What a Lady Demands (7 page)

Cecelia took a seat opposite her. “Good gracious, that’s my brother you’re talking about here. There are some things I’d prefer not to imagine him doing.”

Henrietta arched a brow. “And just what things are those? As an unmarried young lady you’re not supposed to know about such.”

As little as seven years ago, she might have blushed at the suggestion. “Are you going to try to convince me you went to the altar a complete innocent?”

Henrietta giggled, an incongruous sound from a woman who was generally so serious. “Not at all. But now you’ve made me curious. Perhaps Alexander was right in demanding Lindenhurst make an honest woman of you?”

Smithers’s appearance at the door saved Cecelia from having to reply. “Bring us a bottle of brandy and two glasses, if you please,” she ordered.

If such an unorthodox request from a governess shocked the butler, he gave no sign. “Very good, miss.”

“Quite fortuitous, that interruption,” Henrietta said when he’d gone. “Now, are you going to tell me what’s going on between you and Lindenhurst?”

“What could possibly be going on? I truly did come here to become his governess.” For a moment, she toyed with the notion of telling Henrietta about Jeremy’s troubles, but Mrs. Carstairs’s desperation to keep her position floated through Cecelia’s mind. She couldn’t betray the housekeeper’s trust so blatantly.

“I don’t know. Perhaps it’s the way he watched you throughout dinner. It seems like there’s more to matters than meets the eye.”

Cecelia forced a laugh; the noise sounded false even to her own ears. “He watched me?”

“He couldn’t take his eyes off you. You cannot tell me you didn’t notice.”

Oh, she’d noticed all right. The way his gaze had burned into her. Or rather, her breasts. She’d be the first to admit her gown revealed a great deal of bosom, but that was hardly her fault. She hadn’t intended to draw Lindenhurst’s attention. Still, the very memory of his heated glances caused her nipples to tingle and harden. “I can’t say that I did.”

“You ask me to believe that?” Henrietta cocked a light brown brow. “That gown fairly begs a man to tear it off you.”

Once again, Smithers’s entrance saved Cecelia from an immediate response. He set a bottle of deep amber brandy and two tumblers on the table between them and bowed himself from the room. Cecelia poured two fingers for Henrietta before serving herself a healthy measure. Despite the several goblets of rich burgundy she’d consumed at dinner, she raised her glass in salute and downed half the portion. The brandy burned a path to her stomach, where it warmed her.

As if the thought of Lind’s attention hadn’t already stoked a fire within.

Henrietta sipped at her glass. “Ah, very nice.”

“And since when do you drink such a masculine tipple as brandy?”

“Since your brother introduced me to such pleasures. Among other things.” She cleared her throat. “And you’re avoiding the question. Where did you come by such a sumptuous gown?”

Cecelia glanced at her bodice as if to remind herself that she was wearing pale rose silk.
Sumptuous
was an apt descriptor of the way the fabric molded to her figure and ran through her fingers like water. Even as a young miss in her first season, she’d never owned such a lovely ball gown. The dress was most definitely beyond the means of a woman who called herself a governess. No wonder Alexander had become upset. A gown such as this made her look like a kept woman.

“I didn’t have anything suitable, and I asked one of the maids to help me dress. This was her idea.” Heaven help her, she hoped she didn’t get the poor girl into difficulty. “This gown belonged to Lord Lindenhurst’s wife, apparently.”

Henrietta took another sip of her brandy, wincing slightly as she swallowed. “And don’t you think it strange that he still keeps his wife’s old ball gowns about the place? She’s been gone now…what is it, three years?”

“Almost four,” Cecelia corrected before she could think better of it. Yes, four would be right, given Mrs. Carstairs’s story of Jeremy’s accident. “And I’m praying he doesn’t notice. Men…gowns…you know how they are.” She swatted at the air as if that would disperse her own doubts along with Henrietta’s. “We’re lucky they notice we wear clothing at all.”

“I daresay if you were to parade about without anything on, Lord Lindenhurst would take note.”

“Oh, pooh.”

Henrietta raised her glass along with that dashed eyebrow. She clearly didn’t buy any of Cecelia’s explanations. Part of Cecelia railed an inner protest. She really had come to act as Jeremy’s governess. She had no other motive than to show Alexander she could handle this position. She did not intend to marry any man, and certainly not Lord Lindenhurst.

“You have to admit he’s handsome,” Henrietta prodded.

