The Birthday Scandal (21 page)

But if that was what she had in mind, she surely wouldn’t admit it to Lucien. In any case, he couldn’t quite see Chloe Fletcher as a mad poisoner. No need to go and warn his father just yet.

He sighed and got to his feet. If he could have nightmares while sitting by the fire, he definitely didn’t want to go bed. He would raid the kitchen instead. Dinner at the Fletchers’ had been plentiful enough, but he had been so focused on Chloe that he hadn’t been in the mood to eat.

As he rounded the corner of the gallery, a whim made him stop at Emily’s door, knocking softly so he wouldn’t rouse the rest of the household. Surely his sister could advise him about how a girl of Chloe’s age reasoned, for she wasn’t all that much older herself. But she must have been sound asleep already, for she didn’t answer.

Worn out with all that flirting, no doubt.

He was just stepping out of the shadowed niche when he heard a door click further along the gallery. A man had come out of the duke’s rooms, and Lucien recognized Chiswick.

The earl saw him, too, for he stopped abruptly. “Why are you still wandering around, Hartford?”

Lucien gulped to keep from saying,
Because I have a tryst set up in the morning with your promised bride and I’m nervous about it.
“Unlike Emily, I just can’t sleep. If Uncle Josiah is restless tonight, I’ll keep him company.”

All the way across the gallery, another door opened—and quickly shut again. Odd, Lucien thought, that Gavin would have heard such a small stir from all that distance.

Chiswick shook his head. “The duke has settled himself for the night. He seems a little better and said he’ll come down for breakfast if he’s feeling up to it. You can see him then.”

A breakfast Lucien would miss because he had agreed to meet Chloe in secret.

Which brought him squarely back to the question that was keeping him too riled to rest. What in heaven could the girl want from him?

The bedroom was utterly still, so when a coal crackled in the fireplace Emily’s heart almost jumped out of her chest. “Gavin?” she whispered. “Are you there?”

The sheets rustled, and the bed curtains swung back. Suddenly Gavin was standing in front of her, swathed somehow in a white drapery that reminded her of drawings of ancient Romans. He’d wrapped a sheet around his waist, and it trailed onto the floor. But the rest of him was bare.

“Oh, my,” she whispered.

She’d noticed that his shoulders were broad, but a man’s tailor sometimes padded his coats to emphasize that feature. Not Gavin’s; the width of his shoulders was entirely him. She’d known he was strong, from the way he’d lifted her so easily from the curricle and picked her up as though she’d been a feather to set her on the billiard table. But seeing his bare chest and arms, noting the well-defined muscles under sun-darkened skin, was a different thing entirely. How, she wondered, could a gentleman’s chest and arms be exposed enough to the elements to turn that color? He must have spent days outdoors, without wearing a coat or even a shirt…Of course, she recalled; Uncle Josiah had said the solicitors had found Gavin working in a farm field. She knew she was staring, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away. She had known he was a big man, simply from standing next to him. But somehow he seemed bigger when she was alone with him in his bedroom, and when he was dressed—or rather undressed—like this.

She realized she was holding her breath and let it out as quietly as she could.

“Emily.” He sounded as if someone had hit him in the stomach. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Confusion swept over her. “But you said…We agreed…”

“Oh, damn! I’m sorry, forgive my tongue. But I never thought you would go through with it.”

She felt hot color sweep over her. “You weren’t expecting me?”

She saw it all, suddenly, as the truth burst upon her. The way he had pressed her—and the discomfort and uncertainty she had felt after the interlude downstairs—had kept her dithering and hesitating in her room. Now she knew he had done all that on purpose. He had acted the part of a rutting cad, trying to frighten her into giving up her idea.

Embarrassment surged through every vein, but it was mixed with a strange sort of confidence. She was only here because somehow she had known, without even realizing she knew it, that the man downstairs—that too-eager, too-presumptuous, too-abrupt man—wasn’t the real Gavin. He would never have treated her like that, as though she were nothing more than a convenience. She had known she could trust him. Wasn’t that why she’d asked him to be her lover in the first place? Down deep, without even realizing it, she had known he would be careful with her and never speak of their encounter.

But why had he set out to scare her away? Was it because she was a virgin and therefore too much trouble? If that was the case, why hadn’t he simply said so?

Or was it because he couldn’t bring himself to tell her how foolish and silly she was to think he would want to make love to her under any circumstances? That would be even worse, if he
didn’t
find a single thing about her appealing.

“I thought men could always—but if I am such an antidote…”

“
Damnation
.” He came across the room swiftly, his sheet swishing. He should have looked and sounded silly, but instead he looked delectable. Her mouth went dry while her entire insides felt like she’d turned into a puddle—which she supposed meant that she had made a good choice for her first lover.

Except for the inconvenient fact that he didn’t seem to feel the same way.

The confidence she had enjoyed a moment earlier was gone. He had done the proper thing—the gentlemanly thing—but for all the wrong reasons, so far as Emily was concerned. He hadn’t been trying to protect her after all, only to avoid getting himself stuck with a nuisance.

“How ridiculous of me,” she said. Her voice was low, and despite her best efforts it trembled a little. “What a fool I must be, to think that all I had to do was offer myself to rouse your interest. I must apologize, sir, for insulting you.”

“Insulting me?” He shook his head a little, as if he was having trouble understanding.

“Yes, by assuming that you would find any female form—no matter whose—adequate to rouse your lustful desires.”

