The Carhart Series Read online

  She turned abruptly at the sound of the door. “My God, Ned. You nearly scared me out of my skin.”

  Aside from that long fall of muslin, it appeared that skin was essentially all she was wearing. His mouth dried.

  It had been a long time. And damn, he wanted her. He wanted to claim the curves that lay under that fabric. He wanted to cross the room in one bound and press her against the feather tick. Desire coursed through him, pounding in his ears as powerfully as a flooding river, pulling all his good intentions downstream.

  She pushed her legs out in front of her, exposing a smooth curve from foot to calf. Her feet flexed, pointed, and then she stood in one graceful movement. The moonlight rendered the white stuff of her shift translucent. He could see the curve of her waist through that thin fabric. His hands yearned to touch her.

  She’s yours. You might as well take her.

  She frowned at him. “You’re wearing a surprising amount of clothing.”

  “I am? I hadn’t realized.” The thick fabric of his trousers was the only protection he had, the armor behind which he could hide the truth of his physical response. He’d been erect since he’d walked in the room.

  He didn’t move forward. Instead, he concentrated on the rise and fall of his breath. He was in control, not his pounding desire. Not his fevered imagination. He was in control. He wasn’t a savage.

  But then she moved toward him. The gown rippled about her, fading into translucence where the light from the moon shone through. She set her hands on her hips—a movement that only cinched the fabric about that gentle curve. The material slid against her skin in a soft whisper. It was a challenge she issued him, even if she didn’t know it yet.

  “Really, Ned. How hard can this be?”

  “Excruciatingly hard.” And long. And thick.

  “Well,” Kate said, “I’m your wife. We both know how to proceed from here.” She let out a hard-put-upon sigh. “Can we just get this over with? I won’t protest.”

  She promised not to protest in the ill-used tones of a servant, agreeing to shovel manure. But even with so little encouragement, Ned went from hard to rigid. His rationality was shredding around him. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “It doesn’t work?” She glanced down in surprise. “I see. Your years abroad did change you. It never had a problem working before.”

  It stiffened upon being so directly addressed. For a second, he berated himself for not changing from trousers to a loose robe, one that would hide it. “It works. Trust me. If you waved your hand about, you could verify that it is working right now.”

  She reached out, and he caught her fingers before they could explore the depth—or rather, the length—of his attraction.

  “That was a rhetorical device.” Her hand fluttered in his. “Not an invitation. Not twelve hours ago, you were telling me you didn’t need anything as complicated as a love affair.”

  “Goodness.” She pulled her hand from his grip and shook her fingers. “We’re married. It would hardly be a love affair. It’s not as if you need to seduce me. No other man has such scruples.”

  No doubt. Most of Ned’s peers thought that “scruples” meant that a man took pains to keep his mistress far from his wife. One demonstrated scruples by taking out subscriptions to charity, by supporting the parish’s poor. Scruples were inconveniences, to be set aside in the dark of night when a woman whispered that she was willing.

  “That’s the thing.” The words scraped harshly in Ned’s throat. “You see, I don’t want to be just any man. I intend to be better.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m quite sure of it. You’re better. And longer. You forget, I’ve spent three years here, with gentlemen clamoring to seduce me. It’s just your luck that I don’t need sweet nothings to succumb tonight.”

  “Kate, I know I’ve made mistakes these last years. Hell, the only reason we married was because I made a mistake.”

  Her chin lifted at that. “You arrogant…arrogant…” Her mouth worked.

  No doubt, Ned thought, the phrase she was searching for was son of a bitch. He wanted to hear those vulgar syllables delivered in the perfect tones of a duke’s daughter. But alas. Her ladylike vocabulary failed her.

  “Arrogant cad,” she finished. “We married because I said yes.”

  “I convinced you to meet me alone. We were caught together because I—”

  “I met you alone, Ned. Why on earth do you suppose I did that?”

