Lords of Scandal: The Beleaguered Lord Bourne / The Enterprising Lord Edward

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.

Three hours later, still tossing and turning in her rumpled bed, Jennie heard Kit’s footsteps climb the stairs and halt outside her door. She held her breath for an eternity of time before his footsteps moved on down the hallway to his own door, then tried to ignore the sound of Kit’s voice as Leon helped the earl in his preparations before retiring. It wasn’t until the valet could be heard closing the door behind him on his way out that Jennie felt she could relax at last, and it wasn’t long until sleep overcame her.

“Denny!” a voice called urgently. “Denny, what happened? Hold on! I’m coming!” Jennie sat straight up in bed, eyes wide with fright, her heart pounding in her chest. Someone had called her name. “Denny! Oh no, Denny!” the masculine voice cried yet again, torment in every syllable.

It wasn’t her name that was being called, Jennie realized. It just sounded like it to her sleep-fuzzed mind. Her bare toes hit the floor as she involuntarily responded to the anguish in Kit’s voice—for she could tell it was her husband who was calling out, probably in the throes of a nightmare—and, being Jennie, she had no other thought but to go to him and comfort him, her dressing gown left behind forgotten on the chair.

Swinging open the connecting door between their chambers, the door that had remained firmly closed all the time they had resided in Berkeley Square, she stumbled through the dim light cast by the full moon out that night and made her way to the side of the large bed. Fumbling with the familiar implements, she at last lit the candle next to Kit’s bed, and her husband’s face came into view—a face ravaged with some pain that twisted his features and drove his clenched fists into the mattress on either side of his body.

She reached out her hands and shook his shoulders. “Kit. Kit!” she whispered loudly. “Kit, wake up. You’re having a nightmare.” But Kit was too far away to hear her, his mind locked in some hellish place her voice could not reach. Again, Jennie didn’t think; again, she acted. She crawled into the bed and put her arms around his thrashing body, pressing her cheek next to his, and began to croon softly, as one would to a distraught child.

“Denny!” Kit breathed, seeming to quiet a bit. “I knew I could find you. The cannon—where did they all come from? Ambush, Denny, caught napping.” Kit’s hands reached up and clamped themselves around Jennie’s slim form. “So much blood, Denny. Ah, my side. It hurts like hell. Where’s Denny? He was next to me when the ball hit. Denny?” Kit’s muscles tightened, and Jennie nearly cried out in pain as his grip punished her soft flesh. “Denny!” Kit rasped, the pain in his voice bringing tears to her eyes. “Jesus, Lord, Denny, where are you? For the love of God, where’s the rest of you?”

“Kit!” Jennie called loudly into his ear, giving his cheek a firm slap as she outwardly strained for control, ignoring her own fear at the sight of his wide, sightlessly staring eyes. “Wake up, my poor darling,” she implored on a dry sob. “Please, Kit, wake up!”

She watched anxiously as his eyes blinked once, twice, and then seemed to focus on her face. His hands, crushing her upper arms in their superior strength, relaxed slightly. “It was just a dream, Kit. A nightmare.”

Kit’s chest was heaving as he struggled to regain control over himself. “Dreaming,” he rasped, taking a deep, shuddering breath and letting it out slowly. “Only a dream, only a dream,” he parroted, giving his head a slight shake. He reached down somewhere deep inside himself and summoned up a small smile. “And you came to wake me up and chase the bogeymen away. Thank you, kitten.”

Leon and Renfrew, standing in the hallway in their nightclothes, exchanged glances and turned away, each returning to his own bed, to think his own thoughts. The valet’s hand had been on the doorknob when Renfrew restrained him, shaking his head silently and cocking his head toward the door and mouthing, “Listen.” They heard Jennie’s voice struggling to be heard over Kit’s cries, and both men waited, Leon barely resisting the urge to comfort his friend and master, and Renfrew silently praying that the near strangers on the other side of the heavy wooden door might learn more about each other before this night was over.

Never knowing the two servants had been outside the door, Jennie and Kit, their emotions heightened by the events of the past few minutes were suddenly tinglingly aware that they were alone in the near dark, lying side by side on a bed, their arms wrapped around each other. When Jennie, in her nervousness, squirmed slightly, the movement brought their bodies even closer together, a fact Kit was not backward in realizing.

