When a Rogue Meets His Match Page 13

  He nodded again and closed the bedroom door behind him.

  How the hell did aristocrats live like this—with servants all around them and underfoot? He wandered to the end of the hall, where a window looked out over the small garden in back of the town house. The garden had long been untended, and only a few overgrown trees remained, casting long shadows in the moonlight. Something moved, and Pea emerged from under one of the trees, his lanky form recognizable even in the near dark. He tilted his head up to the window and nodded.

  Gideon returned the nod, glad that Pea was alert.

  He watched the night for a few more minutes before a door opened in the hall behind him. He heard the patter of the maid’s retreating footsteps.

  Gideon waited a moment and then retraced his steps to the bedroom. Messalina was already abed, the covers pulled to her chin and her eyes closed.

  He shut the door and paused for a moment. Dear God, he wanted to climb in beside her. Pull the covers from her body and rip aside that damned chemise.

  Instead he snuffed out the candle and walked to one of the chairs before the fire.

  “Aren’t you coming to bed?” she whispered.

  Had she any idea? Any idea at all of the restraint he was having to maintain?

  “Not yet.”

  He heard rustling as she moved in the bed. He kept his gaze firmly on the glowing embers in the hearth. He waited.

  But even after her breaths had evened and deepened into sleep, he didn’t retire to bed. He was thinking. Tonight was the second time they’d been attacked by robbers inside a week.

  And in both cases the attackers had been more interested in murder than money.

  Which meant they were bent on killing either him or Messalina. He’d been defending himself since the age of thirteen. Gideon feared no one.

  But if it was Messalina they were after…

  He clenched his jaw. No. Not Messalina.

  That couldn’t be borne.

  Chapter Eight

  “Then I shall take Bet as my payment,” the fox said.

  The tinker wept and pleaded, but the fox stood firm. In the end the tinker was forced to agree to give his daughter in marriage to the fox. The only concession the fox made was to wait until the tinker’s baby daughter should turn eighteen.

  And then finally the fox showed the tinker the way out of the wood.…

  —From Bet and the Fox

  “What a good boy,” Messalina crooned early the next morning.

  The puppy sleeping in her arms didn’t reply.

  Daisy had his little head tucked into her neck, dozing blissfully, while Bartlett made the finishing touches to Messalina’s toilet.

  Messalina stroked the puppy’s triangle ears, softer than her kid gloves.

  There was a scrape at the door, and she glanced up to see Sam shyly looking in.

  “You’ve come just in time,” Messalina told the boy. “I’m afraid that Daisy will want to visit the gardens when he wakes. Can you take him?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Sam crossed the room to stand beside her.

  Messalina carefully transferred the puppy to Sam’s arms, but she needn’t have worried. Daisy still slept, his small body warm and limp.

  She smiled. “Hopefully he’ll wake when you take him outside, but if he doesn’t, you might as well stay in the gardens until he does.”

  Sam’s face bloomed into a grin. “Aye, ma’am! Thank you, ma’am!”

  She waved him out of the room.

  “You’ll spoil that boy,” Bartlett said gruffly.

  Messalina glanced at her in surprise. “Do you think so?”

  Bartlett met her eyes in the mirror. “You’ve made him your pet, but he will grow into a man eventually. A man who will never find a mistress or master as kind as you.”

  Most ladies would not allow such impertinence in a servant. But Bartlett’s homely face was creased in genuine concern.

  And besides. It was Bartlett.

  Messalina frowned. “Then what do you think I should do—treat him with scorn? Ignore him?”

  Bartlett shrugged. “In the end it might be more merciful.”

  To be unkind so that he would expect unkindness for the rest of his life? Instinctively she hated the idea. Why should boys like Sam be taught that they were inferior simply because of the poverty they had been born in?

  Sam should be educated. His clothes should be decent. And he should be able to discover some other life than joining a gang of thieves.

