Kitabı oxu: «Tempting Kate»

Chapter One

The marquis of Wroth was restless.

Waving away his driver, he decided to walk the few blocks to his London town house. It was nearly midnight, but the fashionable neighborhood still rang with the sound of coaches ferrying their glittering passengers from one ball to another, and Grayson Ashford Ryland Wescott, the fourth marquis, welcomed the chance to stretch his legs after a tedious hour spent among society’s elite.

Unfortunately, the exercise did little to curb the odd sensation that had been plaguing him for months now, escalating today, on the occasion of his thirtysecond birthday. He saw no reason for the unfamiliar ennui. In the years since he came into his title, at the tender age of fifteen, he had achieved everything he set out to do, attaining a position of wealth, power and prestige that was the envy of his peers. What more could a man want?

At first, he had put the vague discontent down to a lack of challenges in his life. He had gone as far as he wanted to politically, exerting enormous influence behind the scenes rather than in the House itself. Although his various businesses were thriving, he could easily hand over their management to one of his many capable employees. The pursuits of hunting, boxing and racing his curricle had palled as he grew older, and even gambling seemed little risk these days.

When the unnamed malaise persisted, Grayson had given some serious thought to settling down and establishing his nursery. It was high time he got an heir, and he found the notion of retiring to the country strangely appealing, if he could find a suitable wife.

His friends would have laughed at that, for his wealth and title had assured him a steady stream of women since adolescence, and despite his rather unsavory reputation as a breaker of hearts, mamas still threw their daughters at him. He did little enough to encourage them. His liaisons were more often with married women, attracted to his looks or his position, or members of the demimonde, who had no care for their reputations. Whatever their backgrounds, the ladies never held his interest for long, and he had never considered marrying…until recently.

Her name was Charlotte, and she had burst upon the London season like a breath of fresh air. Beautiful, innocent, intelligent and engaging, she was a vicar’s daughter, and Grayson had found himself drawn to her unique brand of honesty. It had soon become plain, however, that Charlotte was enamored of her sponsor of sorts, the stuffy earl of Wycliffe.

Once he discovered where her affections lay, Grayson had played his own small part in ensuring her happiness, and she had married the earl. What a waste, Grayson thought, and yet there was no denying that the two shared something special. Grayson stretched his legs, struck by an odd pang, before continuing on. Damn, but he was not jealous of that clock-minding Wycliffe! It was what the two had between them that he coveted.

Not that he believed in love or any of that nonsense, but the earl and his countess obviously shared a friendship based on common interests, companionship and simple affection that was rare among ton marriages. Wroth slowed his stride. That was what he wanted, but where to find it?

It seemed that all the women in London either were greedy and jaded or hadn’t a thought in their heads, while most of the country gentry he viewed as slow-witted, and homely, besides. His own vicar’s daughter was as plain as a rock, and just as exciting. A woman like Charlotte did not appear to exist, and Grayson wondered if he had somehow missed his opportunity and now was doomed to either go childless or settle for one of the grasping females of his acquaintance.

He was not accustomed to settling for anything.

Grayson’s pensive mood clung as he approached his darkened town house. He had given the staff an evening off after the impromptu birthday celebration they contrived this afternoon, but he had no qualms about putting himself to bed without the services of the butler, valet and footmen who normally swarmed the halls. In fact, he rather enjoyed the solitude that met him.

It was not the first time he had walked through the shadowed rooms alone, and he certainly felt no threat as he drew off his gloves and tossed them on an elegant satinwood table. His reputation as a ruthless opponent extended from political circles right down to the streets, and was such that even the pickpockets usually left him alone.

Still, he had not earned his hard-won renown by relaxing his guard, and when he stepped into his study, his senses were roused to alertness. A subtle presence tickled the back of his neck and made him move casually toward the desk drawer that held his pistol.

