His Wicked Smile Read online

  “Like that, do you, Ann?” he said, and did it again while his hands measured her waist, then the flare of her hips. Her curves were firm with youth and good health. She had a body made to fulfill his every desire. Her mouth was moist, hot and eager when he put his lips to hers. She didn’t hesitate when his tongue stroked her skin. She opened to him eagerly and explored his mouth in turn. Knowing their time might be short, he stroked between her legs with his fingers. A widow knew what she wanted when she undressed in front of a man. She gasped and bucked her hips. He could feel her readiness. Their pleasure moved much too quickly, but he was a little drunk, a little dizzy from the massage, and too aroused for finesse.

  He massaged the pearl just inside its protective hood until she cried out and crushed her lips to his. His leg gave out and he half-fell to the bed. The pounding rain dampened the sound of the frame creaking. Ann’s weight came down over him, his hand still between her legs. Her hands covered his ears and she kissed him, artless yet not entirely untutored, her tongue tracing his lips and darting into his mouth. He rolled them over on the bed and she wrapped her legs around his waist in the most blatant of invitations. In no position to deny her, and with less will, he did what he was compelled to and found her slick channel, thrusting deeply. She cried out against his mouth and only then he realized how tight she was despite her obvious arousal. He stopped moving instantly.

  “I am sorry for being so little a gentleman.”

  “You are not so little,” she protested, then wriggled her hips. “Oh, sir, you are quite large.”

  “Gawain,” he said, laughing. “My name is Gawain Redcake.”

  “Gawain Redcake, nothing will come of this if you do not move.” She wriggled again.

  “I take it you are ready?”

  She poked one of his bottom cheeks with a finger. He laughed again and began a long, slow, drugging plunge, more intoxicating than the wine by far. Her scent was the oddest combination of India and England. The sandalwood and oil, smells of deep, earthy spices, and English wine. Lemon in her hair. And those musky scents of sex they created together.

  He was beyond the pain in his hip, the pleasure more than overcoming the strain. Or maybe the massage had done its job along with the pills. Ann eagerly took her share of their intimate efforts, her hips meeting his with every stroke. This was a woman who liked sex and clearly wasn’t having much of it. She made delighted sounds every time he thrust home. Her nails dug into the small of his back, then she danced her fingers up his back before clutching his bottom, pulling him against her.

  “Faster,” she panted.

  “You like a furious pace, madam?”

  “I can feel it coming. Please, more.”

  “I’ll oblige.” He gave her his best high-speed performance, though he wanted to savor her fragrant scent.

  “Don’t ever stop,” she whispered.

  He wanted to comply, but the drugging heat gloving him was too much. “I don’t want to. But we’ll do it again.”

  “Yes, tomorrow.”

  “Of course,” he promised, not knowing what he said. She gloved him with silky warmth, maddening pressure. He would be unmanned soon. Anything she might ask, he would promise to grant.

  “Oh, I’m coming,” she gasped, her head falling back.

  He licked her upthrust chin and sank even deeper inside her. She clutched at him, the pulsing on his manhood more than he could resist. He followed her down, everything focused on the tight pull of her body, her animal scent, her soft cries.

  His groan of satisfaction was that of a wild beast. She laughed softly. He opened his eyes and saw tiny beads of sweat on her temples. The sheet tangled around them, locking them into one satisfied mass of flesh.

  “Am I crushing you?” he asked.

  Her arms tightened around his back. “I like it. I haven’t felt this weight since my husband died.”

  He felt a tug of irritation at that. While he’d known she could not be his mistress as he never came to Leeds, he did not like to think of himself as a despoiler of proper widows. “You must have been very lonely.” Though he wondered at the truth of her words. She did work in an inn, and what inn didn’t have a willing barmaid to provide comfort for the night? Fern was the only other female in residence and he hoped to God the young girl wasn’t forced to provide her body to the customers.

  “Very lonely,” she said. “But this was Wells’s dream, and I haven’t any family of my own.”

  “You could marry again. You are in position to meet men.”

