The Wicked Wedding of Miss Ellie Vyne (15 page)

Although she’d been widowed more than twenty years, Eliza Cawley produced another pair of breeches for his temporary use. They were too wide around the waist and too short in the leg, but “any port in a storm” as she remarked merrily—attributing the saying to her dear departed husband, Captain Cawley, as if he was the first person ever to use the phrase.

When Ellie saw him in the borrowed breeches, she exhaled another guffaw that continued, off and on, for half an hour, before they all thought she finally had it tamed.

“Poor Smallwick,” she remarked as they sat down to tea in the parlor, “what a day you have had.”

Her aunt was silent for a while as she periodically stared at James, then at her niece. Ellie eventually found a subject to distract her aunt from any potentially difficult questions. “Tell me what news of the village. There must be so much that has happened since I was last here.”

“Well!” The little woman got comfortable in her chair. “You will remember I wrote to you that Henry Valentine was selling his land?”

“Yes.”

“He and that dreadful wife of his have moved to Norwich.”

“Ah. Good.”

“And Miss Sarah Dawkins married Obediah Shook over in Sydney Marshes, only to find that she did not like him very much after all and fled—to Bury St. Edmunds, of all places, with his gardener. That was a dreadful scandal. Then her sister…you will remember Amy Dawkins? Not to be outdone, she eloped with a brush salesman. Can you imagine? He simply came to their door one day to sell brushes, and before anyone knew anything about it, she up and left with him. Now, I understand, she goes by the name of Mrs. Arthur Hopper, although whether or not there has been a proper marriage to warrant the name is a matter for dispute.” The little woman gave an emphatic shrug. “Poor Jane Osborne remains unwed. She no longer comes to visit me as I have only the one parlor, and she thinks herself suddenly too good now to visit anyone with less than two.”

“Really?”

“It all began when she went to Bath for a Season this year. Her father paid a vast sum for an entirely new wardrobe and arranged for her to stay with a good family there. He had hoped, you see, to broaden her horizons. I suppose he thought she would return with a husband, or at least a beau. Alas, she returned only with a very fashionable but ugly parade of new bonnets, and a swelled head upon which to wear them. Now no one can get a word out of her about anything except her visit to Bath and her many dances there at the upper rooms. And that was very nearly twelve months ago.”

Ellie looked enthralled by this gossip. She nodded, encouraging her aunt.

“However, I do believe there was one gentleman—a distinguished, titled, older man. She talked of him quite a lot when she first returned to Sydney Dovedale, and her father thought there might be a connection, but the fellow never wrote, and it has all come to nothing. As these things often do.” Every other word or so, Eliza Cawley threw James a quick glance and then looked at her niece.

By
the
by,
he wanted to say out loud,
I
bought
your
niece
for
a
thousand
pounds, and she’s agreed to spend five nights with me.
Now that was news.

“You came to Sydney Dovedale just in time, dear Ellie,” her aunt continued, “for the Kanes are holding a Christmas party tomorrow evening up at the farm. The entire village is invited, although I daresay some will not attend. Old Mr. Carstairs has the gout and does not go out for fear of someone knocking into his foot. And Mrs. Winstanley is in mourning for her youngest son, who was killed most tragically near Oxford when his carriage overturned, so she will not venture out for the party. But Sophie will be so delighted to see you again. She asks me, each time I see her, how you are doing and if I have had a letter from you lately. Even though I know she has letters from you at least as often as I.”

James looked down at his hands where they rested on his thighs. Sophia. He hadn’t seen her for two years. Oddly enough, while following his quarry into the country, he had not given any thought to what else he might find in Sydney Dovedale. His thoughts had been filled with Ellie Vyne and only her.

He looked up. Their gazes locked. He saw the doubt, the question in her eyes. Quickly he looked down again, wondering why she cared whether he still had feelings for Sophia. She wanted only his money. And a stud service.

