The Sinful Nights of a Nobleman Page 6

  And her father was forcing him to marry her.

  It was still early even after she had washed and dressed. Many of the guests would stay abed until noon, sipping chocolate and answering correspondence. Even so, she could not forestall explaining how she and Devon had become engaged overnight when the entire ton knew her to be enamored of Adam.

  She would have to face Adam’s wounded indignity again. But there was nothing for it. She must simply steel herself to accept whatever the day would bring.

  Prepared as she might be to defend herself against slander, she had not mustered enough courage to confront the man who had contributed to her ruination.

  No sooner had she stepped outside her door than she saw him in the hall. The sight of her sinful lord prowling about took her aback. Though early in the morning, here he stood, freshly attired, too handsome to behold at this early hour. Ill prepared to hide her emotions, she said the first thing that came to mind.

  “Are you returning from another assignation?” As if the mere thought did not turn her inside out. How could a woman of tender sensibilities marry a rogue who scoffed at the notion of fidelity and friendship?

  “Are you on your way to one?” he teased, turning the tables on her.

  “Most assuredly not.”

  His blue eyes kindled with unbridled mischief. “You went to one last night.”

  “So did you. And look where we are now.”

  “That is actually why I’m here,” he said.

  She drew back a step, her voice climbing an octave. “Oh?” She could swear he knew that she’d been thinking about him all morning. That he knew the sight of him made her body thrum and her thoughts tangle inside her head. He must be used to women melting under his charm. She wondered all of a sudden if he was going to ask her for help to break their engagement.

  He lowered his head to hers. “I think we ought to come up with a plan on how best to handle what lies ahead.”

  She pressed herself back into the doorway. He had a subtle way of speaking that forced the breath from her lungs. If she married him, she would have to gain control of herself. She could not stop breathing every time he walked into the room.

  “Are you asking me to come up with a solution to escape getting married?” she whispered.

  He blinked in surprise. “If I abandoned you to disgrace,” he said carefully, “I’d be labeled a cad and defiler of women. I’ve been labeled many things in my day, mind you, but nothing quite that bad.”

  “I’d be labeled even worse,” she said under her breath, feeling a little ashamed of herself for accusing him of low motives. But then she’d only had her own family as an example of what love was, or was not. “What sort of plan did you mean?” she asked after a long pause.

  He cleared his throat, his wicked smile coaxing a sigh out of her. “A plan to defend ourselves against what people are going to say about us.”

  “You mean the people at the party?”

  “For a start.” He leaned into the door frame, raising his arm above her head. His eyes were the blue of the sea during a storm. “Has your father ever threatened you with physical force before last night?” he asked unexpectedly.

  Panic flared inside her. How could he possibly know? He couldn’t know. No one knew. Her father’s violent outbursts were a guarded family secret, infrequent enough so that months and months would pass with Jocelyn convincing herself they had never really happened.

  “Why would you ask such a thing?” she asked with a puzzled laugh.

  He stared into her eyes as if her evasive reply had not deceived him for one instant. She had never met anyone like him before, and she was too ashamed to answer truthfully. She prayed he would not press the issue and force her to lie because she couldn’t tell him.

  “I just wondered,” he murmured. “He seemed so quick to lift his hand that I couldn’t help noticing.”

  “And coming to my defense.”

  “I couldn’t help that, either,” he said pensively, his fingers brushing an errant curl from her cheek.

  Now pleasure mingled with panic. He was so purely male and protective that she almost could not bear it. “I heard you and your cousin cross words last night,” she said in a desperate bid to divert his attention. “Do you think he was the one who tricked us?”

  He looked down at her with a smile that said he knew she had evaded his question. “I’m not sure it matters.” He shifted at the hip, and she found herself suddenly fused to his hard, angular body. “Why don’t you at least admit that you enjoyed what happened between us last night before we were caught?” he asked, running his fingers up her forearm to her throat.

