Surrender to the Marquess Page 11

  She watched him as he talked to the men unhitching the team, saw them react to his natural authority and the easy way he spoke to them as he helped out by taking a trace, lifting the shaft. As she leaned against the wheel, sleepily content in the shadows, she wondered where the stern, authoritarian man had vanished to.

  Then, as Lucian turned, he froze, his attention on a vehicle on the far side of the yard. He asked a question, his voice sharp in the almost deserted space. Then he strode towards her, all trace of that tired smile wiped from his face. ‘They are here.’

  ‘Thank goodness.’ The relief was heartfelt until she realised what might happen now. As Lucian turned to reach into the back of the curricle for the valises—or his pistols, she did not stop to see which—Sara ran across the yard and through the door of the inn. A sleepy waiter in the hallway jerked awake as she shook him by the shoulder. ‘The young couple who arrived earlier. Which room are they in?’

  He gaped at her clothing, seeming not to comprehend the educated English combined with such exotic garb, but when she repeated the question he pointed at the stairs. ‘Number six, on the left…’

  Sara took the stairs two at a time, blessing her trousers, and skidded to a halt in front of a door with a faded number six painted on it. She knocked, then, as the front door banged open again, turned the handle and went in. There was a gasp and a scuffle from the shadow that must be the bed, then she knocked against a chair, spun it round and jammed it under the door handle. ‘Marguerite?’

  ‘Sara? Gregory, it is Sara.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, light a candle,’ she snapped as footsteps came closer along the uncarpeted landing. There was a scrabbling, a scraping and then a flicker of light that grew as the man in the bed touched it to the candle wick.

  ‘Open this door.’ Lucian kept his voice low, but the tone was enough to have Marguerite turn white.

  ‘In a moment,’ Sara said, then glanced at the bed. ‘I suggest you both get into something less likely to inflame the Marquess than your bare skins.’ She turned her back as the door latch rattled, but kept talking. ‘Do you want to marry him, Marguerite? Be very certain.’

  ‘Oh, it is you in those clothes! I didn’t… Yes, oh, yes, of course I want to marry Gregory. But Lucian will kill—’

  ‘No, he will not.’ Sara realised she was standing on a pair of breeches and tossed them behind her on to the bed as a fist thudded into the door. ‘Hurry up! It will only enrage him further if he finds you in bed together—’

  The lock broke and the chair went flying. Lucian stalked into the room, kicking pieces of wood aside. His hands, Sara saw with a gulp of relief, were empty.

  ‘Lucian, she wants to marry him, you can’t kill him now.’

  He brushed past her as though she wasn’t there. Sara spun round to find that the young man with the scarred face was on his feet wearing nothing but breeches and his eyepatch. With a courage that Sara could only marvel at he moved round the bed until he was face to face with Lucian who was four inches taller and far broader in the shoulders. ‘I am at your disposal, my lord.’

  The right hook sent him sprawling on the floor. Lucian grimaced and blew on his knuckles. ‘Get up. I can’t talk to you down there.’ Gregory got unsteadily to his feet, lifted his chin until he could look Lucian in the eye and stood there swaying.

  ‘It did not occur to you to come to me and tell me what had happened in Lyons?’

  ‘I begged him not to.’ Marguerite, her nightrobe half off her shoulders, scrambled across the bed and clutched Gregory’s arm.

  ‘And you still want to marry this fluff-headed chit?’ Lucian asked, his tone verging on friendly curiosity.

  ‘I… Yes, my lord. I love her.’ Gregory’s face reflected complete surprise at the question.

  ‘You will give me your word that you will both stay here tonight. In the morning we will discuss what is to be done. Yes? What is it? Don’t you knock on your guests’ doors?’ He turned on the unfortunate landlord who stood on the threshold, nightcap askew, a truncheon in one hand.

  ‘There is no door! You broke it open!’

  ‘I broke the lock and a chair. And I will pay for the damage,’ Lucian said coolly. ‘I want two decent bedchambers for myself and my valet.’