“A party! That sounds wonderful, Aunt Lizzie,” she said.

“I want to go to the party,” Lady Mercy announced through a large bite of sponge cake.

“You may not still be here by then,” Ellie told her. “Your brother comes to take you home.”

The girl fell into a sulk, lifted only when Eliza Cawley offered her more cake. “Considering you keep no cook, this is really rather good. Quite edible,” the girl announced, watching another slice descend to her plate. “Of course, since these people have neglected to feed me today, I could eat anything. I would not know if it tasted vile. No one gave a thought to me once on our journey, although my stomach has rumbled like a lion all morning. They were both too busy looking at each other and touching—”

“Your nausea has passed, Lady Mercy?” James interrupted swiftly.

“Oh…yes.” She bit daintily into her slice of cake. “I am, fortunately, of a strong constitution. I am seldom ill for long.”

“More tea, Smallwick?” Ellie asked.

“No thank you, madam.” He’d never liked tea and really drank it only when forced.

“Yes, I daresay you’d prefer something stronger.”

Eyes narrowed hastily, he looked at her across the table, but her expression betrayed nothing. He was quite sure he still had her fooled into believing his amnesia.

“You ought to let me go to that party,” chirped Lady Mercy, glaring hard at Ellie. “You owe me a favor.
Remember?
”

Ellie sipped her tea. “I remember.”

“Besides, my brother won’t be in any hurry to come and get me. Carver hates leaving London and hasn’t been to the countryside since Papa’s funeral. He doesn’t even visit the estate because he says it’s too boring there. You’ll see. He won’t come for ages. Whether you like it or not, you’re stuck with me, so there! You’d better entertain me, or I shall be very sour, I daresay.”

Eliza Cawley made a small whimper of distress as she watched the diminutive tornado work its destruction upon the food she’d provided. James felt a sharp twinge of guilt for leaving the child to this poor woman’s care, but he could not take her to Hartley House, for it would expose his own presence in the county, and he didn’t want his grandmother knowing he was there yet. She would instantly try to involve him in a storm of social activities, forcing various titled young ladies down his throat. All he wanted was to spend time with the villainous, lying baggage for whom he’d paid a thousand pounds.

She had a little speck of sugar on her lip. He itched to wipe it for her, but their eyes met again just as she found it with the tip of her tongue and swept it clean. Her lips toyed with a smile. “Are you sure there’s nothing more you want, Smallwick?”

James stared.

“You look as if you want to ask for something,” she pressed.

Miss Vyne was in the mood to flirt with her manservant, apparently.

“Nothing…at the moment, madam.”

He thought about that narrow bed upstairs in the spare chamber. It was barely big enough for one careful sleeper, let alone two clandestine lovers. If she meant to seduce the hapless Smallwick, how was she going to manage this? For once the problem was someone else’s, not his. Inwardly, he smiled. There were advantages to being a servant, it seemed. Tonight’s arrangements were her problem, if she wanted her nightly servicing. From the smokiness of her eyes, she wasn’t about to let his memory loss stop her. Why would it? The woman was a stranger to scruples.

When Grieves failed to arrive with Dr. Salt and night began to close in with the brutal swiftness of winter, Mrs. Cawley told James he might sleep on the parlor sofa. It could be made quite comfortable with pillows and blankets. Lady Mercy was to sleep with Ellie in the small spare bedchamber above.

“What will people think?” the old lady muttered. “A single man spending the night in the house of a respectable widow! Had Merryweather’s Tavern any rooms free, I could send you there, young man.”

“Thank you for the hospitality, madam. I am grateful, for until my master arrives, I have nowhere else and would be forced to spend the night on a park bench were it not for your kindness.”

She turned to leave, taking a candle from the mantel with her.

“Good night, madam,” he said as he plumped his borrowed pillows. “And thank you again for the breeches. It was a lucky thing you should have some here, in this house of a respectable widow.”

