Marry the Man Today Read online

  Three amusing clowns.

  Three agile dancers.

  Three sleight-of-hand jugglers.

  And their beautifully inscrutable ringmaster.

  Of course, Elizabeth hadn’t had time to tell them that he knew about the bank fraud charges and the other activities that pointed back here to the Adams. They might have been protecting her. Working in concert to keep him from getting too close to Elizabeth’s secrets.

  “Thank you for taking such good care of his lordship, ladies.” Elizabeth gave them all a pointed smile. “I’ll handle him for now.”

  “Is that a promise, wife?” he asked after the young women were well out of earshot. “You’ll handle me?”

  But it must not have struck her as witty. She was frowning at him.

  “Why are you here, Blakestone?” The subject was obviously as tender now as it had been the night before. Pursed lips, clipped words, brows drawn together.

  “To clear my things from my makeshift office in the parlor.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I won’t be using it anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’ll be sleeping at the Huntsman with me until I can … we can temporarily hire a town house.”

  “Why didn’t you just wait for me?”

  “I did wait, love.” He couldn’t help his smile as he left his place at the table to be closer to her. “I watched you sleep for nearly an hour.”

  “Why?” She blinked at him, feathering those thick lashes that he’d marveled at that morning, watching her flawless cheeks begin to flame.

  “I couldn’t help myself.” Could barely contain his lust for her at the time.

  Or now.

  “So you finally grew bored and made a beeline for the Adams. My Adams!”

  Hers, his, theirs. Such a prickly obstacle. But how to state his position clearly enough so that she would trust his promise not to get in her way.

  At least not much.

  “I was far from bored, wife.” He could have watched her all day.

  “Then just get it over with. Tell me that you’ve decided to close down the Abigail Adams, sell the building, and send everyone home to their husbands.”

  Damnation, he’d always wanted a wife with mettle enough not to back down from her opinions. And it seemed he got one.

  “I don’t recall saying anything about closing the Adams.”

  “No, but it’s what you mean to do. As soon as you can manage it.”

  “At my own peril, my dear Elizabeth.” He caught her around her slender waist, feeling thoroughly possessive of her parts. His wife. The fit of her shapes against his palm. “With you and Kate and the princess ganged up against me? Not to mention those three mountebanks who just left here. I’d stand a better chance as a snowball in hell.”

  For a moment he thought she was carefully weighing his words as she gazed up at him, holding fast to his arms as though to study him better. But her breathing had deepened, her pupils had darkened, the sea green of her eyes had brightened with a new kind of intimacy.

  “Then I can go on with the Adams just as I have been?” She held his gaze. “You’re not going to insist that I change anything?”

  “Nothing at all. My word of honor.”

  She studied him for the longest time, doubtless weighing his word against that of every other man in her life.

  She finally sighed. “I shouldn’t have to thank you for allowing me my God-given rights, my lord. But I will.”

  She smiled and was rising up on her toes, a rosy, moist kiss on its way to his hungry mouth when his bloody conscience made him add: “Of course, my dear wife, you’ll have to pass everything you do by me first.”

  She stopped abruptly, her eyes even wider, greener, her lips a scant inch from his. “I knew it. You don’t trust me!”

  She dropped back down off her toes with a huff, rescinding her kiss before she had bestowed it, a juicy plum stolen right out of his grasp.

  “Madam, it’s not a matter of trust.”

  “Ballocks!” She pulled out of his reach, her body fiercely tense, her voice a wall of calm. “You would never dare treat a man this way, would you? Insist that he clear his plans with you before he acts. Checking up on him in case he does something foolish. Is that what you think of me? That I’m incapable of making a rational decision?”

  He opened his mouth to deny her accusation, but he knew she was right—he wouldn’t have questioned a man’s logic. Not on the surface.

  What a bloody mess.

  And what a lot of dancing he was going to have to do around this subject.

  “In truth, Elizabeth, you’re one of the most rational people I’ve ever met.”

