ulian stared at the delectable woman in his arms. She was half dressed. Completely lovely, her sensitive skin marred by the nips and licks he had given her. She was responsive after all. It had merely taken some coaxing on his part. But no matter. Of course he could make a woman—any woman—want him. It was simultaneously his gift and his curse.
But it wasn’t her surprisingly sensual reaction that gave him pause or her undeniable allure. It was her words. One hundred thousand pounds was no trifling matter. A man could pay off his debts with that kind of coin and still live more than comfortably enough, provided he had a care with what remained.
Naturally, it could be a ruse, a hyperbolic lure to lead him to the altar. Sacrificial lamb, etcetera. She didn’t seem the cozening sort, however, and he fancied himself a superior judge of character. She blushed prettily now beneath his frank regard, though whether her embarrassment stemmed from the liberties she’d allowed him or her daring proposal, he couldn’t be sure. Perhaps a healthy smattering of both.
“You want to pay me to marry you, little dove?” The mere suggestion sounded so absurd that he almost laughed again. He decided to discomfit her instead, caressing her jaw and touching his thumb to her lower lip once more, precisely where he’d nipped it. “Was this meant to be my taste of the wedding night, then?”
Her lips compressed into a tight line, blue eyes snapping fire at him as she shrugged from his loose grasp and stepped back. “As I’ve already explained, there will be no wedding night, sir.”
“On that we are agreed.” His gaze flicked to her breasts straining against her chemise, her nipples stiff little temptations beneath the white fabric. They begged to be sucked, those nipples, without the barrier of cloth. “For there will be no wedding.”
He set her away from him. Pity she was either a bit touched or green enough to believe the plots and schemes she read in Gothic novels could be applied to her life. He would have dearly liked to finish what they’d begun. True desire had become a rarity for him but he felt it now, pulsing through him like a starved beast. She was lovely and innocent, and he longed to awaken her to pleasure. To take the artlessness of her and consume it for himself.
Pity too that his days of selling himself were at an end. She’d almost be worth it.
“Not even for a hundred thousand pounds?”
That rather caught him off guard, for it was almost as if she’d read his bloody mind. Something else stirred in him then, warring with the lust. Anger. He stalked back to her, crowding her with his body. He should have some mercy, at least allow her to finish buttoning herself back up, but she’d scratched him deep enough with her question and her offer to make him bleed.
“Who told you I would sell myself so cheaply?” He settled his hands on her waist, drawing her flush against him. “Even whores must set their price, my love. One hundred thousand pounds is a pittance to spend the rest of my life shackled to someone, regardless of how pretty her bubbies are.” And the bubbies in question were, undeniably, flawless, crushed to his chest in the most tantalizing manner.
Her lush mouth dropped into a perfectly shaped O before she gathered her wits enough to plant her palms on his shoulders and push. “If you find insult in my offer, the fault is mine. Only allow me to go and I shall never again trouble you.”
In her ire, her drawl deepened. He could listen to her speak all day in that accent.
But the wrath within him still burned a steady, vital flame, and so he wouldn’t think about her soft, lilting patterns of speech. “Why should I let you go when I have you precisely where I want you, little dove? I don’t suppose this was part of the madcap plans you hatched in your bedchamber, was it? No, I daresay not. I was meant to only be pleased by the honor you pay me in offering to sell the rest of my life for a hundred thousand pounds.”
A new, telling shade of red tinged her high cheekbones. “I hardly asked for the rest of your life. I wish to return to my home in Virginia. One hundred thousand pounds for a marriage that can be over the moment I step aboard a ship bound for America hardly seems a devil’s bargain to me.”
Perhaps it wouldn’t to someone like her, but Julian had been selling himself for over half his life. It had begun with Lady Esterly and it had ended with the Marchioness of Lyndhurst. The intervening years had held too many names and faces to recall.
