A Wicked Lord at the Wedding Read online

  She closed her eyes while he undressed. Curiosity, however, one of her many flaws, overcame her. She sat up to help him, to watch. She’d removed many a man’s shirt in surgery. But no man had ever tightened her throat with desire or tempted her to touch him for the sheer pleasure of it.

  She winced when she saw his scars. But he only smiled when she traced her fingers down his neck and across the muscled ridges of his back. “Those stitches don’t look half bad. And—” Her gaze dropped to her initials, carved neatly into his hard buttocks. “And as for those other scars, you’ll be embarrassed if you ever end up in bed with another woman.”

  “As if there’s any chance of that,” he said with a smile, and scooped her into his lap.

  The next thing she knew, he had lifted her to straddle his knee. His hands locked around her bottom, a good thing, too. She felt that pleasant faintness again. She lowered her face to his shoulder.

  “Not a mark on this lovely body,” he whispered, and slowly feathered his fingers down her breasts and belly.

  “No one is going to carve your initials on my backside.”

  “He wouldn’t live long if he tried.”

  His hands roamed over her body. Her gaze drifted over him until it stopped at the mysterious hollow between his legs. His heavy shaft rose from a shadow of dark hair. He seemed so comfortable with his sexuality while she, pinned to the spot by his presence, could barely force herself to breathe.

  He pulled her down beside him. She clenched her thighs at first when his fingers stroked her folds. Then he whispered, “My wife,” and the need that those two words awakened swept away her last defense.

  His touch scorched her like smoke. He breathed a deep sigh into her neck. Her husband. She lifted herself to his ministrations. Heaven. She closed her eyes, felt the painful sweetness of his mouth at her breasts. “Oh,” she said, unprepared for the deep ache that pulsed in her belly.

  More. She couldn’t ask. But he knew. He squeezed the bud of her sex as he licked the circles around her tight nipples. Another finger worked into her sheathe, stretching her open. Wetness seeped from her body. She heard him groan in pleasure, inhaling deeply as if her scent excited him.

  Suddenly she couldn’t keep herself from moving. This felt good. But her greedy body knew he could give her more.

  “I need …”

  He smiled.

  “Oh, you do. You’re the wettest thing I’ve ever touched.”

  His dark, sexy voice undid her. She shook, pushed herself at him, practically sobbing for what his wicked smile promised.

  She was certain she would die of pleasure as his hard body hovered above hers. His calloused palms rubbed upward from her ribs to her swollen breasts, caressing the tips he had sensitized with his mouth. His dark eyes devoured her.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you, Sebastien.”

  Her hips moved sinuously, inviting him. She felt his erection press between her thighs. The air they breathed erupted into fire. He pushed inside her. Damp heat and discomfort interwove. She wrapped her arms around his waist. He groaned. She stopped caring what she ought to do and let desire, instinct, take its course.

  She was happy. And she thought he was, too. He even laughed like he used to, as she drowsed against him, whispering, “‘Venus victrix,’” in her ear. “I don’t know how I forgot. My memory sometimes—”

  She kissed him before he could finish. “I suppose Herculēs can’t be expected to remember everything and be the bravest soldier in battle.”

  He rolled away from her, his smile rueful. “I’m not a soldier anymore.”

  She heard a quiet knock at their door during the night. She thought nothing of it. He’d told her to expect he would be officially called to his assignment soon. But on their wedding night?

  He was gone before she woke the next morning.

  And if the man she had married ever returned, it would not be to an unsophisticated bride.

  Chapter Three

  BELGRAVE SQUARE, LONDON

  JULY 1816

  For the first three years after their wedding night, after Eleanor settled in London, Sebastien made irregular visits home to his wife. But then he became more involved in his work and another three years passed during which they had no contact at all. When he returned to London this time to stay, he knew it was naïve to hope her feelings for him hadn’t changed. He had disgraced her at their wedding. His behavior during their following years of marriage wasn’t anything to be proud of, either. If he’d been a better man, he might have done her a favor and not shown up at their wedding at all.

  In retrospect, he really did appear to have been a bastard.

  However, from what he’d gleaned from intelligence sources over the last year, Eleanor had gotten her revenge in an unbelievable way. He might not have visited her, but he’d had contacts in London who kept him aware of how she was.

  He stood on the doorstep of his Belgrave town house for a full minute before making his presence known.

  Did he knock or simply open the door? He owned the damned house. His wife still lived here. He had been following her alarming activities for several months and had maintained her finances through his London solicitors for the six years of their marriage.

  True, he could have written ahead to tell her to expect him. But part of him was afraid she would have bolted if he’d given her warning of his return.

  He took off his hat.

  Two hot-eel vendors had slowed on the pavement to stare at him. One nudged the other. His dark scowl sent them scurrying down the street.

  He reached decisively for the doorknob. The door was locked, a sensible thing when a lady lived alone in a crime-plagued city, he assured himself.

  He lifted the heavy brass knocker. After an interminable silence he heard footsteps hurrying to answer the door. He glanced around. Was it his imagination or had the dust-collector slowed his cart to observe him? Was his return such a momentous event that it attracted the notice of strangers?

