo," Tessa said. "Whose heart where, I wonder?"

Mijo
shrugged. "If I knew that..."

"What
happens next?" Sybille, always the most prosaic, asked. "We remove to
Devon and sell this house?" She sounded gleeful.

"No,
my seas—" Amalia must have caught the warning look in Tessa's eyes,
because she flushed and stopped speaking. "Not before I've had a chance to
say good-bye to Leonora Dansett and Clara and Tabitha Nicholls please. They are
my particular friends."

"Well,
all I can say, is please it is so," Marielle, Sybille's twin, said. "And
we can escape the crushes and chinless wonders who insist on reciting poetry
and bringing posies that make me sneeze. Why do I attract them?" At one
and twenty, the twins were renowned for forthright speech and picky behavior,
and more than one supposed young buck had been on the receiving end of their
indifference. "If I have to endure another London season, I will scream.
The men are so, so..."

"Useless,"
Sybille said. "Less than useless. Why the other day, Edgar Eldridge
couldn't understand why I preferred Hookhams to him. Perhaps the fact that even
one page of one book there had more words in it than his brain has something to
do with it."

"Girls."
Anyone could see Mijo was struggling not to laugh. "Theo, what have we
done to have children like this?"

"They
have you as their maman. I would expect nothing less." Theo held one hand
in the air and got the immediate silence they all knew he expected. "Forget
the curse. I suspect it suited some pirate or smuggler to put it about to ensure
no one robbed them. However, as they had robbed Maman's family in the first
place, it was fitting she acquired it back. Nevertheless, as to the here and
now, we have the rest of this season, which we will spend in town as normal.
Believe me, we are not at point non plus yet. At the end of the season, we will
return to Devon, and, well, we will see. You may all have made eligible partis
before then."

Tessa
didn't think he sounded all that hopeful.

He
helped Mijo to her feet. "Tessa, we wish to see you in my study in ten
minutes, please."

"Well."
As soon as their parents left the room, Daniel, the heir and known as Dare for
very obvious reasons—he never backed away from a challenge—tugged a stray curl
of Tessa's hair, hard enough for her to wince. The ten months between them made
them closer to each other than perhaps to the others. "Eligible partis
indeed. Not likely if our circumstances become known. That apart, what have you
been up to, Tessa?"

"Nothing,"
she said gloomily. "Perhaps that's the problem. My life is boring in the
mundane."
Now it is at any rate.
"Maybe I'm to learn to be pleasant to imbeciles." She grinned.
"Can anyone tell me now how to do that?"

"They
know you too well to ask for the impossible," Dare said and sniggered.
"You look down your nose at idiocy better than anyone I know, even Princess
Lieven, and that's saying something. Chin up. It can't be that bad. They won't
ask you to be a seamstress...yet."

The
sally lightened the atmosphere. They all knew Tessa was no hand with a needle,
and
that Dorothea Lieven was the queen
of haughtiness.

"But
what
are
we going to do?" Amalia
voiced the question they all wondered about. "I know I railed, but
well." She shrugged. "We must help Maman and Papa, that is not in question.
Perhaps I'm the changeling, but I want to see London as an adult, not only
through a child's eyes."

Tessa
hugged her. All at once she was sorry they had all been so dismissive of what
Amalia had never had. "And so you should," she said. "And you
will. However, I agree we need to do something."

"Make
the family fortune," Dare said. "And kill the curse. Whatever it is. Without
any others knowing the state of our finances. Agreed everyone?"

"Agreed."

It
wasn't often Tessa got the ‘spiders crawling up her spine’ sensation, but
whenever she did, it was an omen something unpleasant was in her future. She
had no reason to think this time would be any different. Even though she added
her consent to that of her siblings, she had a nasty premonition that her future
had, at that moment, already been decided for her. She never ignored her
premonitions.
Well, not often, and no
longer.

"Wish
me good fortune," she said as she left her brother and sisters to go their
own ways, and headed for her papa's study. Her instinct told her she'd need it.

"Do
you want me to go in your stead?" Amalia, a bit of a romantic and
obviously seeing herself as saving Tessa from a fate worse than death, and
herself from no season, jumped up and took Tessa's arm. "I'm young. It's unfair
to sacrifice you."

