Taken by the Earl (Regency Unlaced 3) (11 page)

But for what reason? Sin had never even met Lady Eckles until a month ago. Admittedly, he had rebuffed her advances then, as he had since his arrival here. But if she decided to do away with all the gentlemen who had turned her down, there would be dozens of bodies littered throughout London and elsewhere. Ladies too, if her advances to Fliss last night were any indication.

Besides which, Sin could not imagine any sexual situation under which Lady Eckles would “whimper and groan” in protest.

His upper lip turned back with distaste for their licentious hostess. “I believe you are right, and perhaps we should both leave.” He was more than capable of taking care of himself, but he could not risk anyone else he was believed close to, including Fliss, being attacked or injured. He had no doubt Maria Eckles had her own way of knowing exactly which guests spent the night with whom whilst under her roof.
 

“You do?” Fliss brightened, and then frowned again. “What of Lady Barker?”

Sin’s eyes narrowed. “What of her?”

“Yesterday you… Well, you showed a preference for her company yesterday.” Her gaze did not quite meet his. “And you were not able to spend the night with her, following my…misadventure.”

“Your point being?”

Fliss looked down as she ran her fingers over the brocade pattern on the bedcover. “I doubt she would appreciate it if you were to now leave here at the same time I do.”

“To hell with what Lady Barker does or does not appreciate.” The earl bent down to turn back the bedcovers and scoop her up into his arms, ignoring her squeak of protest as he sat on the side of the bed and settled her so that she was sitting across his thighs. “She was nothing more than a distraction.” His lips trailed down the length of her throat. “An effort on my part to deflect attention from you. To get you to leave.”

Fliss leaned back to look at him censoriously. “You seemed overly enthusiastic, if that is the case.”

“Was I?”

“I would say so, yes.”

Sin smiled at her vehemence. “Were you jealous, little Fliss?”

“Not in the least.” She
had
been jealous, and it was something of a relief to know that Sin had not been serious in his interest in the other woman after all. Something Fliss had no intention of admitting to this already overconfident gentleman.

“I was.” His lips resumed caressing her throat. “Of Sterling. Waverly. All those other gentlemen to whom you gave your attention. Even that idiot Greaves you spent time with in the hothouse.”

“I will have you know Mr. Greaves is very knowledgeable about plants and botany,” she defended.

“Is he indeed?” Sin considered. A man who knew about botany would know which ones were poisonous. Which plants might be added to a pitcher of beer to make a groom and horse sick. What might be added to a glass of water undetected.

“Were you really jealous of those other men?” Fliss prompted shyly.

He eyed her impatiently. “I believe you are enjoying the idea far too much.”

Her cheeks flushed. “I have never had a man feel jealous over me before.”

“Not even your husband?”

“Stephen had no reason to ever feel jealous.”

“You mean you did not deliberately flirt with other gentlemen in his presence?”

“No.”

“Well, you will not do it again in mine either,” Sin assured her. “We are leaving here this morning. And your spanking and sore ass are only delayed until we reach Scotland,” he warned as he stood to place her on her feet. “It would be a long and uncomfortable ride for you if I were to administer your punishment now.”

“Punishment for what? All I have tried to do is save you from an assassin— Scotland…?” she repeated as she obviously realized what he had said. “I cannot go to Scotland with you. Why would I? It is a preposterous suggestion—”

“Oh, it is not a suggestion, Fliss,” Sin said mildly. “We are going to my home in Scotland together, in my coach. Your own carriage can return to London or your country estate, whichever you choose. It will be safer for both of us if we are out of England until I have discovered why someone wants me dead.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

“I intend to send word to London and engage the services of Viscount Brooketon to look into the matter.”

“Lord Brooketon? Why on earth would the heir to the Earl of Stonewell wish to do such a thing?”

“Because, my dear Fliss”—he tapped her playfully on the nose—“he fancies himself as being something of an amateur detective.”

“How do you know that?” She did not know Brooketon personally, that gentleman running with a far more sophisticated crowd than she was used to, but she did not recall ever having heard that said about him.

“We sparred together in the ring several times during my brief stay in London,” Sin answered her.

“A
boxing
ring?”

He arched dark brows. “I do believe you are trying to change the subject.”

“I am merely trying to make sense of this conversation.” Although it did not take too much imagination for Fliss to see Sin stripped to the waist, his huge chest and shoulders bare and glistening with sweat as he sparred in a boxing ring with the rakishly handsome Viscount Brooketon.

“The only thing you need to remember is that when we get to Scotland, I am going to put you over my knee and spank your bare ass so that you cannot walk or sit down without remembering why it was administered,” he reminded her with relish.

“That will not be at all difficult when I do not know why it will be administered!” Fliss glared at him. The man really was a barbarian if he thought for one moment she would agree to go to Scotland with him, let alone allow him to—to— “Why?”

“For coming to Eckles Manor in the first place, and deliberately putting yourself in danger.” He ticked off one finger. “For deliberately flirting with several unsavory gentlemen after I told you to stay in your bedchamber.” He ticked off another finger. “For playing blindman’s bluff when I specifically instructed you not to.” He ticked off a third finger. “And lastly, because I believe I should enjoy it very much.” He ticked off the last finger.

Fliss had a feeling she might enjoy it too.

Too much.
 

Her breasts ached, her nipples were swollen, and her nether lips were slick with her juices from only imagining having one of those large hands spanking her bare bottom until the skin was red and glowing. “What happens after you have spanked me?”

He stepped closer. “Why then I believe I will have to apply a soothing balm to ensure the skin does not…bruise.”

