Marry the Man Today Read online

  “Sometimes, madam? I.. . Christ, woman!” He nearly bucked backward as she brazenly stepped between his legs. Pushed right up against his erection.

  “But the class was created by an experienced woman who knows about such things.”

  “Experienced? How, by God?” Not that he wanted to know.

  “Let’s just say that she was a professional woman in her day—”

  “A prostitute?” Teaching a classroom full of aristocratic wives of aristocratic men? Good God!

  “More than twenty years ago, before she married a member of the House of Lords who calls himself the most satisfied man in all of England.”

  He cast around in his head for a name, a peer. A man still in love with his wife.

  But the rest of his thoughts went spinning out of control as the sublime Miss Dunaway then reached up with one hand and slipped her lithe fingers through the hair at his nape.

  “Your hair is surprisingly soft here, my lord. If I were a wife, I would adore running my fingers through your hair like this.”

  She was actually killing him, slowly, scorching his skin, raking her short nails softly up the back of his head, the heat of her belly mixing with his at the apex of his legs, shocking him with its power.

  “And, according to Unbridled Embraces, if you were my husband I would lean closely and gaze deeply into your eyes. Like this …”

  She was doing more than that. She was dallying with his ear, teasing the ridges as her gaze feathered its way up his cheeks to his eyes, where he noticed for the first time an amazing pattern of gold embedded subtly in the aquiline.

  “Goldenrod,” he whispered, touching her cheek.

  “What’s that?”

  “Your eyes. I see goldenrod.”

  “Then it’s working.” She smiled, her breath breaking against his chin.

  “God, yes.”

  “In that case, my lord, next I would tell you how proud I am to be your wife.”

  His heart took a jump into his throat, cutting off his words. A stunning leap of elation, because it sounded so right.

  “Then I’d thank you for my latest bonnet, and tell you that I bought it because I knew how much you’d like to see me in it. Do you?” She niched her hand against her hair, tilted the imaginary hat, then turned her head from side to side, revealing the perfection of her profile.

  “You’re beautiful, wife.” Wife? Good Lord! Did he just call her that? “I mean, Miss Dunaway.”

  “And how very brave you are, husband, the wife would say. And how intelligent—meaning every word, of course, because truth is the watchword of every successful marriage.” She caught up her fingers in his neckcloth, still gazing, still a red-hot, pulsing heat between his legs, firing his brain to a brick.

  “Truth, is it?” Because he was truthfully ready to toss that damned book across the room and put its lessons into practice.

  “At this point, the wife would possibly run her palm over his chest or kiss him on the chin.” She was breathing deeply, her eyes pools of brookwater, eddies of green and blue and gold, her cheeks flushed with the unintended passion of her own successful seduction.

  Bloody hell! The woman was glorious. With a wanton heart and a spirit that thrilled him. He could take such delicious advantage of her innocence, of her eagerness to prove her revolutionary independence. But as she slipped her palm down the front of his chest, he pinned it flat with his own. Regretting it even as he warned her.

  “Enough, madam.”

  “So you understand now, my lord?” Her eyes were half lidded as she gazed up at him, her knees sagging, her belly pressed fully against the bulge of his groin, nearly driving him mad with a roaring desire.

  “I understand completely.” Deeply, like a river of molten stone.

  She straightened herself somewhat. “We teach nothing more scandalous here than that of paying attention to the one you love. At very close range.”

  “I noticed that too.”

  “It’s only logical, my lord. After all, if I look into your eyes and search out all the colors there, all the meaning, then you must look into my eyes for just as long.” She cupped his chin, frowned in concentration. “Right?”

  “That’s true.”

  “If I smile at you …” She did so, a lopsided, bewitching half grin. “… then you can’t help but smile back at me.”

  Couldn’t help it at all. Found himself falling toward a giddy smile of his own.

  “If I kiss your mouth right here …” She leaned forward and touched just the corner of his mouth. “… you automatically kiss me right back.”

