“Thank you,” Esme said, with evident relief.
“But I insist, Esme, that you tell me why we are engaged.”
Esme fidgeted and rearranged her fingers. Stephen had seen that look before, many times. It was the look that a Member of Parliament wore who had been courted away by the other party, who had to disclose that he’d already given a crucial vote away.
“Esme?”
“Perhaps you are aware that Marquess Bonnington and I—uh—” She looked agonized, so Stephen came to her rescue.
“Of course, I am aware that you had an unpleasant experience at Lady Troubridge’s house party last year, during which your husband unfortunately suffered a spasm and died.”
Esme nodded. “You put it remarkably concisely.”
Stephen waited. Esme looked at him and then away again. “I was having an affair with him. With the marquess,” she clarified.
Stephen thought for a second. “In that case, I believe I understand why the marquess has returned from the Continent. He has just discovered that you are carrying a child?”
“He wishes to compensate for what happened last summer. Marquess Bonnington believes that marrying me will ameliorate his guilt.”
“Guilt is an interesting concept,” Stephen said. “I wish I could induce guilt in more of the men I deal with on a regular basis.”
“But I don’t wish to marry a man who seeks to assuage his guilt. And when I saw him, I panicked.”
Stephen was beginning to enjoy himself. While he had never begged for any woman’s attentions, they had never stood in line and begged for his either. “I gather I appeared to be a useful solution to your problem?” he suggested.
“I’m truly sorry to have used you so. But would you greatly dislike pretending to be my fiancé, merely until Marquess Bonnington returns to the Continent? I’m certain we can arrange it so that no one outside this small party discovers our brief engagement. His mother is, naturally enough, anxious to turn his thoughts in another direction; perhaps she will manage to convince him to leave by tomorrow morning. He need feel no further guilt when he thinks I am marrying such an estimable man as yourself.”
“I bow to your greater knowledge of Marquess Bonnington. I must say that I would not have judged him as one to easily give up. I would describe him along the lines of a terrier with a bone.”
“I don’t want to be that bone,” Esme said despairingly. “I know I’m not looking my best, and I’m not a very appealing fiancée under the circumstances, but if you would play a devoted future spouse in front of the marquess, I would be endlessly grateful.”
His laughter echoed around the room. Stephen stood up and kissed Esme’s hand, and then helped her to her feet. “Since you are my future wife, perhaps I could take the liberty of telling you that you look exhausted. May I escort you upstairs?”
“Oh, thank you!” Esme said, taking his arm. They encountered no one, and Stephen saw his presumed wife into her chamber with an unmistakable sense of relief.
In fact, he actually leaned his head back against the corridor wall, closed his eyes, and wondered if he’d been caught in a dream. It seemed impossible that he—a staid, proper, boring member of the House of Commons—was pretending not only to be carrying on a flagrant affair for the benefit of one woman’s husband but also to be passionately in love with another woman, a drama to be played out before her lover.
He heard a rustle of silk. Of course it was Bea. She seemed to be everywhere, with her painted eyebrows and her red mouth. And the rest of her: those far too intelligent eyes, curved little body, and sultry looks.
“Time for bed?” he said, and he let a deliberately suggestive tone slide into his voice like cream.
“Good night, Mr. Fairfax-Lacy.” She appeared to be walking toward her chamber. He stretched his leg out so that she would have to step ungracefully across him to continue down the corridor.
“Sir?” she asked. The very tone of her voice had changed. Where was the impudent suggestion? Where were the smoldering looks that she practiced on him so regularly? (Because he knew quite well that she didn’t feel desire; she issued such invitations as a matter of course.)
“Will you let me pass, please?” She was getting nettled now.
But Stephen was surrounded by women begging him to pretend to be their lover. What he wanted was just one truthful request. And the fact she had refused to woo him for two days bothered him more than it should. “I should like to read more of that poetry you brought with you,” he said.
“I can lend you the book, if you wish. Or you can find it yourself. I left it in the library, since it seems to have become an object of curiosity for all.” Her eyes were shadowed, and he couldn’t read them.
He reached out and slipped his hand under her elbow. God, but he was consumed with lust. Even the sleekness of the bare skin of her arm made him leap to attention.
She shook her head, frowning. “I think not, Mr. Fairfax-Lacy.”
“A further introduction to poetry,” he said, his voice as persuasive as he could make it.
“I gather you wish me to accompany you to the library?”
He nodded. Not that he had actually thought it out.
“Why?” She stared at him, and for once her eyes were neither sultry, nor inviting, nor even particularly friendly. “You, a newly engaged man, must have many places to be.”
“Because,” he said, through clenched teeth. “Because of this.” He folded her into his arms, and his whole body throbbed with gratitude. She smelled like an exotic perfume tonight, some thick heavy flower of the Nile.
He spread his fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her head and pulling it gently back so he could reach her lips. He could see the perfect oval of her cheek in the dim light. He could see the darker glowing red of her lips. Black lashes fringed her eyes. But none of it mattered, because he couldn’t see those eyes well enough to read them.
