The Love Affair of an English Lord (32 page)

The remark made Dominic realize what a small circle of men made up his elite class. They attended the same schools, the same social functions, christenings, weddings, funerals. “He's gone off to make peace with his father, which ought to be an interesting reunion, considering the fact that the old duke has been calling Adrian a bastard for years. He promised to be back for the wedding.”

“We should all run off,” Grayson joked. “Go on a lengthy shoot in Scotland until an hour before the ceremony.”

“I wonder which one of you is going to make me an uncle first,” Heath mused.

Grayson's broad grin gave him away.

“You devil,” Heath said with a laugh, lowering his cigar.

“I haven't said a word.” Grayson shook his head somberly. “I am the keeper of family secrets, and Jane's physician said it is too early to be sure.”

When Dominic rose to leave, he was surprised to see by the clock that two hours had passed. It felt strangely pleasant to be included in this close-knit clan with all its joys and troubles. It reminded him of the two brothers he had lost. The funny part was that he found he wanted to impress these men, to prove himself. He was
not
going to be an irresponsible rake for the rest of his life, not with Chloe at his side. And now, for a short time, until she came to him for good, she was home. Safe and protected until he took over.

“Good night to both of you.”

“Have we scared you off?” Heath asked.

“Not that easily. But—” Dominic hesitated at the door. “Well, I know I shouldn't ask, Grayson. I have an awful suspicion what the answer will be—but does the phrase ‘setting off Congreve rockets' mean anything to you?”

Epilogue

Chloe was drowning in a sea of female attire, knee-deep in the waves of promenade dresses, shawls, corsets, and petticoats that covered her bedchamber floor. Somewhere in this embarrassing mess of fashion excess she had lost her journal. Heaven forbid her scandalous confessions should fall into the wrong hands just when she was about to become a respectable matron.

It was the day before her wedding, and the dressmaker had just left the house after making a last-minute alteration to Chloe's wedding gown, all because Emma, the Dainty Dictator, had decreed that the Belgian lace border of the low bodice was lopsided.

“By a hair,” Chloe murmured. “Who would have noticed?”

And in the midst of the furor to make the adjustment, she had lost her journal with all its unspeakable secrets.

Jane popped her head into the room. “Your Dominic is downstairs, Chloe. Are you going to the park for an hour?”

“Why go to the park?” Chloe muttered. “My room is a veritable jungle. We could wander about here for days and not be found. We—”

She turned from the wardrobe, realizing that Jane had wandered off, presumably to join Emma downstairs to attend to another crucial detail of the next day's event.

She reached into the depths of her wardrobe. “Where are you?” she muttered. “Buried where no one except me will find you, I hope.”

“Now
that
is a sight for sore eyes,” Dominic said, leaning his elbow against the doorjamb.

Chloe shot to her feet. “Emma's going to kill you if she catches you up here.”

“Emma sent me up.”

“Emma? You
must
be mistaken.”

“No.” Dominic's eyes gleamed in amusement. “I marched in the back entrance with Grayson's tailor and assistants. I don't think she recognized me.”

Chloe eyed his compelling muscular form, impeccably clothed in a double-breasted tail coat of superfine and tight pantaloons. His short black hair was brushed back from his angular face. Would his devilish gray eyes always do such disconcerting things to her vital signs?

“How could she not recognize you?”

He shrugged. “I had a pile of boxes in my arms. I hid behind them. What were you looking for on the floor anyway? Another half-dead man in a trunk?”

“I'm looking for my journal, if you must know.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

He came into the room, closing the door behind him. “I could help you with the contents if you care to rewrite the original.”

Chloe paled. “I hope to heaven that does not mean what I am afraid it means. Do you have my journal, Dominic?”

“Of course not, darling.” A slow grin spread across his face. “But I do remember by heart a few of the more striking entries, if that helps.”

“You sneak. You couldn't possibly have read it.”

His deep chuckle gave her chills. “Let me think. Ah, yes. ‘My fatal flaw is my inability to be demure. No decent man should want me, I am sure . . .'”

She gasped. “You did read it!”

“It was rather sweet.”

Sweet. Chloe could only thank her lucky stars that he hadn't read her later entries concerning her attraction to him.

“Did you really want me to ravish you that day in the rain?” he asked, drawing her into his arms.

