Catherine removed her spectacles and used a fold of her sleeve to clear the steam from the lenses. She heard a welcoming sound from Dodger, a sort of ferrety chuckling noise, and he came loping toward her out of seemingly nowhere. Replacing her spectacles, she bent to pick him up, and he wriggled into her arms. “You odious rat,” she murmured, cradling his long, sleek body.
“He loves you, Catherine,” Poppy said, shaking her head and smiling.
“Nevertheless, I’m returning him to Beatrix at the first opportunity.” But she furtively lowered her cheek and let Dodger kiss her.
There was a knock at the door, followed by the bustle of someone entering, a masculine murmur, a maid taking his coat and hat. Leo entered the parlor, bringing in the scents of damp wool and rain. His hair was wet at the ends, curling slightly against his neck.
“Leo,” Poppy exclaimed with a laugh, “how wet you are! Didn’t you take an umbrella?”
“Umbrellas are of little use when it’s raining sideways,” he informed her.
“I’ll fetch a towel.” Poppy darted out of the room.
Left alone with Leo, Catherine met his gaze. His smile faded, and he stared at her with alarming intensity. Why did he look at her that way? It seemed as if something had been cut loose in him, his eyes demon-blue and dangerous.
“How was your conversation with Miss Darvin?” she asked, tensing as he approached her.
“Illuminating.”
She frowned at the brief reply, taking refuge in a show of exasperation. “What did she ask of you?”
“She proposed a marriage of convenience.”
Catherine blinked. It was what she had expected, and yet to hear it caused a stab of jealousy.
Leo stopped beside her, the firelight flickering over his features. Tiny droplets of rain glittered like jewels on his sun-browned face. She wanted to touch that light mist, put her mouth on it, taste his skin.
“What was your response?” she forced herself to ask.
“I was flattered, of course,” he said smoothly. “One always appreciates being wanted.”
He knew she was jealous. He was toying with her. Catherine struggled to keep her temper from igniting.
“Perhaps you should accept her,” she said coolly.
His gaze didn’t move from hers. “Perhaps I did.”
Catherine drew in a sharp breath.
“Here you are,” Poppy said cheerfully, oblivious to the tension between them as she entered the room with a neat stack of toweling. She brought a cloth to Leo, who took it and blotted his face.
Catherine sat on the settee, letting Dodger coil in her lap.
“What did Miss Darvin want?” she heard Poppy ask.
Leo’s voice was muffled in the towel. “She proposed to me.”
“Good heavens,” Poppy said. “She clearly hasn’t any idea of what it’s like to tolerate you on a daily basis.”
“In her situation,” he returned, “a woman can’t afford to be particular.”
“What situation is that?” Catherine asked tersely.
Leo handed the towel back to Poppy. “She’s expecting a child. And she doesn’t care to marry the father. That’s not to go any further than this room, of course.”
The two women were silent. Catherine wrestled with a curious mixture of feelings … sympathy, hostility, jealousy, fear. With this bit of news, the advantages of a match between Leo and Miss Darvin were abundantly clear.
Poppy regarded her brother gravely. “Her circumstances must be quite desperate, for her to confide in you like that.”
Leo’s reply was forestalled as Harry entered the apartments, his coat and hat streaming with water. “Good afternoon,” Harry said, flashing a smile. The maid took the sodden hat and coat, and Poppy approached him with a fresh towel.
“You walked?” she asked, her gaze sweeping from the sodden hems of his trouser legs to his rain-dappled features. She reached up to dry his face with wifely solicitude.
“I very nearly swam,” Harry told her, seeming to enjoy her ministrations.
“Why didn’t you take a hackney or send for a carriage?”
“All the hackneys were taken as soon as the rain started,” Harry replied. “And it’s a short distance. Only a milksop would send for a carriage.”
“Better a milksop than to catch your death of cold,” Poppy fussed, following as he drew near the hearth.