“I can admit as much, but that still does not mean I aspire to be any more than his governess.” She downed the rest of her brandy. “And aren’t you the one who’s always going on about how a woman should be independent and she doesn’t need a man to keep her? That is all I’m trying to accomplish here.”

“Touché.” Henrietta raised her glass. “But you’re the last person I’d have expected to attempt such a thing.”

“You might say, after what happened earlier this summer, I’d like to prove my worth.”

“A worthy occupation, indeed.” A smile stretched Henrietta’s lips. “And your brother won’t suffer any for being proven wrong.”

“Might I ask what he’s even doing here tonight? I realize Lord Lindenhurst invited him to supper, but they clearly do not get along the way they used to. Why would he put himself, and you, through such a tense evening?”

“Curiosity, I suppose. Since Alexander was in India so many years, he’s lost touch with our doings in England. He hasn’t been able to find out what happened between Lindenhurst and Battencliffe. And it wasn’t for lack of asking. It’s been driving him positively mad, not knowing.” She paused to grin. “And men claim women get overly caught up in gossip.”

Cecelia poured herself another measure of brandy and raised her tumbler. “They get just as caught up. Only with masculine gossip, but they claim it’s news.”

Henrietta clinked glasses with her, and they both drank, while Cecelia considered the possibilities. Whatever Alexander wanted to know, she was well placed to find out for him. Did he even realize what close tabs Lindenhurst was keeping on their former friend’s finances?

A moment later, the door to the sitting room burst open, and Alexander came storming in. “I’m afraid we must be off, darling.”

“What? Already? I thought we might end the evening in style with a few parlor games.” Henrietta arched that brow at him while continuing to sip at her brandy.

“A pity Sanford feels the need to rush home.” Arms crossed, Lindenhurst leaned against the doorjamb. “I was so looking forward to a really rousing game of Buffy Gruffy.”

Cecelia suppressed a wine-and-brandy
-induced bubble of laughter at the idea of her very staid employer standing blindfolded in front of his guests, trying to guess their identity based on voice alone. The fun of the game was the excuse to ask outrageous questions, but she couldn’t imagine Lindenhurst asking anything more scandalous than “What is your name?”

Henrietta ignored their host in favor of glaring at her husband. “I’m not quite finished getting caught up with your sister.”

He narrowed his eyes on the glass in Henrietta’s hand. “You’ll have to do so another time. I will not spend one more minute under this roof.”

Cecelia looked past her brother to exchange a glance with Lindenhurst. “By all means, take your leave.” She sounded like Lindenhurst’s hostess, and a rude one at that, but she hardly cared. Lindenhurst himself had cast her in that role. “You know as well as I how long it takes to return to our dear aunt’s manor.”

“If you had any common decency, you’d come with us, and to the devil with whatever personal possessions you would be leaving behind you.”

“I suppose you’ll have to live with your disappointment, then. I’ve no intention of leaving.” Hand tight about her glass of brandy, she pushed herself to her feet. The floor seemed to tilt beneath her before settling. “If you’ll excuse me, I have duties starting early tomorrow.”

She stalked past her brother into the corridor, where her employer hovered. His gaze raked down her figure, pausing at the cut-crystal tumbler in her hand and lingering at her bodice. She would have kept moving, but with a single look, he pinned her to the spot. “Not so fast.”

She turned and cocked her head. “Did you require anything further from me this evening?”

“Perhaps.” As Alexander and Henrietta filed out, Lindenhurst exchanged a curt nod with her brother.

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “What is this about? If you’ve cooked up some sort of plan with my brother, you can forget about it. Nothing you say can convince me to marry you.”

“I haven’t asked you to marry me.” He leaned in as he spoke, and she caught the heady scent of port hovering about him. Just like her, he’d had as much to drink as was good for him. “I’m not planning on making you an offer, but your brother told me a thing or two in the dining room.”

“I can explain that. Yes, I had his daughters in my care, and yes, they were snatched, but I could not have foreseen such an occurrence. Alexander neglected to inform me of the possibility, so I don’t see how the blame can be laid at my feet.” Even if her brother had insisted on doing so at the time.

Part of her understood that his daughters’ disappearance after a long series of other tragedies had left him distraught and he’d lashed out at the nearest convenient target. But that didn’t erase the bigger picture. He still saw her as the silly little girl she was when he’d left for India.

Lind took hold of her wrist. Awareness of him as a man blanketed her. A tall, handsome, vital man. Arrogant and simmering with annoyance, but somehow that only increased the attraction. Her reassurances to Henrietta that she’d not come here to get him to seduce her suddenly felt like a complete and utter lie.

