Rules of Engagement

  “Come in.” He gestured. “We haven’t much time.”

  The words were ominous. His expression was not.

  “Stop glaring,” he said. “I have a surprise for you.”

  Although still disinclined and braced for a fight, she tentatively entered the chamber.

  “Not the kind of surprise you’re obviously imagining.” Circling her, he stepped behind and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Miss Lockhart, you should do something about that salacious turn of mind.”

  He sounded so happy, and she wished she were anywhere but here. For she struggled with the strong suspicion Kerrich thought that she was also attending the party.

  A suspicion that immediately proved correct. “I had hoped to catch you before you started to get ready.”

  Moulton shut the door behind her, sealing her into the richly decorated room with Kerrich. A fire burned on the hearth, candles were lit everywhere, and a vase of roses bloomed on a table placed beside a comfortable armchair. She looked longingly back at the entrance.

  “I have something for you.” Taking her hand, Kerrich kissed it lingeringly, then pulled her toward his bed. The massively carved and ancient monster was swathed with bed curtains of rich blue-purple and accents of scarlet and gold.

  There, on the coverlet, lay a gown. A beautiful gown. A proper gown. A perfect gown of gleaming gray taffeta, with black net over rose taffeta decorating the modest neckline. The sleeves were flared, the cuffs decorated with the same net and rose taffeta, and around the hem of the full skirt wound another stripe of rose and net. If she’d been offered her choice of gowns to wear to the queen’s reception, this was the one she would have picked—and her heart sank.

  “This one was my favorite,” he said, “but I had Madame Beauchard deliver several.”

  Delicate lady’s unmentionables in her size were stacked beside the gown. A lacy chemise and matching pantalettes. A corset of the finest silk. Crisp petticoats. Thin stockings and, on the floor, gray slippers.

  He had thought of everything.

  It would have been so much better if Kerrich hadn’t laid eyes on her until she kissed Beth good-bye and it was too late for a confrontation. Then she wouldn’t have to try and make excuses, and she could at least put off her explanations. So she stared at the exquisite thing and said, “It’s lovely, but—”

  He held up his hand. “I know what you’re going to say. You can’t accept a gift like this from a man. Not even from me. But you can, you see. I’m taking the cost out of your wages.”

  She wheeled on him. “What?”

  “Now you’re looking at me.” With the ball of his thumb, he brushed her lower lip. His lips quirked, and he looked unbearably pleased with himself. “Let me give you this. It would make me very happy and, if you wish, you may consider it a bonus toward the success of our project.”

  She hated to wipe that expression off his face. She really hated to, but when she thought of going to Buckingham Palace, her fright rose up and almost overwhelmed her. “Thank you, but”—she swallowed—“where would I wear it?”

  For a long moment, he stood immobile. His gaze swept her, noting her complete lack of preparation, and she could see his mind working, calculating, and coming up with the right answer.

  His eyebrows tilted devilishly. “Did I say you could wear a different gown?” he asked. “I’ve changed my mind. You will wear this gown, and you will wear it to Her Majesty’s reception this very afternoon.”

  She hated this dread that stole her breath and turned her hands cold. “I can’t.”

  She would have explained further, but he smiled and stepped closer, crowding her against the bed. “Beloved, there is nothing you can’t do.” He removed the knitting needles from her chignon. He touched her collar, and it fell to the ground. He had Pamela’s buttons undone and her corset loosened before she thought it possible, and her petticoats fell in a froth around her feet.

  Of course. He was stripping her. No doubt he planned to stuff her into the gown and drag her to the queen’s reception.

  “I can’t go, I wasn’t included on the invitation, and one doesn’t drop in unannounced on the queen.”

  “You are not unannounced.” With a yank, he peeled everything down, leaving her clad in her chemise and stockings.

  The man could give lessons on how to undress a woman. Would-be rakes would line up for miles.

