Once Tempted (10 page)

“Do you remember what the missive said?” he asked, his mouth moving and her eyes unable to look away.

Before she could stop herself, she whispered, “Yes.”

His lips brushed over the edge of her ear with the merest touch, yet it sent a bolt of lightning down her spine. “Then tell me,” he urged her, this time his tongue flicking lightly over her skin, leaving a warm, hot trail. “Tell me again.”

The words, the truth came bubbling up, lured by the heated passion behind his smoky words. What was he doing? she thought, as her knees started to buckle under his expert assault. He may be utterly and completely different, the type of man she’d always dreamt of, but when all was said and done, he was still the Marquis of Bradstone. Her mouth snapped shut, leaving the words he so wanted to hear as trapped and hidden as the treasure itself. He was working his magic on her again, and she was falling for it like the innocent schoolgirl she’d once been.

To ward off his intoxicating spell, she struggled to remember why she was in London. To fill her thoughts and overwrought senses not with him but with memories. Of the pistol firing. The endless report ringing for what seemed like an eternity. The face of the young man as he lay dying, the dark stain of blood spreading across his stark white shirt.

His last words ringing through her mind like a funeral bell.

Give this to no one but Hobbe.

Hobbe.

The boy’s trusted hero. The one man honorable enough to save her, to save the treasure from the greedy hands that sought to steal it. Not this sorcerer of seduction, this faithless rake bemuddling her common sense.

“Well, will you or won’t you?” he was asking. “I must know what the missive said.”

Olivia mustered her resolve and shook off her body’s treasonous longing for this man. “Tell you?” She shook her head. “Never.”

“You did before,” he whispered in her ear, his smooth tones breaching once again her newfound, albeit shaky, determination, like that niggle down her spine still clamoring for her to listen to him.

This is not the same man, this is a man you can trust,
it seemed to say.

No, he wasn’t the same man, she’d agree. But neither was a snake when it shed its skin. Though it was still a snake, no matter what coat it chose to wear.

Whatever her doubts about him, seven years of exile had left her clear concerning one thing: she would never help the Marquis of Bradstone again. Unless it was into the nearest unmarked grave.

She struggled out of his grasp. “Yes, but I was a fool then,” she told him.
And I won’t be one again.
“I’ll not help you, Robert. Not ever. You might as well kill me here and now, for I won’t reveal one word of that missive to you.”

He ran an impatient hand through his hair. “Miss Sutton, whatever our relationship was in the past, it is in the past. But rest assured I will not relent until I have your help.” He caught her arm again in his viselike grip and held on with what she supposed was his attempt at brute force—though in her heart she just knew he wouldn’t kill her this time, despite the fact that he’d had every intention of doing so that long-ago night.

“I need to know what was in that missive—the one you translated for me—and I need to know now.”

Olivia’s nose tipped upward. “Considering that you thought that information worth killing for, I’m surprised you’ve forgotten it.”

His brows furrowed. “My head injury,” he said, with a hint of falter to his voice. “It has left some of my memories in pieces. I recall some things but not others.”

“How convenient.”

“No, not really,” he told her. “Especially when it comes to
El Rescate del Rey.
”

Olivia’s gaze narrowed. His words once again hammered at her doubts. What had he said?
El Rescate del
Rey.
The King’s Ransom, and in Spanish no less. He’d even said it with the pitch and nuance of a native—not with the stumbling arrogance of the Englishman she remembered.

That small voice inside her roared to life anew, crying out that something was very wrong. All of this was wrong.

He shook her again. “If I have to rattle it out of you, you blasted little termagant, I will.”

That was it? He was just going to shake it out of her? No pistol to her head? No brute force?

It was all so absurd, she couldn’t help laughing. “Really, Robert, you did much better with seduction and charm than this feigned attempt at savagery. Whatever happened to ‘Olivia, my dearest love?’ Or ‘Olivia, you make my heart weep at the sight of you’? Granted they were rather trite and you hardly meant them, but they did work better than trying to shake my acquiescence out of me.”