  “Someday.” She stirred restlessly underneath him, and his manhood perked up with interest. “When I fall in love again.”

  “I don’t think your body wants to wait for love,” he murmured, nuzzling her neck.

  Her head tilted to give him access. “Again so soon?”

  He wrapped himself around her and flipped until she was on top. “Like this.”

  “You want me to ride you?” She laughed, and he grabbed fistfuls of her fragrant hair, pulling her mouth to his. Despite her wishes to keep it free of oil, it had loosed from the pins, and proved irresistible to him. When they kissed, his erection surged, making her gasp and wriggle her hips. They began again, without ever having separated.

  April 22, 1888

  Gawain saw the Marquess of Hatbrook standing by a trap outside the Heathfield train station. The day was fine and he must have wanted to escape the house, given over as it was to females and babies. Hatbrook had sent a telegram to Scotland announcing the birth of his daughter, Lady Mary Ellen Shield, a week earlier and Gawain looked forward to seeing his first niece.

  “Looking a bit haggard, Hatbrook,” he said by way of greeting.

  “All the house arrangements are in a muddle because of the baby,” Hatbrook said, stifling a yawn. “You look none the worse for three weeks of travel.”

  Gawain lifted his traveling case into the box at the back of the trap, then carefully maneuvered himself onto the seat. Hatbrook jumped up with considerably more grace.

  “Leg troubling you?”

  “Travel does not agree with me. I had to stay over in Leeds while your brother went north. Once I could walk again, I followed.”

  Hatbrook lifted the reins. “Judah sent me a telegram every few days.”

  “We tracked Lady Elizabeth and Manfred Cross to Edinburgh but then lost the trail,” Gawain admitted. “Lord Judah is in the process of hiring a private inquiry agent who is a Scot. We were hampered by being strangers in the north.”

  “Neither of you would have social acquaintances there.”

  Gawain ignored the commentary and grabbed the seat to steady himself as the trap jolted forward. “Neither would your sister or the Cross lad.”

  “I am most disappointed at your lack of success.”

  “As am I, since I did hope to make the lady my wife.” He had to admit Lady Elizabeth’s charms had faded very quickly in his mind’s eye. His female fantasies were entirely taken over these days by thoughts of the alluring Ann Haldene. If it hadn’t been for an eagerness to see the baby he might have stopped in Leeds again.

  “Too late for that, I suppose.” Hatbrook didn’t turn his head.

  “They should have been able to marry by now, or at least by sometime this week, given the laws in Scotland.”

  “I wonder what they will live on,” Hatbrook mused.

  “Have you discovered any source of income?”

  Hatbrook’s mouth worked. “My mother’s jewelry box was raided. Beth’s was stripped as well. Nothing too fine, as the best jewels were in the bank, but such things that had been left in Mother’s room at her death. I expect Beth could have pawned enough to live on comfortably for six months or so.”

  Or more, if she did not try to live like someone of her station, Gawain suspected. If she had, she’d have been far easier to find.

  They spent the remainder of the journey going over the investigation in minute detail. “I suppose my brother will have to return soon.”

  “He
does have a new wife waiting,” Gawain said.

  “It is cruel to keep them apart,” Hatbrook agreed. “And Redcake’s is sorely missing its usual guidance. Sir Bartley has taken to reading the reports and offering Lady Judah advice, since Alys has been focused on the baby.”

  Gawain wondered if Beth knew what havoc her departure had wreaked. She had chosen the exact wrong moment to run off, or the exact right moment, in terms of having the fewest people able to search for her. For his part, he consigned her to the Fates, as he was done with her. Three weeks of discomfort and inattention to his business was quite enough trouble. He rubbed at his hip and again thought of Ann. In Scotland he’d been unable to find his Ayurvedic medicine, and once he’d finished Ann’s stores, which she’d offered to him upon departure, the pain had rapidly reappeared.

  “Do you think illicit behavior runs in families?” Hatbrook mused. “My mother—”

  “Lord Judah told me the story,” he said. “I’m sure your mother was a very unhappy woman, but your sister had no reason to be.”

