One Dangerous Desire (Accidental Heirs) (18 page)

Despite the pain her parents had caused each other, Graves was right. Yet she suspected her father wouldn’t see their choices as equal. He was a man who’d devoted himself to business from his youth. She was a woman with a head full of daydreams and no practical experience in commerce at all.

“I know very little about running Sedgwick’s, Mr. Graves.”

“Luckily, I do.” He sat forward and balanced his elbows on his knees. “May I tell you one of the great secrets of managing a store like Sedgwick’s successfully, Miss Sedgwick?”

May nodded and scooted forward, balancing on the edge of the settee, eager to hear whatever wisdom Mr. Graves would impart.

“Hire good people.” He waited a beat before grinning. “Your father relies on me and many others to manage Sedgwick’s. Your input will be invaluable, but you will never need to bear the burden of managing the store on your own.”

“Thank you, Mr. Graves.” May reached out to take the older man’s hand, shaking it as if they’d just negotiated a favorable deal.

Soft knocks at the drawing room door drew their attention, and May released Mr. Graves’s hand.

A maid stepped forward and handed May a note. “A messenger has just come and delivered this for you, miss.”

The letter was short. Rex informed her that he would not join them for the evening meal, directed her to offer an apology to her father, and reminded her of his love. Her first impulse was to don a cloak and make her way to his house in Berkeley Square. What business would occupy him all evening, and why wasn’t he willing to share any of it with her?

That didn’t sit well. She hated how much it brought her father to mind and all the secrets he’d kept—or tried to keep—from her mother. Marriage to Rex was what she’d dreamed of since shortly after meeting him in that crowded glassware shop, but she didn’t want a marriage of secrets. Would he always shut her out? Were there parts of his life he’d insist on keeping hidden?

“Distressing news, Miss Sedgwick?” Mr. Graves asked in his calming tone.

“Yes and no. Would you mind dining with father alone? I must see a gentleman about a choice I’ve made.”

Mr. Graves caught her meaning immediately, grinned, and dipped his head. “By all means, Miss Sedgwick. Make your call, and I will do my best to dissuade your father from his ridiculous ultimatum.”

Chapter Twenty-One

R
EX
’
S HOUSEKEEPER WAS
considering whether to turn her away. May read it in the woman’s disapproving frown and the way her hands locked together until her knuckles turned white. But going away wasn’t a possibility. May had to see him.

“Are you on your own, then, Miss Sedgwick? At this hour?”

“Quite alone.” Fog blocked the glow of the moon, but the gas lamps on the street outside of Rex’s townhouse cast plenty of light for Mrs. Hark to determine that she was unaccompanied.

“So late at night?” The woman would be even more shocked if she knew May had walked the whole half a mile on her own. It seemed silly to rouse the coachman for such a distance.

May almost found the housekeeper’s hesitation amusing. If Mrs. Campbell opened the door to an unmarried lady on a single man’s doorstep in the middle of the night, she would no doubt cross-question her in the same chastising manner.

“I have no chaperone, as you see, Mrs. Hark, but I must speak to Mr. Leighton.”

The older woman glanced behind her, into the townhouse’s hallway, and pressed her lips together in a firm line.

“It is cold out here, Mrs. Hark.” May didn’t have to feign the quaver in her voice. “May I please come in?”

“Come on with you, then.” The woman stood aside to allow May to enter and dutifully took her coat and gloves.

“Where is he?” Some of the house’s lights were turned down low, but it was only half past nine. May couldn’t imagine Rex tucked away in bed at such an early hour, despite how much she liked the notion of him tucked into bed.

“Wait in his study, miss, and I’ll see if he’s at home.”

May resisted rolling her eyes at the woman’s formal tone. If Rex wasn’t at home, Mrs. Hark never would have admitted her.

The lady bustled toward the back of the house, retrieving a bowl of water and pile of rags on a hallway table on her way.

Rex’s study proved an utterly masculine yet cozy haven, overflowing with a kind of meaningful chaos. Emerald green wallpaper and dark wood furnishings were accented by a gray marble fireplace and leather wing chairs arranged in front of it. Huge strips of paper were splayed across his desk and affixed to the wallpaper. Plans for the Pinnacle and designs for what looked like factory equipment. Colossal, complex machines with pipes and wheels, metal bent and bolted at every angle. They were beautiful in their own industrial way.

“Where’s your father? Does he know you’re here?” Rex’s voice startled her, even as it shot warmth through every inch of her body.

May turned to find him approaching at a brisk stride. At the sight of him and the wound on his face, a cry bubbled up in her throat. She pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle it. “W-what happened to you?”

He didn’t answer, just kept coming at her until he had her pressed against the wall where she’d been examining the plans for the hotel. His hands came up, cupping her face. He didn’t touch her gently. This wasn’t a seduction. He held her firm, forced her gaze to his.

