The Highlander's Forbidden Mistress Read online

  Heat blazed in her cheeks, and she avoided his eyes. How could he make her virtue sound like the worst of sins? "I don’t think of you. I…"

  Oh, what was the use? All of a sudden, coyness seemed too shabby to countenance. As he uncoiled and rose to his feet, Selina made a helpless gesture. "I don’t want to think of you," she mumbled.

  His soft purr reeked of satisfaction. Selina raised her gaze to his face, expecting smugness, but he stared at her as if he tracked every beat of her heart. Heaven help her, he probably did.

  A man this experienced with women must register her terrified fascination. The fact that she’d tried so hard to keep out of his way told its own story to someone who paid close attention. To her astonished dismay, Bruard had paid close attention.

  He was tall and all whipcord strength. She wasn’t a small woman, but he towered over her. "That is no doubt true. But sometimes it’s impossible to obey common sense, isn’t it?"

  "How would you know?" she asked with a trace of heat. She started to resent feeling like a butterfly caught on a collector’s pin.

  "Brava." To her surprise, this time he smiled properly. "I knew there was more to you than, ‘Yes, Cecil.’"

  Reminder of her duty forced a guilty gasp from her. "I shouldn’t be talking to you."

  Cecil would have a fit if he caught her alone with this debauchee. Even if someone came in and discovered her with Bruard, the story would be sure to reach him.

  She turned once more to go, while some heretofore silent corner of her soul pleaded with her to remain. This short, spiky conversation with Lord Bruard counted as the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. And wasn’t that an indictment on a dull, wasted life?

  "No, you shouldn’t." He reached out and caught her arm. "But all the same, I’d like you to stay."

  Heat sizzled up her arm and down through her middle until it settled in a great molten lump in the pit of her stomach. "Let me go," Selina muttered, cringing to hear how her voice wavered.

  "Stay. Please."

  Shocked, she stopped in her tracks and stared up at him. "You don’t sound like you say please very often."

  Self-derisive humor glinted in his eyes. "I don’t."

  He kept hold of her arm. If his touch had been demanding or possessive, she’d have jerked away. But it was gentle as a man’s hand never was when it touched her. She told herself Bruard knew the power of gentleness and he used it against her. But even conceding that, the contact was so sweet, she couldn’t bring herself to pull free.

  "I can’t see why I’ve caught your eye," she said in bewilderment.

  "Can’t you?" he said in a neutral voice.

  "Is it because I’ve tried so hard to stay away from you?"

  She’d noticed the ladies at this large house party were inclined to cluster around him. He’d never looked very interested. But then the first thing she’d noticed about him, apart from his spectacular looks, was the air of boredom that hung about him. She suspected too much had come to him too easily, and life lost its flavor.

  He was from a great Scottish family. He was rich. Lovers vied to share his bed. He drew women to him, without having to lift the little finger on that elegant hand. No wonder he looked as if the whole wide world was a complete yawn.

  Except one of the most unsettling elements of this unsettling encounter was that right now, he didn’t look bored at all. Right now, he bristled with purpose. She’d likened him to a drowsing panther. Now she’d awoken the big cat, and he was on the hunt.

  Mad as it seemed, his quarry was frumpy, undistinguished Selina Martin. Of all tonight’s surprises, that had to be the greatest.

  "No. I noticed you the moment you set foot in this house." The purposeful look he sent her blasted another bolt of heat from her crown to her toes in their satin slippers. His grip tightened on her arm. "Just as you noticed me."

  It was true. They’d gone past the point where she could deny it.

  She remained trembling in his grasp, a host of giant grasshoppers leaping around in her stomach.

  "Yes." The word was a mere breath.

  Selina waited for triumph, for Bruard to sweep her into his arms. Because surely her reckless confession must beggar restraint. She almost wished he would act the way she expected a Lothario to act. All grabby hands and slobbery kisses.

  If he took her admission as a signal for seizing her, she might summon up the will to leave. But those hard, long-fingered hands didn’t grab, and that thin, expressive mouth didn’t slobber.