  “So I’m your model of rationality? How frightening for you. To be surrounded by lunatics.” She folded her arms against her chest, daring him to continue, when he’d so much rather take her up into his embrace.

  And then the answer came to him. A truth.

  “Think about it, Elizabeth. The greatest leaders in the world seek counsel from others. Good Lord, the prime minister has a cabinet to advise him. The queen has her privy council. In fact, I’m the current chairman of the board of the Huntsman; I never act alone.”

  She narrowed those lashy eyes at him. “So you’re offering to be my privy council?”

  Now there was an enchanting proposal. “As privy as you’ll allow me, my dear wife.”

  She studied him to the whispered beat of her dainty foot tapping beneath her skirts, her hands balled into fists and jammed against her hips. And the blush that looked so fine on her cheeks.

  “Let’s just say, for example, husband, that I want to offer a new class to our schedule at the Adams. Let’s call the class ‘How to Be a Scantily Clad Music Hall Dancer.’ According to your rules, I would then convene a meeting with you, my privy counselor, and we would discuss it between us. Say you advise against it. But I think it’s a marvelous idea. What then? Who wins? You or I?”

  The minx. “Neither, madam. We obviously don’t have enough information.”

  “And so?”

  “We would then consult a solicitor, perhaps the Lord Mayor, the prime minister, the Times.”

  “And receive a resounding no! That’s not fair.” She flicked him a dismissive frown.

  He caught her hand and turned her, hungry for her. Overwhelmed by this new realization that she was his wife. His unkissed bride.

  “It might not be fair, my dear …” He slipped his hands around her waist, shaped them over the gentle rise of her bottom, trying to refocus her thoughts toward him, toward them, on this morning after their wedding night. “… But in this case, we would both agree that London is not yet ready for their ladies to learn how to be scantily clad music hall dancers. Am I right?”

  “Possibly.” She frowned down at his shirtfront, then fussed with a vest button, tapping it, tapping away her reluctance. “In that particular case.”

  “And so the Abigail Adams avoids a scandal and your den of subversion survives to protest another day.” He lifted her chin, lifting her gaze to his, exposing the soft ivory length of her throat to his fingers. And then to his mouth.

  She tasted of roses. A garden. Bent her petals for him to kiss more lushly.

  “Oh, my!” She grabbed fistfuls of his jacket, his arms, and used that to pull herself closer to him. To his mouth. To moan against his cheek. “That’s … so … nice. Oh, Ross.”

  “So you see my point, wife.” Now this was much better. With his bride trembling in his arms, offering herself to him, belly to groin, his mouth trailing over her skin wherever he could uncover it. “We work together. You and me. A team. Elizabeth and Ross.”

  “Don’t you mean Ross, with Elizabeth in the back room?” She drew a long, sighing breath that ended in her bright, whispering laughter breaking just under his ear. “Or in the cellar?”

  Christ, she was magnificent! “In the bedroom, wife. In my bed.”

  “That would keep both of us occupied and
out of trouble.” She was trailing the cool tips of her fingers along the back of his neck, riffling through his hair, ringing his collar, blowing little bursts of air against his temple.

  “With any luck, we’d never get anything done.” Her touch had stolen his will, and his remaining air, else he would have done more than growl out his pleasure. He leaned back hard against the bookcase and drew her with him, sinking into her glorious exploration.

  “You smell of cinnamon, Ross.” Her nostrils flared as she nibbled at the underside of his chin.

  “Your … assistant… Ah, hell!” He’d endured the pussyfooting, gut-knotting restraint long enough. Tossing away all sense of decorum, he filled his aching arms with his bride, caught her hips between his bent legs, then pulled her belly tightly against his groin.

  “Ahhh, there it is again, Ross.” She was looking up at him from beneath her fawn-colored brows, the sultry vixen, fragrant with honey and steamy vanilla. “That hard place of yours I’ve suggested wives must become well acquainted with.”

  “You seem well acquainted.” Downright possessive, with the pressure she was wielding against him. A rolling motion. A music hall dancer.