  A sense of unease grew in him. He shook his head, starting over. “It was a marriage of convenience, and—”

  “Oh, do be quiet,” she snapped. “I was raised to be practical about marriage, Ned. I don’t need a declaration of love. I don’t want you to swear your undying affection, and if you did, I wouldn’t believe it, anyway. I just want—” She cut herself off, and then turned around. Her hair spun with her, pale gold decorating her shoulders.

  “You want what?”

  She looked at him over her shoulder. In that instant—even with the dark of night shielding her expression from his eyes—he guessed at the truth. He didn’t want her to answer. He didn’t want to hear whatever it was she was about to say.

  “You,” she said quietly. “I just want you.”

  He could hear three years of hurt echo in her voice, and he shifted from one foot to the next.

  “It wasn’t all about convenience,” she said softly. “I married—”

  “You married a scrawny little mister,” Ned said dryly. “An arrogant cad.” And, apparently, a bigger son of a bitch than Ned had realized.

  She smiled faintly at that.

  “Well. Yes.”

  “You’ve never asked me for much.” The only time she’d ever asked him for anything was when she had asked him not to leave. He hadn’t listened then.

  Matters had become bad around here. She accepted Harcroft’s slights so easily. She was willing to submit to Ned—and God, what an image the thought of her sweet submission still made—even though he’d hurt her. She accepted that she was to have nothing from this marriage but dry dust.

  Had he made them that bad?

  Ned was afraid he had.

  “Just come to my bed,” she said with an exhale.

  If he had been any other man, he might have done so. He wanted the taste of her badly enough to do it. But then, even though she’d never asked him for anything, he could hear the entreaty in her voice. No matter what she said, she didn’t deserve an emotionless coupling in the dark.

  Other men might set their scruples aside after nightfall and then take them up again in the morning. But Ned was laboring under another burden. When he let his control lapse, he’d found himself slipping down into darkness.

  No. He couldn’t be just any man. He had to be better, stronger and more in control. After he’d hurt her, he owed her more than a few minutes with his trousers bunched at his ankles.

  “When I take you again, Kate, you won’t be offering yourself to me out of a sense of duty or obligation or whatever this happens to be.” He slid a finger under her chin.

  She shivered under his touch and took a step back.

  “You won’t flinch when I touch you. And you won’t tell me it’s not a love affair. You won’t ever tell me that.”

  More important, he would have control over himself—control over the inexorable wants that she brought up in him. He would be able to trust himself around her, trust that this time, he would not go careening off into the abyss again.

  She looked up at him, the gray of her eyes silver in the moonlight. Her lips were parted. She didn’t say a word; she just stared at him, a strange combination of innocence and seduction, desire and hurt wafting off her. She drew him as strongly as any siren would have, and without any notion of the rocks that waited to dash him to pieces if he were to give in.

  He pulled his finger from her chin and rubbed it surreptitiously against his trousers. “You told me earlier that our marriage might dry up and blow away in one great gust. If
a little wind could do us in, what do you suppose would happen if I just used you?”

  Her tongue darted out to touch her lips. “Then you’d have the use of me.” Her voice was low and husky.

  He could have her flat on her back in the bed, her ankles wrapped around his thighs, in two seconds. He would hold her down and pour himself into her, would let go of all the rigid strictures that held him in place. His blood thumped insistently in his ears—not loudly, but a quiet beat, as unstoppable as the sea creeping up the strand. As impossible to ignore.

  Ned had become an expert on turning back tides as they came in. “I won’t do that.”

  Her eyes glittered, and he reached out one hand and touched her cheek. She shut her eyes under his touch. He wanted to take her, hard and dark and desperately, her body fitting around his. Instead, he forced himself to skim his hand over her face, a gentle brush. His thumb found her lips and he traced the path of a kiss against that pink softness.

  She didn’t open her mouth, but he could smell her—lavender water overlaying the faint scent of rose soap. He traced that almost-kiss into her skin.