“Hold there, gent!” a voice barked, confirming his suspicions, and a figure stepped out of the shadows of the thick draperies. Grayson would have laughed at the sight of the begrimed urchin, except that there was nothing funny about the weapon trained upon him. The young man was either very brave or very stupid, to dare the marquis of Wroth’s own home.

Grayson found himself intrigued. Lifting one brow disdainfully, he eyed the ill-kept youth. “Do you think to hold me up?” he asked, incredulous.

His words seem to disconcert the boy, whose poorly fitting clothes and matted hair looked as if they could use a good wash. “I ain’t no criminal. It’s you who must answer for your foul deeds!”

Foul deeds? Grayson momentarily ignored the pistol, held in a surprisingly small but steady hand, and inclined his head in interest. “And to what, exactly, do you refer, young man? My opposition to the bill that—”

“I ain’t talking about your politics. I’m talking about your morals, or lack thereof!”

Lack thereof? The youngster’s speech held enough surprises to make Grayson study him closer. Despite his bedraggled appearance, the boy held himself straight, his feet spread in a ready stance for shooting. Yet there was something distinctly odd about him that Grayson couldn’t quite put a finger on.

“No one threatens me, pup,” he said. Although he did not raise his voice or change its tone, he conveyed a silky menace that had been known to make grown men shudder.

The urchin didn’t even blink.

“I’m here to avenge my sister, whom you seduced and got with child,” the young man said. Grayson could not mistake the accent this time, or the cool delivery. This was no ordinary guttersnipe. Who the devil was he? And what was this business about a sister?

“I can assure you, pup, that I do not consort with females of your family’s ilk,” Grayson answered smoothly.

“Don’t take that high-stepping tone with me! You liked her well enough when you ruined her. Now it’s time to pay the piper.”

“And that is you, I assume?” Grayson said, inclining his head in a contemptuous fashion that made the boy flush. Strange little fellow. Grayson couldn’t help admiring his heroics, however misplaced, but he had no desire to take a bullet for the sake of them. “Look here, I have no idea what you have heard about me, but I do not prey upon virgins of any stamp. Perhaps your sister is simply trying to protect herself—”

“My sister is not a liar!” the boy said, stepping forward angrily. It was the move Grayson had been waiting for, and he lunged, taking the boy to the floor with the speed that had made him an excellent boxer. He wrested the gun away, but the youth fought like a hellion, knocking it from his hand, and it skidded away. Nor could Grayson easily retrieve it. He had his hands full trying to subdue the body beneath him, which was kicking and flailing like a wild thing.

It was only when his groin came up against that of his opponent that Grayson began to suspect the truth. Startled, he looked down at the face below him. It was contorted in fear and rage and marked with dirt, but beneath the grime was a clear complexion, gently curved cheeks, thick, dark lashes and eyes the color of amethysts. What the devil? Thrusting a hand beneath the youth’s baggy coat, Grayson found his answer when his fingers closed over a small but perfectly formed breast. A female!

The stunning discovery distracted him just as the girl, obviously taking exception to his groping, settled her teeth into his arm. She bit down hard enough that he released her with a curse, and then Grayson was not quite sure what happened. He saw her reach for the pistol, but before she could even lift the weapon, it discharged.

Grayson felt the sharp, searing heat of metal ripping through his flesh, but he managed to surge shakily to a standing position and lurch toward the desk that held his own pistol. Having no intention of dying at the hands of this dangerous female, he knew he must not give her a chance to reload.

He needn’t have made the effort, for she leapt up and dropped the weapon as if it were suddenly distasteful. Facing him with an expression of horror on her delicate features, she cried, “Gad! You’ve been shot!”

It seemed that the pup had quite a grasp of the obvious. “Yes,” Grayson agreed, before crumpling to the floor at her feet.

Kate Courtland stared numbly at the prone body of the marquis. She had come here to scare him, maybe even to get some badly needed funds to support the child that her sister was carrying, but, angry as she was with the man, she had never intended to harm him.