  A light glittered in his green eyes. "Are you really going to marry that clodhopping dunderhead?"

  "He’s…he’s not a dunderhead. He’s one of the cleverest men in England."

  At least when it came to making money. Cecil had mills all over the north of England, and coalmines and a fleet of ships. All built up from a modest inheritance from his yeoman father. Cecil, by rights, wasn’t wellborn enough to socialize with the Derwents and their circle, but Lord Derwent was seeking investment in an iron foundry. Money talked louder than breeding, however much the other guests made it clear that Cecil and his dowdy fiancée were here only on sufferance.

  "I don’t believe it. If he is, he has no idea how to handle a woman. Especially a woman as exquisite as the one he’s caught."

  Exquisite? Nobody had ever called her that before. During her life, most of the vanity had been beaten out of her. But praise from such a connoisseur of beauty would spark pleasure in even the world’s most self-effacing lady.

  All pleasure fled when Lord Bruard went on. "Give the sod his marching orders. You’re too fine for him."

  Horrid reality crashed down over her like a wave of freezing cold seawater. She might be too fine for Cecil, but she was too poor to think of giving him his marching orders. She broke away from Lord Bruard and slumped down onto the settle.

  "Is becoming your mistress a better option?" Bitterness edged her voice, although she wasn’t angry with Bruard. Not really. "I doubt it."

  Selina was however furious with herself. She knew what was at stake in her engagement to Cecil. Too much to risk everything on a flirtation with a rake, bored with easy conquests.

  Bruard would get bored with her, too. Right now, she’d captured his interest because she’d tried to stay out of his way. Once he’d had her, any novelty would soon wear off. And with the novelty, whatever obscure charm he saw in her.

  He didn’t try to take her arm again. "Perhaps you should wait until I ask you."

  "I’m inexperienced with dalliance." She gave him a direct look. "But this feels like you’re getting ready to invite me into your bed."

  His laugh held a note of reluctant admiration. "By heaven, you’re brave. I’ve already seen so much in you, so much that every other idiot here has missed, but I didn’t see that."

  Selina didn’t warm to the backhanded compliment. "Have I got this wrong? You’re not asking me to sleep with you?"

  That sensual smile curled his lips once more. "I had more in mind than sleeping, but, no, you haven’t got it wrong."

  Her mind exploded with a thousand glorious ways Lord Bruard could fill her nights. Longing knotted her stomach – and regret, because she couldn’t say yes. Not when she had Gerald to worry about.

  "I have to marry Cecil," she said in an uncompromising tone.

  Her conscience told her to leave the library. Instead, she leaned against the back of the settle. She’d never have another chance to be alone with an attractive man. The temptation to linger overcame self-preservation. In the barren years to come, she’d take out her memory of this night and treasure it. For one glittering moment, she’d wanted a man and he’d wanted her in return.

  Lord Bruard regarded her with displeasure. The expression made him look like a sulky pasha, unimpressed with the seraglio’s offerings. "Because he’s rich, I suppose."

  Her lips tightened, although it would do her no good to deny the truth. "I assume you despise me for that."

  "It was ever thus." He shrug
ged. "Gold buys beauty. Beauty buys gold. No, I don’t despise you."

  Because she saw he was sincere, whereas she very much despised her mercenary motives, she explained, and devil take discretion. "I’m not far off indigent. My late husband was a gambler. And I have a son to care for."

  He sighed and ran his hand through that disheveled mass of silky, dark hair. "I understand."

  "Do you?"

  "Of course. But even with all his riches, you must be able to do better than Canley-Smythe."

  Bleak humor twisted her lips. "I’m a poor widow with no influential connections. How many fabulously wealthy men do you think swim into my acquaintance? How many even moderately solvent men? Beggars can’t be choosers, Lord Bruard. A beggar I’ll be, if I don’t go through with this wedding on Boxing Day."

  After all this time, it was a relief to be honest. Even if the last person she’d ever imagined she’d confide in was a man notorious throughout the land for his sexual exploits.

