“But we both know that if you wanted to you could find a carriage. It was a lie, wasn’t it? I could have always left?”
“You needn’t be so harsh. It was never impossible—nothing is, if you have the money and right now I’m quite awash with it. It was just very difficult, and would have necessitated having that wretched brat in my house for hours, perhaps even a day, longer. When it was a choice between my sanity and your reputation my sanity won. I’m a very selfish man.”
In better times she could have raised an eyebrow, but right then she was too weary and defeated to bother.
“I need to leave here,” she said again, her voice listless.
He frowned—she could see him by the light of her bedside candle. “There’s a horse you know well, and I could send Harry with you for protection. You wouldn’t even have to be in any rush to return her—she’s livelier today than I’ve ever known her to be.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I haven’t the means nor the place to keep her. Besides, I’ve told you, I don’t ride.”
“But you did. When did you stop? On the day your father died?”
Even that couldn’t goad her into anything more than a numb response. Of course he’d know that. He was a devil—he knew everything he wanted to know about her. Knew just how vulnerable she was to him, despite her protests. Knew that more than anything she just wanted him to touch her, kiss her, take her. It didn’t matter how much it hurt or how unpleasant it was; it didn’t matter that it would leave her totally ruined and bereft with no future whatsoever. She still wanted it.
“Since the day my father died,” she echoed.
He was still edgy. In another man she might have thought he was nervous, but Christian Montcalm wasn’t prey to such petty emotions. Particularly around her.
“I’ve decided to be noble,” he said abruptly.
His words were enough to startle Annelise out of her malaise. If he was thinking of being noble then he had every reason to be nervous—it would be a novel experience for him.
“Indeed?” she said, turning to face him.
But he wasn’t looking at her—he was still prowling. “I’m going to let you go.”
“Was there ever any doubt of it?”
“No,” he said. “The only question was what shape you were going to be in when you left, and I’ve changed my mind. You get to leave here just as virginal as the day you arrived. Two or three more stolen kisses shouldn’t make much difference, and you’re such an upstanding, starchy dragon that no one would dare believe you capable of licentious romping.”
“Licentious romping? I think not. But you already swore to Will Dickinson that I was perfectly safe. Swore to me, as well, I believe.”
He didn’t even blink. “I lied,” he said simply. “I do that, you know, when it suits me. I would have thought you’d realized that by now.”
It was enough to rouse her. She swiveled around on the window seat, putting her stockinged feet on the floor. “What are you talking about?”
Somehow during his edgy perambulations he’d come dangerously close. She’d seen the wild animals at Astley’s Circus, had been mesmerized by the beauty and inherent danger. She should have realized the resemblance sooner.
“I was going to ruin you, dragon,” he said softly. “Quite thoroughly, quite deliciously. I had every intention of going well beyond lesson three until you were a bona fide expert. I was going to teach you everything I know and could think of, until there wasn’t the tiniest bit of starch left in you.” His voice was soft, regretful and still utterly beguiling.
“But why? For the sheer sport?” she demanded. “For a wager? Out of malice? Why would you want to ruin my life? Why would you be so cruel? What have I ever done to you?”
His smile was the definition of rueful. “Such a silly dragon. Malice, sport and cruelty had absolutely nothing to do with it. I wanted you. And when I want something I tend to take it, without considering the consequences.”
His voice was detached, distant, almost as if he were talking about another man. As indeed he seemed to be. The Christian Montcalm standing in her bedroom had little resemblance to the man who had once planned her seduction. Except that he was fully as beautiful.
She couldn’t even begin to sort through the reactions that flooded her, wouldn’t even consider why it felt so much like pain. Her voice was cool when she spoke. “I’m pleased to know you’ve seen the error of your ways,” she said, as starchy as he’d ever accused her of being. “When can I expect transport out of here?”
“Browne should be able to come up with a decent carriage by tomorrow, and I’ll have Mrs. Browne find one of the village girls to provide you company during the trip. I expect you’ll pass my returning carriage on the way, but that is of little import. The most important thing is to get you out of my wicked clutches, is it not?”
“Yes,” she said.
He stood there, unmoving, clearly at a loss. “You should eat something. I’ll have Mrs. Browne send up another tray.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Damn it, I don’t care,” he shot back, shoving his long hair away from his hollow, beautiful face. “You need to eat something.”
“Damn it, I don’t,” she replied deliberately. “I don’t have to do a blasted thing I don’t want, and there’s nothing you can do to make me.”
She’d managed to surprise him, and a faint smile played around his mouth. “Such language, dragon!” he scolded. “Where did you learn that—in your father’s stables?”
“Yes.”
“There’s always been something irresistible about a starchy virgin who curses like a stable hand,” he murmured.
“But you are nobly resisting my siren lures anyway,” she shot back. She recognized the faintly aggrieved note in her voice and should have bitten back the words, but with any luck at all he wouldn’t notice the slip.
But then, she had no luck at all. He stared at her for a long moment, tilting his head to one side, and his smile widened, reaching his dark, unreadable eyes.
“Perhaps not,” he said.
