The Wicked Marquess Read online

  A lordship, was it? Although far from convinced of the lordship’s purity of purpose, Jem trailed close at his heels.

  They traveled only a short distance, though it might as well have been forever, to a part of town Jem had never seen before. He gaped at a tall brick mansion with balustraded roof, forecourt and prominent portico and broad front steps. “Criminey!” he breathed.

  Benedict also surveyed his home, his attention caught not by its grandeur but by the figure huddled on the broad front steps. Were the trials of this day never to end? “What are you doing here?” he snapped.

  Was his dream of a better future to be so quickly shattered? “You asked me!” Jem protested, stung. “You said I was to have a place. And I ain’t chirping merry anymore, so you can’t say I imagined it, guv.”

  “Not you!” retorted Benedict. “Her.”

  Jem glimpsed a huddled figure in scruffy breeches and jacket and a battered cap in little better condition than his own. What sort of female went about dressed like a boy?

  Only one sort of female would perch on a gent’s front steps. Curious about this prime article of virtue who looked little older than himself, Jem would have liked to ask her name. He had no chance to do so. The guv’nor grasped her by her collar and hauled her up the steps.

  The front door was opened by a sleepy footman. Martin, too, might have said ‘Criminey’, were he not so well trained. Squirming in Lord Baird’s grasp was the same young woman he had brought home once before – had she no proper clothes? Following them was a filthy street urchin. He grinned, displaying a gap between his front teeth.

  Benedict snapped his fingers under the footman’s fascinated nose. “Martin, this is Jem. Take him to the kitchen. Feed him and then see that he has a bath.” He bustled his unwelcome guest across the marble chessboard floor toward the stairs.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The study door slammed shut behind them. Lord Baird deposited Miss Russell, none too gently, on a footstool in front of the fireplace. “You’re angry,” she said.

  ‘Angry’ was much too mild a word. “I asked why you have come here,” Benedict repeated.

  If there was anyone in the world who wasn’t angry with her, Miranda didn’t know who it was. “I wished to speak with you, my lord.”

  “Ah! And because you wish to speak with me, I must oblige. You are the most shockingly spoiled little baggage that it has ever been my misfortune to encounter. I should take you over my knee.”

  Benedict broke off. Were he to take Miranda over his knee, it was unlikely he would manage to merely paddle her backside. She looked damp and cold and miserable, as well she deserved to, after depositing herself on his doorstep in the damnable fog.

  Miranda eyed him warily. “I’d begun to think you weren’t ever coming home.”

  He shouldn’t have come home. He should have stayed at White’s. Or gone to Lady Cecilia, whom he was avoiding, because he was a coward, and she would have heard by now of his adventure at the British Museum.

  Not all the details of his adventure, however. Benedict rang the bell. The haste with which Martin responded to this summons suggested he might have been lurking in the hall. The footman’s countenance remained impressively impassive as his master ordered a dry blanket fetched.

  The door closed behind him. Benedict turned back to Miranda, let his gaze travel insolently over her grubby shirt, the filthy grey furze breeches that did nothing to disguise curves of hip, buttocks, and thigh. “Why are you dressed like that?”

  Miranda thrust out her chin. “I could hardly climb down the tree in my skirts. Kenrick locked me in my room. If you are going to scold me like everybody else has done, you might as well save your breath. I am going to live like a tiger instead of like a sheep.”

  Tiger? Sheep? Benedict let this obscure reference pass. “Why is everybody scolding you?” Before Miranda could answer, a tap sounded at the door.

  Jem popped his head into the room. “Here’s your blanket, guv!” He craned his neck to try and steal another glimpse of the guv’nor’s ladybird.

  Benedict took the blanket from him, and firmly closed the door. Miranda echoed, “‘Guv’?”

  “Don’t try and change the subject,” Benedict growled.

