The Sweet and Spicy Regency Collection Read online

  “You don’t understand—” he started to say.

  “I understand well enough. I have eyes and ears and a brain that is clever enough to figure out what you were trying to do,” she said. “And Mr. Harlow filled in the rest.”

  “The rest?” He damned Harlow to hell and back for causing this trouble for Iona. He’d underestimated how far Harlow would go to win her hand. Not even in his darkest dreams had he imagined that a gentleman—save for himself—would stoop as low as to break Iona’s precious heart.

  “If you were merely interested in making an impressive marriage to—” Her voice cracked. “You should have confided in me. I would have gladly helped you in your scheme. Instead of trusting me, you cruelly used me. For that, I’ll never forgive you.”

  “Has your little playmate gone mad?” Jane fluttered her hands through the air, trying to shoo Iona away. “What nonsense is she talking about?”

  “Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know,” Iona said.

  “Don’t pretend?” Jane drew back. “Nat, do something. Send your little friend away. I have never liked her. She is neat as nine-pence, too perfect. Clinging to her father’s title. Without it, she doesn’t have even a drop of personality to hold one’s interest.”

  “Now Jane—” he started to say.

  “Is that what you think of me, Nathan?” Iona demanded, her pretty temper flaring.

  “That is what everyone thinks of you,” Jane said with an air of authority.

  Of course nothing could be more off the mark. Iona’s unpredictable and vivacious spirit held his interests only too firmly.

  “Jane, no,” he said as Jane turned up her nose and latched onto his arm as if she owned him. “You have gone too far. Apologize to Lady Iona.”

  “Leave us be, my lady,” Jane said, refusing to do anything of the sort. Thinking back on it, he really never knew Jane to apologize—not really. “Go back to your high-stickler world and let the rest of us have a bit of fun.”

  “Not until I’ve had my say.” Iona lowered her voice a degree and pushed Jane aside.

  Nathan knew he needed to do something before the two ended up scratching each other’s eyes out. But what? His thoughts jumbled in his head. What could he say without making matters worse?

  Iona didn’t give him any time to think. With the devil in her eye and her fists planted on her hips, she advanced on him. “Do you truly have nothing to say to defend yourself? No explanation at all? Not even another lie?”

  Standing toe-to-toe with her like that, he could feel her raw anger trembling through her willowy frame as if it were his own. For her protection, he needed to put an end to this confrontation right away.

  They couldn’t be seen together, not like this. Not when society was on the hunt to find his mysterious lady so they could tear apart her reputation.

  It pained him to say, “I am simply who I am, my lady. I humbly apologize if I did anything to lead you to believe I was anything better.”

  Her cheeks flushed with a bright blush as she drew her hand back. Nathan saw the blow coming.

  “I trusted you.” Her open palm slammed against the side of his face. The sharp slap seemed to echo up into the night sky. “I trusted you,” she repeated softly, “and yet you are like all the others. You lied to me, twisting my feelings all around until I didn’t know up from down.”

  She blinked up at him as if challenging him to tell her that she was wrong. But God, she wasn’t. There was no way he could defend himself against the truth. He’d deluded himself into thinking he was different from the other gentlemen chasing her. But like them, he’d pursued her, hoping to use her family name for his benefit. And worse, he’d tempted her tender heart in hopes of luring her into marriage.

  Tears pooled in her cornflower blue eyes. The sight of them tore at his already battered heart. He wished to heaven he could understand what she wanted from him.

  Hugging her arms against her chest, she looked hopelessly lost and alone and completely unapproachable. With a wounded sniff, she turned away from him and fought her way through the throng of curious faces that had closed around them.

  Nathan rather wished she’d taken out a pistol and had shot him instead of running away like that. Taking a slug of lead in the chest would surely have been less painful than the blow he’d just taken to his heart.

  * * * *

  The first blast of fireworks ripped through the night air and exploded above Iona’s head. The lights from the explosion flickered like a swarm of fireflies. The crowd all around her murmured their excitement as they pressed closer toward the music. The band began playing a lively military march.