He didn’t release her as she wanted, held her still. She would not escape so effortlessly. No, she had been the one who had decided to come to him. She’d had an entire carriage ride to question the wisdom of her decision and had still proceeded. “Selling one’s self is a devil’s bargain, regardless of the price and circumstance.”
This slip of a girl, quite beautiful, was no different than the rest. She wanted something from him. Wanted to use him in exchange for financial compensation, but this time it was his name instead of his body. Jesus, how had he gotten here, to this place in his life where at thirty-one years old he faced a golden angel in siren’s form who was scarcely twenty if she was a day, who thought she could damn well buy him and then toss him away like rubbish?
“It is an even exchange, my lord.”
She was brave, this lovely American girl. She faced him without flinching. Even now, she held her head high, her bodice gaping, her throat marked with what he had done to her, and she did not cower. He could admire bravery. Foolishness was another matter.
“Who sent you to me?” he asked quietly, for he wanted to know. Very much. They’d never crossed paths. He still didn’t know her name. And while he was aware he possessed a reputation, he couldn’t think she’d dreamt up this farce on her own.
“If you think I’ve been sent here by one of your former…friends, you’re wrong.”
“Friends,” he repeated. “Come now. None of the ladies you’re so delicately referencing were ever my friends.”
“Your paramours, then. No, it was not any such person. Proposing this agreement to a gentleman was my idea, but a good friend of mine suggested you as an ideal candidate. Of course, I must now wonder at the wisdom of her recommendation!” Her eyes went wide, and she seemed almost as startled as he by her outburst. “Does that please you, my lord? Why do you toy with me now? Have I not entertained you enough for one evening? Can you not be merciful and allow me to go if you’ve no interest in my offer?”
Could he not be merciful? Well yes, he supposed he could, but some small part of him was actually enjoying this game. He stared at her, considering her words with care, and as he did, muted hollering reached his ears from somewhere else in the house. The front door, perhaps.
It was the sound, he was sure, of a madman. The sounds grew louder. Closer. Julian could discern words from the guttural caterwauling now.
“Where the hell is he?”
What the devil? His little dove stiffened in his arms, and he knew instantly that she recognized that booming voice. That drawl, so similar to hers. And he recognized it as well just as suddenly. Jesse Whitney, the American businessman. They’d had occasion to cross social paths before more than once.
But the woman in his arms was not Whitney’s wife. She couldn’t be…
“I demand to see my daughter!”
The voice was near to Julian’s study now. Positively murderous. Osgood’s affronted, proper tones could be heard next. The sounds of a scuffle ensued.
“Jesus.” Julian stared at the woman in his arms, wondering if she had planned this. The stricken expression on her face suggested otherwise. “Never say you’re Whitney’s get?”
“What can he be doing here?” She shook her head, trying to make sense of the unwanted interruption. “How can he have known?”
The sound of a boot heel hitting his study door crashed into the silence between them. The door flew open, banging into the wall and sending plaster shards raining to the tired, old carpets. With a grim feeling settling in his chest, he set the girl behind him and faced his second unwanted visitor of the night.
Her furious papa.
This was a conundrum he found thoroughly distasteful. The Earl of Ravenscroft had committed a great many sins, but ruining an innocent—much less being discovered in the process by her irate sire—had never been one of them.
“Goddamn it, Ravenscroft! Unhand my daughter at once!” Jesse Whitney pulled a revolver from his jacket and took aim at Julian’s heart. “Step away from her, you son of a bitch.”
The sound of the hammer cocking echoed through the chamber, punctuating his demand with visceral effect.
Clara was almost afraid to peer from behind the Earl of Ravenscroft’s broad shoulder. He was a tall man, blotting out the sight of her furious father and the gun she’d heard him cock, shielding her state of dishabille with his large body. Lord have mercy, her father didn’t touch arms of any sort. Not since the war. She hadn’t even known he’d possessed a gun. Never mind making sense of the notion of her good-natured father whisking into the earl’s home prepared to commit murder.
“My lord!” The imperious butler she’d faced earlier now sounded rather breathless and concerned. “What would you have me do?”