  Miranda wrapped the blanket round her shoulders and moved closer to the fire. “I was rude to Lord Wexton. Yes, and so would you have been if you were me, and you should be glad that you are not. ‘Miss Russell, you cannot think this and that; Miss Russell, it would be most improper—’ And on and on and on. Lord Wexton is very conscious of the instability of the female condition. He believes I am allowed entirely too much freedom. Moreover, he is certain it is not a good thing for a young woman to be highly admired.”

  “You do not care for Wexton,” Benedict observed.

  Miranda pulled the blanket more tightly around her. “I don’t know how anyone could care for Wexton, though my uncle likes him well enough that he intends me as his bride. I am allowed no choice in the matter, which is why I have come to you. If I am disgraced, the earl will never marry me.”

  At the rate Miranda was proceeding she would be irrevocably disgraced, Benedict reflected, and with little effort on his part. Proper young women did not visit gentlemen’s residences, especially Sinbad’s residence, and especially not in the middle of the might.

  “You said you would ravish me,” she reminded him. “Under the circumstances I hoped we might hasten matters a bit.”

  Benedict hoped to hasten Miranda’s departure from his house. But he could hardly send her unaccompanied out into the night. The child was still shivering. He picked up the decanter from his desk.

  Miranda watched the marquess pour amber liquid into a glass. Nonie had warned her about rakehells. Being closeted with one was inviting a fate worse than death.

  This rakehell’s demeanor was less amorous than irritated. He handed her the glass, said “Drink,” and removed himself to the far side of his fireplace.

  Miranda sipped, swallowed and coughed. The strong spirits burned her throat.

  Benedict didn’t want to be near her. Miranda suspected he didn’t even want to occupy the same room. “I wish you would tell me what I have done wrong.” She shivered, despite the heat of the fire.

  Where to begin? Benedict said, grimly, “Take off those wet clothes.”

  “I don’t blame you for thinking poorly of me. I am everything you called me. I am spoiled and selfish. I—” Miranda fumbled at her buttons with fingers numbed by cold.

  “You are the most maddening female in existence.” Benedict pushed away her hands, swiftly unbuttoned her shabby shirt. The damp fabric clung to her plump breasts and outlined nipples stiffened by cold.

  He clenched his jaw. Definitely he was not cut out to be a monk. Yet if he touched Miranda, he would surely burn in hell.

  Whereas if he didn’t touch her he would as surely go mad. Benedict turned away.

  He couldn’t bear to look at her, Miranda thought, as she struggled out of her boots, her shirt, her sodden breeches, and flung them to the floor. “You should have said you didn’t like me!” she muttered, fighting against tears.

  Benedict had stood listening to the rustle of fabric, trying not to guess what portions of Miranda’s perfect little body were being exposed to view. He longed to be in some far distant portion of the world, disguised as an Afghan dervish perhaps and traveling on pilgrimage to the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, a journey during which unmasking would cost him his life, which seemed a small price to pay to be freed of this torment. His mental exercise was interrupted by a stifled sob. Miranda was weeping. He was a brute.

  He crossed the room. “I don’t dislike you, little one. I want you like the devil, and it makes me very cross.” Miranda shrugged and sniffled. The blanket slipped off one slender shoulder. Benedict reminded himself that he must somehow contrive to return this maddening miss home with her reputation intact.

  But not just yet, because her cheeks were rosy, and her lips half-parted,
and her expression, as she gazed up at him, was bemused. Moreover, she was naked beneath that blanket. Benedict scooped her up in his arms. Miranda twined her arms around his neck.

  He sat down in a deep leather chair, with Miranda on his lap. She wriggled around to face him. “What are you going to do now?”

  Since she was going to be the death of him, Benedict might as well die a happy man. “I think that I might kiss you,” he murmured. “Would you mind that?”

  Kiss her? While she wore only a blanket? Miranda didn’t mind at all. She imagined that a fate worse than death might be more easily accomplished if one’s clothing was first got out of the way.

  She tugged at his cravat. Benedict caught her hand in his.

  His mouth covered hers in a searing kiss that stole her breath. Sweet seductive salutes; hot hungry kisses, long and wet and deep; caresses that left her incapable of remembering her own name… When Benedict at last was done beguiling Miranda into a state of inarticulate anticipation, he slid his fingers into her hair and pulled her head back, grazed and nipped and licked his way along the angle of her jaw, her throat, the curve of her collarbone.

