The Defiant One (21 page)

His confession, along with the deeply intense, quiet way he was regarding her, was starting to do things to Celsie's insides.  It was starting to do things to her resolve not to like him, her resolve not to touch him.  She turned away and stared up at the ceiling.  "I've always loved animals more than people . . . maybe because people are cruel and animals are not . . . maybe because I just never really fit in with people."

"I know that feeling, too."

She turned her head and met his intent gaze.  "Do you?"

"Of course.  I'm a 'mad' inventor.  Most people I meet couldn't be bothered to show an interest in the things that I do, in the dreams that I have; and since they don't understand my work, nor my visions, they write me off as 'peculiar' and choose not to bother with me.  I am like a horse with six legs.  They don't know what to make of me, they can find no common ground with me, and so I am best left alone — which suits me just fine, of course."

"I think your work is incredibly fascinating," she said heatedly.

"Then you are the exception, rather than the rule."

"And I think your dreams are going to change the world."

He smiled.  "Well, I don't know about that, but trust me, Celsiana, I do know what it's like to be ridiculed for my beliefs, for my passions, for my dreams of improving life as we know it — just as you know what it's like."  He unfolded his arms from behind his head, putting them beneath the blankets to escape the chill.  "Even now, I shudder when I remember what my peers in the scientific community said after my flying machine failed and dumped Charles and me in the moat — and this in front of the king himself.  I shudder to think what they will say when they learn I've created an aphrodisiac and can't even remember what went into it.  Ah, the  mortification . . .  Here I am, an inventor and man of science, and I didn't even record the substances that went into making what could very well end up being the most incredible discovery of this decade, if not this century."

There was pain in his voice.  Tentatively Celsie reached out and found his hand beneath the covers.

His fingers curled around her own.

They remained that way for several moments, just holding hands, looking up at the ceiling, neither saying a word.

"Know what's rather funny?" she said, at last.

"What's that?"

"Here we are, two misfits who think we can change the world . . .  Perhaps we're better suited to each other than either of us had thought."

"I suppose we would be very well suited indeed, if either of us had any inclination to get married."

"Yes.  I think it's better that we remain friends rather than spouses.  Marriage would probably ruin our burgeoning friendship."

"We're working on that, aren't we?  Being friends?"

She heard the smile — and what sounded like hope — in his voice.  She turned her head and saw that he was watching her, his expression inscrutable.

"Yes — yes, I suppose we are."  She smiled slowly.  "Though I don't think friends usually lie together in the same bed."

"No one will know.  I'll be out of here by the time the servants are up."

"You'd better be.  The last thing we need is for anyone to catch you here.  There'll be no escaping the matrimonial noose, then!"

"I promise to leave at first sounds of stirring downstairs."

"And I'll go back to my own townhouse shortly thereafter."

"No one will be the wiser."

"No one."

She squeezed his hand.  He squeezed hers back.  Celsie shut her eyes, listening to the rain, taking pleasure in the heavy warmth of the coverlet, the drowsy heat radiating from Andrew's body.  Eventually, the sound of the rain began to grow distant.  She sighed, turned over, and instinctively curled closer to him.

Just as instinctively, his arm went around her, heavy, warm, protective.

Celsie's last thought was one of gratitude.  It was nice not to have to sleep alone, after all.

Chapter 18

"Oh,
bother
," muttered Nerissa as the mud-splattered coach drew up outside de Montforte House just as it was growing dark.  "There's Perry's mother, heading straight towards us.  You'd think she was just waiting for us to get here, the way she's hurrying out of her house.  That malicious gossip is the last person I feel like seeing."

Nerissa was tired and irritable.  Charles and Gareth had arrived late the night before, and having left so early this morning none of them had got much sleep.  Now, her brothers rode just outside the carriage, Lucien some distance ahead and mounted on his hellish black stallion, Armageddon.  Charles, astride his steadfast military mount, Contender, flanked the coach, every so often conversing with Gareth, who was aboard his fleet Thoroughbred, Crusader.

Their wives, Juliet and Amy, shared the coach with Nerissa.

