The Scandals Of An Innocent Read online

  She felt Miles pull up the linen of her night rail so that it skimmed the tops of her thighs and stopped just below of the curve of her buttocks. Alice’s heart was almost bursting in her chest. There was a silence. She turned her head against the bedcovers and stole a look at Miles from beneath her lashes. His hand had stilled on the back of her leg and he was staring fixedly at the little flower that was pricked out in ink on the soft skin of her upper thigh.

  She heard his breath catch hard and then his fingers, lighter than the graze of a butterfly’s wing, brushed the curve of her leg and slid across her inner thigh. Alice’s body clenched.

  “A tattoo,” he said, and his voice barely sounded like his own. “Well, well, Miss Lister, what a surprise you are turning out to be!”

  Alice squirmed. “I only had it done as a prank,” she said. “The fair was on the stray in Harrogate one summer and a number of us went from my employer’s one night.” She knew she was gabbling and could not seem to stop. “I thought it would be fun but I was young and foolish and didn’t realize that it would not wash off. I scrubbed and scrubbed at it until my skin was sore and then I covered it up and pretended it was not really there!”

  Miles laughed but the hot, heavy look in his eyes did not ease, nor did the pressure of his hand in her back, holding her still. She lay prone and unmoving, very aware of her exposure to his hungry gaze.

  “Did it hurt?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Alice said. “The tattooist was an old woman who laughed at me when I screamed.” She hesitated. “You like it, then. The old witch who did it said that my lover would like it, and I did not understand her at the time.”

  “And now you do,” Miles said roughly. The look of concentrated desire in his eyes made her feel faint.

  “I was afraid you might think it quite inappropriate for a lady,” Alice said.

  “Oh, it is,” Miles said. He gave a ragged laugh. “That is why I like it so much.” He sighed, shaking his head. “What an odd mixture of innocence and impropriety you are, sweetheart. You confound me. Fascinate me.”

  He touched the tattoo again, with a fingertip, in a caress that made Alice give a little sound that was halfway between a sigh and a groan.

  “I am no proper lady,” she whispered. “I know that. No lady would visit a tattooist’s tent at a fairground.”

  “I do not want a proper lady in my bed,” Miles said. He bent his head, and Alice felt his tongue flicker across the tiny flower, and her body caught alight and burned. She was aware of every sensitive inch of her skin against the yielding bed, of the way that the friction of the covers rubbed her nipples and pressed against her belly. She was even more acutely aware of her bare legs and the slide of her nightgown over the curve of her buttocks. The cold air ravished her naked skin and the hot flick of Miles’s tongue made her squirm, and then he sucked on the tattoo, hard enough for her to feel a bite of pain that mixed exquisitely with the pleasure, and his hand slipped between her thighs and they fell apart irresistibly to allow him to touch her intimately.

  His fingers were at the very core of her. Alice’s mind reeled with shock and disbelief at the sensation.

  “Miles, what-”

  “Trust me. Do you like that?”

  Did she like it? She thought she was melting into bliss, except that her belly was coiling tighter and tighter with the sweetest, most desperate ache of need.

  His fingers shifted their pressure. She was moist and hopelessly aroused and it took only one sly stroke, and then another, and her body exploded in a cascade of pleasure and her mind filled with light and she would have screamed aloud except that Miles tumbled her over onto her back and covered her mouth with his, smothering her cries. He held her with her wrists bracketed above her head and kissed her. She was dizzy and panting and breathless and he sucked on her lower lip and darted his tongue into her mouth and demanded a response from her even as her mind and body still trembled with the enormity of what had happened to her. And this time she did not refuse him. She opened her lips to him so that he could do devastating things to her mouth and he plundered it without reservation, kissing her deeply and with a fierce need. Though her body still clenched with the pleasure he had given her, Alice wanted more. She knew that her nightgown was up around her waist and her legs spread and Miles was lying between them, hugely aroused, and that in a second he would take her, and she wanted to feel him inside her more than she had ever wanted anything in the entire world.