Her first inclination was to flee from the terrible scene, but how could she leave him here like this, his tall, graceful form prostrate, his dark vitality quenched? Kneeling down beside him, Kate saw the telltale red stain upon his coat and bit down on her knuckles to stifle a gasp. What if he bled to death? The house was silent as a tomb, and she had no idea when the servants would return.

His tanned skin had gone pale, and Kate leaned over him, noting the lock of dark hair that had fallen over his forehead. His eyes were closed now, but she had seen them. Clear and gray they were, and fringed with dark lashes under elegant brows. His was a man’s face, with sharp planes and a strong jaw, but he was also beautiful, like an archangel fallen to earth.

Gad! Kate leaned back on her heels and swore more forcefully under her breath. The man was injured, and she was admiring his looks! Yes, he was handsome and polished, yet every inch a male, with an underlying strength that spoke of steely determination, but these very attributes were presumably what had plunged Lucy into disgrace. Kate shook her head. She had never thought to agree with her younger sister, but, apparently, they concurred on one thing. The marquis of Wroth was as appealing as he was dangerous.

He presented no threat now, Kate thought, although the realization gave her no satisfaction. Whatever his sins, she could not leave the man to die. Bending over, she tried to lift his shoulders, but he was heavy. All muscle, she remembered with a blush, for she had felt the press of his body weighing her down during their struggle.

Pushing such thoughts aside, Kate continued her efforts. She had just managed to get him into a sitting position when she heard a low sound at the window. Whistling softly in answer, she soon saw the grizzled head of her coachman poking over the sill.

“I thought I heard a shot,” Tom said, and then his dark eyes grew wide. “Cor, Katie, what have you done now?”

“I put a bullet in him.”

Letting loose a stream of foul curses, Tom climbed through the opening. “Damn it, girl, now you’ve done it! The likes of him ain’t worth a murder charge, or do you fancy a rope around your lovely little neck?”

Tom’s words froze Kate in the act of trying to get the marquis to his feet. She had never considered the repercussions should her carefully laid plans go awry, but they had, and the consequences were more serious than she could ever have imagined. She cringed to think what would happen to them all if she was caught here, dressed as she was, with the wounded marquis.

It was an accident. Kate knew she had never even touched the trigger, but who would believe her? She had snuck into the marquis’s home and threatened him. From the way Tom was glaring at her, it seemed even he had judged her guilty.

“Damn it, girl, I should never have agreed to this fool errand,” the coachman muttered. “Breaking in was bad enough, but did you have to kill him, too?”

Kate stilled the panic that threatened to cloud her thinking and shot a stern look at Tom. “He’s not dead, yet. Now, help me get him to his feet”

“What for? Are you going to bury him in the garden?”

Kate ignored her coachman’s sarcasm. “No. We’re taking him with us.”

“What?” Tom’s gravelly voice rang out loudly, and the marquis stirred in her arms.

“You heard me,” Kate said, pushing her small frame under one of Wroth’s wide shoulders. “Now help me, Tom, before we’re both arrested.”

“And you think that kidnapping the gent’s going to help?”

“Lower your voice! I’m not going to kidnap him, just make sure that he doesn’t pop off. Now hurry!” Kate urged, firmly eyeing the man who had become much more than a servant in the past few years. Their gazes locked and held until Tom’s skidded away in resignation. Blowing out a disgruntled sigh, he heaved the marquis up and moved across the room.

“He ain’t no lightweight, this one,” he muttered as Kate slipped away to retrieve the errant pistol. She could see no blood upon the carpet, thankfully, and went swiftly to the window to help Tom lift Wroth through the opening.

“He’s got the looks of the devil himself, and muscles, besides,” Tom said, gasping for breath as he dragged the body out into the night. “You’re borrowing trouble with this one, Katie. Make no mistake about it!”

“You just get him to the coach,” she answered sharply. “I can handle the marquis.”

Kate’s confidence flagged when Tom draped Wroth over the cushioned seat and climbed out onto the box, leaving her alone with the injured man. He was still unconscious, and the front of his coat was soaked with blood, making Kate wonder whether he would survive the trip to Hargate. She leaned across the space between them to get a good look at his wound in the dim light of the interior lantern.

