Company Of Rogues: A Shocking Delight Part 16

"Yet."

"When?"

"I don't know."

"Why the delay?" He was completely fascinated.

"Marriage is so confining for a woman and I have money enough to live well."

"A solitary life appeals?"

"I could have a female companion. More than one."

"No desire for children?"

"Children are a consideration," she admitted. "If I do marry in order to have children, a substantial portion of my dowry will be put in a trust, to be used by my husband only with my trustee's consent. That is, with my consent."

"Have you told your suitors that?"

"Negotiations haven't reached this far with any of them."

"Are we negotiating?"

"For your loverlike attentions, Lord Wyvern, with the slim possibility of a reward."

"Which I don't want, remember."

"Why?" she asked, apparently honest in her curiosity.

He couldn't be honest in return. How could he tell her she was too dangerous to him? Desperation drove him to step closer, so close that she had to tilt her head to continue to meet his eyes. He needed to rattle her, or perhaps he simply needed to kiss her, beyond all civility or sense.

He cradled her face and lowered his lips to hers. Such soft lips, pa.s.sive but giving no sign of protest, then parting just a little. Then kissing him back, enthusiastically.

He instantly stepped away, trying to conceal that it was retreat. A rout, even. Virago couldn't describe such lovely sweetness, but there had to be some term for the peril she presented.

Her eyes were bright now.

Who hunted whom?

"Why are you so sure you don't want to marry me?" she asked.

"I remember too many stories of G.o.ddesses who pursued mortal men for sport. They don't end well for the men."

She chuckled and he wasn't surprised. He was being ridiculous. He was also ensnared. He should be fighting to be free, but instead he couldn't resist her strange proposal.

It would allow him to keep his promise to Susan, but that was specious. He wanted to agree because it would give him an excuse to spend precious time in her company. He might yet discover that the impossible was possible. That more kisses were possible. A lifetime of them and all other delights. But if not, he would have a sip of the precious bowl to remember.

"Very well," he said, "but on one condition."

"Yes?"

"You pay me with a kiss a day."

She made a humming noise that was hard to interpret. "And why would I agree to that?"

"Because it's my price."

Her thoughtful look could be very steady indeed.

"You wouldn't prefer a guinea a day?"

"No."

"Ten?"

"No."

"A hundred?"

He should. "No."

"One kiss a day, then. Lips on lips. No more than that unless I agree."

"Do you always forge such a detailed contract?"

"I'm my father's daughter, Lord Wyvern, trained by him all my life."

"Good G.o.d. Why, then, the pretense of idiocy?"

"I was coming here as a Cit and as a reminder of a great scandal. I'd no mind to be even more of an oddity by showing that I had a brain."

"Clever women aren't so rare as that."

"Most young unmarried ladies disguise it."

"All is deception inside the fairy circle."

"I believe we've struck an honest deal," she said. "Are we agreed on our terms?"

He felt spun like a top, but he couldn't resist. "Agreed. I will be your favored escort and you will pay me with a kiss a day."

"For a week only," she said.

"Too short to have effect. Three weeks."

"A fortnight. You will need to return to pursuit of well-dowered ladies who might accept your offer, and by then I might have done with fairy matters."

"Very well," he said, having bargained to the time he'd expected, knowing that she probably had, too. Did that count as deception? Overall, she seemed to have been honest to a fault.

"Now we should return to the house," she said. "The dancing will soon begin again and I have paid today's kiss."

"The kiss was before the agreement. I owe you nothing."

Quick as a bird, she went on tiptoe and kissed him again. "There."

"Meager payment, Miss Potter, but very well." He extended his arm and she placed her gloved hand around it. Such a slight touch to create havoc.

She couldn't be truly opposed to marriage, but he didn't think she'd lied. If he could convince himself it was safe to marry her, would he then have to fight to persuade his G.o.ddess to the altar?

Lucy went with him, making sure to keep a light smile on her lips, but she was surprised he couldn't hear her heart or sense the sizzle that ran along her nerves. When he'd overpowered her so easily and dragged her into the shadows, she should have been appalled, but instead she'd felt a thrill close to flame. Not fear at all, but a fierce longing for him to embrace her ruthlessly, kiss her to distraction, and perhaps do more. At last she understood how foolish women allowed themselves to be ravished into ruin. Especially as she would only have been ravished into marriage. A marriage she wanted now, despite all the costs.

