That Perfect Someone

  “At least put that in writing, dammit, so I can have some peace of mind.” That was as close as she’d come to begging him.

  But he merely replied, “You think I care about your peace of mind? Pay attention. If I won’t honor my father’s contract, why would I honor one with you? I like you even less than I like him, and I bloody well despise him.”

  That could have hurt, but it didn’t, since it mirrored her own sentiments for him. But she was quite annoyed that he was giving her no choice but to accept his word on this matter that was so important to her. So she stalled for a moment to try to think of some other way to get more assurance from him.

  Letting her gaze roam over his tall frame, she mentioned what was so obvious: “You healed rather fast.”

  “I’d merely been pampering myself at the doctor’s suggestion. It certainly wasn’t necessary.” He slapped his chest without a wince.

  “I see. And I should have remembered. You’re quite used to beatings, aren’t you?”

  What was wrong with her? She’d been unable to stop herself from goading him. Just because he was frustrating her? They still couldn’t get along, even for a few minutes!

  “And you never did find out what it’s like, did you?”

  He said that in such a deceptively quiet voice, but his expression warned he was about to give her a demonstration.

  “You lay one hand on me, and I’ll have you tossed in jail,” she promised.

  “Dead women tell no tales.”

  She blanched, reminded of his superior strength, which he’d always lorded over her. As a full-grown man now with those brawny arms, he could probably snap her neck without even half trying. And if he’d snuck into this hostelry without anyone’s noticing, who would know?

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE FEAR HIT JULIA with a vengeance. He’d come close to killing her before when he’d dangled her over a balcony and one slip of his hold would have had her falling to her death. It was a terrifying experience she’d never forget. He’d promised to kill her if he ever saw her again. It was a wonder he’d restrained that urge this long. Her death would put an end to his problems. Not for a minute did she believe that his father was keeping him from going home for any other reason. The earl would probably welcome him back with open arms if she wasn’t an issue between them anymore.

  She was already edging around him toward the door, ready to bolt for it if he moved an inch. Then she saw his smirk. He’d frightened her deliberately!

  The fury that consumed her was more powerful than anything she’d felt as a child. Unable to control herself, she charged at him, stupidly putting herself within his reach. She ended up on the bed, facedown, with his heavy weight holding her there.

  “Let me up!”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Richard said matter-of-factly. “I rather like you in this position. It definitely brings to my attention that there are—other ways to scare you away … and it keeps your teeth off of me.”

  She struggled underneath him so earnestly, she soon wore herself out. He only laughed at her efforts because she couldn’t budge him, couldn’t even reach back to claw him because he was holding her wrists to the bed as well.

  Then he leaned close to her ear and whispered provocatively, “What do you think, Jewels? Want to take this fight to a new level?”

  “You’re contemptible.”

  But her statement lacked heat, possibly because his suggestion had ignited powerful emotions in her, which she understood well enough. One, she wanted children, and that’s how they were created. And she was still afraid that her petition wouldn’t go through now, even if he did leave England again, because someone would step forward to say he’d seen him on this visit, hence he wasn’t dead. His brother could do this, if Richard followed through on trying to see Charles while he was here. And she couldn’t deny that her curiosity was demanding that she find out what came after kissing in courtship. Hearing about it from her married friends for the last several years had only sparked her curiosity all the more. Could she put aside her aversion to him long enough to find out?

  She was out of her mind! He couldn’t have reinforced that conviction more when he added, “If I don’t have to look at you, I can pretend it’s not you I’m making love to.”

  She bucked again and this time caught him off guard. He slid halfway off her and released one of her arms. She pushed to her side so she could slam her elbow backward into his chest. That dislodged him even more and got her halfway off the bed. But it wasn’t far enough for her to have gained purchase to free her other hand. He used the hold he still had on her to draw her back.

  She fell on top of him, backward, glaring furiously up at the ceiling. Immediately, he wrapped his arms tightly around her, crossing her own arm over her belly, since he still had that wrist in his grip. But her other arm wasn’t much use to her trapped under his and with her covering most of his body with her own.

  “This works, too.” He laughed.

  Oh my God, she realized, he was enjoying this, having her so at his mercy. But then he’d always taken some sort of perverse pleasure every time he’d dominated her with his male strength. But she wasn’t as helpless as she’d thought in this new position. Her bucking again with impotent rage actually knocked the breath out of him, to go by his grunt. The heel of her riding boot struck his shin hard, too. And the back of her head knocked against his jaw. That one hurt. Her. But it got rid of his amusement.

  With a growl he moved her so that she lay half underneath him again, but he couldn’t catch her hand in time to prevent her grabbing a fistful of his hair. She was going to yank out every single strand and tried, but she’d caught too much, so all it did was pull his head down toward hers. Their eyes only inches apart, each of them glaring furiously at the other … then his eyes dropped to her mouth.

