Anna Campbell – Seven Nights In A Rogue's Bed (страница 9)
The groom dipped his head to acknowledge her and disappeared into the stables. Merrick studied her with a glint in his eye. Part sexual interest, part approval, part something she couldn’t altogether interpret. It was as though he asked a question and she said yes without knowing what she agreed to.
She shook off the disturbing sensation and lifted her chin. Her hands tightened on the elegant little crop.
“I see you found the riding habit,” he said neutrally.
“I see you’re prepared for all eventualities when ladies visit,” she responded with a tart edge. When she’d seen the stylish black habit laid across her bed—his bed, she supposed—she’d cringed. She told herself his liaisons were none of her business, but that niggle of resentment persisted.
A deepening of the faint lines around his eyes indicated amusement. “I’ve never brought a mistress here, if that worries you.”
“I’m not your mistress,” she snapped, annoyed that he immediately attributed her ill temper to jealousy.
“Yet.” He subjected her to a thorough inspection. “It fits.”
“It’s too tight. Mrs. Bevan had to shift the buttons. That’s why I’m late.”
“You’re more…generously endowed than your sister.”
She stared into his face and stupidly wondered whether he preferred a more slender woman. Compared to Roberta’s willowy proportions, she was a Valkyrie. “Roberta doesn’t ride,” she said, telling herself she didn’t care what this miscreant made of her appearance.
More hollow bravado. She was becoming quite expert in the art.
“I don’t know your sister well enough to be familiar with her amusements—apart from chasing the next hand of cards.”
“You judge her harshly.” She bit back the impulse to tell Merrick that her sister hadn’t always been the brittle, supercilious creature he knew. When they were children, Roberta’s affection had been Sidonie’s only refuge against their mother’s indifference and their father’s contempt.
He shrugged. “She was a means to an end.”
Sidonie’s lips tightened. “That puts me in my place.”
He skimmed the back of his gloved hand under her chin. “You’re in a different category altogether,
The caress—if such fleeting contact justified the name—lasted a mere second but she felt it to her toes. This absurd physical awareness heightened rather than ebbed with familiarity. “Yes, I’ve agreed not to fight you,” she said with a bitter edge.
“The day’s too fine to quarrel,” he said lightly. “Let me help you into the saddle. Kismet grows restless.”
When he grabbed her around the waist, she waited for his hands to linger, to stray, but he merely tossed her into the sidesaddle with breathtaking ease. The beautiful horse sidled then settled at a reassuring word from Jonas. He had a way with females, Sidonie thought with another spike of resentment. Strange to remember Roberta describing him as so hideously ugly that he gave her nightmares. She tried to imagine what Merrick would look like without scars, but they seemed as much part of him as that sensually knowing mouth.
He stepped close enough to catch Kismet’s bridle. “Still now while I adjust your stirrups.”
He brushed her black skirts aside. She waited in quivering expectation for him to touch her legs but his hands were sure as they tightened the leathers. Something about the sheer competence of those strong gloved hands made her stomach jump. From Kismet’s back, she had a fine view of his wild gypsy hair. It was pitch black and untidy and another indication that he insisted on the world taking him on his terms.
He shifted away and glanced up. “Are you cold?”
How she wished she could hide her reactions. “No.”
She waited for some comment about her trembling, but he merely turned to collect his beaver hat from the bench behind him. Smoothly he rose into the bay’s saddle and her heart slammed with admiration at his effortless strength.
She smothered the memory of Merrick’s daunting promise and frantically sought some neutral topic of conversation as they trotted away from the castle. Difficult when every time she looked at him, she remembered him kissing her, touching her skin.
“Why do you tease me in Italian? I would have thought you’d speak—” Then she recalled that the world accounted his mother little better than a whore. The subject of Consuela Alvarez was likely off limits.
He arched a satirical eyebrow as if guessing her quandary. “You imagine I speak fluent Spanish?”
“Don’t you?”
“My mother died when I was two. I don’t remember her.”