  And then, unbelievably, he stopped and eased back from her. His gaze rested on the curve of her bare stomach and dropped, dark and primitive, to the juncture of her thighs. Then she felt his hand clench in the material of her nightdress and he smoothed it carefully down over her nakedness in a gesture that was so intimate and tender that she felt shaken. His expression was harsh and set, and a muscle worked in his cheek.

  “Miles?” she whispered.

  His eyes met hers, torment in their depths.

  “If I take you now I will break every rule,” he said. “I am sworn to protect you and…” He shook his head, biting off whatever it was he was about to say.

  “I thought that breaking the rules was what you did,” Alice said. Her voice came out as only a thread of sound. He looked angry and she felt cold and confused to see it. A moment ago he had held her with tenderness and desire. Now he was looking at her as though he did not even like her very much.

  “I thought so, too,” he ground out. “Unfortunately, I appear to be plagued by an honor I did not know I possessed.”

  Miles wrenched himself away from her. The door slammed after him and Alice was left stunned and breathless on the bed. Her body felt soft and boneless with the bliss it had already sampled and yet cheated and unsatisfied, longing for more.

  What had Miles meant when he had said that he was plagued by an honor he did not know he possessed? She could only assume that he had intended to seduce her there and then-that he had planned it ruthlessly in order to circumvent the conditions of their betrothal and force her to marry him at once. She had suspected from the start that he might plan to do such a thing. But at the last moment it appeared he had not been able to go through with it. Yet he must have known that she had no will, no desire to resist. His discovery of the tattoo had aroused them both beyond bearing, and she had longed for him with a hunger that had matched his own.

  Alice rolled off the bed and walked slowly over to the dresser, splashing water from the ewer into a bowl and from there onto her face. She knew that she had to take a measure of responsibility for what happened now. She was done resisting Miles. If he were to make love to her, then she would be a willing participant in her own seduction, and nothing, not even her anger and frustration at his blackmail was powerful enough to stop the desire she had for him. Oh, she was very willing, against all sense and against all propriety…

  She shivered a little, wrapping her arms about herself. The siren voice of temptation whispered in her mind. What was to prevent them? They were betrothed, and Miles had every intention of making her his bride. She would have the protection of his name. Even if there were a child she would be safe from censure, or as safe from scandal as a housemaid turned heiress could ever be. She stared at her flushed reflection in the pier glass. She wanted Miles with the fiercest of aches, but the shreds of common sense that she still possessed told her that she had to be careful of herself and her reputation. There was many a slip between seduction and marriage. If Lydia’s situation proved anything it was that. If the marriage between herself and Miles never happened she would be ruined. Her mother would be distraught. All the respectability they had worked so hard to achieve would be lost.

  With a sigh Alice reached for her robe and tied it about her with fingers that still shook slightly. It was a little too late to be thinking of respectability. Miles had shown her precisely how unrespectable she wanted to be.

  MILES SAT AT THE BREAKFAST table wondering how the hell he had got into this situation. He had never been much troubled b
y self-denial before. Generally if there was something he wanted he found a way to have it. He wanted Alice and he had thought it would be easy to have her, to seduce her into marrying him so that he could gain everything he wanted-her body, her money, his own financial security. He had planned to go to the lawyers and tell them openly that he had slept with Alice and to point out that Lady Membury’s conditions had to be rendered null and void now or she would be ruined. Two hours before, he had had the perfect opportunity to take her. Yet he had hesitated, prevented by principles that had never before caused him a moment’s trouble. He had discovered scruples he did not even realize he possessed. He had thought himself utterly devoid of conscience. It was disconcerting to discover he had one after all.