“So now you think I find you undesirable?”

“Just as a matter of interest, what makes your mistress more appealing to you than I am? I would like to be educated, you see, so that next time I offer myself to a lover…”

Her voice cracked.

“Appealing? For God’s sake, Emily, I came near to raping you on the billiard table!” He reached for her.

She put up both hands to fend him off. “I don’t need another demonstration.”

“Yes, I think you do.” His voice was low and rough. “A different sort of demonstration, however.”

He swooped upon her, drawing her against the length of his body with one arm, his other hand spread possessively along the side of her throat. His thumb pressed her chin up to an angle where he could claim her lips, but he didn’t immediately kiss her. In the firelight, his eyes gleamed as he looked at her—just looked, as if he were staring into her soul. When he bent his head to kiss her, he was almost gentle—his mouth brushing hers softly, asking rather than taking. And yet, this touch was even more masterful than before, for this time he was not pressing her but wooing her, until Emily was the one who asked for more. She arched her spine to press closer against him, flung a hand up around his neck to hold his mouth tighter against hers, darted her tongue against his lips…He let her toy with him for a moment, and then he took control, kissing her long and deeply. He tasted wonderful…but she wanted more still, and she shifted against him and whimpered a little.

“There,” he said thickly. “Now are you convinced I find you appealing?”

She considered as she skimmed his body with her fngertips, learning the shape of every muscle. His skin felt hot under her hands—smooth, sun-kissed, stretched taut over hard muscles, as though every sinew of him was tensed with the effort of holding her close. But there was no need, for she was hardly a captive; if he let his hands fall, she would still be pressed against him.

He was putting forth so much effort, she realized, because he was holding her away from him—if only by a fraction of an inch. She stepped back.

“Go to your room, Emily.” His voice was taut.

She shook her head and untied the belt of her silk dressing gown, letting it slide off her shoulders to pool around her feet. As she raised her hands to the ties at the neck of her nightgown, he swore again and swooped on her, picking up the dressing gown with one hand—his other was still clutching the sheet—and draping it around her. “I’m trying to be a gentleman here,” he said urgently. “But you have to cooperate. Put your arms through the sleeves, sweet.”

“You promised you would make love to me.” She swallowed hard, trying to keep her voice from cracking.

“No, I didn’t. Oh, very well, it might have sounded like a promise, but I didn’t mean it. You—”

She turned slightly away. “You mean you don’t want me.”

Silence stretched out like honey dripping from the comb. “Yes, damn it, I want you. Does that make you happy? I want you so much that I’m going to send you straight back to your room. Just let me peek out to be sure no one is stirring.”

She stood exactly where she was, making no effort to put her dressing gown on again. She was stunned, a bit hurt—and yet somehow triumphant, too, for she believed far more in the truth revealed in the rough edge of his voice than in all the smooth words downstairs. He
did
want her.

But he was sending her away—at least, he was trying to. They would see about
that
.

Gavin strode across the sitting room, opened the door a fraction, and peered out into the gallery. In an instant he closed it again—far too quickly, she thought, to have made a full inspection, and before she had finished formulating a plan. He came back to her. “Lucien is out there, wandering around.”

Her heart leaped. “That means I have to stay here.”

“Only for a few minutes, until he gets settled somewhere.”

Suddenly, uncontrollably, she began to shiver.

He wrapped the dressing gown more tightly around her. “Come closer to the fire.”

“I’m not cold. I’m…” The trouble was, she didn’t know what she was feeling. Embarrassed? Ashamed that she still wanted this so much, if he didn’t?

Gavin sat down in a big chair by the fireplace and drew her onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her. Slowly, as his body heat seeped through her, she relaxed, snuggling more closely against him.

“Sit still, please,” he ordered.

She peeked up at him, stretched a bit, pressed a kiss against the strong column of his throat. “Since we have to wait for Lucien to go away, we might as well…”

“Even after what I did—how I treated you—you want to go on?”

Since her efforts at being a coquette didn’t seem to be working, Emily settled for unvarnished truth. “I trust you, Gavin. And I want to be your lover.”

He sighed, and for a moment Emily thought the entire world had stopped moving, waiting to hear his answer.

“I am not a saint,” he said dryly. And as he scooped her up and carried her to his bed, his sheet was forgotten.

Gavin almost fell over the trailing corner of the sheet, so he dropped it—and only then realized that despite her determination, Emily might panic at the sudden view of him entirely naked. But though her eyes widened, she made no protest.

Somehow her nightdress landed in the center of the carpet as well.

The big bed was shadowed, the hangings half-drawn. He set her down on the mattress, and Emily stretched out her arms to welcome him. Gavin’s head swam. Lying across his bed with her arms upraised, her breasts gleaming in the bits of firelight that flickered past the heavy silk bed curtains, she looked like a wanton impatient for her lover. He scrambled for control and did not do what he wanted—which was to bury himself full-length in her with a single thrust. She was a virgin, he reminded himself. A
virgin
.

An inconvenient shred of gentlemanly honor poked uncomfortably at him. If he took her virginity, she would never be able to marry. She said she didn’t want to—but how could she possibly be certain that she would never change her mind? She was still very young; she had been hurt; she was angry at men. With time, her determination might soften, and a lover might not be enough to satisfy. But if she did eventually want to marry, then found she couldn’t because of something Gavin had done…