  “Papa,” Iona shouted over the thundering music. She had to trot to catch up to him and the rest of her family as they too moved away from the dining boxes and toward the covered orchestra stand. The thump, thump, thump of the music echoed in her throbbing heart. She grabbed his hand. “Papa, I will not marry. You cannot dictate my future anymore, I will not allow it.”

  The Duke stiffened. Though he must have felt the heavy press of stares from all around them, he made no show of noticing.

  A great explosion shook the ground and sent a burst of red and golden light to brighten the night sky.

  “Now is not the time,” he said, his lips barely moving.

  She lowered her head. “Yes, of course you are correct—”

  But then she snapped her gaze up. She tilted her head back so there was no doubt that he could see the fire of her conviction stamped on her features in the soft glow of the garden lanterns.

  “But when is a proper time?” she asked and then held up a hand and answered her own question before he had a chance. “Never, that’s when. I have tried to have this conversation with you for the past two weeks and you have refused to listen to me.” She filled her chest with a deep breath. “You will hear me now.”

  Lillian tugged on her arm. “Please,” she whispered, her cheeks deepening in color. “You are making another horrid scene.”

  Iona batted her sister’s gloved hands away. “I do not care.”

  Which was a lie. Her heart was beating so hard she worried that it might be ripped from her chest. To see her mama sucking in deep breaths and whimpering while clutching her heart threatened to spill the tears pooling in Iona’s eyes.

  And the way her father stood, without moving so much as a muscle while he stared daggers at her, might have broken her resolve if her anger hadn’t matched his.

  She supposed she had Nathan and his damnable mistress to thank for that. “I will be heard,” she said. “I apologize since you do not wish to listen, Papa, I truly do. But you must. I’m no longer your biddable child in this. You have to realize I am a woman grown with my own thoughts and needs.”

  She swallowed deeply. The fireworks finale had begun, lightening the dark sky. “I will not marry,” she said, not letting the roar of colorful explosions drown out her words. “I will not marry Lord—anyone.”

  “What in blazes are you talking about?” Lillian shouted. “No one is forcing you to do anything of the sort. You don’t even have any marriage offers. Once again you spurned them all at the end of the season, remember?”

  “For once in your life, hush, Lillian,” Iona ordered.

  With a jolt, Lillian’s mouth snapped shut.

  “Did you hear me, Papa?” she asked very slowly. “Do you understand what I am saying? Unlike what some spiteful ladies think of me, I’m not at all a dull withering flower. I have a host of dreams for my future and none of them include marriage. None. Of. Them.” Her thoughts trailed off to Nathan and the way his sophisticated mistress had sneered at her.

  He hadn’t broken her heart. How could he?

  “I have never and will never have any plans to marry. I. Will. Not. Marry.”

  The Duke didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. He simply glared.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Ah,” Nathan said. A malicious smile curled his lips. “Just the bastard I’ve been searching f
or.”

  Harlow backed himself up until the heels of his boots knocked against a partition that separated the garden’s dining boxes from the Sydney Hotel.

  “I-I already told Lady Iona and her mother, the Duchess, that I would leave her alone,” Harlow stuttered. In the brief flash of the fireworks, Nathan caught a glimpse of the stark terror paling Harlow’s features. “Her secrets are safe with me, I vow it.”

  Nathan was unmoved. “But, you see, the damage is already done.” He cracked a knuckle. “You were a little too anxious to put a wedge between us, weren’t you?”

  Harlow whimpered when Nathan cracked another knuckle.

  “Well?” Nathan said, his anger growing. “Your need to win her overshadowed both her tender feelings and her reputation?”

  “She wasn’t supposed to become all emotional and confront you,” Harlow spat out. “I swear it. I only wanted her to know the truth.”

  “The truth?”

