Portia Da Costa Read online

  “And what did you have?” Irrational anger made his tongue sharp. Her clear lack of pleasure in seeing him again was no surprise, but it still made him want to break something. At least she could have feigned a smile for form’s sake.

  And with a sweet, lush mouth like hers, even the faintest smile was a breathtaking phenomenon.

  Dark eyes narrowed. “I experienced a distinct desire not to crash into you, yet now, despite my best efforts, here we are.”

  “You could have declined Rayworth’s invitation.” It would have been easy enough to claim some unspecified female malady.

  Her stare was a basilisk’s venomous dismissal, disdaining him, discarding him utterly. Did she feel no warmth at all? If not affection, then not even the slightest twinge of the baser, more animal emotions? “One can’t cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face. I had hoped that I could avoid you as much as possible, while still accepting. It would have broken Mama’s heart to deny her at least a shred of optimism. She’d rather live on hope than face the truth.”

  Adela was steely, but for a few fractions of a second, the way she bit her full, pink lower lip betrayed her. Likewise her narrow white hand twisting a fold of her gown. The contrast between the creamy pallor of her skin and the dull sheen of the black fabric was intoxicating. Unable to stop himself, Wilson imagined her in the kind of black satin boudoir garments that Coraline had so favored, and his wayward cock kicked again, hard, in his trousers.

  Anger kicked, too, but not at his cousin. He actually felt enraged at the memory of Coraline for distracting him, as if she’d stepped into the room and interrupted this sparring match. Yet her presence seemed strangely indistinct.... He should have felt regret over his former mistress, but her image was blurred, like an inexpertly developed photograph.

  The vision of his second cousin twice removed, however, was sharp as a razor. And despite the fact that the real woman was still scowling at him, the mental image of Adela Felicia Ruffington clad in a black corset trimmed with red lace and ribbons was delectable, and made him want to touch himself. And her.

  Yes, you’d look very handsome in a few scraps of expensive frou-frou, Della. Very handsome indeed.

  “You should be out in society, Della. Just because your mother’s prepared to sacrifice you to me in order to save her fortunes and those of your butterfly sisters, that shouldn’t stop you from having a little fun.”

  Adela drew in a slow deep breath, clearly sifting through a selection of sarcastic words with which to lash him. The action made her bosom lift, pushing her delicate curves against the confines of her hidden corset. Wilson’s private fantasy of ribbons and black satin grew yet more agonizing in the area of his loins.

  Adela was a slim woman, but she had a shape. A beautiful wood nymph’s shape, and just once, for one blessed idyllic afternoon, he’d had his eager hands on it.

  “Well, I thank you for your sage opinions on the subject of my welfare, Wilson.” She inclined her head like some wily bird, assessing him. And not with favor. Wilson could see columns and tallies, and far too many negative ticks stacked up against him. Suddenly his own affected eccentricity, which usually secretly amused him, wasn’t quite as satisfying anymore. He clenched his fists in the folds of his dressing gown, to stop his fingers from raking through his unruly hair in an effort to tidy it. He wished he’d made an effort to conform, and that he could change his lurid waistcoat for something more elegant and sober, and his silk dressing gown for a well-cut frock coat. His maverick attire did not find favor with his cousin. Her perfectly arched eyebrows spoke volumes.

  “But for my part,” she went on, her exquisite hauteur and proud deportment making her appear far more entitled to a deluxe life and aristocratic status than he’d ever be, “it’s not the end of the world if the Ruffington assets go to you on the Old Curmudgeon’s death. Grandfather has his reasons, and we’ll make the best of the hand we’ve been dealt. Mama and the girls and I will manage, even if we have to take in washing. And if the worse did come to the worst, I can’t believe that even you would throw us out on the street. Our parasitical status notwithstanding.”

  Will I never be allowed to forget that?

  Certain ill-thought remarks, made on the occasion of their last meeting, were impossible to expunge. Adela still hated him for them, and he couldn’t blame her. He had been nasty. With much on his mind at the time, a moment’s lapse of concentration had led him to say vile things about Mrs. Ruffington, and all subsequent halfhearted attempts to retract had only made things worse.

