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She wound her free hand about his shoulder and leaned in. No way could he miss the perfect view of her cleavage. “I ask only for a chance to please you now.”

  Brock shook off her touch. “Not a clever plan, Maddie. If anyone finds out, your reputation will be ruined.”

  “It will be clandestine, our secret. I shall come in disguise—”

  “There might be…other consequences to such an arrangement. Did you consider that?”

  It was Maddie’s turn to smile. After birthing Aimee, the midwife had informed her that she’d suffered too much damage to conceive again.

  “Put your mind at ease.” Her enticing whisper was hushed like the rustle of sheets.

  His stare was somewhere between perplexed and annoyed. “Once our arrangement ends, how long before you have need of funds again? How long before you find yourself on your back, legs open for someone else to take his pleasure?”

  She sauntered behind him and pressed her breasts to his wide back. “Let me worry about that. Simply consider me your mistress, here to please you, for the next six months.”

  Brock turned, catching her off guard. Before she could stumble backward, he caught her arms in his tense-fingered grip. “Perhaps I have no need of a mistress currently.”

  Maddie looked into his mocking face and panicked. She had not considered that he might already have his pleasures engaged, and with someone who knew what she was about.

  Maddie could not deny the pang in her chest, as much fear as it was jealousy. But she could not give up. Six months of sexual servitude to Brock was better than a lifetime.

  “You want me.”

  Then she pressed her lips to his, fitting her body against his hard one until she felt each tense muscle, including his rigid manhood, against her. Ignoring the heat sweeping over her, Maddie rejoiced. He definitely wanted her. Maybe this mad plot would work.

  He thrust his hands into her hair, strong fingers splaying against her scalp. He drove his mouth over hers and parted her lips with an insistent tongue. Helplessly, she parted for him. He took her mouth ravenously, tasting her thoroughly. Dear God, his kiss...hot, urgent, powerful. She felt utterly possessed.

  Her legs melted beneath her. Her heart galloped. Maddie fought for control, trying to block the warm, encompassing feel of him. His manly flavor and scent spurred her deeper into the kiss, under the spell of that conquering mouth. She moaned.

  Suddenly, Brock pulled away, panting, his eyes hard, hot, accusing.

  Maddie grabbed his broad shoulders and clung. “You would enjoy such an arrangement.”

  “Do you think so?” He covered her shoulder with his hand, his clasp firm, as if he wanted to be certain she felt it.

  Brock was up to something. Maddie tried not to panic, not to want. “Of course. That kiss... There’s still fire between us. That was only the beginning.”

  “If I took you as my mistress—” His palm left her shoulder to brush her collarbones— “Be assured I would...” His hands inched down, down— “bed you until you could no longer remember the feel of your body without mine. Until you could no longer breathe without me deep inside you.”

  His words made Maddie feel faint. His burning green gaze fastened on her breasts just as she felt his warm hand slide lower still, finally to cup her. She gasped as sensation crashed over her. But Brock wasn’t done. He traced lazy circles with his thumb until her nipple tingled, swelled, stood glaringly erect. Desire jolted between her legs, and she let loose a moan.

  Her knees nearly buckled beneath her. She melted toward him, swaying into his embrace. Maddie close her eyes, losing herself in his touch. But that voice in the back of her head wouldn’t let her forget that this was a game to Brock. He meant to unnerve her. Or test her. Likely, he believed that she would swat his hand away and chastise him, proving her offer a sham. At the moment, Maddie couldn’t utter anything more than a groan.

  “Of course,” he leaned in to whisper in her ear, still thumbing her nipple, wishing he would touch her lower, where she really ached. “I can bed a wife as well.”

  As quickly as a flash of lightning, Brock dropped his hand, then turned for the door.

  Brock was leaving? No! Her offer was supposed to entice him. Blast him, she had set aside her pride, her scruples, to protect her daughter and her independence from Brock’s ruthless control.

  On trembling legs, she darted after him. “Stay. Consider my offer.”

  Fury etched itself into every hard line of his face. Propelled by the force of it, Maddie stepped away.

