Captain Durant's Countess(2)

“Captain Durant?” Maris managed to squeak.

“Who’s asking?” He turned, fully available for view.

All of him.

His skin was burnished, his root swollen and pointing heavenward.

Maris closed her eyes briefly. Apart from statuary and drawings in antique manuscripts, she had never seen an entirely unclothed male, but this male seemed to be inescapably branded on the inside of her eyelids after only a few seconds. She opened her eyes and assumed a neutral expression. It wouldn’t do to have him think she was truly interested in him.

“I am Lady Kelby. You may recall receiving at least two dozen letters from me.” She struggled for haughtiness, but was afraid she’d revealed the truth. To her ears, she sounded like the desperate fool she was.

“One almost every day for the past month.” Durant tossed his crop to the floor, where it rolled beneath the tester bed. “Patsy, love, you may want to cover up in front of Lady Kelby. It seems I have finally been run to ground.”

Maris watched in disapproving silence as he strolled to the bedside table. He opened a drawer and pulled out a knife. Good Lord, he wasn’t going to attack her, was he? She had nothing to defend herself with except her hatpin. Mr. Fisher probably would be in no hurry to come to her rescue if she was to scream, but she opened her mouth anyway to do just that.

To her relief, Durant didn’t notice her panic as he sliced through the cords that bound his paramour. The woman’s bottom was raspberry-pink, the rest of her plump and snow-white. He tugged the sheet up over her, but it was he who needed covering. Surely he didn’t expect to converse with Maris in his current state?

He was naked.

And as shameless as she had feared.

“Will she take long, or shall I go, Reyn?” the woman asked.

Durant sighed. “Perhaps we can finish this tomorrow, my dear. But if you are in great need, I think I saw Blivens in the dining room.”

Patsy pouted. “But he’s not you, Reyn.”

“Any port in the storm, love. I may not have served in the navy, but that much I’m sure of.”

All cats are gray in the dark, Maris thought. But judging from Patsy’s expression, she might have said it aloud.

“Very well,” Patsy huffed. “I’ll hold you to tomorrow, though. Same time, same room. I’ll arrange it with Fisher.” Still wrapped in the sheet, the woman climbed down from the bed and gathered up her clothes.

“Excellent.” Durant kissed Patsy’s exposed shoulder and patted her rump. Maris felt a twinge of irritation at his affectionate dismissal.

“Now then,” he said after Patsy had flounced out and slammed the door behind her. “Let’s get this over with. What do you want?”

“You know perfectly well what I want! I’ve written to you enough times!”

The man—the still naked man—shrugged. “But I didn’t read them all. Refresh my memory.”

“You need to come to Kelby Hall . . . as you originally agreed. My husband is not at all well.” This was not exactly the diatribe she’d practiced delivering, and it didn’t begin to cover all the details that rattled around in her head.

He shook his head and sat down on the bed. Could he not put something over his penis? There were at least half a dozen pillows scattered all over the counterpane.

“But I don’t want to leave town right now, or any time soon. I’ve seen enough of the countryside. Since I was sixteen, I’ve traipsed all over Europe and the Americas. A dozen years of getting shot at and sleeping in ditches and mud and starving myself to serve the king. I find life in London to be very amusing.”

Maris saw how amused he still was. His rampant cock had not wilted one whit as she’d stood there haranguing him. But then, he was still so very young, six years younger than she was if she did her sums correctly.

“You must come! It is your duty!”

“Don’t talk to me of duty, madam. I’ve done my share and have the scars to prove it.” Maris’s gaze couldn’t help but follow his large brown hand, where it rubbed against a muscled thigh slashed with a long red line.

He noticed. “Bayonet wound. There’s still a ball in my shoulder, too. Hurts like the devil when the weather is damp, which is pretty much every day in England. Look your fill—I’ve nicks and knots everywhere. Even my pretty face didn’t escape the French. Some ladies like it, though.” He grinned rakishly, the saber scar doubling his dimple.

Maris could see where some ladies would.