  But being instructed—in a letter from her mother—that he really ought to marry Adela, because the assets and riches of her grandfather, Augustus Ruffington, Lord Millingford, were rightfully hers, had made him see red. In cooler moments, he knew that the Old Curmudgeon was being callous and cruel to his daughter-in-law and granddaughters. But receiving this commandment while Coraline was being particularly capricious, and with memories of his own mother’s emotional manipulations still keen, Wilson had lashed out at Adela when they’d encountered each other at the New Gallery not long after.

  No, calling her mother “a presumptuous, overbearing parasite with ridiculous notions of entitlement” had not endeared him to Adela, making an already prickly relationship into a veritable porcupine of resentment and enmity.

  Still, he opened his mouth, not knowing how, but hoping to make things better. “But that’s not quite what I meant, and you must admit I didn’t say it to her face. I—”

  His cousin raised a hand and silenced him before he could get another word out.

  My God, she’s impressive. Wilson’s cock lurched again, the weight of desire almost making him double over.

  “No, you fobbed her off with some pretentious taradiddle of a reply. What was it...something about being ‘married to your work’?” Adela paused, her eyes narrowing, but still brilliant. “When we all know that your objection is to me, and that you were already involved in a romantic liaison elsewhere. How is the beauteous Coraline, by the way?”

  For a hundredth of a second, Wilson reeled. Oh, how she wielded the knife. “Still beauteous, as far as I know,” he said, affecting a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “And please don’t tell me you don’t know she’s split from me. I’m sure the jungle drums of society have thundered out all the juicy details.”

  “Ah, yes, her duke. How does it feel to be thrown over for a seventy-five-year-old in a bath chair?”

  Wilson wasn’t a violent man. In fact, strange as it seemed, considering his work for the War Office, he was a pacifist. But right now he wanted to box his cousin’s ears.

  “How does it feel to be out for upward of four seasons and not snare a husband?”

  Adela remained impressive. Even more so now. Yet there was a flash of pain in her eyes, and he half expected her to demand, “Whose fault is that?”

  And he half expected something else, too. The little gesture that more repercussions of his incautious tongue had initiated, the involuntary, yet graceful raising of her hand to her face, to shadow the slightly crooked bridge of her nose.

  But she yielded to neither. She didn’t even say, “Touché.”

  “I don’t think I care to discuss these matters any further, Wilson. I came here to enjoy a pleasant weekend in the country, and I’d be grateful if you’d kindly leave me alone now to do just that.”

  No!

  Irrationally, no, no, no! He couldn’t leave. Not with fire in Adela’s eyes and her blood up. Despite what she said and what he knew she felt, he’d never lusted for her harder than he did right now.

  “Ah, but this is my pleasant weekend, too, Della. Can’t you enjoy your explorations while I’m here? This room interests me. And it must interest you, too, or you wouldn’t have employed the skills I taught you in order to gain entrance.”

  He wasn’t lying when he said the room interested him. Under normal circumstances, he’d have been nose deep in one of the many, many choice volumes by now. But it was Adela he wanted to explo
re. After weeks of feeling sorry for himself, his cousin’s delicate flower scent and her determination to spar fired him up, too. Good Lord, he even felt cheerful. His libido surged when she nibbled her soft lower lip again, as if the sound of her pet name, and his discovery of her breaking and entering rendered her vulnerable.

  Yet her head was up and her voice was smooth. “I’ll leave you to your studies and return later. You can be the one to explain how you gained entry without a key.” Abandoning the forgotten praxinoscope, she swept past him, reaching for her leather binder where it lay on the desk.

  With barely a conscious thought, Wilson grabbed for her shoulder as she moved by, his every instinct commanding that she stay. They hadn’t seen each other in six months or so...and even then, when they’d flayed each other with insults, his blood had sung. More than that, it had been seven years since their fateful, carnal afternoon together. But he realized now he’d never forgotten a single second of it. While diverted by others, his memories of Adela had been haphazardly contained in one of his mental boxes, where he stored thoughts and notions for later review, or otherwise. But even during his bouts of exotic and protracted lovemaking with Coraline that box had still been there, radiant with golden, stolen moments once spent by a river with his distant cousin, its perturbations inchoate, but nagging.

