Lady of Sin (20 page)

“It only reminds me of the duties I avoid. I took my tour with a brother, and Ambrose has none.”

“A young man does not need a brother for such things, although one is good to have,” she said. “I am sure it was a special time for you and Philip. A great adventure together.”

He smiled reflectively. “Yes, a great adventure.”

“You never speak of it. I am sure there are wonderful stories. Do the memories pain you now that he is gone?”

“It was another life, another world. I try not to bore people.”

“Memories are not boring, James. Not when they are about someone we loved.”

His face fell. He shifted his weight and crossed his arms. He only relaxed when footsteps heralded the arrival of her wrap.

A series of discomforting reactions and impressions bombarded her. They swept like winds from different directions as she accepted her long mantle and James escorted her to her carriage. She could not absorb their meaning because they came in fast succession, blowing her thoughts like weightless leaves.

He closed the carriage door but put his face to the window, peering in at her. The resentful mood that had started this night poured off him, jumbling her reactions even more.

“Did you make that journey alone, Charlotte?”

His tone demanded satisfaction. Did he suspect Nathaniel had accompanied her? Had he learned of those discreet inquiries he had made here in London?

“Of course I did not journey alone. I had my abigail with me.”

She called for her coachman to drive her home.

“You are not paying attention,” Lyndale muttered. He had taken a post behind Nathaniel’s shoulder at the faro table. “What are you thinking with such a stupid wager?”

Nathaniel glanced back at his tormentor. “I thought you had tired of the game and left.”

“I only tired of the easy winnings you offered.”

“Then go find a bigger challenge and stop harping like an old woman. You are intrusive and irritating.”

“I am not harping, but voicing the obvious, which your own brain appears incapable of grasping. It is a friend’s obligation to be intrusive when his fellow man is on the path to ruin because he is foxed.”

“I am not foxed.”

“Then you have no excuse. You are losing to Abernathy, Knightridge.
Abernathy
.”

Nathaniel looked down the table at Abernathy’s glee.

Lyndale was right. He wasn’t paying attention and his play was badly off.

But then, his whole life had been off these two days since returning to town. He could not think about anything except the mystery woman who was no longer a mystery.

He had tried to distract himself tonight with the company of others, only to sit in this gaming hall saying nothing, hearing nothing. He had barely been aware that Lyndale had taken position behind him until the incessant mutters of criticism began.

He gestured for the dealer to skip him.

“Now, that is being a sensible boy,” Lyndale said. His voice carried a soothing note, as if he were speaking to an imbecile.

“I am not foxed,” Nathaniel repeated.

“Then perhaps you are ill.”

“Not the way you mean. I know who she is.”

“She?” Lyndale’s face fell to that uncharacteristic blandness.

“Yes,
she.
”

“Whatever is the man mumbling about?”

“Continue to feign ignorance and I will thrash you.”

“You will
try
to thrash me, you mean.” He looked down seriously. “By ‘she,’ do you mean your friend from my last party?”

“Yes.”

“You are sure?”

“Positive.”

Their gazes locked in tacit acknowledgment of who that lady was.

“Astonishing, isn’t it?” Lyndale said.

Lyndale did not know just how astonishing.

“So, now you know. I am therefore no longer constrained, and can tell you that I am very disappointed.”

Nathaniel rose to his feet. “Speak one word against her and—”

“Against her? Why would I do that? I am disappointed in
you
. I was as bad as they come, enthusiastically so, and
I
never took advantage of the sister of a friend.”

It was either hit Lyndale or walk away. Nathaniel strode to the side of the room. Lyndale followed, as if the move had been a quest for a private chat.

“I did not know who she was, remember?” Nathaniel said, turning on Lyndale at the edge of a wall lamp’s glow.

“And now you do. Since you have already broken the rule about a friend’s female relatives—”

“There is no such rule. You made it for yourself but only so you could narrow the field to women who would cause the least trouble. You are the last man in Britain to criticize. Hell, it was
your
damned orgy.”

Lyndale sighed with strained patience. “It was a good rule, as you have now learned. Have you spoken to her about it?”

“I offered to do the right thing, if that is what you mean.”

“Very decent of you. I assume she refused.”

