Chapter 14
June turned the corner towards her bedroom and collided with a wall.
“Ooof! Look where yer going, will ye, lass?”
She looked up at the wall. Cameron.
He was, she thought, not for the first time, so painfully beautiful. Dark red hair so soft-looking she longed to run her fingers through it. That straight, patrician nose and chiseled jaw. A chin perfectly proportioned, with just the hint of a cleft.
His hands had wrapped around her waist to steady her. They were large and firm and felt wonderfully warm through the rain-soaked fabric of her dress.
His massive body towered over her, his lips pursed in a frown as he scowled down at her so ferociously she almost wanted to laugh. He was so tall that the top of her head barely reached his collarbone. While this might have been intimidating, his bulk made her feel strangely safe.
“Ye’re soaked to the skin again. What the devil have ye been up to?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, it’s raining,” she replied, hearing her voice high and breathless.
She glanced down at herself, took in her gown, wet and clinging.
Cameron had noticed it, too. She caught sight of the expression in his eyes.
Only one word could describe it: Hungry.
“I should go,” she said hastily. “I was going to my room to change.”
She stepped past him lightly.
His hand caught hers.
“Wait,” she heard him say gruffly.
And then he was whirling her back towards him. She hit his chest again with another “oomph.”
Cameron had just turned the corner from his bedroom when something small and soft and wet collided with his chest.
He looked down to see June. Not merely any June, but June soaked to the skin yet again and looking for all the world as if her gown were no more than a second skin.
God, but she was beautiful. Her breasts high and firm. Her curving thighs, her slender hips. That mass of golden hair, wet and tumbling down her back, utterly rebelling against the pins that tried in vain to hold it in some semblance of a bun.
He sympathized with those pins. He truly did. He felt barely able to contain himself as well.
She stepped away from him and he might have left it there. She was going to her room to change.
But as she moved away, he glanced at her from behind, taking in the exquisite sight of wet muslin clinging to a pair of perfectly curving buttocks.
Something between a growl and a groan was lodged in his throat. The sound slipped from his mouth. And then he caught her by the hand and was truly lost.
She slammed into his chest with more force than he had intended, opening her pretty mouth in a mew of protest.
He silenced her with a kiss, pressing his lips to hers with an urgency that shocked him. He fitted his mouth to hers, sliding his tongue between the seam of her lips and into the wet, hot space of her mouth. He filled her, thrusting inside of her and stroking her tongue with his own in a blatant imitation of what he longed to do to her elsewhere.
She moaned against his mouth.
“Aye, there’s a good girl,” he murmured. “There’s a good lass.”
His hands were already skimming over her dress, cupping her breasts through the wet fabric. But it was not enough. He groaned in frustration and glanced about. The hall was still abandoned. No servants or guests about.
He had just returned from a ride and yet, finding himself still frustrated and unable to stand being in the manor, he had been heading downstairs for a walk in the rain. Now he yanked one glove off with his teeth and shoved it in his pocket.
She was too tempting. Too tantalizing. They were alone. He couldn’t seem to stop himself.
His hands slid over the slope of her breasts then tugged at the neckline of the low-cut bodice and tugged the soft, pliable fabric down. Her breasts popped free, first one than another, both tributes to female perfection. He dropped his mouth to one, wrapping his lips around the pink tip while rubbing his fingertips over the other.
June moaned and clutched at his shoulders,
This was wrong, he thought through his fog of lust. She had a husband, no matter how much of a bastard the man might be.
They might be interrupted any moment.
Still, he could not bring himself to care.
There was only June. Here and now, her body open and available to him, her breasts naked and warm beneath his probing touches.
God, the sounds she was making. Whimpers and moans that told him just how much she longed to be touched by him.
He imagined laying her down on the floor right then and there, pushing up her skirts and sliding into her. He knew just what he’d find. She’d be wet and slick and willing. The servants could easily step around them as he brought their mistress to her well-deserved climax.
But God, no, he must stop, he chided himself. This was not the time nor place. It was sweet pleasure, yes, but mad pleasure, reckless pleasure. He had to stop, must stop before it was too late.
Then it was too late.
A slow clapping sound came from behind him.
“Oh, very good, Tulloch. Very good indeed.”
June let out a gasp and pulled away, yanking up her bodice as Cameron looked over her shoulder and took in the sight of the Earl of Windermere.
The earl was smiling in a sickeningly self-satisfied way that made Cameron’s fists itch.
“I admit, you play the part of a self-righteous prick so well that I’d almost forgotten,” the earl said.
“Forgotten what?” Cameron growled.
“Forgotten the column, of course. That Brazen Belle certainly knows her men. Why, she had you properly pegged from the start. Ravaging women in the very halls. Why, you play the part of an English gentleman very convincingly but you’re really a complete savage, aren’t you?”
Cameron felt his cheeks heating with rage.
But the earl’s eyes had moved past him, narrowing as he looked down at his wife. “You’ll go to your room now, Wife. I’ll discuss this with you later.”
“But John, I…”
Swifter than an asp, the earl raised his hand to strike June full in the face.
But before that vile hand could connect with its intended target, Cameron caught the earl firmly by the wrist and twisted until the smaller man yelped with pain.
“That will be enough of that, ye wee bastard.” He looked down at the earl with loathing. “Go, June. Do as he said.”
