Crystal Gardens (21 page)

She wrenched free of the kiss and uttered a small shriek. Her fingers raked his shoulders. He knew there would be marks come dawn. The knowledge thrilled him. But there was suddenly a lot more crashing energy in the chamber and it was coming from Evangeline. Her eyes were no longer glowing gently with feminine desire. They burned.

He sensed that the currents of their auras were suddenly on fire and resonating together. The exquisite, almost unbearably intimate sensation took his breath away.

He forced himself to hold off a moment longer, intensely aware of Evangeline’s rapid breathing and the quick, excited beat of her pulse. He kissed her jaw, her cheek, her mouth.

When she had adjusted to the sensation of him buried so deep inside her, he began to move. He had intended to thrust slowly and carefully but the snug, wet, hot feel of her was too much. The last thread of his control snapped. He sank himself to the hilt, his climax crashing through him.

He was lost in the storm but it did not matter. Evangeline was here with him.

S
harpy Hobson had failed. That much was now maddeningly evident.

Two days had passed since the blade man had taken the train to Little Dixby. Hobson had not come around for the remaining portion of his money and there had been no reports in the press of violent murder done in the countryside. Nor was there any news of a London criminal having been arrested in a small town.

There was only one explanation. Hobson had not been able to carry out the contract. He had likely returned to London and was even now swilling gin in his favorite tavern, reluctant to face his old partner with the bad news.

Garrett Willoughby paced the small dressing room. He was still wearing his stage makeup and costume. The house had been less than half full tonight.
Hardly surprising
, Garrett thought. The ridiculous melodrama with its cheaply staged excitements—the fake fire and the
train wreck—had run its course after less than a month. The theater manager would soon be closing down the play.

Garrett came to a halt in front of the mirror and contemplated his reflection. He had been an actor long enough to know when it was time to seek another role. But it was not supposed to have come to this. The scheme had been damn near perfect. If it had been carried out the way they had planned it, Douglas would have been engaged to the Rutherford heiress by now. In a few months he would have married the young lady.

The heiress had been fated to die in a tragic accident soon after her wedding day, leaving her grieving husband a wealthy man. Garrett and Douglas had shared everything all their lives. They had intended to split the girl’s money as well. It had all seemed so simple and straightforward. But the plan had gone wrong. It was Douglas who was dead and Evangeline Ames was to blame. Garrett did not know how a mere woman had overcome his street-hardened brother, but somehow she had done so. Perhaps she had managed to trip Douglas at the top of the stairs. Whatever the case, it was her fault that Douglas had been exposed, her fault he was dead, her fault the scheme had come to naught.

Her fault
, Garrett thought, that he would soon be forced to find another ill-paying role in another cheap melodrama instead of living the life of a gentleman.

The rage churned inside him like a terrible poison. The only cure was vengeance.

He had hired Hobson because the three of them, Douglas, Sharpy and himself, had known one another most of their lives. They had grown up on the streets together. But while he and Douglas had been able to take advantage of their looks and brains to climb out of the criminal underworld, Sharpy had been too slow-witted to follow them. Not that Sharpy had cared. He had been content to rule his own little
corner of hell, taking satisfaction in his reputation as a throat-slitter for hire. He never failed.

How had Ames survived? Garrett wondered. True, Sharpy was not the smartest criminal in London, but he was skilled at what he did and he was ruthless. He savored the work, especially when the victim was a woman. It was hard to believe that he had been unable to deal with Evangeline Ames.

But this was the same bitch who had somehow managed to send Douglas hurtling down a flight of stairs to his death, Garrett reminded himself. The wave of fury rolled through him.

He seized the small pot of stage makeup and hurled it into the mirror. The glass cracked, shattered and rained shards on the dressing table.

When he could breathe again, he opened the small drawer in the dressing table and took out the pistol.

I
t took her a few minutes to catch her breath and collect herself. When Evangeline opened her eyes she saw that Lucas was watching her with an unsettling expression. It was shatteringly intimate and tender but there was masculine possessiveness in the look, as well. It was as if he had learned her deepest, most closely held secret and that he wanted her to know that he knew it.

She raised her head from his shoulder, still slightly dazed. What on earth did a woman say at a time like this?

“Lucas,” she whispered. She traced the strong angle of his jaw with her fingertips, lost in the wonder of what had just happened.

He caught her fingers in one hand and kissed them. His eyes met hers. “Are you all right?”

She smiled. “I think so. That was … extraordinary.”

“Yes,” Lucas said. “It was extraordinary.” He smiled. “But you are an extraordinary woman, Evangeline Ames.”

She realized with a start that she was still draped across his thighs
in the most wanton manner imaginable. The wrapper had fallen open and the hem of her nightgown was crumpled above her thighs.

Mortified, she scrambled off his lap and got to her feet. She was not the only one who was partially undressed. Lucas’s shirt had come undone and the front of his trousers was still open. It required an act of will not to stare at the broad expanse of his sleekly muscled chest, but she dared not drop her gaze any lower.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said.

“There is no need to say anything.” Lucas leaned down and pulled off his boots. “You are a passionate woman. Passion is a normal emotion. It does not require words. Except, I suppose, in sensation novels.”