Lyndale’s confident tone raised the devil in him. “Why would you assume that?”

“Because the lady does not like you. A masked encounter is one thing, but a lifetime is another.”

“She likes me better than you think.” He heard himself sound like a petulant boy, and that made his anger rise more.

“Since she refused, what are you going to do about it?”

It was a good question, and not an easy one to answer. It was the question that distracted him. There had been much of the grand finale in that last night together. It was as if they had grabbed at everything because they assumed it was their last chance.

Lyndale rested his shoulder against the wall. He reached into his coat and withdrew two cigars. In companionable silence they clipped and lit.

“It would help if the two of you could tolerate each other. Although when one sees such blatant dislike, one always wonders if . . .” Lyndale shrugged. “Well, if the arguing is not a way of concealing a physical irritation, so to speak.”

“If so, I will be bickering and arguing a long time.”

“Ah.” Lyndale looked down at his cigar. “Now you know why I never bought chambers at Albany. All those bachelors and servants. It is hard to be discreet.”

Nathaniel realized that Lyndale had guessed all of it. That he and Charlotte had more than spoken of what had occurred, and that the bad play at the faro table was caused by a hunger to do more than talk again.

Lyndale pushed away from the wall. “I hear the lady has returned to London from a fortnight in the country. If you call on her, convey my highest regards.” He walked away.

Nathaniel found a chair and finished his own smoke. Then he called for his horse.

He would return to Albany, where one could not be discreet, and lie on the bed of nails that waited there. He would think all night about Charlotte and try to decide whether and how this affair could continue in town.

And he would conclude nothing, because the biggest obstacle was not Albany or her relationship to one of his friends. It was whether in her heart she would always be watching him as she had that night from the end of the table, worrying that he would have to know the truth.

It was time for him to resolve the desire and distraction, and find out if he did.

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

C
harlotte waited for the girl to build the fire in the library. Usually she spent her mornings in her apartment, but today she had something to do.

Finally the servant left. Charlotte listened for silence outside the chamber, then rose and approached an old pedestal table tucked into a corner.

With its scrolled edges and Corinthian base, the table did not fit the decor. She had redecorated this room last fall in the Tudor style. Now turned legs and medieval floral carving marked the furnishings, and deep prints upholstered the chairs.

This classically inspired table should have been sold or moved. But it had always stood here, and it held Philip’s private papers. It had seemed at the time that to remove it would be akin to removing the last of him and his ghost, so she had let it stay.

She grasped the two pulls of the large drawer beneath the tabletop. Her will hesitated. A fit of confusion and nostalgia made her heart pound.

She had not opened this drawer in six years. After Philip’s death she had briefly assessed what lay in this drawer. Letters and papers and tokens of his childhood. Old school writings and missives from his father. It was the eclectric collection such as a person saves from habit or sentiment. She had been too grieved to read any of it then, and had never found the heart to do so since.

Now she wondered if there might be something in here that would explain Jenny’s story about Mrs. Marden and Harry.

If there was, did she want to see it?

Her heart and better sense said no. The instinct born last night in James’s presence would not quiet, however. It had to know. There could be something here that explained everything in ways that did not threaten anyone’s peace or place in the world, after all.

She opened the drawer.

A scent rose from its contents. One of dust and staleness and something else. Him.

Her eyes blurred as her heart recognized the crisp scent, so weak now, so vague. It filled her head for a moment, calling forth images from the past. Then the atmosphere of the library absorbed it. The odors of polish and burnt fuel and her own perfume overwhelmed it.

She eyed the stacks of letters and papers. He had been her husband, but she felt like an intruder, sneaking into things she ought not see. He had never shared any of this with her in life, and it did not seem natural to read it now.

She lifted a stack of letters anyway. These were not documents that belonged to the estate, or Mardenford. They were Philip’s intimate possessions, and now they belonged to her.

She shuffled through the letters, glancing at the signatures, wondering why he had saved these and not others. They all looked ordinary. Predictable. Letters from parents and friends, from his old tutor and nurse. She worked quickly, checking names and dates, fanning the sheets to find the oldest ones. Finally she saw a letter from a friend that must have been sent soon after Philip and James returned from their grand tour.