She resisted. He pulled her closer. The warm strength of his arms surrounded her. His hand slid up her nape to cradle her head. A shiver of anticipation shot through her, and her breathing quickened. In another moment she would not be able to remember that she was disgusted with him for invading her privacy.

He nibbled at her ear. “It's a good thing I'm not really a decent man.”

“Why did you come up here anyway, Dominic?” she asked.

“I wanted to give you something.”

“What?” she said, curious despite herself.

He lowered his head, his eyes glowing with love, and kissed her with such fierce possession that she forgot all about her missing journal. Was she angry at him? It didn't matter. What mattered was that this was the man she would pledge her heart to in the morning.

She laid her head on his shoulder and listened to the murmur of voices in the hallway. She had never felt safer, more at peace in her life.

“The wedding should be a quiet affair,” Emma said, sounding more hopeful than convinced.

“In this family?” Jane laughed. “I trust you're not laying odds on it.”

“I would be mortified,” Emma said. “All my old friends have come back into town for the occasion. Chloe looks like an angel in her gown. Dominic is a handsome devil, and they are in love. The breakfast dishes promise to be divine, and the cake is perfection.” She paused to squeeze in a breath, sounding as if her maid had laced her a little too tightly into her corset. “Could anything possibly go wrong?”

Dominic looked down into Chloe's eyes and smiled.

“Not for us,” he promised her. “Your wedding dress could be made of sackcloth. The breakfast dishes could be dust, and the cake can collapse before it's even cut. It won't change what really counts. Everything is going to be right from now on.”

He was so different from when they had first met, his vital energy harnessed, his heart cleansed of revenge. He was still her dark, soulful Dominic, the man she would be with forever, but no longer haunted. She smiled back at him, taking his hand in hers. “Everything has been right for me since I met you.”

“What are you waiting for?” she whispered.

He leaned down to kiss her pouting mouth again. “Do you really want to give yourself to a man like me?” he asked softly.

“Only to a man like you,” she said without hesitation.

He closed his eyes. “You honor me, Chloe.”

“I don't want to honor you, you scoundrel. I want you to . . . to finish what you started. Dominic, for God's sake, have a little mercy. I have
never
felt like this before.”

“My God, I hope not.” The thought was intolerable to him. If he had met her before his life had fallen apart, he had no doubt he would be approaching her brothers for her hand. “Chloe,” he said, the intensity of his expression easing, “you're the best thing that has ever happened to me. I'm afraid the same does not hold true in reverse.”

“You're wrong,” she whispered. “And you aren't going to change my mind.”

“God help me,” he said in a low voice, “I don't intend to.”

Read on for
a sneak peek at
The Wedding Night of an English Rogue
the final novel in Jillian Hunter's
Boscastle Trilogy!

She realized in alarm that he and Russell had left the balcony. That Heath was suddenly standing at the opposite end of the hall. Just that one glance at his profile, the hawklike nose and strong, clefted chin, made her heart beat a little faster. She leaned against the wall, watching him in resentful fascination. Why couldn't he have grown fat or lost his teeth? Perhaps he had. She could not properly see his mouth from where she stood. She remembered it, though: his firm, sensual lips, with the small white scar, his beguiling smirk, the dizzying kisses they had shared.

She had never met a man who possessed the lethal elegance of Heath Boscastle, or who even came close. A man who had once seduced her down to her stockings at a hunting party, when they both had been too young to know better. Or had it been the other way around? Had she clumsily attempted to seduce him? Wild Miss Hepworth her friends had called her in those days. They probably called her far worse now. The Wicked Lady Whitby.

She'd had plenty of time to reflect on what had happened between her and Heath. Years, in fact, for reflection and regrets. Naughty woman that she was, there were moments when her truest regret was that the two of them had not followed their heated encounter to the end. She hadn't always felt like that. It had taken a lonely marriage to make her face what she had wanted, what she could have had. That there wasn't only one path to contentment.

But on the day that she and Heath had parted, she had felt only an overriding panic and a guilty relief that they had stopped themselves before anyone discovered them.

And that he had kept his promise that he'd never tell.

 

Julia stood concealed behind one of the columns in the ballroom, watching the two men on the balcony above her. It was impossible to decipher their conversation. She could hardly see their faces from this distance, but she would have recognized Heath Boscastle anywhere. The handsome devil still drew attention. Several debutantes, in fact, had made a show of walking back and forth directly beneath him.