  The trouble had started the previous night when he had searched Alice’s room. The clothes in her cupboards had smelled as sweet as she did herself, of the same apple and lavender and rose scents, and the lust had suddenly grabbed him like a vise. The neat piles of virginal white underwear had done nothing to assuage his desire. He had found himself staring at them and imagining the cool press of the linen against Alice’s naked skin, the laces and transparent lawn wrapped about her, trussing her up, and the warmth of her body beneath. Heated dreams in which he uncovered her nakedness to his lips and hands had stalked him all night.

  And then there had been the shocking revelations that morning. He looked at Alice. She was sitting across the table from him and was concentrating fiercely on buttering a piece of toast. He knew that she was as intensely aware of him as he was of her. She was wearing a gown of spring yellow decorated with lace and she looked demure and fresh and pretty and Miles knew-he knew-that beneath the muslin skirts and the crisp petticoats was a tiny tattoo of a flower. He closed his eyes. He had not stopped thinking about that flower for a single moment since he had left Alice’s bedchamber. He wanted to touch it. He wanted to kiss it again. He wanted to lick it and allow his tongue to slide down from that tempting little tattoo to the softness of her inner thigh and on until his mouth met the heated center of her being.

  She had been so soft and sweet in his arms, her skin like silk beneath his fingers. Discovering her tattoo had driven him half-mad with wanting. The moist slide of her against his fingers had undone him. He had been so close to taking her. Now that he had experienced the intimacy of watching her take pleasure at his hands he knew he was never, ever going to let her go.

  His body tightened unbearably at the thought of that private bliss they had shared. He had been in a state of semiarousal for several hours despite the tub of cold water he had emptied over his head, out in the frozen courtyard, after leaving Alice. He was already obsessing about her body far too much. He did not seem to be able to think about anything else. He doubted he ever would until he could actually see her completely, touch her freely, take from her and give to her in equal measure until their desires were sated. And already he had the suspicion that it would not be as easy as that to rid himself of his driving lust for her. Once he had tasted her he would want to do so again and again…

  “Whiskey marmalade, Lord Vickery?”

  Mrs. Lister was smiling at him and nodding to the footman to pass him the pot of preserve. Miles blinked.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “I trust that nothing disturbed your sleep?” Mrs. Lister continued.

  Alice’s gaze met Miles’s in a brief flash of blue.

  “No, thank you, ma’am,” Miles said. “I was completely undisturbed.”

  He saw Alice raise her brows infinitesimally. A tiny smile curved her lips. Miles gritted his teeth. Minx. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to make love to her on the breakfast table. She was learning frighteningly fast just how much power she had over him, and he was suffering every step of the way.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A LICE HAD FOUND IT VERY ODD and disturbing to meet Miles at the breakfast table. After what they had shared, it felt as though every nerve in her body was supremely aware of him. The low tones of his voice made her tingle. Each glance that he cast her seemed to heat her from the inside out. She felt utterly at his mercy-and the mercy of her own needs and desires.

  She was sure that the others must be aware of the atmosphere that simmered between them, and yet it seemed they were not. Lizzie chattered with her usual frankness. Mrs. Lister read the tea leaves and bemoaned the fact that there were only bad signs in the cup.

  “A pair of scissors!” she announced. “A quarrel or separation! Alice, dear-” her gaze traveled from Alice to Miles and back again “-I do hope you are not going to give me cause for concern.”

  “Of course not, Mama,” Alice said. “Why would I do such a thing? Now, would you care to visit the Pump Rooms today? I understand that Lady Vickery and Mrs. Anstruther will be there.”

  Mrs. Lister brightened. “Oh, then I will most certainly attend! Dearest Lady Vickery and I need to discuss arrangements for the wedding.” Her gaze darted from her daughter to Miles again. “I wish you would set a date, Alice dear. Now that the marquis is living in our house it is quite inappropriate for you to delay!”

  “And even more so when I almost had you in your own bed this morning,” Miles whispered in Alice’s ear. “Set a date, sweetheart.”