"You will excuse me if I don't feel like being sociable where
she
is concerned," Juliet muttered in her soft American accent, watching the plump harridan rushing across the square toward them.  She'd had experiences — none of them pleasant — with Lady Brookhampton before, and Nerissa didn't blame her for disliking the woman who had so maligned Gareth, her husband.

"She's hailing Lucien," Amy remarked, looking out the window when Juliet would not.  "She's curtsying to him.  I can see her mouth going."

"I can imagine," said Juliet, acidly.

The coach came to a stop.  Lucien rode his prancing, frothing stallion up to the window.  "Good evening, ladies.  Sorry to inconvenience you, but our neighbor has just invited herself in for tea."  He gave one of his maddening smiles.  "Shall we refuse her?"

"Yes," said Juliet, tightly.

"Yes," said Amy, noting Juliet's set face.

But Nerissa looked away.  She didn't like Lady Brookhampton either, but, hoping that Perry would soon ask her to marry him, knew it wouldn't be wise to make an enemy of his mother.  Sullenly, she asked, "What is she so excited about, anyhow?"

"What do you think she's so excited about?  Andrew arrived late last night.  She thinks he's running from some sort of trouble and wanted to be the first to let us know."

Nerissa let out her breath on an irritated sigh.  "Oh, how I wish that woman would mind her own business for once.  I don't suppose she mentioned whether or not he was alone, did she?

Lucien's expression gave away nothing.  "She did not say."

"Then it seems we have no choice but to invite her in," Nerissa muttered.  "Not that I want to, but —"

"But if you want to marry her son, you'd better stay in her good graces," finished Lucien.

Moments later, the men were giving their horses into the care of waiting grooms and handing the ladies down from the coach.  As a group, they walked through the tall, spiky iron gates, Juliet coldly ignoring Lady Brookhampton, Amy distantly polite, and Nerissa feeling as though this was going to be a tial morning indeed.

The butler, Harris, met them in the house's marbled entrance foyer, bowing deeply to the duke, and then to the others.  He looked vastly uncomfortable.  Worried.

"Your Grace," he said in a low voice, "If I might have a private word with you?"

"By all means, Harris.  Let us go into the library, shall we?"

The two moved off.  Footmen appeared, all silent and tight-lipped, to take the ladies' cloaks and Charles's and Gareth's hats and greatcoats.  The two brothers exchanged glances.  The three women frowned.  Only Lady Brookhampton, chattering away like a magpie, seemed oblivious to the charged tension that filled the house.

"I say, Lady Nerissa, you really
must
come over for tea tomorrow afternoon," she was saying, pointedly excluding Juliet and Amy, both of whom she despised — one for stealing Gareth right out from under her enterprising daughter Katharine's nose, the other for stealing Charles.  "There's so much I need to catch you up on!  Everyone's talking about France, of course — terrible how we might soon find ourselves in another war with them, thanks to those horrible colonists in America.  Why, I hear that they've sent their emissary, a Mr. Franklin, to Paris, seeking French aid!  Oh, Lord save us if the Frogs decide to start another war because of those vile, treasonous rebels —"

"Excuse us," said Gareth, taking Juliet's arm before she could respond to the obvious taunt.  Charles did the same with Amy, and the two moved off with their American wives, leaving Nerissa alone with Lady Brookhampton.

"I say, what
is
the matter with them?" Lady Brookhampton asked, feigning innocence.

Nerissa opened her mouth to deliver her own tart response — and saw Lucien returning.  Unlike the butler, he did not look vastly uncomfortable, or terribly worried, in the least.  He looked . . .

The way he always did when he was up to something unspeakable.

God help them.

"What are you two doing standing out here in the foyer?" he asked smoothly.  "Come, come inside.  Tea will be served shortly in the parlor."  He removed his gloves and handed them to a footman.  "Oh, by the way, Nerissa.  Harris tells me that a package arrived for you last night."  He winked.  "I suspect it's from some lovesick young swain.  He put it on your bed."

Nerissa flushed, feeling a moment of excitement — and panic.  Whoever had sent the package must have known she was coming to London.  And the only one who might have known was Perry.  Oooh!  She was dying to run upstairs . . . but what if Perry hadn't been the sender?  What if it had been some other man?  She'd have a fine time explaining
that
to the woman who would probably end up being her mother-in-law . . .

