“I’m not denying it. What made you come to that particular conclusion?”
“Rakes like to seduce every female they come across, do they not? My mother warned me that men like you existed, but our fortunes changed before I ever actually met one.”
“Curse all mothers,” he muttered. “And I don’t seduce every female I come across. Only the ones who interest me.”
She looked at him with a calculating eye, clearly unmoved.
“Do you live in London, Mr...? I’m afraid I don’t know your name—we’ve never been properly introduced. You can’t seduce me if we haven’t been introduced.”
“That’s what you think,” he said half to himself. “And actually I’m not technically a mister. I’m the sixth Earl of Glenshiel. You may call me Lord Glenshiel, but I’d prefer you call me Alistair.”
“A title,” she said approvingly. “Even better. Does that title come with a convenient fortune?”
“I said I wanted to seduce you, not buy you,” he drawled. “Cooperation is so much more enjoyable than commerce.”
“I wasn’t thinking of me,” she said sharply.
“Oh, you’ve become an abbess?” he inquired politely.
The color flared in her pale cheeks then, most gratifyingly. The longer he resisted touching her, the more powerful the need became. Her ridiculous arguments should have made him lose interest. Instead, they merely increased his determination.
“Matchmaker,” she said in a severe voice. “You aren’t married, are you?”
“Fortunately, no.”
She positively beamed at him. “Excellent. And you’re a very handsome man. I’m certain you’d want a beautiful wife as well, one who could give you equally lovely children—a good, talented, docile girl who—”
“What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“My sister.”
“You want me to seduce your sister?” he echoed, momentarily diverted.
“Of course not. I want you to marry her.”
“Why in God’s name would I want to do that?”
“All men need heirs. And I told you, my sister is without question the most beautiful girl in London. Men only have to see her to fall in love with her.”
He surveyed her calmly. “Then why hasn’t someone married her already?”
“Because I don’t let anyone see her. I’m saving her. Our unfortunate reversal of fortune has kept us in retirement, but as soon as I... as we regain our proper circumstances, she’ll make her bow in society, and I have no doubt whatsoever that a splendid marriage will ensue.”
“You are an abbess,” he said dryly. “I’m sorry, child, but I have no intention of marrying, now or in the future. I prefer my pleasures unshackled. Besides, I have no interest in your sister, no matter how lovely and docile and talented she is. Those aren’t the qualities that interest me.”
“They’re not?” she said, clearly surprised.
“I’m far more interested in women who are adventuresome, imaginative, and not in the ordinary way. I prefer women with strange eyes to those of classic perfection. In fact, dear girl, I want to bed you, not marry your sister.”
She blinked at his plain speaking, but still managed to keep her composure. “You have very uncommon tastes, my lord.”
“Yes,” he said. “I suppose I do.”
She really did have the most extraordinary eyes. They were sea green, translucent, witch’s eyes, and they stared at him with sudden dismay, as if she finally realized the danger she was in. She scrambled out of her chair, clutching her reticule, backing away from him and knocking the chair over as she went.
He didn’t move from his spot on the chaise, merely reclined there, watching her. The poor innocent thought she could escape—she didn’t know how quickly he could move.
“This has been most entertaining, my lord,” she said, and he could hear the breathless anxiety in her voice. “But I’m afraid I need to be getting home.”
“To that incomparable sister of yours? This time you’d best take a sedan chair. Spitalfields is a fair distance from Mayfair.”
“You know where I live?” she demanded, aghast.
“It’s a very drab little house.”
“It’s only temporary.”
He’d lulled her into a false security. If she had any sense at all, she’d escape quickly, but she was lingering, still several feet from the door, and he had more than enough time to reach her.
“You don’t want to go back there tonight, do you? Wouldn’t you rather eat roast quail and drink fine claret? Wouldn’t you rather spend the night in my bed?”
“Absolutely not,” she said sternly. “And I don’t believe you have the faintest interest in taking me there.”