Sanity clamored a protest, but it couldn't dent her need for this man, always, everywhere.

It should be so simple!

He needed her money, and she had an abundance of it. Why wasn't he grabbing the prize?

When he'd seized her, he'd claimed to feel nothing, to be teaching her a lesson, but she knew that wasn't true. She'd heard his breathing, sensed his heat. When he'd kissed her she'd felt his tenderness. He'd broken the kiss and moved away, but not because he disliked it. Of that she was sure. Even now, entering the house and in sight of others, pa.s.sion hummed between them.

She was tempted to turn him back, to entice him in some way, to overwhelm his self-control and be ravished into commitment here and now.

To capture the prize.

Perhaps her mother would have done that, but Lucy had enough of her father's cool head to resist such a dangerous path when there were other ways.

She'd won the means to spend time with him, to learn him better, to find the way. She had to suppress a smile at how he'd seen the daily kiss as a bargaining point when the prospect filled her with a shocking delight. It had taken all her nerve to lay a fortnight as the term when she'd longed for a month.

As they entered the house clocks struck midnight.

"Does that mean it's a new day?" she asked. "That I paid that kiss for nothing?"

"It was a nothing of a kiss," he said. "We start afresh. Twenty-four hours ahead for labor and payment."

Lamplight showed a spark in his eyes-of anger that he was being manipulated? Perhaps a little, but there was excitement there, too-the same excitement that sizzled inside her.

"So there are, my lord," Lucy said. "Twenty-four hours through dark and daylight, and all the shadowy times between."

Chapter 14.

It was nearly three in the morning when Lucy entered her aunt's coach to return home, and some guests still danced at the d.u.c.h.ess's ball. She wasn't yet accustomed to such late nights, so she yawned as she settled into her seat, but she was alive with a different kind of energy.

She and Wyvern had danced together twice and it had been noted. Some of her suitors had already abandoned the chase.

Dancing with him had been extraordinary.

She'd danced with many men of all types, but never with one she desired. It made even the most conventional contact significant, and the second dance had been a waltz. The parts of the dance that turned them together in one another's arms had been almost unbearably delicious. He'd held her just a little closer than was proper, but she hadn't minded, and she'd felt the same excitement in him as in herself.

Only imagine the marriage bed. . . .

She glanced at her aunt and cousin, alarmed that they might guess her thoughts, but they were afroth with chatter, about turbans, about necklines and ankles, about whether Lady Harroving really might marry the scandalous d.i.c.k Cranbrook, and whether Lord Darien was as mad as his brother.

Lucy slid back into her thoughts. She was not entirely ignorant about marital matters. There had been girlish whispers and speculations, and sometimes a glimpse of servants in a corner doing what they shouldn't be doing. But, in addition, her father had some Indian prints that were quite startling. She and Betty had giggled over them, wondering whether normal people such as their neighbors did such things and deciding they did not.

Now, however, it seemed not quite so unbelievable. She and Wyvern kissing, touching, moving into positions . . .

"Wyvern."

Lucy jerked out of her sinful thoughts.

"You danced twice with him, Lucinda," Aunt Mary said.

Lucy admitted that she had, hoping her blushes were given an innocent interpretation.

"What did you think of him on closer acquaintance?" Clara asked.

Closer . . .

Lucy pulled her wits together. "He's an interesting man."

"But do you favor him?" Aunt Mary asked.

"He's the only young earl on the marriage market."

"Lucy!" Clara exclaimed. "What of love?"

"Love can come later," Aunt Mary said, "and often it is better so. I wouldn't want Wyvern for you, Clara dear, but given Lucinda's situation, she is being very sensible."

Being a scandal-ridden Cit of coa.r.s.er stock and thus less able to be choosy. But even thoughts like that couldn't darken Lucy's mood.

Her aunt could think what she liked. The lottery wheel had turned, the ax had fallen. Lucy was in love with Lord Wyvern with the same blind pa.s.sion that had driven her mother into Daniel Potter's arms. She could only hope it would turn out as well.

Nighttime was fertile ground for hot memories and fevered expectations, but Lucy managed to get some sleep.

She woke late, too late for the park. With kisses in mind, she was intensely interested in Aunt Mary's plans for the day. She saw some opportunities for him to woo her, but none for them to have a private moment until the evening when the Caldrosses were to attend a poetry reading at Drury Lane.

He would find a way to keep their bargain, and especially to make her pay her debt. She was sure of that.