  If only…

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Bartlett. “Will that be all, ma’am?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Messalina stared at her reflection in the mirror. What would Hawthorne say should she share her thoughts on little boys and their expectations in life?

  Messalina cleared her throat, stopping Bartlett at the door.

  “Ma’am?”

  “I was just wondering where Mr. Hawthorne might be,” Messalina said as casually as she could.

  Hawthorne hadn’t slept in their bed at all last night, and as usual he was gone when she’d woken.

  Bartlett gave her a far too knowing look.

  Messalina hurried into speech. “Never mind. I’m quite scattered this morning.”

  The lady’s maid said gently, “Actually, ma’am, I think if you go to the kitchens you’ll find the master.”

  “The kitchens?”

  Bartlett looked shifty. “Near the kitchens, ma’am. More than that I really ought not say. If that will be all, ma’am?”

  At Messalina’s nod the maid bustled from the room, a pile of linens in her arms.

  Messalina stared after her. Whatever was Hawthorne doing in the kitchens—or rather near the kitchens?

  Curious, she descended the stairs to the lowest level of the house. She was striding toward the kitchens when she saw Keys step into the corridor ahead of her and hurry away without seeing her.

  Messalina stopped. The man had come from Hawthorne’s room.

  The room he’d forbidden her.

  She approached the door and examined it, biting her lip. She glanced up and down the hallway and put her ear to the door. If someone found her doing such a childish thing she had no idea what she’d say.

  There was no sound from inside.

  Messalina wrinkled her nose at the door. Well, it was probably locked.

  She tried the doorknob and it turned beneath her hand. Impulsively she pushed open the door and walked in.

  A bathtub sat in the very middle of the room, the largest she’d ever seen. Copper gleamed in the candlelight, white bath sheets draped over the edges. The floor was tiled in white marble that extended to a pretty little mantel with a fire crackling merrily underneath.

  All this she saw in a glance before her gaze was snagged by the man in the tub.

  Hawthorne said nothing, his angry black eyes glinting in the candlelight.

  Messalina felt her face heat as she stumbled back under Hawthorne’s glare. His black hair curled damply on the smooth muscles of his shoulders. He rested his arms along the rim of the tub, a chain glinting through the curls on his chest. It held some sort of small pendant.

  He looked arrogant and completely in control, though he was obviously naked.

  Quite, quite naked.

  She worked to keep the kiss in the carriage from her mind, but really it was impossible. Her gaze dropped to his bottom lip, and she bit her own. This man had had his tongue in her mouth last night.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he barked, making her jump.

  “I…I’m sorry,” Messalina stuttered. It had never occurred to her that Hawthorne’s secret would be a bathing room. “I’ll leave—”

  “No.” His sharp voice caught her as she was turning.

  She looked back.

  “I beg your pardon.” He inhaled and let his breath out slowly. “Your entrance startled me.”

  “Well.” Messalina cleared her throat. “Naturally it would. I did
intrude on you.”

  “Yes, you did.” He wiped his hand down his face. A small smile quirked the corner of his lips. “Curiosity, I presume?”

  She felt her face heat. “I’m afraid so. I mean, a forbidden door…”

  “Did you think I had the bodies of my previous wives in here?”

  “No, of course not,” she replied, a bit too loud.

  He laughed.

  She stared, for she couldn’t remember seeing him laugh before. Hawthorne grinned slyly, smiled cynically, smirked and sneered. He did not laugh.

  His obsidian eyes crinkled, his white teeth flashed, and a dimple appeared on his cheek. He was gorgeous. She caught her breath, a frisson of desire rippling down her center.

  “Would you…” Messalina had to stop and clear her throat. “Would you like me to…to help you with your hair?”

  He cocked his head, a smile still hovering around his sensuous lips. “You wish to act my valet?”

  Was he mocking her? She raised her chin. “Yes, if you want.”

  “Oh, I want,” he said softly.