  “Because I didn’t know it was you,” she whispered, a fact that seemed to nullify whatever she may or may not have felt at the time. Or what she felt now. Tiny bursts of heat ignited low in her belly and sent throbs of warmth into the depths of her body.

  She was vaguely aware that his other hand had settled around her waist, and that she had made no attempt whatsoever to dislodge it. Her surrender spoke for itself, as he surely knew. “Do you think Chinny could make you shiver when he kissed you?” he asked in a museful voice. “I did.”

  “I’ve already told you,” she said, her voice so low and husky she did not recognize it. “I thought I was kissing—”

  Before she could finish, he had opened her bedchamber door and swept her inside, pinning her against the wall. She closed her eyes. His kiss was brief but potent, a defiant challenge to her assertion that he did not make her shiver. He held her face between his hands and teased her lips open with his tongue, ravishing her mouth with a raw hunger that reached into some deep part of her she had never known existed.

  A wicked thrill burst deep inside her belly. It seemed far worse to be kissing him in the daylight, in her bedroom, than it had last night when she had not realized who he was.

  But she knew him now. She knew what desire was. The moment he touched her again, her will dissolved into warm darkness. She was giddy, flushed, and flustered when he broke their kiss, his lean face buried against her neck. His hand slid up the side of her dress to brush a tantalizing trail across her breasts. She felt herself responding with a shiver of anticipation, supported by his hard body, so devastated she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

  Then suddenly he appeared to regain his composure, and he released her. They were standing once again outside the door. She realized in dazed resentment that he was half-smiling at her, managing to look wickedly appealing and indifferent at the same moment while it was all she could do not to fold at his feet.

  “You didn’t think it was Chinny then, did you?” he asked in an undertone.

  “No,” she said. “For one thing, Chinny would never—I mean, Adam would never have behaved so badly.”

  He brushed his knuckle across her kiss-swollen mouth and smiled. “Then he’s a damned fool and will never know what he’s missed.”

  She shook her head. She felt rather faint and in need of a meal. “Are you going down to breakfast?”

  “It’s probably not a good idea. I’m liable to throttle the first person who congratulates me on getting leg-shackled, or asks how I could have been so stupid as to get caught alone with a decent young lady.”

  She pursed her lips. What a shame he was a man who minced words. “Perhaps I shall take a tray in my room and spare myself that humiliation.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “It might be better if I faced everyone first.”

  “And said what?” she inquired hesitantly.

  “I haven’t decided yet. I suppose it depends on what is said to me first. Your father has already informed our host of our surprise engagement.”

  “Surprise hardly seems adequate to describe the unravelment of our lives,” she said wryly.

  The castle had begun to awaken. Servants bustled to and fro with pitchers of washing-water, lavender soap balls, and messages to be delivered to private rooms. The first of the sporting events was scheduled for the afternoon
. As Jocelyn had long ago resigned herself to the fact that she had been endowed with a figure and constitution more suited to athletics than to Almacks, she anticipated leaving the party with at least one of Lord Fernshaw’s generous prizes.

  She had not, understandably, expected to lose the decent man she had hoped to marry with a reluctant rakehell standing in his stead.

  Devon began to edge back down the hall, his gaze locked with hers. Evidently neither of them wished a repeat of the previous night’s humiliation, although it seemed unlikely that anyone would be scandalized to discover them together now, having already been caught. They were engaged, as incredulous as both parties found that fact to be.

  “We shall have to walk through this trial with dignity,” she murmured, retreating behind her door.

  He bowed. The effect of this refined gesture was regrettably compromised by the unholy twinkle she detected in his eye when he straightened.

  “Dignity,” he said. “Now there’s a novel concept. I shall have to give it a try.”