The tone was jovial and man-to-man. It referenced adventures and expressed envy. A few joking allusions implied this friend assumed all young men on tour experienced a carnal baptism. Nothing in the letter suggested that Philip had confided a great secret to this young man.

She returned to her search, looking for others from the time. She was concluding that she should give the drawer’s contents some order, when the library door suddenly opened.

Feeling like a thief caught in the act, she slid the letters back into the drawer as a footman approached with a salver.

She raised her eyebrows and glanced pointedly at the clock, which showed it had just passed ten o’clock. The servant grimaced an apology for the rudeness of this early caller.

“He was most insistent, and said you expected him, and told us he would see we were all released if we did not inform you he was here.”

She lifted the card but she already knew whose name it would bear.

There had been three letters, but no requests for a meeting. She had responded, but had not asked him to call, either. She doubted it was indifference on his part any more than it had been on hers. After a fortnight they both had affairs to attend to and things to think about.

She had mostly been thinking about him.

“I will see him,” she said.

She snatched a book from a shelf and sat in a chair near the fire.

She could see the pedestal table out of the corner of her eye. It seemed to shine and call attention to itself. It really stuck out, now that she thought about it. Anyone entering this library would notice it and wonder what was in that drawer. Nathaniel would probably guess at once that she had been pouring over its contents and ask why she cared about letters written a decade ago—

Her attention snapped to the door as it opened. Nathaniel walked in, looking so handsome her heart jumped. He was dressed for riding, in a black coat and gray trousers and high boots. The day’s breeze had mussed his golden hair and it looked too much as it did when a night of passion left it careless and free, with locks falling here and there to skim his brow.

He did not notice the table. His dark eyes locked on hers at once. He strode over and kissed her hand. They exchanged formal greetings for the footman’s sake.

Nathaniel glanced at where the man waited for instructions. “Get rid of him,” he muttered.

She dismissed the footman, who walked to the door. Very slowly. Each footfall took forever. All the while she suffered the full onslaught of Nathaniel’s presence. Her body thrilled to the silent power barely leashed by propriety.

His dark eyes coolly watched the footman retreat. He waited until the door latch sounded. Then he turned his attention back to her.

His gaze slowly lowered from her face down her body, to her knees and along the diagonal line of her legs to where her feet tucked behind the chair foot. His expression grew severe.

“Did you deliberately take the same pose to taunt me?”

She flushed. She had not realized—

“How many letters were you thinking we should write to each other before I saw you again?”

He did not sound angry, just determined and crisp.

“I thought we understood that we both needed time to think about things.”

He began his territorial pacing. Around her chair.

“Ah, yes. There are decisions to be made.”

“Exactly.”

“About
things
.”

She glared at him. His aura might be thrilling, but it could also be vexing.

“Things that might divide us,” he said. “So in order to think about things that might divide us, we must divide. Is that how
your
thinking goes?”

She did not care for his mocking tone. “It is not your place to scold me, least of all when I have behaved quite nobly and selflessly. Do not blame me for not knowing what to do now. I have no experience with liaisons at all, let alone with one that involves a man who might . . .”

He paused his steps in front of her and looked down. The
might
just hung there between them.

“So I am to retreat to my monk’s cell and pray and contemplate my choices. You will wait on your decision until I have made mine, I assume.”

The intensity of his attention had her swallowing hard. “I did not think it would be fair to seem to . . . I made it very clear that I will not have you blaming me for luring you to compromise. I will not be accused of trying to influence—”

“Any other woman would have extracted a promise from me in bed, damn it. But not you. Oh, no, you pretend it is separate instead of twisted together into a knot.”

“You apparently intruded this morning to have a row. Well, so be it.” She rose to her feet. “First, do not take that high-and-mighty tone with me. A woman who has Laclere as a brother grows immune to masculine demonstrations of pique.”

“Pique? You have not driven me to pique, Lady M. You are driving me mad.”

“I am trying to deal with you fairly. You should be grateful that I understand your need to make an honest decision and that I have given you the privacy to think clearly about what we learned and—”

“Think clearly? If you believe I have been thinking clearly for the last two days, or thinking about that great decision at all, you are much mistaken. The only thoughts I have had are of you naked and moaning and your mouth—”

“Mr. Knightridge.”
She glared at him, then to the door where who knew what servant listened.