  But Lord Bruard spoke to her as if she was human, as if she had a brain in her head, and her shocking confession of marrying for money hadn’t repelled him.

  "I’m sorry," he said in a quiet voice.

  "Because I’m not free to throw myself into your unreliable arms?" Again that hint of anger.

  "My arms are perfectly reliable." His marked black brows rose. "It’s my character that you can’t trust."

  She released a huff of shocked laughter. "You’re honest at least."

  "I can’t see the point of being anything else."

  He sat beside her. He wasn’t close enough to crowd her, but his nearness sent desire prickling across her skin. "Did you love the late Mr. Martin?"

  "Love seems an odd word on your lips."

  He shrugged. "Humor me."

  "Why?" Baffled, she spread her hands. "You must know your wiles are wasted on me."

  Bruard leaned back and stretched his long legs toward the fire. He folded his arms over his chest and went back to looking like a sleepy panther. "You leave me to worry about my wiles, Mrs. Martin."

  Selina stared down into her lap where her hands twisted together in an agitated dance. She waited for Bruard to pursue the question about Roderick, but he seemed content to remain silent. And because he was patient – a quality lacking in most of the men she knew – in the end, she answered.

  "No, I didn’t love him." Her voice was low, and her hands clenched around each other.

  When Lord Bruard didn’t respond, she found herself explaining. "My parents arranged the marriage. Roderick’s father was a well-to-do merchant in Lichfield. My father was a doctor in a village outside the town. He was much older than my mother and not well, so when he saw a chance to settle my future, he took it."

  "How old were you?"

  "Just seventeen. Papa died a month after the wedding. I’m sad that he never got to meet my son Gerald. They’re very alike." As always when she thought of her son, the weight in her heart eased, so her words emerged more smoothly. "But I’m glad Papa never knew that he’d given me to a man who was a faithless drunkard and a wastrel. I had nine years of unhappiness with Roderick."

  "I’m sorry," Bruard said again.

  She turned to study the earl. On paper, he was cut from the same cloth as Roderick. Except he wasn’t. Bruard possessed a strength and integrity that her husband had never come close to owning. Bruard was the kind of man Roderick had aspired to be, but instead her husband had never grown beyond being a spoiled child.

  "So am I."

  Bruard regarded her with grave eyes. "I’m particularly sorry that you’ve never known an ounce of joy."

  Damn her for these maudlin confessions. Her pride revolted at the idea of Lord Bruard pitying her. "I was a happy child, if a little lonely. I had no brothers and sisters, because Mamma was delicate. It’s one of my great regrets that Gerald is also an only child."

  "Unless you and Cecil have children."

  She struggled to mask a grimace at the thought of the making of those children. "Yes."

  Cecil wanted sons. He’d told her.

  She could endure it. For Gerald’s sake, she could endure anything.

  When she saw that she hadn’t managed to conceal her distaste, she rushed on. "And I love my son. There’s joy in that."

  "I’m sure." Bruard’s discontented expression persisted. "But that’s the mother’s joy. What about the woman’s?"

  Every drop of moisture dried from her mouth. She’d been frank with him, way beyond what their short acquaintance justified. Now she should tell him to mind his own business, but she found herself revealing the truth in an embarrassed mutter. "I’ve never known it."

  Which wasn’t entirely true, she admitted in silent mortification. Although while the touch of her hand might ease her aching frustration, it never came close to joy.

  "You’ll never know it with Canley-Smythe. And you’re the sort of woman who won’t take a lover, once you’ve pledged your faith to the blockhead."

  "He’s not a blockhead," she said, cursing her hesitation. When Lord Bruard didn’t reply, she went on with a trace of desperation. "You seem to imagine you know me."

  That cursed alluring smile curled his lips again. "Did you ever play that reprobate Roderick Martin false, despite his infidelities?"

  Heat rose in her cheeks, as if she was about to confess some misdeed. When it was just the opposite. "No, of course not."

  "You’ll be just as faithful to old moneybags."

  "You make that sound like a bad thing," she protested.