  It all happened too fast. The anger had no chance to subside for her to maintain any sort of reason. It transferred instead to a much different passion, just as explosive, just as mindless, the instant his lips pressed against hers. This wasn’t just kissing, this was far beyond that, raw desire that ravaged the senses, something so primitive it was out of control.

  Her grip tightened on his hair, but this time to keep him there. His hand found her breast, and as his fingers encircled it, the delicate button on her blouse popped off. She didn’t know, didn’t care, only felt the hard pressure that was stirring her right to her core. He raised his leg so that his knee moved up her body, dragging her skirt up to the apex of her thighs, and pressed there, too. She wrapped an arm around his neck. Her skirt bunched about her thighs now, his hand slipped under her drawers and she nearly screamed at the raw pleasure as his finger thrust inside her.

  Then, as fast as it began, it ended. He suddenly shot off the bed. “What the hell? What the hell!? Did you do that on purpose?”

  She leaned up on her elbows in a daze. He looked absolutely furious, but absolutely magnificent, too, with his long black hair that she’d ripped out of its queue, wild about his shoulders, his breath coming hard, his muscles bunched tight, fists clenched.

  She knew anger could be all-consuming. She’d found that out so many times with him. But she’d had no clue that passion could be, too. A dangerous thing to find out, that he could bring her to the point of wanting him. Really, she could have done without knowing that.

  For the moment, she was deflated, all of her own anger having been drained away by that passion, so her voice was perfectly calm when she said, “Do what?”

  “Start that?”

  “Don’t be an ass. I was leaving.”

  “You attacked me!”

  “Did I? Then I’m sure you must have provoked it … as usual.”

  She scooted off the bed—wisely on the opposite side from him. She was leaving a button behind somewhere on the bed, but she didn’t yet notice the wide exposure between her breasts. Her coiffure had come undone as well in her struggles, and that she couldn’t miss, with a long lock half over her face. H
er hair must look as wild as his.

  She pushed her hair back before she turned to face him. Thank God he’d come to his senses. She wanted children, but not his. She still wouldn’t have him even if he were worth a fortune, which he wasn’t. She needed the ties severed with him and his damned father, and that wouldn’t happen if she bore him a child.

  She caught him staring at her body when she turned. That drew her attention to her heavy velvet riding skirt that hadn’t fallen naturally back into place when she stood up. With a tsk she shoved it down over her knees.

  He was still obviously bristling, blaming her because his domineering tactics had backfired on him. Too bad for him. She was still calm. That really was remarkable. She’d never been this calm in his presence before.

  “Let’s hope this is our last meeting,” she said.

  “It better be,” he warned.

  “There we go agreeing with each other again.”

  She actually smiled at him! What the deuce was wrong with her?

  She took a deep breath before continuing, “I’m going to take you at your word, since you leave me no other option, and proceed with my petition to be rid of you so I can get on with my life just as you have. If you insist on visiting your brother, warn Charles to keep his mouth shut when I have you declared dead.” She said that on the way to the door and paused only long enough to add, “I promise you, Richard, if you or your family foil my effort to break that despicable contract, I will pay someone my entire dowry—to kill you.”

  Chapter Twenty

  SHE HAD A PISTOL on her,” Ohr said when he returned to the room later that day. “She didn’t try to kill you, did she?”

  “Just my sanity, she’s good at threatening that.”

  Richard discounted the possibility of Julia’s killing him in the heat of the moment when she was screaming at him, but he knew she could inflict a lot of pain. She was good at delivering pain. But he was certain one of them would kill the other eventually if they were forced to marry. They both got too crazy around each other.

  That threat she’d made today, though, had definitely given him pause. She’d said it so bloody dispassionately, as if it were something she was used to doing, paying others to see her will done—just like his father.

  He shuddered at the comparison and tried to put Julia Miller out of his mind. She was gone. He’d watched from his window as she galloped down the road, back toward London. He’d be out of the country again soon himself. There was no reason for them ever to cross paths again.

  “A pretty girl,” Ohr remarked. “Too bad you two can’t get along.”

  Richard snorted. “Beauty means nothing when there’s a little monster hiding under the surface.”

  Ohr grinned. “Not so little anymore.”

  No, dammit, she definitely wasn’t little anymore. Julia had filled out with some luscious curves. Nothing about the scrawny, enraged child had indicated she would turn into a beauty one day. Not that it would have mattered. They could have become the best of friends and he still wouldn’t have married her, because it was what his father wanted, and he refused to give that bastard any satisfaction at all.

  But for a few moments today, too many moments, he’d utterly ignored that conviction, which he’d lived with for most of his life. He’d wanted her. How the hell did that happen?

  She’d come at him with her claws bared, and with little effort he’d propelled her past him, where she’d fallen onto his bed. He wished to hell it hadn’t occurred to him that it would be easy to keep her nails and her teeth off him by holding her there.

  So his body had responded normally. How could it not with her squirming and moving so provocatively beneath him? But he should have realized what was happening and got off her immediately. Instead he’d kissed her and had been inflamed by that even more.