"Aren't you going to fetch it down?" Lucien asked, grinning.  "I am sure we're all dying to know who it's from.  In fact, why don't you take Lady Brookhampton up with you?"

He gave her a look that clearly said,
and keep her away from Juliet and Amy for as long as possible.

Some things never ceased to amaze, Nerissa thought.  She could almost —
almost
— forgive her brother for all his scheming and manipulation of other people's lives in the face of his consideration for not only the situation at hand, but the feelings of his two American sisters-in-law.

"Of course," she said, trying to hide her dismay at having Perry's mother with her when she unwrapped the package.  "Will you come upstairs with me, Lady Brookhampton?"

She did not expect the older woman to refuse.

And of course, she didn't.

Nerissa headed for the stairs.

~~~~

Something had woken her.

Celsie dragged open her eyes.  She was surrounded by a wonderful, drowsy warmth, and it came as something of a shock to find that the warmth came not from a dog, but from the very long, very hard, very male body against which she was curled.  Actually, she was more than just curled against that long, hard, male body.  Andrew lay on his back, and her head was nestled within the cup of his shoulder, a fold of his shirt tickled her nose, and she could hear his heart beating quietly beneath her ear.  He was still asleep and breathing deeply, his arm slung heavily, possessively, across her back.

She opened her eyes further, looking above the fold of Andrew's shirt and across the room toward the window.  It was still raining outside, and the sullen grey light coming through the parted drapes made it impossible to tell whether it was an hour past dawn or an hour before sunset.  One thing for sure:  The room was chilly.  Almost too chilly to rise from this bed and make her escape before anyone was aware of her presence.

She had to leave.  Now.  Yet she didn't want to crawl from the warm cocoon of covers, to move away from the broad, solid chest upon which she'd been dozing.  How very surprising.  She ought to be bolting from this bed like a hare from a greyhound.  Instead, she found herself thinking that she could not remember the last time she'd woken up to such pleasant coziness.  Why, if someone had told her yesterday that sleeping with a man was far nicer than sleeping with a dog, she would never have believed it.  But it was true.  Sleeping with a man
was
nicer.

And you didn't wake up to find paws stabbing into your back.

Downstairs, she could hear the servants moving about, and from somewhere came a tantalizing waft of toast.  Celsie tensed even as her stomach gave a responsive growl.  The rumbling didn't abate but continued on, gathering both loudness and intensity until it sounded like an angry mastiff confronting a poacher.  Celsie winced, hoping it wouldn't wake her bedmate, but he didn't stir, his long lashes lying against pale cheeks shadowed with reddish-brown bristle, his head turned slightly on the pillow, his chest rising and falling slowly in time with his deep, steady breathing.

She repositioned herself within the heavy curve of his arm, resting her chin on the rise of his chest muscles so that she could gaze at his face.  He was easy to look at.  Too easy.  She liked the way his nose angled back and met his forehead so that both made a nearly straight line, with barely an indentation to mark the bridge; it gave him a noble, intelligent profile.  She liked the way his hair, so thick and glossy, fell in rich waves around his face, its warm, dark-chestnut hue set off by the deep brown color of his long, straight lashes.  She liked the way his mouth looked firm and sculpted, even in sleep, the lips sensual without being too wide, now slightly parted and putting thoughts in her head about how nice it would be to lean down and kiss them.

God help her, she liked everything about him —

Well, almost everything.  His unpredictable moods left a lot to be desired.

But with him lying asleep on the pillow, it was easy to forget his surliness.  It was easy to imagine him how she wished he were all the time; the way he'd been earlier, when they had lain side by side, hand in hand, and talked about their respective dreams just like two old friends.  Celsie had met a lot of men in her life.  Some were handsome, but empty between the ears.  Others were witty and intelligent, but hopelessly unattractive.  Yet Lord Andrew . . .  He seemed to combine the best of both worlds.  He was an attractive blend of sharp intelligence and splendid good looks, of creativity and imagination, of kindness and wit, of courage and vulnerability.