  “That she shouldn’t hold out for you since your heart was already taken. That you were in love with Mrs. Sharpes. That you used her to create a host of lurid rumors about your involvement with someone new in order to lure Mrs. Sharpes into accepting your marriage proposal.”

  Good God that was what Harlow had said to Iona?

  “So you didn’t tell Lady Iona that I’d been working just as hard as the rest of you sorry sops trying to win her hand in marriage?” He wasn’t sure whether to beat Harlow into the ground or give him a friendly pound on the back.

  “Lawks, no. I’d lose any chance at her if she suspected you actually wanted her. Haven’t you noticed the way she lights up whenever you come around?” Harlow sighed. “How is a man supposed to compete with that?”

  “I wonder,” he grumbled, not willing to let the glimmer of hope that was knocking on his chest access to his heart, “if that is true, then why does she continue to reject me at every turn?”

  “If you don’t know, then why would the rest of us?” Lady Lillian huffed. She’d appeared at his side from out of nowhere and tugged on his arm. “And there isn’t time for all this gabbing. We’ll all be in a terrible coil if you don’t come and do something. My fool sister has just blistered Papa’s ears, declaring she’s determined not to marry anyone—ever. And then she marched off into the gardens only to be followed by your ghastly Mrs. Sharpes.” Lillian paused only long enough to suck in a quick breath. “Iona has a hard look in her eye, Lord Nathan. I’m afraid she’ll take a strip of Mrs. Sharpes’ hide if someone doesn’t put a stop to it.”

  * * * *

  Nathan caught sight of Iona near the eerily lit castle ruin that sat on a rise in the middle of the garden. The crystals on her gown sparkled in the reflected glow of the colorful luminaries hanging from the trees. And the pale spectral candles burning from the depths of the carefully aged stones cast an otherworldly light on her frighteningly stricken features.

  Just as Lillian had claimed, Jane trailed Iona by several paces.

  “I say,” a finely dressed elderly gentleman drawled to his lady companion as Nathan passed them, “what is all that fuss over there about?”

  “Isn’t that the Duke of Newbury’s daughter dashing up those steps like some hoyden?” the lady on his arm replied. She straightened her lavender silk turban. “I cannot understand what has possessed the child tonight. She is usually such a quiet and demure child.”

  The gentleman squinted through an eyeglass. “Shameful that,” he said and then tutted. “Youth these days have no regard for good manners.”

  If that conversation were any indication, come morning, Iona’s odd behavior would be the talk of Bath. Which meant that all of Nathan’s efforts to protect her over the past several days, including bruising her heart and her pride, would have been for naught.

  Unless…

  Perhaps he could deflect attention away from her by creating an even more spectacular scene with Jane. By the time a plan had formed in his mind, he’d broken out into a full run.

  “Jane,” he said as he caught his mistress’s arm. “We need to talk.”

  “Yes, we do,” Jane said bitterly. “Our engagement is off. I was trying to catch up with your precious Lady Iona to tell her that she is welcome to you. It is obvious you are much more interested in her than me. How she can believe otherwise, I cannot imagine.”

  For the second time that evening, a lovely lady slapped him across the face with surprising strength. He stumbled back a step.

  “My pardon?” he said, feeling somewhat dazed.

  “You are not the first man in my life,” Jane said, biting off the words. “I know men’s hearts. You are besotted with her.”

  He was besotted, that was true. But merely accepting that he was in love with Iona didn’t mean he could have her.

  “I will not be a second choice,” Jane declared. “I had thought you might make a good mate. I stand corrected. There are other men in my life who also want and need the money and lands marriage to me would provide. Goodbye, Nat. I wish you and Lady Iona a miserable time together.”

  Nathan tried to stop Jane from pulling away but she resisted. “Do not worry about my heart. I assure you it’s not the least bit broken,” she said coolly.

  He might have been insulted by her lack of feeling if he weren’t so wrapped up with worry that his errant pupil was about to do something irrevocably stupid.

  “I am sorry, Jane,” he said and brushed a kiss on her cheek before dashing off after a fluttering blue corner of fabric as it disappeared into a darkened section of the gardens.

