Etiquette With The Devil (39 page)

Her body moved beneath his, arching up to take him deeper. “Promise?” she sighed, rolling her hips. Her breath hitched as his hand let go of hers and trailed down the outline of her body. God, she was perfection, her skin softer than he remembered.

“Yes,” he struggled to breathe out. With a wicked slip of his finger, he reached between them and circled the small pearl between her thighs until she writhed under him. Time, damn it. He wanted more time to discover her, but he was too hungry to have all of her.

She shattered around him, crying out as his he quickened his thrusts, his own end in sight. “Yes,” he said again, kissing her until her breath was his own. Her mouth drew him in as he groaned, his body tensing she licked the bead of sweat dripping down his cheek. He pulled out and spent himself onto the sheets, averting his eyes from her stare.

They were a tangled sea of limbs and salt as the air hung heavy with the smell of sex.

“You found me,” she whispered, Bly gazed down to her, his fingers brushing away the tears at her eyes, those beautiful haunting eyes.

“Always, love.” He raised her palm to his mouth and kissed the life lines etched there, his teeth grazing the thin skin of her wrist until he kissed her there, too. Her heart bumped against his chest, a skipping beat that echoed his own. He watched as the faintest smile turned at her swollen lips. “Always.”

*

The sun was too orange for it to be morning. Clara rubbed the tiredness from her eyes and smiled. It was a new experience to wake in her husband’s bed.

He lay on his back, his head lulled slightly to the side. His mouth, the lips Clara wanted to press hers against very much in that instant, were parted, and she listened to the steady rhythm of his breathing. He looked as if he finally found peace, the line that had etched itself between his brows erased, and she smiled more because of it.

A lock of his hair lay over his eye and the flicking daylight made the angles of his face even more breathtaking. Her fingers itched to caress his skin. His beautiful weathered skin. She wondered if he would ever pale under the weak English sun or if he would remain so distinctly bronzed for the rest of his years.

Her eyes traced the tattoos, ones she had never had time to see in light. She sat up a bit, leaning on her elbow to study them, when she noticed the stained sheets at the bottom of the bed.
Blood
.

The man was impossible. He must have stepped in glass. Of course, it would take losing his foot to say something. And even that was debatable.

She pushed herself up further and pressed a kiss against the scruff of his unshaven face. His eyes parted instantly, large hazel orbs that sparked with the same happiness his lips moved to mirror. “Mrs. Ravensdale,” he said, his voice as rough as the stubble on his face.

Clara’s heart danced in that funny flutter once more. She wondered if there would ever be a time when he did not affect her so. She brushed back the hair over his eyes, slowly drawing her fingers across his forehead, happy that for once, she had time to relish the sensation of touching him. “I believe I have a title now,” she whispered, stealing another kiss.

“You do. You’re my wife.”

Her fingers twitched at the word wife, skipping over his forehead like a pebble springing over a pond’s surface. “Your foot is bleeding,” she said, desperate to change subjects.

Bly craned his head around her so that he could see. “Hmm,” he said in a throaty murmur. He did not seem overly bothered as his hand skimmed over the curve at the small of her back.

Clara scrambled from the bed, just quick enough to escape his outstretched hand beckoning her back to his side. She shrugged on his discarded shirt from the floor and walked to the small washroom to get a wet rag. When she emerged, Bly was stretched out, his arms behind his head, the sheets draped indecently low at his hips. Her lips begin to draw an ‘o’ as she stopped, feeling the band of gold around her finger burn and radiate through her body.

“You could have said something,” she said lamely, blinking back her momentary surprise and pressing forward across the room.

“Come back to bed.”

She shook her head as she sat on the edge, pulling back the sheets. The coarse hair of his leg brushed against her skin as she rested his foot on her naked thigh.

Clara washed off the dry blood on the bottom of his foot and saw that he had not one, but three pieces of glass stuck in his foot. She looked at him, furrowing her brow in frustration at his silence. Her eyes darted to the bedside table and thought that now that she had him so thoroughly exposed, she should press for his secrets. It would be a good time, but not the best time, so she glanced back at his foot and pulled the first piece of glass free with her fingers.

“Ow,” he said. She quirked a brow as she peeked up, and smiled. The low rumble of his laugh vibrated through the room. “You don’t fool me, sir. I remember you trying to pull a bullet out of your chest once. A piece of glass is nothing.”

“I could use some womanly sympathy.”

“Scoundrel,” she said, as she reached for the second piece of glass. Clara began humming as she pressed the cloth to his foot, stemming the fresh flow of blood while she waited for the third. “Last one,” she said wincing. It was stuck in rather deep. Surely, it hurt, even as he howled playfully, she knew he was in pain and that upset her. “Hold still.” She pulled the last of the glass out and washed away the blood before bandaging up his foot. She rubbed her hands up the length of his calf, fascinated by both the hard muscles under her under fingers and the quick turn of his eyes—once playful, growing licentious.

She looked away, feeling the color rise to her cheeks.

Bly sat forward and hauled her up his body so she sat astride him. He pulled her down for a deep long kiss that she fell into until the brightness of the room faded to black. For once, there was time to sip and savor each other’s bodies the way a man and woman should. He pulled at the shirt covering her body until the buttons popped off and scattered across the bed. Her necklace brushed his chest as she leaned down and kissed him again, caressing his lips with hers. Bly peeled off the shirt until she sat there exposed, drawing in his breath.

“I have dreamt of this,” he whispered. “If you only knew—”

The truth was that Clara did know, because she had endured those same dreams. Even when the darkness had claimed her and she hated Bly, she dreamt of his lips on her skin. She craved his touch. She longed to own a tiny corner of his heart.