  Before he could think better of it, he leaned down and touched his lips to hers. She was soft, and for all the murky complications of his own lust, the kiss he gave her was as simple and unshadowed as a summer noon. She tasted of warm sunshine and soft breezes. By contrast, he felt dark and wanting. He pulled away, the touch of her incandescent against his own mouth, before his wants could overwhelm him. He’d given her more the promise of a kiss than the actual delivery of one. He straightened while she was just beginning to reach up on her toes.

  And then, before his own baser urges could be enlarged on, before he could put his hands on her waist and push her against the wall as he desired, he turned and left.

  Chapter Seven

  A FLUTTER OF COLD AIR. Kate’s nightgown swirled around her—she opened her eyes after that delicate dream of a kiss, to see her husband retreating. His leaving, now, was even worse than it had been before. He’d touched her, and she’d felt as if her heart had cracked right open. Her hands had spread; her fingers still tingled; her lips still yearned for his.

  She’d been raised to be sensible about marriage. Marriage was an alliance, and Ned had been quite eligible—heir to a marquess, wealthy, handsome and without any truly horrendous shortcomings.

  That kiss hung between them like a thought half spoken. Her whole marriage hung before her like a sentence waiting to be finished.

  He’d been calmly, politely, completely in control. She was the one who burned, who seethed. She was the one who’d made a fool of herself over a man—and apparently she’d not stopped fooling herself. This time she’d only needed the cheapest of excuses to hop into his bed—and he’d dismissed that excuse, threadbare as it was, and had sent her running with a mere pat on her head. He’d kissed her as if she were a child.

  It was as if nothing had changed.

  But it had.

  Last time he’d been in England, when she was a new, naive bride, he’d commanded only her body—her scorching response, her searing desire. But now he wanted more than her body’s compliance. What had he said? He wanted her to come to him as if they were engaged in a love affair. He wanted not only willingness, but trust. He wanted every ounce of lonely strength she’d built for herself during his long absence. He didn’t just want her naked; he wanted her vulnerable and weak. Easy to hurt. He wanted her, and damn it, she’d worked too hard for herself to give it over to him for the asking.

  No. He might wish for her compliance with all his carefully controlled might, but he wasn’t going to get it. Quite the contrary.

  She’d seen one spark in his eyes, one hint that her failed seduction had been something to him other than an eye-rolling display. He’d leaned toward her. He’d kissed her. And when she’d reached for him, he’d grabbed her hand before she could touch him.

  His armor had flaws.

  Kate could hear the floor creak in his room. What was he doing in there? Taking off the rest of that clothing? She gave the door between them a baleful, jealous glare.

  He wanted to win her without giving himself up in return. He wanted to conquer her, not win her regard in exchange for his own. He wanted to hold back.

  But this time Kate wouldn’t be the one left behind with her burning desires. She was going to crack his control. This time he would burn. He would want. He would desire her beyond all reason. And once she had him, desperate and pitiful, begging on his knees…

  Kate sighed, her practical side taking over. If she ever brought her husband to his knees, she would likely feel as confused as she was now. She wouldn’t know what to do with him.

  Rage had a place and a purpose, but even anger left her vulnerable. What had her furious imaginings been but hope in another form? Already she’d reverted to girlish dreams, involving declarations of love, delivered on one knee. But she didn’t need revenge. She had no use for petty scorn. She just didn’t want to be hurt.

  She shut her eyes and breathed deeply. No hope. No longing. No desire. If she could just excise her wants, he could never cause her pain again.

  KATE REMOVED THE EGGS, one by one, from her pockets and set them on the rickety table in front of her. Motes of dust tangled in the pale morning sunshine, filtering through the thick glass windows of the little shepherd’s shack.

  “I cannot say when I’ll be back,” she said, pulling the last egg from her cloak pocket. “I had thought I might come out here with greater regularity, but there have been complications.”

  Louisa sat in her chair, her arms folded about her swaddled infant. She looked as ladylike as ever, even though the serviceable green wool she wore was no match for the delicate silks and sprigged muslins that had made up her wardrobe in London. Her face grew long at these words, and she pulled her child closer to her chest.