  “Which is why I wonder. Some weakness of the blood?”

  Gawain knew that what Hatbrook was really worrying about was his child. A new baby had a way of focusing concern on inheritable family flaws. He had heard similar rumblings from his sister Matilda in terms of her illegitimate child’s wayward father, Theodore Bliven. “By the time you discover her nature, you will be too careworn and gray-bearded to care.”

  “Good God, man,” Hatbrook said, laughing. “She will likely be married off before I am fifty.”

  “That will be after the turn of the century. Have you thought of it? Our children will marry in the twentieth century.”

  “Do you have a new bride in mind? Now that my sister is lost to you,” Hatbrook said, an edge in his voice.

  “No,” Gawain said. “I shall not marry where there is not some social benefit. I will have to attend society events next spring when I can get back to London. Unfortunately, my attentions cannot be focused there this year. I am needed in Bristol and I may go back to Scotland to pursue some possible customers I met while up there.”

  “You did not spend so much time searching for my sister then.”

  “Of course I did,” Gawain snapped. “But one does offer one’s card and discuss business.”

  “I apologize,” Hatbrook said instantly. “Of course, you are right.”

  Gawain was pleased to see Hatbrook Farm coming into view. He rarely had a long conversation with his sister’s husband and he could see now that Beth’s specter would hang between them, creating ill thoughts. “You should be pleased that I am returning north, as it will give me the opportunity to supervise the inquiry agent.”

  “I am all for it,” Hatbrook said with false heartiness as a groom ran up to take charge of the horses. He jumped to the gravel driveway and Gawain followed more cautiously. A parlor maid opened the front door and Hatbrook took only the time to throw off his coat, hat and gloves before leading him to a warm family parlor on the first floor where Alys and Matilda were comfortable with their babies on their laps, a nursemaid hovering protectively in the background.

  “Shouldn’t you be abed?” Gawain asked, when he saw Alys, looking considerably slimmer than when he’d seen her last.

  “Not at all,” she said, tilting her head for a cheek kiss. “It was an easy birth and I am not delicate.”

  He compared one baby to the other, a tiny, unformed child with a scrunched-up face to the great boy of some four and a half months, grinning toothlessly at him. “It is amazing to think that in not too much longer these two will be indistinguishable, age-wise.” What he didn’t say was how utterly different their lives would be, a girl with an assured title and position in the highest society, and a bastard born to an unmarried tradesman’s daughter. But for now, they were equally comfortable and self-satisfied.

  When he had children, he wanted them to have the security of Alys’s child, rather than the hard road of Matilda’s. He still wished he could have forced Theodore Bliven to marry his younger sister, but when he had given the man funds to go to India and source new tea plantations for him, he’d had no idea Bliven had seduced Matilda. Now, he had failed Beth too, though, like his sister, she’d had a part in her seduction. He hoped Beth at least had a wedding out of the mess.

  “You look exhausted,” Alys said. “More than I do.”

  “Are you telling me I look older, twin?”

  “You are older,” she grinned. “By seven minutes.”

  “Father will never let me forget it,” he said. “Are he and Mother here at the Farm or at home?”

  “Mother is here but Father is in London keeping an eye on Redcake’s. Do you think Judah will come home soon?”

  “It depends somewhat on your husband and how insistent he is on keeping a relative in Scotland.”

  “I shall ensure Judah is allowed to leave,” Alys said firmly.

  “What of you, Matilda? Moving to Bristol soon?”

  “Once you have staffed your house properly. I cannot learn the business from you if you do not have a nursery and appropriate staff.”

  “Isn’t that your duty?”

  “Where do you expect little Jacob to sleep? A drawer?”

  Gawain dropped stiffly into a chair. “It is not so bad as that. We all lived in that house until eighteen eighty-four. You know it has a nursery.”

  “We didn’t move into it until about five years before that. Even Rose was thirteen by then,” Alys said.

  Gawain frowned. “It does have a nursery on the second floor. I’m sure of it.” He never climbed stairs he didn’t have to. Going up one staircase to his bedchamber at night was quite enough. He’d insisted on installing a full bathroom in his suite as well, once he’d taken possession of the house.