“Did you walk here on your own in the dark? You mustn’t be so foolish ever again.” He gripped her shoulders, pulled her an inch closer. Until his scent made her mouth water, and she felt the hard-muscled heat of his body against hers. “Do you understand me?”

“I understand.” She nodded and lifted her hand between them, desperate to touch his cheek where a hideous bruise already mottled his flesh. She hesitated. There was a cut too, and she didn’t wish to cause him pain. “Tell me what happened to you.”

Nothing in her question was meant to anger him, but he stiffened at her words and pulled away. When she took a step toward him, missing the feel of his body immediately, he held up a hand to ward her off.

“Come and sit by the fire,” he insisted, already moving toward one of the chairs, tugging it with his foot so that it was arranged nearer the heat.

None of the chill she felt now had anything to do with the cold weather outside but everything to do with his frosty demeanor.

She took the chair he offered and noticed that when he took the one opposite, he turned it slightly, so that his battered face was hidden from her view.

“Why did your father allow you to come out on your own?” The rough, ill-tempered edge in his tone piqued her irritation. She hadn’t come to discuss her father but to find out what business had detained Rex this evening. Clearly it had been a dangerous, violent business, and he seemed determined to behave as if she was the one at fault for venturing out at night alone.

“My father is occupied in the West End or wherever he goes most evenings. Doing whatever he does. He doesn’t know where I am.”

“And Graves?”

“Mr. Graves is not my keeper.”

Watching him closely, May noticed Rex swallow, the movement setting muscles in his neck into fascinating motion. The reaction drew her eye down to the base of his throat, a dusky, alluring patch of skin that she suddenly needed to touch. It seemed a tender part of him, and she wanted to find some fragile place where he might let her in.

She reached for his hand where it lay on the arm of the chair, and he grasped hers immediately in a nearly painful crush.

“Please tell me about this evening. Who did that to your face?”

He shut his eyes, and May sensed the tension in his body, as if he was resisting some force pressing down upon him. She covered their joined hands with her other, stroking up his wrist, sliding a finger up under the cuff of his evening jacket, under his shirt, discovering the tight muscles and tendons of his wrist, the light dusting of hair on his arm.

“Men in league with my father.” His tone had gone bleak, almost emotionless, as if he spoke of an event that someone else had experienced.

“The man who came to your house when I was here?” The suspicion that the visitor had been his father, the man who’d abandoned Rex and his mother, had come the moment May saw his eyes. They were so much like Rex’s eyes.

“Do you really want to be connected to such a man?” He spoke of his father but pointed at himself. He’d spent years trying to overcome his past, but perhaps, deep down, he thought himself no better than George Cross.

“You’re not your father.”

He pulled his hand from hers and ran it roughly through his hair. “I’m his son. I was a thief like he is. I lied and used my fists to make my way in the world.” He looked at her as he said the words, his expression wary, waiting for her reaction.

“What did you steal?”

He swallowed hard again and stared at the fire so long she began to doubt he would give her an answer.

“Food, mostly. Though sometimes I pinched wallets if a mark looked like he had a particularly full one. That was still about buying food or a place to sleep at night. I just needed money. At my age, work was hard to come by.” Before continuing, he drew in a sharp breath. “Later, I joined up with a group of thieves. They had grand plans for robbing people’s homes, even taking over the territory of other pickpockets. I didn’t stay with them long.”

“This was all after the orphanage?”

“Ah, the orphanage.” He smiled, but it was crooked and pained, not at all an expression of pleasure. “I didn’t stay there long either. Ran away after two years.” Pressing his lips together, he turned to look at her as he admitted, “That’s when I started stealing.”

“Then what my father accused you of was true?” May loathed that her father was right about Rex. That he would have any justification to resist accepting him as her husband. But she couldn’t blame Rex for what he’d done to survive.

“No, not when he accused me. I was living a decent life when you met me, if a poor one.”

When she grinned, remembering those early days they’d spent together, his eyes softened, and an answering grin flitted around the edges of his mouth.

“Why would your father do this to you? What does he want?” Despite how she attempted to ask the question gently, it destroyed the moment between them. Rex instantly tensed and sat up stiff and straight in his chair.

“Money. Violence.” The words escaped through clenched teeth. Then he turned toward her, his long legs pressed against hers. “Ugliness you should never know anything about. Brutality that I’ll never allow to touch you.”

May moved toward him, gathered up her skirts to kneel, and positioned herself between his legs. “If it touches you, then I must know about it. Soon we’ll be one. All that’s mine will be yours, and all that’s yours will be mine. The good and the bad.”

His lower lip trembled. She ached to kiss the tremor away, but when she tried to lift her face to his, he held her back with a hand on her shoulder. “No, love. I won’t bring danger into your life.”