  “Complications,” she said quietly. “I detest complications.”

  Kate began heaping provisions from her basket onto the table. Her shoulders ached, having carted the load five miles here. “There’s a cured ham and some carrots and a bunch of greens. You know there are already potatoes and turnips in the shelter. But I’ve brought some scallions from the garden, such as they are. I might not return for a week. The fare will likely be monotonous.”

  She trailed off, feeling useless. Louisa shook her head.

  “What sort of complications could keep you away for a week?”

  Kate glanced away and pulled another cloth napkin from the basket.

  The cottage where Louisa was hidden lay five miles to the west of Berkswift. It had once been little better than a shepherd’s shelter, four walls and a makeshift fireplace. But over the decades, it had grown into a tiny three-room affair—an open room for cooking and eating, furnished with a rough-hewn table and trestles, a sleeping room and a storage shed.

  Louisa and the Yorkshire nursemaid Kate had hired fit compactly in the space, packed together like common passengers shoved into a stagecoach.

  Kate reached into the basket one last time. Her hands closed on metal, cold and deadly. “I brought you—”

  “News, Kate. I want news.”

  “This.” Kate set the silver-tooled pistol next to the ham.

  The clink it made as she laid the weapon on wood seemed somehow too soft, to demure, to have been made by a gun. She’d found it that morning in a cabinet. It had been a grim sort of serendipity. Under the circumstances, bringing it had seemeed like a good idea.

  “Do you know how to shoot?” Kate asked.

  Louisa’s face shuttered. “Not really. One—one simply points and squeezes, I suppose?”

  “Harcroft is staying at Berkswift.” Kate spoke quickly, as if saying the words faster would make them less painful. “He caught wind of a rumor about a woman looking like you disembarking from a cart. He flew out here in a rage.”

  “He knows.” Louisa’s face froze. Her hand curled around her sleeping baby in quiet protectiveness. Her eyes pinched to narr
owness. But by the slump in her spine, that show of strength was little more than bravado.

  “He doesn’t, not yet. But I’d like to keep it that way. He’s furious. And—unfortunately—he is staying in my house.”

  “I see.” Louisa let out a breath and then smiled. It was a brave expression, somewhat belied by the nervous dart of her eyes. “Well, at least worry will keep me from boredom. I never thought I would miss those dreadful meetings that the Ladies’ Beneficial Tea Society insisted on holding, but right now I would give anything for a heated argument about the merits of embroidering handkerchiefs versus the knitting of socks and scarves.” She smiled lazily. “Right now I have nothing to do but watch over Jeremy. And he sleeps a shocking amount of the time.”

  Over the course of Kate’s less-than-ladylike secret career, spent stealing women away from husbands who didn’t deserve them, she’d seen many different responses. One woman had escaped her husband—but after two days she’d begged to return, insisting that the man could not survive without her, that he loved her. That he wouldn’t hit her again. Another had cowered for three weeks in this cottage, unable to lift her head. Yet another had grabbed hold of the chance and scampered for freedom as soon as it was offered. Louisa had landed somewhere in between those extremes.

  She had argued her duty as wife for months, when Kate had first found out what was happening to her. Then Louisa had given birth to her first child, and whatever she felt her dry duty as wife had been, her duty as mother had overwhelmed her with a ferocious passion. There were not many women in Louisa’s situation who would joke about boredom, with their husbands off raging in the distance.

  “He’ll stay a few days,” Kate predicted. “He’ll uncover no trail, no clues—just that rumor of an auburn-haired lady who paid a merchant for a ride in his cart, and then disappeared. In a week, he’ll have moved on.” Louisa nodded.

  “But while he’s here, he mustn’t suspect me. Not even a little bit. He thinks I’m a frivolous, foolish sort of female, forever shopping and planning parties. I want him to continue to think so. For the next few days I shall devote myself to my guests’ entertainment. I’ll plan meals. I’ll protest when Blakely refuses to participate in my musical evenings.”