  Sara stepped back into deeper shadow as Lucian advanced on the landlord, making him step back on to the landing. ‘Give me your word you will not run away again,’ she said to the young couple, low-voiced and urgent. ‘I promise you he will allow you to marry.’

  ‘My word on it,’ Gregory said, his voice shaking. Marguerite burst into tears and Sara, her head spinning with tiredness, looked round the door, saw the landlord in full retreat and joined Lucian. ‘They will stay there,’ she told him, closing the damaged door behind her as best she could.

  ‘That is the good news,’ Lucian said. ‘The bad news is that a severe storm two days ago took most of the tiles off the back of the roof. There are only two habitable bedchambers and that—’ he jerked a thumb to the room she had just left ‘—is one of them. I’ll sleep in the bar.’

  As he spoke the landlord came up the stairs, dumped their luggage at the top with a glare and stomped back down again.

  ‘No, you will not.’ Sara scooped up her valise. ‘We will both sleep in the remaining bedchamber.’

  ‘Sara, we agreed about this.’

  ‘We agreed that you would not want your lover befriending your little sister. Well, your little sister is in there in bed with a man she is not married to and you need a good night’s sleep because you have a lot of thinking to do in the morning.’ She blinked at him, almost too weary to focus. ‘Please, Lucian. I will only lose sleep worrying about you otherwise.’

  Lucian picked up the pistol and sword cases. ‘Anything to keep you from worrying.’ His smile was wry as he added, ‘I really do not think I am a threat to any woman’s virtue tonight.’ He led the way down the passage and pushed open a door. ‘This is the one, I think. Yes, it does appear to have a ceiling.’

  Sara stumbled into the room. She was beyond tiredness, she realised hazily, and hardly aware of what he was saying. She tugged her turban loose with one hand and began to unbutton her coat with the other. On the far side of the bed Lucian was dragging off his clothes in just as random a manner. When she fell into bed dressed only in her shirt she was barely conscious of the covers being pulled over her shoulders or of Lucian’s breath warm on her ear as he murmured goodnight.

  Chapter Eleven

  Fingers drifted across his chest, encountered a nipple, sifted through hair, then drifted on, downwards. Lucian woke slowly, coming up through layers of sleep to the awareness of that erotic touch, to the realisation that this was not a dream, that this was not his bed, that his shoulders ached dully and that something was lurking that he did not want to deal with. But just now, at this moment, there was nothing but pleasure. Sara.

  He opened his eyes, savouring the sensations, unwilling, yet, to hurry anything. The weak light filtering through thin cotton curtains at the window showed it was early, not much past five. He turned his head on the pillow, his cheek touching the rough silk tumble of Sara’s unbound hair and realised that she was still no more than half-awake.

  The fan of her lashes fascinated him, thick and long and much darker than her hair. Her lips were slightly parted, her breathing light and fast, her cheeks faintly flushed. She was aroused, he realised, even though she was still virtually asleep.

  Her wandering hand slipped down, making the skin tighten beneath its warmth, then the tip of one finger found his navel, dipped inside, and Lucian doubled up with a snort of laughter.

  ‘Mmm—?’ Sara blinked awake.

  ‘I am ticklish there.’ Lucian came up on one elbow so he could kiss her. ‘But do not let me stop you exploring,’ he murmured against her lips.

  Sara kissed him back, slowly, languorously, as her hand bumped against the blatant evidence of his arousal and she enclosed him in a perfect grip, firm, unhurried, wickedly skil
led.

  ‘Sara, we had agreed not to do this,’ he said, coming fully awake with a jolt, reaching for self-control with an effort that hurt.

  ‘Why on earth did we do that?’ she asked, sounding as distracted as he felt.

  ‘Shocking Marguerite, as I recall. That seems a little redundant now.’

  Sara nodded. ‘Absolutely.’ She gasped as he let his fingers roam.

  He had forgotten, somehow, that she had been married, that she would know exactly what she was about—and that she knew what she needed also, he realised, as she arched up to meet his own seeking fingers.

  Mouths joined in an endless kiss, they moved together, became one undulating, shifting, yearning body, stoking fires even as they soothed them, teasing and tormenting, then gentling, caressing. Sara was like liquid silk in his hands, against his body, demanding, yielding, giving, challenging him to demand more, give more.