“Thank you, kitten,” he breathed into her hair. “I must have given you quite a fright.”

“Hrummmph, umm-wumpum.” Jennie’s mouth, pressed firmly against his bare neck, garbled her words, and Kit responded by chuckling deep in his throat. “What was that?” he asked, moving his head away only marginally in order to look into her face.

“I said, ‘You’re welcome,’” Jennie repeated, flushing hotly under his intense gaze. Pushing against his shoulders with her hands she tried to rise, mumbling rather incoherently about returning to her own chamber.

“But what if I should have another nightmare?” Kit questioned, using his own hands to push her back down against him. Then, all traces of humor leaving his voice, he asked her softly, “What was I dreaming about, kitten? I never remember much, although I’m fairly certain it’s the same dream over and over again. Leon wakes me, my throat raw with screaming, my body drenched in sweat, but I can’t remember anything but this—this feeling of terror.”

He looked so lost, so vulnerable. Jennie could no more leave him than she could turn away a starving child. Allowing herself to be gathered against his chest, she whispered, “You called for someone named Denny. At first, when you woke me, I thought you were calling my name.” As soon as she began speaking Kit had grown rigid under her, and she knew he was upset. “Who is…was…Denny? Was he a friend?”

“Lord Denton Lowell. The closest friend, the only friend any one man could ever need or want,” Kit told her in a low voice. “He, er, he died on the Peninsula.”

Jennie remembered Kit’s ramblings about Denny, and a tear formed in the corner of her left eye and splashed onto her husband’s silk-clad chest. “You said something about your side. You were injured in battle, weren’t you?”

The earl’s right hand unconsciously rubbed up and down Jennie’s bare arm as he returned into his memories. “We were caught unawares. We were to leave for home in less than a week and thought we had seen the last of battle. I don’t know where the enemy came from; we had thought we were in a safe place behind the lines. I took a piece of exploding shell in my side, and Denny…and Denny…”

Jennie touched her fingers to his lips. “Shhh. Don’t talk about it. Don’t think about it.”

Kit covered her hand with his own and placed a slow kiss on her palm before laying her hand on his chest. “I have to talk about it. I never have—not to anyone. Maybe if I tell someone, these damned dreams will stop and you and Leon can get some sleep,” he quipped, vainly trying to inject some humor into the tense atmosphere.

“I must have been knocked unconscious for a while,” he pursued doggedly after a short pause when he seemed to retreat inside himself, talking as if he were reciting a lesson by rote. “When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was the pain in my side. And then the blood—there was blood all over me. Everywhere men and horses were screaming, and smoke stung my eyes. I looked around for Denny, but I couldn’t find him. I crawled on my hands and knees in the dirt, looking for him, calling for him…”

“Oh, Kit, please stop—”

“No!” he nearly shouted, staring at the ceiling. “I have to say it. I dragged myself over to where Denny’s mount lay, a bloody hole in his belly, and that’s when I saw him. When…when they found me I was still trying to put Denny back together.” He turned toward Jennie, his eyes burning fiercely as he tried to explain. “I tried, kitten, I really tried. But…but the pieces…the pieces didn’t fit.”

Jennie could stand no more. “Stop it! Please, Kit, stop it!” she pleaded, sobbing as she hid her face in his neck while one bunched fist beat ineffectually against his chest. Kit grabbed at her hand and tried to calm her, suddenly cast into the role of comforter, but his words had taken the innocent child named Jennie and rudely catapulted her into the real world, where sometimes the handsome knights did not prevail.

He rose up, pushing Jennie onto her back and catching her flailing arms above her head. “Jennie…kitten…hush, sweetheart. I’m sorry,” he crooned as her hurt whimpers slowly subsided.

Did he know that her tears were for him? For him, and for Denny, and for all the soldiers who were still dying in that awful, awful war? “No, Kit,” she whispered huskily, “don’t be sorry. I didn’t mean to cry. It’s just that it’s all so awful…so cruel—”