Lord Monroe's Dark Tower: The Albright Sisters: Book 2 (15 page)

On the verge of lowering her to the ground, she put both hands to his shoulders and pushed. “Flavian, wait.” Her cool fingers went to each side of his face, and her gaze burrowed into the furthest recesses of his mind. He felt the question in her body, the beseeching touch of her fingertips: ‘I am the lamb, you, the lion. What will you do with me?’ He understood the question, but couldn’t bring himself to answer. Valencia’s eyes, like black bottomless pools, flickered in his thoughts. So many years ago, he’d asked that same question of her. Being a lion, she consumed him. And then, when she so desperately needed his help, he’d been powerless … worse, he’d been reluctant. He stepped out of Claire’s grasp. “I wasn’t thinking.”

Fire leapt into her eyes. “Not thinking?” She ran several paces away. Pointing at him, she cried, “You make a mockery of my heart. One moment your lips burn against mine, the next, you ignore me.”

“I … I’m sorry.”

Doubled over with frustration, she yanked on the skirts of her dress. “I don’t want your apology. I want your love.”

“You have it.” Before he could retract the words, they hovered in the air between them. All went still. Even the birds ceased their song. Claire clutched her heart. “Why would you say that?”

“I love you.” He stepped toward her, though his chest ached and his throat went dry. “God help you, but I love you.” At her feet he dropped to his knees, hat in hand. “I love you.”

She shook her head in wonder. “Then why can’t we marry?”

“Harm will come of it.”

“Tell me how.”

He clutched her legs and drew her to him. “I love you,” he repeated over and over. Slowly, her knees bent, her hands smoothed his hair and caressed his ears. Her touch, so delicate and tender, filled him with a need worse than hunger, worse than thirst. He held her — held her as if he would never see her again. And by inches, she melted into him until she lay beneath him, her head pillowed in the fragrant yellow flowers. He did not look in her eyes, but kissed her lashes, her cheeks, the curve of her brow, and finally, the soft portals to her soul.

She murmured, “I love you, too … more than my life.”

Fear for their future ripped through him, but he could not stop his hand from finding her breast. With a low moan, she squirmed ever so slightly. The action sent a rampage of blood through his veins, all headed in one direction. Just once more before she disappeared, he had to touch her, had to taste her and feel her strong fingers clutch the muscles of his back. Dizzy, fumbling with the drawstring at the front of her gown, he whispered, “Help me.”

Ravenous and blind, the two of them yanked on ties, popped buttons and finally unveiled her pearl-white body in the last pewter light before darkness. Plump, round and pale as new milk, her breasts sent a jolt of excitement zinging through him. He straddled her, his mind in a tumult, his eyes feasting on her beauty.

Sliding his hands down the whole delicious length of her, he rested his palm on her perfect mound. His fingers lingered in the stiff curls. With the gentlest pressure, he parted her thighs by slipping a thumb between them. A small gasp left her lips as his fingers explored her slick folds. Swollen and ready, she lay still, frozen in the constraints of propriety. But he would not tolerate correctness. He continued stroking until her stomach quivered and her knees bent … until she flung her arm across her brow and writhed in ecstasy.

He did not take her. He was proud of himself for that, because she would still be able to offer herself as a virgin to some London fop. As he ran his thumb along her brow, the image of her with another man tormented him, but it was for the best. He rolled away and studied the sky. A few early stars pierced the budding night. “Would you like to see my favorite spot in the world?”

She laughed. “I shall have to say this just became mine.”

That pleased him. At least she would remember their time in this little meadow. He helped her to her feet. Hiding her breasts in her arms, she reached for her dress. “Let me admire the view just a little longer,” he said, taking her hands. She kept her eyes down, but allowed him to move her arms to her sides. Her pallor seemed ghostly in the twilight as if she would disperse with the wind.

He gathered their clothes into a ball and taking her hand, led her toward a cluster of bushes.

Stepping into the midst of the shrubs, darkness swallowed them. Flavian kept his fingers twined in hers, the warmth of her pulsing happiness flowing through him.

He stopped and moved aside so she could stand by him. They were on the shore of a lake halved by a silver path from the waning moon. Putting the bundle of clothes on an exposed tree root, Flavian walked into the water and dove under the moon.