He was not yet thirty, but there was a worn look about him that went beyond whatever injuries he’d sustained. Dissipation, she thought, but something else as well. She watched as his fingers drummed against his thigh, and quickly realized where her eyes were straying.

A few minutes in this horrible house and she was good as corrupted. But that was necessary, wasn’t it, if she were to go through with Henry’s plan?

“You must come to Kelby Hall, if only for a little while. I’m sure it won’t . . . take very long.” She felt the color creep into her cheeks.

“I told your husband I had changed my mind. Now I am sure of it.”

Damn the man and his implied insult. She knew she was plain and old, but not completely repulsive. “You took his money.”

“And I wrote to say I’d pay it all back.” Durant rose, went to the chair where his clothes were piled, and reached into a pocket. “Here. I’ve had some recent luck at the tables. I was mistaken to agree when Mr. Ramsey presented this . . . uh . . . unique opportunity to me. He can be quite convincing, you know. Passionate. I’ve never met a man quite like him, and that’s the truth. Odd sort of fellow. Have you met him?”

Maris shook her head in answer. Henry had come up with his cork-brained idea all on his own and had made all the arrangements. She waved away the offered payment.

“Something is not quite right about him. I don’t think he is at all what he pretends to be. But when I met him, I thought to—well, never mind. My need for the position you hired me for is no longer valid.”

His emphasis on the word position brought another blush to Maris’s cheeks. She could feel the heat sweep clear down to the collar of her high-necked gown. She tugged the fabric up another inch.

The man had the effrontery to catch her at it and smile. It was dazzling, like the rest of him. “Needless to say, I’m sorry I ever replied to the advertisement in The London List last fall and put you both to all the trouble. It was a mistake. After I met with your husband, I had a crisis of conscience and realized his scheme wouldn’t suit.”

Maris had not been present for the job interview. Henry had insisted on handling the meeting himself, and she had relented, hoping to delay her mortification. She had not even permitted herself a peek at Captain Durant as he rode up Kelby Hall’s crushed stone drive.

“My husband is dying,” she said bluntly. Thank heavens Captain Durant is stepping into his fawnskin trousers. He doesn’t seem to wear smalls, though.

“I am very sorry to hear that, Lady Kelby. But it doesn’t change my mind. I assure you I will repay every penny now that my luck is turning.”

“We don’t want the money! We want . . . you.” It was far too late to go through the process all over again. It had taken Mr. Ramsey over a year to get even this far. Vaguely worded advertisements. Vaguely worded interviews with the handful of candidates so desperate they had not been bothered by the vagueness.

Henry had been extremely particular. While all cats might be gray in the dark, Lord Kelby did have a care for his wife and the succession. Evidently the two other men Mr. Ramsey had sent him had not compared at all favorably with Captain Durant, for Henry was insistent that no one else would do.

Though Henry might not be so impressed if he knew where Maris had found him. Henry’s London doctor would have to be consulted if Reynold Durant decided to go through with this insanity. She was not going to sacrifice herself to the pox.

“I’m not for sale after all.”

“Everyone has their price, Captain Durant.” She knew she did, and it had been shockingly low. For a roof over her head when her father died and the chance to continue to work on the Kelby Collection, Maris had married a man who was old enough to be her grandfather.

And impotent.

But she had always loved him, ever since she was a little girl. Henry had been kind, caring for her in all the ways he was capable, and they had been happy . . . until two years ago when he became so agitated and determined to cut his wretched nephew out of the earldom. His idea on how to do it had seemed the purest folly. Well, impurest. Henry had been impossible to sway, and Maris had never been the sort of woman who could wield her negligible feminine wiles to change a man’s mind.

Like right at the moment, for example. Durant seemed obdurate.

“I-I am begging you, Captain Durant. You know of our difficulties. I understand Henry confided in you completely, so he must have trusted you. I confess I don’t see why,” Maris said, unable to forgive the man his casual effrontery. “My husband’s nephew is the worst sort of villain. He’s sworn to destroy the scholarly work of my husband’s lifetime. All the books in the library—he’ll damage every one. Crumple every paper. And . . . and he’s a libertine. He’ll turn Kelby Hall into a . . . a place just as vile as this one.”