  In retrospect it was rather obvious. He could kick himself for not realizing that something like that could happen if they started fighting physically the way they used to do when they were children. They were adults now. Sex was bound to get in the way of that sort of angry passion. And it hadn’t just happened to him. She’d kissed him back just as furiously.

  But he thrust her from his mind now to ask Ohr, “Did you have any luck?”

  “As good as it gets.” Ohr grinned. “I delayed getting back, so he should be arriving any—”

  He didn’t finish, just chuckled at the sound of someone knocking at the door and waved a hand toward it. With a laugh of delight, Richard leapt for the door and yanked it open. He was engulfed in a bear hug that he returned wholeheartedly. So many years had passed since he’d seen his family, at least the only member of his family he loved, that such a wealth of emotion filled him, it almost brought tears to his eyes.

  “I really didn’t believe your friend,” Charles said with a laugh. “Secret meeting? You actually here? I even got angry that he was getting my hopes up with lies.”

  “He did, too,” Ohr put in.

  “But I couldn’t not come to see for myself. And you’re really home!”

  “Not quite,” Richard said, pulling Charles into the room. “But I couldn’t leave England again without visiting you this time. God, it’s good to see you, Charles!”

  “And you! But what’s wrong with your face?”

  “That’s nothing,” Richard hedged. “I had a little too much to drink and fell facefirst into a brick wall.”

  “I know how that is,” Charles admitted with a wince, but then he took a step back to have a full look at Richard and finished with an amazed chuckle. “Forget what century you’re living in? Or is that a wig to disguise you while you’re in the neighborhood?”

  Richard grinned and got a tie from his pocket and fastened his hair back. “It’s real and not all that unusual where I’ve been living. But look at you. Not so skinny anymore, eh? Someone feeding you well?”

  “Look who’s talking.” Charles chuckled. “I barely recognize you.” Then he added on a sober note, “But it’s easy to eat normally when you’re no longer feeling twisted with turmoil and anxiety that has you puking all the time.”

  Richard nodded in understanding. He could recall doing that a few times himself when he’d felt so churned up with impotent fury that had no outlet. But for Charles, the excessive drinking must have added to the difficulty of keeping food down as well. Richard couldn’t recall Charles doing anything other than picking at meals after his marriage. But he definitely remembered him always being drunk.

  It wasn’t easy to tell they were brothers, the resemblance was so minimal. Neither of them actually looked like their father, either, though Charles did take after him more, having Milton’s dark brown hair and blue eyes. He even had their father’s stocky frame now that he’d put on weight. He was a few inches shorter than Richard, too. Richard also didn’t take after his mother either, though he’d been told his black hair and green eyes did come from her side of the family.

  But since his brother appeared to be standing there sober and had obviously found his appetite again, Richard guessed, “So you gave up the bottle?”

  “Yes, but that’s not what gave me peace.”

  “Don’t tell me you actually get along with father now?” Richard was joking. No one could get along with that man.

  But Charles replied, “He and I have an—understanding, but Candice actually did me a good turn. She died. I’ve been at peace ever since.”

  Richard wasn’t expecting that, and just stared for a moment before he replied, “I’ll skip the condolences, if you don’t mind.”

  “Please do. Truth be told, I was hard-pressed not to smile at her funeral. But I can’t say that I don’t bless her every day now.”

  “For dying?”

  “No. For finally gaining me a son. It took three years, which was mostly my fault—I could barely stand to touch her. Her complaining didn’t stop once we repaired to the bedroom, you know. But we found out she was pregnant right after you left.”

  “I have a nephew?” Ri
chard said with a beaming smile.

  “Yes, Mathew just turned eight, and he’s utterly changed my life. You can’t imagine how fiercely protective I am of him, or how much I love him. I found out just how much when my father-in-law showed up after his daughter’s funeral demanding that I turn Mathew over to him so he could raise him himself.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “No, Mathew is actually his only male heir, so the duke was quite serious and determined, even brought his solicitor along to make it legal. Some of the threats he issued, including ruination, were rather nasty. And Father took his side, of course. He’s afraid that offending that old man for any reason will cost us his benevolence. Which is what my marriage to Candice was all about. Father is also in debt to him apparently, so he was furious when I balked and ordered me to comply.”

  “Damn, Charles, they took your son from you?”

  Charles chuckled. “I can’t blame you for drawing that conclusion. I never did tell Father no before, did I? Like you constantly did?”

  When every one of those “refusals” earned Richard a beating, Charles just hadn’t found a good enough reason to suffer that pain. But Richard replied, “You weren’t as stubborn as I was, nor as rebellious.”

  “True, at least not until that day.” Charles grinned. “I warned Father to stay out of it. The boy is mine. He gives me the courage I always lacked. As for the duke, he raised his daughter to have the worst disposition I’ve ever encountered in my life, and I told him so. He was not going to raise my son to be like her.”

  “What happened?”

  “I told him I’d take the boy and leave the country so he would never see him again. By the by, you gave me that idea.”