“I expect it is the teacher in me. You, sir, are in the business of providing answers. I am not in that line, however.”
“What is your line?”
“My task is to teach my students how to ask the right questions.”
T
HE DOGS GREETED
them joyously when Ambrose opened the garden door of the mansion. The first thing that struck Concordia was that the house was unexpectedly warm and well lit for that hour of the night. The fires should have been banked hours earlier, she thought.
“There you are.” Mrs. Oates appeared from the kitchen, a tray of tea in her hands. “About time you two got home.” Her eyes widened when she caught sight of Concordia. “What on earth happened to your clothes, Miss Glade?”
“It is a long and somewhat complicated story,” Concordia said, patting Dante.
“Pardon my curiosity, but is that a
towel
you’ve got wrapped around your head?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Miss Glade suffered an unfortunate accident this evening,” Ambrose said. “She needs a warm fire and a robe.”
“Certainly, sir. The library is quite cozy. She can wait there until Mr. Oates gets the fire going upstairs in her bedroom.” Mrs. Oates bustled off down the hall. “Come along. I was just taking some tea in to everyone.”
“The girls are still awake?” Concordia asked. “But it is nearly three in the morning. They should have been in their beds hours ago.”
“Everyone wanted to wait up for you.”
Mrs. Oates went through the door of the library. Bright, cheerful laughter floated through the opening.
Ambrose ushered Concordia into the room. “Brace yourself. I have a feeling it is going to be some time before any of us goes to bed.”
“I don’t understand.” Concordia went briskly into the library. “Why is everyone up and about at this hour? The girls need a proper night’s rest. You know very well that I feel quite strongly about such matters.”
She stopped short at the sight of Hannah, Phoebe, Edwina and Theodora. The four were seated around a table. Each held a hand of cards. There was a small stack of coins in front of every girl.
The four were not alone at the table. An elegant, silver-haired gentleman sat with them. He had a deck of cards in his long fingers.
“Good heavens,” Concordia said in her most carrying voice. “Are you young ladies engaged in
gambling
?”
The giggling halted suddenly. The girls stared at Concordia in openmouthed shock.
“Oh, no, Miss Glade,” Phoebe said quickly. “We were just performing some extremely interesting experiments to test the laws of probability.”
“How odd,” Concordia said. “It looks exactly like a game of cards, complete with wagers.”
“Miss Glade,”
Edwina burst out. “What happened to your clothes?”
Theodora stared. “He has ravished her again.”
“Ruined,” Hannah whispered. “Just like Lucinda Rosewood.”
The lean, distinguished-looking man at the game table rose with a supple grace that belied his obvious years.
“Home from the ball at last, I see.” He surveyed Concordia in her gentleman’s topcoat and towel. Then he looked at Ambrose, who still wore his footman’s shirt and trousers. “A costume affair, was it?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Ambrose walked toward the brandy table with an air of determination. “Concordia, allow me to present John Stoner.”
“Mr. Stoner.” Concordia adjusted her spectacles. “So you are alive, after all, sir. I must say, this is a pleasant surprise.”
Stoner laughed, a rich, hearty sound that warmed the library more effectively than the fire on the hearth.
“I trust you are not too disappointed.” He bowed again, this time over Concordia’s hand.
The glint in his eye made her smile.
“On the contrary,” she murmured. “It is a relief to know that you are not buried in the garden.”
“Not yet, at any rate,” Stoner said cheerfully. “Come and sit by the fire. You look as if you could do with a glass of brandy.”
She had been through too much tonight to waste her energy on what would no doubt be a thoroughly useless lecture concerning the evils of gambling, Concordia decided.
“What a splendid notion,” she said.
S
ome time later Concordia sat in front of a cozy fire in her bedroom, bundled in a nightgown, robe and slippers. Hannah and Edwina were curled on the rug at her feet. Phoebe perched on a chair. Theodora drew a brush slowly and methodically through Concordia’s hair, holding each long section out to be dried by the flames.
“Both Mr. Trimley and Mr. Larkin are dead?” Phoebe asked.