Her fiancé was drawing attention, too. Julia frowned as two giggling young women stopped directly in front of her.

“Do you think they noticed us?” one of them whispered.

Her friend glanced up at the balcony. “Boscastle is looking
right
at me.”

“What about Sir Russell?”

“I heard he'd gotten engaged, but he's looking, too.”

“Let's look back. They're like gods.”

Julia cleared her throat. The two younger women appeared startled, taking a step into each other. “Ladies,” she said rather coolly, “haven't you been told that it is not only impolite but unforgivably forward to stare—even at gods.”

As they scurried away, duly shamed, Julia, hypocrite that she was, resumed staring at the two compelling figures on the balcony. They couldn't be discussing her all this time. They seemed perfectly calm, which meant that Heath could not have told Russell their secret.

Heath looked down to the exact spot where she stood. She slipped back behind the column. If Russell found out what had happened between her and Heath years ago, he would be understandably appalled. The mere fact that Julia had kept it a secret would seem to compound her guilt.

She had good cause to feel guilty. For heaven's sake, she had shot a man and practically invited him to ruin her all in one unforgettable day.

Her blood still went cold when she remembered Heath lying between the rocks, silent and unmoving. How relieved she'd felt when she had flung herself down on the ground and discovered him still alive. Very much alive, in fact. His blue eyes had seared her like a naked flame, disbelieving, furious . . . and disconcertingly male.

She'd had the distinct feeling he was undressing her with those eyes despite the fact that she could have blown him to kingdom come.

“You
shot
me.”

“Well, no wonder.” She was terrified. He had a magnificent body, and she'd probably scarred one of those muscular shoulders. Her father would hide her gun again. “What were you doing jumping out at me from behind that carn?”

“I thought you were someone I knew.”

“Well, I thought you were the rabid fox that had attacked the livestock last night.”

“Do I look like a rabid fox?” he demanded.

No, she thought, biting the tip of her tongue. He looked like a lean, angry wolf who would leap up at any moment and eat her. Even wounded he gave the impression of dangerous strength. And sensual appeal. She had been warned about him, of course. Every debutante wished to snare a Boscastle. Well, she had just shot one. Did that count?

Then, to make matters worse, she had proceeded to pull off his shirt. Her relief that the wound was only superficial gave way to a sting of pleased shock to discover that he was every bit as gorgeous as she'd suspected.

“It doesn't look as bad as I feared.”

“That's easy for you to say.”

She was beginning to feel better. She hadn't really hurt him. “I am sorry.”

And that had been the start of it. A humiliating incident that had led to the most magical interlude she had ever experienced.

The eroticism of his kisses, the sinful thrill of being captured against that hard male body, still haunted her like a sensual dream. She'd never imagined, before or since, that she could respond to a man that way.

She certainly couldn't imagine what she would say when she came face-to-face with him tonight.

But she was about to find out.

Sometimes, examining how her life had turned out, she wished he had told. She might never have gone to India. Her father would probably have forced her to marry Heath and advised them to make the best of it. She would never have shot that soldier in the buttocks. Of all her sins, that was the one that had shocked Society the most.

Heath was coming closer.

He walked toward the column with the same languid grace that had once set her nerves on fire, that took her breath away even now. He was tall, broader in the shoulder than she recalled, a little leaner perhaps, but still dangerously attractive in a long-tailed black evening coat and pantaloons. Older, more experienced, more on edge, as elusive to the female heart as ever. Her throat closed as she stared at him. She'd believed she would never see him again. The ache of unresolved feelings inside her made her wish that she had not. It hurt to realize what might have been. And yet she could not deny the anticipation that rose inside her. Clever, handsome, an irresistible rogue. How silly to assume he would remain preserved as he was in her memory.

Six years, she thought, astonished that so much time had passed. She had been married and widowed in India. She had seen a side of life that the haut ton could only read about in the newspaper and gasp at in horror.

What had Heath heard about her?

She knew he could see her, that he was perfectly aware of who she was. His stride was unhurried, yet powerful.

Did he remember what they had done together that day in the library?

She steeled herself to look up into his heartbreakingly beautiful face, the chiseled features, the hard, sculpted chin. His dark blue eyes danced with restrained amusement, answering both her unspoken questions. He stopped as she stepped into his path.