Probing the spot as gently as she could, Kate was relieved to find no sign of the bullet. He was lucky, for it appeared to have gone straight through his shoulder, but she still needed to stop the bleeding with something. She was shrugging out of her coat when a jolt sent Wroth sliding precariously near the cushioned edge.

Muttering one of Tom’s favorite oaths, Kate swiftly slid into the opposite seat and laid the marquis’s head on her lap. His dark lashes lifted, and he groaned before closing them again. “Hang on, Wroth,” she said softly. Her lips trembled over his name, and she pursed them tightly together, angry at her own reaction. Turning her grimy coat inside out, Kate pressed the clean lining to the wound while she tried to recapture the outrage that had driven her to his town house.

“Conniving bastard! If you had kept your breeches on, you wouldn’t be in this predicament,” she whispered, but her soft tone robbed the accusation of some of its sharpness, and the shadowy confines of the coach seemed to close in on the two of them. Wroth stirred, turning his face toward her, and the movement heightened Kate’s awareness of him, resting upon her thighs, his head cradled so intimately.

Her knowledge of males was limited to Tom and memories of her father, a rather distant but kindly figure. Vaguely she recollected the presence of stable boys and footmen, but they were nameless and faceless, long gone now. She had never been this close to a man in her life.

It was disturbing. Her breath grew ragged, and her fingers faltered as they held the cloth tightly to his shoulder. Under her palm, Kate could feel the muscles that spread from his broad chest, and she knew that this was no idle-rich dandy, but a strong, virile man. She shifted, dismayed, yet she could not escape the weight of him—or the feel of him.

Her cheeks flaming, Kate tried to concentrate on his sins, but, in all honesty, the marquis of Wroth had surprised her. She had never expected her sister’s lover to be so mature, so confident. So…dangerous. He had caught her off guard with his dark good looks and the disdainful lift of his brow. Unfazed by her threats, he had stared, cool as you please, at the pistol she pointed at his heart. Apparently he had just been waiting for his opportunity to strike.

Her color rose higher as Kate remembered the ease with which he had knocked her down and the way his body had covered hers. Hot and heavy and… something indescribable. Then his face had hovered over hers, shadowy with intent, and his hand had… Gad! Kate flinched, startled by the vivid recollection off his fingers closing upon her breast. A strangled noise escaped from her throat

Bloody hell, it was easy enough to see how Lucy had been seduced! Indeed, Kate felt as if she owed her sister an apology. Although she had never blamed Lucy aloud, she had silently accused her many times. All those uncharitable thoughts about her sister’s lack of common sense and weakness of will returned to mock her.

For if this man, with his cool, confident air and his warm, competent hands, had been Lucy’s temptation, then Kate could well understand her sister’s submission. Indeed, she found herself wondering just what it would be like to succumb to the shadowy promise in his clear gray eyes, to fall from grace with this dark angel.

Sometime during the trip home, Kate checked Wroth’s wound again. She had managed to stop the bleeding, and judging from the sound of his even breathing, she could abandon her immediate worry that he might die in the coach. However, his improved condition brought a new concern. Increasingly, Kate feared that he would wake up.

Several times she had seen his eyes flutter open, and once she could have sworn that he studied her with detached interest. Her nervous fingers had faltered then, pressing too hard against his ragged flesh, and he had gone off again with a groan.

Kate had felt guilty, but relieved. After all, what would she say if he was suddenly alive, awake and coherent? Sorry I shot you, my lord, but now I plan to undo my mistake as best I can, if you’ll just come along quietly?

Somehow, as she studied his handsome face in the dimness of the coach, Kate could not imagine this man coming along quietly. Ever. For the first time since entering the town house, she began to wonder if Tom was right. Perhaps she was borrowing trouble by taking on someone who looked to be as dangerous as the marquis. But what else could she do?

