Swept Away (12 page)

He chuckled. “Now that is a refreshingly different opinion.” He folded her hand over the box, holding it in his own. “Take it. Please. When I saw it, I was reminded of your eyes, and I knew that it would do for no one but you.”

Julia knew that she should take it if she wanted to remain in character. But she could not. It would make her feel…dirty, as if she had been bought. It was silly, of course, to quibble over it, since she was pretending to be exactly the sort of woman who was paid for her favors. If she had no qualms over that, why should she balk at accepting a gift? But Julia simply could not accept the gift. Somehow it hurt that he should think she was the sort of woman who would.

“No, please, do not ask me to. I cannot,” she said in a low voice, pulling her hand away. She walked away from him. She felt strangely like crying.

“I'm sorry. I have offended you.” He sounded both puzzled and remorseful. He followed her, grasping her arms from behind. He bent closer, his breath ruffling her hair. “If I have been clumsy, please accept my apology. It was never my intent to upset you or to offend you in any way. I merely wanted to express my feelings for you. I wanted only to give you something. Now I've made a muddle of it.”

He bent down lower and laid a kiss upon the bare skin overlying her collarbone. Julia sucked in her breath at the frisson of pleasure. “Please say you will forgive me,” Stonehaven murmured.

His lips trailed across her shoulder, touching her with fire. Julia tilted her head away, unconsciously offering her long white neck to his marauding lips. He seized the opportunity she offered, kissing his way slowly up her neck to her ear, where he nibbled gently at the lobe. Julia released a breathy little sigh. His lips were creating all sorts of sensations in her. She knew dimly that she should stop him, but her mind was cloudy, and she could not seem to find the words she wanted. Wherever his lips touched, her skin immediately turned to fire.

Finally, exerting great effort, she stepped away, bringing a shaky hand to her face. “Lord Stonehaven…Deverel. I—I—you will find me silly, I am sure, but I am not ready for this.”

“My dear girl, there is nothing you need do to prepare,” he assured her quickly, moving to her. He put his hands at her waist, pulling her gently back against him.

“But, I mean, I—think you believe me to be a—more of a sophisticate than I am. But I am not even from London, and I am afraid that I—”

He let out a low chuckle, and his mouth went to work on the other side of her neck. “What has London to do with it?”

“I'm not sure,” Julia answered honestly, thinking that she must sound like an idiot.
Where had all her wits gone?
She closed her eyes, concentrating on blocking out the warmth of his mouth on her skin, the velvety feel of his lips, the occasional light nip of his teeth. “Uh, what I mean is, I think perhaps this is wrong for me to do.”

She turned, breaking his hold, to look up into his face. She realized instantly that that had been a mistake. The heat in his dark eyes was almost tangible, affecting her in much the same way as his kisses. She pressed her lips together, and his eyes fell to her mouth. The dark, slumbrous look that came into them set off an explosion of heat in her abdomen.

She swallowed hard and said, “Doing something wicked can haunt one the rest of one's life, don't you think? Haven't you ever done anything wicked? Did you long to talk about it, but you couldn't? Did it fester inside you?”

Stonehaven looked at her oddly. “Wicked? Improper, perhaps, but surely this is not wicked.”

He bent and brushed his lips against hers playfully, then raised his head and regarded her, one eyebrow lifted. “Did that seem wicked?”

The touch of his mouth distracted her, but Julia felt she had found a good line of questioning, and she followed it doggedly. “No, of course not, but you know how one thing leads to another. Sometimes we can want something so much that we do something wrong, but then we—we excuse it. And gradually we go on to more and more wrong things, until we are in so deep that there is no way out. Haven't you ever felt that? Done that?”

He blinked, then shrugged his shoulders. “I—I'm not sure. I suppose I have, but at the moment I am not thinking clearly. My mind is too befogged by you.”

He bent again and kissed her, this time more lingeringly. The taste of brandy on his tongue was heady. Julia felt her knees weakening, and she grabbed hold of his coat to steady her. When at last his mouth left hers, she blinked up at him, dazed, for a moment.

“Um, I—have you ever done anything wicked?” she asked a little desperately.

