Page 29 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
“The mouse, my lord.”
It amazed him that she could speak it so plainly, without even the slightest inflection of bitterness. An incontrovertible truth to her, and not one she found worth dwelling upon. She was wrong, of course—there wasn’t anything the least bit mousey about her. He knew of no self-describedmousewho would ever consider abducting a man of his status at the point of a pistol, who would even now notch her chin still higher, those wide, sincere eyes unblinking in challenge.
“Imogen is achild,” he said. “If not in years, then in manner. No one would be fool enough to link my name to hers.”
Lizzie gave a strained sigh, annoyance lurking within the corner of her mouth. “It wouldhaveto be Imogen,” she said. “And Imogen’s reputation—”
“Is neither my concern nor responsibility.” There was a twisty bit of curl that hung just over her shoulder, and it would have been so easy to reach out and seize it between his fingers. What the devil waswrongwith him? “I don’t want Imogen,” he said. “Wycombe is welcome to her.”
Lizzie bristled over anew, as if he had tendered some mortal insult. “My sister is not anobjectthat you may bestow upon whomever you please, my lord,” she said in that deliciously snippy voice that made him want to provoke her a bit further and see what it wrought. “The truth never seems to matter quite so much as what everyone believes tobethe truth.”
“Mm.” It was neither agreement nor disagreement, and he lifted his free hand and let his fingertips touch the underside of her chin. “The truthisquite beyond the reaches of imagination.” Not in their wildest dreams would anyone suspect the real cause of his presence within the Talbot household.
A frown creased her brow. “People will believe whatever it pleases them to believe,” she reiterated. Her breath whisked across his chin; a nervous little exhale scented with tea. “And—andmustyou stand so close?”
“Ireallymust.” There—just a hint of suspicion darkened her eyes. “My arm still aches abominably. If you shoved me just there, I’d be forced to retreat.”
“Agentlemanwould not need to be forced.” That sharp, tart tone once more. Thrilling with the defiance laced through it.
“A gentleman would not be standing so close to begin with.” It was a taunt, practically a threat.
Her cheeks turned pinker still. “You don’t intimidate me,” she said, but the words came out forced, rushed, more bluster than truth. Probably because he had, all too recently, intimidated her a great deal. Still she managed to affect that domineering glare. If there had been a way for her to look down her nose at him while craning her neck up, he was certain she would have done it.
“I’m not one of your siblings,” he said, pitching his voice to a rumbling murmur that he knew would vibrate across the surface of her skin. “You can’t bully me into obedience.”
“Bully!” It burst from her lips on an enraged gasp.
“Yes, you little tyrant,” he said on a helpless laugh. “You’re a born manager, and a mouthy wench besides. God knows you’d probably bite any man that got close enough to kiss you—but damned if I’m not tempted to it try anyway.”
“What—what—” She gawped like a freshly-caught fish, those soft pink lips rounding in…surprise?Anticipation? “You don’t mean that. You don’t want—”
“Youreallymust to desist telling me what I want or do not want,” he said. “You haven’t got the faintest idea of either, and I’m just contrarian enough to prove you wrong.” Good God, her hairwasas soft as it looked. She kept it cropped rather short, but those dark chestnut locks slipped through his fingers in skeins of smooth, cool silk. That stern glare had fallen away from her face in favor of eyes like a startled doe’s—wide, wary, unblinking. But she didn’t move as he angled her face up, hardly breathed, and a tingle of satisfaction slid up Luke’s spine. “Hold your head just like that; there’s a dear.”
“I—I don’t evenlikeyou,” she whispered, almost defensively. As if she had surprised even herself with her continued presence.
She had surprisedhim. He’d been certain she would take the invitation to jab him in the arm. “I’ve never found liking to be a prerequisite for kissing,” he said against the closed seam of her lips. Probably she had never kissed a man before, and she didn’t know quite what she was meant to do. “In the unlikely event that you become tempted to bite me,” he said lightly, “you should know that I biteback.”
She smelled like washing soda and lemons—a scent as tart as the castigating words she so enjoyed casting at him; a startling contrast to the soft, sweet lips that parted beneath the pressure of his own. And as he swept his tongue over hers and tasted her, she gasped and shivered, and that tiny movement provoked a deep, rumbling groan from somewhere low in his chest.
Don’t frighten her. He’d become accustomed to women who were experienced and could be had at little more than the snap of his fingers, and she was neither. But it was a struggle to hold on to any such rationality as his body reacted instinctively, crowding her back against the smooth surface of the wall behind her. He groped for her shoulder, sliding his hand down the slender line of her arm to find her hand, lifting it from where it dangled at her side to hook around his neck. The movement forced her onto her toes, mashed the delicate softness of her breasts to his chest, and he—
He was a hairsbreadth from rucking up her skirts and helping her to wind her legs about his hips in the service of plowing into her with no more consideration, no more finesse than one would give to a woman bought for the night.Lord Jesus. He’d not fallen so far from grace as to dishonor an innocent, unprotected woman whilst availing himself of her family’s hospitality, had he?
But her warm fingers had curved over the nape of his neck, nails sliding through the fine strands of hair there, and whatever nebulous concessions he might have made toward an attempt at behaving withsomehonor were lost within the silky sweet recesses of her mouth. One minute more—that would be enough. She made a soft little sound of pleasure as his hand found the dip of her waist, clutched at her hip, and pressed closer. Until she was pinned between him and the wall behind her, and his knee nudged between the both of hers. Until she surfaced briefly to squeak out a muffled protest that sounded appallingly like ‘my lord.’
She’d never used his name. Had he even told it to her? He must have done, at some point or another. It took only a slow stroke of his hand down the small of her back, a delicate flick of his tongue across her full lower lip to soothe her into quiescence. “My name, Lizzie.”
Her lashes drifted, slumberous, over her pink cheeks. “Lucas,” she murmured.
“Luke.” He wasn’t certain why it had pleased him so well that she had remembered. Why the dazed, misty gleam of her dark eyes stirred something within him that he’d thought long dead and buried.
Which was where it damn well ought to have stayed.
Hell. He’d meant to seduce her—just a bit; just enough to prove that she was not immune to the lure of temptation—and he’d nearly ended up with his foot snared in his own damned trap. Boredom. That was all it was. Simple boredom. He’d been laid up a week and better, and rusticating in the countryside was a mind-numbing struggle. He hadneeds, and they certainly weren’t going to be methere. Unless—
“I don’t suppose,” he murmured, rubbing his thumb across the curve of her cheek, “that the closest town might have a few merry widows?”
It took a moment for the question to sink in, for her eyes to clear from their luminous glow to that sharp, irascible glare once more. In a matter of moments, that hand that had held so firmly to the nape of his neck shoved him away, just as her foot came down with incredible pressure right upon his toes.