  “We have nothing further to discuss on this subject. Marry me or face the consequences.”

  He reached for the door. Maddie grew desperate.

  “I shall be here,” she blurted. “Each midnight, I will lie here and wait for you.”

  Brock shot her a narrow-eyed glance over his shoulder, riddled with anger and contempt. “You’re in for a damned long wait.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Maddie paced the floor of her late husband’s St. John’s Wood cottage, the clay brick beneath her as cold as Brock’s reaction to her idea of becoming his mistress.

  An entire week has passed, and still he had not appeared to claim the passion she had been so certain he wanted. She’d been unable to erase the feel of his hot mouth possessing her own.

  But she refused to allow the pleasure of Brock’s kiss to dictate her actions. He was her adversary. As ugly as it was, she had to use him, as he once had used her.

  She had just one flaw in her plan... He still intrigued her.

  Pace, turn; pace, turn. Brock Taylor’s charisma, intelligence, and accomplishments intrigued her. At the most inopportune times, she caught herself thinking of him, staring even. Maddie sighed. She hated to admit that some part of her yearned for him. The young girl still inside her whose heart he’d broken, perhaps? Whatever the reason, he was forbidden. And the forbidden, Brock had taught her, was dangerous, just like the man himself.

  Dangerous enough to throw her and Aimee into the Fleet? She wanted to believe that he wouldn’t. But with Brock, anything was possible.

  She sighed and forced herself to sit on the overstuffed sofa in the cozy, firelit room. That clawing, panicked desperation in the pit of her stomach refused to relent. She focused on the burn of anger consuming her. That was safer.

  Soon, the hall clock struck one in the morning. With a discouraged sigh, Maddie rose and donned her cloak. Brock hadn’t come tonight—or in the last week. But he would; she’d find a way to seduce him into accepting her offer before he destroyed her life.

  How she would accomplish this, Maddie did not know. But determination pounded like a hammer in her gut. She would not rest until she had and freed herself from his matrimonial trap.

  Then she would have revenge for his abandonment.

  That was what her soul had cried for five years ago, what she needed now to purge him from her life and heart for good.

  #

  After making the trip to Hampstead again, Brock paused at Ashdown Manor’s door. The thought of seeing Maddie once more had his palms sweating.

  Each midnight, I will lie here and wait for you, he heard her sultry voice whisper over and over. Her words haunted him during the meetings necessary to finalize details about the railroad, during important analysis of new securities that would earn more money and win new business, during sleepless nights when he craved the feel of her mouth beneath his. Damn! With one sentence, she had managed to shatter his concentration and threaten his future.

  He’d always yearned for wealth. That fire to rise above his poverty-stricken boyhood was the only thing keeping him from accepting Maddie’s stunning offer in a mind-melting moment of desire. Sheer willpower had prevailed—so far. He hoped it would last until they made it to the altar.

  Drawing in a deep breath of spring air, Brock knocked. Matheson answered moments later.

  Within moments, Matheson, stepped aside to admit Brock. “Follow me, sir.”

  The butler led Brock back into Maddie�
�s empty parlor, still somehow cold, despite the warm day. With a bow, Matheson left him alone with his thoughts.

  Brock tossed his hat on the nearest table and strolled around the room. April sun poured through the west windows, shedding its golden light on the dust motes slowly winding down to the faded carpet. A rag doll with a smudged face, blue button eyes, and a Cupid’s bow mouth sat in an old chair.

  Regardless of the manor’s shabby state, it held a comfortably elegant feel beneath the tall ceilings. Oh, Brock now had a fashionable town house. In Mayfair, around the corner from Park Lane. But he liked the idea of being master in a house in which he’d once been servant. He could see himself living here with Maddie. Raising children with love and laughter.

  Shaking off his odd thoughts, Brock wondered if she would request another deferment of her debt. Perhaps offer him her paltry savings once more to postpone the inevitable? Or, dear God, would she offer herself again?

  Each midnight, I will lie here and wait for you.

