“In his disgusting manner.” She made a face. “Stock ings and garters. Colin used to . . . well, he used to like me to wear stockings and garters and nothing else. I haven’t read all the journal quite yet . . . I can’t bear to now, but that is in there. It must be Fitch. No one else would know.”
Michael might know, but Michael was the last person who would torture Madeline, quite the contrary. With out reservation he’d retrieved the journal for her, not to mention his criticism over the destruction of her chaste reputation. Luke’s hand, where it rested possessively against her stomach, flattened involuntarily, pulling her closer in instinctive protectiveness. He said with lethal softness, “The earl apparently has no desire to live to a ripe old age. I’ve tired of his antics.”
“He isn’t worth rising at dawn.” She touched his hand, smoothed her fingers over the back of it, and then twined their fingers together. “But you are touchingly gallant.”
The charge of gallantry was dubious to his mind, but was he infuriated at the idea of Fitch continuing to tor ment her? Absolutely. “Fitch’s vicious tendencies need to be corrected, and the pleasure all mine.”
“Don’t, for my sake.” Madeline turned in his arms, small and warm against him, her voice holding an edge of sleepiness because he had kept her up very, very late. “I just told you because I can’t really tell anyone else and it upset me.”
All the more reason for him to annihilate the man re sponsible for her distress. “Don’t think about it—about him—again,” he told her, kissing the small, delicate hollow beneath her ear. “He’s finished with his little, nasty jokes. You have my word.”
“Hmm . . .”
That was hardly an answer, and Luke saw she’d slipped into sleep so quickly he wondered if she had slept at all the night before. In the moonlight, her hair was gilded to a pale glimmer, and he held her carefully, a contrast to their explosive passion.
If he could only erase the past . . .
But he couldn’t. No. It was emotional suicide to even try, and he was done with the idea of sacrificing oneself on the altar of bleak memory. Bitter experience existed—to an extent, every human being had to deal with it, because life by definition involved loss and betrayal—and to face it made him pragmatic, not a dreamer.
Maria had trusted him with the same sweet, giving generosity. She’d carried his child, and he had married her, and then she had died. . . .
The pattern terrified him.
In Spain, on one chill spring night, he’d learned not to dream.
So
, he pointed out to himself in the darkness as the candles began to gutter,
I might not be able to offer love on bended knee, but I can protect Madeline from the machinations of her current nemesis
.
As magical as the evening had been, in the light of day, their parting took on the clarity of practicality.
They’d eaten breakfast in the same small, intimate dining room, the ordinary trappings of coffee, currant scones, country ham, and shirred eggs somehow different with Luke across the table, casual in just a white, full-sleeved shirt unbuttoned at the neck, his smile quicksilver as he glanced up and caught her watching him over the rim of her cup. The conversation had been commonplace, with careful avoidance of future plans, and he’d managed the transition from passionate lover to polite acquaintance with unsettling ease.
For her it was not nearly as easy to dismiss their closeness, the intimacies they’d shared, the possibility she might have conceived his child.
Actually, she wondered if it was easy for him either, for he was remarkably quiet when they got into his carriage, and didn’t speak until they arrived at her door in the midmorning.
Her neighbors would not miss
that
, she was sure.
“Thank you,” she said with simple sincerity when he lifted her out of the vehicle. “You went through a great deal of trouble.”
The sunlight picked up the highlights in his hair and cast his face in chiseled angles. “Thank
you
,” he said softly, “for being very much worth it.”
“I imagine that if before there was speculation we are lovers, it is no longer conjecture, as you are bringing me home in my formal gown.” Madeline was resigned enough she managed to smile.
His hands dropped from her waist, his smile rueful. “I suppose I only planned carefully enough to ensure I could awaken in the morning with you in my arms. Men don’t have society watching their every movement with such avid concentration. But our association is hardly in question anyway. Do you mind?”
Did she?
No. Not considering she’d just experienced the night of her dreams. Wicked dreams, perhaps, but if a dream involved Viscount Altea, that went without saying.
“I’m not as indifferent as you are, my lord,” she said, smiling demurely, “but I am learning quickly enough.”
He nodded, his expression changing. “I’m leaving London tomorrow for a few days. I’ll call on you upon my return.”
She truly was too involved, for the very idea of him leaving made her heart tighten. “Have a safe journey, then.”
He nodded, his expression impassive, and then he clambered back into his carriage and it pulled away.
Madeline shook herself mentally, realizing she was standing there in front of her town house, and quickly went up the steps. She didn’t want to watch his carriage go down the street, leaving her. She wanted nothing to tarnish the memory of what they had shared.
The elusive Lord Altea had planned a romantic tryst.
Surely that was some sort of triumph.
Chapter Nineteen
T
he sound of the small fountain was quiet, the musical fall of the water reminiscent of the country, even in a walled city garden. There were birds also, finches that flittered among the ornamental bushes and more melodic songbirds, a background to the noise of the street and the passing of an unseen vehicle.
Elizabeth sat down on the marble edge of the pool and pensively trailed her fingers through the water. It was clear, the air warm with the sultry edge of a summer day, the fine azure sky above streaked with wisps of white clouds.
Normally she reveled in this kind of weather. Today she was as bleak as a Yorkshire winter.