  Chapter Six

  She practically collapsed upon her bed. Perhaps he would run away. Perhaps he would join the East India Company to escape her. Jocelyn would be mortified and rendered unmarriageable as a result. A rebellious part of her nature insisted that even that humiliation would be preferable to a husband who did not desire her. One who might flaunt a succession of demimondaines around London. There was no reason for her to assume that he would willingly forsake his former ways.

  Still, whatever the future held for her and Devon, there remained the rest of the party to get through. Dignity was to be her lodestar. She resolved to steel her spine and conduct herself with as much dignity as possible. She would merely smile mysteriously and shrug when someone asked how she and Devon had fallen in love.

  Love was supposed to be mysterious, wasn’t it? Well, this affair fit the bill. It was a mystery how they had ended up in the tower together, not to mention how they’d manage if they did have to marry.

  Still, she could always hope by some miracle that her family, the Boscastles, and Lord Fernshaw’s guests might decide to dismiss the whole matter and go on with the party as if nothing untoward had happened.

  It wasn’t the least bit likely, though.

  Captain Matthew Thurlew sat in a pew in the village church, his head bowed in a pose of pious contemplation. Unbeknownst to the country dolt of a parson, the Sunday morning sermon was an apt one, though the delivery was bone-numbingly overwinded.

  “Babylon is fallen, fallen!”

  Thurlew’s mouth thinned in a pleased smirk. The thundering fool might well have shouted, “Boscastle is fallen, fallen!,” for all who knew Lord Devon understood that a marriage of convenience would strike a fatal blow to his freedom.

  He glanced askance at his fellow sinners, only three of whom had escaped Alton’s Sunday breakfast to appease whatever sense of morality they pretended to possess. For an hour or so they could feign piety before returning to their sins.

  It sickened him.

  They did not represent the grandeur of the English aristocracy but rather the gross abuse of privilege and power.

  While Lord Devon exercised his lordly prerogatives, Matthew’s only brother languished in a Cornish prison awaiting trial for highway robbery. It was likely the boy would be transported if not hanged.

  It was Matthew’s conviction that Daniel had been led astray by none other than Lord Devon Boscastle; almost a year ago Boscastle, Daniel, and another friend had, as a prank, held up a carriage inside which they believed was a young courtesan they’d met earlier in the evening.

  The carriage had belonged to a senior banker. A footman had been accidentally wounded. In Matthew’s estimation Devon had walked away from the affair with a mere slap on the wrist.

  The Boscastle name was a key that unlocked the doors of influence.

  But Daniel Thurlew had been unable to resist the Temptor. He had fallen prey to a criminal life while his high-born friends went on their sinful way.

  He closed his eyes once more in contemplation as the pastor, a devoted man, raised his voice.

  “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen…because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication….”

  There was no formal announcement the following day of the unanticipated betrothal of Lord Devon Boscastle and Miss Jocelyn Lydbury. The official statement was to be given later that evening. Speculation, of course, ran rampant. A certain young lady claimed to have known all along that Devon and Jocelyn had been enjoying a torrid affair in secret. Supporting this suspicion, one or two older guests spoke of old gossip that concerned a broken dinner engagement years ago.

  Lord Devon, it would appear, had not been interested in the notorious Mrs. Cranleigh at all. His attention to the widow had most likely been a screen to shield his true passion.

  Now that the two unlikely lovebirds had been caught in the act by Jocelyn’s indignant father, their ardor for each other had been revealed, to the delight of everyone at the party, from the youngest maid to the oldest matron.

  Scandal, Boscastle style.

  The guests might even have been content to settle for the story of a simple love match had it not been for the peculiar behavior of the two main players toward each other in the aftermath of their tryst.

  They seemed to be ignoring each other.

  Were they playing discreet?

  Had they quarreled?

  Was Devon avoiding Jocelyn out of respect for her, or was there a darker motive?

  “They’re probably embarrassed to have gotten caught,” Lord Fernshaw’s wife speculated over her breakfast toast and kippers. “I think it’s terribly romantic. Four years, and they have desired each other.”