  God knows he shouldn’t, dared only enough to catch the arc of her cheek, but remained there, resisting his deepest urges, reveling in her scent, his hands gripping her upper arms.

  “And if I take your next breath, you must take mine.”

  Vanilla and chocolate, heated and sweet.

  “My lord?” She suddenly leaned back from him, her hips still pressed against his, her eyes wide in amazement. “What is that here?”

  The vixen shifted her hips against his rock-hardness just enough for him to understand her question.

  To understand that his brazen instructor was indeed virginal to the marrow.

  And killing him slowly, sweetly.

  “You’re the teacher, Miss Dunaway. Surely you are acquainted with the shape of the male anatomy when it is … fully engaged.”

  “When it’s . .. ? Oh!” She gasped, then her eyes flew even wider, the jolt of discovery plain on her flushed face. “Oh, my! How amazing!”

  “That, my dear, is the uncivilized reaction your eager sirens are finding in their unsuspecting husbands when they put your instructions into practice.”

  “As big as this? I had no idea!” She wriggled her belly against him again, more of a grinding movement, pulling an involuntary groan out of him. Then frowned and caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Ohhhh …”

  “Yes, oh.”

  Any other man might have expected a fainthearted swoon from this unblushing innocent standing in the fork of his thighs, but Ross knew the woman better than that.

  Wanted to know her even better.

  Her beautiful eyes filled to the brim with a perilous gleam of adventure and then slyly dipped to the distended front of his trousers, her smile now a challenge to his tattered self-control.

  “And this is a pleasant sensation for you?” More wriggling, more grinding. “This swelling?”

  “Oh, yes, my dear. More than pleasant.” The muscles in his arms had turned to quaking stone. His gut was on fire.

  And her eyes were glinting mischief at him. “You’ve got me wondering, my lord, about what it looks like.” Now she was flat out staring at his crotch. A starving woman eyeing a chocolate eclair.

  “Sorry, Miss Dunaway, but you’ll just have to keep wondering.” A woman with fearless hands and that unquenchable sense of adventure. Not a chance in hell that he could keep control over that situation. At least not tonight.

  Not with her grinning slyly up at him. “So, how did I do?”

  “Do?”

  “I’ve never practiced on an actual man before. Did I do all right with my seduction?”

  Bloody hell, she’d done fine. So fine that his urge to finish what she’d started was shoving at his gut, pumping the breath from his lungs.

  And so, with great regret, he set her a safe arm’s length from him while he still had the moral courage.

  “Madam,” he said, standing away from the table, adjusting his clothes from her unexpected fondling, “if you’d done any better, I’m not sure I’d have lived through it.”

  She touched his arm, deep concern lining her brow. “Did I hurt you?”

  Lord, she had a lot to learn, this guileless woman of seduction. And he suddenly couldn’t imagine letting any other man teach her.

  Or hold her.

  Or kiss her for the first time.

  “No, madam, you didn’t hurt me in the least. I doubt you’d know how to.”


  “I certainly wouldn’t want to!”

  “Now, Miss Dunaway, if you’ll please excuse me. I have some work to do before I come back here for the night.”

  Elizabeth watched the man leave the library. Specifically, watched his legs as he took his great strides through the doorway as though he couldn’t wait to be away from her.

  She stared blatantly at the power of his thighs, his calf muscles working hard against his trouser legs.

  And those strong, broad shoulders that could carry her up and away. That could shelter her from the storms.

  That could come between her and the rest of the world, which sometimes pressed too hard against her.

  And his arms, so rippling thick with muscles, so visibly strong.

  So inviting. As inviting as his eyes, his mouth.

  And that marvelous phallus of his. Unbelievably thick and hard. Throbbing. With a life of its own.

  Just a peek would have lasted her a lifetime without him.

  But he seemed reluctant. And rightly so. He was a stranger. And one shouldn’t fondle the private parts of a stranger, no matter how intriguing.

