Rogue in Red Velvet (20 page)

It would never be like that with anyone else. This pinnacle they reached belonged to them and them alone.

He growled as he thrust, as he kissed her, sounds of possession and she drank them in, took them as her own. As her right.

Then he opened his eyes, fixed her with a wild stare. “How close?”

“So close. You—always make me feel like that. Close, all the time. Alex, never before you. Never.”

The light of triumph dawned in his eyes. She was his and he knew it.

With a gleam in his eyes, he told her, “Ladies should always come first.”

They rattled the door with every stroke, the latch jangling on its stay, but she doubted anyone would complain about the noise. By now the party downstairs would be beginning.

Her party was here. Gripping his shoulders, driving her nails into the thick fabric of his coat like a kitten, Connie let him take her there. When she relaxed into him, she achieved that last soaring fall into ecstasy. She cried his name just once and to his muttered encouragement, she came around him, her inner passage fluttering. “Yes, that’s it. Nobody else, just me and you and what we make together. Go, sweetheart. I’ll follow.”

He was as good as his word. When she cried his name and arched her back, her sex clenching around his shaft, he gave a strangled cry and then came, his member pulsing deep within her.

Chapter 12

Alex laid her on the bed, keeping her skirts clear of the wetness between her legs. Bidding her stay exactly where he’d put her, he fastened his breeches before he went into the powder room and brought back a couple of cloths. He wiped her carefully and then bent and dropped a kiss where he’d so lately been.

“It’s a cock,” she murmured.

He stilled, glanced up at her face, then finished his task, chuckling. “You’re learning lascivious things, aren’t you?”

“From you. But I like that word.”

“It’s also a prick and a pizzle. And a dozen other words. It would be my delight to teach you all of them.” He looked forward to it. He fluffed her golden intimate curls and then smoothed down her skirts. “There. Good as new.”

She smiled and held her arms out to him. He caught her hands and lifted her up, so she sat on the edge of the bed. Then he knelt.

Gazing into her beautiful blue eyes, he said, “Mrs. Rattigan, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

“No.” She answered with no hesitation.

“I warn you, Connie, I shall keep asking.” He squeezed her hand. “May I ask my friends to wish me happy?”

She swallowed. “No.” So she wasn’t unaffected. That tiny swallow was her only giveaway, though.

If he asked her often enough, one day she might give in. And marrying Connie had become a challenge.

A jolt of recognition momentarily swamped him. He’d been in this situation before, but from the other side. He’d been the one rejecting. He remembered the pleas of his last mistress when he’d told her to take her time packing and leaving the house, that he’d give her the place if she wanted it. She’d said she didn’t want a house, only him. He’d thought it a bargaining tactic at the time but now he was not so sure and a pang of guilt pierced him at the remembrance. He’d only felt relieved when he cut her out of his life. Now Connie was threatening to do it to him. He’d given her more than he’d given a woman before but that hadn’t swayed her. She was walking away.

He couldn’t think of a woman he’d ever wanted more than he wanted Connie.

All wasn’t lost, not yet. Feeling more than a little self-conscious, he got to his feet. He might as well break the bad news. “Connie, you can’t go home.”

She stared at him, eyes wide, her pretty mouth slightly open. “Why not? Has Jasper claimed my home already?”

“No, not yet but he will if you run back to the country. He’s moving faster than I thought he would. Town is talking and he’s bruited it about that he saw you and recognized you. Just going home won’t work any longer. We need you in town now to face your detractors. You won’t do it alone.”

He paused, considered his words and rephrased them. If he’d taken her to Julius’s as his affianced bride, he could have put this differently, but he needed to ensure she went along with this part of the plan, for her own sweet sake. “Instead, I have an invitation for you from my cousin Julius Winterton and his lady sister. Helena has recently lost the good offices of our aunt as her chaperone, so you would be doing her a favor by staying. With Julius on your side, we won’t fail. We’ll restore your name and shame the devil.”