“That will be all, Osgood.” The earl sounded remarkably unflappable for a man who had a gun pointed in his direction.
Her father wouldn’t harm Ravenscroft, would he? Clara stole a peek from behind the earl’s right arm. Her father’s expression revealed he was in a fine rage. She didn’t recall ever seeing him so angry, and she had certainly provided ample cause for that emotion in the past. Admittedly, she had not adapted well to life in London or to a father she’d spent most of her life without knowing.
“Clara.” Her father spotted her. “Has this miscreant done you any harm?”
“Of course not, Father.” Her unsteady fingers found her corset and struggled to tug it back into its proper place. She’d never button her tight-fitting bodice back up without her undergarments in order. The thought of her father witnessing the evidence of her wanton behavior with the earl was enough to make her feel ill. “Please, do calm down.”
“I object to your use of the term miscreant, Whitney,” the earl said in an indolent tone, as though he didn’t have a revolver pointed at him, a man’s finger on the trigger. “I’m a peer of the realm, you must realize.”
“We both know what you are, Ravenscroft.” Her father’s voice was dark, void of the irrational amusement the earl seemed to derive from the situation. “Now kindly get the hell away from my daughter so that I can take her home where she belongs.”
Clara longed for home, but home was not and never could be the Belgravia mansion where she lived with her father, stepmother, and their growing brood of children. It had been years since she’d last seen Virginia, her beloved homeland. After tonight, her chances to ever see it again were almost certainly dashed. Her father would lock her in her chamber until she agreed to marry the next florid duke in need of her marriage settlement.
“Afraid I’ll ruin her?” The earl’s voice was cocky. Goading. “Perhaps that’s already been done, old boy. I suppose you didn’t think of that in your haste, did you? My hands are quite quick, and I know my way around a lady’s skirts.”
She stilled in the unattainable feat of righting her corset and decided to simply do her buttons instead, just as quickly as her fingers could fly over the small fabric-covered discs. An almost feral sound emanated from her father, so great was his rage. Mercy, why would the earl say such a thing? Did he intend to ruin her thoroughly before rejecting her? He was unpredictable enough, perhaps even cruel enough, to enact such a misguided sense of retribution.
“If you touched her, I’ll put a bullet in your miserable hide. Don’t doubt that I will,” her father warned.
Clara settled the final button into place and stepped out from behind Ravenscroft, praying she didn’t look as thoroughly kissed and debauched as she felt. “Father, please do calm down.”
“I touched her.” Ravenscroft issued the statement conversationally, as though he were imparting a fascinating on dit. “More than touched her, if you must know. Will you shoot me now, or wait to take a better aim? Will you shoot to maim, Whitney, or will you shoot to kill? The mind reels with the possibilities.”
Mad, Clara decided. The earl was, without question, utterly mad. She gawped at him. He was handsome and elegant, as cool and charming as he’d be in any ballroom. And yet, he had just admitted the unthinkable to her father, a man with the barrel of a firearm trained on his heart.
“You miserable cur.” Her father’s expression was filled with more rage than she’d imagined possible. He spared her a quick glance as if to ascertain that she had not been unduly physically harmed before pinning Ravenscroft with his glare once more. “Where I will shoot you depends a great deal on what you say and do next, Ravenscroft.”
Clara stepped in front of the earl, shielding him. If there was one thing she had come to know about her father, it was that he meant what he said. If he threatened the earl with bodily harm, he was deadly serious. And it was her fault that the earl faced the end of a Colt now, wasn’t it?
“Father, this is a dreadful misunderstanding. I’ll go with you. Please, do put the gun away. His lordship has done nothing wrong.” Not precisely true, that. But what could she expect from a man of his reputation when she had barged into his home alone? And she had been a more than willing participant.
“Step away from him, Clara.” Her father’s jaw clenched. He lowered the revolver to his side but didn’t seem inclined to holster it.