She made the mistake of turning her back as she crossed to the doorway. By the time she put her hand on the knob, he was behind her, looming over her, moving with total silence as his hand covered hers.
He turned her around swiftly, and she uttered a little shriek, more of surprise than real fear, and she looked up at him with disapproving eyes.
“You think not, Jessamine? You underestimate your charms.” He used his body to press her up against the door, exerting just enough strength to pin her there without hurting her. He cupped her face with his hands, and her skin was smooth and soft beneath his fingers. Her mouth trembled as she stared up at him in utter fierceness, and her eyes dared him.
He never could resist a dare. He set his mouth against hers, tasting her lips, the wine that she’d drunk, the fear she tried so hard to hide. She made no effort to fight him or resist him, she simply held very still, like a trapped animal, like a tiny, cowering mouse trapped by a big black cat.
The notion amused him, and he tipped her head back, moving his lips across hers lightly, dampening them. She seemed to be having trouble breathing, and he decided to make things even more difficult. He put just the right amount of pressure on her jaw, and she opened her mouth to him.
The sound she made when he used his tongue was soft, distressed, and longing. For a moment she pushed against him, but when she realized that nothing short of an earthquake could dislodge him, she started to drop her arms in defeat.
He didn’t want her defeat. He caught her arms and pulled them around his neck, and she shuddered. But her body pressed up against his, and he could feel the sweet swell of her breasts against his chest, and the stirring of a need that mirrored his own.
She wouldn’t know much about that kind of need, and she would doubtless deny it if she could. He wanted to take her far enough along that she couldn’t pretend, and he moved one hand between their bodies, up her plain, stiffened bodice to the curve of her breast, claiming it with his long fingers.
“Alistair!” Lady Plumworthy’s less than genteel bellow was unmistakable echoing through the town house, and Alistair’s immediate thought was murderous indeed. He didn’t want to stop. He wanted her to kiss him back. He wanted to unlace the back of her decent, boring dress, and bare her breasts for his eyes, his hands, his mouth.
“Alistair!” Isolde bellowed again, once more displaying the manners of her youth. She was getting closer.
With a sigh of regret Alistair released Jessamine’s mouth, her breast, her body, stepping back, surveying her out of hooded eyes.
She was leaning against the door, breathless, panting slightly, her eyes shut. Her mouth was damp and reddened from his, her face was pale, and she looked as if her safe little world had just tipped on end. He could only hope it had.
The sight was so delicious, he almost reached for her again, but the doorknob turned and Jessamine was thrust toward him unceremoniously as Lady Plumworthy barged into the room.
He caught her arms, careful to keep her face away from Isolde’s until she recovered some of her wonderfully disordered senses. She glanced up at him, and there was such confusion, pain, and longing in her mysterious eyes that he felt the first pang of guilt he’d experienced in years. He reached out an involuntary hand to touch her, r
eassure her, but she had already swept around, away from him, brushing past Lady Plumworthy with no more than a murmured farewell.
Isolde surveyed him with grim humor. “You’ve been a naughty boy again, Alistair,” she chided him, her arch tones making his skin crawl. “Don’t you know better than to interfere with the bourgeoisie?”
“I thought she was a Gypsy,” he drawled.
“You know perfectly well she’s not. She’s a decent, unimaginative English maiden whose father was a wastrel.”
“So I gather.”
Isolde blinked. “You mean she told you?”
“Of course not. I have my own sources of information, Isolde, as do you. I’m perfectly aware of Miss Maitland’s background.”
“Then you should know better than to try your wiles with her.”
“I know better, Isolde. I just don’t choose to act on that knowledge. She’s a bit too delectable to pass by. You know I could never resist a challenge.”
“Silly boy. Experience is always preferable to awkwardness.” She batted her creped eyelids in a grotesque attempt at flirtation.