  Alton shook his head. “I don’t think it’s that easy to embarrass a Boscastle.” Or for one to wait four years to satisfy his desires, but that thought went unspoken.

  The other Boscastles in attendance at the party refused to say a word on the matter. Sir Gabriel Boscastle, whose own reputation was anything but pristine, claimed to know nothing; it was no secret he’d led a rough life and had not always been close to the other Boscastles, but even so he remained loyal to the line.

  No one was brave enough to gossip about Devon to Emma Boscastle for fear of a lethal tongue-lashing. Her ward, Charlotte Boscastle, had barely left her room since the scandal broke and therefore could not offer an opinion.

  Lily Cranleigh appeared to be in a foul temper. Lord Chiswick looked bereft, and Lady Winifred Waterstone, Jocelyn’s confidante, hesitated to talk about the matter at all.

  It wasn’t shocking that Devon had seduced a young lady at the party. But no one had expected him to get caught, and the question of the hour was whether he would wriggle out of the wedding trap. Unless, of course, he had walked into it on his own.

  Fortune, not surprisingly, continued to frown upon Jocelyn that day. In fact, after an uncomfortable breakfast, during which she could barely eat, or even meet Devon’s gaze across the table, fortune apparently decided that she had not suffered enough humiliation.

  In keeping with tradition, Lord Fernshaw had decreed that his guests would partner up in pairs to participate in an energetic game of battledore and shuttlecock. By process of elimination only the best players would be deemed worthy of forming a team in the final competition.

  It was a game at which Jocelyn excelled. She hoped to take home this year’s grand prize for her skill, a splendid pair of minotaur bookends.

  Unfortunately, she and Adam had been chosen as partners. Against Devon and Lily. At her distressed look, Alton took her aside to whisper, “We chose the names Friday afternoon, before you and Devon, well, before.”

  Yes, before.

  She understood Alton’s inability to express exactly what had come after. But she did know that suddenly she wasn’t in a sporting mood; Adam looked utterly miserable, she could only hope she would not be forced to play at all because Devon had disappeared immediately after br
eakfast, and no one could say where he’d gone.

  He strolled into view a few moments later. She did not even have to glance around to know that he had arrived. Conversations stopped, heads turned, and for all she knew the birds ceased their happy chirping. Female looks were slanted beneath wide-brimmed straw bonnets. The young men grinned and elbowed one another as if to celebrate the arrival of the sinful nobleman.

  Of course, when Devon crossed the courtyard and actually reached the lawn, conversations restarted like a dozen bubbling fountains.

  No one dared to look at him directly, except for Jocelyn, who decided that it would not help the cause of dignity to ignore him.

  His face seemed harder and more deeply shadowed than it had earlier in the day, although she could not say he appeared particularly concerned or even perturbed that life as he’d enjoyed it was to come to an unexpected end.

  Or perhaps he did not intend to end his pleasurable existence, at all.

  The competitors were allowed twenty minutes of practice with their partners. As Adam virtually ignored her, Jocelyn found herself swatting her shuttlecock to her dearest friend Winifred, who made no secret of her consternation at the recent turn of events.

  “Why did you not let me know it was Devon you desired?” she whispered as they took their positions.

  Jocelyn batted her cork into the air. “I was deceived into meeting him, and he claims it was Lily he meant to seduce.”

  Winifred lowered her battledore. “To s—”

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” Lord Fernshaw shouted from his dais on the lawn. “Please join your partners. The competition has begun.”

  Jocelyn stood self-consciously at Adam’s side as a group of young men, Devon in the fore, forged to the edge of the lawn. Stripped down to his shirtsleeves and black broadcloth trousers, he stood a good head above even the tallest guest; his lithe frame moved with a fluid elegance that made his companions seem as awkwardly jointed as wooden puppets.

  “Are you ready to play?” Adam asked her stiffly, refusing to so much as look at her.