  Just as one shouldn’t kiss a stranger—

  “Dear God, I kissed him.” Just hauled off and planted her lips against his.

  Nearly set her bodice on fire, shimmered against her skin, crackling ends of her hair.

  Nearly let the man get away with her heart!

  “Ah, there you are, Miss E!” Skye breezed into the library with a handful of papers. “And I see his lordship’s gone.”

  “He is.” Though she could still feel the heat of him in her belly, waves of him simmering up into her chest.

  “A fine piece of work he is, don’t you think?” The girl spread out a set of papers across the tabletop.

  “He might be.” Might be perfect. Too perfect to let herself be speculating about him any further. To be imagining him at breakfast, with the newspaper and his toast, and that sated, husbandly look in his eyes.

  “Take my word for it.” Skye grinned at her. “He’s the kind of man that a girl wants to take home and keep.”

  “Is he?” Elizabeth laughed at the absurdity of the idea, and sighed out her regrets. A man to take home and kiss perhaps, but she couldn’t keep him. There was too much at stake to risk on a permanent pleasure like the Earl of Blakestone. “You know as well as I that his lordship wouldn’t fit very well in my home.”

  Skye frowned at her, clicking her tongue. “Perhaps not, but a girl can dream, can’t she?”

  “Only if that girl can get some sleep first.” Feeling suddenly weary, Elizabeth bent over the papers. “What have you got here?”

  “We sat around in the kitchen with Mrs. Bailey, plied her with more cocoa and orange cakes, talked a bit, you know, woman-to-woman. She even picked out the perfect hat. And we managed to tease out a few more facts that might help her find the best possible situation once she gets to New York.”

  “Amazing work, Skye, as usual. Thank you.” Elizabeth spent the next half hour plotting Lydia’s future with Skye, a big-hearted, beautiful young woman with the mind of a master criminal, plotting and scheming until finally the plan was clear and the arrangements were ready to be made.

  And if she was going to make the convoluted travel arrangements in such a short amount of time, tonight would be the best window of opportunity for the next full week.

  “All right, Skye, I’ll leave you to make up an official schedule. Tomorrow will be fine. And I’ll go see to the telegraphing.”

  Skye scowled fiercely. “You be careful down there, Miss Elizabeth. I don’t know what sort of place it is, but if they ever find out…”

  Whoever they are. “If they do, you know where I keep the bail money, don’t you, Skye?”

  But Skye didn’t seem to appreciate that particular bit of humor. “You’ll need this, Miss Elizabeth.”

  “Thanks.” Elizabeth offered a pale apology and took Lydia’s itinerary, feeling roundly chastised for being flip about such a real possibility.

  She made a circuit of the Adams, checking on the few overnight guests, the kitchen, and the whereabouts of Blakestone’s three unnecessary guards. It was well after midnight by the time she stepped into the back stairs and made her way down into the basement workrooms.

  With any luck, her prescient earl wouldn’t go looking for her once he returned from his own late night excursions, because she couldn’t let him find her in the midst of her errand. Not where she was going.

  She hung her oil lamp on a sconce hook in the corridor where it would cast just enough light to be a beacon when she returned, and then stepped into the long storage room. She worked her way through the dimly lit alleyways of crates and barrels to the large cabinet against the back wall.

  The tallboy was empty inside, where she’d conveniently cleared it of its shelves. Which made it much easier for her to climb inside, slide the back off the cabinet, then push open the inmost and then the heavy, rusted iron outermost door that led through the cabinet into her secret passage.

  She closed up the doors behind her and started forward into the long, dark passage that stretched out for an entire block under the street. It jogged and twisted and turned its way beneath what must have been some ancient medieval system of croft arches, until the passage finally ended at the backside of still another wooden door.

  She put her ear to the panel, listened for a long time, but heard nothing of the footsteps or voices that she’d heard the first time she found her way through the odd passage.

  Since then she’d learned that the vast complex of rooms beyond the panel were generally deserted after midnight, and her panel opened up into a tailor’s shop behind convenient rows of clothes hanging against the back wall.