Turning her head, May kissed his hand where it lay against her shoulder. She nipped at his thumb with the edge of her teeth, then flicked her tongue out to lick and soothe the spot. His hissed response emboldened her. Reaching up, she pulled his hand down, off of her shoulder and onto the exposed flesh of her chest. She pressed his palm over the spot where her heart was throbbing out a frantic beat. Then lower, over her bodice, down to fill his palm with her breast. Pushing against him, she prayed he could feel her body’s response. She wanted him to understand that only he affected her this way.

He bent over her, and she could taste his kiss before he touched her, needed it like she’d never needed anything in her life.

“Perhaps,” May whispered against his mouth, “I crave a bit of danger in my life.” She didn’t wait for his kiss but lifted enough to capture his lips. She nipped at his lush lower lip, and a pulse began low in her core, where he’d touched her, where she ached for him to touch her again.

He moaned and took her mouth. He needed no coaxing as he stroked her with his tongue and pulled her in closer. His hands were everywhere, gripping her waist, cupping her breast, then sliding into her hair, loosening pins, stroking through her curls.

She reached out for balance and gripped the hard width of his thigh. Then, she moved her hand higher, her fingers shaped around the hardened length of him. Feverish hot, just like her body. She wanted out of her dress, wanted him out of his clothes. Needed to see him, feel him, with no barriers between them, nothing hidden or held back.

He broke their kiss and rasped her name.

She took it as a plea and continued to touch him where he was both rigid and yielding, firm and tender.

“No, love.” Pressing his forehead to hers, he caressed her cheek. “If you keep touching me like that, there will be no going back.”

He clasped her hand and eased it from his body.

“I don’t want to go back. I want to be your wife.”

At her words, he untangled himself and stood. Leaning one hand on the fireplace mantel, he bowed his head and then began to shake it. “No, May.”

All the heat drained from her body. With two words, he’d chilled her to the bone. Her mouth, still swollen and tingling from his kisses, went numb. The hand she’d stroked down the heated length of him became cold and lifeless at her side. She couldn’t catch her breath, swallowed and then again, desperate to put air back in her lungs. Tears burned behind her eyes.

“What are you saying?” She knew, feared she understood every intention behind those two awful words, but she had to hear him say it. He couldn’t do this to her again. Could he?

Rex wouldn’t look at her. Just stared at the wall above the mantel and gripped the marble as if he wished to break it in two. “I will not curse you to a life of uncertainty.”

“Life
is
uncertain.” Her voice sounded as hollow as her chest. Though she knew it wasn’t hollow. Her heart was aching, tearing, squeezing at her insides, more agonizing than any tight-laced corset or even that posture contraption Mama had strapped her into for hours.

May looked around the room, desperate for anything to help her breathe again, to put her back together. She got to her feet and headed for a cart covered with crystal decanters. Amber liquids glowed in the firelight. Sloshing some into a glass was easy. Getting the rim of the tumbler to her lips proved harder. Somehow, she missed her mouth and ended up with a taste of fire on her lips and lukewarm liquid seeping down the front of her dress.

Before she could assess the mess she’d made, Rex was there, snatching the glass from her hand. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Having a drink.” May tried to move away from him, but he shot an arm out to hold her in place. “My mother seemed to think it a suitable salve for a broken heart.”

“You’re not your mother.” His eyes traced down her body, and he waved a hand to take in the damp fabric. “And you’ve ruined your gown.”

May reached up to pat her sodden bodice. She didn’t even remember putting that much liquor in her glass. The scent wasn’t unpleasant, just sharp and smoky, and a touch sweet. It made her want to try again and see if she could manage to get some of it down her throat. Perhaps it would warm her, fill her, take away the misery blurring everything around the edges of her vision.

She turned her back on Rex and began slipping the hooks on her bodice. “Do you have something I can put on instead?” When he offered no answer, May shrugged out of her bodice and turned to him, crossing her arms over her chest. “Your jacket, perhaps. Anything?”

Suddenly he was there, a blanket of heat against her body as he settled his jacket over her shoulders. “May.”

The tenderness in his tone made her throat burn. She bit her lip to fight the urge to melt against him. Swallowing hard, she lifted her gaze to the man who seemed determined to push her away and draw her at the same time. Would he always be on the cusp of pushing her away?

He licked his lips as his gaze took in the expanse of her corset and sodden chemise between the lapels of his jacket.

“Would you put this in front of the fire?” she asked, hating the warble in her voice as she lifted her bodice out to him. She’d place the garment herself if he wasn’t so determined to block her way.

When he grasped the wet fabric, their fingers met, and his gaze caught hers, holding her balanced on a knife’s edge of uncertainty. Whatever he’d said, however he’d denied their future, his eyes were filled with hope. Need and desire, yes. She was certain the same emotions were reflected in her own eyes too. But in his gaze, there was something more. A fragile, tentative look, the same he’d offered her the first day they met. As if he wanted her but wasn’t certain he should, wasn’t sure she’d welcome his desire.