Amy’s stomach sank. “I may have said something similar.”
“Oh, Amy.” Miss Victorine’s hand fell away. “I love you most dearly, but you have a fault which you should mend. You speak too hastily and with too much candor.”
“Honesty is a good trait.”
“Not when it’s used to wound. Now bite your lips to bring color to them, too, and go to see my dear Jermyn.”
As Amy walked down the stairs, she did as she was told and pressed her teeth into her lips. She was embarrassed at herself, but she wanted Lord Northcliff to look at her and long to be loose of his chain.
At the same time she mocked herself; never in her life had she been so…silly. It was as if his kiss had stolen her stolid good sense and left her a breathless, silly girl concerned with nothing but a man’s approval.
When she stepped into the cellar, he was straightening his cot. That startled her; she had never seen him do anything that looked vaguely like a chore. He must be deathly bored. Holding the fur throw before him, he bowed slightly. “Miss Amy, if you would be seated, we have to talk.”
Courtesy. He showed her courtesy.
Why? “Talk about what?” About their kiss? She didn’t want to talk about that.
“If you would be seated,” he repeated.
She sidled over to her usual chair at the table and sat.
He sat across from her, the fur throw tossed carelessly on the table. “I need clothes,” he said.
Clothes. He wanted discuss his clothes. How deflating.
Not that she wanted to talk about their kiss, but she had thought it would be on his mind—although if it wasn’t on his mind, it certainly wasn’t on hers.
“I’ve worn the same garments for six—or is it seven?—long days now.” His shirt and waistcoat looked as if he’d tried to straighten them, but with little success. “At the rate your plan is progressing, I could very well wear them for another six.”
“I’m sure your uncle will be able to pay the ransom this time.” She was sure of no such thing.
From the way Northcliff’s teeth snapped together, it was clear he doubted he would soon be freed. “Nevertheless, I need clean clothes, and clean clothes are available to me in my bedroom on the mainland a mere five miles from here. All I need is someone to fetch them.” He bent his gaze on her. “Since I find myself unable to discuss the particulars of my linens with Miss Victorine, that someone would be you.”
“You want me to sneak into your bedchamber at Summerwind Abbey and steal your clothes?”
“Brava, Lady Disdain. You understand completely.” He pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket. “I’ve written a list of my needs.”
“Your needs?” She could scarcely believe his gall. “How do you propose I get into your home without being noticed?”
“You’ve proved to have an analytical and criminal mind and the ability to put any plan into motion. I have complete faith that, if you had to, you could steal the silver out from under my butler’s nose as he was cleaning it.”
“Are you flattering me or insulting me?”
“I leave that for you to decide.” He shook out the list. “Now listen carefully. My linens are in the chest in the bedchamber—not the sitting room, but in the bedchamber—facing the foot of the bed. I want two clean shirts, two clean pairs of drawers, clean hose…”
As she listened to him recite, she swallowed. She supposed she could manage to walk into Summerwind Abbey without being stopped. As long as she behaved as if she belonged there, she was unlikely to be stopped, and if she was, there were three hundred servants and three hundred different tasks for a maid in a great house.
Sorting through his linens was an entirely different proposition. She knew nothing at all about a man’s undergarments, and the chances of bringing back the right clothes seemed remote. She could ask him, but his answer would involve—possibly—disbelief or amusement and—definitely—an embarrassing explanation. Better to nod and pretend she could do the task he had set her.
“—and that’s all,” he finished. “I’ve drawn a map to my bedchamber and a listing of the times my valet is likely to be about. I’d suggest you avoid him. If he catches you up to your elbows in my underwear, he’s likely to be testy and unwilling to listen to any tale you try to tell him. He is quite intelligent and very fond of me—”
“Why?”
“—and I imagine my disappearance has caused him some disquietude.” Northcliff held out the paper for her to take.
“Put it on the table and slide it toward me,” she said.
“I thought we’d progressed further than that.” He did as he was told.
She picked up the sheet, spread it out, and pretended to study the map.
“Of course, that was before yesterday when we kissed.”
She set her teeth and looked up at him. “Don’t worry, my lord. I’ve forgotten it.”
“Have you? Good for you. For myself, the heat of that kiss is burned into my memory so that in dotage when all else about my life has vanished from my mind, I will still remember the heat of your lips against mine.” In the flash of a second, the matter-of-fact aristocrat in need of clothing disappeared, leaving the primitive man stalking the woman he would take as his mate.
And he hadn’t moved an inch.
Why had Miss Victorine pinched Amy’s cheeks? She didn’t need more color. She felt the blood rush to dye her face and she could scarcely look at Northcliff with any equanimity. “Please, my lord, I don’t wish to—”
“Nonsense. Of course you do, Amy, and you want to with me.”
She flashed him a glance that scalded and abhorred.
“I know. You don’t like me. But think about it from my point of view. You’ve made a fool of me. You’ve kidnapped me, imprisoned me, made me feel guilty, made me doubt my uncle and business manager—all very uncomfortable for me, I assure you.” Northcliff was a very tactile man. As he stared at her, he stroked the old fur throw, and she found herself watching his fingers as they combed the long brown coat. They stroked and stroked again, and all the while his gaze caressed Amy’s hair so fondly, warmth enveloped her like the throw. Like his body. “I should despise you. Instead I want you. It’s all I think about, and the only thing that comforts me is knowing that having me is all you think about, too.”