  “I’ll send a note to your housekeeper,” Alys said, “with the necessary instructions. I’m sure she can have proper furnishings ordered and staff hired by June.”

  “Very well. I will wait to go to Scotland until August then.”

  “Redcake’s business?”

  “No, my own.”

  “I’ve been waiting for you to speak of Beth,” she said gently.

  He shrugged. “Nothing to say. She has vanished into the highland mist.”

  “She’s such a bright, eager girl,” Alys mused. “So enthusiastic.”

  “She’s a fool,” Matilda said with a sour expression. “I wish she had spoken to me. You would think my example alone—”

  Alys glared at her. “How do you think Jacob would feel to know you speak so? Given his beginnings he could not have a better life.”

  “Beth should have known better, chasing after such a young man like that.”

  Gawain’s sharp mind picked up the fresh detail. “Wait. Are you saying they did not run off together?”

  Matilda pressed her lips together. “She had threatened to do it, but I did not think she was serious.”

  “You didn’t tell anyone?”

  “I was here and she was in London, for the Season! Who would I have told? It was just a young girl’s fancy, written in a letter.”

  “Then Manfred Cross didn’t want her?” Hope flared for a moment, then extinguished again. No matter how things had begun, it had been weeks.

  “No, he did. But with no prospects, he was concerned. He told Beth he didn’t want to be a fortune hunter.”

  “We never thought to look for them separately,” Gawain mused. “Manfred Cross might not be hiding. I must write a letter to Lord Judah immediately.”

  “Yes,” Alys agreed. The babe in her arms let out a tiny cry and the nursemaid rushed forward. “I need to take my little one to her room.”

  Gawain nodded absently. Alys pointed out the writing desk on her way out, and he went to it and opened the drawer, looking for paper.

  “Your limp is worse than ever,” Matilda said.

  “It’s from the travelling. Worst thing I can do for it.”

  “I am sorry you’ve gone to all th
is trouble. Beth thinks of you as a brother, you know. She wouldn’t have wanted you to suffer for her.”

  Gawain turned with a snarl. “She’s a thoughtless, silly girl, just like you, with no thought of consequences to herself or her family.”

  Instead of yelling back, Matilda straightened in her chair. “I have made my apologies and I have paid in blood besides. At any rate, I do not know what difference it makes to you.”

  He sat. Matilda may have matured, but she did not seem to realize how each member of her extended family suffered for her mistake. All of them, Hatbrook, Alys, himself, and their youngest sister Rose, had found themselves a part to play in the disaster that led up to Matilda’s unwed pregnancy. The guilt had kept them all together in a sense, as Gawain knew for a certainty that Hatbrook detested Rose for her gossipy sins, yet housed her because both she and Matilda had been so ill, Rose with her asthma and Matilda with the pregnancy.

  As he sat there with a pen, looking out over the rose garden behind the house, he realized that even Beth’s drama had a start in Matilda’s history. For Lady Bricker had been a catalyst in it as well, and she was Lady Judah’s and Manfred Cross’s first cousin. Since Hatbrook’s opinion of the Cross family was as low as his opinion of Rose, had he created a Montague-Capulet fantasy in Beth’s mind? She had proved herself as lovely, innocent, and wayward as any Juliet. But it sounded as if Manfred had no desire to be Romeo.

  Gawain didn’t want to get back on any swaying carriage the next day, but he did need some exercise, so he took a horse into the village. Of course, this did not agree with his bad hip, so he tied up the horse outside of the first pub he saw in Heathfield and went in for a glass of ale.

  He limped up to the wood plank bar and seated himself on a stool, hoping the alcohol would ease the burn in his hip. Unfortunately, he would need to stay at the Farm another day or two until the pain lessened sufficiently for him to be able to tolerate the train. His mother was pleased to see him, and he’d had fun bouncing Jacob on his good knee, while telling Alys about his Scottish adventures. He’d even mentioned Mrs. Haldene in a roundabout way, telling her that he’d met a genuine Indian healer.