Harry smiled and leaned down to steal a kiss from her as he worked at the wet knot of his cravat. “I never catch cold.” Drawing off the damp length of linen, he tossed it aside and stood by the fire. He glanced at Leo expectantly. “What of your meeting with Miss Darvin?”
Leo sat and leaned forward with his elbows braced on his knees. “Never mind that, tell us about the visit to Bow Street.”
“Special Constable Hembrey has considered the information you provided, and he’s willing to take up an investigation.”
“What kind of investigation?” Catherine asked, looking from Harry to Leo.
Leo’s face was impassive as he explained. “A few years ago, Lord Latimer invited me to join an exclusive club. A kind of rakehell society, with secret meetings held in a former abbey.”
Catherine’s eyes widened. “What is the purpose of the society?”
Harry and Leo were both silent. Eventually Leo replied in a flat tone, his gaze fixed on a distant point outside the rain-streaked windows. “Unmitigated depravity. Mock religious rituals, assaults, unnatural crimes. I’ll spare you the details, except to say they were so distasteful that even at the height of my debauchery, I turned down Latimer’s invitation.”
Catherine watched him carefully. His face was set, a small muscle in his jaw flexing. The firelight gilded the taut lines of his face.
“Latimer was so certain I would want to participate,” Leo continued, “that he went into some detail regarding some of the crimes he was involved in. And by some fluke I happened to be sober enough to remember most of what he said.”
“Is the information enough to support prosecution?” Catherine asked. “And as a peer, doesn’t Lord Latimer have the right of freedom from arrest?”
“Only in civil cases,” Harry told her. “Not in criminal ones.”
“Then you think he’ll be brought to trial?”
“No, it won’t come to that,” Leo said quietly. “The society can’t allow their activities to be exposed. When they realize that Latimer is the focus of an investigation, they’ll probably force him to leave England before he can be prosecuted. Or better yet, they’ll see to it that he ends up as a floater in the Thames.”
“Will Constable Hembrey want to depose me?” Catherine brought herself to ask.
“Absolutely not,” Leo said with reassuring firmness. “There’s more than enough evidence against him without your involvement.”
“However it plays out,” Harry added, “Latimer will be far too busy to trouble you further, Cat.”
“Thank you,” Catherine told Harry. Her gaze flickered back to Leo as she added, “That is a great relief.” After an awkward pause, she repeated herself lamely. “A great relief, indeed.”
“You don’t seem all that relieved,” Leo observed lazily. “Why is that, Marks?”
This lack of sympathy, along with his earlier taunts about Miss Darvin, were too much for Catherine’s shredded nerves.
“If you were in my position,” she said stiffly, “you wouldn’t exactly be dancing a jig, either.”
“You’re in a fine position.” Leo’s eyes were like blue ice. “Latimer will soon be gone, Rutledge has acknowledged you publicly, you’re a woman of means, and you have no obligations or commitments to anyone. What could you possibly want that you don’t have?”
“Nothing at all,” she snapped.
“I think you’re sorry to stop running and hiding. Because now you have to face the unfortunate fact that you have nothing … and no one … to run to.”
“It’s enough for me to stay still,” she said coldly.
&nb
sp; Leo smiled with provoking insouciance. “That brings to mind the old paradox.”
“What paradox?”
“About what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.”
Harry and Poppy were both silent, looking back and forth between them.
“I suppose I’m the immovable object?” Catherine asked sarcastically.
“If you like.”
“Well, I don’t like,” she said, scowling, “because I’ve always thought that was an absurd question.”
“Why?” Leo asked.
“There is no possible answer.”
Their gazes clashed and held.
“Yes, there is,” Leo said, seeming to enjoy her rising fury.
Harry joined in the debate. “Not from a scientific standpoint. An immovable object would require infinite mass, and the unstoppable force would require infinite energy, neither of which is possible.”
“If you argue in terms of semantics, however,” Leo countered with maddening calmness, “there is an answer.”
“Naturally,” Harry said dryly. “A Hathaway can always find a way to argue. Enlighten us—what is the answer?”