“Come, darling.” The earl sidestepped her and slid his arm around her waist, drawing her against him. “You needn’t defend me. The fault is all mine, is it not? It was I who asked you here. I who couldn’t wait another moment to have you in my arms.”
What in heaven’s name? Clara stared at his chiseled profile. He didn’t appear mad, rather the opposite in fact. He exuded an ease, a calm charm that was at odds with the situation. Did he think somehow to protect her by feigning culpability for her disastrous plan? If that was his aim, she had to put an end to it.
“My lord, this isn’t necessary.” She was responsible for her own unwise actions. She’d face her father’s wrath. She’d answer for her sins, since it seemed she couldn’t atone for them.
“But it is, it would seem, my sweet little dove, for your sire has rendered it so with the honor of his presence and the commotion he’s made with his…” The earl allowed his words to trail away in indolence for a moment, as though he were the one in control of the state in which they now found themselves uncomfortably mired. He made a fluid gesture toward the Colt. “With his armament.”
“It’s a decision maker, you rotten scoundrel.” Her father’s eyes narrowed. “You can decide to remove your hands from my daughter, or I’ll maim you. I’m a former soldier, sir. Don’t think my aim isn’t exceptional.”
Clara’s mouth felt painfully dry. Dear Lord, there was no way her father would dare to shoot the earl, was there? He raised the revolver once more, training it on Ravenscroft’s left foot. Clara attempted to slip from the earl’s grasp so that she could shield him again, but he held her fast. What was he about? He had dismissed her offer with arrogant disdain. Had told her he would never marry her, not even for a handsome portion of her marriage settlement. And then, he had kissed her, touched her, placed his mouth upon her most sensitive and forbidden places. Now, he seemed almost to be her champion.
“Would you maim your future son-in-law, Mr. Whitney?” Ravenscroft’s question cut through her whirling thoughts. “It seems unwise, as it would not only possibly make your daughter the object of all manner of scurrilous gossip but also invite the law to come down upon you. Just think of what would happen, sir, if you should kill me while my babe is in your daughter’s womb and she hasn’t even yet enjoyed the benefit of marriage to me.”
Her father’s expression, Clara was sure, mirrored her own. Stunned shock warring with disbelief. She may be an unwed lady, untutored in much of the pleasures of the flesh, but even she was not ignorant enough to believe that anything which had transpired between them would have gotten her with child.
“My lord,” she protested, attempting another escape from his grasp.
His fingers tightened on her waist, telling her with actions what he hadn’t told her with words. This man was not letting her go. Had he decided that her offer was worthwhile after all? Could it be?
“Hush, darling Clara.” He looked down at her now, and she didn’t like what she saw at all. He appeared hard, his blue eyes dark and cold, his beautiful mouth pulled taut in a grim frown, all harsh angles and a sense of foreboding. His words suggested that of a lovelorn suitor. His gorgeous face, however, showed nothing of the kind. “I am sorry that I’ve compromised you so completely. Sorrier still that your father has had to learn the news in such an undesirable manner. But the damage is done, and it cannot be mended. We’ll need to wed as soon as I can acquire a license.”
“You’ve compromised her?” Her father lowered the revolver again. His expression was even more grim than the earl’s. “We can keep the details of this night a secret. No one ever need be the wiser, Ravenscroft. How much for your silence?”
Clara couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been outwitted by the sinfully handsome earl. He was quick and complex, a rattlesnake, yes. It would seem he had chosen to strike. “But you didn’t compromise me, Lord Ravenscroft.”
“Darling.” He drew her to him and pressed a kiss between her brows, as though he were besotted. He didn’t fool her for an instant. “You are far too innocent to understand that I have.” He looked back to her father once more. “I have no price, Mr. Whitney, that will buy my silence. I’m afraid it will be marriage to your daughter or nothing else. I’m in love with her, you see, and she is in love with me as well. Is that not right, my darling?”