Kate was never more eager to see the soft light in her own window, welcoming her home, as she was this night. Her relief at reaching her destination lasted until Tom pulled open the door of the coach, took one look at the marquis cradled in her lap and swore in disgust. “Mind that you don’t find yourself in the same fix as your sister, Katie, girl,” he muttered.

Kate gave him a cold glance that conveyed just what she thought of his warning. “I’ve stopped the bleeding, but I’ll need to clean and dress the wound thoroughly, if he’s not to pop off from a fever. You can put him in Papa’s old room.”

With a grunt of disapproval, Tom grabbed the marquis and heaved him half onto his back. “Careful, now!” Kate couldn’t help admonishing Tom, although the glare she received from him made her want to call back the words.

Ignoring the coachman’s attitude, Kate jumped down and hurried toward the door. If they could get the marquis to bed without Lucy hearing, she could tend to his injury, find her own rest and deal with her sister in the morning.

Unfortunately, her streak of bad luck was holding firm, for as soon as she opened the door, she heard Lucy’s voice from the landing. “Katie, is that you?” her sister called, in a wavering whisper that made Kate feel guilty for having left her alone.

“Yes, it’s me. Go on back to bed, dear.”

“What are you doing at this hour? Is that Tom with you? What on earth has he got?” Groaning, Kate looked up to see Lucy descending the stairs with a candle while Tom started up, the marquis at his side.

“Go back to bed, Lucy,” Kate ordered, knowing she was wasting her breath. Lucy had as strong a will as the rest of the Courtlands, when she chose to exercise it.

“What have you got there, Tom? My God, is that a man? What happened? Who is he?”

Tom, who was faltering under the strain of the marquis’ weight, heaved himself up the last few steps and said, “It’s your fellow, Miss Lucy.”

“Mine—? Katie, what have you done?” Lucy rounded upon her sister just as Kate reached the top of the stairs.

“There was an accident. I didn’t shoot him on purpose, I can tell you that much,” Kate said, brushing past her outraged sister to open the bedroom door for Tom. She followed the grunting coachman into the room and watched him dump the marquis upon the bed with a groan, just as a bloodcurdling shriek erupted behind them.

Lucy stood in the doorway, clutching the frame as if to hold herself upright. “You shot him! Katie, how could you?”

“Never mind that. Tom, help me get this coat off of him,” Kate instructed, bending over to remove the blood-soaked material.

“Don’t you dare touch him!” Lucy wailed. Before Kate could respond, Lucy rushed to the side of the bed and pushed her away. “Wroth! What have they done to you?” she cried dramatically as she threw herself at the prone body of the marquis.

Kate watched dispassionately as Lucy, ever mindful of her limited wardrobe, stopped short of the wet coat. Her lashes fluttered as if she might swoon for a moment, but then they flew open and she stared at the marquis with a horrified expression on her lovely face. Jerking back from the bed, Lucy settled her hands on her hips, arms akimbo.

“That is not Wroth,” she announced, lifting a finger to point it accusingly at the man in the bed.

“It most certainly is,” Kate said.

“I ought to know better than you, and that is not him!” Lucy protested. “Why, Wroth is young and handsome, not old and cruel-looking.”

The strain of the evening’s events made Kate raise her voice in exasperation. “This man is certainly not old! Nor is he cruel-looking.” She paused to eye the marquis. He was definitely not soft, but it was power and determination that hardened his features—not a mean streak, she would swear upon it. And handsome? Kate had never seen a man more beautiful in her life.

“I don’t care what you say, he is not Wroth!”

“Who is he, then?” Kate asked.

“I don’t know, nor do I care!”

“Girls! Girls!” Tom’s admonitions rose above the squabbling, drawing Kate’s attention. She swiveled toward him, just as Lucy did, with the same question on her lips.

“What?” Lucy fairly shrieked.

The coachman heaved a great sigh. “You had better quit arguing and do something, before the fellow bleeds to death all over the best bed linens.”