Beyond Scandal and Desire Read online

He was reading from a stack of papers, occasionally scratching a pen over the parchment. The sight of him did funny things to her insides, as though a thousand butterflies were fluttering around. He went to dip his pen into the inkwell, paused, lifted his head, pierced her with his blue gaze, and it was like the one time she’d dared to climb a tree, fallen from her perch and hit the ground hard. She struggled to draw in breath, thought it would forever be denied to her—­and then it swooshed back in with a sweet, delicious ache.

  Slowly, so slowly that his movements were almost imperceptible, he set down his pen and came to his feet. “Lady Aslyn.”

  His voice was raw, as though he’d not had anything to drink in a century, although there was a glass of amber liquid on his desk, near the edge of the papers, within easy reach. Perhaps whatever he’d been sipping had burned his throat.

  “Mr. Trewlove.”

  He darted a glance toward the windows as though to confirm it was still night beyond these walls. His gaze came back to her. “How might I be of service?”

  Gathering her resolve, she marched forward and set the leather box in the center of his desk. “A lady cannot accept such a precious gift from a gentleman with whom she is merely an acquaintance.”

  Slowly his deep blue gaze traveled over her, seeming to halt a fraction of a second at each button, each ribbon, each clasp. “The last time you returned a gift to me, you had a solicitor handle the matter.”

  She noticed a small leather box on the corner of his desk. Was it the cameo? Did he keep it visible as a reminder that she’d rejected his overture? But if he were bothered by it, surely he wouldn’t have given her a tour or danced with her. “At the time, I didn’t know where to find you.”

  He dropped his gaze to the box containing the pearls and comb, then looked at her through lowered lids. “It’s not a gift but simply the return of something that belongs to you.”

  “I’m certain you had to pay to obtain it.”

  He gave a little shrug as if it were of no consequence. “Purchase it from me, then.”

  A hundred pounds alone for the comb. The pearls had probably been valued the same or perhaps more. She was quite certain it wasn’t going to be an even swap, but she did long to have them. “How much?”

  “A quid.”

  “I’m certain he charged you more. I have a ­thousand—­”

  “Have you taken leave of your senses?” he bellowed, the blue of his eyes reminding her of the hottest flames dancing in a fire. “You’re walking about London at night with a thousand pounds on you?”

  “No, I traveled in a hansom.”

  “And what if some bloke decided to stop that hansom and rob it? Rob you? Take that money off your pretty little person?”

  Did he think she was pretty? He was angry with her, and yet she couldn’t seem to be frightened by his belligerence. Rather it warmed her that he seemed to care about her safety, even though she felt she’d taken adequate precautions to ensure it. “Why would someone think I was worth robbing?”

  “Because you’re dressed in finery like a lady who might be silly enough to walk around London with a thousand quid stuffed in her—­” He waved his hand at her as though he thought she might have stashed it in an unmentionable area.

  “My reticule.”

  “Well, he’d have not stopped with the taking of it. He’d have given you a thorough search—­”

  She didn’t care to hear where he might have searched. “As I said, I did not walk. Well, except up your steps, and then there was your man to look out for me.”

  The fury seemed to deflate out of him. “There are men around here who would kill for a thousand quid.”

  “I suspect there are some who would cheat for it, as well. Did your bricklayer cheat while playing cards with Kipwick?”

  “No. My people know I don’t tolerate cheating. I’d have let him go. A man who cheats at cards might cheat elsewhere, including in the work he gives me. Besides, my brothers were watching. The problem, Lady Aslyn, is that your fiancé bends his elbow as much as he holds the cards. Guzzling too much drink hampers a man’s judgment, his ability to calculate the odds of winning.”

  She feared drinking wasn’t the only problem Kip had. “Since he lost fair and square then, and you’ve offered to sell the items to me, tell me how much I owe you.”

  “I told you. A pound.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He arched a dark brow over one of those beautiful blue eyes. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  She angled up her chin. “Yes. I quite believe I am.”

  His laughter, deep and masculine, circled around her, sent the calming butterflies back into flight. “No one has ever dared call me a liar—­at least not to my face.”

  “I just find it very difficult to believe the gent last night would be willing to settle for so little when he obviously knew the pieces were of value.”

  “He had no idea of their value. He based their worth on what he could tell about the lady who was wearing them. He knows quality when he sees it.”

  “What did he insist you pay in order to hand them over to you?”

  “He owes me his livelihood. As a favor, he traded them to me for a quid.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t give you only a quid. It doesn’t seem right.”

  “I gave a crown to the lad who delivered them to Hedley Hall. You can reimburse me for that as well.”

  Stubborn man. If he really paid a quid, she’d eat the hood of her pelisse. Opening her reticule, she scrounged through it until she located the two coins she needed. She placed them on the desk, took the leather box and dropped it into her bag.

  He left the coins where they were, tipped his head toward the corner of his desk, grinned. “You can purchase the cameo for a shilling.”

  She wasn’t half tempted. “You paid a good deal more for it than that. I, too, recognize quality. And don’t tell me the jeweler owes you his livelihood so he sold it to you on the cheap. It is frightfully pretty, though.”