Misgiving filled her. Not one bit of her plan had unfolded as she’d so meticulously strategized. Yet now, the earl was giving her precisely what she wanted. The opportunity to marry so that she could leave England forever after she received her marriage settlement. The lush magnolias and verdant fields of her youth called to her now. Home was suddenly within reach.
“Yes.” She trained her gaze on her father, not without a pang of sympathy for him. She had grown to love him over the past few years, but he was inflexible on the one thing that meant the most to her—returning to Virginia. “Father, I am in love with Lord Ravenscroft. I wish to wed him as expediently as possible.”
“What makes you think I’ll give you even a shilling, you misbegotten bastard?” Jesse Whitney demanded.
Julian sipped his brandy, still wishing for the easy obliteration of liquor that never seemed to find him. Miss Clara Whitney had been trundled home in her papa’s carriage, the better to protect his future wife from further scandal. Now he faced the angry father bear, who still looked inclined to take up his Colt revolver and send a bullet straight into Julian’s black heart. Perhaps it was well-deserved, especially given what he’d decided to do.
The tattered remnants of his conscience could bloody well go to hell and wait until his soul inevitably joined it there one day. He turned his mind to the task at hand.
“I merely expect the terms of the marriage settlement to be fair, Mr. Whitney. It stands to reason that a man doesn’t wish the daughter he loves to live in penury, without a roof over her head or bread in her mouth.” Julian shrugged. “I’m afraid I cannot provide her with the life she’s accustomed to living.”
Julian had no experience in angry fathers or dowries or the finer art of arranging marriage settlements. Angry husbands, he could ward off with his fists quite nattily. An unsavory business, this. But if he wanted to save himself and his sisters from ruin, he knew what needed to be done. He thought of Alexandra and Josephine, who certainly deserved to be spared the legacy of their father’s profligacy. The little Virginia termagant had been right.
“You seem to have forgotten something, Ravenscroft,” drawled Whitney, “I don’t have to allow her to wed you.”
By law, an heiress needed to reach one-and-twenty before she could marry without her parent or guardian’s permission. Apparently, his bride had not yet reached her majority. A bit young for his tastes, but he would make do with her, and the prospect wasn’t at all unappealing.
But there was also the possibility of her father refusing to provide a dowry or providing a marriage portion that was hers alone to control. He would need to proceed with caution, deftly maneuver Whitney into seeing things his way.
“Of course not, and yet there is, one must note, the matter of her possibly carrying my child.” He kept his tone mild. “If you wish her to give birth to a bastard and be forever ruined, I cannot change your mind. However, I can obtain a license and we can be married with such haste that no one will ever be the wiser should a child arise from our…indiscretion this evening.”
Julian wasn’t a man who was prone to prevarication. Nevertheless, he was currently and unabashedly engaged in an outright, utter lie to Clara Whitney’s father. Something had shifted inside him as he’d stared down the barrel of that revolver. It had all seemed rather serendipitous suddenly. He’d been on the brink of ruin, and into his study sailed a beautiful American heiress, ready to pluck him from the maws if he just played his cards properly.
He still had a price after all, it seemed.
But he wasn’t selling himself for one hundred thousand pounds. He was selling himself for a far greater amount, for Jesse Whitney’s wealth—even greater now that he had joined forces with Levi Storm of the North Atlantic Electric Company—was quite well known, even to Julian. After all, if Clara had been willing to part with one hundred thousand pounds, it stood to reason that there was a great deal more to be had. His little dove thought she’d bought him and was about to set sail for her homeland with the bulk of her marriage portion. Poor, sweet dove. She hadn’t realized he’d never agreed to her terms.
Whitney clenched both fists, his countenance rigid with his anger. The Colt stayed mercifully in its place for the moment. “You do realize the…possibility to which you allude is the sole reason I haven’t either already beaten you into oblivion or shot you dead where you sit, don’t you? I suppose you do. You don’t seem stupid, Ravenscroft. Merely lazy and greedy, which is why you decided to make poor Clara your unsuspecting prey. My daughter deserves far better than a lowly parasite who would ruin her to line his own pockets, goddamn it.”