She looked over her shoulder, and a flush stained her cheeks. “Yes. I…I kept some of the captain’s things when he died.”

James smiled. He remembered Captain Cawley as a lofty, spare fellow. The breeches she’d lent him belonged to someone as broad as they were tall. While dragging Ellie’s trunk into the spare room earlier, he’d chanced to look out of a window just in time to see such a rotund figure departing the back gate of the cottage in the manner of someone who preferred not to be seen. Eliza Cawley apparently had a gentleman friend.

***

Ellie had some memory of which stair creaked loudest, but it seemed as if that changed depending on the old house’s mood. Consequently, she was caught out before she reached the bottom, when one wretched groan shattered the peace of the darkened hallway. Closing her eyes tight, she waited, foot poised to meet the floor of the hall, her hand clasped around the acorn-shaped newel post. There was no sound from above, not even the restless heave of a body turning over in bed. Slowly and carefully, she stepped that last distance and turned in the narrow passage, heading for the parlor.

A blur of white moved in the corner of her eye. The door to the kitchen stood open, and a spectral shape moved about in the shadows. She padded barefoot down the flagged passage and then stopped. The ghostly vision raised a hand and silently unbolted the back door.

As her eyes adjusted, she recognized the small shape with the long gray braid hanging down her back.
“Aunt Lizzie?”

The little woman jumped and spun around. “My goodness, Ellie! You startled me so.”

“Where are you going at this time of night?”
And
in
your
nightgown
and
slippers,
she might have added.

Segments of moonlight slid through the arched window above the door and shone pale over her aunt’s anxious face. “I just came down to…make certain the back door was bolted. Why are you out of bed?”

“Me? Oh, I just wanted something.” She looked around, finally remembering she was in the kitchen. “A glass of water. It’s become a habit of mine to have a glass of water by the bed. I forgot to take one up with me.”

Aunt Lizzie bustled her back down the hall toward the stairs. “You go on up to bed, and I’ll bring it for you.”

“No, no. I can get it. You go back to bed and get warm.”

The two women blocked each other’s paths for a moment, both clearly on missions other than those to which they’d confessed. Ellie had seen that her aunt left the bolt open. In a village like Sydney Dovedale, there was really no cause to lock a door, but her aunt was usually the cautious sort and did so anyway. Tonight, having locked that rear door earlier in full view of her niece, she came down in the dark to open it again.

“I’ll go and get my water, Aunt Lizzie. Good night.” At the foot of the stairs, she kissed the lady’s soft cheek. “Do go back to bed.”

“Yes…very well. Good night, my dear. You will go directly to bed yourself?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Good.” Her aunt tapped the newel post with her fingers. Ellie smiled with all the innocence she could muster and then hurried down the hall, back to the kitchen.

She listened for the creaks as her aunt mounted the stairs, followed by a slight pause and then a gentle thud as she closed her bedchamber door.

Once a safe number of minutes had passed, she crept to the back door and rebolted it. Poor Aunt Lizzie must be getting senile. She shook her head, thinking what a good thing it was that she had come to take care of the old dear. When the doctor arrived to examine James, she’d ask him to look at her aunt too.

He lay staring up at the low beams and cracked ceiling plaster. After the tiring day he’d had, James expected to fall asleep quickly, but instead he was wide awake. The parlor fire smoldered low, a wire screen placed before it. The captain’s bird was quiet, his cage covered by an embroidered throw.

James looked around at the memorabilia of Eliza Cawley’s life, some humble objects that meant nothing to anyone but her. This was not a house filled with fine art and grand oil paintings, collected solely to impress visitors. It was a home filled with happy memories. Very different from the places in which he was raised.

