Kasey Michaels - Lords of Scandal - The Beleaguered Lord Bourne / The Enterprising Lord Edward

Jennie stomped away from the settee and took up a position nearer the doorway to the foyer. “There are times, my lord, when you can be unbelievably crude,” she said crushingly.

Before Jennie could make good her exit, Kit leaped up from his chair and loped across the room to capture her shoulders in his strong grip. He did not know what imp of mischief had possessed him—surely he had not entered the drawing room with any such thoughts in mind—but suddenly he felt himself overpowered by an undeniable need to feel Jennie’s softly pouting mouth beneath his own.

He told himself he was merely kissing her as a means of shutting her up, but he knew he was lying. The high life he had been living ever since he came to London had included being in the company of many beautiful women—women who neither railed at him nor accused him of every evil under the sun. No, the women he had spent time with were all generous females, giving to a fault—for a price. Yet he had not once sampled their wares, even though his pockets were now well lined enough to set up his own stable of fine fillies. He had flirted, he had teased—but he had not bedded a one of them.

Jennie, her heart fluttering madly, stared up into Kit’s strangely staring face, unable to know what was going on in his mind. If she knew that the thought of a small, blond slip of an unwanted bride had kept her dashing husband celibate she would not have believed it. That was probably why, although he looked about to speak, her husband said nothing. He only continued to stare—taking his own sweet time about it too.

As the tension in the air became nearly thick enough to slice, he acted. Abruptly dragging her soft body up against his lean, hard frame, Kit swooped like a bird of prey and claimed Jennie’s unsuspecting mouth in a nearly ruthless kiss.

The flash of feeling was instant and just as intense as he remembered. Almost at once his lips softened, moving sensuously as they molded themselves to the warm contours of Jennie’s. He felt the heat rising within him as he pressed his body more firmly against her yielding form, and his heart leaped at the very moment he felt the tenseness leave her and her hands begin to inch up to clasp his waist.

As for Jennie, she wasn’t thinking at all. She was leagues past rational thought and had been from the moment she was first rudely captured in Kit’s arms. Try as she might to tell herself it was fear that held her captive, she knew she was only deceiving herself. She wanted Kit to touch her, to kiss her. Perhaps she had subconsciously been hoping for just such a reaction when she had insulted him. This and a lot more she would sit alone in her room and dissect later. Much later. Right now she would give in to the enjoyment of the moment.

But all good things must come to an end, and this interlude was no exception. Why he looked up he did not know; perhaps a noise distracted him—although he found it hard to believe anything could have distracted him, so intense was his concentration on the logistics of transferring their activity from the doorway to the settee—but suddenly his eyes were taking in the sight of a small, mobcapped servant girl surreptitiously crossing the foyer.

“Bloody hell!” he exclaimed, releasing Jennie so abruptly she nearly fell. “That chit’s pregnant! ”

Jennie shook her head a time or two, trying hard to bring herself back to reality. “Increasingly,” she corrected at last, striving for a bit of dignity. “Charity—the poor, dear thing—will be presenting us with a little bundle of joy in about a month.”

“In a pig’s eye she will!” the earl countered hotly. “It’s not a home for fallen women I’m running here, damn it all.” All thoughts of shared passion forgotten, Kit rounded on Jennie and ordered coldly, “Get rid of her. Now! Today!”

Her hands planted firmly on her hips, her head and shoulders leaning toward him for emphasis, Jennie responded, “Charity is my choice for tweeny. You said I could have one if I wished. Well, I wish. I shall pay her wages out of my own allowance if necessary, but I promised that child a home, and a home she shall have!”

Kit lifted a hand to his pounding head. “Who’s the father? Do we employ him as well?”

Now Jennie was in her element. “We do not, my lord. The father is a peer of the realm, already married and father to more children than Adam. He seduced poor Charity within a month of her employment in Grosvenor Sq—”

“Spare me his name, infant,” Kit cut in resignedly, “else you may yet tell me it is my duty to call the cad out to avenge the chit.” Reluctantly nodding his head in surrender he sighed, “All right, Jennie. Charity, as they say, begins at home. I guess our home is as good a place as any. But for the sake of our unnamed peer, I suggest you keep Charity abovestairs until after her confinement.”

“You are not going to fight me on this?” Jennie asked incredulously, finding it hard to accept this easy victory.

“I be fond of my own skin, I be,” the earl quipped in imitation of Tiny’s peculiar phrasing, “and I be leery of your setting your great giant after me if I refuse.”

Kit’s magnanimity, as well as the lingering softness she felt for him after their embrace, combined to put a smile back on Jennie’s face. “Should I spare you more surprises and tell you about the rest of the staff?”

The Earl of Bourne, that so beset and beleaguered man, merely shook his head in denial. “In consideration of my sanity, pet, I believe you should refrain from such an inventory and leave me to discover them one at a time. Although I cannot imagine that anything can surprise me anymore.” Turning to quit the room, he added one last thought. “Other females content themselves collecting bric-a-brac, y’know. But I guess that would be too tame a hobby for you, wouldn’t it, kitten?”

He left then, taking her furious blush as his answer, and went in search of his valet and a hot tub, leaving Jennie alone in the drawing room to relieve his kiss and her daring response to it.

“Tonight, my infant,” he whispered under his breath as he climbed the wide stairs. “Tonight we will resume what Charity, that ‘poor, dear thing’ you have taken under your wing, interrupted. It is more than time I began acting the husband.”

THE HEADACHE that had been the excuse Jennie offered in order to get out of dining with her husband that evening became a reality a few hours later. Pacing alone in her bedchamber (having effectively banished Bundy and Goldie with her tearful pleas to be left alone in her misery), Jennie’s abused head rang with her companions’ parting words that echoed over and over in her ears: “You’ll have to face up to your actions sooner or later, missy.”

Jennie tossed her head arrogantly as she tried to dismiss Bundy’s words. “No, I don’t,” she denied aloud. “I can go home to Papa and never set foot in London again.” Her triumphant grin faded abruptly as she realized her title-conscious father would send her back to London so fast her feet wouldn’t touch the ground.

“I can take refuge in a convent,” she announced to the empty room, then made a face as she realized the absurdity of such a move. “Well, what else can I do?” she asked her reflection in the full-length mirror. “I can’t very well disguise myself as a man and ship out on some vessel bound for India. I get seasick on the pond at home.” She leaned her forehead against the cool glass. “Maybe I’ll just hide away in here until I go into a decline and Kit loses interest.” She raised her head slightly to look into her own eyes. “Oh, fudge!” she exclaimed pettishly and turned away from her reflection.

Tossing her dressing gown across a chair, she crawled into bed, pulled the covers over her head, and tried to find peace in a good night’s sleep.