by Eloisa James
“Indeed?”
“She’s very sweet,” India went on, although it was oddly painful to admit it. “I believe they’ll have an excellent marriage.”
“You do?”
“Thorn pretends to be cynical, but I believe he’s infatuated,” she said. “It’s very romantic.”
“I must be losing my touch,” Vander said rather obscurely, giving her a grin that made his teeth flash in the growing dusk. “You become suspicious in the horse racing world, you know. You stop thinking that people might actually mean what they say.”
She touched his hand. “Can you take the path to the right, please? We’re almost at the dower house. If you’re referring to Thorn, it’s my impression that he wouldn’t bother lying to anyone.”
The smile in his eyes made her squirm a little, and she had the odd feeling that he knew it.
The pony cart drew up to the dower house and Vander jumped down, reins in hand. As he fastened them to the hitching post, Thorn pushed open the front door.
“We came to say good-night to Rose,” India called.
“You’re just in time,” Thorn said. “Her nursemaid is waiting upstairs to give Rose a bath.”
Vander came around the cart, and before India quite knew what was happening, his hands spanned her waist and he was swinging her to the ground.
“Come along, then,” Thorn said impatiently.
Vander looked down at her for a second longer, then his hands dropped and he and India followed Thorn inside.
Once Vander and Rose had been introduced, Vander launched into a story about a faraway land where paper dolls walked and talked like anyone else. “Their mama is called Lady Cuttenclip,” he told Rose. “She doesn’t just create dolls. She makes them cunning little hats, pelisses, shoes.”
“Ladies do not, as a matter of course, make clothing,” Rose observed. “Is everyone in this land of the same status?”
Vander looked distinctly startled. “Surely we need not be so doctrinaire? My sisters are assuredly ladies, and yet they spent hours designing gowns for their dolls.”
“Did you design clothing for paper dolls?” Rose asked, turning to India.
“No, but that was merely because I had no paints as a child. I would have enjoyed it.”
Rose looked at her thoughtfully and then turned back to Vander. “How does Lady Cuttenclip acquire paints for her dolls if the world is made of paper? Do they trade paper coins?”
“Yes, of course,” Vander said.
“I have very little interest in being a modiste,” Rose announced. “I should rather create a paper house with a nursery and a fireplace with burning logs.”
“The shelves will be full of tiny Greek texts, of course,” Thorn said, laughing.
Rose looked up at India. “Perhaps you could help, since you had no paints when you were small. If you wished, you could make a gown, but I shall make a schoolroom.”
India found herself promising to come back at teatime the following day. Vander invited himself, pointing out that since Lady Cuttenclip was his creation, they couldn’t do without him.
Rose smiled at that, and India realized that she had dimples. Two of them. She wasn’t a pretty child, per se, but those dimples . . .
“My papa used to tell me a story at night,” Rose said, turning to India again. “Mr. Dautry isn’t good at storytelling.”
“I would be happy to tell you a bedtime story,” India said, holding out her hand. “I expect that Rose’s nursemaid is waiting, gentlemen, so why don’t you return to the house, and I will join you later? I worry that the other guests will find it odd that the three of us have disappeared.”
“You are not going about the grounds by yourself at night,” Thorn stated.
“I’ve been doing precisely that for weeks,” India pointed out.
Vander intervened. “I am happy to wait for you, Lady Xenobia. Thorn, your parents will be wondering where you are.”
“It would be quite improper for you to escort India,” Thorn said, folding his arms across his chest. “In fact, you shouldn’t have accompanied her here without a chaperone.”
“Yet it wouldn’t be improper for you?” Vander said, clearly irritated.
“No.”
Since Thorn didn’t elaborate, India said, “Mr. Dautry and I are such old friends that we don’t concern ourselves with propriety.”
“You are feeling protective?” Vander asked Thorn.
“No one is going to compromise India under my roof,” Thorn said.
This was barked more than stated, but Vander’s eyes cleared and he gave Thorn one of those slaps on the back that men give each other. “I was wrong, earlier,” he said. “I apologize.”
“We’ll bid you good-night, gentlemen,” India said. She took Rose away, but not before she heard Vander saying that Thorn had done him the greatest favor of his life.
She smiled all the way up the stairs and through story time, a new experience for her inasmuch as that her mother had never contemplated such a thing. Taking inspiration from Vander’s paper dolls, she came up with a world of civilized rabbits. Runnebunny was a rascal bunny, hopping all over the place and stealing everyone’s cabbage. But he also had the longest ears and the blackest eyes of any rabbit in the county.
“Your story is rather babyish, but I do like Mr. Runnebunny,” Rose said sleepily. “He’s just like Mr. Dautry.”
“Hmmm,” India said, pulling up Rose’s covers. “Well, tomorrow, I’ll tell you more about Lord Parsley, and I’m sure you’ll like him just as much. He’s far more civilized, and you know that’s important in a bunny.”
“I don’t care,” Rose said, snuggling down into her covers, her doll in the crook of her arm. “Antigone and I think that it’s better that a bunny be able to steal lots of cabbage to ensure that his baby bunnies don’t go hungry.”