There were five miniature portraits in little frames on the wall above the small spinet in one corner of the room. Eliza Cawley had a keen eye for portraiture, and they were very good likenesses. He’d studied them earlier and knew they were of his hostess, her deceased husband, Captain Cawley, and her two brothers—Admiral Vyne and the disreputable Lieutenant Graedon Vyne. The last portrait was of Catherine Vyne, Ellie’s mother. They must have been painted twenty years ago at least. It was a handsome family grouping. James had never met Ellie’s mother in person, but he saw now that she bore a great resemblance to the lady. That was clearly where she came by her incredible eyes. A man could lose his soul in eyes like those.

Admiral Vyne, in the oval beside Catherine’s image, looked quite mediocre and considerably aged in comparison to his pretty wife. Then there was Lieutenant Graedon Vyne, his flirtatious charm recorded for posterity in a frame that hung slightly askew. James had studied that picture almost as long as he reviewed Catherine’s. He was sixteen when his mother ran away with the reckless young lieutenant. After that, James’s father could not bear to look at him because he said his son reminded him too much of his faithless hussy of a wife. So whenever he was not at school, James was sent off to live with his grandmother. There he was kept in her stranglehold for years, never allowed to consort with other boys his age in case they were bad influences. Not permitted to indulge in any fun pursuits until he finally became bold enough to escape her house. Yes, Lieutenant Graedon Vyne had a lot to answer for.

He smiled sadly, thinking his grandmother would have a convulsion if she saw what became of him and his clothes over the last day, since he transformed into “Smallwick.” Grieves had made that name up for him, aware, of course, that James couldn’t argue, or else he would have to admit he hadn’t lost his memory at all. Grieves was a shrewd old bugger.

The door creaked. His gaze lowered to the twisting latch.

Ellie peeped around the door and then, seeing him awake, came in.

He sat up, assuming his valet act. “Madam. You should not be down here.”

“I wanted to be sure you had everything you need, Smallwick.” She crossed the room, barefoot, on tiptoe.

I
do
now,
he thought. Funny how her presence lightened his mood. Looking at her in that nightgown, all primly buttoned up, he was amused, surprised the notorious Ellie Vyne had such a chaste garment in her possession. How did one sleep in that thing? He’d always slept nude himself, although most folk would be scandalized by that. In his grandmother’s opinion, nudity was appropriate for nothing, not even death.

“Your ankle improves?” she asked.

“I’m keeping it elevated. Madam.”

“You must not walk around too much tomorrow.”

He was thirty-seven, had known a great many women, but never wanted one as much as he wanted her tonight. In that cozy parlor. In her white, nun-like nightgown, with her hair down, loose and wild. “I’ll do whatever you say, madam.” He would never say that to another woman on earth.

“Good.” She looked over at the fire. “Shall I put another shovel of coals on for you?”

“I’m quite warm enough. Thank you.” He paused and then said again, “You should not be down here. Alone with me. Madam.”

“Fortunately for you, Smallwick, I set little store by shoulds and should nots. If everyone was virtuous and good all the time, would not the value of being so rapidly decline?”

Not much he could say to that.

***

Although “Smallwick” kept the blanket around his waist like a shield for his honor, Ellie still had a very pleasing view of his sculpted torso, which rippled in the low firelight. Every muscle was well defined. His arms, holding him up from the sofa, swelled with potent masculinity, a power that went beyond mere physical strength to reach inside, tear the sheer need out of her, and hold it up to her face, where she could no longer deny it.

Saying nothing, he watched her walk around his sofa, and she let her fingers trail along the back edge.

“I could work the aches out for you. I know how. I have some experience.” Oops, she should not have said that, for his eyes darkened, his jaw hardened. “An elderly gentleman I worked for—as his nurse companion,” she explained, “often had knots in his neck and shoulders, so I learned how to relieve them. It was quite innocent.”

His skeptical expression annoyed her.

“It is quite true, Smallwick. I learned how to rub liniment on the Duke of Ardleigh’s shoulders. He needed it because, in the last months of his life when his legs gave out, he walked with two canes. It made his arms and shoulders sore.”