“Damn the servants.” He yanked her into his arms and created instant silence with a punishing kiss.

For an instant she was stunned. Then she was lost.

All thoughts of servants disappeared. His kisses were savage and his caresses bold. Fire burst in her. It did not matter where they were or who might intrude. His desire so dominated that she could barely reciprocate, but she could feel. Her fevered and reckless responses urged on his ruthless demands for her passion.

They went mad. Mad and hungry and impatient. His embrace lifted her off her feet. The world spun. Suddenly she was facedown, bent over the side of a desk, the smoothly polished surface beneath her hands and cheek. Fabric fluttered at her head and air breezed her legs and thighs. Firm hands pulled down her drawers and wicked fingers caressed down her naked bottom until he stroked where she pulsed and ached.

She bit her fist to keep from moaning and begging. His impatience matched hers. Their joining was as hard as the first kiss, long and thorough. Helpless, she abandoned herself to the pleasure and insanity and ultimately to the wild finish.

It took forever to return to her senses. First she heard his deep breath sounding out the time. His body hovered over hers. His hands flanked her on the desk where he braced his arms.

They were still joined. She sensed a warmth on her back, through her clothes. A kiss. Then he pushed away and left her. She heard the subtle movements as he fixed his garments.

She also thought she heard a knock on the door.

She jerked up her head and stared at that sound. She sensed Nathaniel freeze behind her.

“Yes,” she called.

“The viscount is below,” a muffled voice reported. “Lady Laclere is with him, and most insistent that they see you.”

Nathaniel muttered a curse. He pulled up her drawers and lifted her to her feet. “Do you always receive them when they call?”

“Always. Oh, dear heavens.” She fluffed out her petticoats and felt frantically at her hair. “Of course, bring them up,” she called to the door.

With quick movements and hurried inspections, they assessed each other and smoothed hair and clothing.

“The servants suspect,” she said, combing his hair into place with her fingers. “Otherwise the footman would have entered, and Bianca does not stand on ceremony. She would have been three steps behind.”

“As I said, damn the servants. Although, almost being found like that by your brother—I think I am repaid for my father’s intrusion. I had no idea families could be such a nuisance.”

Despite his allusion to embarrassment, Nathaniel did not look the least bit chagrined. He wore an expression of utter confidence as he dealt with her skirts.

Actually, he looked like a man well contented. A man who had just settled something important.

He gave her a last inspection, then looked in her eyes. “I trust that we have an understanding about this thread in that knot, at least.”

She was in no condition to disagree. Nor did she have time to do so. The door opened and Bianca sailed in with Vergil at her side.

“Forgive the hour, but when you hear why we came you will not mind,” Bianca said. She strode toward them with a big smile. Her excited speed made the feather on her bonnet bob. Nathaniel’s presence did not make her miss a step.

The same could not be said for Vergil. He specifically paused when he saw her company, then approached slowly.

“Knightridge.”

“Laclere.”

Bianca acknowledged Nathaniel, but her attention was all for Charlotte. “Are you unwell? You appear a little flushed. No? I am glad. Now, here is the wonderful news that brings us so early. A week hence, on the coast, there will be a very special wedding.”

“Pen?”

“Yes. It will be quiet, of course, but it is long past time.”

Bianca’s excitement could not be contained, and Charlotte tried to match it with her own. She truly was happy for Penelope, but watching Vergil’s reactions to this visit distracted her a bit.

He kept looking at Nathaniel with a hooded speculation, and then at her with curiosity. She could see her brother calculating that this was an odd hour for Knightridge to be alone with her in this library.

She spotted the precise instant when the possible meaning of the closed door struck him. While Bianca chattered on about plans for the wedding, Vergil silently weighed the evidence.

He all but sniffed the air. Charlotte was heartily grateful he did not. It seemed to her that the scent of sex drenched the atmosphere.

“So we had to come at once and tell you,” Bianca finished. “A note by post would never do.”

“A note may have been more civilized and considerate, however,” Vergil said. “We have interrupted a meeting, my dear.”