“That’s not true.” The hypnotic motion kept her seated, trapping her to hear his slow, deep, seductive voice.
“Perhaps not. I have nothing to do down here except think. You have duties to occupy your mind.” His hand stopped. He leaned forward. “But Amy, I know women. I know that in the dark of the night when dreams slide under the doorsill as relentlessly as fog from the sea, you dream of me.”
Aghast at his insight, she denied it. “No!”
“You act as if you have a choice in the matter. You don’t. I don’t. Some odd quirk in our natures unites us in desire.” He sat in his chair, still as a lion waiting for its prey to step within reach. “Do you know that when you rise in the morning, I hear your footsteps over my head? I imagine you slipping out of a worn nightgown, your body gleaming pale and sweet, and donning one of your ghastly gowns. At night the floorboards creak as you ready yourself for bed, and I imagine you undressing. And all night long, every time you turn over in your virgin bed, I hear you. You have me imprisoned, but I am watching you.”
Yet his words wove a spell around her. She couldn’t move, could scarcely breathe, and desperate mortification slid easily into heady anticipation. Some remnant of good sense, or maybe it was just a virgin’s natural reluctance, kept her sane enough to say, “I’d release you if I dared, and then we’d be done with this.”
His deep chuckle caught her by surprise. “You are an innocent. We’ll never be done with this, as you call it. We’ll carry it with us our whole lives. Do you know how desperately I want you?”
Eyes wide, she shook her head.
“If you took off my manacle right now, I’d remain here in this dark, small cellar to
make love to you.”
She had come to associate his scent with the earthiness of the cellar. “We can’t. I can’t.”
He said nothing, but his eyes were eloquent with a knowledge she longed to tap and a passion she longed to know.
“There’s too much difference in our stations. When you are freed, you’ll try to find me and punish me—”
“That’s true,” he conceded. “But you won’t die of my punishment, sweeting. You’ll beg for more. I promise, I will make you beg.”
When he looked at her, his brown eyes golden with flame, when he spoke to her, his voice slipping along her nerves like black velvet, she wanted to push him onto the cot, unbutton her gown, and discover if he could fulfill his promise. “Impossible.”
She spoke more to herself than to him, but he answered her anyway. “It’s not impossible. Think about it, Amy. Never again will you have a chance like this. I’m manacled to the bed. When the house is quiet and even the cat is asleep, you could come down the stairs and make love to me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You would never let me—”
“But I would. I’d let you take the lead, explore me as you liked, show me what gives you pleasure. I would kiss you anywhere you instructed—on your lips, on your breasts, on your—”
“My lord, please!”
“—shoulders. Really, Amy, what did you think I was going to say?” His eyes twinkled with the kind of wicked amusement that would have made him attractive…if she was interested in insensitive, dishonest, dissipated aristocrats. “Consider, Amy, how sweet it would be to know that you had me under your control and if you chose to leave me frustrated and wanting, you could go without a backward glance.”
“If you grabbed me as you did yesterday and pressed me into the mattress, I wouldn’t be able to control you.”
“Yesterday I lost my temper. I won’t apologize because I’m not sorry—I already told you how I feel about that kiss. But I swear on my honor—and Amy, although you doubt it, I do have honor—that I won’t force you again. Not while in this cellar.”
With her palm, she rubbed the tabletop, over and over, the smooth grain of the wood slipping beneath her touch. He offered her the devil’s deal—and she was tempted. So tempted.
Because what he said was true. In the daytime, thoughts of him invaded her mind, taking over sensible thoughts and average feelings. Worse was the night. She dreamed of him, constantly and in color, sometimes fighting, sometimes crooning, always menacing, always demanding, always enticing.
Like now. How did he know she had told herself, If I was in control, then maybe… How had she betrayed herself?
With a start, she came back to the cellar to find herself staring at the amused and knowing expression on Northcliff’s face.
Had she betrayed herself?
Of course. He knew her—or perhaps it would be smarter to say he knew women—far too well.
Leaping to her feet, she started for the steps.
“Amy,” he called.
She turned back to him. “What?”
“You forgot the list.”
Of course she had. He had distracted her.
She walked back and picked it up.
“There’s something I didn’t put on the list,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll be lucky to get up to your bedchamber, take these items, and leave without being caught.”
“But this is very important.” His deep voice snagged her unwilling attention. “When a woman makes love to a man for the first time, it’s best if she uses oil to ease the way.”
Amy froze, her gaze on his.
“Also, it’s best if she protects herself from unwanted pregnancy.”
“God, yes!” How could she have even have considered the enticement he offered and not thought of the obvious?
“In the top drawer of my bedside table, there’s a small box. It contains everything we need to make our night pleasurable. If you have to, leave everything else behind, but bring that box.”
She snorted as if in derision—but it was a weak snort. She walked toward the steps again.
“Amy.”
She turned back to him. “What?”
