Nicola Cornick Collection: The Last Rake In London / Notorious / Desired. Nicola Cornick

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      Sally tapped her fingers irritably on the balustrade. ‘You are both as bad as each other,’ she said. ‘I do not think that your aunt would appreciate your attempts to rid Stephen of his relatives.’

      ‘Probably not,’ Jack conceded. He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I noticed you attempting to persuade her not to cut Bertie out of her will in my favour. Thank you for that.’

      ‘I am sure that you have enough money,’ Sally said.

      ‘And Bertie does not—particularly if he is to keep your sister in the style you are hoping for.’

      Sally shrugged. She might have known that he would interpret her intervention as an attempt to gain everything for Connie when all she was concerned about was that Lady Ottoline should not change her will on the basis of an engagement that was a sham.

      ‘Tomorrow,’ she said, ‘unless you have a better plan, we shall travel on to Gretna and then we shall see if it is too late to save your cousin from my sister.’

      ‘What was it that Aunt Otto said I would tell you about?’ Jack asked, as they started to walk along the terrace towards the lavender-scented beds of the parterre.

      ‘She said that I should not listen to any gossip about you,’ Sally said. She smiled. ‘I imagine she wished to reassure me, believing as she does that I am genuinely betrothed to you.’

      ‘And have you heard any gossip about me?’

      ‘Yes, of course,’ Sally said. ‘I have heard plenty relating to your elopement with Merle Jameson, but I do not require reassurance since I am only betrothed to you for the duration of this one night.’ She shivered in the breeze off the lake. No matter how much she professed not to care, she knew she was shamefully jealous of the other woman—the only one that Jack had ever loved.

      ‘Let’s go back inside,’ she said.

      Jack smiled. ‘A moment,’ he said. ‘If this night is all we have, we had better make it worth every moment.’ He put a hand out and caught her wrist, drawing her closer to the warmth of his body. He smelled of cologne and fresh night air and the longing caught at the back of Sally’s throat and made it ache.

      She put a hand against the crisp white of his shirtfront and held him off. ‘Mr Kestrel, it may have escaped your notice, but, as I said, I do not like you very much. Nor do you care for me. Only a man with supreme arrogance would assume that I would fall into his arms again after what has happened between us.’

      Jack put up a hand and brushed the strands of hair back from her face. His touch made her skin tingle. She turned her head aside in an attempt to deny the way he made her feel.

      ‘In a moment,’ he said, ‘we are going to go back through those doors into the drawing room. In order to persuade everyone that we are indeed betrothed, you must look like someone who has been thoroughly kissed in the moonlight, Miss Bowes, rather than someone indignant after an acrimonious discussion.’

      Panic caught at Sally’s heart. If he kissed her, she was not sure that she could resist the feelings that coursed through her. Once again she wondered, helplessly, how it was possible to dislike a man so much and yet hunger for his touch. It felt like a betrayal of her principles and yet she wanted him.

      ‘I could pretend—’ she started to say, but Jack slid a hand into her hair and turned her face up to his.

      ‘The reality,’ he said, as he leaned down very slowly to kiss her, ‘is far, far better than the pretence.’

      It was not like his kisses earlier, when he had been asserting his possession and his mastery over her. Now he courted a response from her, the kiss gentle and persuasive, teasing her, tempting her to open her lips beneath his and return the kiss. Sally relaxed, feeling the warmth in her veins turn her body soft and willing. It was so seductive that she let her hands slide over Jack’s shoulders, drew him closer to her and kissed him back. Immediately Jack slid his arms about her, deepened the kiss, and the feeling flared between them like wildfire. They were both breathing hard when he let her go.

      ‘Jack …’ Charley’s voice floated across the terrace to them ‘… Aunt Otto says that you have been out there quite long enough and that Sally promised to play bezique with her.’

      Jack swore under his breath. ‘It’s like having a nursemaid again. You had best go in and humour her.’

      ‘Gladly,’ Sally said, smoothing her gown. ‘I enjoy her company very much.’ She took a deep breath to steady herself. Her hands were still trembling slightly from the residual excitement tingling in her blood.

      ‘Try not to take too much money off her,’ Jack said. ‘I know you will be tempted to fleece her but I will make up any shortfall.’

      His words touched Sally on the raw. It seemed that every time she permitted herself to forget he thought her a money-grabbing charlatan, he would remind her.

      ‘I’ll take her for every penny I can,’ she said recklessly, seared by his scorn. ‘What else would you expect from me, Mr Kestrel?’

      ‘Nothing, I suppose,’ Jack said.

      Sally paused with her hand on the door. ‘Incidentally, Mr Kestrel,’ she added, ‘I have requested a room as far distant from your own as possible. I shall be removing my name from the panel by the door. And anyone creeping in there in the dead of night will be met with a chamber pot to the head, two hundred pounds or not. Do I make myself clear?’

      ‘As crystal,’ Jack said. ‘Good night, Miss Bowes.’

       Chapter Seven

      Jack was up early the following morning. He had slept poorly, tantalised by the knowledge that Sally’s room was just down the corridor from his own, so near and yet so far. More disturbing than his sexual frustration was the fact that he actually missed sleeping with her; he missed her warmth and her scent and the confiding way that her body curled closely with his, bringing a deep sense of peace and comfort to him. It was not a feeling that was familiar to him and it irritated him profoundly.

      He wished he had not provoked her when they had parted the previous night. She had spoken so convincingly about her reasons for refusing Gregory Holt that he had almost believed her. Then he had kissed her and once again he had been swept by the need to have her, to hold her, to keep her close. He wanted to believe in her. He was hesitating on the edge of a precipice and it infuriated him that Sally could get under his skin like this because he knew he was losing control; after Merle, he had no wish to let a woman get that close to him ever again. It was impossible. He would not permit it. He would keep Sally with him on his own terms, but keep his heart locked against her. She had to be the corrupt and venal adventuress Churchward had shown him.

      He took one of Stephen’s specially ironed newspapers and made his way to the library. It was quiet and the early morning sunshine dappled the carpet. One of the Labradors was dozing in a patch of warmth and raised its head when he walked past only to sink back down with a grunt again as Jack sat down. In the parlour the servants were laying out a gargantuan breakfast, but no one could eat until Lady Ottoline decided to put in an appearance and she was probably still in bed enjoying hot chocolate and toast. Jack wondered how anyone could eat as much as his great-aunt and still remain stick thin. She had an appetite like a Labrador and he was beginning to think that her much-vaunted СКАЧАТЬ