  With a curse, Brock pushed the voice aside and sat on the worn sofa, feeling himself sweat. No matter when, where, or how often she lay in wait for him, he could not bed her without benefit of marriage. He must have her connections and her land.

  If investors chose to overlook his services because they believed them inferior or unbeneficial to their fortunes, he considered it their loss. If investors refused to visit his offices simply because he had been born without connections or consequence, well...that kind of ignorance he objected to.

  He knew he couldn’t change the prevailing attitude of England’s privileged class. Nor was he any crusader. But to have another blue blood lacking the good sense God gave most mutts look down his thin, patrician nose at him was more than Brock could bear.

  He needed Maddie to improve his lot, and he was eager to extract a pound of flesh from Maddie, as long as it came with the silken caress of her hand wearing his wedding ring.

  Each midnight, I will lie here and wait for you.

  God, why couldn’t he get her voice out of his head?

  Shifting uncomfortably to accommodate the front of his expanding breeches, Brock heard a hushed whisper at the parlor’s portal. He stood, hoping his coat hid anything too telling, and faced the door as it inched open.

  Instead of Maddie, little Aimee stood there, arm stretched out before her, ending in a fist. The late-day sun’s brilliant rays streamed through the window, brightening the little girl’s golden hair until it looked like a halo.

  “Hello,” she greeted with a smile, dimples showing.

  She walked further into the room, arm still outstretched but touching nothing. She smelled faintly of cherries.

  “Hello, Aimee.” He frowned as he watched her walk a circle around the couch. “What are you doing?”

  “Walking my dog. See? I’m holding his leash.”

  Brock saw nothing. “What dog?”

  “You can’t see him,” she whispered, as if letting him in on a secret. “He’s invisible except to me.”

  A pretend dog? Straining to find the logic in such a game, Brock sat again. “And this dog is your pet?”

  “Frog.” She nodded.

  He was really confused now. “Your dog is a frog?”

  Aimee rolled her eyes and heaved a dramatic sigh. “No, you ninny. My dog is named Frog.”

  The girl’s tone indicated she thought the dog’s name was perfectly obvious and logical. It was neither to him. “Why did you name your dog Frog?”

  She shrugged her little shoulders. “He likes to hop.”

  Brock frowned, trying to follow. “I’ve never seen a dog hop.”

  Aimee cast him a very disparaging glance for a four-year-old. “You’ve never seen Frog.”

  She had a point, though a very odd one. Resolved that he may never fully understand the rationale of her young mind, he simply nodded.

  “I’m going to have a baby brother,” she announced.

  Shock bounced through Brock faster than he could make money multiply. Maddie was pregnant? By whom?

  Staggered, he stared at Aimee. Was that why Maddie wanted to become his mistress, to pin her pregnancy on him and make him...what? Marry her? He had already offered—insisted actually—and she had refused.

  Or was this perhaps another of the little girl’s games? He sent Aimee a jaundiced gaze.

  “A baby brother? You must be excited,” he said carefully. “When?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “What did your mother say?”

  After a little shake of her blond head, Aimee whispered, “She doesn’t know yet.”

  Relief undulated through him in slow waves, until the illogical nature of Aimee’s words hit him again. “Then how do you know you will have a baby brother?”

  “God told me.”

  Brock wanted to ask her how she thought that was possible when her father was dead, but realized that question would be lost on her innocent mind. Clearly, the girl wanted a sibling and was willing to invent a conversation with God to get one.

  “God told you what?” Maddie asked suddenly.

  With a glance to the portal, Brock saw her there. The doorway framed her, and he let his eyes feast on her like a man starved. She looked perfect, all creamy and regal, despite her drab work dress. The auburn luxury of her hair was once again bound in a tight chignon he vowed to unwind the minute their vows were spoken. The cut of her coarse brown dress accentuated the juicy curve of her breast. He’d bet she wore just one petticoat. Lust started a slow burn in his belly and ripped through him without mercy.

  “About my baby brother.” Aimee’s soft tone was accompanied by a guilty grimace.