  He half-smiled at the dust-collector, who did not smile back.

  The door opened. Relief and disappointment briefly overshadowed his anticipation. His short, balding butler studied him with respectful suspicion for a moment before masking all expression and bowing to allow him entrance.

  “My lord,” the butler said. “I did not realize—”

  “Who is it, Walbrook?” a melodious voice inquired from the vestibule to Sebastien’s right.

  He stepped around the genuflecting Walbrook, the tidy line of traveling bags in the entry hall. He wasn’t sure if he’d caught Eleanor on her way out or in from some entertainment. But one thing was certain. He understood by the shock on her oval face when she stepped forth that he was the last person on earth she had expected at the door.

  He cleared his throat. In truth, he was probably as discombobulated as his wife. He had expected more. A shriek of delight. A tearful hug. A wife rushing forward to greet her husband after an inexcusable separation. She was beautiful, elegant, frozen in place. He was not sure what she would have done had he not swept forward and crushed her in a desperate hold. She had little choice but to allow herself to be embraced.

  “Eleanor.” He couldn’t help himself. His hands swept down her nape, her back, to the soft curves below. He realized that another servant had joined the chambermaid on the landing. But he was holding his wife, in his own house, and it wasn’t a dream. He closed his eyes for several moments of bliss—half-convinced by her stunned silence that he could step back into the position he had eluded for the last six years. No questions asked. No answers given.

  Wasn’t that the English way?

  The master is home. The wife is beside herself with joy. Let’s not embarrass ourselves with a display.

  All is well now that his lordship is here.

  Not exactly.

  “I’m home,” he announced unnecessarily, as if her lack of enthusiasm meant she was too overwhelmed by emotion to react.

  As i
t turned out, she was overwhelmed. But not with the, “Sebastien, I have wished for this moment so desperately that I cannot speak,” sort of emotion. It was more of the, “Heaven help me. The rotter has actually come back. What am I supposed to do with him?” shock of a woman who considered herself virtually a widow.

  His old deerhound had galloped forth to get down on all fours and growl balefully from the bottom of the stairs, as if Sebastien were a ghost. Even Eleanor’s personal maid, Mary Sturges, many years in faithful family service, entered the hall to regard him in chagrin before apparently remembering her place and welcoming him back with wan enthusiasm.

  Considering his history, he should not be offended that his wife and small domestic staff did not expect him to stay. To be fair, he’d been in France longer than he had ever been home. He’d barely lived in London at all. The pattern of his house hold had arranged itself around an absent master. But from the instant of his return, he began to perceive that his presence discomforted everyone.

  Had he been missed?

  Not if one were to judge by his dog.

  Nor by anyone else, either, he quickly decided.

  “Sebastien,” Eleanor said with a stilted smile, still not moving. “I had no idea you were back in England.”

  “I should have written.”

  Her eyes darkened in mordant agreement. “Well, yes.”

  “I didn’t think—” He released her, aware suddenly they had a small audience of servants and that she was dressed in a light traveling mantle.

  He motioned to the bags on the floor. “Are you going away?” he asked with a frown.

  Suddenly he wondered whether she had known he was coming home. Maybe he’d caught her trying to escape. That he would not permit. She had to at least give him a chance to redeem himself.

  She leaned her head back. The faintest blush tinged her pale cheekbones. “Yes, I—”

  He kissed her then.

  He didn’t want to hear she was leaving. Or that he might be too late. His arms locked around her waist, unbending her an inch at a time until she was forced to yield or make an unseemly fuss. Her mouth tasted as cool as English rain, but the flicker of surprise in her eyes reassured him she had not forgotten the passion they had once known.

  Too brief. He savored the faint pressure of gloved fingertips above his wrist, the warm surrender of a woman’s body against an unfair strength.

  He let her go before she could draw another breath. Her hand dropped from his wrist. Then she laughed as if embarrassed by either his kiss, or her own indefinable response.

  “I’m going away for a fortnight,” she said after an awkward pause.

  “To?”

  “Brighton. With the duchess and her boys,” she explained, recovering from their embrace with enviable aplomb. “She thinks a brief spell of sea air will be good for them.”

  “It won’t be good for me,” he said without thinking.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  He laughed. He didn’t care what the servants thought. He wasn’t asking the staff to bear his children or share his life. “What I meant,” he said, “is that you’re leaving just as I’ve come home. And I am disappointed.”

  She shook her head. He waited for her to invite him to accompany her. Instead, she said, “Well, you understand why I can’t disappoint the duchess. Are you planning to stay here while I’m gone?”

  “No.” He glanced around the hall at the servants who stood waiting like a row of wooden soldiers. “I have other arrangements.” And at her clearly relieved nod, he felt compelled to add, “For now.”

  She shot him a look. “Then I suppose I will see you—”

  “When you come back from Brighton,” he said firmly. “You aren’t leaving now?”

  She stared past him to the door. “Mr. Loveridge should be here at any minute.”