And he reached out for her.
21
She flinched, as if she expected him to hurt her, but Christian simply picked up the strand of false pearls she’d put around her neck, and she held very still. He thought he knew women—he’d spent more than his fair share of time with them, loved them, and he took great pleasure out of knowing what they wanted and giving it to them, especially when they didn’t even know it themselves.
But the Honorable Miss Annelise Kempton was a mystery to him. A delicious, starchy, fire-breathing mystery, like a present waiting to be unwrapped, layer by layer, so that he could fully enjoy the secrets that would be revealed.
But he’d told himself no. She was simply a woman, when it came right down to it, no more, no less, and there were a great deal of interesting women in the world. Women with more beauty, more money, more experience. And it was hardly the challenge she presented—there were just as many women who didn’t want anything to do with him, whom he could just as easily convince otherwise.
So why was he so fascinated by his dragon? Enamored? No, that was surely the wrong word—enamored suggested love had something to do with it, and that was one thing he was absolutely certain of. His feelings for Annelise Kempton had nothing to do with love, and everything to do with simple, uncomplicated lust.
So why was he letting her go?
Because she had cried in his arms? Because she’d been betrayed by everyone in her life, particularly the son-of-a-bitch drunken father who’d taken her pearls, her love, and then died a selfish death leaving her nothing, not even the horse she’d loved or the ability to ride? He knew that she had no brothers—presumably her father was the only man she had ever loved, and he’d betrayed her cruelly. It was little wonder she breathed fire to scare everyone away.
At least he’d known love, a lifetime ago. The love of his parents, so vast and encompassing it had surrounded him and his four sibli
ngs, keeping them safe, protected and unaware of the storm that was coming. His parents had loved each other deeply—he and his brothers and sisters had teased them about it, but it had only added to their enormous sense of safety and happiness. His warm family had been replaced by his monstrous grandfather, but at least he’d once known selfless love. He suspected that Annelise never had.
He looked at the pearls as they rested in his long fingers. He could see the nervous pulse beating in her slender neck, could sense the panicked flutter of her heart. She stood very still, frozen, and he wondered why she was so afraid of him.
“Why are you wearing these?” His voice was not much more than a whisper.
“To remind me.”
“Of what?” A strange stillness had settled over him, as well, a waiting. The earth was shifting beneath him, and he had the hideous suspicion that his entire life was about to change if he didn’t get out of there, now. Away from the unexpected, undeniable lure of the dowdy young woman in front of him.
“Of my father,” she said, and her lower lip trembled slightly. She had delicious lips, and he wanted to still that tremor, but he didn’t move.
“They’re fake,” he said.
“I know. I loved him without reservation, and he took everything from me, including the one thing of value my mother had given me. He killed himself in a drunken fall, not even caring what happened to the horse he was riding, not to mention what happened to his daughter. All he cared about was his own selfish desires and I’m wearing these to remind me that men are thieves and liars who eventually betray you.”
Christian gave the strand one yank and they spilled onto the floor, rolling across the dusty wood planks. Pulling on them had brought her closer before they snapped, so close that he could feel her grief and panic, so close that he should have reassured her, kissed her on the forehead, and left her.
She looked down at the false pearls scattered across the floor. “They weren’t even very good fakes,” she observed in an empty voice. “If I’d looked closer I would have noticed they weren’t properly tied. But then, I thought my father loved me.”
“I can’t imagine that he didn’t—” Move away, his inner voice ordered him. Step back from her. She was a siren in sackcloth who was going to lead him to certain doom if he didn’t run away. “But like most men, he couldn’t resist what tempted him most. Not all men are drunkards.”
“I don’t care.”
He slid his hand up her neck. There was a faint red mark where he’d pulled the pearls from her, and his fingers gently stroked it. He could feel the shiver that ran down her body, and it was almost his undoing. He knew that shiver, of fear and delight, and knew where it could lead.
He wanted to yank the dress off her, the ugly, shapeless thing that shielded her like armor. No, like a dragon’s scales. He was the knight in armor, a slightly tarnished one. As for his dragon, he had the totally unnerving feeling that she’d swallowed a princess, and all it needed was his touch to release her.
He stroked the back of her neck lightly. She hadn’t been able to subdue her hair properly ever since she’d arrived at Wynche End and a few stray curls were escaping from the tight bun she’d attempted. She had a row of buttons down her back, tiny ones, and he wondered how she managed without a maid to help her dress.
He decided to ask her.
She was standing still beneath his soft touch, like a nervous filly ready to be gentled. “I usually can avail myself of the services of one of the household maids when I make my visits. Otherwise I simply do it myself.”
His fingers brushed the top button at the nape of her neck, and slipped it free. “That seems impossible.”
“You said nothing is impossible if you have the money. Let me assure you that nothing is impossible if you have the will.”
“And you are a very willful creature, aren’t you?” he murmured, unfastening the second button. She made no sign that she knew what he was doing.
“My clothes are made with deliberate room, so that if necessary I can pull them on backward, fasten the buttons and then slip them around the right way, finishing with the last few.”