Leo replied with his gaze fixed on Catherine’s tense face. “The unstoppable force takes the path of least resistance and goes right around the object … leaving it far behind.”
He was challenging her, Catherine realized. Arrogant, manipulative cad, using poor Vanessa Darvin’s plight to provoke her and implying what might happen if Catherine didn’t give in to him. Go right around the object … leave it far behind … Indeed!
She jumped to her feet, glaring at him. “Why don’t you go on and marry her, then?” Snatching up her reticule, and Dodger’s limp body, she stormed out of the apartments.
Leo was instantly at her heels.
“Ramsay—” Harry began.
“Not now, Rutledge,” Leo muttered, striding after Catherine. The door was closed with a force that caused it to tremble in its frame.
In the ensuing stillness, Harry looked at Poppy in bewilderment. “I’m not usually slow-witted,” he said. “But what the devil were they bickering about?”
“Miss Darvin, I think.” Going to him, Poppy sat in his lap and linked her arms around his neck. “She’s with child and wants to marry Leo.”
“Oh.” Harry leaned his head against the back of the chair. His mouth twisted. “I see. He’s using it to try and push Catherine into making a decision.”
“You don’t approve,” Poppy said rather than asked, stroking a damp lock of hair off his forehead.
Harry gave her a wry glance. “It’s exactly what I would do in his position. Of course I don’t approve.”
“Stop following me!”
“I want to talk to you.” Leo kept pace with Catherine as she hurried along the hallway, his ground-eating strides accounting for every two of her short ones.
“I have no interest in anything you have to say.”
“You’re jealous.” He sounded more than a little pleased by the fact.
“Of you and Miss Darvin?” She forced a scornful laugh. “I pity the both of you. I can’t conceive of a more ill-destined match.”
“You can’t deny that she’s a very attractive woman.”
“Except for her neck,” Catherine couldn’t resist saying.
“What the devil is the matter with her neck?”
“It’s abnormally long.”
Leo tried, unsuccessfully, to smother a laugh. “I can overlook that. Because if I marry her, I’ll get to keep Ramsay House, and we’ll have a baby already on the way. Convenient, isn’t it? Moreover, Miss Darvin promised that I could philander to my heart’s content, and she would look the other way.”
“What about fidelity?” Catherine asked in outrage.
“Fidelity is so passé. It’s laziness, really, not bothering to go out and seduce new people.”
“You told me that you would have no difficulty with fidelity!”
“Yes, but that was when we were talking about our marriage. Marriage with Miss Darvin will be another thing entirely.”
Leo stopped with her as they reached the door of her suite. While Catherine held the sleeping ferret, Leo reached inside her reticule and extracted the key. Catherine didn’t spare him a glance as he opened the door for her.
“May I come in?” he asked.
“No.”
Leo pushed his way in regardless, and closed the door behind them.
“Pray don’t let me keep you,” Catherine said grimly, going to set Dodger in his little basket. “I’m sure you have much to do. Starting with changing the name on the special license.”
“No, the license is only good for you. If I marry Miss Darvin, I’d have to pay for a new one.”
“I hope it’s expensive,” she said vehemently.
“It is.” Leo approached her from behind and put his arms around her, hauling her back securely against him. “And there’s another problem.”
“What is it?” she asked, struggling in his grasp.
His mouth touched the edge of her ear. “I want you,” he whispered. “Only you. Always you.”
Catherine went still. Her eyes closed against a sudden wet sting. “Did you accept her proposal?”
Leo nuzzled tenderly into the hollow beneath her ear. “Of course not, pea-goose.”
She couldn’t prevent a little sob of angry relief. “Then why did you imply that you had?”
“Because you need to be pushed. Otherwise you’ll drag this affair out until I’m too decrepit to be of any use to you.” Steering Catherine toward the bed, he scooped her up and tossed her to the mattress. Her spectacles went flying to the side.