Yes, she did. Julian couldn’t argue that point with Whitney, for no one deserved him, a man who had whored his body and pretty face since the age of fourteen. A man who had never done anything more important than bring misguided duchesses and countesses to shattering orgasm with his tongue. Ah, well. It was a skill, he supposed, making a woman come. Not every man could claim to do so, and certainly not as proficiently as he.
He considered the man who would be his father-in-law, who didn’t appear to be terribly advanced in years. Indeed, he’d wager they were somewhat of an age, which was deuced awkward. He’d guess old Whitney had about nine years on him. The man must’ve been little more than a stripling when he’d become a father.
“Mr. Whitney, I do so hate to dispel your assumption that I’m a fortune hunter who importuned your daughter, but I must correct you on that score.” Ha, what utter tripe. But he had to make his soliloquy convincing or he’d never get this boulder-headed American to give up his daughter or his coin. “We’ve fallen in love, you see, and tonight when I begged her to visit me, I had no intention of compromising her. I would never dream of causing her harm in any way. It was merely my love for her that—”
“Cease talking,” Whitney interrupted, his ire evident in his heavy drawl and the booming thunder of his voice. “Do you think me a bumbling fool, Lord Ravenscroft? Do you think your protestations of love will ever be believed by me? Oh, I have no doubt that your silver tongue charmed my sweet Clara. But it has no such effect upon me. I can see a hog’s turd for what it is.”
The man was as pugnacious as a prize fighter. Damn it.
“A hog’s turd, am I?” He made a great show of looking down at his person. “And here I thought myself a peer of the realm. An earl.”
“Titles mean nothing to me,” Whitney growled. “They aren’t the measure of a man.”
Well. This certainly would not be the first or the last time that someone had found him morally lacking. Hardly shocking. “I’m a man of reason, Mr. Whitney. I shall count your remarks as those of an overset father. Regardless of your opinion of me, I am the man who will marry your daughter. Do let us try to remain civil.”
“Civil is me refraining from shooting you.”
“But we are here to discuss the marriage settlement, are we not, and the marriage itself?” His head had begun thumping, and no amount of brandy could cure what ailed him. Best to tie up this matter neatly. “I can secure a license as quickly as possible. We will marry quietly. I propose a dowry of two hundred thousand pounds to refurbish the estates and provide your daughter with a standard of living to which she is accustomed and another hundred thousand pounds in stocks of North Atlantic Electric. Whatever else you decide to settle on her will be hers, free and unencumbered as the law states.”
“Son-of-a-bitch. You’ve been planning this, haven’t you?” Whitney’s hand was creeping back toward his revolver, which he’d holstered at his waist like a common outlaw.
Actually, his sweet little dove had planned it. Julian had merely turned the tables on her. She was a clever thing, he’d give her that, but no match for a man of his ilk. “Of course not, sir. But I do know what the estates require and what your daughter will require as my wife. Should you think it judicious to bless her with more, that is your choice.”
“You’re a cunning bastard, I’ll say that for you.” Whitney stood abruptly. “Before I agree to anything, I’ll need to speak with my daughter directly. I’ll send word to you in the morning. In the meantime, sleep well knowing I’m a merciful man who spared you a painful death tonight because I love my daughter. And never forget, Ravenscroft, just how much I love her. For if anything should ever happen to make her unhappy, retribution will be mine.”
Perhaps it would be best to allow the man to retreat, lick his wounds. Julian was fairly confident that Clara would maintain his ruse. She wanted her freedom. So too did he.
He stood and bowed to Jesse Whitney. “I will expect to hear from you tomorrow.”
“Four years in the hell of war, Ravenscroft. I know how to kill a man.” Whitney tapped the revolver-shaped lump beneath his jacket. “Never forget.”
Julian didn’t suppose he would any time soon. Fortunately for him, murder remained a punishable offense. But he knew a worthy foe when he’d met one, and Jesse Whitney was certainly that.