  The rasp in his voice made her hands tremble. What on earth was she thinking?

  But…she wanted to stay. Wanted to touch that gleaming skin.

  She shoved her doubts aside and crossed to the tub. Beside it was a stool holding cloths, soap, and a tin cup. There was also a tall tankard of what looked like coffee, but that she ignored. She looked around and saw a chair, which she dragged closer.

  She sat at the head of the tub and took the cup, turning to him, but then nearly dropped it again at what she saw.

  His body was covered in knife scars.

  Thin white lines were hatched all over his chest, belly, and arms, but there were thicker scars as well. Angry pink skin in raised welts. The result of stab wounds? They must be. One high on his left chest, just below his collarbone, the chain glinting beside it. She could see now that a farthing, of all things, hung from the chain—how odd.

  But she hadn’t time to wonder about the thing, for she was still cataloguing his scars. Two more were over his ribs on his right side. And another just above his navel. Surely that should’ve been a killing blow? How had he survived so many wounds? She followed the trail of wet hair that disappeared into the water. His penis lay there between his thighs, quite a bit bigger than she’d imagined and not exactly quiescent.

  Messalina jerked her eyes up and her gaze met his.

  His head was canted to the side, his eyelids drooping over glittering black eyes watching as she examined him.

  Her face nearly went up in flames.

  “You are very curious, aren’t you?” he said softly.

  For a moment she couldn’t think at all. She could feel her nipples, sensitive against her chemise, and something inside her clenched.

  “I suppose I am.” She stared at that scar barely above the water. The one that should’ve been fatal. “How…?”

  She glanced up at him again, and this time she looked at him through tears.

  His face shuttered. “There’s not much in the way of proper work in St Giles,” Hawthorne said quietly. “Not for a boy without a living family. I nearly starved before I found the knife fights. But then I did find them, and I decided to be the best.”

  She shook her head. “You just decided?”

  “Mm.” He lifted his arm to push back his hair, revealing yet another scar on the underside of his upper arm. “Yes. I wasn’t going to stay in St Giles, and to get out I needed money. I started planning the day I was in my first knife fight. By sixteen I had a nice little amount saved when I received this”—he gestured to the scar above his navel—“and was bedridden for several weeks.” He grimaced. “All my savings were spent in those weeks—for the bed, for food, and for medicine.”

  She inhaled sharply. “That must’ve been devastating.”

  He shrugged, the light sliding over his slick shoulders as he did so. “When I was better, I went back to the fights. I figured it would take me another two years to make enough to abandon St Giles—assuming I wasn’t wounded or killed first. But then your uncle discovered me and made me a better offer.”

  She frowned. “How is working for my uncle better?”

  “Because working for your uncle paid well enough that I could escape St Giles at once. I would’ve worked for the devil himself if it meant leaving St Giles.”

  She swallowed. Such ruthless determination should’ve repelled her, but she was very much afraid that it did not.

  “Do you understand?” he asked when she remained silent. His voice was gravelly. “I’ve plotted my entire life to escape my birth. I would’ve done anything to find a way to rise above where I was born, then and now.”

  She thought about what it would be like to be all alone in the world. To have to fight in order to eat. “I understand.”

  He still looked grim. “You’re too good to be married to me.”

  A week ago she would’ve agreed immediately with that sentiment.

  Now? She wasn’t entirely sure. “Lean back.”

  He obeyed, his eyes closed.

  She stared at him a moment, this complex, hardened man. A naked man. She’d never seen an entirely nude man before—not a live one, anyway. She’d seen male statues, of course, but she rather thought they weren’t any more accurate than the female statues she’d seen—the ones without hair or natural feminine parts.

  And she was right. Hawthorne had wet curls of hair on his chest and beneath his arms. He had nipples that were dark and furrowed.

  And his penis was certainly larger than any Greek statue’s, veins vining up the length, the hood pulling back from the tip. It was red and looked engorged.