  “What was that?” Mrs. Lister looked up, beaming, from the hunt for her reticule.

  “Lord Vickery was adding his own words of encouragement,” Alice said, glaring at Miles, “in his own inimitable style.”

  “Good, good,” Mrs. Lister said absently. “Now, where can that have gone? There was no suggestion in the leaves that I would lose anything today!”

  “Your mama truly believes in these things, does she not?” Miles commented, as they set out later to walk into the village. Lizzie and Mrs. Lister were walking ahead of them and Alice had been obliged to take Miles’s arm, an irreproachably respectable maneuver that she could see amused him. She was all too conscious of the hard muscle of his arm beneath the blue superfine of his coat. She could remember the ripple and flow of that muscle beneath his skin. And she simply had to stop thinking about Miles without his clothes because it was doing her no good at all.

  “Miss Lister?” Miles prompted. “I was merely making conversation about your mother’s penchant for the leaves.”

  “Yes, I am afraid she does believe it,” Alice said dolefully. “She is most shockingly superstitious. When your mother told her about the Curse of Drum I thought she would expire on the spot.”

  “It did not put her off the idea of your marrying me, then?” Miles inquired.

  Alice laughed. “Oh, no, though it did make her even more anxious for the wedding to take place! As long as I am a marchioness before the Curse takes you, she will be quite happy!” She lowered her voice. “A little while ago Mama encouraged me to show you some kindness, my lord,” she said. “She shocks me sometimes,” she added.

  “Some kindness,” Miles said thoughtfully. “Was that what you showed me earlier, Miss Lister?”

  “I permitted you far too much license earlier,” Alice said.

  “But you want to permit me more.” Miles’s voice was soft.

  The cold winter air chilled Alice’s hot cheeks. She fidgeted with her gloves. It was only what she had admitted to herself earlier. It was only what he already knew from her impassioned response to him, yet to confess it to him seemed brazen. “I admit it,” she said. “I have always been honest with you-”

  “You have.”

  “And though it is not remotely ladylike of me to confess it, you know I desire you.”

  “You refine too much upon being a lady,” Miles said. “Women are made of flesh and blood, too.”

  He caught her suddenly in his arms and his lips came down on hers, cold from the March air but conjuring all the sensual passion that he could always evoke in her. Alice’s head spun at the contrast of heat and chill. She closed her eyes. The pressure of his lips forced hers apart ruthlessly and then his tongue tangled with hers and suddenly she wanted him so badly that
she felt as though she was falling. He let her go and the bright spring light stung her eyes and she stared in shock at the retreating figures of Lizzie and Mrs. Lister. They had not turned around. They had seen nothing.

  “You take too many risks,” she stammered.

  “Perhaps.” Miles smiled sardonically and offered her his arm again. “The worst thing that would have happened was that your mama would have turned around and seen us kissing and sent immediately for the vicar.” He brushed his lips against her ear and she shivered.

  “Don’t keep me waiting too long,” he murmured.

  “To wed me?” Alice said.

  Miles laughed. “Preferably. But to have you with or without the blessing of the church.”

  Alice’s cheeks were burning as she quickened her pace after the others. “You could have had me this morning without it,” she said, “and we both know it. So why did you stop?”

  She sensed the change in Miles like a door slamming shut, abrupt and painful. “It seems,” he said shortly, “that I could not go through with what I had planned.”

  The sting of his words came as a shock to Alice. Although she had suspected that Miles had had a calculated plan to seduce her, to hear him admit it hurt her. She supposed it was because her response to him had been so open and honest and yet his making love to her had been the reverse, calculated and premeditated. Once again he had shown the depths of his cynicism.

  “So it is true,” she whispered. “You had planned from the first to seduce me.”

  “I told you I would do anything to win you,” Miles said. Then, as he met the look in her eyes, “Damn it, Alice, don’t look so distressed! You have known all along that I am a scoundrel.”