“Yes.” Concordia had answered the question several times in the past twenty minutes. But she was patient in the face of the girls’ need to be certain. “You are all safe. Neither of those two men can harm any of you.”
Hannah wrapped her arms around her knees and gazed uneasily into the flames. “Now that there is no more danger, are you certain that you want to keep us with you, Miss Glade?”
Concordia did not hesitate. “Absolutely positive. We may not be a real family but we have been through a great deal together. What we have experienced has formed a connection among the five of us that is every bit as strong as the bond of blood that unites those who are related.”
Theodora smiled wryly. “It certainly feels stronger than the bond Edwina and I share with Aunt Agnes and Uncle Roger. They could not wait to get rid of us after our parents died.”
Phoebe pushed her spectacles more firmly onto her nose. “What of Mr. Wells?”
“What about him?” Concordia asked.
“He has been very nice to us but he may not want to take us on permanently.”
Hannah nodded somberly. “That is true. Why would he want to keep the four of us around after the two of you are married?”
“That is quite enough of that sort of chatter,” Concordia said coolly. “Let me make something clear. There has been no talk of marriage between Mr. Wells and myself.”
The door opened quietly. Ambrose looked at the group gathered around the fire. “Did I hear my name mentioned?”
Hannah turned quickly toward him. “Miss Glade says that there has been no talk of marriage between the two of you.”
The girls all looked at him for confirmation of that accusation.
Ambrose folded his arms and leaned against the door frame. “Now that is a bold-faced falsehood. I distinctly recall a conversation on the subject. It took place in a cab on our way to interview Mrs. Hoxton.” He met Concordia’s eyes. “Don’t you recollect it, Miss Glade?”
“It was a rather murky discussion, as I recall,” she said weakly.
“There you have it,” Ambrose said to the girls. “Murky or otherwise, there has been a conversation.”
“Thank goodness,” Theodora said, looking greatly relieved.
“Excellent news,” Phoebe declared happily.
“That settles it, then,” Edwina said.
Hannah smiled. “For a while there, I confess I was concerned that there might be a problem in that direction.”
“If you are all quite satisfied,” Ambrose said, “I think it is past time that everyone went to bed. No need to rise early. Breakfast will be served late tomorrow.
Very
late.”
He stood to one side to allow Phoebe, Hannah, Edwina and Theodora to file through the doorway. When their footsteps sounded on the stairs, he looked at Concordia.
“Are you all right?” he asked. He remained firmly lodged in the doorway, making no move to enter the bedroom.
“Yes,” she said automatically. Then she wrinkled her nose. “No, actually, I’m not. I feel very much the same way I did the night we all escaped from the castle. Uneasy. Restless. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Perfectly normal,” he said. “I believe I explained that night that the sensations are a result of the danger and excitement you experienced. I am not immune to them, either.”
“But you are obviously far more adept at dealing with such feelings.”
His mouth curved faintly. “Merely a little more skilled at concealing them.”
She looked at him. A tide of passion and a deep sensual hunger rose up inside, closing her throat so that she could not speak. She realized that she wanted him to kiss her more than she had ever wanted anything in her life.
Control yourself, she thought. You cannot throw yourself at him. Not
here in your bedroom, at any rate. The entire household would be aware of what was happening.
She clutched her hands very tightly together in her lap. “Yes, well, I expect we both need a good night’s sleep.”
“Very true.” He moved out of the doorway and into the hall. “But, like you, I do not think that I will be able to get much rest until my anxious sensibilities have been calmed.”
“And just what do you intend to take to soothe your sensibilities, sir? Another glass of brandy?”
“No,” he said, looking thoughtful. “I believe I will take a stroll.”
“You’re going for a
walk
? At this hour?”
“I will not be going far. I thought I would take my relaxing stroll in the conservatory. I find it a very soothing environment.”
“I see.”
He smiled slowly. “The conservatory is not only good for the nerves, it is extremely private. If two people were to meet there by chance at this hour of the night, for example, no one else in the household would be aware of the encounter.”