Miles was avoiding her. It was clear enough, as pointed as a cut direct at an exclusive soiree, and she wasn’t the only one aware of it either. Her mother had certainly noticed and commented, and even Luke, in his current state of self-absorption, had asked her if something might be wrong.
The answer was simple.
Everything.
The fountain tumbled the water downward, the statuary, a stone fish with its mouth open, gurgling a never-ending cascade. It was tempting enough she leaned down, lifted her skirts, and kicked off her slippers before unfastening her stockings and rolling them down her legs. She turned back and dabbled her toes in the water before sinking in to midcalf. It felt marvelous, but inside she was still extremely unsettled.
She’d made a complete idiot of herself, and now she was doing penance for it. Why had she found it so necessary to challenge Miles, to be so confrontational and bloody forward?
“You know, you shouldn’t have left this in my bedroom.”
The calm voice made her jerk around. The subject of her thoughts—that wasn’t so remarkable, as he was frequently the subject of her thoughts for the past week—stood there, her note in his hand. To her relief, he looked . . . ordinary. Well, like Miles anyway, with his dark brown hair and amber eyes, his expression mildly inquiring.
“It wasn’t like I could hand it to you in person.” She eyed the note in his hand. “You’ve been pouting.”
His brows shot up. He stood there on the garden path in his shirtsleeves, his coat no doubt removed because of the warmth of the day. “Pouting? While I might risk being perceived as rude by disagreeing with a lady, I’m afraid you are mistaken. Grown men do not pout. We might brood or grow surly, but
pouting
does not apply.” He waved the piece of vellum. “Now, then, what’s this about?”
It had irked her enough to write it. She really didn’t wish to
discuss
it. Only he seemed very normal, and maybe . . . it was possible that the emotional unrest of the past days had no basis in anything but her imagination. She shook crystalline droplets of water from her fingertips and smiled in what she hoped was a very collected fashion. “I was attempting to express my regrets for our misunderstanding the other day.”
His mouth did an interesting quirk at the corner, al most as if he couldn’t control it. “There was no misun derstanding. I just refused to cooperate, and it irritated you. But,” he added with cheeky arrogance, “I found your note most moving, believe me. In the extended course of our mutual acquaintance, I have never known you to apologize for anything.”
“I most certainly have,” she denied heatedly.
“Name once.”
Well, maybe she
was
obstinate when it came to ad mitting she was wrong. Not that
he
was any better, but he had a point. No particular instance came to mind.
Before now.
“Ah, I thought you might be unable to come up with a certain circumstance if pressed,” he said.
That very expression on his face had been irritating her since she was five years old. Before that, probably, if she could remember further back.
It retrospect, she
shouldn’t
have placed the note on his pillow. That someone might have discovered she’d been in his bedroom aside, she shouldn’t have written it in the first place if he was going to be smug about it. Elizabeth snapped out, “We live in the same household. I made an effort so we might be on speaking terms.”
“I didn’t know we weren’t.”
“When is the last time we did?” she asked frankly.
“I’m busy.”
“You
aren’t
avoiding me?” she asked, the sun hot on her shoulders through the thin muslin of her day gown, the air unmoving.
If there was one aspect of his personality she knew well existed—and she thought she knew most of them—it was honesty. That was why he’d endured a great deal more punishment when they were children, because when their transgressions were discovered and charm didn’t work, when asked a direct question, he told the truth.
His hesitation was palpable and he didn’t meet her eyes.
“See,” she said accusingly.
Interestingly enough, his gaze seemed riveted on the fountain. No, actually—where her legs must be visible through the clear water under the gathered froth of her skirts.
He’s seen my ankles more times than I can count
, she reminded herself as she waited for him to answer. But . . . not lately.
“It seemed best.” He jerked his gaze back up to her face.
She kicked her feet in the water, sending a silvery spray. “Why?”
“I accept the apology.” His expression was polite and studiously indifferent as he deftly sidestepped her question.
To say her frustration with the situation was inter fering with every aspect of her life hardly did the cha otic state of her emotions justice. Besides, he was being so very . . .
Miles.
Without thinking, Elizabeth bent and scooped a handful of water from the fountain and flung it at him in exasperation.
He was close enough that it splattered across his white shirt in a satisfactory manner, and a few droplets ran down his lean cheek. “What the devil was that for?” he muttered, tugging a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping at his face.
Instead of answering, she splashed him again, this time with more vigor.
“El!”
The nickname only he used and said in outrage didn’t soothe her riotous mood. Elizabeth would have splashed him again, except he stepped forward and caught her around the waist, hauling her up and setting her on her wet feet to jerk her around to face him, his hands hard on her shoulders.
“We aren’t children any longer, so don’t act like one,” he bit out.
When he’d arrived home and removed his coat, he’d also taken off his cravat and his shirt was open, showing just a glimpse of his chest and the strong column of his throat. A bead of water ran down his neck and disappeared under the fine linen of his collar, and Elizabeth watched the journey with a disturbing fascination. They stood very close, and she caught the scent of sandalwood and clean linen, intriguing and masculine.
“No, we aren’t children any longer,” she agreed softly, and made the mistake of looking up into his eyes.
He wanted to kiss her. The realization wasn’t a shock either. She just understood it, as if there was a silent communication in the way his hands clasped her shoulders, in the slight lowering of his lashes, and the quick, audible inhale of his breath.
The surprise was that though she and Miles rarely agreed, at the moment they were in complete accord. It was exactly what she wanted too.