His fingers tightened, and he leaned forward until his wine-scented breath wafted across her lips. “That is still a matter you might have brought up when I interviewed you.”

“Indeed? And would you have hired me if I’d oh-so-casually mentioned,
‘By the way, the last children who were in my charge ended up being taken by foreigners. But it’s quite all right. They came through the ordeal with flying colors. I’m sure they don’t even have nightmares about the experience these days.’
” She knew better than to offer such cheek to her employer, but the brandy she’d consumed so quickly on top of the wine at supper fueled her tongue. And besides, she had very little left to lose if he was about to give her the sack.

“Be that as it may,” he grated, “I have no choice but to send you back to your brother. I trust you can have your things packed early tomorrow. I’ll gladly lend you my carriage for your troubles.”

She sniffed. His carriage. She’d managed to find her own way to his manor, and she could blasted well find her own way back, if necessary. But she had no intention of leaving yet. She was suddenly glad she’d controlled her impulse to show Jeremy’s accomplishment to Lindenhurst the moment her charge had produced an acceptable semblance of his name. It gave her an ace up her sleeve—or rather, down her bodice.

With her free hand, she reached into the space between her shift and stays and produced the letter Jeremy had dictated for Miss Crump. “You cannot sack me now. I’ve fulfilled your condition. In the past two days, Jeremy has learned to write his name.”

Lind stared at the paper Cecelia handed him. For a moment, the letters on the page blurred into one another before aligning themselves into neat rows. God, he really shouldn’t have had that third glass of port. “You are not going to convince me the boy wrote all this.”

She let out a little huff, her breasts rising and falling with her annoyance. “Of course he didn’t. I suggested he dictate a letter to one of his former governesses. I told him how proud she’d be if he could sign it himself. And he applied himself to the task most assiduously.”

Lind stared at the bottom of the page. Rumpled, childish letters spelled out
Jeremy
clearly enough that, even in a half-drunken stupor, he had to declare them legible. He suppressed the urge to close his fist around the page. “I suppose you’re going to ask me to frank this.”

“That would be most kind of you. If Miss Crump writes back to him, I might use that as an enticement to teach him to read. And possibly continue the correspondence. Not that I imagine he’d be up to writing an entire letter himself straightaway, but I might show him a few more of the usual phrases, and he can at least print those parts.”

She watched him with an air of expectation. Blast it all, he didn’t need her around. He needed a governess for the boy, yes, but not someone as attractive as Cecelia Sanford, even if she had hit on a method of teaching a seemingly uneducable child. Even if she had fulfilled the condition for her continued employment.

“Yes, all right,” he said grudgingly.

An impish grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Thank you,” she said with the air of someone who knew she’d won. And she had, damn her.

“But this doesn’t mean I won’t be keeping a close watch on his progress. And I do expect to see clear signs he’s learning more than how to line up those blasted soldiers of his.”

“Anything to do with the military does seem to be of interest. You can’t simply cut him off from that. It might be used as another enticement.”

Enticement. And why did she have to use that word when she stood before him, trussed up like a Christmas present just begging for him to pull on a ribbon and start unwrapping her? Her breasts were ready to burst out of that low-cut bodice. He curled his hand into a fist to resist the impulse to run a finger along the lace edging below her collarbone. To gauge the softness of the creamy swells that rode high above the pink froth. To release her breasts from their confines and test the firmness of her nipples with his teeth.

Goddamned temptation, that’s what she was. And her brother had done his damnedest to warn him off. He ought to withdraw. He ought to go to his empty bed and take matters into his own hands, but something rooted him to the spot. It might have been the scent of orange water that surrounded her. It might have been the swath of soft, white skin that begged for his touch.

Just one. He reached out a finger and drew it the length of her neck. She gasped, the soft airy sigh taunting him with the thought of the sounds he might coax from her once he had her beneath him. Her tongue darted out to moisten her lower lip.

Damn it all. He leaned in and caught that plump lip between his teeth, applying gentle pressure before releasing her.

“What…” If she’d protested, he would have obeyed her wishes. But she didn’t protest. Her voice had emerged low and curious and full of yearning.

“Hush.”

He cupped his palm about her nape, drew her against him, and took her mouth. She melted into his embrace. The softness of her curves molded themselves to his firm flesh like a layer of fine velvet draping a table. Her arms twined about his neck, her fingers threaded through his hair, and she responded.