  When he finally rose up over her, caging her between his elbows, fitting himself into the cradle of her curves, she became still, gazing up into his eyes from the fathomless moonstone-grey of her own. ‘Lucian. Yes. Yes.’

  It must have been some time for her, he made himself remember that, made himself go slowly and she let him lead, quivering in his arms with little moans of encouragement as she opened like a flower to take him, then held him within her, tight, hot, still. And she stayed motionless in his arms, as her inner muscles rippled and stroked with a subtle, devastating pulse that had him shaking with the effort to hold back his climax.

  ‘Wicked, clever woman,’ he whispered and finally let himself move, take over the rhythm, drive them both tighter and higher into a spiral of pleasure that became a sharply focused endless moment of sensation made up of the sound of their bodies working together, their mingled, sobbing breath, the scent of their arousal, until he knew he could not hold on much longer. ‘Come, come for me now…’

  And as Sara arched up, eyes wide, lips parted on a keening cry of pleasure, he wrenched himself from her and shuddered to completion on the silken skin of her belly.

  *

  ‘I suppose we should move,’ Sara suggested as she lay with her cheek pressed to the admirably hard planes of Lucian’s chest some unfathomable time later.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, his voice rumbling under her ear. ‘Excellent idea.’ He did not stir.

  ‘It must be seven o’clock.’ He grunted, sounding suspiciously like a man drifting off to sleep again. Sara blew on his nipple, which produced some reaction, although one that was not very conducive to getting out of bed.

  ‘Someone has to be strong-minded,’ she announced, mentally cursing eloping couples and her own sense of responsibility that told her she must somehow create a happy ending for Marguerite and Gregory.

  ‘Are you a nag, madam?’ Lucian sat up, catching her by the shoulders to pull her up with him. ‘Am I to rise and go forth and deliver lectures and chastisement?’

  ‘No. You are to rise and think of some way of extracting those two from this pickle with reputations intact.’

  ‘London is quiet. I could get them back to the town house and married from there by special licence. Or St George’s, Hanover Square, with a show of openness, but safe in the knowledge that virtually everyone is out of town.’ Lucian got off the bed, stooped to give her a rapid kiss, then threw on his robe and pulled the bell rope.

  Sara burrowed down under the covers when a tap on the door heralded a maid servant who was promptly sent for hot water. ‘And plenty of it. And breakfast in half an hour.’

  ‘That all seems rather hole-and-corner,’ she remarked ten minutes later as she sat up in bed, arms wrapped around her knees, and admired the view of Lucian, naked, shaving. He really does have the most excellent backside, she thought, indulging in a long, sensual stretch. ‘Especially with her not being out yet.’

  ‘I know it. What I need is a house party, if only I knew who to trust. Then the pair of them, finding themselves away from the normal environment of my town house, can make the startling discovery that they are in love.’

  ‘And you can be persuaded, in full view of the interested onlookers, to yield to the pleas of young love and all will be well?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Lucian tipped the water into the slop bucket and began to dress. Sara took his place at the washstand, marvelling at how easy it was to be like this with him, so at ease and yet tingling with the awareness of his closeness, of his body.

  ‘The only problem being, I do not know anyone I can trust well enough to turn up, out of the blue, with a battered secretary who has been absent from the scene for months and a wan-looking little sister.’ He raised his chin and squinted into the glass as he tied his neckcloth.

  Sara dipped the brush in her toothpowder and scrubbed at her teeth, rinsed, spat and straightened up with an idea. ‘But I do. My parents have a house party and the first guests arrived yesterday. We can join that. I think you will need to tell them something of the background, but you can trust them absolutely to keep the secret and to play along with the deception.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’ Lucian stuck a pin in his neckcloth and turned. ‘It would be perfect—if they agree.’

  ‘Eldonstone is in Hertfordshire, near St Albans. About one hundred and fifty miles from here, I suppose.’ She took the walking dress out of the valise, gave it a shake, frowned at the creases and put it on anyway. This was where respectability began.