  Wilson held his breath. She had to stay, but she was struggling, shaking her arm wildly and jerking away from his grip. She even slapped him—hard—around the back and neck with her blessed leather portfolio.

  You always were deliciously physical, cousin.

  “Let me go, you insufferable oaf. Don’t paw me.” It was a low, controlled threat, not the squeal of a vexed miss. Resentment dripped from it. “You made it perfectly plain last time we conversed what you think of me, Wilson, and my family. Useless, you said, just sitting around waiting to be supported by a man or an inherited fortune, and myself, personally, neither accomplished nor beautiful enough to be worthy of either. Just as much a parasite as my mother.”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  Liar. Why was he denying his own bad behavior? He’d certainly implied she was no better than her mother, and just now, he’d attacked her with cutting words again. What was wrong with him? He couldn’t even blame Coraline this afternoon, because his former mistress was so faint to him now he could barely picture her.

  What would it be like to go back and expunge his thoughtlessness? To be a different man? A man free to take Adela’s graceful body in his arms and gently comfort her. To kiss her and touch her... Maybe there was even some convenient river or brook nearby? A soft mossy bank where they could lie down and—

  A sharp elbow gouging his ribs dissolved his wayward memories and urges. His grip loosened, and Adela raced for the door, clutching her leather folder while Wilson rubbed quickly at his rib cage, astonished at how viciously she’d jabbed him.

  But he didn’t box and run and practice a little-known Oriental fighting art for nothing. He had reflexes like a panther, and he shot across the room after his cousin, catching her at the door. He grabbed her again in a light hold that wouldn’t hurt, but wouldn’t yield, either. Why didn’t he have the words to make her stay, without resorting to manhandling?

  “Don’t go, Della. I know our last meeting was somewhat disastrous, and I shouldn’t have been so harsh....” He watched her face. Was she mellowing? “But let’s put that behind us, shall we? And start again... Perhaps we can investigate this ingenious toy of yours?” He nodded at the praxinoscope. “And then perhaps select a few exciting volumes from this hoard together? It seems a shame not to, now we’re here.”

  She was relenting. He was sure of it. Indecipherable emotions flickered in her gleaming eyes.

  Adela’s looks didn’t conform to fashionable standards of beauty, and he was only too aware that, though she wouldn’t admit it, certain imperfections troubled her. The slight crook in her nose troubled him, too, though not because it was unattractive. To him, it was piquant, almost provocative. It was only the little kink’s provenance that irked his soul.

  His fault. He couldn’t be blamed for her chicken pox scars, though, even if Adela would probably have liked to pin them on him, too. The little pink marks were like a dusting of stars scattered across the apples of her cheeks that only accentuated the otherwise porcelain perfection of her skin.

  But what female ever saw her flaws as assets? Adela was intelligent and pragmatic, but even the most sensible woman had vanity.

  Her next words only confirmed that. “Well, if you’d stop gaping at my bent nose and my pockmarks, I might consider staying. But I’m not one of your scientific studies, you know.”

  “I’m not staring.” More lies. He was staring. “It’s just that it’s, um, very pleasant to see you.”

  Good Lord, I sound like a gauche youth faced with his first woman.

  His heart turned over and his hand went limp, freeing her again. Adela was his first woman, and he her first man. And whatever difficulties and conflict arose, that simple truth would forever be a bond between them.

  “Well, it looks like staring to me.” But Adela was the one staring now. She was gaping at him as if he’d gone stark mad. “And I don’t care for it. I’m looking careworn and as washed out as whey at the moment.” Her mouth pursed in a little moue of displeasure. “Black is the most unflattering of colors, and even though I know Papa wouldn’t mind me abandoning it, thanks to the Old Curmudgeon and his grudges we don’t have funds for colorful gowns at the moment.” She fixed Wilson with an old-fashioned look, as if daring him to comment.