Oh, how she responded.

Her lips parted for him, and she drank his kiss like she’d been lost in the desert and he was her first taste of water in a week. Her craving was just as deep as his, and he hadn’t kissed a woman in years. Not since Lydia, and Cecelia was everything his wife was not. She was dark where Lydia had been pale; bold where Lydia had been reticent; demanding where Lydia had been demure.

Cecelia pressed her breasts against him—rubbed—and canted her hips to cradle his growing erection. No retiring young miss, this. She’d known her share of kisses in darkened corners of the garden. Perhaps she’d even known more. So much the better. One taste of Cecelia had unleashed a flood of pent-up desires, and Lind had no patience for instruction.

He craved. He craved hard, fast, and above all, he craved now.

He pressed her back to the wall, holding her captive with his arms, and thrust against her belly. She threw her head back and moaned. So, so responsive. So, so yielding. So, so good. Triumph surged through him, along with a spear of recklessness, and he slipped a hand between their bodies to mold his palm over her breast. The nipple hardened at his touch, and he circled the bud with this thumb.

Another moan, long, low, and throaty, emerged from her lips. She tangled her fingers in his hair, pulled, and he flicked his tongue along the length of her neck. Down and down, blazing a trail of promise. She pushed at him, her hands encouraging him along the path.

From somewhere far away, a sound intruded on his consciousness. It sounded oddly, painfully, like a throat clearing. But that couldn’t be. Cecelia had no reason to make such a noise. Not when her moans and sighs were far too delicious.

Cecelia stiffened, and her arms dropped.

“Your pardon, my lord.” Smithers, damn it all. “I don’t suppose you’ll be needing anything else tonight.”

Lind turned in a stupid attempt to block the butler’s view of just whose skirts he’d nearly tossed against the wall. In the main corridor of the house. Where anyone could happen by. Where the butler had nearly caught him
in flagrante
. With his governess, no less.

Good God, he’d become a stock character in a lurid novel, the lord of the manor who molested the staff with impunity.

And his damned butler stood there, stiff as a board, trying to hide a smile.

“That will be all, Smithers,” he said with as much dignity as he could muster under the circumstances. Which wasn’t much at all.

A rustle of silk reminded him Cecelia still stood at his back. No doubt she’d want to take her leave, now that the spell had been broken. He turned reluctantly, not wishing to see her cheeks red with embarrassment. But there they were, two roses blooming in their centers, and her eyes downcast.

“I suppose that will be all for me, as well,” she murmured.

“Wait.”

She snapped her eyes to his. They burned with a dark fire. Not desire—not wholly. A measure of shame and vexation fed their spark. “So you can finish what you’ve started?”

“No. No, of course not.” God, he was such an idiot, attacking her the moment he had her soft and responding for him. “I said when I hired you I wanted someone of impeccable reputation.”

“And is that what you were trying to prove? That my reputation is less than pristine?”

“No,” he protested. “It’s not as though I planned…That…That just happened. If anything, it was the port spurring me on.” A bloody wretched excuse if ever there was one.

She raised her chin. “I see.”

God, could he possibly make it any worse? “I don’t mean to imply you’re not desirable. That gown certainly isn’t helping matters.”

That gown. A memory swept through his brain. Lydia had owned something very similar. He’d had occasion to see her wear it for all of five minutes before he had it off her. Of the finest silk, it had molded her curves like a second skin through the fitted bodice. And where would a governess, a young lady of a family that had fallen on ill fortune, have found the coin to purchase something very like Lydia’s gown? “Where did someone of your means come across such finery?”

In a flash, she dropped her prideful demeanor. “I borrowed it.”

“Borrowed it? And brought it here with you? Where you had no idea you’d have to act as my hostess before a couple days ago? Where you couldn’t have expected to need anything for a formal occasion?”

“I’d brought nothing appropriate with me, yet you required me to act as your hostess. You might have provided me with something fit for the role. What else was I to do?” She flung a hand out in irritation. “I asked one of the maids to help me dress. She caught me fretting over my wardrobe and found this for me. I did not think to question where it came from.”

Anger boiled up inside him and seethed through his veins, but he couldn’t take it out on Cecelia. It wasn’t her fault. She couldn’t have known. “And
she
dared? Which one was it?”

“Please.” She extended her hand but stopped short of his arm. No doubt, given what had just passed between them, she did not wish to chance touching him again.

And who could blame her after his attack?
She did not stop you. She responded.
Indeed she had, but that was no reason for him to listen to his cock and start in again.