She glared. “I am not a naive young girl, sir. I have read a great number of sensation novels and I am an author of such stories, if you will recall. I am an expert on the subject.”

“Of course.” He stood up and stripped off his shirt. “My apologies.”

She straightened her shoulders. “It is not as though I was unacquainted with desire before our”—she fluttered a hand, searching for the right word—“our
encounter
. I have been kissed any number of times.” She frowned, trying to recall the exact figure. “At least three times, I believe.”

“Ah, yes, that would account for your expertise.”

She frowned. “Although I must admit that until tonight I was obliged to use my imagination when it came to describing certain sensations. This experience tonight has been very educational, I must say. Enlightening, actually.”

“Happy to have been of service, my dear author.” He gave her a lazy smile, the sort of smile a lion might wear after dining on a plump gazelle. “In future, rest assured that I will be delighted to make myself available for additional research. I hope you will consider me a source of inspiration.”

She made a face. “Now you are laughing at me.”

“Never, Miss Ames.” He stepped out of his trousers. “Well, perhaps a little.”

It finally dawned on her that he was undressing in front of her. She was shocked, almost—but not quite—speechless.

“Whatever are you doing?” she gasped.

“Preparing to bathe in that pool directly behind you. Would you care to join me?”

She was aghast. At least she ought to be aghast, she told herself. “You expect me to
bathe
with you?”

“It seems to me that after the intimate connection we have just enjoyed, a bath together is hardly an outrageous suggestion. Sounds quite pleasant, in fact. We are already naked.”

He was certainly naked, she thought. It was instructive to look at him. The only other nude males she had seen had been marble statues. The real thing was far more interesting. The sleek, powerful muscles of Lucas’s shoulders and thighs made her want to touch him.

“Only one of us is nude,” she pointed out.

“An oversight on my part.” He walked toward her. “Next time we must try to find a bed. It would be a good deal more comfortable than a stone bench, don’t you think?”

Next time
. The words rang in her head, echoing endlessly. He was talking about a next time. That was both thrilling and unnerving. Clarissa and Beatrice’s warning flicked at the edge of her awareness.
We do not want to see you hurt, Evie.

Lucas came to a halt directly in front of her and grasped the lapels of her wrapper.

She cleared her throat. “I have been thinking about what you said earlier concerning the properties of the pools in this room.”

“Yes?” He pushed the wrapper off her shoulders and let the garment fall to the floor. “What did I say? I seem to have forgotten.”

“Something about how the currents distort finely tuned mechanisms like pocket watches and one’s sense of time.”

“What of it?” He brushed his mouth across hers.

She felt the dazzling heat rise within her again just as it had earlier. She struggled to hang on to common sense. But it was hopeless. He was kissing her throat. She was vaguely aware that he was pulling her nightgown upward, above her hips.

“You mentioned that the pool in this room was known to induce a peculiar sort of excitement.”

He got the nightgown off over her head and flung it aside. “I did try to warn you.”

“Yes, you did.” She heaved a small sigh. “Perhaps I was somewhat overstimulated by the currents in this chamber.”

“Evangeline—”

“No need to apologize, sir.” She swept one hand out in a silencing gesture. “What’s done is done and I must admit that my only regret is that I took advantage of you.”

“Let us get one thing clear between us. You did not take advantage of me.”

He picked her up in his arms.

She clutched his shoulder. “Are you quite certain? I behaved in what can only be described as an extremely forward manner.”

“I assure you that I would be delighted to have you behave in such a manner at any time in the future.”

“You are teasing me again, Lucas.”

“Perhaps.” He walked to the edge of the pool. “But only because you are stirring up a great deal of melodrama over nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing,” he repeated.

A tiny whisper of dread roiled her senses. Perhaps the passionate
embrace had meant little to him, she thought. He was, after all, an experienced man of the world.

He started down the steps into the sparkling waters. She rallied swiftly. She, too, had experience of passion and desire now, she thought. Thanks to Lucas she had known the ultimate connection with a man. Her writing would be all the better for it.

“Perhaps you are right,” she said. “I am making too much out of this, aren’t I?”

“I think so,” Lucas said. “But that is no doubt because you are an author and therefore given to dramatic turns of phrase.”

“No doubt,” she agreed.

He descended deeper into the warm bath with her in his arms. There would never be another night like this one, she thought. She would regret it until her dying day if she did not allow herself to savor it to the fullest.

With a soft sigh, she abandoned herself to the moment and the silken caress of the bath.

Lucas sat down on one of the submerged pool benches, Evangeline cradled in his arms. The warm, intoxicating waters swirled gently around them.

“How did you alleviate the fever in my blood tonight?” he asked after a while.

“I can’t explain it,” she admitted. “Not entirely. I sensed the unnatural heat in your aura and I … cooled the currents until they felt normal.”

“Have you done such a thing before?”

“Not exactly.” This was the last thing she wanted to talk about, she thought. Only Beatrice and Clarissa knew her dark secret. What would Lucas think of her if he knew what she had done—what she was capable of doing? “Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. But only one other time and the effect was quite the opposite. I did not know I
could do what I did on that occasion, either. Not until the moment was upon me.”