He walked off down the hall.
Concordia contemplated the open door of her bedroom.
Someone, Mrs. Oates, no doubt, turned down the lamps in the library and the halls. The faint patter of the girls’ footsteps ceased on the floor above.
The house gradually fell silent around her. She could not take her eyes off the empty doorway.
H
e waited for her in the shadows of a cluster of palms, not knowing if she would come to him, uncertain what he would do if she did not appear.
The conservatory was pleasantly warm from the effects of the heating pipes that had been installed in the floor. Moonlight poured down through the glass panes of the high, curved ceiling and splashed on the leaves of the enclosed jungle. The scent of the rich earth and lush greenery filled his senses.
It took far more willpower than it should have to stand quietly in the darkness. There had been times in the past when he had wanted a woman after a night of violence. But until he met Concordia he had not
needed
one, not with this desperate longing, at any rate. He was Vanza— master of his passions.
But with Concordia everything was different. She threatened his self-mastery in ways that no one else ever had, and he did not give a damn.
The moonlight shifted subtly. The last of the house lights went out. A bleak, melancholy sense of loss ghosted through him.
She was not coming, after all.
What had he expected? She had been through a harrowing experience tonight. She was exhausted.
He heard the door of the greenhouse open.
The despair of a moment ago was instantly drowned beneath the rising tide of exultant anticipation.
He watched her come toward him, an ethereal figure in her pale dressing gown. When she moved through a swath of silver light, he saw that she had not put up her dark hair. It fell around her shoulders in lustrous waves, creating mysterious shadows that partially veiled her face.
He could have sworn in that moment that he was caught in a spell cast by a sorceress.
She moved cautiously down an aisle of thick greenery, pushing broad leaves aside with one hand.
“Ambrose?” she called softly.
It dawned on him that she could not see him. He broke through the shimmering trance she had created and walked out of the shadows of the palms.
“Over here,” he said.
He went toward her with the same sense of certainty that he had felt all those years ago when he cast his lot with John Stoner and the way of Vanza.
When she saw him, she ran toward him without a word.
He opened his arms and caught her close, glorying in the soft
warmth and weight of her body against his own. Her arms went around him. She clung to him as though she would never release him and raised her face for his kiss.
When their mouths came together, he knew that tonight her need was equal to his own. The realization that she wanted him with the same intense desire that he felt for her swept away the remnants of his self-control. There were things he had planned to say to her tonight if she came to him, but he could no longer think clearly enough to recall the words. Not that it mattered, he thought. Talking was no longer important.
He stripped the robe from her shoulders and dropped it on a bench. When he undid the fastenings of her nightgown, her small, elegantly curved breasts fit perfectly in his hands. He could feel the tight, hard buds of her nipples against his palms.
She tore at the fastenings of his shirt with trembling fingers. When she got the garment apart, she flattened her palms across his chest, covering the Vanza tattoo. The heat of her hands on his skin caused everything inside him to clench with need and desire.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a folded tarp on a nearby table. He seized the sheet of canvas and flung it full length on top of a large patch of young, green ferns.
Concordia made no protest when he pulled her down onto the makeshift bed. She kissed his throat and sank her nails into his shoulders. He pushed the nightgown up around her waist and found the full, wet, voluptuous place between her legs. The scent of her created a fever in his brain.
She pushed herself against his hand, shivering and urgent. He had to concentrate hard in order to open his trousers. She encircled him with her fingers and drew the tip of her thumb across the head of his erection, exploring and testing.
The raging demands of his body overwhelmed him. He had to sink himself into her or he would not be able to breathe. Shaking with the effort required to control his entrance, he pushed into her tight, supple heat. She tensed, drew a deep breath and then raised her knees to take him deeper.
When her release came upon her, he stopped fighting his own. Together they plunged into the whirlpool of sensation.
His last coherent thought before he was lost in the waves of satisfaction was that, whether or not Concordia was right when she told him that he was in the business of finding answers, one thing was certain. She was the answer to the questions that had awakened him in the middle of the night for most of his life.