  “When I responded to Her Majesty, I responded for Grandpapa and you. Grandpapa, because he is my house-guest and one of her favorite friends, and she is very loyal to her friends. You, because you are Beth’s governess and no one, not even Victoria herself, expects me to handle a girl-child on my own.” He smiled into her eyes.

  She saw the steel behind that pleasantry. “It’s not so easy. I’ve met Her Majesty.” Pamela walked a delicate line. She didn’t want him to remember, yet she wanted him to understand. To let her off. “Years ago when she was a child.”

  “Really.” He stripped the coverlet off his bed, and laid it, and the gown and its accoutrements, flat on the floor. “I wish I had known that. I would have mentioned it in my note to Queen Victoria.”

  “No!” In a turmoil, she watched him throw the blankets back and bare the sheets.

  “But you have told me so little of your past, you are almost a stranger to me in almost every way that matters.” Placing his hands on her waist, he hoisted her up onto the mattress. “Yet we communicate in one way very well. Shall I remind you?”

  With a shock, she realized she had been foolish. Kerrich hadn’t been stripping her to force her into that gown. He had been stripping her to…to…“You can’t do this!” she protested.

  “Yes.” Grabbing the waist of her pantalettes, he pulled them down and sent her tumbling backward. “I can. You used me to rectify the wrongs done to you. Now I’ll use you to cure my frustration, and this, at least, is fair.”

  Clawing at the sheets, she tried to right herself. “No, it’s not!”

  “You were revenging yourself on other men. On boors who treated you badly.” He spread her legs. “My frustration is with you.”

  “No. We don’t have time. No. Kerrich, no.”

  He mounted the bed and grabbed her flailing wrists, and imitated her protests. “Yes. Yes. Pamela, yes.”

  Her heartbeat picked up when he placed both hands over her head and held them there.

  “You are the most recalcitrant woman I have ever met.” He pushed her chemise up around her neck. “I do something so thoughtful it amazes even me. Something which would send every other woman of my acquaintance into paroxysms of ecstasy.” Still kneeling between her legs, he looked her over.

  All over. The breasts, the waist, the patch of dark hair between her legs. With a dip of his head, he took her nipple into his mouth and suckled, then licked it repeatedly until she squirmed against the sheets. She ought to kick him. She ought to…She lifted her foot.

  “Don’t even consider it,” he said. “You owe me a cure for my frustration.”

  “I don’t owe—”

  He bit her nipple. Not hard, but enough to bring her arching off the mattress.

  He stripped off his pants with one hand. “I was afraid you would object to the fact I’d bought you a gown. Can you believe that? I imagined you would be so conventional as to worry about the propriety of a man buying something as personal as clothing for a woman not his wife. But no. Not you. You have to be different.”

  In desperation, she said, “This isn’t nice.”

  “It certainly isn’t.” His long finger slid smoothly inside of her. “That’s why it excites you.”

  “No.” She writhed, extracting the sensation of his hand against her. “It shouldn’t.” What kind of woman was she, to be aroused by the scent of Kerrich, the warmth of him above her, his grip on her wrists and the threat of his possession? Aroused when she should be indignant at being exploited and handled and overcome.

  “Try to be honest about one thing, at least.” He kissed her neck. He nipped
at her ear, then ran his tongue slowly around the rim. “Tell me you want this.”

  From somewhere, she managed to summon enough pride to say, “No.”

  Sitting back, he smiled at her, that wicked, luscious mouth mocking her feeble denial. “When I’m inside you, I’m going to get all the way in, right to the mouth of your womb”—his finger stroked up, not far enough, but up—“and you’re going to want me so much you’ll wrap your legs around my hips and lift yourself to me. I’m going to move in and out slowly”—he imitated his threat—“then faster, and all the time you’re going to be just on the verge of climax. You’ll beg me. Can’t you imagine your own voice crying out, saying, ‘Please, Devon, please,’ and it’ll be better than this because it’ll be my cock, stretching you wider and longer, pushing you as far as you can—”

  “Please, Devon.”