India lingered for a moment, thinking that she had inadvertently managed to make her story appallingly revealing. Then she kissed the sleeping child on the cheek and headed down the stairs.
Chapter Twenty-three
Thorn drank two glasses of brandy while he waited for India. He had never felt so damned undecided. In point of fact, he was never undecided. Ever. Generally, he decided which path was best, and took it.
He knew instinctively that Lala was the woman for him. She was warm and sweet and uncomplicated. It was unfortunate that she was also a little boring, especially now that she had learned about infant mortality; Thorn was completely uninterested, but he could live with it.
Her affection would bind his family together. Moreover, her concern with infant mortality suggested that she would make every effort to nourish and raise their children in the best possible fashion.
India, on the other hand, was like a dissected map, one of those new puzzles she had bought for Rose. No piece seemed to fit with another, and half of them hinted at some unknown country, rich, deep, and undiscovered.
Even though he had deliberately invited Vander to his house party, when his friend had thanked him for introducing him to India, his eyes betraying an intensity of feeling that Thorn had only seen when Vander was at the races . . . well, then Thorn had contemplated killing him.
Ridiculous.
He was losing his mind. He took another gulp of brandy. It was probably all a matter of competition with Vander. India was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen—and she was the daughter of a marquess, intelligent, witty, and rich to boot.
Not to mention the fact that he’d never enjoyed shagging a woman more. Simply looking at her made him fall into a black well where there was nothing but her smell, her taste, the stroke of her fingers.
One should never succumb to one’s lowest instincts. Thorn had learned to curb his desires, to relegate strong emotions to a category labeled “interesting.” Lala would be his wife, whereas India was, and India would be, his friend.
It was odd, having a woman as a friend, but if she married Vander, he would see—
Before he k
new it, he was out of the chair, his body taut as a bowstring. His imagination had fed him a picture of India in that blue nightdress, smiling at Vander on their wedding night. With a curse, he hurled his glass directly into the fireplace, shattering it.
“What on earth are you doing?”
He turned to find India in the doorway, looking confused. The rich smell of brandy spread through the room. In one stride he was face to face with her, and then she was in his arms. He didn’t bother with civility, not this time. He didn’t coax her lips open, but took her mouth with all the pent-up force of a man who’s just imagined the unimaginable.
His tongue conquered her mouth, claimed, possessed, made it his own. His. His.
Not Vander’s. Never Vander’s.
One arm clamped tight around her and then he was tasting her, tasting India, and her mouth was sweeter than he remembered, their kiss hotter, wetter, deeper. By the time he dragged his mouth away, he had backed her against the wall, his hips grinding into her softness, one hand bound in that gorgeous hair. His body was roaring with heat and fire, muscles taut, ready for the command to take her to bed. Hell, take her to the floor, to the sofa, even just against the wall.
Just take her.
He looked down to dazed eyes and cherry lips. Reality came crashing into his mind, and he jolted back with a curse. India swayed precariously when he let her go, so he reached out and caught her, carrying her to the sofa.
He meant to sit opposite, but somehow he ended up with her in his lap.
She hadn’t yet said a word.
“India,” he said, and hesitated.
She turned her head, her lips only a breath away from his. “What was that?” Her voice was as unsteady as her legs had been, and he thought she was trembling. Just a little, but trembling nonetheless. “We agreed there could be no repeat of last night.”
She deserved an honest answer. “Competition,” he confirmed.
There was a flash in her eyes—surely not pain? But when she spoke, her voice was steady. “Competition? Over me?”
“Competition between myself and Vander,” he said, forcing the words out.
“You are competing for me?”
She pulled back, the better to see his eyes, and Thorn was appalled to discover that he didn’t even like that small distance between them. Some part of his mind thought talking was a waste of time, and he should kiss that little indent at the base of her throat. Lick it. And lick his way down the curve of her breast.
He wanted to know if she tasted as sweet all over, every inch of her. There were parts of her that he hadn’t had time to kiss the night before.
“It’s instinctual,” he explained, pulling his mind back from the bed. “Vander is my closest friend, and one of the few people I trust in the world. I’ve measured myself against him since we were at Eton.”
“When he was unable to pummel you into the ground,” she said, faint distaste in her voice revealing just what she thought of this sort of male conduct.
It was idiocy. It was also, unfortunately, the way he was made. “Vander and I are slightly cracked in that respect,” he acknowledged, ignoring the fact that he was playing with her hair.
“You just kissed me because you are competitive with Vander?”
“Yes,” he said bluntly.
“That’s ridiculous!” she said, sitting up straighter, which pressed the curve of her bottom against his legs. And his cock.
“It makes sense to men,” he managed, which was pretty miraculous given that he was in the grip of a lust stronger than he’d ever experienced.
“Men are absurd,” she said flatly. “You shouldn’t be giving in to the impulse to kiss a woman merely because your friend showed interest in her.”
“It’s not just that,” he said, as his gaze caught on her rosy lips. Without thinking, he rolled over, tucking her beneath him, his body rejoicing as he sank onto her soft curves.
“Bloody hell,” he whispered, sending the words straight into the warmth of her mouth. “You make me lose my mind, India.”
