The Scandals Of An Innocent

you suddenly decided that you are going to be excruciatingly honest and have me thrown in jail!”

“I had to do it, Alice,” Miles said. He faced her down. “You didn’t want me to be truthful just to win your hand in marriage,” he said. “You didn’t want me to be honest for three months and then return to my old ways. At the very beginning, when we made our bargain, you wanted me to reform.” His tone roughened. “Well, you have reformed me, against my will and against my nature and tonight against my wishes. Do you think it was easy for me?”

“Yes!” Alice said. The fury was trailing little sparks of fire through her blood and it felt good. She so seldom lost her temper. “It was a damned sight easier for you than it was for me!” she said. “You suddenly feel you have to reform, and as a result I have been cold and hungry and tired and dirty and have had to relieve myself in a bucket! Oh, and I have been branded a criminal and a whore and my reputation is ruined. I hope you are pleased with the results of your honesty!” She tried to pull away from him but he grabbed her and held her tightly.

“Tonight I wanted more than anything to protect you,” Miles said. His voice was shaking. “I am an officer of the government and I wanted to lie to a magistrate to save you but I could not. I wanted to be worthy, not because I had to fulfill the conditions of our betrothal but to please you-”

“Well, it did not please me for you to tell the truth,” Alice snapped. “I might have known that you would discover your deeply buried honesty at this particularly inconvenient moment. Leave me alone,” she added, struggling against his grip. “I am going home and I never want to see you again.”

“You will be seeing me again,” Miles said. “In fact, you will be marrying me as soon as I can fetch a special license.”

He spun her around and into his arms. They closed like steel bands about her, holding her fast. “I have just spent the last four hours arranging your release from jail, Alice,” he said, holding her still as she struggled frantically against him, “and trying to discover whom it was who informed against you in the first place. I have worked damned hard to secure your freedom.”

“But you had me locked up in the first place!” Alice said, panting. “Do you expect me to be grateful?”

“If not to me then to Gaines,” Miles said. “He did a sterling job for you. He argued that as you were outside the shop rather than inside there was no proof you had ever been inside.”

“And the wedding gown?” Alice objected.

“He said that you had probably found it in the street, where the true thief had dropped it, and that you picked it up out of curiosity.” Miles laughed. “He was very plausible.”

“He’s a good man in a crisis,” Alice said. She sighed. “I suppose he was even able to come up with a reason as to why I was in the street at midnight in the first place?”

“Of course,” Miles said. “You were there to meet me.”

“I suppose you denied it?”

“No,” Miles said. “No one asked me if it was true.”

“So now I am supposed to have been trysting with you before we were betrothed!” Alice said wrathfully. “So much for my good reputation!”

“You have no reputation left,” Miles said. “You are scandalous, Alice. Ruined.”

The exasperation and anger swelled in Alice. “Mostly thanks to you! You madden me! Why did you have to decide to reform now?”

“I can’t help it,” Miles bit out. “Have you not heard a word I’ve said? Do you think I wanted to change? I was perfectly fine until I met you.”

“You were ruthless and arrogant unreformed,” Alice said. “I have yet to see a difference in you.” The anger within her was starting to ease slightly at the sound of the irritation in Miles’s voice. Clearly his reformation was not proving a comfortable experience for him. She stopped struggling and smoothed her fingers down the material of his jacket.

“I am not marrying you,” she added. “I don’t have to, now that you have broken the terms of our agreement.”

“You are marrying me,” Miles corrected. “You have not a shred of reputation left and if you do not wed me you will be shunned by society and incur all the scandalous gossip that your mother fears and that you have tried so hard to avoid. You know you would hate that and your mama would be distraught.”

“The scandal is of your making, not mine!” Alice said, incensed. “You were the one who locked us in the spa baths and made love to me!”

“That is beside the point,” Miles said. “And anyway-” a wicked grin tilted his lips “-I did not hear you protesting. In fact I seem to remember that you connived enthusiastically in your own seduction. You begged me not to stop.”

Alice remembered. She felt a stab of anguish. No wonder Miles looked so pleased with himself. She had pleaded with him to make love to her. And thinking about it now, through all her fury and frustration, she felt like begging him all over again because it had been so unutterably blissful and she could not deny it.

“You are no gentleman to remind me,” she said.

“I am as much a gentleman as you are a lady,” Miles said. He dropped his voice. “You know that what you really want now is to return home to a hot bath and a deep feather bed and to make love with me again-and again-until we are both satiated. You know it, Alice.” His lips brushed her ear, his breath warm in the cold of the night. He held her caged in his arms. “What we did was wonderful. Sinful and decadent and so very, very wicked but so delicious-”

“No!” Alice whispered. The low murmur of his words tormented her. Her pulse beat frantically in her throat. The heat pooled within her.

“I don’t want to forgive you,” she said truthfully, but even as she spoke she could feel herself weakening. “Damn you, Miles.”

“Damn me to perdition if you wish,” Miles said, “but you’ll have me just the same.”

Alice made an infuriated sound and grabbed him and kissed him hard. He tasted cold, tasted delicious.

“I am still very angry with you,” she said as her lips left his. “I want to punish you.”

“I can tell,” Miles said.

He kissed her this time, a soft brushing of his lips against hers.

“Still angry with me?” Then as she made a tiny sound of assent he said, “You can settle the score when we get back to Spring House.”

“I doubt it,” Alice said regretfully. “Mama will be there, and Lizzie and the servants and everyone will want to know how I am-”

“No, they won’t,” Miles said. “Sir Montague has taken Lady Elizabeth back to Fortune Hall and your mama is staying with Laura at the Old Palace and all the servants are abed.”

Alice looked at him. “Then…” Damnation take it, she thought. I am no lady and we both know it but I want to make love with him again and he is right, I am going to do it.

“What are we waiting for?” she said.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

MILES CARRIED THE FINAL pitcher of water upstairs and closed Alice’s bedroom door behind him. Alice had set up the bath behind a muslin screen. The room was warm. Sweet- scented steam rose into the air, reminding him sharply of the time they had spent together in the spa baths. He could hear Alice humming softly to herself and the muted splash of the water. He rounded the screen and put the pitcher down.

Alice was sitting in the hip bath. Her blond hair was piled up on top of her head and tiny strands were escaping to curl in the steam. The hot water had stung her skin pink all over and she looked glowing and rosy, delicious enough to eat. She gave a little gasp when she saw him and made a grab for her petticoat but Miles whisked it out