Fliss moistened her lips. “And after that?”

Sin smiled. “After that, I intend to spread your legs wide, eat your hot, wet pussy, and make you come until you scream for mercy.”

Oh dear Lord..
.

Chapter 11

“That is not a house, it is a castle,” Fliss exclaimed with her nose pressed against the window looking out at the imposing gray stone castle built upon the headland. She had seen no other houses for several miles now and guessed this must be their destination after several days of driving through the rugged beauty that was Scotland.

A destination that had taken many more days than that to reach, much of it over uneven roads that had jostled and jolted both the carriage and its occupants. Inwardly, Fliss had thanked Sin several times for not spanking her before they left Eckles Manor. Her bottom was sore enough from the journey without that added discomfort.

Which was not to say she had not given great thought to that spanking and what Sin said was to follow.

She had also fretted and worried what Society would think if the guests still at Eckles Manor should ever reveal she had left that estate to travel to Scotland alone with the Earl of Winterbourne.

Admittedly, her maid and his valet were traveling with them in a second coach, but Society would not make any distinction if they became aware of Fliss’s stay in Scotland with the “untamed highlander.”
 

Not that Sin seemed at all concerned by the possibility. And why should he? He was a man, and men were expected, and allowed to have, their little affairs, without fear of scandal or retribution. The widowed Mrs. Felicity Randall would not be granted the same freedom.

Knowing that, what was Fliss doing here?

Why had she allowed herself to be handed up into Sin’s coach that last morning at Eckles Manor rather than returning to her home in her own carriage? Why had she traveled to Scotland with him for days and nights on end? Nights which, to Fliss’s surprise, had been spent in separate bedchambers at roadside inns.

As well as enduring the discomfort of the actual journey, Fliss had daily exhausted herself by being completely aware of the man seated in the coach with her, and spending restless nights alone in her bed, knowing that Sin was in another bedchamber farther down the hallway.

There had not been a second—except when she had catnapped from sheer exhaustion—when she had not been aware of everything about him. His sheer presence. His quiet power. His elegance. The smell of his cologne and that natural male musk that appealed and awakened all her senses.
 

They had talked, of course, and Fliss had learned more about his childhood and his Scottish father and English mother. His years at university in England. He had even talked of his time in the navy, and those long months of being held a prisoner in France, when he had received those lash marks on his back before his escape and safe return to England.

In comparison, Fliss’s own life seemed exceedingly dull.

Because it
was
dull.

She had done nothing with her life except conform to Society and do as she was told, first by her parents and then Stephen.

This adventure with Sin, and it had been an adventure from the start, was the first spontaneous thing she had ever done in her short life.

And beneath it all, every second of every day and lonely night, her body and senses had been alive with the arousal this man constantly evoked in her.

Sin, in contrast, had seemed perfectly relaxed, as if none of their previous intimacies had ever taken place. As if she had not sat tensely across the carriage from him day after day, her body constantly thrumming with arousal.

“Castle Montgomery,” Sin answered her with satisfaction, glad to be home after so many weeks away.

Before leaving Eckles Manor, Sin sent word to Brooketon outlining the problem and requesting the other man do whatever it was he did to investigate such matters. Sin also learned that Waverly had taken his advice and fled Eckles Manor. A chat with Greaves had not shed any light on where the poison or the draught in Fliss’s water had come from. That gentleman had denied all knowledge of such things. The man was so guileless, Sin had been inclined to believe him.

None of which had prevented Sin from keeping a wary eye out during the journey in case his carriage was followed. He had seen no indication that it had been.

Nevertheless, Sin was relieved the carriage journey was over, not just because of that fear they might be followed to Scotland by the assassin, but also because it had been torture to spend so many hours alone with Fliss and not make love to her. But neither his carriage nor one of those roadside inns where they’d spent their nights was where Sin wanted to make love to her. She deserved better than that.

He had learned more about her in this journey than he thought even she realized. Her duty to her overly strict parents. Her fitting in with the dictates of Society. Her liking and respect, but not love, for the man her parents had chosen to be her husband. Duty, liking, and respect. They seemed to have been the ruling emotions in Fliss’s uneventful life to date.

Sin wanted to introduce her to a world without rules. A world where they might share and enjoy every possible pleasure of the flesh. Where she might at last allow that wildness which Sin sensed in her to fly free.
 

He imagined seeing her walk barefoot along the shoreline in the secluded bay beneath the castle. Letting her hair loose and seeing the color in her cheeks as they walked amid the heather. Her skirts rucked up to her thighs as they rode bareback through the waves crashing against the sand. Taking her out onto those waves on his ship, her face turned into the wind, her dark hair blowing loose about her shoulders.

But before doing any of those things, he intended keeping his promise to warm her bottom.

And if Fliss thought he had forgotten that during the long journey here, she was about to learn he had not.

“You have a beautiful home,” Fliss complimented when she joined Sin in the library for afternoon tea.

All the castle household staff had been lined up to greet their laird—Sin truly was a laird, and a much-loved one from the open affection shown toward him as he addressed each servant by name. He introduced Fliss only as Mrs. Randall, here on her first ever visit to Scotland. If there had been speculation in several of the curious pairs of eyes looking at her, it was not a curiosity Sin intended to satisfy.

The elderly housekeeper, a Mrs. Campbell, had been the one to show Fliss up to the suite of rooms she was to occupy during her stay, Sin having made arrangements to meet Fliss for tea before he retired to his study with his steward. No doubt, with Sin in London and his cousin Ranulf, who managed the estate, away on his honeymoon for several months, there would be many estate matters for the two of them to discuss.