She didn’t reply, just slid a hand in his hair and pulled his mouth down to hers.
Thorn was no gentleman. He never had been, and he never would be. Still, even as he shifted his weight, just enough to run a hand over India’s lush breasts, his conscience started nagging.
He couldn’t go . . . where this was going. But he couldn’t stop either, because the moment his hand touched her breast, she gasped and her head arched back, exposing a neck as lovely as the rest of her. Leaning forward to kiss it made his hips press into her, bringing a wave of lust more ferocious than anything he’d experienced since adolescence.
He smoothed a hand down her throat, a whisper-soft caress, and kissed the curve of her jaw.
“India,” he whispered.
“What was that?” she replied, and he could tell she steadied her voice with difficulty. “More competition?”
“You’re damned beautiful, India. There’s no red-blooded man in the world who wouldn’t want to be in my place. Hell, I feel sorry for all those men who fell in love with you, house by house. You probably ruined them for married life.”
Her mouth was bruised a deep red by his kiss, and he found he hadn’t the heart to care. Her lips curved in a slow smile, and he felt that smile in his own body. Between his legs. “Your hair is like the white of the sun if you stare straight into the sky.”
“My hair is not white,” she protested. “I’m not that old yet. I think I would enjoy your competition if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m the bone you and Vander are squabbling over.” She corrected herself before he could respond. “No: over which you and Vander are squabbling.”
Thorn didn’t want to think about Vander. “What was wrong with the way you said it the first time?”
She frowned. Then her brow cleared and she said, “Of course you wouldn’t know, because you were a mudlark. If I end a sentence with ‘over,’ that’s ungrammatical. At least, I think it is.”
Thorn started winding locks of her hair around his fingers. He’d never felt anything so silky in his life. “If you were a trollop, I’d pay a bloody fortune to have all this hair of yours sliding over my bare skin.”
“Thorn!”
He’d shocked her. A bit. “Why are you worrying about grammar? Who cares if a sentence isn’t exactly right?”
“I do. And you ought to as well. It’s hard to catch up because I hadn’t a governess, and it must be the same for you. You’re behind. You must catch up.”
“Why?”
It was a simple question, but her brow knit. “Because it’s important.”
“To be perfect?” He was quite aware that perfection was outside his grasp. What’s more, he saw perfection in his father and thought it was over-rated.
“The best you can be,” she clarified.
“So why didn’t you have a governess?”
Her face changed, and he didn’t like her expression. He leaned down and took her mouth again, a reckless, raw kiss that made their tongues mimic what their bodies might do. When at last he jerked his head back, they were both breathing fast, hearts pounding against each other’s body, probably in unison, he thought hazily.
“Now tell me,” he whispered, running his fingertips along the curve of her jaw. “Why didn’t you have a governess?”
Her eyes were half closed. “We couldn’t afford one. My parents never wanted one, because my mother thought society’s strictures were tiresome.” Her voice lilted when she said the last sentence, as if she were quoting a woman long dead.
“I knew there had to be a good reason I grew up on the streets,” he said, bending his neck so that his mouth could trace the same path as his fingers. “Not knowing any of those strictures means I’ve never had to worry about them.”
She turned her head, and his lips brushed her cheek. “I find it hard to imagine you worrying about any rules, social or otherwise.”
“We can’t keep going like this, India, or we’ll find ourselv
es in bed again,” he said honestly. “And we cannot do that.”
“Of course we can’t,” she said, not moving. “The last thing I want to do is to be forced to marry someone who is only kissing me because of a childhood rivalry.”
“And I am to marry Lala,” he said gently.
“I would never do anything to stand in the way of your and Lala’s union. Do you know, Thorn, I think that if the ton saw her the way she was tonight at dinner, she never would have been labeled a simpleton?”
“A simpleton?” That took him aback.
“Obviously, quite untrue,” India said, “and I shall squash those rumors just as soon as the new season begins. Lala bloomed tonight. I think her mother might be responsible for some of her problems.”
Thorn didn’t want to talk anymore about his future wife. Or think about her, though he had to admit that he didn’t like the word “simpleton.”
India’s thoughts were going in a quite different direction, because she got a crooked little smile on her lips and said, “Unfortunately for your competitive side, Thorn, I like Vander.”
The smug feeling in his gut evaporated.
“You were absolutely right about him,” she went on, apparently not noticing that he’d gone rigid. “He’s manly, the way you are. He’s interesting and amusing and smart. And you saw how wonderful he was with Rose earlier; he’ll make a wonderful father.”
Thorn briskly rolled both of them to a sitting position. “If you accept Vander’s offer, India—”
“He has made no offer!” she protested.
“If he does, you must never tell him that we were intimate. Never.”
“Because of your competition?”
“Because of the kind of friends we are.” He and Vander were welded together like brothers, and a fracture would be deadly. In fact, he had an uneasy feeling that whether or not Vander learned the truth, the very fact he had slept with his future wife might shatter their bond.
“Very well,” she said, pushing her hair behind her shoulders. “I really must get back now, Thorn. Adelaide will be wondering where I am.”