She blinked at him. “You’re giving up? You’ll accept my decision to refuse your offer?”

“By no means,” he said softly. “But I won’t force you, my sweet lady. If you want time to know me better, you have it. If you want to live down this scandal, we will help you. But be warned, I won’t leave you to the vultures.”

He drew her to her feet but didn’t let go, pulling her closer for a kiss. He kept it soft and gentle, fearing that if he let it, they would end on the bed again. And they didn’t have time.

“Come now. We’re going to the
Belle Sauvage
. Your maid is waiting with some luggage in a private room, so your name is on the register at the inn. I’ll pick you up, after shouting your name through the inn, so people will hear. We’ll climb into my coach and I’ll take you to Julius’s house in Brook Street. That will start our campaign.”

“What do you mean?” Her bewildered expression rocked him to the core. He wanted nothing more than to carry her off to a place where nobody would traduce her, or hurt her. If he’d had his way and married, her, that was his original plan.

“What can you do?”

He sighed and bent to pick up his hat from the floor where it had fallen disregarded when he’d come in. “Your name was mentioned—hell, it was bruited about and Dankworth made sure people remembered it.”

Her jaw trembled but she didn’t break. He adored her for that bravery.

“That doesn’t mean the deed cannot be undone. I belong to a family that has roots that run deep and wide in society. Few people wish to cross us. If we provide a reasonable alternative, then they may
choose
to believe that they saw someone else, maybe someone masquerading as you or someone who looked like you.” He dusted off his hat, more to look at something rather than her stricken face, but he had to look up. He’d promised himself he’d tell her the truth, and he would. Every bit of it. “The Dankworths are old adversaries of ours, and this attack on you may well be an attack on us, since I’ve shown an interest in you. We will traduce Jasper Dankworth and elevate you. Sweetheart, there are houses that cater for such things, women who will pretend to be whoever you want for a few hours. Maybe this woman at Cratchitt’s was one of those. But it couldn’t be you, because you’ve only just arrived in town. It couldn’t be you because you’re close friends with a duke’s daughter. We give them a chance to believe that, give them a story and they can believe it without losing face.” At the top level, society thrived on public and private faces. Give them a reason to believe, and whatever the truth, they would. “You see?”

She did. Her heavenly eyes were alight with understanding. She wouldn’t refuse that plan, would she?

She might. His Connie had a mind of her own. She pulled out of his arms, walked to the window and stared out. “So you’re saying that if I’m to confound Jasper, then I must remain in town. And I have to confound him, because otherwise he’ll have me declared morally incompetent and take everything I have to pay his wretched debts. These society people have to see me to assess my competence, do they not? They won’t endorse someone they don’t know, haven’t met, someone who could be everything they believe. Please don’t think I’m not grateful. I’m more grateful than I can say.” She turned around to face him once more, tears shimmering in her eyes.

He stayed where he was, but he didn’t need to get any closer to see her distress, her wide eyes, and the creases by the corners of her mouth. “Don’t be. I told you, you’ll do Helena a favor in return. Julius is the son of the Duke of Kirkburton. Their mother is a controlling woman who sees the only value in her daughters as pawns to further the family fortune. As such, she has raised her two daughters to be what she wanted them to be, not what they are. Helena, who the duchess labelled the ugly one, although I assure you she is far from that, was to become her companion. So her eldest daughter reached the age of five and twenty without entering society, but Julius bore her off to live in his household when he married. Now he is a widower he is determined to keep his sister, to prevent her mother getting her back. Helena is a strong woman, but she cannot set up her own household, not without declaring spinsterhood, and she cannot live respectably without a woman to chaperone her. Julius will do anything to prevent her return back to her mother’s embrace. The woman will bury her.”

