Chapter 104

Ten thousand pounds for one night. Splendor stared at the piece of paper he'd just placed on the table. If she accepted what would that make her?
A very rich woman. Actually.
"Oh, for the love of Christ on a horse in a nightgown." His cynical exhalation sent icy particles spinning through her veins. "You really do think the worst of me, don't you?"
"Well, Your Grace, it certainly isn't diff-"
His gaze, darkly enigmatic in the amber lantern light, flicked across her face.
"Or it is that you think so highly of yourself? Certainly highly enough to believe I would give you ten thousand pounds for some other reason."
She didn't. But for ten thousand pounds, she could laugh in Gabe's face for what he'd done. She could wipe his imprint from her mind.
For ten thousand pounds, she could get him back. For ten thousand pounds, she could tell him to go to hell.
The ten thousand pounds would make her a low woman. But still, a low woman who had settled all her bills, her debts, her worries, her future, who ended this ache and calmed the heat that scorched for honest matrimony. Matrimony? Stillmore was right about that. A complete waste.
If she refused?
How stupid would that be? Honorable? Virtuous? And penniless. Topaz too. A reward for information poster on the wall of this very room, behind him.
Was she stark, raving bonkers? She must accept.
In her heart, she knew it was always going to come to this. Always. "Look." He canted his jaw. "Believe me ... "
She didn't. She was not fool enough. Not here. Not now. Not with what hammered in her breast. Still, she listened.
"If I wanted to make you my creature that way and confuse you with your dreary plans for matrimony, I'd do it. Are you even listening to me? The fact is I don't even have a room here."
No. The fact was the discomfort that flickered in the fire-lit hollows of his face. What flamed between them in that instant in the candlelight was the real reason she'd run away from him. She lifted her chin.
"But I do."
***
All the way out through the parlor door, her feet thudding along the narrow hallway and outside into the rain, Splendor knew one thing. How could he walk away from her? As she was about to add, and I'm not letting you in it, too?
"Christ on a-"
"No. Please ...Your Grace, I'm so sorry, just so sorry. I didn't know you only meant me to have that money and nothing else."
How could she be stupid? Because no one wanted her? And the cut ran like a tree root all the way to her heart? She'd never wanted to come down the stairs like that. That she'd come down at all, was Topaz's fault, not hers. The damn woman would steal the moon from the sky because it was pretty.
She reached up and pressed her lips to his. She had tasted them that night at the theater, so there was no problem. If he thought money bought certain things-gratitude for one-he was right.
Ten thousand pounds.
This was her amends. For that. For everything. For the fact that his damned watch was in her pocket, and Topaz's image was on the wall.
Only ... only ...His lips weren't just wet, they weren't just hungry, uncontrolled, demanding. Hers were too. Yes, she may have tasted his previously but not like this, not in a dark, rainy stable yard with that same rain moistening them like drops of honey. This was getting out of hand. She needed to pull away. Now.
Close her eyes, though, and she might pretend it was Gabe. That they were going to be together. It was their wedding night. She had been saving herself. God Almighty, not when drops of rain trickled like a cold river down her breasts. Stillmore had pulled her bodice down. Did she care whether she had been saving herself or not?
Frankly? No.
"Wait." She pulled her mouth free.
"What is it? What's wrong?"
Stillmore was. She had always thought chocolate was for drinking, but his eyes, liquid as a darkly melting pool beneath the heavy fringe of eyelashes, were for drowning in. She couldn't drown here. Anyone could come out of the inn door. She must do something. She gulped a breath. Winding her fingers in his hair was not doing something, but the hot throb in her blood was so overwhelming, she'd fisted his silky, soft hair before she could stop herself. Her breasts brushed his coat so that unbearable need flooded every pore. Who was she kidding about recapturing that place with Gabe? This was what she wanted to capture. After all, Gabe had left her.
"I just don't think-I don't think we should ...I mean ... " The barn door latch pressed the small of her back. "I mean, I think we should go in here."
Was she out of what little mind she had left? It was very clear she didn't mean for them to admire the hay bales. He might refuse.
"Are you sure?"
Did an elephant have tusks and was it likely to flatten you if it stood on your toes? His hand was on the door as fast as a cat on a mouse. The worst thing being his hand was only a little faster than hers. The man was not the kind to lose that glowering control. Yet it vanished like thistledown in a rabid gale.