  She had let go of the blanket. His fingers skimmed over her soft skin. She had a little mole on the curve of her left breast. There was nothing for it but that Benedict must conduct a closer examination, first with his fingertips, and then with his mouth.

  His thumb teased the tip of one breast as he suckled on the other. Such intense pleasure swept over Miranda that she thought she must surely perish of it. When he raised his head, she felt bereft.

  His hair had escaped its clasp to hang loose around his shoulders. Miranda wrapped her fingers in the silky strands.

  Benedict raised his head from her breast. Miranda lowered her hand again to his cravat. This time he made no move to stop her. She unfastened his shirt and slipped her fingers inside to touch the firm muscles of his chest.

  He groaned. Miranda drew back, startled. Benedict caught her hand and kissed her fingertips. She twisted her wrist and grasped his hand and placed it on her bare breast.

  Eternal damnation, Benedict reminded himself. The fires of hell. He must, absolutely must, at this very moment, take Miranda home. Yet even as he scolded himself his hand was sliding from her breast down across her ribs, her slender waist, pausing on her rounded hip. Her skin was smooth as the finest silk. She smelled of the stables, and he didn’t care a bit.

  Who was teaching whom a lesson? inquired Master Conscience, who didn’t wish to be disobliging but felt it necessary to point out that only the most degenerate of sinners would debauch such a babe. Benedict ignored this interruption. Time enough to brood about his lack of scruples during the eternity he would spend suffering the torments of the damned as punishment for his participation in tonight’s events.

  The marquess wore that look again, as if he was arguing with himself. Miranda reached up and turned his face until his eyes met hers. She wet her lips with her tongue, and then pressed them against his.

  Her kiss was tentative, and curious, and incredibly erotic; her hot hard little nipples were burning holes right through his shirt, which despite her best efforts he had managed to keep on. Benedict closed his eyes and tried counting sheep. One ewe. One ram. Two sheep, and a lamb. His hand slid further down her hip, across her flat belly, inched slowly toward the soft skin of her upper thigh. She sighed and let her head fall back. His lips moved from her mouth to her earlobe to the curve of her neck. She tasted like ambrosia. He looked forward to licking his way down her body to her toes. And then Miranda whispered, “Are you going to ruin me now?”

  How he wished that he might ruin her. In all the legends told of Sinbad, none suggested that he possessed superhuman self-control. Benedict could not restrain himself much longer without doing permanent damage to both his body and his brain.

  Self-control? Restrain himself? He snatched back his hand. Damned if he possessed any more self-control than some untried lad. He should be flogged, tarred and feathered, castrated—

  Well, perhaps not that.

  “What’s wrong?” Miranda asked.

  She was so damned beautiful it pained him, her lips swollen from his kisses and her soft cheeks flushed, her tawny hair disheveled and smelling incongruously of moonlit gardens and stable dirt.

  Benedict yanked the blanket up around her chin. “Have one of your young cawkers seduce you, if you are determined on that course.”

  Miranda blinked.

  The study door suddenly swung open. “Beg pardon, guv, but this gent—” Jem’s face had been scrubbed, and his carroty hair slicked back.

  “No need to announce me.” Percy Pettigrew pushed past Jem. “Baird, I forgot—” His bright malicious gaze moved from the clothing strewn across the floor to the little Russell, wearing only a blanket and perched on Sinbad’s lap.

  Chapter Twenty

  The fog had lifted. Faint tendrils of dawn crept across the sky. Soon yawning bricklayers and chimney-sweeps would set about their business. Sleepy tavern keepers would take down the shutters of early public-houses so the day could properly begin.

  A crested carriage clattered through the early morning streets. Two people rode within. One passenger was contemplating the fourth journey of Sinbad, when the intrepid sailor had been shipwrecked, befriended, wed and widowed and entombed with his dead wife, a jug of water, and seven pieces of bread.

