The Devilish Montague (14 page)

“Blake Anthony Montague, what is the meaning of this?” His mother’s horrified voice rang loud and clear, tolling clarions of doom.

“Oh, it is Miss Carrington,” his married sister Agatha chirped.

Keeping his back to his family, Blake wondered if it might be possible to sink through the floor. Miss Carrington’s small hands slid from his shoulders to burrow into his coat as she tried to disappear behind his bulk. Not for the first time in her company, Blake wanted to howl with rage, except this time it was at her distress. He didn’t wish her humiliated by his deuced intrusive family. He’d learned to deal with them, but Miss Carrington shouldn’t have to endure their constant nosy smothering.

He couldn’t spin around and confront them quite yet. Willing his unruly cock into submission, Blake tucked a wisp of hair behind Miss Carrington’s ear, rather glad that her bonnet had fallen back on its ribbons so he could finally see the glory of her silver-gold tresses. “You see why I do not anticipate housing my family?” he muttered.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered back.

He couldn’t ascertain if she was sorry he had a meddling family or sorry that they’d been caught. Possibly both.

“Well, Miss Carrington,” his mother said from the end of the hall, “I see my son meets with your approval.”

Blake drew his bride-to-be in front of him and finally turned to nod a greeting at his mother and sisters. Damn, but even Frances was here to witness his downfall. “Miss Carrington has agreed to make me a happy man, Mother. I would have announced the news this evening.”

“Miss Carrington, may I say how delighted we are to welcome you to our little family?” Lady Montague cried, rushing forward to grab her hands.

“If you call my two brothers and four sisters a
little
family,” Blake murmured in her ear. “And each one nosier than the next, which is why they’re here now.”

Like him, she did not express dismay at being trapped. Unlike him, she donned a smile of delight and accepted his mother’s hand in greeting. “Lady Montague, how good of you! Frances, such a delightful bonnet! Did you find it at that shop on Berkeley I mentioned? And, Agatha, I’m so pleased to see you. . . .”

She caught his mother’s arm and turned Lady Montague toward the stairway, chattering and behaving as if it were the most normal thing in the world to be caught
in flagrante
in a filthy corridor.

Surely, she could not have set him up to be caught?

Horrified to think that Miss Carrington’s pretty head could conceal a tactical skill greater than his own, Blake gave himself a minute to cool off before stomping down the stairs after the women. He should have questioned why she was out here alone. He damned well should have done a lot of things besides have his way with her. Not that he’d fully done that yet, which was probably why he was feeling so hostile.

“Mr. Montague believes a chimney sweep is required, and a glazier to repair the conservatory.”

Mr. Montague thought no such thing. That was pure Miss Carrington talking. Mr. Montague would rather be in his rooms, drinking a glass of brandy and pondering the blasted French cipher instead of shepherding chattering females about a filthy house, inhaling their sweet perfumes. Atherton, the rake, belonged here, not him.

He despised the kind of social conniving Miss Carrington was currently engaging in.

“Have you set a date, dear?” his mother asked eagerly.

“If you had not interrupted,” Blake curtly intercepted his
intended’s
response, “we might have set one by now. Come back next week and perhaps I’ll have had time to make arrangements.”

Blake knew it no longer mattered how his father drew up the settlements. They were trapped. He had to accept whatever bones were thrown at him. He’d compromised a lady in front of his family. For better or worse, his carefree bachelor days had ended.

“A special license would be romantic but would probably cause too much gossip,” Miss Carrington replied gaily.

Blake wanted to clap his hand over her mouth before she offered to elope to Gretna. “I need time,” he warned. “Banns take three weeks, and we haven’t even chosen a church.”

“Lady Belden lives in a lovely parish,” his mother corrected. “If Miss Carrington’s banns are called there, the church will be perfectly suitable. I’m sure the house can be ready in three weeks.”

Three weeks!
He wasn’t sure
he
could be ready in three weeks. Planning a courtship was all he’d been prepared for. Suddenly, he seemed to have boarded a runaway mail coach.