  Black did suit her. Couldn’t she see that? She looked superb in the inky hue, and was just trying to make him feel guilty. Again. “Don’t be stupid, Della, you look exceptionally fine in black. It gives you a regal and very intriguing quality.” It sounded fanciful and made-up, but by George it was the truth.

  “You have a strange way of trying to butter me up, Wilson. It won’t work.” She gave him a stiff look, narrow of eye, but surprisingly, she stayed where she was.

  “But I’m not trying to butter you up. It’s the truth. You’re a handsome woman.” Her gleaming walnut-colored eyes widened. He saw her wanting to believe. “You’re only being willful in denying it. If you don’t believe me, I’ll prove it to you.”

  Catching her again and spinning her toward him, he inclined his head and pressed his lips on hers. As hard as he could.

  3

  The Most Aggravating Man in the World

  The touch of Wilson’s lips rocked Adela in her shoes. Seven years ago he’d done exactly this. Grabbed her and kissed her. Now it felt as if barely a second had passed between that kiss and this one, and just as before, all her resolution melted, lost in a heightened perception so intense it almost pained her.

  Her cousin’s mouth was like warm velvet moving against hers, infinitely teasing and tantalizing, and she could smell his shaving lotion and his soap, the notes of each one quite separately distinct. On his lips there was a very faint flavor of something sweet and spicy, plum cake perhaps. It was on his tongue when it traced the seam of her lips.

  These impressions crowded into the space of a small, surprised fragment of a second, each one of them enough to rock her heart.

  I should push you away. I should push you away and run like the wind. This is all wrong and it will only lead to trouble, no matter what Mama thinks.

  Yet with this rationale in her mind, Adela still wound her arms around her outrageous cousin instead of thrusting him away. He was, and always had been, the most aggravating man in the world, but still she parted her lips for him, instead of clamping them shut and grabbing him by the ears to get him off her.

  Oh, how she’d yearned for Wilson once, yearned for him with all her young heart and soul. But until a moment or two ago, she’d believed the urge done and dead, crushed by circumstances and Wilson himself. Now, it was patently obvious she’d been completely wrong about that. Her feelings for him were as alive and rambunctious as
ever. The taste of his mouth and tongue thrilled her just as it had all those years ago. Sliding her free hand boldly beneath his dressing gown, she clasped his strong, lean back and pressed her body close to his, metaphorically waving adieu to her wits.

  Ah! I’m not the only one with feelings alive and well, then....

  His cock was hard, and it pressed against the curve of her belly, just beneath her corset, as hot and ungovernable as it had been those seven years ago. In the frozen moment of time that they stood together, his eager flesh seemed to twitch, calling to hers. Even though there were layers and layers of clothing between them.

  Adela rocked her hips, the response like breathing. Wilson gasped, making a gruff sound in his throat, countering her action.

  What was she doing? This was absurd. Unthinkable. In the space of a few fractious exchanges, he’d unmasked her. Compelled her to reveal her secret self, just by...just by being Wilson! Trying to back away, Adela shoved hard, her hand spread against his chest to dislodge him. No more blindly clinging and cleaving like a hysterical trollop. It was madness.

  “Wilson! For heaven’s sake, what are you doing? You can’t just grab me and kiss me as if you own me!” He seemed reluctant to let her go. His grip even tightened. But then he succumbed, fingers relaxing their hold on her arms. “Have some decorum. You’re not a rutting dog!” Adela cried, jumping back a step.

  “Decorum, eh? I’m not the one who threw her arms around me just now.” Oh, that voice, that damned voice. It was familiar, thrilling, deep, its resonance playing across her senses like a bow across a violin. A narrow smirk curved her cousin’s beautiful mouth with its sharply defined upper lip. “All I was hoping for was a chaste and cousinly peck on the cheek. I didn’t expect to be manhandled.”

  You are an insufferable beast who should be thrashed and pummeled.