His sense of privilege astonished her. “I must
insist
that you leave now.”
He stood, but he did not leave. To her horror he advanced on her. She kept backing up until her back hit the wall. Then his hands were on her face, cupping it roughly, and he moved to kiss her. She twisted her face away as best she could and his mouth found only her cheek.
“Stop this, Anthony! Leave now, I implore you,” she cried.
His hands tightened and began to forcibly turn her face.
“The lady invited you to leave, Dargent. If you are a gentleman, I am sure you do not want to distress her further, and will comply with her wishes.”
Suddenly she was free and Anthony stood several feet away. Celia turned toward the source of the intruding voice.
Mr. Albrighton stood right outside the doorway, dark from his crown to his boot heels except for the glaring white of his cravat and shirt. Anthony faced him tensely, flushing from either ardor or anger. She could not tell which.
Mr. Albrighton’s tone had been amiable. Yet Celia could not ignore how his presence charged the air in the room with a crackling force. Anthony looked as if he had just been threatened when no real challenge had been made.
“This is Mr. Jonathan Albrighton,” she said. “He is—”
“I know who he is.” He eyed Mr. Albrighton suspiciously. “What are you doing here?”
“I am a friend of the family, come to call on Miss Pennifold to offer my condolences about her mother.” He casually stood aside. “Allow me to accompany you out, Dargent.”
Irritated by the interruption, but well cornered all the same, Anthony strode to the doorway. He glanced at her furiously, then at Mr. Albrighton. “Friend of the family, I believe, since you are both of the same stripe, aren’t you?”
J
onathan escorted Dargent right to the door of the coach. He barely resisted throwing the fellow inside with his own hands. He made sure that the coach left the street. Then he returned to the house.
Celia remained in the sitting room. She stood near a window, and had been watching the departure. The view of her there made him pause.
He searched what he could see of her expression for some regret, or heartbreak, regarding this man from her past. The light found her as it always did, and it made tears in her eyes and on her cheeks sparkle.
She did not look at him. She wiped the tears with her hand. More took their place. It touched him, this silent weeping.
“Thank you for saving me again.” Her voice came slowly, and choked with her emotion. “It was going to become an embarrassing scene.”
And a potentially dangerous one. “He is fortunate I did not give in to the impulse to teach him some manners.”
“He did not believe he owed me manners. If he uses them with such as me, it is a condescension, not a requirement. I know that now, even if I did not years ago.”
Such as me.
He really regretted not thrashing the scoundrel now. “You are too forgiving. He is a conceited fool, and always was.”
She wiped her eyes again, and took a deep breath. “He appeared afraid of you.”
“He knew he was in the wrong and deserved a thrashing. Caught like that, he would be afraid of any man.”
She finally faced him. He saw dismay in her eyes that said this visit had hurt her badly.
“You sound almost boyish, Mr. Albrighton. We both know that he came to propose a commonplace arrangement. Such negotiations are often frank and crude, and even physical, with the persuasions calculated to entice. I suspect the lures would have turned many women’s heads.”
“Are they starting to turn yours?”
He frowned when she did not immediately respond in the negative. The notion of her going to Dargent infuriated him.
“Luxury has its lures for me as well as most women,” she finally said. “And, after all, I was taught that love is a commodity. In Alessandra Northrope’s home, virtue was not considered virtuous.” She laughed a little at her word-play. Sadly.
It was a musical sound. Winter’s light turned golden near the window, while lights sparked in her eyes. She was proving stronger than Dargent and his humiliating assumptions could defeat. Beneath it all, however, he still saw hurt and confusion.
He should leave now. Instead, he strode across the chamber, pulled her into an embrace, and kissed her hard.
Light poured into him as he did, rare and bright and almost painful. He wanted her so badly in that moment that he had to clench his teeth against his impulses.
Her expression undid him. No more shadows. Her face glowed and her eyes revealed the arousal making her pliant in his arms. He kissed her again, knowing he should not today of all days. It lasted too long, too sweetly for his sanity. Summoning common sense from hell knew where, he resisted her encouraging mouth and stopped.
When he began to break their embrace, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I know what you are thinking,” she said, her breath feathering his neck. “That you risk insulting with actions worse than he did with words. It is not the same, however.”
“It is more the same than you think. Desire is desire, no matter how the object of desire is pursued.”
She laughed lightly. Musically. There were no sad tones in it now. Her face remained mere inches from his, their noses almost touching. His arms circled her more totally because there was no other response to the blue eyes looking into his so openly.
“There is all the difference in the world to me,” she said. “He made me feel stupid, as if I deserved his insult. And you make me feel alive in the best ways.”
She playfully ran one fingertip along the edges of his mouth. Then that artful finger teased along his jaw and up the edge of his ear.
Her mother had taught her that. It was easy to forget the education she had received, and the reason Dargent had come here today, but her little gesture reminded him too well.
She felt good in his arms. Warm and soft and ever so feminine. A better man would be content with that alone and hope it brought her distraction from today’s visit. When she raised her lips toward him, however, inviting another kiss, he knew he was not such a man.
Passion’s fever broke in him again. And in her. She joined him, parting her lips so he could explore, encouraging more heat and aggression. Her hands tightened on his shoulders, then his arms, grasping him closer while she pressed her body to his. Time disappeared, then their surroundings, as they soared higher on kisses and bites and hot breaths.
He had to feel her, know her. He bound her close with one arm while his other hand moved to her waist and hip, following sinuous curves. Eventually he caressed the perfect roundness of her breast and she quietly whimpered with pleasure.
Hot now, burning for her, he sought to make her as lost as he. He ached more intensely than he had since his youth. He gave her pleasure and took his own and balanced on the brink of ruthlessness.