“You wish to plead for mercy for a maid? One who ought to have known better? Mrs. Carstairs should have told her the rules the very day she hired her. Would you plead for the housekeeper, as well?”

Cecelia paled. “I believe you should extend her that kindness, yes, after the years of service she’s given you.”

The muscles about his eyes tensed. So she’d been talking to the staff. About the boy, no doubt. The old biddy had hopefully seen fit to remind Cecelia of his censure on gossip, but he couldn’t depend on that. Not when the housekeeper had failed to properly instruct the maids. “After all her years of service, she ought to have learned what I will and will not tolerate.”

“She only wished to help. Please. I will remove the gown and never touch any of your wife’s things again.”

Damn her, why did she have to put that image in his mind? He could clearly picture Cecelia loosening the bodice, an invitation playing about her lips, slowly easing herself from the silk, revealing flawless skin inch by inch, until the gown lay in a pink pool at her feet. Until she stood in nothing but stays and shift…but not for long. Oh, no. He’d step in and divest her of those, too.

“See that you don’t,” he replied curtly. He sounded like a peevish old hen, but he didn’t give a damn. He didn’t need this sort of disruption in his life. “As for the rest, I’ll see to matters in the morning.”

Pink silk ran through her fingers like water as Cecelia undid the fastenings of the sumptuous gown. Never had she expected to wear the like. And now she never would again. Her family had been unable to afford a costly wardrobe, and they most likely wouldn’t ever see the necessary funds. When Grant, a giggling fresh-faced girl, had presented her with the confection, Cecelia knew she ought to refuse. But faced with such finery—gorgeous, deep pink, the fabric so fine it was nearly diaphanous, extravagant French lace, cunningly worked silk roses that outlined the bodice—she’d been unable to resist.

And so, apparently, had Lind. Heaven help her, she’d just thought of him in the same terms his friends used. The formal distance created by his title had drowned in wine, brandy, and heady kisses.

There was another temptation she shouldn’t have allowed herself to succumb to, but the way he’d looked at her as he’d run his finger along her neck, sending a hot jolt of need through her belly…

At one time, she’d longed for Lind to look on her thus, to take her in hand and show her the mysteries of what passed between male and female in secret. The sorts of things her older sister giggled over with her friends behind their fans. Whispers of what married ladies did to get with child.

But Lind had never paid her the smallest whit of attention when she was younger, and the unveilings of such mysteries had fallen to another. Her education had comprised more of disappointment than delight.

Still, for a few stolen moments tonight, she’d almost believed in the delight again. Her body still hummed with the thrill of Lind’s hands on her breasts, his lips on her throat, and the anticipation of more, always more.

Until the butler interrupted.

No doubt the story would be all over the servants’ hall by tomorrow about how his lordship had been caught tupping the governess in the passageway. To the devil with Lindenhurst’s strictures against gossip. In the future, Cecelia wouldn’t be able to look Mrs. Carstairs in the eye, for more reasons than one. As long as Lindenhurst didn’t sack the lady for failing to properly instruct the maids.

With a last longing touch, she laid the gown carefully aside, stripped off her chemise, and donned a night rail. The cotton should have been crisp and soothing against her skin, but her nipples still ached for Lind’s touch, and the fabric irritated more than it calmed. As she sat at the tiny dressing table and removed the first pins from her hair, her glance landed on a small square of paper.

Oh, yes, the letter. Smithers had delivered it earlier, but in the rush to dress for supper, she’d laid it aside. She had time for it now. And who would have found her here, when she hadn’t even informed her brother of her whereabouts?

Her pulse ticked faster. Why hadn’t she thought to look at it while Alexander was still here? When she might have asked him what he knew about it? Assuming he knew, but then she was merely speculating. No one could have traced her here. It was one of her reasons for taking the position. In this far-removed section of Cornwall, she’d thought herself safe from speculation. She’d thought herself safe from discovery.

At her wayward thoughts, she nearly laughed aloud. She was being silly. It was a simple note, nothing more.

And yet it was addressed in her name, Miss Cecelia Sanford, care of Viscount Lindenhurst.

Fingers trembling, she broke the unfamiliar seal. A terse sentence or two scrawled across the page. A highly familiar scrawl. How many times had he summoned her in this very hand? But the words she deciphered now were no summons. They were more of a threat.

You thought you could hide from me, but you thought wrong. You know what I want. Lindenhurst cannot protect you any more than Anstruther could.

—A.E.