“For now,” he longed to add. “For now ye must obey this bastard, yer husband.” But he said nothing. Simply waited until he had heard her move down the hall and open the door of her bedchamber, then close it again.
“She’s my wife, Tulloch. Not yours. I’d thank you to remember that.” The earl’s face was livid. “I’ll deal with her as I see fit.” He shook his head and sneered. “Her guardian. I admit, I nearly fell for it and took you for what you were pretending to be–a gentleman.”
“Oh, and what am I really?” Cameron inquired.
“A barbarian Scot. A blackguard. A man without morals. Stealing into my house to seduce my wife.”
“Yer property, ye mean. For ye dinna treat her as a wife should be treated.”
“What do you know? You have no wife of your own, as I recall. Covetousness is a sin.” The earl wagged a finger. “I hate to think of what might have occurred if I hadn’t caught you both in time.”
Cameron couldn’t help himself. He could only imagine what Windermere would do once he had June alone again. It was not to be borne. Not any longer.
“Oh, you didna.”
The earl frowned. “Didn’t what?”
“Ye didna catch us in time. What? Did ye think this was the first time I was having my way with her? Here in the hall?” He tipped his head back and laughed. “Ah, no, mon. I’ve had her in plenty of places. All throughout the estate. Shall I list them for ye?”
“That won’t be necessary,” the earl said coldly. “I admit, you I could easily see as a scoundrel. But June… I truly didn’t think she had it in her.” His eyes narrowed. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Why, I should think it would be obvious. So ye may do the right thing with me,” Cameron said.
This man had killed his child. Cameron had sworn to June he would not seek vengeance for that. But goading the earl into choosing to demand a duel… Well, it was wily, aye, but Cameron felt his conscience would remain mostly clean.
“The right thing? I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”
“Nay, I dinna suppose ye’d know a thing like that, now would ye?” Cameron couldn’t help but say. “But I mean the matter of yer wife’s honor, of course.”
The earl snorted. “Honor?”
“Aye,” Cameron said, his blood heating. “Her honor. And yers. If ye claim to have any. Ye must defend yerself now that ye know I’ve gone out of my way to dishonor yer wife right under yer very nose, mustn’t ye?”
A flicker of unease passed over the earl’s face. “You mean a duel, I suppose.”
“Aye, a duel.” Cameron grinned wickedly.
“I don’t see any reason to proceed with one,” the earl said. “You’ll be gone soon enough. And with you, all the trouble you’ve caused.”
“Aye, and ye see the woman as being easier to punish than I am, is that it?” Cameron growled.
He snapped then, quite literally. In an instant, he had the earl by the collar and was lifting him off the floor.
“I believe ye misunderstood me, Windermere. It wasna a request. Pistols at dawn.” He said the words slowly. “Choose yer second.”
“What the devil?” The earl’s face paled as Cameron dropped him back to the floor. He rubbed at his neck. “You can’t be serious. You dishonor my wife and yet you act as if you’re the offended party!”
“I am not the offended party. But neither are ye.” Cameron took a step towards him and the earl shrank back. He wondered if the man would be any less of a coward with a pistol in his hand. “June is the one I seek to defend. And I’ll be damned if I leave her in this place at the mercy of ye and yer mistress.” He leaned forward until his nose nearly touched the earl’s. “Nay, not when I could end things right here and now by putting ye into the early grave in which ye belong.”
“You’re mad,” the earl said desperately. “I’m an excellent shot, you know. You might find yourself in your own grave. What then?”
Cameron straightened up. “Well, then, that’s a price I’m willing to pay.”
As was any stain on his conscience for breaking his vow.
“It’s a ridiculous risk. She’s not worth it,” the earl snapped.
When Cameron’s fist found the corner of his jaw, Windermere looked truly shocked.
He staggered backwards, clutching his face. “You struck me. An earl.”
“Aye, and an ever so noble one, too,” Cameron said sarcastically. “Ye ought to be honored a man of higher rank touched ye so intimately. It’s a rare occasion on which I deign to do so.”
“You bastard,” the earl snarled. “You’ll regret that. You’ll regret all of this.”
“I highly doubt it. Unlike ye, I live my life like a man and not a sniveling tadpole. And I would never–not in a thousand years–regret a moment of time I spent with June.”
The earl stared for a moment. Then he burst into laughter. “Why, you love her. Don’t tell me you love her. Why, you stupid fool. She’s a married woman.”
“Aye, married. For now. Tomorrow she might easily be a widow.” Cameron smiled as the earl’s face paled again. “If ye lay a hand on her between now and tomorrow, I’ll beat ye before we duel. ‘Tis ungentlemanly of me, but then, so is a coward who harms the weak and I dinna think God will think any less of me if I break yer nose before we raise our pistols.”
It was an empty threat. Cameron would have died before meeting a man in a duel after incapacitating him in any way first. This had already gone far enough for his conscience’s liking. But the earl didn’t have to know that.
“Tomorrow at dawn. I only hope ye can find a single man who’s willing to stand beside ye.”
Cameron strode off down the hall. He wouldn’t, he decided, be going down to dinner that evening. No, he’d spare the earl his presence and retire to his room and write a few letters instead.
When a man prepared to face death, he should do so with a clear conscience and with all of his affairs in order.