• • •

Claire fretted as the glassy surface of the lake remained unbroken. Flavian’s strange despair … She wished there were a simple remedy to cure him. Bergamot and thyme … rosemary and slippery elm … She stepped closer watching the still water, and then he popped up, hair slick and dark, his shoulders glistening wet. He turned and smiled. The moon cast shadows defining the hollows beneath his shoulder blades, the line of his ribs. He raised an arm, sinewy and white, gesturing to her. Her heart twisted. Would it be possible to stop the onslaught of love tugging her into the lake?

“The water is wonderful,” he said. “Can you swim?”

She swallowed and nodded. “My uncle taught all of us.” Black wavelets tapped at her ankles. Even in the shallows the lake bottom was invisible, her pale feet the only thing she could distinguish beneath the surface. Yet, even as she contemplated retreating to the shore, she knew she would go to him. Nothing could drive away her need — not his reluctance, not Abella, and not her own doubts.

A second later, the cold water closed over her head. It made her feel alone and safe. She opened her eyes, put her arms out, and pushed against the liquid. It compelled her forward until suddenly his legs, wavery and pale, came into view. She swam to within inches of him then propelled herself to the surface. Together they dripped and smiled.

The troubled look came back into his eyes. “Don’t,” she begged, putting her palms on his chest.

He tipped his head back, eyes on the sky.

“Look at me,” she begged. The line of his mouth tightened. “Look at me.”

Finally his gaze met hers. With great sadness, he moved a wet tendril behind her ear. Then, as if standing on the edge of an emotional cliff, his mouth fell on hers — wet, powerful lips, insisting on taking her over the cliff with him. She opened to sensation. Passion raced like fire between them, igniting their slick, wet bodies once more. Their tongues dueled, delving first one then the other into the depths of the other’s being. The lake water was forgotten, the moon served no purpose, and the clouds scuttling across the sky went unseen.

He lifted her, wrapping her knees around his waist. When he left her mouth, it was to lave in the lake water dripping between her breasts — his tongue, his lips, kissing, sucking, lapping at the droplets as if he’d spent eternity in the dessert.

Their breath steamed hot on one another’s skin. She ran her tongue over the hard planes of his chest, taking his nipples into her mouth until they rose like rocks in a field.

He grunted and caught a thick mass of her streaming hair. Pulling her head back, he devoured her throat and breasts with a frenzy of kisses. Down her torso, he left a trail of heat until his head disappeared below the surface. He slipped an arm between her thighs and lifted her until she floated on her back. As she drifted, he stroked her soft folds until the spasms of sensation drowned her senses. He held her head above the surface as she curled in the water, twisting with pleasure and release.

When the spasms stilled, he nudged her face onto his shoulder. Still trembling with aftershocks of ecstasy, she nosed into his warmth, resting her head on his powerful bicep. With one arm slung across her chest, he slowly swam with her out to the middle of the lake.

A fish jumped and another immediately after it.

“Ah,
amore
,” he said.

They laughed and treaded water. A frog croaked, thick and guttural. Flavian was looking at the stars again. “What would you think of a young man … a boy … no … a young man … who caused great harm to a girl? Who did nothing to alleviate her suffering?”

Claire saw the immense pain darkening Flavian’s features. He waited for her response like a condemned man anticipates the noose. “I would tell him that true contrition brings about true redemption. I would tell him that every being learns from his mistakes, and I would explain that we are meant to live through tragedy. Not let tragedy destroy us.”

Looking at the stars, he seemed to contemplate her words. She hoped he would find comfort in them.

She looked at the stars too, and was startled when he rested his forehead on her chest, inviting her to stroke his hair.

“Marry me, would you?” he said.

Happiness shot through her every limb. At last, at last he was hers to love forever. “Lord Flavian Monroe, is that your proposal?” she whispered.

“It’s a bit damp, isn’t it?”

“Sopping, but I shall accept it all the same.”

He tilted his head back and shook his fist at the half-shadowed moon. “My bride to be! Do you hear me, night?”

She laughed, and he laughed too. Treading water, tangling their legs under the moonlit surface, they listened to the echoes of their joy bounce off the rocky shore.