“What are you doing?” Catherine struggled indignantly, propping herself up on her elbows. She was buried in the masses of her skirts, with their sodden hems and heavy damp flounces. “My dress is wet.”
“I’ll help you remove it.” His solicitous tone was belied by the wicked gleam in his eyes.
She floundered amid the layers and flounces, while Leo unhooked and unfastened her with astonishing efficiency. One would have thought he had more than two arms, as he turned her this way and that, his hands reaching everywhere. Ignoring her protests, he pulled the heavy skirt, with its stiffened muslin lining, away from the detachable bodice, and tossed it to the floor. Her shoes were removed and dropped over the side of the bed. Flipping Catherine to her stomach, he began on the fastenings of the heavily ruched bodice.
“I beg your pardon, I did not ask to be husked like an ear of corn!” She twisted in an effort to push away his busy hands. A squeak escaped her as he found the tapes of her drawers and pulled them loose.
With a low chuckle, Leo anchored her squirming body with his legs, and kissed the exposed nape of her neck. She felt warm all over, her nerves sparked by the touch of his sensuous mouth.
“Did you kiss her?” she heard herself blurt out, her voice muffled in the bedclothes.
“No, love. I wasn’t tempted by her in the least.” Leo bit lightly into the soft muscle of her neck, stroked the fine skin with his tongue, and she gasped. His hand slipped inside her drawers and circled over her bottom. “No other woman in the world could excite me as you do. But you’re too damn stubborn, and far too good at protecting yourself. There are things I want to say to you … do to you … and the fact that you’re not ready for any of it is going to drive us both mad.”
He touched further between her thighs, finding wetness, stroking in soft circles. She moaned and writhed beneath him. Her corset was still snugly laced, the compression of her waist seeming to divert sensation down between her thighs. Although part of her rebelled at the feeling of being held down and caressed, her body reacted with helpless pleasure.
“I want to make love to you.” Leo traced the inner structure of her ear with the tip of his tongue. “I want to go as deep as you can take me, and feel you tighten around me, and I want to come inside you.” A finger slid inside her, and another, and she whimpered softly.
“You know how good it would feel,” he whispered, stroking her slowly. “Yield to me, and I’ll love you without stopping. I’ll stay in you all night.”
Catherine gasped for breath, while her heart thumped madly. “You would have me in the same position as Miss Darvin,” she said. “Pregnant and pleading for you to marry me.”
“God, yes, I would love that.”
She nearly choked with indignation, while his long fingers teased her inside and out. Her body began to clench in a slow, steady pulse of desire. There were great swaths of fabric caught between their bodies, layers of remaining clothing, and all she could feel was his mouth at the back of her neck, and that devilishly persuasive hand.
“I have never said this to anyone before.” Leo’s voice was like ragged velvet. “But the idea of you with child is the most insanely arousing thing I’ve ever imagined. Your belly all swollen, your breasts heavy, the funny little way you would walk … I would worship you. I would take care of your every need. And everyone would know that I’d made you that way, that you belonged to me.”
“You … you are so…” She couldn’t even think of a suitable word.
“I know. Woefully primitive.” Laughter threaded through his voice. “But I must be tolerated, because I’m a man and I really can’t help it.”
He caressed her with gentle, explicit manipulation, his fingers slick and tireless. She felt a new flush of arousal, the liquid heat spreading out to her fingers and toes. Moving behind her, he tugged her drawers to her knees, and fumbled with the fastenings of his trousers. He let his weight settle on her deliciously. A blunt, moist pressure slipped between her thighs, not quite entering. White fire raced through her senses, and her body trembled at the verge of release … so close …
“You have a decision to make, Cat.” Leo kissed the side of her throat hungrily, his mouth strong and wet. “Either tell me to stop right now, or let me take you all the way. Because I can’t withdraw at the last moment any longer. I want you too much. And I probably will make you pregnant, love, because I’m feeling rather potent at the moment. So it’s all or nothing. Tell me yes or no.”