Did she feel even a fraction of the desire that pulsed through his body? Was she almost trembling? Or was this all the fantasy of an aging man, caught off-guard by a young woman’s seductive beauty? Believing—
He refused to think too hard. Instead he pulled her head closer to his, closed his mouth on hers, plunging inside. He never kissed like this. He prided himself on consummate expertise, on dancing over a woman’s lips, coaxing her to give him her inner sweetness, to reward him with her lips, her mouth. It was all a foretaste of his future treatment of her body. He was a thoughtful lover, cherishing his partner’s pleasure as his own.
Not with Bea. His heartbeat pounded with the same rhythm as his tongue. As for technique…what technique? It was all he could do to stay upright, to control his hunger.
Yet she melted in his arms with a fervor he had never awoken in a lover before. If he was rudely plundering her mouth, she certainly wasn’t fainting at the intrusion. Her arms were around his neck, and she was—she was offering herself. Yet after a second she stepped back in a swish of silk, and he released her. “Where are you going?”
She smiled over her shoulder, and it was the same smile Cleopatra gave Antony. Antony had no hope of escaping; why should he?
“I’m not interested in wooing you, Mr. Fairfax-Lacy, as I think I’ve made clear. And I might add that my lack of interest is all the greater since you are now engaged to marry.”
“I’m—” But he stopped before he said not. Instead he smiled at her, an imitation of all those smiles she gave him, a sexy dance in his eyes. “Too much competition?” he asked softly.
Bea paused and turned her nose in the air. “I don’t compete.”
He leaned back against the wall, and it was happening again: around Bea, and only around her, he felt in his body, if only in fragile control of it. He deliberately spread his legs. They felt muscle hard…as did other parts of his body. Her eyes widened slightly. In one stride he had her pinned against the opposite wall. God, he loved the fact that she was tall enough for him. So many women felt like fragile little dolls in his a
rms.
“Bea,” he growled, looking down at her.
“Mr. Fairfax-Lacy?” she said pertly. But she didn’t try to move away. Not even when he brought his mouth down on hers, without apology, without warning, without pleading. Instead she just gasped and shuddered in his arms as his mouth drank from hers, came to her again and again with savage tenderness.
He kissed her until he knew she couldn’t pull away and give him that Cleopatra smile. Gone was the seasoned beauty, wise in the ways of the world and quick with her seductive invitations. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said she was a pure innocent. It was in her eyes, in the way she trembled in his arms, in the way she clutched his shoulders.
“I do wish you’d change your mind,” he said. His voice didn’t come out that siren call of the polished politician. No, it sounded deep, dangerous. The voice of a man who would seduce a young unmarried girl. Who instructed her to woo him. The kind of man who had a mistress, and a fiancée, and wanted yet a third woman.
Stephen reveled in it. He ran a slow hand down her side, and then swiftly, before he or she could think better, slid that hand around her sweet little bottom and pulled her hard against his legs. She gasped, and her arms spun tighter around his neck.
For one blissful second he pressed her into the wall, letting her know just how primitive their joining would be.
Then he snapped back and dropped his arms. “Because should you decide to compete,” he said, “I think you would find it worth your while.”
His smile was wild and tender and utterly unpolished. It was all Bea could do not to gasp yes, plead, beg…woo. Whatever he wanted. Her body was throbbing, liquid with desire, beating through her legs. Even her toes tingled. He wasn’t like the gentlemen she’d toyed with in the past. He was a man. More: he was a dangerous man, the sort of man who didn’t think twice about taking on a fiancée and a mistress in the same week. What would she be? The third woman?
She couldn’t drag her eyes off him though, off his broad shoulders, and off those wicked, wicked laughing eyes. How had she ever thought he was proper? He was some sort of a satyr! She licked her lips and watched his eyes narrow. If he reached for her again, she would do—whatever it was he wanted. The wooing he demanded.
How humiliating. If she did that, begged him in so many words, there would be no escape from all the words her father flung at her. No escape in her own mind. They all crowded together: wanton, short-heeled, soiled, doxy.
No. Bea swallowed hard, pushed herself from the wall, and started down the corridor without a backward glance. She couldn’t look back.
21
In Which a Marquess Pays a Call on a Lady
As Esme prepared for bed, she wondered exactly how much time she had to herself before Sebastian Bonnington joined her. Because he would, not matter how many future husbands she pretended to have.
She didn’t have to wait long. She was barely tucked into bed, with Jeannie sent back to the nether regions of the house, when her door opened. Esme was propped up against the pillows, wide awake. She was unable to sleep very much these days; her back and her belly seemed to be competing to make her uncomfortable.
Sure enough, he had that disapproving look that he always used to have, back when she was married to Miles and flirting with Bernie Burdett. Esme frowned. She never liked it when he played the Holy Willy then, and she didn’t appreciate it now, either.
“What are you doing in my room?” she demanded.
He walked slowly over to the bed. “Thinking about corporal punishment,” he said, staring down at her. “Hell-born brat. I can’t leave you alone for two days without finding you’ve attached a male to your skirts.”
Esme held on to her anger. She was the angry one. He had left her when she was on the verge of having a child (but he did come back, a little voice reminded her).
“I could have died while you were gone,” she said. Her voice sounded petulent and childish. “In childbirth,” she qualified.