As the barn door hit the wall, the odor of wet wood was not the only thing that assailed her. Men were not pleased if you raised certain gales and then didn't oblige. The earl wasn't going to be satisfied with a kiss. She didn't need to have slept with him to know that. But what held her blood, gluing it to her petrified veins, was so strong she couldn't stop herself. She had been keeping this for Gabe, yet caution, like her drawers, was something she wanted to throw to the wind.
He reached behind him, and the door clattered shut. His lips touched her neck, and she wilted, a flower in licking heat. She pressed her lips to his before she could stop herself. Gabe had never, ever, kissed like this. The control was effortless, the touch relentless ... And his wife had left him?
What was in her pocket-the watch-was lost. She was lost. His lips met hers again. Devilish this time, as was the attack of his body. She ended with her back against a rough wooden pillar. Wet drumbeats on the wooden slats above her head, matched what battered against her rib cage, pound for pound.
"Just tell me something." He tore his mouth free. Around them, shutters banged in the wind. Moonlight silvered his face. "Are you sure?"
She sucked a breath. When impatience and awkwardness were his middle names he asked that?
This was her chance to tell him she wasn't. The blistering heat that had risen in her made it too late for turning back, as if she had known from that first day, this was always going to be.
"That's for me to know and you to find out. Your move, Your Grace."
***
His move? There really was only one he could make. On top of giving her the ten thousand, he didn't want to look nice. He'd get a knighthood, if not a sainthood, for his services to women everywhere if he refrained.
Jesus Christ, it was only one night.
He reached toward her, his heart pounding like a maddened horse's hooves and tugged her bodice fully open.
His move.
So why didn't she make hers and flinch, like any self-respecting woman would, damn her breasts to hell? Only with the greatest difficulty did he manage not to let his jaw drop, his gaze either.
His move?
She wasn't even waiting for his move. She'd wrapped her arms around his neck. Her luscious pink lips glistened in the shadows for a second before they parted beneath his.
He'd had so many women. Did it matter he traded heartbeats with the devil to have one more?
His move? All right.
His move. His move.
He tugged her bodice lower, dragging her sleeves down her arms, tracing her soft, velvety skin on the flat of his palms. Forget removing his trousers, he wasn't even going to get time to do more than unfasten them. He reached for the buttons, but her fingers were there before his.
"I thought you said it was my move?" His voice was raspy as the wood shavings the place smelled of. So raspy her fingers stilled.
"Then make it, Your Grace. If you can't, I will."
Misgivings may have howled, but the sound was distant thunder in his ears as she swung him into the center of the floor.
He shucked off his coat, let it drop behind him on the floor, then he clutched the velvety softness of her skirt, worked his hand over her thighs. If he didn't move certain things along here, he'd be looking an even bigger fool. Her gasp was of pure ecstasy as he found pulsing heat at the juncture. Wet, pulsing heat. Heat that welcomed his suddenly desperate fumbling, which he hadn't done since that first time with Marietta, trying to look as if he was things he wasn't. He slid his fingers further inside her. She reached down and grasped his hand.
Her eyes flickered shut. She was easily one of the most responsive women he'd known. His move?
"Lie down," he whispered. "That's my move."
"Wait. My move."
She stepped away, slipped the gown down over her shapely hips and stood quivering as badly as he was. She flicked a lock of hair back from her face.
"Does this ... does this satisfy, Your Grace?"
How he gestured at the actual straw-strewn mound heaped against the wall he'd no idea. None whatsoever. Only that his moves were becoming increasingly unsteady. So now ... if she made that move and lay down, it was his turn.
He could turn away. He could walk from here. Not with this bloody, great erection. It would be ridiculous. He'd never reach the door.
Anyway, he didn't want to.
He might as well cure himself of Babs.
Boots. Shirt. He couldn't believe it. When the damned place was bollocksing, freezing cold? He eased down.
His move.
He traced his fingers down the exquisite skin of her rib cage, and for the first time saw a look-a look that was not harassed, not irritated, or knowingly pitying the fool-glint in her eyes.
He reached down between their bodies, slipped his fingers over the damp flesh of her sex, then he carefully positioned himself. The resistance he encountered meant one thing. He was right enough about the runt not being man enough for her.
Ridiculous.
When all he'd known was pretense and subterfuge and women who desired a dalliance, women who knew what the score was with him and it wasn't marriage, he admitted one thing. He'd never known this.