  Messalina swallowed and placed her hand hesitantly on his shoulder, shivering despite his heat at the feel of his smooth skin and the hard muscle beneath. She could feel ridged scars under her fingertips. “They don’t hurt anymore, do they?”

  He shook his head, not bothering to open his eyes. “Most aren’t deep.”

  She frowned a little at that, moving her fingers to the bumpy scar beside his collarbone. “Not even this one?” She could see now that the wound had been crudely sewn together.

  “It once hurt, but that was years ago,” he murmured.

  She was distracted by a dark shadow on his upper arm, twisting to see better. A bruise. “And this?”

  “The footpads last night at the theater.”

  She looked at him. He was so close that she could see his individual eyelashes, dark and sooty. “You use your body like a weapon, without regard for how it might be hurt. I think you probably take better care of that knife you keep up your sleeve.”

  His lips quirked. “Perhaps. But there are other ways I can use my body. Will you let me show you?”

  Her mouth went dry.

  “I…” Did he mean something other than the act of consummating a marriage? She’d heard rumors that there was more that a man and a woman might do in bed.

  Or, a voice whispered in her head, she could allow him to bed her before the month was up. She wanted that dowry money, didn’t she? What better reason to let him run his hard hands over her body, to put that big cock in her body?

  And then she could leave.

  The thought made her go cold. Could she leave him after she’d let him into her body?

  But she had to. Lucretia was not safe within reach of their uncle.

  Messalina took a breath to steady herself and dipped her cup into the water to wet his hair. “I would not have taken you for a man who craved luxury.”

  “I’m not.”

  “But this bath…?” She poured the cup over his hair, careful to keep the water off his face.

  He sighed, tilting his head into her hand, and she wondered if he was aware of the movement. “I stank when I lived in St Giles.”

  “What?” She stared down at him.

  His beautiful mouth was twisted by some bitter memory. “When you are poor you stink. Lice crawl in your clothes. Grime is ground in
to the grooves of your hands. Your hair becomes greasy. And when someone sees you—someone who has water and soap and a ready fire—their eyes fill with disgust. That’s how your uncle looked at me when we first met. As if I were shit stuck to his shoe.”

  “I…” She swallowed, another full cup hovering over his hair. “I’m sorry.”

  What an inadequate word.

  She slowly poured the water over his head and then picked up the soap, lathering her hands.

  “I have heard aristocrats bemoan the laziness of the poor,” he said softly. A muscle tensed in his jaw. “They say that we enjoy wallowing in filth. I don’t think any human likes being dirty.”

  “No,” she agreed.

  “To bathe.” He took a deep breath as if to steady his voice. “To bathe in St Giles I’d have to haul water from the common pump. Up floor after floor of stairs because we lived like sheep penned together for slaughter. And then once I reached my shared room, I’d have to use my little bucketful of cold water not for drinking or cooking, but for the luxury of washing.”

  She winced at his repetition of the word she’d used. In the light of his memories, her careless use of the word luxury seemed thoughtless. Perhaps even stupid. Messalina knew that it was a great deal of work for the servants to heat and haul water for a bath, but she’d never considered how impossible it would be simply to wash if one were poor.

  She whispered, “You must’ve wanted to bathe very much when you lived in St Giles.”

  “Always,” he replied, lifting his head a bit so that she could scrub the hair at his nape.

  His neck was hot beneath her fingers. She felt intimate touching him in such a vulnerable spot.

  “That sounds terrible,” she said as she rinsed his hair, causing it to lie flat and glistening against his skull. He might’ve been a selkie intent on seducing a mortal. “I can see why you would want a bathing room all to yourself.”

  He opened his eyes, watching her with black, fathomless eyes. “Can you?”

  She nodded.

  “Your sympathy is quite dangerous,” he murmured thoughtfully. “You might very well be my downfall, madam.”

  Her eyebrows winged up. “Me?”