Alistair was not in the mood for this. Now that he knew who Jessamine was, he no longer relied on Isolde Plumworthy for his connection, but common sense told him that she would be a dangerous enemy to make. “Come now, Isolde,” he said. “Had you the choice between an aging roué like Castleton and a young, untried buck such as Calderwood, it’s more than clear which one you’d choose. You enjoy a challenge just as much as I do.”
“I suppose I do,” she said with a sigh. “Still and all, Alistair, you’ve always managed to elude me.”
“It makes me far more interesting,” he murmured, moving toward the door. “Forgive me if I take my leave of you, my lady.”
Isolde sank heavily into a chair, waving him away with her plump, beringed hand. There was a particularly fine emerald on her fat little finger, and Alistair wondered if he ought to break the Cat’s unwritten code and make a return visit to one of his victims. If anyone deserved it, Isolde did. “Go away, go away,” she said crankily. “But first tell me, what do you intend to do about the girl?”
“Seduce and abandon her, of course. What else would you expect?”
“You’re an evil soul, Alistair. I’ve always liked that about you. You remind me of me.”
Alistair managed a faint smile that was just this side of a sneer. “You flatter me, Isolde. No one can even approach you for sheer malice.” And her laugh echoed in his ears as he made his escape.
A weaker, more vulnerable soul might be close to tears, Jessamine thought as she hurried through the darkening streets of late afternoon. Another female, less certain of her lot in life, might feel shaken, overset, disturbed. But not Jessamine.
“You have a rare gift,” Marilla had told her years before. “You see the cards more clearly than anyone I have ever known. But there is a price to be paid. To keep that gift you need to remain pure. Untouched, unsoiled by the hands of men. You can never marry, never lie with a man. If you do, your talent will vanish and the cards will be no more than pretty pictures. Let a man touch you and kiss you, let him lie between your legs, and I will have taught you for nothing. You must choose, love, and you must choose wisely, for there will be no going back.”
And Jessamine Maitland, who at the tender age of eleven considered the male of the species nothing more than an annoyance, and the act of procreation utterly disgusting, agreed without hesitation.
She was doubly glad of her choice now, she told herself, wrapping her shawl around her body even more tightly, and reaching up a surreptitious hand to scrub at her mouth. Never had another person touched her in such a way. His mouth had been hot, hard, damp, his tongue an intrusion that made her shudder in horrified memory. His hands were hard as well, with narrow, strong fingers that had held her prisoner. She would have bruises, she was certain of it. He was a monster, a depraved, cowardly villain...
She realized absently that her fingertips were stroking her mouth. She pulled her hand away with a horrified gasp, ducking her head and moving onward down the crowded streets.
In truth, now that she had time to think about it, it hadn’t been that awful. She could see why most women wouldn’t mind such importunities. Why, some of them might even welcome such a languorous assault.
But not Jessamine. She had made her solitary bed, and she would lie in it. And milord Glenshiel would find someone else to play his cat-and-mouse games with.
The phrase rang uncomfortably in her head, and she could see his golden cat’s eyes in her memory. If she had any sense at all, she would do a reading when she got home. She tried to keep the cards away from Fleur and her mother—they worried too much, and Mrs. Maitland had been jealous of Marilla’s influence even after Marilla had died of old age. She could closet herself in the bedroom and lay them out.
Except that she already knew what she would discover. The cards danced in her head quite clearly, and she shook the memory away. She didn’t want answers to her unspoken question. She didn’t want Alistair MacAlpin in her mind, in her life, teasing her, touching her. What dark secrets lay beyond his indolent exterior was none of her concern. And so she would tell Clegg if he made any more demands.
Once again knowledge was coming uncomfortably close, knowledge that angered and frightened her. She would keep her distance from Lady Plumworthy. The heavy purses she offered were no match for the harsh behavior of her hulking servants.
Or the demoralizing effect of the Earl of Glenshiel when he put his mouth on hers.