His gaze narrowed and then swept over her again in that appraising way she found so disconcerting. “So that is how it is to be.” There was no question in his words, just a statement.

He caught her in his arms, this time like a lover, eager and only too willing.

“Nooo—” she managed to stutter. “It won’t work.”

He paused for only a moment before his lips claimed hers in a demanding kiss, a kiss that turned her body traitor in a matter of a heartbeat.

Nooo
—she continued to cry silently as he deepened the kiss. His tongue swept past her sputtering lips, taming her unspoken protests with his touch. She found herself welcoming his invasion, opening herself to him, as he caressed and soothed her objections to only a breathless sigh.

Still she fought him. Fought her own body’s elated response to him.
No, I won’t do this . . .  No, this isn’t . . .

It wasn’t . . .
The realization hit her hard, even as he continued to kiss her senseless, her body awakening to his ever growing demands.

If she’d had doubts about the man before her, he’d kissed them all away.

Because he wasn’t Robert.

Chills coursed down her spine. She wasn’t kissing the Marquis of Bradstone but an imposter.

Not Robert? How could that be? And what was even worse was the way her heart sang this recognition with a burst of joy.

So if he wasn’t Bradstone, who, then, was blazing her checked passions alive with his sensuous kiss?

Egads, she was kissing a total stranger.

That was enough to give her the strength of will to push the man in her arms away.

She struggled to catch her breath until finally she managed to ask, “Who are you?”

Her hand went to her swollen, and still tingling lips, lips that had been branded by a man who had the face of her enemy but the soul of another.

“Who are you?”

Chapter 4

B
efore Olivia could repeat her question a third time, she heard her name being called from a distance.

“Olivia? Olivia? Oh, where the deuce are you?”

Jemmy!
She turned in the direction of his voice. What was he doing out here, and at this early hour?

“It appears you are about to make another timely escape, Miss Sutton,” said the man she’d thought, up until a few moments ago, was Lord Bradstone.

She glanced back at him, the differences between her enemy and this stranger now only too glaring. His unpolished veneer lent him a rakish, tangled look, a dangerous air, whereas Robert, the man she remembered, was nothing but smooth manners and cultured wit.

Having spent too many years dreaming of her own knight errant, her only too noble Hobbe, she was shocked to discover that this imposter captured her heart with something akin to that same dark passion.

A deep heat of longing and desire that was only too unfathomable to understand. One she had banished from her life.

And yet, as she glanced at him again, the lines between Robert and this man blurred—he wanted her help, just as Robert had—and for what reasons it was anyone’s guess.

He must have sensed her suspicions, because he said, “I haven’t time to explain. I need your help and I need it now. Tell me what you know about
El Rescate del Rey
before that puppy of yours arrives. I must know what Lord Bradstone discovered the night of the Chambley ball.”

“No!” She hadn’t been about to give it to the likes of Bradstone again, so she certainly wasn’t going to give it to a complete stranger.

No matter how compelling she found him.

“Oh, dash it, Olivia, there you are!” Jemmy called out, his boots stomping through the wet grass, his arms pushing aside the thick branches of rhododendron. “What the devil are you doing back here in the brambles on such a—” His footsteps and inquiry came to an abrupt halt as he spotted her companion.

Olivia had never seen Jemmy’s affable features take on such a mottled color of rage.

“Step away from her, sir,” the young man said with deadly calm.

Her startled gaze flew to Robert.
He’s not Robert,
she corrected herself. The Robert she knew would have had no compunction about seeing Jemmy dispatched for his impertinence and interference—removed permanently—but this man only sent a look of cool amusement toward her eager champion.

Olivia turned back to her would-be rescuer to see that he was now brandishing one of his new pistols, the hair-triggered match to the one she had stolen.

“I said step away,” Jemmy repeated. “You won’t be harming her, not without killing me first.”

This imposter found Jemmy’s threats amusing?

Recalling the way he’d so coolly stared down her own denunciation last night, Olivia sensed that this man was used to facing death straight on.