He laughed. “Jessica…whatever is amiss? Do you think that I don't care for you? That what I feel is fleeting? I can promise you that it is not. If you are asking if I will treat you in an honorable manner, I can assure you that I will. I am not the sort of man to play fast and loose with a woman.”

She almost groaned. Why would he not cooperate?

He drew her closer and rested his head against hers. “I give you my word. I will provide for you. I will treat you well.” He kissed her hair, then the side of her face. “Has another man treated you badly? I promise you, I am not like that.”

He wrapped his arms around her tightly, pressing her into his hard body. He kissed her closed eyes, then her cheek, and finally his mouth came to rest upon hers again. His kiss was deep and heated. His breath seared her cheek.

Julia trembled as heat washed over her. She knew she ought to protest, ought to move away from him.
This was going all wrong!
He was not saying what he was supposed to. She had been completely unable to draw him out; all he wanted to do was kiss her. Yet she could not even summon up irritation with him. All she could feel was this wonderful, tingling, amazing fire that was spreading through her body as he kissed her again and again.

Finally he lifted his mouth from hers, but only to explore her neck. He moved down to the bare skin of her chest above her dress. His hand came up to cup her breast through the thin lace covering. His thumb circled her nipple, making her jerk in surprise. The movement of his skin on her nipple seemed to send a direct signal to her loins, which were suddenly throbbing urgently. She could feel her nipple hardening, pressing against the lace.

He groaned and in a quick movement bent to sweep her up in his arms, then turned and carried her to the couch at the back of the room.

P
anic spurted up in Julia, and she moved in his arms. “No. Pray…”

“Shh.” His voice was soft and soothing, and she realized that he took her protest for some kind of last-minute nerves that he could soothe away.

He laid her down on the couch and knelt beside her, his arms still around her. He began to kiss her again while his hand roamed over her front, caressing her breasts through the lace. Julia brought her hands up to his chest to push him away, but, strangely, she found them sliding up around his neck, holding on to him. His kiss was drugging, far more intoxicating than the sherry.

His mouth left hers and began a trek down her throat. Kissing, nipping, sucking, he feasted on her soft skin, and when his lips came to the lace, he edged his tongue beneath it, tracing the line of the lace across the tops of her breasts. His tongue touched her nipple through the lace, and Julia gasped, stunned by the unexpected action and by the explosion of pleasure within her. She had never felt this way, had never even known that such a feeling was possible. She trembled under the onslaught of sensations as he circled her nipple with his tongue, causing it to harden and thrust against the lace. Her pleasure was heightened by the faint friction of the material upon her delicate flesh. His mouth closed around the hard bud, softly suckling it. Julia moaned as a tremor shook her, and her breath came fast and hard.

The strangest things were happening inside her. Suddenly moisture was flooding between her legs, and the tender flesh there was throbbing with each quick beat of her pulse. She squeezed her legs together, trying to ease the pleasurable ache, but it seemed only to grow.

“Deverel,” she whispered.

His only answer was a groan, and his hand moved slowly down her body, sliding over her abdomen and into the crevice between her legs. She realized instantly that it was this touch that she craved, this heat and firmness, and she could not keep from arching up against his hand. She could feel even more heat surge through him, and he began to move his hand against her, somehow both satisfying and intensifying the longing there.

He reached down and slid his hand up her leg, shoving up her skirts. “You are so beautiful,” he murmured.

He moved down the couch to touch his lips to her ankle, then her calf, then her knee. When his warm mouth reached her thigh, Julia jerked upright, startled out of her daze of pleasure. “No! Deverel, wait….”

She glanced around distractedly, trying to pull herself together.
She could not do this!
She saw now how foolish, how blind, she had been about this whole thing. It had been naive to think that she could seduce him only a little bit, that she could hold a man like Stonehaven off with a few kisses and caresses. Even plying him with drink had not helped. Instead of his telling her what she wanted to know, he was pulling her into a dark pit of desire from which she had the awful feeling that there was no escape. She had not guessed what strong sensual desires had lain hidden within her. Even less had she guessed that Stonehaven would have such an effect on her. But she knew that she was rapidly losing all willpower, and if she remained here much longer, she would be giving herself to her worst enemy!

The horror of the thought gave her the strength to sit up, swinging her legs off the couch. Stonehaven sat back on his heels, looking confused. “Jessica? What is it? What's wrong?”