He smoothed his hand over her breast again, so she would feel it more. He rubbed the hard tip. She luxuriated in the sensation with closed eyes and parted lips.
“If he made me feel like this, I could probably lie to myself about the rest,” she murmured.
Her mention of Dargent brought him back to his senses a little. Enough.
“And if there are no lies, but only this?”
“People always build some story around pleasure. The story of marriage or the story of love, or at least a brief tale of commerce.”
“Not always . . . Sometimes it just is.”
“Like now, you mean.”
Like now. Only there
was
a story here, and he could not pretend there was not anymore. This was about Dargent’s visit.
He stopped the caresses and embraced her closely. She tried to kiss him but he did not allow it.
“Forgive me, Celia. I have taken advantage of a kind of grief in you.”
He released her and stepped away. The sight of her smiling, flushed and radiant, almost had him grab her again.
“If on a better day you conclude that virtue is not a virtue, I hope that I am the first to know.” He walked away before her sparkling eyes changed his mind. “And if that scoundrel returns, or in any way insults you again, you must tell me.”
Chapter Ten
C
elia gazed around her plant room. The few remaining plants appeared forlorn on the shelves. More would arrive soon, but for now she had completed most of her task.
After three days of being very active, she suddenly found herself with little to occupy her. She went to the library to write to Daphne with news of how these first deliveries had gone. She would reassure Daphne that Mr. Drummond, whom she had chosen to help her, was proving to be a most agreeable and dependable employee.
The silence of the house pressed on her as she pondered the words to pen. Mr. Drummond had indicated that Jonathan had come down while she was out in the wagon arranging the plants’ safest placements for their brief journeys. He had left the house, then. She was rather glad for that. At least she would not have to find ways to avoid him today.
Perhaps she would write him a letter too.
Dear Mr. Albrighton,
Thank you for your help the other day. I am sure you understand that I was not myself after the shock of Mr. Dargent’s visit. I know that a worldly man like yourself would never put significance, one way or another, on a few kisses bestowed in a moment of extreme distress. All the same, what transpired makes the current situation in my home difficult. Surely you can no longer be comfortable here. I will not mind at all if you conclude you must leave and seek other chambers. Indeed, I have even taken steps to help you do so. Please note the advertisements in the paper that accompanies this letter, and the ones that I circled that speak of gentlemen’s apartments.
She took some satisfaction in composing the letter, even if she would never write it. She liked how it sounded sophisticated, and so different from how she had acted and felt when last she saw him.
Once the shock of Anthony’s visit passed, her humiliation over what Mr. Albrighton had overheard and seen, and how in her distress she then behaved with him, settled on her hard. Now it would not go away.
Nor would the memory of how devastated she had been when he returned to the house after throwing Anthony out. She had been dying inside. She had been mortified and afraid. She had called on all of Alessandra’s training to regain some poise and composure.
Had he seen that? Was that why he had made love to her? Had he intended to comfort, or just allowed his inclinations to take advantage of her grief, the way he said?
What must he think of her, to have permitted him such liberties—to have frankly encouraged them—after expressing shock at Anthony’s overtures?
Sometimes it just is
. That was how he had spoken of that passion. One more ambiguity from a man full of them.
For men perhaps it could just be. For women, however, the world imposes a story on sensuality if she is not brave enough to write her own. And with Jonathan Albrighton, there could be no story at all, she was very sure. She would not do for a man in his situation, and he would never do for her, no matter which life she chose to embrace.
She stood abruptly and walked to the back chamber. She removed her gray pelisse from its peg and donned it. She fastened it with quick, determined fingers.
She was done with the plants for now. She would no longer hide from Jonathan, no matter what he thought, or from anyone else. She would not allow herself to feel humiliated about Anthony’s visit anymore either.
She would take advantage of what had turned into a fair day, and walk in the park. If anyone noticed her and pointed and whispered that she was the daughter of that Northrope woman, she would ignore them and hold her head high the way she always had.
H
yde Park was not crowded, but a good number of souls had come out midday to enjoy the sun and calm breeze. Celia found a post to tie the horse and carriage, and began to climb down to tend to it.
Gloved hands reached for her horse’s bridle as she did. “Allow me, if you will.”
The gentleman who owned those hands made quick work with the tether, then came over to hand her down.
He was being polite, and kind to a woman without a footman or chaperone. Yet Celia knew it had not been only a good heart that moved him to assist her. As she stepped down she saw the interest in his eyes.
Had he recognized her? Perhaps not. He might just be hopeful that she was the sort of woman who discarded proprieties in such a situation. If a conversation ensued, who knew where it might lead?
She had seen that speculative spark often before. Even while living with Daphne, even with men who had no idea who her mother was, she had garnered attention of this kind. Daphne always said it was merely because she was pretty, but she felt today that perhaps she had indeed been born with a brand on her forehead as she had insisted to Anthony she had not.
She did not want company, least of all of his hopeful kind. She thanked him and walked away, to enjoy the park on her own.
Soon the sun worked its wonders on her. She felt her spirits lifting under its warmth. She followed the path past the reservoir, watching for evidence of spring flowers beginning to poke green shoots from the ground. She examined the carriages rolling by, and the new fashions on the women of society who were taking turns together.
More at peace than she had been in days, she allowed her mind to turn to Anthony’s visit. Not to the insults and the way it ended, but to what he had told her and what it all meant for the future. She was mulling that when a shadow blocked the sun. It moved with her for several paces before she looked up to see what had caused it.
A tall dark man on a large pale horse looked down at her while he paced his steed step for step with her own gait.