“Don’t rush us, Mother. We’ll do this at our own time and pace. You can scarcely expect me to bring a bride to a home in this sorry state.”

His mother looked hurt by his cold reply, but he was too furious with himself to care.

Letting his mother and sisters wander into the next room, Blake caught his betrothed’s elbow and held her back. “I won’t be manipulated, Miss Carrington,” he said in a low voice. “Our decision to marry may have just been removed from my hands, but I am in no hurry to turn my life inside out because my family—or you—wishes it so.”

Frost whitened the deep blue of her eyes to gray. “You, sir, are the most rude, unsociable, difficult man I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter. It was not my fault or your mother’s that you were caught kissing me and now have no choice but to marry. Do not take your anger out on us!”

Which was what he’d been doing, admittedly, except it wasn’t his lack of choice that was the problem. The problem was that he would break his family’s hearts no matter what he did, so it was better if he kept them at a distance. As it would be better for any wife to keep hers. They may as well lay down the terms of their arrangement now. “I have spent my life avoiding their intrusive manipulations. I do not intend to let them take over now. You may endure their managing ways, for I will not.”

“Fine, why don’t you just keep your rooms in the city,” she said scornfully, providing him with the escape he’d already considered. “I will entertain your family here, in this
sorry state
. I think I like them better than I do you.”

“You like the
house
better than you do me. Just so long as we both recognize where we stand, we’ll march along fine.” He was almost relieved to have this tiff aired now.

Her smile was forced. “Excellent. We’ll lead our separate lives and be happier for it.”

She tugged her arm free of his grasp and swept from the room.

Although she’d said exactly what he wanted to hear, Blake felt a cold draft upon her departure, as if the sun had just gone behind a cloud.

That evening, Jocelyn was still confused by Mr. Montague’s imperious behavior and was almost relieved that a decision had been taken from her hands. She had to marry him now. She couldn’t precisely pay off Harold with a clear conscience, but she would do it. Richard was helpless, but Mr. Montague was not. The dratted man could wait a few months before becoming an officer and rushing off to Portugal. It would serve him right for being so insufferable.

Dithering over money was preferable to fretting over her inexplicable reaction to the annoying Mr. Montague’s kisses, and the astounding fact that she’d
loved
them. Their first kiss had been delicious, but the next . . . His arms, his caress, his
mouth
had stimulated such excitement that she’d been giddy with foolish anticipation. Her pulse still beat too fast just thinking about it.

She knew better than to expect anything from a man. She should have resisted.

Except—after she’d seen her home in such disrepair, she had been fighting tears and wanting to murder Harold. Blake’s kiss had wiped away the dismals and offered enticing promises, dreams she’d never dreamed, ones of true love and real marriage.

He had kissed her as if she might really be
important
to him. Her heart stirred a little more than it should at the seductive possibility. She had never been of much value to anyone. Still, it would be wonderful if she could matter to so eminently accomplished and self-sufficient a gentleman as Mr. Montague. . . .

Stop thinking like that
. He would more likely throttle her than appreciate her once he discovered what she was about to do, and justifiably so. She’d already sent a note around to Lady Bell’s lawyer to arrange for Richard’s guardianship to be irrevocably transferred to her. She would have that paper signed before she paid Harold the preposterous, horrendous sum of four hundred pounds.

Once he’d learned what she’d done, Mr. Montague might never kiss her again.

She dared not think about that too hard, either. Preparing for the evening’s entertainment, Jocelyn raised her hair from her neck so her maid could fasten the buttons at the back of her bodice. “I am having second and third thoughts about this marriage,” she announced in a fit of pique at her own spineless vacillation.

Lady Bell looked up from the correspondence her secretary had just delivered. “He has made improper advances?” she asked dryly. “Men will try, you know. If you do not like intimacy, then you most certainly should reconsider.”

“You are a very broad-minded person,” Jocelyn said grumpily, taking a seat at the vanity so the maid might pin up her hair. “Most women say that side of marriage is a cross they must bear.”

