He stared at that single flame that indicated he was not alone in this house. Tautness entered his back, and alertness charged his aura. She gathered her courage and advanced silently toward his back, her poker poised to fall.
He swerved just as she brought it down, and caught it in his hand. Then in a blur he caught her too, swung her around, and thrust her toward the bed. Shawls flew away and she hurtled onto the mattress.
Breathless with terror, she stared up at him from where she sprawled on the coverlet. She gaped at him while he gazed down hard at her, the poker still gripped in his hand.
She barely breathed in the tense silence that followed. His gaze drifted over her nightdress, down to where its hem had billowed to reveal her bare legs.
He moved slightly. She tensed, ready to fight if she had to. His change in position allowed the candle’s dim light to wash his face. She took in the handsome visage it revealed, and anger abruptly replaced her fear.
“
Mr. Albrighton
? What are you doing stealing into this house and frightening the life out of me!”
His dangerous scowl cleared. “I apologize, Miss Pennifold. I did not know you were here. I saw no lights or fires. It is an odd time for you to be visiting this property.”
“An odd time for
me
to be visiting? Not so odd as your presence, sir. I own this house, after all. What is
your
purpose in being here? Theft?”
“Hardly theft, Miss Pennifold. As it happens, I live here.”
M
r. Albrighton placed more fuel on the fire in the library. He bent to a small cabinet and removed a decanter of spirits. He poured a scant inch in a tiny glass and carried it to where Celia sat bundled in the shawls on a sofa.
She had invited him out of her bedchamber immediately. Now here they were, he dressed for a night on the town and she still in her bed dress, and far too conscious of her dishabille.
“I do not need fortification, Mr. Albrighton. I am not a silly woman who faints at the slightest provocation.”
He shrugged and downed the spirits himself. He settled into a chair near the fire. Its light flattered him, and suited the impression of mystery and danger he imparted, whether he intended it or not.
Celia had always thought Mr. Albrighton an annoyingly enigmatic man. He had revealed little of his inner self during those occasions when he visited her mother’s parties. One could put most of the other men on this shelf or that, each plank labeled by personality and intentions. One never quite knew where to put Mr. Albrighton. Since he had been only in his middle twenties back then, she had found his ambiguity disconcerting, and his entire person too dramatic.
There was something to him that appeared warm, almost intimate, however, which contradicted and confused one’s reactions even more. A depth in his eyes caused one to think he would understand one’s hurts or problems even if the rest of the world did not. But there was also much to him that spoke of things dark and hard. As a girl she had decided he was too complicated and more than a little discomforting. As a result, they had rarely spoken beyond greetings, except once.
Now he sat in that chair like he had a right to be there. Her whole body remained tight from the shock of his intrusion, but he lounged like a country squire home after shooting quail. Furthermore, he claimed that he
did
have a right to be here.
She both believed him and didn’t. That was the problem with Jonathan Albrighton. One never knew what one actually had in him.
The silence turned awkward. For her, not him. He appeared prepared to sit there without any conversation, altering the atmosphere to his liking, just gazing in her direction while the flames cast dancing reflections on his polished boots.
“You do appear familiar with the premises,” she said. “However, my mother’s solicitor said this house had no current tenants, so I know you are lying about living here.”
“First you call me a thief, now a liar. It is fortunate that I do not take insult easily.”
“Do not expect polite inquiries from me, sir. To my mind, I am speaking to a criminal until you convince me otherwise.”
“Criminal now.”
She could not tell if she had truly annoyed him or not. Nor did she much care either way.
“I did not take the entire house,” he said. “Only one chamber, in the attic. I have not used it much these last years, but my lease was legal, I assure you, and for a ten-year duration.”
She could believe the part about not using it much. He had a way of coming and going from town, as she recalled. He disappeared from Mama’s gatherings for several months during the year she had lived with her mother, only to reappear, briefly, right before she left herself. She knew from Mama that he had gone again right after that break.
“You had already left your mother when this arrangement was made, and I doubt she thought it worth mentioning if you saw her again,” he added.
“You let that chamber from
my mother
?”
“Yes. I knew her as a friend only, in case you are wondering.”
“I am not wondering.” Except she was, a little. Who wouldn’t? He was a handsome man in a smoldering, dark way, and he cut a tall, very fine figure. Alessandra had not been indifferent to a man’s appearance, and would have surely appreciated this one’s. “I already knew you were not a patron. You attended some of her parties during that year I lived with her, but I know my mother’s standards when it came to business.”
“Are they your standards too?”
There was no tone of insult in his question. He posed it like he might inquire on her health.
She would not pretend with him. There was no point. He knew it all, she was sure. Why she had been in the house at Orchard Street for a year, and the reasons she had left.
“Even though I left my mother’s house, I did not dispute the lessons she taught me about life. Her standards will be mine if I should ever hope to achieve a similar success and fame in her profession.”
He accepted what she said, as if they indeed discussed only her health. His face, amiable in expression despite the way the firelight emphasized the elegant harshness of its well-formed features and deep-set eyes, displayed no reaction. Yet she felt an intensity of interest emanating from him, and that odd sense of intimacy that he provoked, inviting her to confide.
She stirred in response to his direct gaze. There was no mistaking the little twinges of arousal. They were not unlike her reactions to him when she was a girl, and still carried an edge of danger and fear.
She had been too young back then to comprehend what all that meant. She had assumed sensual responses required the provocations of kisses and flattery and declarations of love. Only with maturity had she acknowledged the power of subtlety, distance, and even silence in such things.
It was in him too. Alessandra had given important lessons on seeing it, even when hidden. Her profession depended on recognizing a man’s interest, even when he did not admit it to himself.