Tessa
burst out laughing. "Really, Ammi, it's probably something mundane in the
extreme, like can I reconcile the household accounts, or where to buy the
housemaids’ aprons. You know Maman gets her monies mixed." Tessa suspected
Mijo did nothing of the sort, but it was a convenient way of involving her children
in the household and its needs. Her maman was nothing if not devious.

Instead
of knocking on the study door and going in, she hesitated for a moment and
tucked the curl Dare had pulled back into her chignon. Her russet-colored curls
were thick and springy, with a mind of their own, and the bane of her life.
Luckily her maman accepted the disheveled look Tessa often sported with merely
a shake of her head.

She
checked her fingers, palms, and nails were clean, if she discounted the ever-present
ink stains from writing her journal, and the green-tinged tips from where she'd
been trying to preserve the early herbs she'd grown in the hot house. Not too
bad. Tessa raised her hand and rapped on the wooden panels. Luckily she hadn't
been picking red berries, so there was no reddish dye to add to the others.
That might be one stain too far for her maman.

Mijo
opened the door and kissed Tessa on both cheeks. All the family were
affectionate, but not usually to such a degree after being together only a few
minutes earlier. She looked down the corridor and shook her head. "Amalia,
return to the sitting room at once, or go to your bedchamber."

Tessa
turned to see Amalia standing in the doorway of the sitting room.

"Shout
if they beat you."

"Amalia."
Her maman shook her head again as Amalia disappeared from the corridor.
"She will be the death of me. What were we thinking of, letting her have
her first season? We should have waited until she learned a little more decorum."
The unspoken sentence
but could we then
have given her one
hung between Mijo and Tessa. "Now, my love, please
remember, your papa is only thinking of your future. He wants what is best for
you” And
for us all.
The unspoken
addendum hung in the air between them.

That
pleading statement worried Tessa more than any begging or tears could have and
sent shivers down her spine. Somehow she just knew the next few minutes would
not be to her liking. She squeezed her maman's hand. "I'll try."

"I
expect that is all I could ask," Mijo said as she pushed Tessa into a seat
and sat next to her, her arm around Tessa's shoulders.

So I can't run?
It was a disquieting thought.
She tamped down the Tessa early warning, which was screaming at her.
Too late.
Whatever her parents had in
mind would be almost set in stone, she was sure. They never proffered
half-baked ideas or suggestions. She looked inquiringly from one to the other.

Theo
leaned against the fireplace, his brows furrowed.

He has aged.
Indeed, Theo looked a good decade
older than his forty-nine years. He sighed and twisted his signet round and
round his finger without speaking.

Tessa
could stand the strained silence no longer. "Perhaps you could explain why
you wish to see me, Papa? Then I will know whether to recreate the drama we saw
at the theater last week, ape Amalia's histrionics, go into a decline, or
merely run from the room screaming."

Theo
smiled, somewhat reluctantly, Tessa thought. It didn't reach his eyes, and he
looked harried and drawn. Her maman's brow was creased.

"Tessa,
my child, this is in your best interest. We..." Mijo stopped talking and
looked at her husband. "Theo, you explain. I cannot find the words in your
language." It was her usual excuse when she didn't want to do so, or say,
something unpleasant.

"Maman."
Tessa knew she was correct when her maman colored and couldn't look at her.
With a sigh Tessa looked toward her father. "Papa, just tell me before I
decide you both have a fatal illness and are about to die, and leave me to tell
my siblings and order our mourning clothes. It would be a disaster. I could
never persuade Amalia into black, and Marielle would insist on ruffles."

Her
father shook his head. "I have a family of hoydens." He said it
fondly as he went to the sideboard and poured three glasses of brandy. No
doubt, Tessa thought, from the barrel left in their stables in Devon after a
smuggler’s moon.

"Strong-minded
individuals," Tessa said as she accepted a glass. "Who are now
worried you are about to tell me something devastating. They're probably
standing in the corridor with their ears pressed to the keyhole."

"Oh,
Tessa," Mijo said weakly. "It is not that." She went to the
door, opened it, and checked there none of her children stood there before she
reclosed it, retraced her steps, and patted her daughter's free hand. "Not
our health. We are thinking of you and
your
future."