  “My mum always longed to have a cameo, thought it was something posh ladies wore.”

  “You should give it to her, then.”

  “I’ve given her a dozen by now. Anytime I see one that’s a little bit different, I pick it up for her. Makes it special that I was thinking of her when I bought it. I wasn’t thinking of her when I purchased this one.”

  She felt her cheeks warm. He’d been thinking of her. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t known that fact. Still having it voiced made it seem all the more scandalous, especially because she found herself wondering exactly what visions of her might have been prancing through his head at that time. “I can’t accept it.”

  “Not even as a betrothal gift?”

  Her cheeks warmed further, and she was surprised they didn’t ignite. “That would be entirely inappropriate.”

  “Pity.”

  She glanced around the room, at the bookcase of ledgers, the one of books, a piece of wooden furniture that was naught but nooks, crannies and drawers in an assortment of sizes. In addition to the chair behind his desk, there were two in front of it. Black leather, thickly padded. Those who carried on business with him would be comfortable while doing it. The room was dimly lit, the only light coming from the lamp on his desk. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed before. He had seemed to loom within her vision, to absorb her entire focus. “You have a very nice office.” A corner one at that, with windows behind him and on the wall off to the side.

  She wandered over to a side window and glanced out. It faced the street where the hansom had stopped. The driver was still waiting, even though she suspected twenty minutes had passed. Although he made not a sound, she was acutely aware of Mick coming to stand just behind her left shoulder. The room shrank with his nearness.

  “That building across the street, on the corner, is that the one
your sister wants for her bookshop?” Based on the windows, it was three stories in height and had a quaint appearance to it.

  “It is.”

  “Are you going to let her have it?”

  “If she truly desires it.” His voice had gone lower, raspier, as though he were answering a different question entirely. His mouth was hovering extremely closely to the nape of her neck. She could feel his breath stirring loose tendrils of her hair.

  Her mouth was suddenly dry. She couldn’t have swallowed if her life depended on it.

  “Why are you truly here, Aslyn?”

  No formality. His use of only her name created an intimacy that was thick with promise. She shouldn’t be here, and yet she seemed incapable of forcing herself to leave. Was this how Kip had felt at the table last night, when he’d been desperate for her pearls?

  “You’ve been spending time with Kipwick.”

  “On a couple of occasions, yes. He had an interest in the questionable parts of London.”

  “I want you to dissuade him from traveling these paths that will lead him to ruin.”

  Although she gazed out on the street, and he was behind her, she was very much aware of him going very still. “I cannot prevent a man from seeking what he desires, but I can see he comes to no harm in his pursuits.”

  “You wield that much power within the darker realms of London?”

  “They shaped me into what I am. Unlike Kipwick, I neither worship nor bow before them.”

  “Yet you make use of them.”

  “When it suits my purposes or the purposes of those who come to me seeking something that lies beyond their reach but is within my grasp to grant. Tell me, Aslyn, what do you desire?”

  His low, mesmerizing voice shrouded her in a veil of trust. All the naughty images, the improper thoughts that plagued her when she let down her ladylike guard came rushing to the foreground. Images that inappropriately filled her mind when he was near. “Things to which I can give no voice.”

  “The darker pleasures, then.”

  His mouth, hot and moist, landed where her neck curved into her shoulder. Her eyes slid closed. His tongue lapped at her skin. Of its own accord, her head dropped back as heat sluiced through her, pooled in her belly, swirled lower to settle between her thighs.

  His lips trailed along her throat. His hand cupped her cheek, turned her head slightly, tilted it up. His mouth retreated. Opening her eyes, she found herself staring into the blue depths of his.

  “So many sins from which to choose,” he rasped, just before lowering his mouth to hers.

  With a gentle nudging of his tongue, he urged her to part her lips. She complied, and her world spun upside down as he explored the hidden depths with a fervor that matched her own. Here, here was the heat she’d expected of a kiss. The demand for more, the yearning for all.

  His mouth was delicious and wicked and skilled. She didn’t want to contemplate all the practicing it had taken to hone such remarkable talent. There was nothing cool, nothing proper, nothing distant in his actions. He was fully involved, devouring her mouth as though she alone provided sustenance, as though only through her could he be sated.

  Her heart pounded with such ferocity that she was certain he had to feel it when he pulled her in closer, flattening her breasts against his broad chest. The blood rushed through her ears. Her nerve endings tingled, dampness pooled between her thighs. There was a throbbing, a pulsing at her feminine core that urged her to press herself nearer. He growled, his vibrating chest sending ripples of pleasure coursing through her. She needed to put a name to what she was feeling, to the sensations bursting through her. An insane thought flashed through her mind.

  The kiss felt like winning.

  Kissing her was the best decision he’d ever made in his life. Kissing her was the worst decision he’d ever made in his life.

  He’d been intimate with women, but none had ever kissed him like this, as though their very existence relied on their mouths staying latched together, their tongues swirling, one part velvet, one part silk. Her moans and sighs urged him to take the kiss deeper, even as the soft sounds tightened his bollocks, hardened his shaft. Christ, he was in danger of spilling his seed without even feeling the dampness between her thighs that he was certain was waiting for him, hot and glistening with need.