“I can't! I just can't!” Julia pushed herself to her feet.

“But, my dear…did I do something? Say something?”

“No! I can't explain!” Her words came out on a little sob.

She turned and ran to the door. Snatching her cloak off the hook, she flung open the door and ran out into the night. Behind her she heard him call her name, but she did not check or look back, simply ran like a mad thing through the people milling around the grounds. She was a country girl and used to physical exercise, but she knew that she was no match for him. He would have caught up to her, she was sure, but that an inebriated gentleman, seeing him chasing her, quixotically stepped in front of him, saying, “I say, there, I don't think she wishes to see you.”

Stonehaven, of course, shoved him aside easily, but the incident had slowed him down enough that Julia was able to reach the line of hackney coaches outside the gardens before he caught up with her. The driver of the hackney, taking in the situation at a glance, slapped his reins over the horse's back as soon as Julia flung herself into the carriage, and they took off just as Stonehaven put out his hand to take the door handle. For an instant Julia thought that he would grab hold of the carriage and climb in even though it had started moving, but he did not. She had one last glimpse of his frowning face, and then they were past him and moving at a spanking pace.

It was over. She had failed!
Sorrow welled in her chest, and suddenly Julia could not hold back the tears. She put her face in her hands and sobbed. She would never see Deverel again—and Selby's name would never be cleared.

 

Julia spent the next day sunk in gloom. When Phoebe asked her concernedly what was wrong, she could say only that she had failed Selby.

“Oh, no!” Phoebe protested, reaching out to take Julia's hand. “I am sure that Selby would not feel so.”

“
I
do.” Julia sighed. “When it came to it, I was weak.”

A frown of worry creased Phoebe's forehead. “What happened? Did he—
harm
you?”

“No. Oh, no. Only my pride was wounded. I saw what a fool I had been.”

“No, don't say that.”

“I was no match for Stonehaven.”

“But only consider. He is a man steeped in evil. It only stands to reason that in that sort of contest, he would win.”

“I suppose. But it does not help Selby any—or Gilbert. He will have to live with the blot upon his name.”

“Perhaps we will be able to think of some other way,” Phoebe suggested soothingly.

“Perhaps,” Julia agreed, but she was not convinced, and her spirits remained low all day.

The next morning she was surprised by an early visit from Thomas St. Leger. Thomas was fourteen years old, and over the last year had suddenly spurted upward. He was absurdly thin, with matchstick arms and legs, and hands and feet that seemed far too large for him. His fair hair was thin and flyaway, and his face was dominated by a nose that he had not yet grown into. But he was a lad of great enthusiasm and warmth, and his smile made one instantly forget his ungainly appearance.

Though Thomas was the young man whose trust had been embezzled, he had loved Selby dearly, taking him as a kind of father after his own father had died, and he was as convinced as Phoebe and Julia that Selby had been falsely accused. Always having been a trifle scared of the brusque Lord Stonehaven, he had readily agreed with them that it must have been he who had embezzled the money and set it up to look as if Selby had done it. He had been in on their plot from the first, but Julia had not informed him of the change in direction she had taken in the scheme, for she had found that males, even at a young age, tended to take a dim view of women behaving as she had done. Fortunately, in London they had seen little of the lad. Today was only the third time that he had managed to elude his watchful tutor and make his way to the Armiger house.

The butler informed Julia and Phoebe, still at breakfast, of his arrival.

“Thomas?” Julia asked, her spirits brightening. “Send him in, of course. And set a place for him. I am sure he will be feeling a mite peckish.”

Indeed, being an adolescent boy, Thomas was hungry even though he had already eaten an early breakfast at home. He piled his plate with eggs, ham and bacon from the sideboard and dug into it with gusto.

“That was delicious,” he said, after bolting down a great quantity of food in the time it had taken Julia to eat a square of toast and finish her tea. Then he looked all around the room for lingering servants before continuing. “Sorry. I can't stay long. I just came to tell you that we are returning to Farrow tomorrow.”

“Really? This is rather sudden, isn't it? The Season isn't over yet.”