Six
The Cat was on the prowl again. It was a cool, dark night, a few short weeks after his last wicked visitation, but Alistair was restless, and he had no illusions as to what caused his current frustrated state.
Miss Maitland had proven herself to be annoyingly reclusive. Nicodemus had managed to get a goodly sum for Isolde’s ugly gems, more than enough to keep Alistair in reasonable luxury, but he was bored. If he couldn’t have Jessamine of the translucent eyes and the most delicious mouth he’d tasted in memory, then he’d simply have to distract himself with the pleasures of felony.
As it was, he was far more interested in Jessamine than he should have been. A careful man would have been determined to keep his distance from those too-observant eyes.
Ah, but when had he ever considered himself a careful man? Besides, she was simply too damned tempting. He wanted to see how long it would take her to realize who and what he was. Not that he believed in her particular gift, but he was too wise to discount any possibility, no matter how farfetched.
Besides, it would be a simple enough matter to distract her from her unfortunate alliance with the constabulary. He simply had to seduce her.
Somehow he wasn’t finding the notion of such a sacrifice to be unduly arduous.
The Cat had two disparate styles of thievery, and Alistair could never decide which he preferred. The sheer effrontery of simply strolling into one of his host’s private rooms and helping himself to jewelry had a certain charm, just as his adeptness at relieving unpleasant women of their baubles amused him. That occasionally led to an error in judgment, one he found himself forced to correct. His code of honor, his sense of morality, was elastic indeed, nonexistent to most observers. But to him it was clear: One didn’t rob those who couldn’t afford it and didn’t deserve it. He was interested in relieving only some of the wealthier, less pleasant members of society of their extraneous gewgaws. The same sort of people who’d had no qualms about helping his brother James in his downward spiral of drink and ruinous gaming.
Not that anything as noble as revenge lay behind Alistair’s little journey into a life of crime. He preferred to think it was caused by nothing more than a combination of financial necessity and boredom.
That, however, precluded robbing innocent, pleasant women of their jewelry. He’d been forced to go to great lengths to return the young Duchess of Denver’s pink pearl necklace. It was far from her most valuable piece, and her older husban
d could afford to replace it by the gross, but he discovered it had been given to her by her now-deceased mother, and the loss of it had sent the pretty young duchess into absolute despair.
He’d found the return even more challenging than the actual taking, and for a brief while he’d considered returning all the baubles he’d stolen. Practicality had soon taken hold though. Most of the stuff had already been converted into cash and spent. And besides, most of them didn’t deserve to have it returned.
Miss Beauchamp had been a different matter. The gaudy Beauchamp diamonds were well known, and her father, Sir Reginald, had been one of Alistair’s brother’s chief cronies.
Together they’d gone through their various fortunes, with Sir Reginald following James in death at a discreet interval. Alistair had considered the diamonds fair game and only fitting recompense, until he discovered that they were simply all Miss Beauchamp and her mother had left of the once-notable Beauchamp fortune. And she had no idea that the magnificent things were a glass-and-paste substitute.
Alistair’s amusement at having been gulled into stealing worthless baubles had paled when it came to the Beauchamps’ despair. Returning them had been simple enough, done with the help of Nicodemus Bottom’s expert assistance. Replacing the false gems with real ones had proven more difficult, but Alistair had been up to the challenge. And the Beauchamps had never realized their recovered jewels had once been totally worthless.
It was during that incident that Alistair had discovered his alternative form of thievery. The Beauchamps could not afford to entertain, and there was simply no way Alistair could casually find his way to the upper floors of the house, short of seducing Miss Beauchamp. And while that notion was far from repugnant, she was in love with a young lordling who adored her, and Alistair allowed himself enough sentiment to keep from putting a rub in the way of their upcoming nuptials.
Nicodemus and his cohorts had been more than helpful. Close-fitting black clothes, a moonless night, and a certain agility in scaling fences, buildings, and windows were all that it took.