  Quiet as a hushed morning breeze, Iona stole through the bushes. Nathan followed, hoping he might be able to shake some sense into her.

  Seemingly unaware of his presence, she muttered softly to herself as she made a straight path to where the secluded, scandalous grotto was hidden beneath a thick growth of willow trees.

  Someone had lit over two dozen candles and arranged them on the rim of the grotto’s archway. Wax dripped down the moss-covered stones, forming summer icicles over the entranceway to an underground passage that led to the labyrinth’s center.

  Iona surveyed the romantic scene and, after turning full circle, sighed deeply.

  “What is this?” Nathan asked as he emerged from the shadows of the trees. “What are you doing here?”

  Iona gave a start. With a couple of deep breaths, she quickly gathered her composure. “Before everything changed, I’d arranged for these candles, hoping to set the perfect mood.” She closed the space between them and pressed her hands against his chest. “I had planned to lure you here to…” Her voice trailed off.

  He didn’t wait for her to think about what she was doing or what she didn’t want to say. He swept her into his arms and took her mouth with a possessive kiss.

  Her tongue tentatively sought his. Her daring move had the power to weave a spell around him. Forgetting everything that had happened that evening and the confounding way she seemed to spin his emotions, he drew her closer. There was only one thought on his mind when he cupped the back of her head. He answered her unschooled lust with a desire that flared so brightly it blinded his need to protect his already battered heart.

  It didn’t matter that anyone could stumble upon them at any moment. Nor did he care to understand why she wasn’t pushing him away.

  “My lovely seductress,” he whispered, tumbling even deeper under her spell. The world around him fell away until there was nothing but the feel of her against his body. “I am yours for the bidding.”

  “Yours for the bidding?” She ripped away from his embrace with such force it felt like she’d torn a vital organ from his chest. All he could do for several moments was suck down deep breaths and try to untangle his suddenly dangerous emotions.

  “What do you mean you are mine?” she asked.

  “What do I mean?” he asked slowly. His jaw tightened.

  “Oh, you vex me! You play the part of irresistible rogue only too well. When we’re alone, I can think of nothing other than how
I might entice you to kiss and caress me.” She stomped her dainty foot. “But do not pretend I’m the only one you ply with those sultry midnight blue eyes and that sinfully tantalizing body. I know only too well that you cannot help yourself.”

  “If this is about Jane—” he started to explain though in truth she didn’t deserve any sort of explanation.

  “No, this is not about that cursed mistress you plan to marry. This is about you and me!” Her voice grew so shrill that it cracked.

  “You and me?” He gave a frustrated laugh. “You and me? There isn’t a ‘you and me’. There never has been a ‘you and me’, as you’ve made only too painfully clear. There is only you playing with my heart. There is only you making me into your damnable puppet.”

  “You are wrong. I have never—”

  He grabbed her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “You have and you do! What is this game you’ve playing with me about?” He gently shook her again. “What in blazes do you want from me?”

  Tears sprang to her eyes. “I only wanted a friend.”

  His grip on her shoulders tightened and he pressed his nose to hers. “So you claim! But you act as if you’re searching for a lover.” He crushed his lips to hers with a bruising kiss. “I’m only too willing to oblige on both accounts as long as you are willing to become my wife.”

  “I-I can’t.”

  “Why, damn it? Am I not good enough for you? Is my reputation too tarnished for England’s most pristine lady? Am I only good enough for trifling with in the dark and in the bushes?”

  “No,” she insisted, shaking her head fervently, “that’s not it at all.”

  “Then why? Why seek me out, making me feel as if I can hold the world on my shoulders, only to knock me down with your next breath?” His head grew cold in anticipation of her answer. If it wasn’t his reputation that was scaring her away, then it could only be one other thing.

  Something over which he had no control.

  As the lofty daughter of a duke, she was looking higher than the marriage to a worthless second son. Marriage to a damned spare.