  “Who?” he asked sharply.

  “The duchess’s secretary,” she replied.

  “Oh, yes. Loveridge. I’ve heard the name.”

  An uncertain silence spun out between them. A few minutes later he watched as she was whisked away in the Duchess of Wellington’s comfortable traveling carriage.

  What irony. Three years ago she had stood on this exact spot and watched him go away for the last time, offering an explanation for his departure as hollow as hers now sounded. She had known little about his work, only that he’d been discharged from his Peninsular company five years prior at the Duke of Wellington’s personal request.

  She and his London house hold staff believed that he served in some covert intelligence capacity.

  He’d chosen not to elaborate on this flattering misperception.

  In darker reality, after Sebastien had been wounded in Spain, incapacitated in spirit longer than body, he’d been handed the ignominious honor of hatching insurgent plots at strategic French ports. While the soldiers in his regiment had gone on to glory at Waterloo, Sebastien had been relegated to the taverns of Le Havre or Honfleur, intercepting messages between barmaids and lusty patrons that only occasionally bore significance.

  His superiors thought they’d enacted a kind deception. He was no longer fit for the battlefield. He might easily hold a rifle and shoot it. He just hadn’t recovered enough to reliably make out who he was firing at, a considerable liability for a frontline infantry officer. He could, however, commit necessary evils and leave no trace.

  He delivered payments and caught war criminals. He offered bribes.

  Sometimes he started riots. He discovered he still harbored the Boscastle talent for hell-raising. Every so often he would make a double agent permanently disappear, and not always in a pleasant manner.

  The price he’d paid to regain his pride was not anything he intended to reveal to Eleanor.

  She was disillusioned enough by the way he’d treated her without giving her more reason to mistrust him.

  Still, who would have guessed that his neglected wife would have sought a secret life of her own? That he would return, not to the light-hearted English girl who had whispered on her wedding day that she couldn’t survive without him, but to an adventuress who had not only survived in his absence but who had thrived?

  A wife who had become a private agent in subterfuge to the Duchess of Wellington?

  He had come back with every intention of becoming the husband Eleanor thought she had married. But clearly his beloved had filled the void he had left with mischief of her own.

  What a crafty revenge.

  He’d wanted her to miss him. To forgive and become his wife again. Instead, they had become competitors.

  He stood on the steps until the ducal carriage swept her from his view. How the deuce could he impress her now? Should he run after her like a besotted fool and demand she return?

  He glanced around. An assembly of street vendors stood on the corner gawking at him.

  “Go away,” he said grumpily, turning to the house.

  His courtship of Eleanor had been take-no-prisoners passionate, an officer who had fallen in love with a surgeon’s daughter in Spain and chased her between battles with merciless determination.

  But he’d been a nitwit to assume that having won her once, she would belong to him forever.

  He had expected he would have to start all over again. To prove he would not disappear from her life this time.

  He had been looking forward to wooing his own wife.

  But what he had not anticipated, and what became startlingly evident in the following three months, was that he not only had to prove himself a better husband, he also had to prove to Eleanor which of them was the better man.

  Chapter Four

  LONDON

  OCTOBER 1816

  Eleanor’s voice, playfully scolding, brought him back to his present dilemma, the masquerade.

  “You aren’t paying attention,” she whispered, pursing her lips. “You haven’t heard anything I’ve been saying.”

  “Of course I have,” he lied.

  He stared at her mouth.
He wasn’t really listening to her now. He had as much desire to chat as he did to dance.

  His senses, too long deprived, begged for relief. He had barely touched her since his return, and he was as primed as a pair of dueling pistols. He’d waited for any encouragement to bed his beautiful wife.

  He pretended to appear attentive. He even inclined his head to act as if his life depended on her next words. For a final taunting interval the dance brought her against him. He had missed the sensual fragrance of her skin, the warm pleasures it invited. No matter how grim his assignments had been, thinking of Eleanor had made him smile. He’d always intended to come home to her. He probably should have let her know that.

  “I am paying attention,” he said in dark amusement. “Don’t worry. This is child’s play compared to what I’m used to doing.”

  “So you’ve said.” Her eyes studied him in cautious speculation. “Are you ever going to reveal the gruesome details?”

  “No,” he said, determined to maintain his silence on the matter. If she ever learned the dark and dirty nature of his ignoble missions, she would run shrieking out of his life forever.

  “Why can’t I know?” she asked.

  “I think a little mystery makes a man more appealing,” he said flatly. And if that didn’t make him sound like an ass, he didn’t know what did.

  Her soft mouth curled below her half-mask. She had the loveliest smile he’d ever seen, if one could overlook the whiskers and the fact that she was frustrating the hell out of him.

  “A little mystery is all well and good,” she replied. “But you, my shadow lord, are the Holy Grail of mysteries.”

  “You don’t have to go on a hunt for me,” he said with a grin, whirling her gracefully through the line. “I’ve no intention of being a missing husband again.”

  “Husband or arrogant guardian?”

  “It seems you need a bit of both.” And he meant it. She had no idea how resolved he was to have her.