“Did you notice I didn’t ask for a nightshirt?”
She glanced at the list in her hand and wondered why he told her that.
Then she knew why.
He had just told her he slept nude.
Every night in the cellar right beneath her bedchamber, his naked body remained at the ready to welcome her. Now that she knew it, she could never escape the image…or the temptation.
Chapter 15
“I cannot take that jacket to wear. It’s too different from the one I was wearing.”
“And that you ruined.” Biggers and Jermyn stood in his shadowy wardrobe off his bedroom and argued about the garb Jermyn would take back on his return to his prison. Jermyn insisted the clothes be essentially the same.
Biggers, a usually reasonable man, lectured on the necessity of variety.
“The ladies aren’t stupid. They’ll notice I’ve changed.” Jermyn chose a jacket that matched the original in color and cut. “I’ll return with this one.”
“They can’t be too intelligent. You escaped days ago and they haven’t noticed,” Biggers argued.
“I would presume that once I set my mind to keeping them in the dark, I would be equal to the challenge.” Grimly aware he was repeating Amy’s words almost verbatim, Jermyn said, “However, please recall that a nineteen-year-old girl and an old woman did plan, and succeeded in, the kidnapping of the marquess of Northcliff. You might choose to consider them simple, but I like to believe that the people who outwitted me are more than half-wits.”
“I see, m’lord. Of course you’re correct, m’lord. Exceptionally intelligent women, m’lord.” Biggers in no way indicated amusement. He was the perfect valet: upright, punctilious, always ahead of the styles, able to shave Jermyn’s chin without a nick and iron his cravats to a snowy crisp. He was also tall, thin and perpetually forty-three. He had been with Jermyn for twelve years and never revealed his history, yet he was well-spoken and shrewd in ways that implied his past had been far more perilous than his present. “I’ve sent a request to your solicitor to come with the books for the Edmondsons’ business.”
“And you told him—”
“That your uncle made the request. He has no idea who Mr. Edmondson has writing his letters, and believe me, m’lord, he’s too frightened of your uncle to question any order.”
“Good. Now I need you to scrutinize the servants. Almost all of them have been here for years, and if my uncle is corrupt, it only follows that he could have wooed their loyalty away from me and to himself by whatever means—bribes, I suppose.”
“Or blackmail,” Biggers said.
That hadn’t occurred to Jermyn.
“I’ll subtlty question the servants and ascertain which ones keep their allegiance to you.” With great delicacy, Biggers asked, “So with the events of the recent weeks, is it safe to say we no longer place our trust in your uncle?”
“It is safe to say that.”
“And in fact, it’s no accident that you’ve suffered so many calamities?”
“That’s right.” Jermyn rubbed his thigh where the bone had broken.
“Then, m’lord, I would feel safer if you were to carry this with you.” Biggers rolled up his sleeve and showed Jermyn the thin leather strapped there. From the sheath, he pulled a small knife with a shining blade.
Yes, Biggers definitely hid some kind of disreputable past. The blade and its cleverly hidden sheath proved it.
Jermyn accepted the knife, touched the sharp point, and smiled. “Very good.”
“When you disappeared, I took the liberty of confiscating a firearm from your father’s collection of dueling pistols.” Biggers produced a gun from his pocket. “Please, m’lord, this is a fine piece. Take it, too.”
Jermyn examined the pistol. With its distinctive ivory handl
e, the beautiful decoration on the barrel, and the initials J. E. on the bottom of the stock, it might have been nothing more than a toy. But his father collected only the best, and Jermyn hadn’t a doubt this pistol would shoot straight and true. He took it and the powder and shot Biggers offered.
Right now, Jermyn felt he could trust only Biggers, the people on Summerwind…and his eternally candid Lady Disdain.
And while he didn’t doubt she would try to obtain the clothes, she couldn’t bathe for him. “When will my bath be ready?”
“It takes time, m’lord, to heat the water, and may I point out it took a fair bit of explaining as to why I wanted a bath delivered to your chambers in the middle of the day when you were gone.” Biggers chose another jacket. “How about this one for your evening meal?”
Jermyn laughed and began again to explain his circumstances when he heard a click, and the door to his bedroom suite opened.
Biggers prepared to step out and see who dared enter without knocking, but a caution honed by kidnapping and imprisonment made Jermyn place a restraining hand on his servant’s shoulder.
Biggers’s eyes lit up as he realized that this unauthorized entrance could mean intrigue.
Bold as brass, a dark-haired serving girl strolled past their line of sight.
Softly Biggers sighed in exasperation.
But although her face was turned away, the insouciance with which she walked, the straight line of her back, the ugly, old-fashioned gown warned Jermyn…it was Amy.
Grabbing Biggers, Jermyn pushed him against the wall and signaled for silence.
Biggers nodded, eyes wide with interest.
She walked toward the bureau, moving out of view.
The two men sidled around to watch her.
She examined the bedchamber first. She tugged at the bed curtains, rubbed her hand over the polished footboard, and went to the window that looked out onto the balcony and from there, out to sea.
She was satisfying her curiosity about Jermyn, and Jermyn found himself delighted in her interest.