Not that she knew anything of the familiarities they were talking about. But she had listened to her married sisters when she shouldn’t have and asked questions when she could get away with them. And she’d hinted that she knew more than she did so that people like Lady Bell would open up and explain. Because she really wanted to know what would be expected of her.

Why in the name of all that was holy would anyone object to what Mr. Montague had done to her this afternoon? Really, it had been the most delectable experience.... If she could have the kisses without putting up with his irritable humors, she’d be thrilled with marriage. She had never known a man’s chest could be so very hard, or his lips so demanding. Or that his tongue could produce such intimate sensations! She suffered the most delicious tingles simply thinking about what they’d done.

“Most women are fools.” After sorting through her mail, Lady Bell tossed a letter to the vanity in front of Jocelyn. “Or they’re so desperate to marry that they accept the first man to ask, without consideration of the physical side of marriage. You have alternatives.”

Not anymore, but Jocelyn didn’t tell Lady Belden that. What she really wanted to know was if her husband’s kisses would continue to be exciting or if he would stop them altogether once he learned how she’d betrayed him.

“Decisions are difficult.” Jocelyn tried to see the writing on the letter Lady Bell had just tossed at her, but her maid tugged her hair to keep her from twisting. “When Mr. Montague is on his best behavior, he can be very . . . charming.”

Perhaps
charming
wasn’t the correct word, but she liked talking with him when he wasn’t growling. Sometimes, she even liked his cynical attitude. She’d learned smiles more often got her what she wanted, but men had the freedom to be themselves. They could afford to be unpleasant if they wished—as Lady Bell could when she felt like it.

“But?” the marchioness inquired, looking up with interest.

“He hates his family,” Jocelyn responded with a sigh. “He bristles like an angry cur whenever they’re about. He doesn’t like parties. He’s even more unsociable than poor Richard. I do not understand it, because he has gentlemanliness ingrained in him. Even when he is shouting at me, he helps me past mud puddles, and he protects me from falls when I’m trespassing and he’s chasing pigs. But he’s the most disagreeable man I have ever met.”

“Chasing pigs?” Lady Bell asked faintly.

As the maid finally released her, Jocelyn waved away a reply and picked up the letter. She stared at the elegant handwriting with astonishment.
Richard!
Richard all but lived in their sister Elizabeth’s barn. He never wrote letters. He hadn’t even sealed this one. She pulled the edges from the fold and straightened the badly crumpled paper.

He opened the windows and let them all out
were the only words on the page.

Two fat tears ran down Jocelyn’s cheeks, and she grabbed a handkerchief to blot them before more spilled over. She covered her mouth to hold back a sob that threatened to escape, but she couldn’t prevent the shudder racking her.

“Jocelyn?” Lady Bell asked in concern. “Is it bad news?”

She shook her head, unable to explain clearly what those few words meant to her, much less how devastating they were to poor Richard.

Apparently her brother-in-law had tired of Richard’s aviary and had freed all the new specimens her brother had carefully collected these past few years. The monster may as well have taken a hatchet to Richard’s family. For the second time in his short life, Richard had lost all he loved. How could he survive such a blow?

Jocelyn had to give him hope. No one understood Richard as she did. They had shared a nursery and the bullying of their older half siblings, who’d resented them. Their mother lacked nurturing instincts and failed to protect her offspring. Richard had been scorned and pushed aside, until Jocelyn was old enough to imitate her father’s sister Matilda and use her looks to deceive and distract until she had what she wanted.

Richard had no conception of how to deceive. He would never learn how to survive in the real world. If Jocelyn had any say in it, he wouldn’t have to. She hoped and prayed that an intelligent man like Mr. Montague would recognize and accept her brother’s eccentric intellect, because really, she had no other choice.

Jocelyn tucked the precious paper into her bodice. Richard wrote so seldom, she might never see another letter from him again. “My sister’s husband has tired of my family, I believe,” she said with brittle gaiety. “I must marry Mr. Montague with all speed.”

Perceptive as she was, her hostess frowned but refrained from questioning the despair in her guest’s voice.