  She shook her head gravely, wetting her lips with her tongue. “Not well enough at all, husband.”

  Dear Lord, would he live through this long day? Would he survive the restraint? Would he make it to their bed without taking her here on the floor of the library, or there on the table? Right here against the wall of bookcases?

  “May I take that as an invitation?” May I take you, wife? Swallow you whole, drink at your lips, drown in your bosom?

  “We have to start somewhere, Ross. Someplace.” She pulled away from him just slightly, but only to stagger him breathless as she reached up to put her fingers flat against his mouth, as though trying to memorize their shape.

  “That’s a good place, wife. Very good.” His muscles had long ago seized up in his arms, in his thighs as they gripped her around her lithe hips, aching with the dizzying need to mount his own exploration of her mounds and valley. But this was a busy, bustling library.

  And he wanted to strip her to her bare skin. Rip off his own clothes. Naked love.

  “Now, husband, for that kiss.” Then his thoroughly bewitching wife smiled like a wily cat, rose up the rest of the way on her toes.

  He was beyond waiting, beyond starving for a taste of her. As she wrapped her fingers indelicately in his hair and pulled him closer, Ross cradled the back of her head with his hands, covered her full mouth with his own, then dove deeply into her kiss.

  Plunging into her softness, then nibbling, tugging, dancing with tongues and teeth.

  “Oh … Ross!” Her little moan came immediately, burst into his chest like sunlight. She broke off a moment and looked at him with startled eyes.

  Then she smiled and met his mouth again, her kiss wet and torrid, as hungry as his.

  Lord, and there was all that smooth, unexplored skin beneath her chemise, lean legs beneath her petticoats, silky thighs, the humid heat of her.

  But he repeated to himself inside the steaming muddle of his brain: we’re in a library just now. A library. As public as the Reading Room at the British Museum.

  “Enough for now, Elizabeth,” he whispered against her delving kiss, whispered over and over, “Enough, enough.” And then caught his lips against her ear. “Tonight.”

  But he suddenly sensed something out of place in the room. Something crowding them. And when he finally glanced up from the heat of her searing kiss, over her head, he realized they were no longer alone.

  “Ah. ‘Morning ladies,” he said to the three pairs of bright eyes staring at them from the doorway.

  “Will you look at that, Skye!”

  “Am I seeing right, Jessica?”

  “It’s the earl!”

  Already light-headed and breathless from Ross’s intoxicating kiss, Elizabeth felt the room spin as she turned quickly inside the circle of her husband’s embrace. She tried to focus on the figures in the library door but all she could feel was Ross’s thick erection, throbbing against her bottom.

  “Ah, there you are, ladies.” Her skin still on fire, she drew his jacket together from behind, then popped out of Ross’s arms and strode toward her three gape-mouthed assistants. “Can I help you? His lordship and I were just… discussing something.”

  And her knees weren’t working.

  Cassie nodded, obviously unconvinced. “We just came in to let you know that your … uhm … your gown for the charity ball tonight has arrived.”

  “Ah! Good. Thank you.” She’d forgotten all about Lady Maxton’s Charity Ball. Had good reasons to have forgotten so many things in the course of the last day.

  Tonight was the scheduled night of their Turkish trousers fashion rebellion. Not enough time to send out messages to her members to change their plans now.

  Certainly no time to consult her handsome privy counselor. He would just have to be surprised along with the others.

  Jessica pointed weakly toward the upper floors. “The seamstress is upstairs in your sitting room, Miss Elizabeth, ready for your final fitting.”

  “Very good.” Since she was still wearing the same clothes she’d worn to jail yesterday. With a too short visit inside her husband’s nightshirt.

  “Shall I tell her that you’re coming right up?” Skye was still staring between Elizabeth and her husband.

  A man who seemed a giant presence just a dozen feet at her back.

  “Yes, please.” She glanced back at Ross, and found herself marveling at his easy composure when only moments ago his large hands had been everywhere, inside every tuck and fold of her dress, his mouth breaking boundaries with his pleasures, and unstringing her knees. “His lordship was just leaving. Weren’t you?”