“I talked to your midwife before I left, and she had no expectations that you would give birth before a week at least,” he said, still staring down at her. There was something in his eyes that made her feel uncomfortable. As if she’d disappointed him.
“Midwives don’t know everything!” she said shrilly.
He folded his arms across his chest. “I sent my mother to look after you.”
“Your mother!” she gasped. “Your mother is here to make certain that I don’t marry you!”
“I told her I was a gardener here because I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist calling on you. I had to visit my estate, Esme. I’ve done as much work as I could from afar, but I needed to be there, if only for a day.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I stayed up two nights so I could return to you as soon as possible. But it seems you had no trouble occupying yourself.”
Esme shot him a swift glance. Sure enough, there were weary circles under his eyes. And a bleak note in his voice that clutched her heart.
“I thought you’d left me,” she said, pleating the linen sheet with her fingers. “That you—”
“That I’d obeyed you?” he lifted her chin. “Because you did tell me in no uncertain terms that you never wanted to see me again, Esme. That I would ruin your reputation.”
“And so you will!” Esme managed.
“Not with my mother here,” he said.
There was nothing she could say to that. Of course, he was right. The very presence of the formidable Marchioness Bonnington would stop all gossip about his presence on her estate.
“But I see I didn’t need to worry,” he said ironically. “It seems you made other plans for the protection of your name.”
“I can’t marry you, Sebastian,” she said in a low voice. “I want respectability. Our marriage would be the greatest scandal to reach the ton in years. Your mother said that, and she’s right. I don’t want to be Infamous Esme anymore. Please understand!”
“I understand all right,” he said.
That was definitely disappointment in his voice. Esme swallowed hard. Her back was aching, and he was angry at her. And he was right. She shouldn’t have made that pretense of an engagement with Fairfax-Lacy.
Suddenly he pushed her over a few inches and sat down on the bed. “Back hurting?” And at her nod, he said, “Roll over.”
Esme rolled to the right, and those big hands started rubbing her neck and shoulders. The relief was so great that she literally forgot everything else for a few moments. Sebastian had miraculous hands. Somehow he was ironing away all the pain that crouched in her spine.
A half hour later she rolled back, propped herself up against the pillow, and eyed Sebastian. He had to leave her bedchamber. Women in confinement did not entertain gentlemen to whom they were not married. But she had to try to explain her own stupidities first.
“I thought to marry Mr. Fairfax-Lacy because—”
He interrupted her. “Are you sure that you remembered to warn poor Mr. Fairfax-Lacy of his impending marriage? Of course, I would never suggest that he looked disagreeably surprised, but he seemed to me…disagreeably surprised.”
Esme raised her chin. “He was merely startled by my public announcement. We had thought to wait until after the child’s birth.”
Sebastian didn’t seem angry anymore. “I haven’t even said hello to that child yet.” He spread his hands on the soft cambric of her night rail. “He’s all lumps and bumps. I don’t think there’s any room in there.”
“The midwife told me today that he is…well, ready,” Esme said. She felt a pulse of worry. The child seemed impossibly large to her.
But Sebastian looked up and grinned. “Don’t worry. He’ll slip out like a greased pig.”
“That is so vulgar!” Esme scolded.
“Look at this!” he said, disregarding her. “If I push on his little foot, he pushes back!”
They watched for a second and then burst into laughter.
“Oh, no!” Esme said, clapping a hand over
her mouth. “My goodness, I hope no one heard that.”
“They’ll think you’re entertaining your future husband,” Sebastian said, shrugging a bit. “Although no one here would give a bean who you were entertaining. I have to say, Esme, I’ve heard about your aunt’s house parties for years, but this one takes the cake. Who’s that extraordinarily luxurious-looking girl with all the paint on her face?”
“Lady Beatrix Lennox,” Esme said, “and don’t say anything cruel about her, because I like her hugely.”
“The scandalous one? Daughter of the Duke of Wintersall?”
“Exactly.”
Sebastian gave a little whistle. “Quite a gathering. You were certainly right when you thought it might endanger your reputation.”
“My aunt invited a few of her friends without my knowledge, and one thing led to another. And what about you? If anyone finds out you’ve returned from France and are attending this gathering, the ton will dine out on it for days.”
“Not with my mother here. And I don’t give a hang if they do,” Sebastian said, rubbing her tummy all over. “Face it, sweetheart. You’re not made for the respectable life. You collect scandals the way other women collect china. I have some trouble envisioning you as a dutiful wife of a party member.”
He leaned over, his face just an inch from hers. A dark blonde curl fell over his forehead. She could smell him…all that potent, clean-smelling male body.
“What are you doing in my bedroom?” Esme asked, quite annoyed to find that her voice was breathless.
“Paying a respectable visit to my future wife.” His eyes were the blue of a mountain lake. Except no mountain lake ever had that smoky look way down deep that made her want to squirm. “Surely you aren’t expecting your estimable fiancé to visit your chambers this evening. Since I intend to be your next fiancé, I have every right to be here. Besides, I feel a certain discontent with my performance. I must not have imprinted myself on your skin, given that you leaped directly into another man’s embrace.”