And winning every time.

“Jemmy, put that away,” she told the Finch heir. “Put it away immediately. This isn’t Lord—”

“This isn’t the time to settle our differences,” the man beside her said, his commanding tone and clipped words bringing her disclosure to a sharp halt. “I’ve no quarrel with you, sir, nor with the lady.”

“That’s not up to you to decide,” Jemmy told him. “Olivia, has he hurt you? Threatened you? Just say the word, and I’ll—”

“You’ll do nothing, Jemmy. Now put that pistol down.” She stared at him much as she had done when he was twelve and she’d caught him in one or another infraction. It worked to some extent, for he let the muzzle drop, but he did not relax his stance. “His lordship and I were just parting company.” She turned to the man beside her. “Isn’t that correct,
my lord
?”

Olivia let the dare behind her words challenge him to contradict her. It hadn’t escaped her that she had the upper hand on this Bradstone look-alike.

At least for the time being.

“My apologies for detaining you,” the man murmured, though the predatory light in his eyes told her only too clearly that her advantage wouldn’t last for long.

Jemmy grumbled something under his breath about overbearing blackguards, which both Olivia and the imposter chose to ignore.

“Come on then, Olivia,” Jemmy said, stalking out of the bushes toward the path. “Mother is in rare form this morning and sent me out to find you before you came to a
bad end.”
His final words he shot directly at her companion.

“Until we meet again, Miss Sutton,” the
faux
marquis said, with a polite nod. As he passed her, he added one last warning, low enough to exclude Jemmy from its hearing. “Don’t think this is finished.” His hand shot out and caught her by the arm, holding her in place. “I will have what I came to London for—one way or another.”

“We shall see, sir,” she told him as tartly as she could muster, shaking off his grasp and her own reaction to his touch.

The heat of his fingers seared her skin with the memory of the passionate fire his lips had kindled to life.

So lost in the remembrance of it, she almost didn’t hear him say, “My name is Danvers. Robert Danvers.”

Danvers.
The name whispered over her ear, teasing her to try it out with her own lips.

“I don’t care who you are,” she said instead. “I won’t help you.”

His brows arched over his cold green eyes, lending him a wicked, unforgiving air, while his gaze raked over her as if he was once again assessing her like some great conundrum. “We’ll see about that.”

Olivia had the uneasy feeling that there was more to his quest than just the treasure, something deeply personal that had to do with her and her alone. Something that should leave her fearful and wary of his wrath. But for now, she did the only thing she could—she fled from his side.

He’s not so different from Robert after all,
she tried telling herself as she retreated to where Jemmy stood waiting impatiently.
No, he’s not that different whatsoever.

Oh, but he was. Very different. Her hand went once again to her lips, where the heat of his kiss still lingered, one that had burned away everything she’d known about men and women and kissing.

She redoubled her flight toward Jemmy, who stood, boot tapping on the grass, his jaw set with a determination that rivaled his mother’s well-known obstinacy. With every hurried step, she did her best to forget that she’d kissed this stranger—this Robert Danvers.

“What the devil were you thinking, coming out alone?” Jemmy began. “That bastard could have killed you, or worse.” His tone implied all kinds of ominous occurrences that she as a lady could never imagine.

But Olivia wasn’t a lady, not in that sheltered oh-so-proper sense, and she knew only too well what happened in the world Jemmy was so darkly hinting around the fences about.

“And to think I let him go,” he continued blustering. “I should have done the world a favor and just—” He held the pistol out and trained it on a hapless squirrel dashing across the green. “Why, I’d have just—”

“You would have done no such thing.” She took the pistol away from him and continued toward the house.

Robert Danvers could be just as murderous as the man he was impersonating and Jemmy would end up losing his life protecting her long-lost honor.

But do you really believe that
? The question haunted her with memories of his kiss and her body’s betrayal under his touch.

Then an even worse thought hit her, leaving Olivia quaking in her boots.

What if
she
had killed him last night?