He undid the third button. “Fascinating,” he said breathlessly. “Quite ingenious.”
She was looking up at him, and even in the shadows he could see her expression quite clearly. He’d never realized how much he liked tall women—ones who could meet his gaze with unflinching steadiness. But then, Annelise was the only one he’d met. And he was far too aware of how much he liked her.
Her reputation was already ruined by her stay at Wynche End, his conscience argued. What harm could be done? He was adept at making certain there were no unwanted children from any of his liaisons, either short or long term, and no one would have to know. They’d guess and gossip, but then, they would anyway. If her reputation was already in tatters then what was to stop him? His guilty conscience was no match for his need for her, which had grown to such a powerful level that he could barely restrain himself.
“You really do have the most deleterious effect on my resolve, Miss Kempton,” he whispered, his fingers reaching the fourth button and stopping. “I keep telling myself no, and my body keeps telling me yes.”
The saucy wench looked downward and a dark blush stained her cheeks. “Not quite Priapus,” he said, deliberately goading her, “but getting that way.”
It was enough to make her pull away from him, to harangue him in her acid tongue as he fully deserved. But she still didn’t move.
He undid the fourth button. “I really find it quite mystifying,” he said. He could feel her skin now beneath the slowly parting dress. She was cold, and he wanted to warm her.
She had an ounce of fight left. “I think you’re making things far too complicated,” she said, and another man wouldn’t have heard the strain in her voice. “It’s simply that you’ve never shown any restraint in your wicked life. If you didn’t tell yourself no you’d quickly lose interest. But as long as you try to convince yourself that you shouldn’t…shouldn’t…” Her words trailed off as her cheeks reddened and the fifth button went.
“Shouldn’t? Shouldn’t what, dragon? Shouldn’t touch you? Shouldn’t want you?”
She was still fighting. “It’s simply because you’re denying yourself that it becomes irresistible. It’s human nature, quite an ordinary reaction, and you’re not the type of man to be controlled by ordinary impulses. The only reason you want me is because you told yourself you can’t have me, and that’s scarcely a reason at all.”
He smiled then. His dragon was beginning to breathe fire, just a bit, the way he liked her. When she was woebegone and bedraggled he wanted to comfort her. When she was fighting back he wanted to…
“I came here to tell you I was letting you go. That I changed my mind about your total ruination and decided to leave you in peace.”
“So you said. And I appreciate your generosity.” Her voice was getting frostier, but her eyes were grieving. What a strange, enigmatic creature she was, he thought. And it was definitely going to be a case of damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.
In truth, he was already twice damned, and he knew it. “Unfortunately I’ve changed my mind again,” he said, unfastening the next button. The dress was loose enough that it was beginning to drop down a bit, exposing her pale, beautiful shoulders. “I think I’ll ruin you after all.”
She was very still, the only sign of life the nervous flutter of her heart against the pale skin above her drooping dress. And the rise and fall of her rapid breathing, aiding in the descent of the hideous brown cloth.
He had two hands, and he could unbutton a woman’s dress with only one. Hell, he could do it with his teeth if necessary—he had more than enough practice. He took one hand from her back and pressed it between her breasts, over the plain white cotton of her chemise, to feel her heart hammering against his long fingers. He had the pale hands required of a gentleman, but his hand looked dark against her perfect white skin.
The
buttons were giving way with surprising ease, probably due to her original way of fastening them in the first place. And the dress was lamentably old as well as ugly—if burning wool didn’t smell so awful he’d throw it on the fire. He put his mouth close to hers, just a moment away from kissing her, and her impossibly fast heartbeat raced ever stronger against his fingers.
“Shall I ruin you, dragon?” he whispered, aching for her. “Or shall I send you on your way?”
Her eyes were dark and steady, at odds with her flying pulses and rapid breathing. “Why?”
He didn’t bother to pretend to misunderstand. Their mouths were so close it was as if their breath was kissing, dancing, copulating between them, and Christian began to wonder if he was going to give Priapus a run for his money.
“Silly dragon,” he whispered. “Because I want you. And it has nothing to do with whether you want me or not—of course you do. And if you didn’t, I could make you want me. I’m very good at it.”
She didn’t bother to deny it. “If I say no will you leave me be?”
“I could try. I’ve never been terribly good at resisting my dark side. And making love to beautiful, starchy spinsters with no possible future to it is a very dark, bad thing to do.”
Her faint smile was almost his undoing. “You mean you’re not going to carry me off to Gretna Green immediately afterward and make an honest woman of me?”
“Alas, no. While my need to marry money is no longer as pressing, thanks to Mr. Chipple’s generosity and Hetty leaving behind several of her tackiest, most valuable pieces of jewelry, I still know that I’m incapable of being faithful to one woman. And you really wouldn’t want that. If you had a husband you’d insist on someone who was sober, devoted, hardworking and totally tiresome.”
“If I had a husband I’d insist he was you.”
His hand stilled at the base of her back, almost at the last button. The dress was only kept up by her arms. If they dropped, the ugly dress would drop, as well, into a puddle of brown mud on the floor between them.