bent, putting one hand on the top of the littered vanity and slipping the other beneath the fall of her hair. With that one, he gripped her neck strongly enough that even had she dared, she would not have been able to turn her head. His mouth fastened over hers, his tongue demanding entrance.
She didn’t respond. She never did, because it made no difference to him. He preferred her impassivity. Or even, as she had learned very early in their relationship, her resistance. That was a mistake she had never made again.
As her guardian kissed her, the movement of his mouth hard, almost brutal, tears burned at the back of her eyes. Unwillingly she remembered the touch of another man’s lips. Another man’s kiss. Another man.
He isn’t a man, she had warned the Englishman. She had known from what she had seen in his eyes that he didn’t believe her. And so, even as Julián’s mouth moved against hers, her mind raced, frantic to find before it was too late, some way to prevent what was about to happen to him.
Chapter Three
“My lord?” the Viscount Wetherly’s batman called hesitantly.
Harry opened one bloodshot eye, briefly assessing his man’s face. He was standing in the doorway to the viscount’s bedroom, carefully out of range of whatever could be reached and thrown at him from the bed.
“Go away,” Wetherly said, closing the eye again.
He had found nothing in those open Yorkshire features to alarm him. If Sin had gotten into serious trouble, there would surely have been some hint of it in Malford’s revealing countenance.
“There’s a fishmonger in the kitchen, my lord…”
The viscount’s eyes opened again, very wide this time, despite the dull ache in the back of his skull. He should know better than to try to drink a Sinclair under the table, Harry acknowledged, even if that were the only way to guarantee he would know where to find him come morning.
“A fishmonger?” he repeated, imbuing his tone with every ounce of aristocratic outrage he could muster. “What the hell should I have to do with a fishmonger? Do I look like the cook, you bloody fool?”
“Indeed, no, my lord, but—”
“Go to hell and take your bleeding peddler with you,” Wetherly ordered. “You’re interrupting my sleep.”
There were a few blessed minutes of silence, during which the viscount tried to relax the muscles that had been tightened with his unaccustomed anger. Just as it seemed he might succeed, his man spoke again.
“He is really quite insistent, my lord. Otherwise, I should never have dreamed of awakening you. Your instructions concerning Captain Sinclair seemed so urgent, however—”
“Sin? Good God, man, have you let Sin leave the house without arousing me?”
With the question, the viscount had tried to sit up—much too quickly. The aborted maneuver reminded him of exactly how much wine he had consumed last night. And now it seemed that through the incompetence of this idiot, that valiant effort might well have been in vain.
Clutching his head with both hands to keep it from flying off his shoulders, and moving far more prudently, Harry finally achieved an upright position, sitting on the edge of the mattress. From there he glared banefully at his servant.
“Oh, no, my lord!” the batman hastened to assure him, apparently horrified that the viscount thought him so lax in his duty. “Captain Sinclair hasn’t stirred since we rolled him into bed. I looked in on him before I came to wake you.”
“Then why in perdition do you keep yammering on about him?”
Harry knew there must be some point to his batman’s actions because, despite his accusation, the man wasn’t a fool. He’d be damned, however, if he could figure out what this was about.
“Because the fishmonger’s message is for him, my lord. At least…” The servant hesitated again, seeming determined to make him beg for every scrap of information.
“What message?” Harry asked, trying to keep his attention to the problem at hand, despite his aching head and the increasingly urgent need for the chamber pot.
He eased off the edge of the bed, staggering slightly when his stockinged feet hit the floor. The room swam sickeningly until his batman rushed forward to put a steadying hand under his arm.
Wetherly shook it off impatiently, beginning to unfasten the flap on his evening britches. At the signal Malford bent, pulling the chamber pot from beneath the bed. He arranged it at the proper position, and they both waited, their silence almost respectful, as Harry relieved himself.
“A message for the man with the scarred face,” the servant said, when it seemed that objective had at last been achieved.
The viscount’s hands hesitated in the act of straightening his clothing. His eyes fastened on his valet’s face with the first glimmer of understanding.
“Are you telling me there’s a peddler downstairs with a message for…Sin.”
He had breathed the name separately, as if it had not been part of the original question. Any message intended for the man with the scarred face, Harry reasoned, would have to be for Sebastian. And a message delivered this particular morning—
“Where is he?” Harry demanded, his voice for the first time holding the authoritative tone one might expect from an officer and a gentleman.
“Still abed, my lord,” Malford said, sounding puzzled.
“Not Captain Sinclair, you idiot. The fishmonger. Where’s the bloody fishmonger?”
“In the kitchen, my lord. I’ve asked him to wait.”
“Good man,” Harry said, clapping him on the back and pushing him toward the door. “Now go back down and bring him up. And, Malford…”
“Yes, my lord?”
“Make sure that no one, especially not Captain Sinclair, sees him.”
“Very good, my lord.”
Harry sat down on the bed again, putting his head back in his hands. After a moment he spread his fingers and pushed his hair away from his eyes.
Given the mood Sin had been in after the reception last night, there was no telling how he might react to a message from the woman he’d seen there. And no telling what message she might have sent, Wetherly decided.
It would be better for all concerned if he intercepted this communication. Then, after he had the gist of it, he would be able to judge if it were one he should pass on to Sinclair. Or, and he strongly suspected this might be the case, one that should never be allowed to reach his friend.
After all, Sin wasn’t thinking straight about all this. His penchant for letting his emotions embroil him in situations his intellect had a hard time extracting him from was well-known to the viscount.
Far better, Harry decided with a nod, if he handled this himself. After all, he wasn’t emotionally involved