  He chuckled, damn him. He chuckled.

  But hastily he shifted, positioned himself at the entrance of her body, and just as he promised, languidly entered her.

  Heaven. It was heaven. It was so good. She gasped, trying to get enough air, trying to fill her lungs so she could scream with…with pleasure so acute it was almost pain.

  “You’re still new.” He spoke right in her ear. “You’re still so tight. I have to move slowly so it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt, does it?”

  He knew it didn’t. He challenged her with his tone. When he released her hands, she was going to show him…his pelvis rested right on hers, and the heat of him warmed her all the way through. Her legs moved restlessly, her feet stroking the sheet. The rocking motion pressed him against her again, and again, still at his own leisurely pace.

  She whimpered and tried to make him hurry, but he wouldn’t. The muscles inside her quivered with each stroke. They wanted to spasm. She wanted…devil take him, if he would just bestir himself instead of keeping to this deliberate rhythm, she could finish this.

  Then she remembered how he’d predicted she would wrap her legs around his hips. Wanton. Opening herself to him like that. She wasn’t giving herself today. He was taking her.

  But he wasn’t doing it right. She lifted her hips, trying to find that perfect snippet of passion that would bring her to climax.

  “You’re too impatient. You have to learn to prolong your anticipation.”

  The swine chided her! She was ready to melt, and he was lecturing. If she opened her legs all the way, if she rubbed her legs against his, perhaps he would understand…and he would be inside her so deeply. Right to the mouth of her womb. Just as he promised. Wrapping her legs around his hips, she deliberately tightened her inner muscles on his organ.

  He stopped. He looked down at her. Not a trace of amusement remained on his face. His eyes were red-rimmed, his nostrils flared, the skin that stretched across his features was flushed with hectic color. And he asked, “Pamela, what do you want?”

  She tossed her head from side to side, trying to deny him, but finally she said, “You. I want you. All the way in. Now.”

  He gave her himself. In an explosion of heat and motion, he thrust into her, filling her all the way, satisfying one need, creating another. The mattress rocked and creaked. She moaned and he groaned. When he released her hands, she clutched at his hair, his shoulders, his back. Anything to try and save herself from the devastating passion that swept her along. Swept them along.

  Climax struck her like a bolt of lightning, starting deep inside and radiating outward, consuming her entire body, shaking her soul. He wrapped his hand in her hair. He held her still and stared into her eyes. As she trembled with her rapture and he lunged to reach his, she heard the firm demand of his mind and his body.

  Mine, he declared wordlessly. You’re mine.

  So she closed her eyes to shut him out and instead savored every last twitch and spasm, both his and hers.

  They were done. The silence that fell was absolute. Her heartbeat slowed. She got her breath back under control. She got her self back under control.

  But she didn’t have the nerve to open her eyes until he said, “I’m feeling more like it. How about you?” He lifted himself away before she had time to look at him, time to respond. “I’ll certainly try not to think of this when I’m speaking to Her Majesty, and I suggest you try and control your wayward thoughts, also.”

  He sounded for all the world like a man who regularly encountered earth-shaking experiences, and found this one rather commonplace.

  The mattress creaked as he descended from the bed.

  In slothful movements, she rose to lean on her elbow and watched him fasten his trousers. “I’m not going.”

  Picking the beautiful new gown up off the floor, he tossed it on the bed. “Cease your missishness and dress yourself at once.”

  He wasn’t arguing. He was ordering. He placed the undergarments beside her with no sympathy for her plight at all. And she was still weak. Her legs still shook. Her thighs were damp. Her hair straggled around her shoulders. She felt…well, she felt as if he’d succeeded. As if he’d used her. Or as if…as if he’d offered her more than she, trapped in the remains of her childish fears, had dared accept.

  “Get up,” he said.

