Кейси Майклс – Lords of Scandal: The Beleaguered Lord Bourne / The Enterprising Lord Edward (страница 13)
Having successfully taken himself out of the pan and placed himself squarely in the fire, Kit subsided into silence, content to watch the sparks now emanating from his wife’s eyes.
Plopping down on the settee opposite his chair, Jennie spat nastily, “Oh, do be quiet. I know very well you have just come from the stables, dressed as you are. Don’t tell me you don’t have something cutting to say to me about our new grooms, for it won’t fadge, Kit, truly it won’t. Well,” she nudged, “go on—have done with it. Tell me I am the greatest fool since time began—even Bundy would not gainsay you.”
Kit had the audacity to assume a crestfallen expression. “How low your opinion is of me, ma’am. I had nary a thought but to praise you on your finds. What splendid grooms Tiny and Goliath will make. Goliath can tend horsey hoofs all the day long without ever complaining of a sore back, and Tiny—why, the man is invaluable. If one of my blacks comes up lame I’ve simply to set Tiny between the shafts and I’ll have the fastest curricle in all London, possibly all England.”
“Don’t you make fun of them,” Jennie shot at him angrily. “Don’t you dare make fun of them!”
The smile left Kit’s handsome face. “I do not make fun of them, Jennie. It is you who demean them by thinking they are in need of your protection. It is you who sees them as different, not me. Oh, I admit to being momentarily startled by their rather, er, different
Jennie had the good grace to feel ashamed of herself, and said so—quite prettily—causing Kit’s smile to return. It was then, as she was enjoying this show of friendly compatibility, that she decided to press her luck.
“Tiny and Goliath are not the only servants I have hired. You may not be so generous when you have met them.”
“Again you malign me before the fact.” Kit sighed theatrically. Really, this getting along with wives was not so bad after all. Jennie was proving quite easily maneuverable. She was also, as he had observed earlier, growing to be quite easy on his eyes. Marriage certainly did have its compensations. Hard as it was to believe, he was beginning to truly enjoy her company.
What a pity she was not more worldly or he might be tempted to bed her. Yet, he surprised himself by thinking, he was glad she was not worldly, had little experience of men such as himself. Disturbed by this train of thought, he swiftly turned his mind back to the subject at hand. “Tell me about the rest of our staff, pet. If I am going to live here I guess I should make myself at least tokenly acquainted with them.”
Look at him, Jennie told herself irritably, sitting there looking so smug and self-satisfied—and so wretchedly handsome, she added reluctantly. Oh, he thinks he’s got me right in the palm of his hand. The high and mighty Earl of Bourne, condescending to be nice to his simple, countrified wife. How dare he try to manipulate me this way! Even worse, how dare he succeed so handily!
She would have verbally taken him to task then, but she could tell, by the disgustingly satisfied smile on his face, that she might just as well save her breath to, as Goldie said, cool her porridge. Well, if he intended to be disobliging she saw no reason not to do likewise. “I see no need to give you a recital of our serving staff, seeing as how you are home so seldom and unlikely to run into other than those on duty after midnight.”
So it sits like that, does it, Kit mused, raising one speaking eyebrow as he took in Jennie’s flushed cheeks. The kitten has her back up yet again. “I would perceive the wisdom of your words, kitten,” he told her with a maddening smile, “except for one thing. I have decided to change my ways, knowing myself to be guilty of shamelessly neglecting you. Dear me,” he exclaimed, feigning astonishment as Jennie leaped to her feet and stared down at him openmouthed, “I do believe I have said something to upset you. Is it the thought of our finally acting the part of man and wife that so discommodes you? Or, might I hope, do I misread your agitation? Perhaps, be still my foolish heart, you too wish for this closer association?”
Jennie stomped away from the settee and took up a position nearer the doorway to the foyer. “There are times, my lord, when you can be unbelievably crude,” she said crushingly.