He leaned against the arm of the sofa. “I did not know the duke had trouble with his legs.”

“He tried to hide it. His health was much worse than he liked people to know.”

James was studying her face. She looked back boldly, knowing he must have thought as others did, that she was Ardleigh’s mistress.

“Let me see if I believe you,” he said. “Show me your abilities.”

“I haven’t any liniment,” she warned.

“Do your best then.” Finally he remembered his act. “Madam.”

***

“There. Isn’t that better, Smallwick?”

“Yes, madam,” he mumbled into his arms, eyes closed, while she rubbed the sore muscles of his back. She had lovely, flexible hands, but he’d never fully appreciated them until now. How could he?

“You were very tense.”

“Hmmm.”

She moved onto the couch beside him. His eyes fluttered open.

“Lie still, Smallwick.” Her hands pressed down on his back, skilled fingers working out the myriad of tiny knots. He felt the lace of her robe rubbing against the side of his naked torso. She went to a great deal of trouble for a man who thought he was her manservant.

He opened his eyes again and glared at the arm of the couch. She was up to something.

Steadily, her hands moved down his back, working cleverly together, taking his aches and pains away. Occasionally she moved beside him, and her robe slithered sensuously against his skin.

Just a minute. Where were her hands going now, pray tell? They slid under the blanket and under his waist, moving downward with shocking confidence.

“Madam,” he muttered, his tongue thick.

“Yes, Smallwick.” She touched her goal.

Overheated blood pumped through his ears. “Do you…need help, madam?”

A soft chuckle blew against his ear. “I think I can manage, Smallwick.”

The blanket slipped down his body as he lifted his groin slightly off the couch and let her caress his cock. Her lacy sleeves and the long, loose curls of her hair brushed the exposed skin of his back, buttocks, and thighs. She took her time over it. Teasing almost beyond endurance. He wanted to turn over and grab her, wrestle her beneath him and quickly take possession. His mouth watered at the prospect of what she might do next. Here it came. She straddled his hips, and when she leaned forward to rub his shoulders again, her breasts kissed his bare back, the nipples tantalizing through a thin layer of material. Her firm inner thighs moved against his hips, and her nightgown—a mere whisper of linen—touched the back of his legs. She wore no stockings and, he suspected, no drawers. He certainly hadn’t seen any through her nightgown when she stood before the fire.

“Well, this is a first for me,” he sighed into the pillow, blissfully relaxed but for his rigid manhood which, now that he’d lowered himself again, pressed so hard into the couch it was almost painful.

“A first?”

“A fine lady like yourself, Miss Vyne, touching me intimately…”

It came without warning, just a very slight parting of the tense air.

She spanked him across his bare buttocks.

The sting reverberated upward and outward, and the snapping sound echoed around the parlor. Before he could even respond, she leaned down, her lips close to his ear, and chuckled, a low, sultry sound. “There, Hartley. I beat you to it, didn’t I? Always knew what you needed.
A
damn
good
spanking.
”

A shocked breath had stalled in his lungs, and now it rushed out in a groan. His pulse thumped through his veins like a marching band of drummers. He flipped over onto his back and grabbed her around the waist before she could escape.

***

She sat astride his hips and laughed softly, a finger to her lips. “Remember my aunt is only upstairs. As is the sleeping Lady Mercy.”

His eyes narrowed. “When did you know?”

“About what?”

“That I hadn’t lost my memory.”

“Almost immediately.”

“Liar.”

Smothering a giggle, she placed her hands on his bare chest and let her fingers wander over the firm ridges. He was in splendid form. “Why did you pretend?”

His hands tightened around her waist. “I wanted to play a trick on
you
for a change.” He shifted his hips beneath her, and she felt his manhood rearing up. “Can we finish where we left off last night, Miss Vyne?” His eyes had gone very hot, very wicked. He seemed to have trouble breathing.