  Still, she cracked open the door enough to make sure that the shop was dark, before pushing through and heading for the telegraph room.

  Gaslights were burning low along the paneled passageways, as they usually did this time of night, softly lighting the various rooms in the elaborate underground installation.

  A nameless headquarters of some sort. Probably a secret government building that she shouldn’t be skulking around in. But she was hardly a risk to the security of the Empire. Besides, she was just borrowing a few services.

  Because there was so much here to borrow.

  What with a tailor’s shop and a huge printing office, three different laboratories, and who knew what else locked behind heavy metal doors……

  Still, she was grateful to have discovered the bank of telegraph machines. She could send private messages to her underground contacts without having to worry about the local telegraph operator remembering her or the subjects of her messages.

  Secrecy was imperative in her activities. So was obscuring the trail of paper and plans and all the other clues that followed after her runaway heroines. Because their already miserable lives depended solely on her ability to camouflage and misdirect every step along the way.

  Failure meant an angry husband or father or fiancé following the hapless woman to the ends of the earth. And then dragging her back to her own private hell.

  She slipped into the telegraph room, vowing once again that she simply could never let that happen.

  She’d learned telegraphy from the station master in her little village of Waverlock. He’d been a sweet-natured, childless old fellow who was everyone’s grandfather. She’d often taken his place at the key when he was feeling under the weather, and had manned the station for a full month after he died.

  But tonight she sent three messages, to three different contacts: one to Southampton, one to be sent via steamship to New York, and the third to the owner of an elegant but very private boardinghouse in Winston Quay. Each would reply to her in code, to any one of a dozen telegraph offices across London.

  So far, so good.

  But just as the thought slipped through her brain, she heard a door open somewhere above her.

  Then a pair of male voices, then thre
e of them, their words unclear.

  But the sound of one of them made her pause and listen dangerously long to the rumble of something oddly familiar.

  And in the next moment she was too terrified to stick around and find out why. So she slipped silently out of sight through the wall of the tailor shop. But not without grabbing a boy’s cap on her way out.

  After all, she could always use another disguise.

  ******************

  “Wait, did you hear that?” Ross came to a halt at the bottom of the stairs, the hair at his nape lifting on end as he listened.

  Jared stood stock-still beside him, and Drew on the step behind, both listening without comment until Ross broke the silence himself.

  “Damnation, I could have sworn . .. no, wait!” He moved forward into the oddly moving air, sniffed at it, at the out-of-place scent. “There. Do you feel that?”

  “Feel what exactly?” Drew raised his palm.

  “That breeze. Where the devil is it coming from?”

  Jared snorted lightly, then clapped him on the back and started toward the library. “Phantoms, Ross.”

  “Oh, phantoms is it, now?” Ross would have teased Jared further, but he recognized the sudden melancholy that had set into his jaw.

  A phantom named Thomas. A past they would share until the end of their days.

  “You know, he would have been thirty at the end of the month,” Jared said, wrenching out of his jacket and hanging it on the coat tree. “Thirty, by God! That’s makes me old.”

  “See here, Thomas!” Drew dropped his attaché case onto the table with a thunk and looked up at the chandelier. “If you are the one who’s been bumping around here at night, we’d appreciate you raising a fright under that bastard Nicholas in St. Petersburg.”

  “Along with his bloody ambassador here in London,” Ross said from the map wall, yanking at the cords of two different maps before finally rolling down the map of Europe and the Ottoman Empire.

  Jared laughed. “Frankly, I’d settle for old Thomas shutting down the Times for a few days. Delane has everyone on the street taking sides in a conflict they know nothing about.”

  “And suddenly all things Turkish have become the height of fashion.”

  “What the hell is Stratford up to, Ross?” Jared stuck his fists into his pockets as he stared at the map. “Is he truly whispering into the sultan’s ear to reject anything Russia throws his way?”