  Pamela dragged at her snarled chemise, tucking her knees up against her body and dragging the hem down as far as it would go. “This reception is the culmination of your plans, my lord. When you take Beth up to meet the queen, you will be pronounced a respectable person and all your troubles will be over.”

  His eyes narrowed on her. “I don’t understand your complaint. Did you think I would deny you credit for all you have done for the child?”

  She lifted her chin, concealing the depths of her fright with a waspish tongue. “This world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. I do things. I don’t need to go to this reception to prove myself Her Majesty’s respectable, hard working subject.”

  “You ought to be spanked,” he said in a falsely affable tone. “But I don’t have time.”

  In the flash of his temper, she saw a glimpse of the real Kerrich, and he frightened her. “Please, I can’t.” She grasped the bedpost. “Those people know me.”

  “What people?”

  “The nobles. The ton. The people who know about my father.” If only she could conceal herself from his freezing indifference! “They’ll look at me and pity me. I won’t go.”

  “Those people don’t matter.”

  She glared into his eyes. “To you! You’re the earl of Kerrich! No one dares laugh at you or make condescending comments about how low you’ve fallen or offer false sympathy for your losses.”

  “Oh? When my father died and my mother began her rampage through the male population, I was ten years old. Do you know how many fights I fought for her good name? Which was more than she ever did!” He was livid. So livid he was shouting. “Do you know how many times I broke my nose for that woman?”

  Pamela backed up against the bed post and shook her head.

  “Twice.” He held up two fingers. “Then she left me. Left me with Grandpapa and went off to the continent with the first of her traveling lovers. She still drops in every once in a while and doesn’t understand why I’m not more fond. When she betrayed my father’s memory in the basest way and abandoned me to the laughter of fools.” Slowly he clenched his fist, then pointed one of his fingers at her. “You’re not going to abandon us like that.”

  “I’m not trying to abandon you.”

  “Beth deserves better than that, even if you think I don’t.”

  He made her so angry, with his callous disregard and his attitude that everything affected only him. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want to be humiliated.”

  “You’re going to have to face them sooner or later,” he said. “It might as well be now.”

  She sat there on the bed, clutching her chemise in both her fists and doing her best to convey scorn. “I would think, since you have been through this, that you would be more sympathetic.”

  “
More sympathetic to being abandoned?” Gripping her ankle, he dragged her toward him. “Or more sympathetic to female megrims?”

  She kicked at him, but he set her on her feet beside the bed and stripped her chemise out of her grip and off over her head.

  Stepping back, he looked at her. And looked at her again. The frantic rush of activity stopped. He licked his lips as he stared at her body, but she now recognized the signs of his arousal, and this was not arousal. This was more like dawning horror and desperate comprehension.

  She began to think, to suspect…

  Drawing in a hard breath, he said, “No.” He dove at her and she raised her hands in self-defense, but he had her out of everything, even her stockings, and he seemed not even to notice her bewildered resistance. Turning her to stand before the fire, he stepped back to view her. “Don’t move,” he commanded.

  Self-conscious at his incredulous inspection, she covered herself with her hands.

  “Damn it, woman, put your hands down.”

  She looked at him, defiant, acutely aware of her nakedness, and desperate to escape this scene.

  “You,” he said, and his voice shook. “Do you know who I am?”

  Had he remembered that long-ago night? He had, she was sure of it. “You are Lord Kerrich.”

  “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? Years ago, the party with King William for little Princess Victoria. At Kensington Palace. You were the girl in the window.”

  She thought begging to be allowed to miss the reception was the worst humiliation she could endure, but it was nothing compared to this.

  “I was angry,” he said. “I took the boys out to the garden. I told them I was going to scare the girls, and when I started climbing the trellis, they ran away.”

  This was like the dream where she stood on the street before an oncoming carriage and was unable to move. Unable to scream.

  “I saw you, alone in a bedchamber, changing your clothing.” His open-handed gestured indicated her whole figure. “I saw you nude.”