  The second passenger was indulging in a tantrum. “Perdition!” she raged. “Why did you tell Mr. Pettigrew that we are betrothed?”

  Benedict took firm hold of her arm lest she fling herself out through the carriage door. “I had to tell him something!” he retorted.

  “Mr. Pettigrew promised he wouldn’t say a word about finding me in your study!” Miranda winced as his fingers dug deeper into her soft flesh.

  Benedict eased his grip a little bit. “Finding you on my lap, you mean. Wearing little more than your bare skin. Percy won’t share his discovery with above half a dozen select people who may be trusted to inform the rest of the town. Unless we are very clever, your reputation will be in shreds.”

  Miranda glowered. She didn’t understand. Was this scandal not exactly what they had planned? Lord Wexton had been mistaken about which of the sexes was prone to go off in queer starts. No sooner had Mr. Pettigrew been persuaded to leave the house than Benedict had bundled her back into her odiferous clothing and ordered his carriage brought around.

  Perhaps when Benedict got over being angry, he could be persuaded to finish seducing her. But first she must convince him that her uncle need not be involved. “There is no reason to tell Kenrick,” Miranda repeated.

  Like Jem before him, Benedict regretted that he’d not listened to his mama, or in this case his grandaunt. “Symington is your guardian. How do you propose that we keep him in ignorance? This business will fascinate the gossips. Your uncle must be warned.”

  Miranda hadn’t considered how her disgrace must affect her uncle, who had already suffered much embarrassment from the females of his family. She experienced a pang of regret.

  She reminded herself that Kenrick had dragged her to London and decreed that she marry Lord Wexton. “You sound as though you never truly wished to ruin me. No matter what you said.”

  Lord Baird wished that he had never met Miss Russell. He had been living the leisurely carefree albeit tedious existence of a peer of the realm before Fate flung her at him; he recalled it well. “Contrary to what you believe, even I may not flout society’s rules without consequence. Were I to destroy your reputation, I would destroy what remains of my own at the same time, which would make my grandaunt cross.”

  He had not meant to seduce her? Miranda recalled the liberties recently taken with her person. Were not such liberties part and parcel of a young woman’s downfall?

  True, she had approached him. She had asked to be led astray. One did not expect a notorious philanderer to withstand any temptation that popped up in his path.

  Yet this philanderer had
. Miranda said, “I never thought—

  “You never do think,” he interrupted. “It is one of your less appealing traits. We have no alternative but to go through with the thing and hope that some juicier scandal will soon rear its head.”

  “Go through with what?”

  “The betrothal, you little idiot!” Benedict snapped.

  Miranda punched his shoulder. “But I don’t want to be betrothed to you! I mean, I don’t want you to be betrothed to me! Oh, why did you agree to help me if you didn’t wish to?”

  After all his efforts to avoid the altar, Benedict finally accepted that he must marry – that he had no choice but to marry – and the young lady to whom he must betroth himself wanted no part of the business. “Damned if I know!” he retorted with such ferocity that his companion lapsed into sullen silence.

  The respite did not last long. Miranda resumed her arguments as the carriage pulled up outside her uncle’s house. So very energetic was she in her protests that Benedict shrugged out of his greatcoat – it was turning out to be an unexpectedly useful garment – and dropped it over her head. She cursed and kicked out. He tucked her beneath one arm and carried her into the house.

  Sir Kenrick had just come home from an evening spent discussing all manner of important matters in his clubs. He was surprised, at this late hour, to hear voices in his hall. Surprise became astonishment when Lord Baird strode past an equally startled footman and into the drawing room.

  The marquess was carrying an unwieldy, squirming, irritated-sounding bundle. Kenrick could not imagine what strange set of circumstances had caused Miranda to be brought home in such a manner. He dismissed the footman. Lord Baird dumped his burden on the floor.

  Miranda thrust her head out from the folds of the greatcoat. “I will never forgive you for this!” she cried.

  Kenrick glanced from Miranda to the marquess. Both of them were scowling. “I trust that someone is going to explain.”