  From the moment he’d looked up from the contracts he’d been studying and seen her standing there, he’d wanted his mouth on hers, his hands on her back, her buttocks, her breasts. He had yet to move beyond the small of her back, to go further. He didn’t want to frighten her with his needs, his longing to possess her.

  Especially as his own yearnings scared the hell out of him.

  She was no longer the means to an end, but had become the end itself. He was supposed to be cool and dispassionate in taking her. His purpose was to draw her in while keeping himself at a distance. Instead, she’d managed to entice him into a maelstrom of emotions and sensations, needs and desires, that were foreign to him.

  He was a man accustomed to controlling his world, his fate, his destiny—­yet where she was concerned, he’d lost his bearings. He felt as though she possessed a sledgehammer and was knocking away his wall of indifference, brick by brick. How would he protect himself when they were all gone? He didn’t know if he could find the resilience to stack the bricks back up.

  She smelled so bloody good, like flowers after a rain. Her fragrance was probably taken from a single blossom, but he knew little of plant names. Flowers were pretty to look at, but he had little time for learning the details about them. Yet at that moment he had an insane need to smell every bloom he came across until he found the one that matched her scent.

  Sliding his hands beneath her pelisse, he cradled her sides, her back. So narrow, so delicate, so fragile. He suddenly realized he would hate the man who took her innocence from her—­even if it was he.

  Drawing back, he was surprised to discover his breathing was labored and harsh. Hers might have been the same, but he hardly noticed. Instead, he was arrested by the sight of her swollen, damp lips and the intense heat in her eyes. He saw the cooling, the arrival of confusion, quickly followed by horror.

  Staggering back, she slammed her shoulder against the edge of the window casing, grimaced, shuffled away, her hand coming up to cover the mouth he was desperate to once again plunder. Then she spun on her heel and ran.

  Chapter 11

  Dear God in heaven! What had she done? What had she allowed him to do? Allowed? She’d wanted, encouraged, taunted and teased him into doing it.

  She dashed down the stairs. So many blasted stairs. Why did he have to build a hotel with five floors? Were there really that many people in need of lodgings for a single night?

  She hated that she had enjoyed the kiss so much, that it had stirred things within her that Kip’s hadn’t. She could barely remember Kip’s. It had been as nothing while Mick’s had been as everything. Her body had responded as though he held the key to unlocking her soul. Never before had she been so terrified, confused . . . shamed, because every inch of her demanded she return to him and let him finish what he’d begun. To lay her out for his pleasure, to touch her in ways she yearned for even though she didn’t know precisely what they were. But he knew. He knew how to lure, entice, deliver.

  So many sins from which to choose.

  She found herself wanting to create the gravest of all: giving herself to a man without benefit of marriage.

  Love was supposed to center a person. No, this wasn’t love. Far from it. It was passion and desire; it was animalistic instincts. Humans mated. Men had barbaric cravings that women were charged with keeping in check. It was the reason men sowed wild oats while women embroidered samplers. They had different needs, different purposes. Men were weak when it came to the flesh, women strong.

  So why had she nearly melted into a puddle at his feet?

>   Finally, she reached the lobby.

  “Is everything all right, miss?” the gent behind the desk asked, but she ignored him, drew up the hood on her pelisse.

  The porter who stood beyond the glass doors must have heard her coming, because he looked back and opened the door for her. She rushed through, hurried down the steps and stopped short. The hansom was gone. Of course it was. The driver had stayed longer than twenty minutes, but he couldn’t wait here all night. He was needed elsewhere. Especially as a light mist had begun falling.

  Wandering beyond sight of the door, she leaned against the front of the building past the steps, below the eaves. She wondered how long before a hansom might pass by. Ages, she suspected. There was no theater to draw crowds. It was late. Who would think to come here to look for a woman in need of rescue?

  Moving away from the wall and peering around the corner, she called up to the porter, “Where might I find a hansom?”

  “I don’t rightly know, miss.” The door opened, and he hopped aside as Mick charged through it—­properly done up with a knotted neck cloth, waistcoat and jacket—­and started down the steps. “Would you like me to go search for one for you?”

  “No need, Jones,” Mick called back to the servant. “I’ll see the lady home.”

  She retreated three steps as he neared. “That’s not necessary. I can see myself home. I just need to locate a hansom.”

  “My carriage will be here in a thrice. I’ve already sent for it.”

  “I don’t think that’s wise, considering.” The thought of being in a cramped conveyance with him where she could smell his marvelously masculine scent was unnerving.

  Seemingly oblivious to the mist drifting down from the heavens, he leaned a shoulder against the wall. “I’m fairly certain you wish me to apologize, but an apology would imply I was sorry. I’m not. I’ve wanted to kiss you from the moment I met you.”

  She felt as though he’d slammed his mouth back against hers. Warmth infused her, her lungs deserted her, and her ability to respond had gone on holiday.