Her eyes met his, wide and grave. “I find that treatment shocking in the extreme. My father never did that. I lost my mother early but my father never dreamed of holding me back to act as his housekeeper, or keeping me for his service. He offered to bring me out in society, and I said no. A York debut was good enough for me.” She nibbled at her lip, the gesture that he’d already learned meant she was fighting to retain her serenity. “I’ll come, if I can be of use to Lady Helena.”

“And to my family. It goes beyond familial vendetta. The Dankworths have been plotting for the return of the Stuarts for years. Any victory, however small, goes toward that.”

Alex wisely held his tongue, but he yearned to urge her to let him take care of her, to give her more than she’d imagined she could have. The desire to pour diamonds into her lap wouldn’t go down well with her in this mood. “Come, madam. Your carriage awaits.” He led her down to the hackney, taking the backstairs so none of the clientele would see her.

* * * *

An hour later, Alex’s town carriage deposited them outside a neat looking house in a fashionable part of London. As soon as Connie alighted, the door opened and Alex led her up the four shallow steps and into the hall.

Connie’s first impression was of superb taste and yet a sense of welcome. Since this house belonged to a leader of fashionable society she expected all taste, no warmth but she couldn’t have been more wrong. A vase of narcissi rested on a table by the entrance and the black and white tiled floor was dappled with light form the skylight high above.

She stood blinking, resisting a desire to move closer to Alex. After a happy reunion at the
Belle Sauvage
, Saxton had helped her into a cloak and hat. She handed them to the footman.

She presented a respectable appearance and felt more comfortable for it, even if the clothes weren’t hers. Hers had disappeared along with her respectability, even her mother’s pearls and her amethysts, something Connie regretted but refused to dwell upon. She had other mementoes of her parents at home in Cumbria.

A superior man not in livery, therefore probably a butler, stood at the bottom of the stairs. When she turned her attention to him, he addressed her. “If you will come this way, madam, my lady is waiting on your arrival.”

“Is anyone else there, Watson?” Alex asked.

“No, my lord. Only my lady and my lord.”

Intimidated by the perfectly superior manservant, Connie did what she always did in these situations. She put up her chin and lifted her skirts enough to climb the stairs without tripping.

Upstairs the butler led the way to a room at the back of the house and opened the door. Connie half expected him to announce her, like a town crier but of course he did not. Alex caught up with her and grinned. “Come and meet my dearest friends,” he said.

She stiffened her spine and did just that. Alex’s dearest friends were some of the most important people in society. She took a deep breath and pasted on her best smile.

Lady Helena welcomed her with smiling pleasure that Connie thought was for the benefit of the manservant and the maid who followed on his heels with a tray of tea.

The maid laid the precious china reverently on a table by the side of a large, comfortable sofa that retained the air of elegance Connie’d sensed the minute she’d walked through the doors.

Lady Helena was tall for a woman, deep bosomed with unpowdered fair hair, which gleamed in the light streaming through the large bay windows. She smiled with genuine warmth.

“But what a lovely room!” Oh no, her unruly tongue got the better of her again. The trouble was, she rarely did it when she felt comfortable, which meant she did it in company, or when it mattered. And she’d just done it again. Personal remarks might not be welcome.

“Thank you,” said Lady Helena. “It was the first room I’d had a free hand decorating.”

Connie wondered at that, because most women lucky enough to have their own bedchambers usually started there. Surely as the daughter of a duke, she’d had her own bedroom.

“Then she agonized over the expense,” said a cultured male voice. “She tends to do that. Always the provincial.”

Her ladyship’s laugh indicated that this wasn’t a bone of contention. More like good-natured teasing.

The exquisite in sapphire blue standing to greet her took Connie’s breath away.

Everyone had heard of Julius, Earl of Winterton, even people immured in the country. He featured in the gossip-sheets, the regular newspapers and sometimes in the more scurrilous literature Connie wasn’t supposed to know about. Someone who set fashion but who had also killed more than one man, if rumor had it correctly. The fascinating thing seemed to be that the more he exposed himself to the public eye, the less there was to see.