“Mama has her skirts in a swirl,” Thomas said inelegantly. “She's been in a taking ever since she found out you two were in town. I can't think why she dislikes Julia so.”

Both Phoebe and Julia had a fair idea why, knowing that Pamela St. Leger was jealous of Julia's beauty, but they refrained from saying so to her son.

“Anyway, she had a row yesterday with Cousin Varian. I think it was about his calling on you. He left, looking stiff as a board and not even saying goodbye to me, which ain't like him at all, I can tell you. I suppose Mama must have put his back up. So this morning she says that we're leaving for home immediately.”

“Today?” Julia asked in amazement.

“She'll try. Once she gets in a pet, there's no stopping her. She has all the servants flying around trying to get everything packed. That's how I was able to slip away without anyone seeing me. But by the time the post chaise is packed, it will probably be too late to leave, because Mama refuses to travel after dark. She's terrified of highwaymen.” He shrugged, accustomed to his mother's erratic behavior. “So we'll wind up going tomorrow anyway. Probably at the crack of dawn, because she's going to get Fitz to escort us, and you know how he is, being a military man.”

“I'm sorry that your visit is being cut short,” Phoebe said sympathetically.

But Thomas dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand. “It's all right. London's been a dead bore—stuck all the time with that tutor, doing nothing but visit stuffy old museums, and no riding except once or twice on a hired hack, and
that
was practically as bad as not riding at all.” Thomas, ungainly as he might be on foot, was a skillful rider, seemingly at one with his horse. Going without his daily rides had galled him considerably.

“You will be much happier at home.”

Thomas nodded. “I daresay. I have to admit, I've been fair sick for Farrow. And Mama never tells me anything that she gets in letters. At least, nothing interesting. Just stuff about that insipid Beasley woman—and what do I care about her silly card parties?”

Phoebe nodded sympathetically. “I am sure you would be much more interested in hearing about Theo Huntington's breaking his leg trying to take a fence on his new hunter.”

“I should say so!” Thomas exclaimed, leaning forward. “That cawker. He always fancies he's bang up to the nines, but he always rushes his fences. I hope the hunter wasn't injured.”

Phoebe smiled. “No. He came trotting home sweet as you please. That's how they knew that something had happened to Theo, so they went out to search for him. But the vicar's wife wrote that he's mad as hops about it and wants to sell the horse now.”

“Does he?” Thomas appeared much struck by this idea. “By gad, I'd like to take him up on that. I wonder if I can persuade Varian to spring for it. Perhaps I'd better dash him off a note before I leave. I shall talk to Fitz about it on the way home. If he and Varian agree, then I shan't even need to approach
him.
” He spoke the last word in accents of disgust.

His words seemed to remind Thomas of his other reason for coming, and he turned toward Julia. “What of our plan? Have you seized Stonehaven yet?”

“No.” Julia stirred uncomfortably. She hated admitting to her young friend that she had failed. “We couldn't get him. Nunnelly tried several times, but De—I mean, Lord Stonehaven—always escaped. He gave Nunnelly a black eye once, too. So I—I devised another scheme.”

“Another one! What? Did it work?”

“No. Nothing's worked,” Julia said disgustedly.

“Well, what did you try?”

“I thought…he seemed to be fond of female company, so I—oh, I pretended to be someone else and—”

“What? You tried to get it out of him by flirting?” Thomas let out a rude crack of laughter. “What a cork-brained notion. I could have told you that that wouldn't fly. I don't think he's in the petticoat line. Mama don't like him above half because she threw out a lure for him—more than once, truth be known—and he never bit at all.”

Julia's temper flared at his contemptuous dismissal of her idea. “You are fair and far off. He
does
like women, and he liked me. But I couldn't get him to talk about the scandal. And I, well, finally I couldn't go through with it.”

Thomas frowned. “Go through with what?
Julia!
” His voice turned stern. “Exactly what did you
do?
What couldn't you go through with?”

“Nothing reprehensible.” She paused, then added honestly, “At least, not horribly so. I didn't…” Her voice trailed off.

“By Jove! I should think not!” His voice cracked boyishly, detracting from his male outrage. “Whatever made you decide to do that? Can you imagine what kind of tale he's going to spread about you now?”

“He didn't even know who I was. I will remain a mystery woman.”