  Apparently, Maddie had heard this assertion before and disliked it.

  “I’m sorry, sweeting, but there will be no brothers,” Maddie said gently as she approached her daughter. She knelt to the girl and smoothed blond wisps from her little face. “We’ve talked about this. Remember?”

  Glumly, Aimee nodded. “Yes, Mama.”

  “Good girl. Now go play upstairs. Auntie Vema wants to see your drawings.”

  “But Mr. Taylor—”

  “Go on,” Maddie ordered, her face becoming stern.

  Aimee’s shoulders sagged visibly as she left the room. Brock found himself smiling at the girl.

  “Goodbye, Aimee,” he called.

  “Bye,” she muttered, punctuating the dejected syllable with a half-hearted wave.

  Brock wondered about Maddie’s rapport with the child, but the mixture of guilt, exasperation, and fear on the determined oval of her face told him there was more to the mother-daughter exchange than any man would probably ever understand.

  “She’s really quite imaginative,” Brock offered, somehow reluctant to allow Maddie to be upset with the little scamp.

  As if she remembered his presence, she turned to him with a stiff spine. Her unique scent, vanilla and jasmine, rolled over his senses. He was too aware of her, the dewy texture of her skin, and that damned soft mouth he couldn’t forget. A surge of yearning to taste it hit him hard.

  “I’ve waited for you at the cottage,” she murmured.

  Desire jolted him, and he stifled it ruthlessly. She had married Sedgewick, born him a child, and warmed his bed for two years. Maddie had, no doubt, buried her memories of her serving-class lover with dirt beneath his fingernails the moment he’d left Ashdown Manor. Now, she wanted to use his desire for her against him, ensuring that he forfeited the railroad that would finally make him one of England’s wealthiest men. Despite his burning to bury his cock deep inside her and obliterate her memory of Sedgewick’s touch, she didn’t stand a bloody chance.

  “I told you my answer, Maddie. No.”

  She walked to him, hips swaying with allure, with ripe promise of pleasure so sharp, he nearly shuddered. Though sweat beaded on his brow, Brock swallowed against the temptation.

  “You owe me, Maddie. Think of this visit as a friendly reminder of that fact.”

  Her
seductive smile slipped. “I’ve no need for friendship.”

  “I think you do. I think you need it very badly.”

  Maddie sidled closer. “No, Brock. I need you to be my lover.”

  Her words punched him in the gut, challenged him to take her. Now. God help him, he wanted to do just that, claim her in a way so carnal, she could never forget him again.

  Get a hold of yourself, man. She wanted him to lose his head, do something rash. He couldn’t.

  “Today, I came as a friend.”

  A flash of anger overtook her face. “If all friends threaten me as you have, God spare me such kindness.”

  “Maddie—”

  “I only want you as a lover, Brock, in the terms we discussed.”

  Someday he would be her lover, her husband, the father of her future children, in his time, on his terms. But not today.

  “For argument’s sake, say you considered me a friend. What would you expect me to do for you? Forget what you owe me?”

  The implausibility of that suggestion rang in the thick air between them.

  She hesitated. “No. I would merely ask for an extension or a compromise, both of which you have refused me so far.”

  “Because, as you say, I am not your friend. I seek a wife, not a mistress, nor a debtor.”

  Maddie raised her gaze to him again, her stormy gray eyes locking with his, conveying her anger and some other tempestuous emotion with their darkening color.

  “I made you an offer of repayment,” she reminded in a low voice reminiscent of honey and late-night whispers. It nearly undid him. “Repayment beyond your expectations.”

  She knew nothing of his expectations. Nor did he want to know what Sedgewick had taught Maddie about bed sport. He must distance himself from her—or she would drive him to something reckless.

  “I did not ask you to repay me with sex.”

  Brock expected her to flinch at his deliberately blunt statement. To his surprise, a smile played at the corners of her succulent mouth instead.

  “And such a suggestion offends your delicate sensibilities?”

  “No, just my financial ones.”

  “Then why are you here?” She scowled.