“Oh.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”
An uncomfortable silence fell. They crossed a wide green field, the cliffs to their left. The waves crashed upon the rocks below. Gulls on the wind cried like lost souls. Behind her, the bulk of Castle Craven squatted dark on the horizon. Even in sunshine, it looked a dour place.
The silence extended, became increasingly awkward. The horses’ hooves landed dully on the thick grass. She was casting around wildly for something to talk about—the weather seemed too banal but a remark about the bright day hovered on her lips—before he finally spoke. “After I failed to make a success of Eton, my father took me to Venice to live.”
Something in his tone indicated a complicated story behind the laconic accounting. There was so much she didn’t understand, so much she wanted to know. Her feverish curiosity disturbed her. Merrick was a stranger. It would be easier if he remained so.
He went on when she didn’t respond. “We rarely returned to England.”
She could imagine why. She was too young to remember the original scandal of Lord Hillbrook and his imposter viscountess, but vicious gossip had persisted over the years. So much of the story remained mysterious, like how Jonas had earned the marks on his face. Sidonie was familiar with the basic facts. It was common knowledge that all his life Jonas’s father, Anthony Merrick, protested the validity of his marriage. After his death, the Hillbrook title fell to William, Jonas’s cousin. William, who married Roberta Forsythe for her dowry soon after inheriting.
Anthony Merrick had achieved posthumous revenge of a sort. He’d been one of the richest men in England and aside from Barstowe Hall in Wiltshire and Merrick House in London, none of that fortune was entailed. Upon Anthony’s death nine years ago, Jonas Merrick had inherited vast wealth. William Merrick was left with two tumbledown houses, deliberately neglected by his uncle, and no funds to support the dignity of the Hillbrook title.
Since then, Jonas’s fortune had grown exponentially. He was clever, determined, innovative, and ruthless. His wealth ensured grudging social acceptance, despite his illegitimacy. William careered from one financial disaster to another, until now he verged on bankruptcy. With every failure, his loathing for Jonas built to mania. So many times, Sidonie had heard William curse his cousin. His attacks upon Roberta became especially vicious after Jonas had bested William in some way. A reminder, if she’d needed one, of what was at stake here at Castle Craven.
Merrick veered toward the headland. Sidonie followed him down a gentle slope toward the wide sweep of beach. Despite the warm day, the waves were a gray tumult, thundering against the shore with malevolent force. Suddenly needing the release of speed, she urged Kismet to a gallop. For a sweet interval, there was only rushing, briny air and pounding hooves upon smooth sand. She heard Merrick behind her but didn’t look back. For this moment, she needed the fantasy that she could outrun trouble.
A brief moment indeed.
She reached the debris-strewn end of the beach and reined Kismet to a quivering stop. She turned in the saddle to watch Merrick’s thundering approach. The big bay reared to a halt behind her. Merrick’s easy control over the highly strung horse shivered awareness through her. Those skillful hands that calmed a restless horse would soon touch her body.
As he leaned to pat the horse’s satiny neck, he glanced up at her. A light in his silvery eyes indicated he divined the tenor of her thoughts. Of course he did.
“Feeling better?” That slight twist of his lips cut straight to her heart.
She blinked. Her heart? No, no, no. Her heart wasn’t involved. She veered close enough to disaster bartering her body.
He saw her perturbation. “What’s wrong?”
She bit her lip and chose dangerous honesty. “I keep forgetting you mean to destroy me.”
If she hadn’t watched so carefully, she might have missed the troubled frown that darkened his eyes. It struck her that, if Merrick could read her, she was learning to read him. This encroaching intimacy leached resistance, but she didn’t know how to fight it.
“Nothing quite so drastic, surely,” he said mildly. “This gothic setting plays with your imagination.”
The gelding edged closer until Merrick’s leg bumped hers. He reached to curl his hand behind her neck, tangling his fingers in the strands of hair loosened in her reckless gallop. Heat tightened her skin.