  "When a beautiful, spirited creature like you submits to a clod like Cecil Canley-Smythe, it is a bad thing."

  Selina stared appalled at Bruard. "You haven’t been watching me as closely as I thought. Nobody in their right mind would describe me as spirited. The ladies at this house party call me the dullest woman in England. I’ve heard them say it."

  To her surprise, he looked angry. "Toplofty little bitches."

  She should object to his language, but she’d suffered too many snubs from the nasty cats to waste time defending them. "I am the most boring woman in England. I stay where I’m put and I do what I’m told."

  Bitterness edged her tone, because it had always struck her as the waste of a life. The only worthwhile thing she’d ever done was give birth to Gerald.

  He looked thoughtful. "You don’t have to follow the rules all the time."

  She slid along the settle to lengthen the distance between them. "I’m not throwing over my engagement for the sake of your smile, Lord Bruard, however charming it might be."

  He surveyed her as if he could read every inch of her soul. Selina had an uncanny feeling that, despite her taunts, he had come to understand her over the last week. Then she reminded herself that he was a rake, and he knew just what to say to a woman to win her over.

  "I could show you joy," he said in a soft voice that played more of that devil’s music up and down her backbone.

  "I’m sure you could," she said flatly. "But I won’t let you seduce me in Lord Derwent’s library, where anyone could come in and discover us."

  "It would put paid to your reputation for dullness, at least."

  Despite everything, she laughed. "You’re incorrigible."

  "I am." He paused, and his expression grew so intense that fear made her breath accelerate. "Anyway, my ambitions reach further than that. I want more of you than one hurried tumble in another man’s house, before the servants come in to snuff the candles."

  "You must know that’s impossible. I’ve told you what’s at stake." Selina paused, feeling let down. Which was stupid. The world knew Brock Drummond, the Earl of Bruard, was a wicked man. She couldn’t complain when he lived up to his reputation. "You seemed to understand my dilemma. Or was all that compassion just a libertine’s trick, so I’d let you have your way with me?"

  Surprise lit his dark eyes. And something that looked like appreciation. "You don’t mince your words, do you?"

  Suddenly weary, she stared into the
fire. "What’s the point?"

  "None that I can see, but most ladies wouldn’t agree." She wasn’t looking at him, but she could hear that he was smiling. "How on earth does anyone think you’re dull?"

  "I mind my tongue most of the time. I should have minded my tongue tonight."

  "That would have been a pity."

  She stood and smoothed her skirts. This had gone far enough. Since they’d started talking, danger had flickered in the air. Now it flapped around her with huge, black wings.

  "I should go to bed. Alone." In case Bruard imagined that was an invitation. "It’s been an entertaining encounter, my lord."

  He rose to face her, his expression intent. "To Hades with that. Do you dare to dismiss me like an importunate creditor, madam? I’ll be damned if you will."

  Startled, she stared at him. She faltered back. "I told you I can’t…"

  He sounded annoyed. "No, you can’t tonight. But for the next two weeks, Cecil is safe in the north and you’re within reach in the south, and I find myself at your disposal."

  "To do what?"

  "Why, to show you what you’ve been missing."

  His smile made him look a complete scoundrel. She shivered with nerves, and with the force of the attraction assailing her. When he seized her hand, the contact blasted her like fire.

  She regarded him in consternation and tried to pull away. "It’s impossible. Even if I wanted to say yes, Gerald comes home from school in a week."

  "Then give me a week. A week when you come to me as my willing lover. A week when you’re not Roderick Martin’s neglected wife or Cecil Canley-Smythe’s obedient helpmeet." His voice lowered into an enthralling murmur. "A week when you’re Selina, the woman I desire above all others."

  Chapter 2

  Brock watched that lovely face freeze in shock. He braced for her to pull away, for her to protest that she was a good woman and his improper proposal offended her. Even the most round-heeled wench liked to demur to dispel any impression that she was an easy conquest. And Selina Martin was no lightskirt. She was the kind of chaste, principled woman he usually ran a mile to avoid.