But she couldn’t bear the happiness of the moment either, as the sun caught the barrel of the pistol, shattering against the wall in a million rays of white light. If he harbored secrets in his heart, there would be no room for her there, no entirely. Nor for the children or for Burton Hall.

Clara sat back up and pulled the sheet around herself with one hand. With the other, she traced the tiger tattoo stretching up his arm and followed the animal’s reach to the ugly scar above his heart. “This is new,” she said simply. She flashed her eyes up to his, then darted away to avoid the hungry look in his eyes.

“Yes.”

“And this?” she asked, sliding her fingers to the other side of his chest. She moved his arm and traced the curled tail of a scaled dragon down the length his ribcage. “Where did you get this?”

“In China.”

“Does it mean anything?”

“Nothing important.”

Clara nodded, biting down at the corner of her mouth as she traced the width of his sharp hipbone. “And this?” she asked, her voice a dusky whisper.

“You’re a bluestocking. I suppose you know.”

She met his stare and nodded that she did know the meaning of that word. It was solely because of him that she understood its lofty weight. “
Diabolus
.”

“Say it again,” he said in a husky voice.

“I suppose it’s too late to reform you now. You have the name etched into your flesh.”

“It’s hard to change who I am, Clara.”

“Yes, but the devil?” She sat up straighter and looked him in the eye, trying to ignore the body beneath hers, eager with desire. “You have a good heart. You are not as terrible as you want me to believe.”

His head fell back into the pillow as his eyes squeezed shut, his face washed with pain. “Yes, I am.”

“I suppose now would be a good time to tell me why you were watching our door with a gun last evening.”

“No.” He grimaced, looking as if the hands of truth were strangling him before her eyes, but he made no answer. “Were you ever going to confess to why you ran away to Burton Hall?”

She drew back.

“Graham told me. I told you if you were in danger…”

“Mr. Oscar Shaw attacked me after my employer died. That much you guessed. He came after me and cornered me, after I refused to sign over the inheritance she left me over to his control.”

“That bloody—”

“I did what was necessary. I injured him, and fled. It wasn’t until Mr. Graham arrived and blackmailed me with his death that I knew…I’m a criminal, Bly.”

Clara shifted over the mattress, attempting to untangle herself.

He reached out and circled his fingers around her wrist. “I’ve known because he told me before I left. I knew that first night when I saw you in the hallway. I knew by the way you hedged around the house, trying to slip away and disappear. I’ve known and it makes no difference to me that some blackguard got what was coming to him.” Bly sat up and kissed her collarbone. “But I hate that I haven’t been able to protect you. And I hate that I’ve allowed Graham to ruin the happiness we found.”

“I don’t want to alarm you,” he said. “It’s nothing for you to worry about.” The edge to his voice was cause for concern enough. “There are some men after me an—”

“And that doesn’t concern me?” She pulled to free herself again, but his grip was firm. “You wish to shelter me from everything, but what of you? Who will shelter
you
?” Clara laid her face to rest on his chest, her lips kissing the scar from her terrible handiwork. “You promised you wouldn’t leave.”

“I won’t.”

“Bly, I can see it in your eyes. You are terrified.”

“Only of losing you. Of losing the children and Burton Hall.”

“And what of me? Can I not fear for you?” An unnerving silence fell between them. “You are a selfish man,” she finally added.

“I’ve never hidden that from you.”

That much was certainly true. She sat up, prepared to leave so her maid could ready a bath. Surely, some breakfast was in order, too. Then she wished to go home and see the children.

“I’m an agent of the crown, Clara. Was,” he quickly corrected as she straightened up.

“You said you were an antiquarian.”

“I also said I was something like a thief. After I left the army, I was recruited by the War Office to go to the places others were too fearful of because I had a certain reputation. I charted the wild and I lived in the wild. I stole things from men with the wildest of spirits. They sent me because they thought I was fearless. But I was only a man who didn’t wish to live.”

“I don’t believe that. You live—”

“I met you,” he said, pulling her close to kiss the tip of her nose, “and eventually, I found that I no longer wished to die.”

She thought perhaps he would say something more, something she longed to hear, but the words never came. “Who are they?”

“I don’t know, love. I wish I did.”

“I won’t let them take you away. You only just returned to me.” Clara collapsed against his chest again and listened to the beat of his heart. It was steady and reassuring. She hazarded a guess that it beat for her. “Take me home, Bly”

“I’m not leaving this bed while you’re in it.”

She pressed her lips against his chest, softly laughing.

“If you want to go home, we will go home today. But first,” he growled, pulling the hair away from her neck. “I believe I haven’t finished saying good morning to my wife yet.”

B
ly was not convinced he had truly succeeded at winning his wife’s heart in London, but he had come close.

At least now, as they stood in the doorway of the music room, she did not flinch as his hand wrapped around her waist. Clara leaned against him instead, wrapping her hand over his as they spied on the children and Isaac.

Grace sat at the piano, her small legs dangling from the piano bench as her hands moved over the keys without the clumsy rhythm of a new player. She did not play like a child; in fact, she played better than Clara. How such tiny fingers could play without flaw drew Bly’s attention away from the way Clara’s hair tickled the underside of his chin.

Barnes swung Minnie around in the clumsiest of waltzes while Molly sat in the corner and clapped, cheering on the pair’s performance. Bly looked to Rhys and Theo, who both danced by the piano bench, captured with the tenor of the cords.

Minnie tripped over the duke’s feet and the two came to a stumbling halt. Grace stopped playing and turned on the bench. A small crowd of eyes fell upon Bly and his bride, surprised.

“Hello.” Bly stood there, waiting, suddenly uneasy at the thought that all of this was his. He had built a home and now there was a family there for him if he wished.