Excerpt of The Undercover Scoundrel by Jessica Peterson

Prologue

Oxfordshire
Summer 1800

Their vows echoed off the chapel’s mottled ceiling, rising and swooping like birds to surround the couple in soft whispers of faith and hope and love.

“Rings?” the vicar said, arching a brow.

For a moment the groom’s eyes went wide, and then, plucking the pale green ribbon from his queue, released a curtain of red hair about his shoulders. He used his teeth to cut the ribbon in two. Tying one length into a small circlet, he slid it onto the bride’s fourth finger.

A sea of flickering candles held the darkness at bay as Lady Caroline Townshend was kissed for the first time by her husband. Joy welled up inside her and she smiled against the warm press of Henry Beaton Lake’s lips.

He kissed her far less chastely than was proper at a wedding, even a secret one. He kissed her as if every stroke, every pull, every move of their lips roused, rather than satiated, a growing need inside him.

Henry held her face in his hands, guiding her toward him as he pressed a kiss to one corner of her mouth, then the other. Breathless, Caroline stood on the tips of her toes to meet his caresses, streaks of light and bursts of color illuminating the backs of her closed eyelids.

The vicar, a rather less romantic fellow than Romeo and Juliet’s priest, shut his ancient Bible with a censorial thwunk.

Blushing, Caroline fell back from Henry, their hands entwining between them.

Lips pursed, eyes wide, the vicar glared at them. “God. Sees. Everything.”

In a whirl of black he turned and stalked down the aisle, shaking his head at young people these days and their carnal proclivities. Caroline’s lady’s maid, Nicks—the one and only witness—hurried after him.

Beside Caroline, Henry shook with repressed laughter.

“How much did you pay him?” she whispered.

“Cleary not enough.”

“Will he tell our parents?”

Henry ran his thumb across the back of her hand. “I should hope not. Though he doesn’t seem to like us very much.”

“Then we haven’t much time.”

“Do mean to ravish me, Mrs. Lake?”

“I do indeed.”

“Let’s get on with it, then,” he said, and swung her into his arms.

Caroline grasped the windowsill and, as Henry gave her a boost from below, somersaulted into his bedchamber. Inside the room it was quiet and dark, save for a single lit taper on the bedside table.

“Really,” she panted, wiping her hands on her skirts. “Why not use the kitchen door? Your parents are still at my house for the ball.“

Henry landed noiselessly on his feet, closing the window behind him. “Where’s the challenge in that? Besides, I like all this sneaking about. Suits the secret marriage bit, don’t you think?”

He took her outstretched hands and pulled her a smidge too enthusiastically to her feet. Her nose bumped against the hardened center of his chest.

“Oh,” he said, thumbing her chin. “Oh, Caroline, I’m terribly sorry. Are you all right? I only meant to, um . . . I forget sometimes that you’re so little, you see; I’m used to my brothers, as you know they’re rather large . . .”

Caroline looked up at Henry. Large was an understatement; like his older brothers, Henry was a broad-shouldered, ginger-haired giant with the wickedest cheekbones she had ever seen. His green eyes were even wickeder (if that was a word), so brightly suggestive, so darkly penetrating, Caroline feared she might burst into flames every time he looked at her.

“I’ll have a devil of a time explaining that to my mother.”

Henry angled his neck and brushed his lips to her injured nose. “Bloody business, marriage.”

“Mm-hm,” she said, burrowing further into the circle of his arms. Her ring of ribbon slipped from her finger—it was a tad too large—and she coaxed it back into place.

His hand slid from her cheek to cup the back of her neck. With his thumb he tilted her head and caught her mouth with his. He kissed her deeply, passionately, as if he were out to steal not only her heart but her soul, her body, her being.

Henry took her bottom lip between his teeth. She saw stars.

His hands were on her face now; Caroline clung to his wrists, fearful the rush in her knees might cause them to give out. She felt the scattershot beat of his pulse beneath her fingers, the jutting architecture of his bones. Strength rippled beneath the surface of his skin, strength she felt him struggling to restrain.

And yet he touched her with great care, gently, as awed by her shape as she was of his. His fingers tangled in the hair at her temples as his mouth moved to her neck, working the tender skin there with his lips.

Caroline let out a breath, desperate, suddenly, to be free of her stays and ridiculously ruffled muslin gown. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think; she was lost in the longing she’d felt for Henry from the moment they met eyes across the garden, three weeks before.

She was hardly seventeen, set to make her debut at St. James’s the following spring. Even so, Caroline knew the intensity of her feelings for Henry was a rare thing, rare and fragile. The world seemed fanatically intent to nip such reckless affection in the bud before it ever had a chance to bloom.

But Caroline was intent to bloom. Beneath Henry’s careful, confident touch, his insistent caresses, she felt herself unravel and open, giving as Henry took, and took, and kept taking. She slipped her hands beneath the lapels of his jacket. Henry rolled back his shoulders and shrugged free of the garment, tossing it aside. He began to move forward, pressing his body into hers as he guided her farther into the room. His fingers found purchase in a row of buttons between the blades of her shoulders, working them free one at a time.

“Hold up your arms, darling,” he murmured against her mouth, and gently coaxed the gown over her head.

It fell with a rustling sigh to the floor. The night air felt coolly potent against the bare skin of her arms. She shivered.

Henry gathered her in his arms, surrounding her body with the heat of his own. She could smell his skin, the clean, citrusy spice of his soap. Her desire soared.

In a hushed frenzy of movement, they unclothed one another: his waistcoat, her stays, his neckcloth; his head caught in his shirt, and after several futile attempts to remove it, Henry ripped it open. Buttons ricocheted about the room, landing with small pings as they rolled across the floor.

Caroline stared at his bare chest. She swallowed.

Henry took her hands and placed them on the center of his breastbone. She inhaled at the shock of warmth that met with her palms, the spring of wiry hair. She could feel his heart beating proudly within the cage of his ribs. Proudly, wildly, an echo of her own.

In the darkness she bent her neck, and pressed her lips to his chest. He inhaled sharply, his chest rising and falling beneath the working of her lips across his collarbone, up the corded slope of his neck.

Heavens, but she hoped his parents would not return for some hours yet; Caroline couldn’t have kept quiet if she’d wanted.

His fingers tugged at the neckline of her chemise, taking her bare shoulder in his mouth. The heat between her legs burned hotter. Henry coaxed the garment down the length of her body, releasing one breast, then the other. Quickly his mouth moved to take her nipple between his teeth, rolling it in the velvet touch of his tongue. The sensation was so poignant it hurt.

“Henry,” she breathed, tangling her fingers in his hair. “Please. Show me.”

He raised his head, eyes luminescent, translucent; they were warm and soft and they were on her, gleaming with desire.

“I was hoping you’d show me,” he replied.

“You’ve never? Never . . . you’re almost twenty, I thought . . .”

“This is to be the first time for both of us, I’m afraid.”

“Then I really am to ravage you.”

He grinned. “If you don’t mind terribly.”