  ‘It would be perfect,’ Lucian repeated, slowly, ‘if you and I had not just become lovers.’

  ‘That is simple. We are not lovers for however long we are at Eldonstone,’ Sara said, rather more firmly than she felt. ‘Quite simple. We met at Sandbay, I became friends with Marguerite and invited you both to the house party. You have a great press of business, so Gregory comes, too. He has been away for some time recovering from whatever caused his injury and he and Marguerite see each other differently in these new surroundings.’

  ‘While you and I behave with great circumspection,’ Lucian said with resignation. ‘The things I do for my sister.’

  She laughed and he turned from packing his valise to look at her, his expression serious but unreadable. ‘Are you all right? This morning—’

  ‘This morning was bliss and I cannot wait to do it again and I am very much all right, Lucian.’ She hesitated, wondering how to say this right, word it so that he understood she had no expectations beyond this relationship. ‘I feel free. Free to have made the choice to be your lover.’ Now she knew what she was doing, she had choice and there was nothing to feel guilty about in her relationship with this man. She had experienced more than enough guilt to last her a lifetime.

  ‘Good.’ He nodded, still serious. ‘That is good.’

  So, Lucian had no desire for this to be anything but a coming together for mutual pleasure either. That was excellent, just what she wanted. Of course it was.

  *

  ‘How good is your acting?’ Sara asked Marguerite as the chaise bumped off the cobbles and on to the road towards Lichfield. The relief of discovering that she could marry Gregory safely, or perhaps the effects of a night in her lover’s arms, had put roses in Marguerite’s cheeks and a glow in her eyes. I wonder if it has done that for me. She certainly felt physically transformed. Looser, warmer, more alive.

  ‘My acting?’ The young woman bit her lip in puzzlement. ‘I have no idea. Why?’

  ‘Because you are going to have to seem to either fall gradually for Gregory or to have a coup de foudre, a sudden revelation that you love him. What we must avoid at all costs is any impression that the two of you felt anything for each other before this house party.’

  ‘I can do that—in fact, I can see it all perfectly.’ Marguerite smiled. ‘I think perhaps I will be solicitous of him because of the injury. Lucian will be working him too hard and I will try to help. That will bring us close and then we will realise that we have loved each other all along and did not recognise it.’ She glanced out of the window at the front of the chaise, past the bobbing
backs of the postilions, to where Gregory sat beside Lucian in the curricle.

  The imperious blast of a horn behind them had both vehicles pulling over to let the mail coach sweep by. ‘That should be carrying my letter to my parents,’ Sara said. ‘I am hoping it will arrive at least an hour before we do.’ It would certainly help if Mata spoke about inviting Sara’s new friend and her brother in advance of their arrival. She had racked her brains to try to recall who was expected, but one could never tell with Mata, who might take the fancy to entertain anyone from a bishop to an actress, or sometimes both at the same time. Hopefully there would be at least a few pillars of the establishment, which was what was needed to ensure no shadow of gossip attached to Marguerite.

  ‘I cannot thank you enough for persuading Lucian to accept the match and to only hit Gregory once,’ Marguerite said earnestly. ‘I cannot believe how forgiving he is being.’

  ‘I suspect it is a mixture of realising he cannot shut the stable door given that the horse has bolted not once, but twice, and a reluctance to pulverise an injured man. What did happen to Gregory in France?’

  ‘A roof tile fell off a building that was being repaired. It did not hit him right on the head, thank goodness, or I think he would have been killed, but it tore right down the side of his face as you can see. He was taken unconscious to a nearby nunnery where the sisters cared for him and sent for a doctor, but they could not save his eye. He was unconscious, then in a high fever and in no state to explain himself, let alone get out of bed. It was two weeks before he could persuade someone to go round to the lodgings to find me and by then I was on my way back to England with Lucian.’ One fat tear ran down Marguerite’s cheek and she dashed it away. ‘He says I must not think about it, but I cannot bear to think of him in so much pain and so worried.’

  ‘That is all behind you now. This evening we will make certain that we are all telling the same story and everything will be well.’