“How is your back now?” she asked as she ran her fingertips across his nipples.

He inhaled sharply. “Wonderful, suddenly. Now kiss me, madam.”

“Smallwick, you are awfully naughty.”

“Isn’t that why you hired me, madam, for this stud service?”

“Ummm.” She leaned forward and let her lips touch his very lightly. His hands left her waist and cupped her bottom through her nightgown. As she sat up again, he arched forward, trying to reach her lips fully. When she denied him as he had first done to her the night before, his nostrils flared, and his eyes darkened, holding her mouth in a blistering, covetous gaze. The lines of his face seemed harder, rougher.

Ellie felt his potent desire, could even taste it in the air between them.

They shouldn’t be doing this in her aunt’s quiet, cozy, innocent parlor. Yet, the heaviness of imprudent want gathered in her loins, an even hotter flame of desire sparking to life
because
they shouldn’t. Because it was her aunt’s genteel parlor, where she held Book Society meetings and sipped tea with the vicar once a week when he visited with his wife.

Making a quick, reckless decision, she pulled the nightgown over her head and heard James expel a low growl of approval. It was wrong, absolutely. What if her aunt woke and came downstairs for any reason?

But she was stark naked now. No changing her mind. She wanted this man who lay under her, the light in his eyes purely carnal, his body poised to claim hers. Clearly his desire was just as tempestuous and demanding as her own, and his needs outweighed any sense of propriety. They’d left that far behind.

***

Arms wrapped around her, he rolled over and pulled her under him on the couch. He wanted the dominant role this time. She could play all she wanted next, but this first one would be the way he wanted, with him in control of her—the scheming, unprincipled prankster and possible accomplice to blackmail.

He kissed her deeply, grinding his mouth to hers. The waiting since last night had wound him tight, and now he was released, spinning madly in a vortex of raging lust that would pull her down with him, suck her in, take them both to hell or to heaven. Perhaps to both. It was bewitchment possibly, this intemperate desire for her.

He paused, needful breath scorching in his throat.

Her eyes were half-closed, her lips parted in a breath of excitement.

He reached between their bodies and touched her intimately, pressing down with slow, deliberate strokes of his fingertips. Her lashes fluttered and then raised to show eyes shimmering with tiny stars that burst apart and joined, making new patterns, new shapes in the satiny dark.

James wanted to claim her with all the raw, pitiless intensity he’d felt back in June when she kissed him and left him wanting. He was wild, perhaps even a little mad.

She raised her hips slightly off the couch, reacting to his caress, wanting more.

“Do you like that, madam?” he purred as he stroked her slowly. “Does your servant please you?”

“Oh yes, Smallwick.”

“Shall I continue?”

She nodded and bit her lip.

“Say you want more, Miss Vyne. I can’t take what you don’t permit.”

Her eyes widened, flared like the tail of a comet. “I want more, Smallwick. Much more.”

“But what if someone should come in, madam, and see us being wicked together?”

“They won’t,” she gasped.

“Why? Because you will it so?” Just like her, he mused, to think she could dictate even that.

“Yes,” she confirmed cheekily.

He lowered his head to the full mound of her right breast. Her breathing deepened, and soft, needy whimpers dampened her parted lips as she writhed beneath him. James slid his trembling fingers inside her warm haven.

Her fingers scraped through his hair. Her left leg climbed up his back.

He took her peaking nipple in his mouth and sucked gently.

She moaned his name and made a demand he wasn’t certain he’d heard correctly. Lifting his mouth, he observed her flushed face for a moment and slid his fingers out of her.

“What was that, madam? Surely you don’t want me to…?”

She writhed impatiently, and her hand reached for his cock.

“Is that what you want, madam?”

There was no mistaking that expression, but just in case he might doubt, she hissed at him in a low, heated whisper, “Get on with it, damn you. You don’t want to lose your post, do you, Smallwick? Why do you think I hired you?”