  He smiled slyly as he pushed away from the bookcase. “Ah, yes, Miss Elizabeth. Though I’ll be back at, say, eight, to pick you up for the ball.”

  She hadn’t thought about tonight, let alone tomorrow. Where they would live, their social calendar, their acquaintances. Lydia. And of course, Ross was due to appear on Lady Maxton’s auction block.

  Her husband! Hers! Slave to another woman’s desires. I think not, came the sudden thought. As shockingly possessive and jealous as a fishwife.

  “Yes, of course, your lordship,” she managed, as the man who was now bound to her by every means possible took her hand and put it to his lips, dizzying her with the pleasure of it all. The significance of it all.

  “Good day, ladies,” Ross said from the doorway, nearly knocking them all into swoons with the casual elegance of his nodded exit.

  Elizabeth stared after him, as immobilized with awe as were her three faithful assistants.

  Until they finally broke into a tangle of questions and surrounded her with speculation.

  Skye waggled a chiding finger at her. “That man was kissing you.”

  “He was.” He was fondling her.

  Cassie looked utterly scandalized. “And you were kissing him back.”

  “Yes, I was.” And fondling him. Wanting him so fiercely she could still feel the pressure of his hard places, his ridges and heat.

  Jessica frowned. “Where were you last night, Miss Elizabeth?”

  “With him?” Cassie jerked her head toward the door. “The earl?”

  “That very earl. My husband.”

  They gasped together like a great, sucking furnace bellows.

  “I married the Earl of Blakestone last night.”

  Another gasp of disbelief.

  “That’s amazing, my lady!”

  “And wonderful!”

  “But what about Mrs. Bailey?” Jessica asked. “And all others who need our help?”

  As bright a star as her husband might turn out to be among the constellation of men, there were surely some details that even a queen must keep from her privy council for as long as possible.

  And damn the consequences.

  More than the simple fact that a
pair of Turkish trousers were waiting upstairs for her to try on for tonight.

  “Come then, ladies, the seamstress is waiting. I’ll tell you all about everything on the way upstairs.”

  ******************

  The seamstress did the last of her tucking and stitching under the watchful eyes of Elizabeth’s entourage. She was gone within the hour, leaving careful instructions for putting it back together for the ball.

  That was hours ago. Now it was after seven and the minutes were flying past. Ross would be here any time now, and she didn’t want to give anything away before the last possible moment.

  “Oh, it fits perfectly, my lady! Turn! Turn!” Skye laughed as she clapped her hands, setting off Jessica and Cassie with their ooos and ahhhs.

  “You’ll be the talk of the ball,” Jessica said as she tried to catch up with the unruly curls let loose against Elizabeth’s nape.

  “Let’s hope there’ll be more women than just me to set tongues wagging tonight.”

  Please let her husband approve. At least a little.

  Whatever the outcome, the Turkish trousers made Elizabeth feel utterly exotic. The blouse was richly cut in the sleeves, the bodice set off by a short vest with a tasseled hem.

  The folds of silk sluiced against her bare skin when she moved, like cool, cascading water. The fabric draped freely around her limbs like a heated caress from an unblushing lover. The colors were a celebration of autumn, with sunny yellows and deep violets, oranges and browns, all of it shot through with leafy designs in the finest gold thread.

  “And now the skirt that will hide my shocking little act of rebellion until the most proper—or dare I say improper—moment.”

  Her three assistants giggled and gossiped as they hooked and tied and tucked the elegant skirt to its waistband, then put the rest of her costume together, just as the seamstress had shown them earlier. A dashing cap of lush velvets adorned the crown of her hair, exotically hued, yet subtle enough not to draw attention to her.

  Although when eight o’clock and her husband arrived at the same time, and she appeared at the top of the stairs, she thought at first that he’d caught on to her ruse.

  He stood unmoving in the foyer below, magnificent in his evening clothes, his gaze locked on hers, following her every step as she descended.