She pursued the only topic that mattered, and tried to ignore how they had become too aware of each other, and how it altered the light, the air—everything. “So you had one chamber above, you claim. For when you chose to use it, which was not often the last several years. Who lived in the rest of this house?”
“Alessandra did. Were you not aware of that?”
No, she was
not
.
“She would retreat to this house when she tired of the game,” he said. “A few days, most times. As long as a few weeks in late summer when the city emptied.”
Celia glared at him. She resented the calm way he imparted news of this secret part of her mother’s life. This man knew more about her mother than she herself did. She found that unseemly, and unfair. Why should a man who was almost never in London—and not even a lover!—share a part of Alessandra that her own daughter had not known?
She reined in her temper. Her anger was grief speaking, she supposed. And some guilt and regrets too. She had not lived with Alessandra long enough to learn everything, after all. Her childhood had been spent in the country, not here, and she had only come up to town when she was sixteen. Their time together had been very brief.
“I want to see the document that says you let that room up there.”
“It is buried in my trunk. I will bring it to you as soon as I am able.”
“Is not your trunk above?”
“I am only recently returned to town. I left the trunk with some friends and have not retrieved it yet.”
“If this is your London home, why would you leave your property with friends? I think you are feeding me a tall tale and assuming I am too stupid to know it is all false. I do not believe you lived here. I am not even sure she did. I think that you were spying around for something tonight, and are spinning a lie so I don’t lay down information with the magistrate.”
“Is there something worth spying for? I can’t imagine what that would be. I would say your mother’s life was an open book. More than most women’s.”
His charming, vague smile distracted her enough that she almost missed the fact he had not denied anything. Now that she remembered, Mr. Albrighton had a talent for dissembling most elegantly. He had a way of not answering questions, but evaded them so cleverly one almost did not notice.
“Have you also visited the house on Orchard Street in recent days?” she demanded.
“I have no right to enter that house. Why do you ask?”
Again, no denial. “Someone was there, perhaps today during the burial, or before. I visited the house with the executor this afternoon, after the funeral. Her papers were too neat. I had never seen my mother’s drawers so tidy.”
“Most likely the solicitor organized them as he took inventory. Lawyers are tidy sorts by nature.”
It was a good answer, but a wrong one. Mr. Mappleton had not yet been through the property when she noticed this, and he had even been the one to mention the missing accounts. She doubted Mr. Albrighton would ever admit to having entered that house illegally if he had, though. Nor, she admitted, would he have any reason to.
The chamber had grown warm during their conversation. She wished she could cast off both shawls. Instead she carefully peeled one away while she made sure the other covered her sufficiently.
He watched, ever so calmly. His gaze left her feeling as though she had just done something scandalous and risky and deliberately provocative.
“Mr. Albrighton, you may have the lease you claim, but you cannot stay here. I have taken residence myself, and do not want the intrusion of a tenant, and a male one at that. I am sure you understand and agree with me.”
“I understand, I suppose, but I do not agree. As I said, I have a lease. Paid in advance.”
“I will repay you for the remaining years.” She trusted it would not be too much money. She did not like to be laying out any amount from what she had saved.
“I do not want repayment. I require a pied-à-terre in London and made arrangements with the owner of a quiet house on a quiet street for this one. I expect to use it when I am in town. I am in town now.”
“You are an unwelcome complication, sir.”
“I do not require your welcome, only my bed.”
“Surely if you consider the matter from my prospect, you will understand that I cannot have—”
“You will barely know I am here. I use the garden entry and I go up the back stairs. I require little housekeeping and am very discreet. I daresay most of the neighbors have never seen me.”
“It is safe to say that some have.”
“It is common enough to let rooms in a house this size, in this neighborhood. It will not affect your reputation, if that is your concern. My presence up there will mean nothing more than it did when your mother was in residence.”
Had he just implied that his presence here could not hurt the reputation of a woman already tarnished beyond hope due to being Alessandra’s daughter? She could hardly blame him if he did mean that. It was the honest truth, and with Mama’s death, notoriety had found the famous whore’s daughter even in Daphne’s country home where she had lived in obscurity.
“As I recall, your visits to London are often brief, sir. If I acquiesce to this, will you be in town long this time?”
“I expect to be here a fortnight at most. And you, Miss Pennifold—will you be in residence here long? Or are you returning to wherever you lived before this?”
“I plan to stay here permanently. I intend to have a business here.”
“You will live all alone?”
“I expect to have some other women in residence within a week or so. The privacy and quiet you so crave will be a thing of the past if you continue here.” She tried to appear very worldly indeed, to encourage that he hear more between the lines than she meant in truth. “I expect many visitors too. It could become quite noisy, even in the attics. Especially at night. You are sure to dislike the changes.”
He let the insinuations hang there for a long count while he looked at her. She trusted that he was concluding the worst about this business, and that living here would be dreadful, and too scandalous.
“It is not what she intended for you,” he finally said. “Although I suppose such a business is more practical, and potentially more secure. When do you intend to begin?”
“Soon. So soon that it is hardly worth your time settling in again. The wise course would be to—”
“You misunderstand me. I am wondering if awaiting that day will delay my departure much.”
“Delay? I would think that learning of such a pending development would encourage you to leave, not to stay!”
“And yet your plan tempts me to dally at least until the launch of your new endeavor. That probably has something to do with how charming your feet look, peeking out from the hem of that bed dress.”
She quickly jerked her feet back under the hem, but her feet had little to do with this. She never expected this man to be so bold in announcing his interest. But he had, and now here they were, in a chamber that all but shook from the special power that could flow between a man and a woman.