• • •

At the door to her bedroom, Claire paused a moment, brought to a standstill by memories of Flavian’s body touching hers. Her mind still floated on the lake, experiencing the sensation of his hands, cooled by the water, stroking down her torso until his palm rested on her hip. She shivered. At last she’d reached him. The man loved her, and he wouldn’t retreat again. They would be married, and she would banish that haunted look in his eyes if it took all the herbs in the forest. She hugged herself and twisted the knob.

A horrible stench filled her nostrils the moment she entered the room. It was so appalling, she nearly retreated to the hall. Midnight had passed. The household was still. Could it be the maid forgot to empty the chamber pot? She checked, but the porcelain bowl was empty.

“Perhaps a trapped animal?” She followed her nose around the room, looking in the closet, under her bed, at the bottom of the drapes. Each time she thought she’d found the source, there was nothing there. The smell was so overpowering, she opened the windows flanking the bed and propped the door open. The odor subsided. It must have come from outdoors or the room next door.

Having solved the problem, Claire sat in front of her mirror, hoping to straighten the damp and tangled mess of her hair. She giggled remembering the powerful cry of frogs on the lake, seducing one another with commanding bellows. A sensual tremor skittered down her back when she pictured Flavian’s broad shoulders in the moonlight.

Having completed her toilette and donned her night shift, she brought the candle to the bedside and pulled back the covers. A scream left her lips. Nausea contracted her gut and her hand flew to her mouth. At the center of the bed, just where she was about to lie down, someone had left a pile of human waste. Claire backed away clutching her stomach. “Abella. Abella did this.” The reek was horrific, but more than anything, the desecration and insanity of the gesture terrified her. Abella would stop at nothing — nothing to chase her away from Flavian.

Could such monstrous behavior be what held him back? And, why, for God’s sake, didn’t he warn her of what might happen?

Jaw set in determination, Claire pulled her dressing gown from the closet and drew it around her. “I’m not afraid of you, Abella,” she said, leaving the room and closing the door behind her. “And I’m not afraid to tell your guardian what you’ve done.”

Flavian usually stopped in the library for a nightcap. She flew down the hall to find him, not trying to soften her footsteps as she ran. But when she swung through the door, the fire had died and the room was empty.

He might have gone to his apartment already. Rousing him from his bed would be improper to say the least, but she would not wait until morning. She would not hide the truth from him as Mrs. Gower insisted. The girl harbored a madness far deeper than perhaps he understood.

Storming down the passage to his door, Claire clenched her fists in rage. “If you want a battle, you’ve got a battle,” she spat.

At Flavian’s door, she knocked a few loud raps. “Flavian.” There was no answer. “My lord?” She rattled the doorknob. Still no response. She knocked a few more times, but gave up when she heard not a peep.

Where else would he have gone? For the next hour, Claire wandered the halls of Bingham Hall searching for Flavian, but to no avail.

Happening upon the kitchen, she accidently woke a scullery maid, who slept on a pallet by the stove. “It’s all right,” said Claire, motioning for the maid to go back to sleep. The girl lowered her head onto a pile of grain sacks, but kept one eye open, watching.

Claire opened the door to the cold storage and took the steps down. On a shelf shared with jars of pickled cabbage and elderberry jam, sat the jug containing the herbal brew she’d made Abella. The moment she uncorked it, she knew it wasn’t the medicine she’d created. The pungent spice of valerian was missing, and the color lacked the same red tone derived from St. John’s wort. Taking a sip, she recognized it as beet juice and molasses. Somehow, Abella must have got into the cold storage, poured the remedy out, and replaced it with this sugar water. But the girl had to have the support of the servants. Bingham Hall bustled with humanity. Apple Bess must have helped Abella make the food containing the holly berries; one of the footmen had to have carried that rotting barrel of wine into the tower, and surely, someone must have assisted the girl in creating this concoction to match the herbal remedy. But why? Abella had no money, no power. What did she do or say to these people to make them conspirators?

The scullery maid whistled slightly in her sleep, one skinny arm flung across her brow and rested on a nest of mousy-brown hair. Claire shook the girl’s shoulder. “Come with me.”