Heartless (The House of Rohan 5)

She’d been backing away from him, with good sense, since he’d risen as well and was moving toward her. He caught up with her just before she reached the door and casually pulled her away from it, backing her into the corner of the room away from the windows. Near a divan.

“I’ll let you go,” he said softly. “In a minute.” And he set his mouth against hers, his tongue licking out to taste that tiny bit of chocolate.

She shuddered, but it wasn’t in disgust. Her hands had come up to his shoulders, but they’d moved beneath his jacket, clutching the soft cloth that covered his shoulders, and the sound she made was one of soft, unexpected pleasure.

It was simple enough to slide his tongue into her mouth, kissing her with such thoroughness it could have melted the bones in his body. He lifted his mouth for a second, and her gray eyes were staring up into his with glazed wonder, making his need even more powerful. He could lock the door to the hallway and take her there on the divan, but the silly women noisily playing croquet outside would be certain to come back at the most inconvenient time. He kissed her again before she could protest, pressing into her, wanting to absorb her into his very bones.

He tried to coax her tongue into play, but she was either very reluctant or simply ignorant of the intricacies of kissing, but that could hardly be possible. She’d been paid for this, a fact which bothered him not in the least. This wasn’t a commercial encounter—she was reacting to him on the most basic, carnal level, pushing her soft breasts against him, and he wanted to cup them with his hands, but he didn’t dare release her arms. She had relaxed into his hold but it wouldn’t take much to make her skittish.

Using his teeth, he tugged at her lower lip, trying to draw her closer still into the late day shadows, and she moved, eager, seeking him, until she froze, and some sound intruded on his carnal haze.

There were voices, noise coming from the adjoining front hall, men’s loud, excited voices, and he wanted to groan in frustration. He lifted his head, looking down at her, hoping she’d show some of that same emotion, but she’d already drawn her defenses back around her, and she pushed at him. For a moment he didn’t move.

Her smile was cool and acid and for some reason it made him want to kiss it off her set mouth. “I can’t wait to get back to London to report on your miracle, Lord Brandon.”

He blinked, confused. “Miracle?”

“I’ve been informed that your war wounds were more extensive than outward appearance. Apparently that essential part of your anatomy that was blown off in the war seems to have regrown and is now pressing into my stomach.”

He stared at her for a long, incredulous moment, and then he threw his head back and laughed, releasing her, his amusement almost stripping away his desire. Almost. God save him from a woman like her—she was the kind of woman he could love.

Even that hideous prospect couldn’t deflect his laughter, not her stony expression, not the women herding in through the French doors as the day turned stormy, not the men crowding in from the hallway, looking grim and curious. He wanted to collapse on the sofa, but that was impossible with ladies and older men present, so he simply stood there, trying to contain his mirth.

And then Benedick spoke, his face dark with disapproval. “What do you find so entertaining, Brandon? I could use a laugh at this point in time.”

Brandon had known his brother all his life, and he knew the difference between simple bad temper and real trouble. This was real trouble, and the last of his delight left him.

“Nothing of any import. What’s happened?”

“Don’t miss a thing, do you?” Benedick muttered. “We found the missing maid.”

“Rosie?” Emma spoke up, ignoring protocol. “What did she say?”

“Nothing,” his brother Charles interrupted, practically sneering with disapproval, and Brandon had the errant desire to punch him in the face. “She was dead.”

There was a piteous shriek, and he turned to see his sapskull of a fiancée swoon into her companion’s tender arms, as all the women surged around her.

All except Emma, who stood still as a statue, her face white, her mouth, that mouth he’d just kissed so thoroughly, grim. “How?”

Charles grimaced. “She’d been. . .”

“Charles!” Benedick snapped. “There are ladies present!”

Charles didn’t have the grace to look abashed. “Well, then, perhaps we should wait until the ladies depart and then I can relate the gruesome details to Brandon’s doxy.”

Melisande’s soft cry of barely registered in Brandon’s blood-maddened haze as did just what he’d been longing to for so many years and punched Charles. Someone pulled him away as Charles crumpled to the floor, shrieking that his nose had been broken, and there were various cries of distress from the women, sounding more like a flock of silly birds than anything else.

“Enough!” Benedick thundered. “Melisande, my dear, perhaps you might escort the ladies to the salon for tea, while Miss Trimby sees to Miss Bonham. Brandon, your behavior is inexcusable; Charles, you deserved it. How dare you insult a guest in my house? First, I must apologize to you, Mrs. Cadbury, for both my brothers’ boorish behavior. They shame themselves and they shame me. Let me apologize to all my guests for my deplorable family, but we are, after all, Rohans.”

It was just the right thing to say, and as Brandon’s fury lessened to a cold anger he had to marvel. The other men were chuckling knowingly, his family’s excesses over the decades well-known, and even the fluttering women were tittering. His hand hurt, which seemed absurd, and he couldn’t bring himself to look at Emma.

When he did, she was already gone.

Emma was running. Running away from the scene in the salon, the women who looked at her with their sideways, pitying glances, from the man who lay crumpled and shrieking on the floor, blood gushing from his nose, from Melisande’s concern, from Benedick’s grim knowledge. Most of all she was running away from Brandon.

Brandon, who’d kissed her so thoroughly, his hard body pressing her against the wall, and she’d wanted to kiss him back, so badly. She didn’t know how. Men didn’t kiss whores—she knew nothing about it. She was aware that tongues were used, and it all seemed part of the general messiness of the business, but she kept tasting him, wanting more of him, wanting his mouth on hers once more, his long, lean body against hers.

What in God’s name was happening to her?