Before Jennie could make good her exit, Kit leaped up from his chair and loped across the room to capture her shoulders in his strong grip. He did not know what imp of mischief had possessed him—surely he had not entered the drawing room with any such thoughts in mind—but suddenly he felt himself overpowered by an undeniable need to feel Jennie’s softly pouting mouth beneath his own.
He told himself he was merely kissing her as a means of shutting her up, but he knew he was lying. The high life he had been living ever since he came to London had included being in the company of many beautiful women—women who neither railed at him nor accused him of every evil under the sun. No, the women he had spent time with were all generous females, giving to a fault—for a price. Yet he had not once sampled their wares, even though his pockets were now well lined enough to set up his own stable of fine fillies. He had flirted, he had teased—but he had not bedded a one of them.
Jennie, her heart fluttering madly, stared up into Kit’s strangely staring face, unable to know what was going on in his mind. If she knew that the thought of a small, blond slip of an unwanted bride had kept her dashing husband celibate she would not have believed it. That was probably why, although he looked about to speak, her husband said nothing. He only continued to stare—taking his own sweet time about it too.
As the tension in the air became nearly thick enough to slice, he acted. Abruptly dragging her soft body up against his lean, hard frame, Kit swooped like a bird of prey and claimed Jennie’s unsuspecting mouth in a nearly ruthless kiss.
The flash of feeling was instant and just as intense as he remembered. Almost at once his lips softened, moving sensuously as they molded themselves to the warm contours of Jennie’s. He felt the heat rising within him as he pressed his body more firmly against her yielding form, and his heart leaped at the very moment he felt the tenseness leave her and her hands begin to inch up to clasp his waist.
As for Jennie, she wasn’t thinking at all. She was leagues past rational thought and had been from the moment she was first rudely captured in Kit’s arms. Try as she might to tell herself it was fear that held her captive, she knew she was only deceiving herself. She wanted Kit to touch her, to kiss her. Perhaps she had subconsciously been hoping for just such a reaction when she had insulted him. This and a lot more she would sit alone in her room and dissect later. Much later. Right now she would give in to the enjoyment of the moment.
But all good things must come to an end, and this interlude was no exception. Why he looked up he did not know; perhaps a noise distracted him—although he found it hard to believe anything could have distracted him, so intense was his concentration on the logistics of transferring their activity from the doorway to the settee—but suddenly his eyes were taking in the sight of a small, mobcapped servant girl surreptitiously crossing the foyer.
“Bloody hell!” he exclaimed, releasing Jennie so abruptly she nearly fell. “That chit’s
Jennie shook her head a time or two, trying hard to bring herself back to reality. “Increasingly,” she corrected at last, striving for a bit of dignity. “Charity—the poor, dear thing—will be presenting us with a little bundle of joy in about a month.”
“In a pig’s eye she will!” the earl countered hotly. “It’s not a home for fallen women I’m running here, damn it all.” All thoughts of shared passion forgotten, Kit rounded on Jennie and ordered coldly, “Get rid of her. Now! Today!”
Her hands planted firmly on her hips, her head and shoulders leaning toward him for emphasis, Jennie responded, “Charity is my choice for tweeny. You said I could have one if I wished. Well, I wish. I shall pay her wages out of my own allowance if necessary, but I promised that child a home, and a home she shall have!”
Kit lifted a hand to his pounding head. “Who’s the father? Do we employ him as well?”
Now Jennie was in her element. “We do not, my lord. The father is a peer of the realm, already married and father to more children than Adam. He seduced poor Charity within a month of her employment in Grosvenor Sq—”
“Spare me his name, infant,” Kit cut in resignedly, “else you may yet tell me it is my duty to call the cad out to avenge the chit.” Reluctantly nodding his head in surrender he sighed, “All right, Jennie. Charity, as they say, begins at home. I guess our home is as good a place as any. But for the sake of our unnamed peer, I suggest you keep Charity abovestairs until after her confinement.”