He knew everything about her.

And he remembered perfectly well what they had done.

Furthermore, he hadn't lost even a single white tooth.

Even worse, she couldn't stop staring up at him, drinking in all the details of his appearance. One would think she had never seen a handsome man in her entire life. Of course, there was a little more to it than that. They shared a secret.

“Julia,” he said in the deep, cultured voice that brought another rush of forgotten memories to the surface, teased her starved senses. “Still hiding, are you? I trust you aren't armed tonight. Should I search you?”

She studied him in feigned puzzlement. “I'm sorry— do I know you? Have we been formally introduced?”

He took her by the hand, drawing her forward without a qualm. “Very funny, considering the fact that you almost shot me dead the first time I saw you.”

“You shouldn't have been hiding behind that rock. I thought you were a fox.” Now that she found her voice, she seemed to have turned into a chatterbox. The warmth in his eyes made it too easy to talk to him. “Oh, Heath, have you forgiven me? Did I leave you with a scar?”

“Yes. And yes. Actually I have gotten several scars since we met, but yours is the only one associated with a pleasant memory.”

There was a pause. She was aware of how hard her heart was beating, of other guests glancing at them, that time had only intensified his personal magnetism. She'd been surprised when Russell told her that Heath had never married, but then he was young enough and could afford to wait, could take his pick from the entire female population of England. A man who looked like Heath Boscastle would hardly have to search for a companion.

She was staring at him again. And he was smiling, although not out of any sense of superiority or conceit that she could tell. A perfect gentleman, he didn't launch into gloating reminiscences of their sinful interlude.

It was more emotionally charged than she'd imagined it would be, meeting him like this, and she had imagined it countless times. He was the same charming rogue she remembered. The war had changed so many of her male acquaintances, and Heath had been captured, had survived a great deal.

He cleared his throat.

She gave herself a stern mental shake and glanced away.

“Would you care for something to drink?” he asked, drawing her to the end of the corridor.

“A drink?” She wished she would not keep remembering how he'd looked half-naked, how the hand that was guiding her in such a gentlemanly way had plundered the private recesses of her body. He was so poised. It must amuse him to remember what they had done.

“Yes,” he said in a light voice. “A beverage. You know, that liquid stuff one swallows from time to time.”

“A drink,” she repeated.

“Do you need me to draw you a picture, Julia?” He waved his free hand in front of her face. “Julia?”

His voice was warm, teasing, as seductive as she remembered, had tried to forget. He'd always had a wicked, wry sense of humor, and it took all of her wits to pretend she was not affected, that every word he said, every gesture, did not take her back to the past. The lure proved too strong. She adverted her gaze, afraid she would give herself away, afraid that he was too intelligent to deceive. How humiliating that she could still recount every word.

I had one glass of claret, Heath.

Yes, well, it's all gone to your head.

No, it hasn't.

It most certainly has, or you wouldn't be kissing me like this.

Do you mind?

Of course I don't mind, but I daresay you will tomorrow.

I won't. I never do anything I regret. Well, until now
. . .

He'd threaded his long fingers through her hair and pulled her
back into the sofa, his sensuality overpowering, the heat of his chiseled lips
on her throat drugging her senses. The other houseguests had gone off on a hunt,
and she and Heath had been locked together in the library for three hours,
unable to open the door, or at least pretending that the lock was jammed. Three
fateful hours. Her life had never been the same, the stolen pleasure of their interlude overshadowing her to this moment. The ache inside her became more persistent, bittersweet, and unfulfilled. There was something about him that inspired confidence and penetrated her defenses. Yet he had kept his promise to her.

She forced her mind back to the present. He was no longer holding her hand, but she felt the warmth of his strong fingers all the way down to her knees. A blush of pleasant awareness washed over her.

She met his curious, perceptive gaze and sighed inwardly. It was far too easy to lose herself in those eyes as she had once learned. Guests were milling around them, staring at them in recognition now. Clearly those in the know had heard that Julia was engaged to Sir Russell, and Heath was a Boscastle male—eligible if elusive, a conquest to be pursued by the marriage minded at any price.

She started to laugh. “Yes. I'd like a drink—anything, as long as it's not claret.”

A flame kindled in the depths of his dark blue eyes. His mocking smile was irresistible. “Ah, yes. I've heard it goes to one's head.”