Stormfire (30 page)

He smiled crookedly. "Both trollop and angel, little one. I can hardly reproach another man's taste in women when it coincides with my own."

"I don't want him to be in love with me," she sniffled.

"Look at me, you soggy little witch," he ordered softly. She turned her head and warily peered at him. He offered her a dry napkin. "Who could fall in love with a woman with a runny nose? Blow." He pushed her hair gently out of her face, then returned to his own chair as a servant brought in dinner. When the man retired, Sean quizzically regarded his companion. "Do you have any idea of what you did this afternoon, not only to Liam, but to Moora?" She silently shook her head, her eyes two big, wet, shining stars. "For a lark, and out of a misplaced sense of philanthropy, you gave Moora a glimpse of a world entirely closed to her. You taught her scales—"

"How long were you listening?" she demanded.

"The acoustics in this house are peculiar. Sounds from the ballroom sire often audible in the study." He continued placidly as if she had not interrupted. "Will you teach her letters as well?"

"Yes, why not?"

"What about words? Like
andante, allegro, pizzicato, fortissimo?
You will, of course, have time to teach her to read?"

"I'd like to try . . ."

"And her court dancing? What will her gentlemanly escort say when she inquires if she danced 'good'? Will he supply her a wardrobe appropriate for her elevated status? What will he ask in return?"

"You're distorting everything!"

"And ballet. Where will she dance? The kitchen garden?"

"She has far more ability than you imagine. And if she has talent for ballet, there's no reason she cannot go to Dublin—"

"No reason? She's already eighteen. Ballerinas debut at sixteen. And she'll have to find a protector, for she hasn't a shilling. In Catholic Ireland, professional dancers and actresses are considered prostitutes, as she will doubtless become when she's too old to perform." He paused suspiciously. "Dammit, don't cry again!"

"I'm not!" She glared at him mutinously, her eyes swimming. "You could send her to London."

He snorted, "With what? Fond wishes and a benevolent smirk?"

"That Botticelli alone over there would educate and train her ten times over! Theatrical performers have been respected in England for years."

"Unlike backward Ireland?"

"Yes! Why shouldn't something alive and beautiful come out of this slaughterhouse? God help you if you ever win your war, for you'll plant your flag of independence upon a heap of carrion!"

He glowered so ferociously that in spite of her rebellious words, her lips trembled. She wilted, sagging disconsolately. "What's the use? I might as well bay at the moon."

"Welcome to earth, Diana," Culhane murmured. She looked up, startled. "I may be as idiotic as you," he said slowly, "but I'll send the wench to Dublin. She can live with a friend of mine and be tutored. If she wants to go on the stage, that's up to her. I hope she has some modicum of talent. I'd hate to waste a Botticelli."

With a whoop of joy, Catherine hurled upon him, nearly toppling his chair.

"Wait, woman! I have a price."

She disengaged as if she had found herself nose to nose with a wolf. "What is it?"

"That you never again wheedle me with tears."

"I didn't wheedle . . ." she began haughtily.

He ignored her. "I cannot afford them. That last sparkler was prohibitive."

"You really mean to send her, don't you?" she said softly.

Sean felt his gut melt. "Aye, but I consider it a ridiculous notion. She'll probably end upon the streets . . ." His voice trailed away. He knew his need was naked in his eyes, but he was unable to shield it. At that moment Catherine seemed to be as truly fey as Merlin's Nimue, for he felt her kiss, yet she had come no nearer. Her face appeared to be lit by interior candlelight as she leaned toward him.

"Sor!" An insistent knock at the door crashed across their senses.

"What is it?" Sean asked hoarsely.

"There's a message in yer study, sor. The signalman said ye'd be wantin' to know."

Sean looked at his mistress a long moment. "I'm coming." He waved a hand to the untouched dinner. "You may as well eat now. There's no point in both of us starving." He gave her a wry smile and left.

The message was brief. John Enderly had entered his daughter's stallion, Numidian, in a private race on the 15th of April. The horse, never publicly raced, had been privately run for a select group of Enderly's most influential friends, who intended to bet heavily on him as did the viscount himself. Apparently Enderly needed immediate cash, Sean mused as he scanned the note. He quickly jotted a return message.

When he entered his room, Catherine was cozily sitting Indian fashion on his bed. Her black hair was loose to her waist, she wore one of his shirts to ward off the drafts. Her nose was buried in a book. She waggled a finger toward the commode. "I saved bread and cheese for you. A decanter of wine is on the desk."

Sean descended on the folded napkin and grinned happily. Not only had she brought bread and cheese, but meat, fruit, pastries, and several chocolates. "Hardly ethereal fare, Diana," he mumbled between mouthfuls. "There's no substitute for a sensible goddess"—he cocked an eyebrow at her—"though domesticated ones are invariably fat."

"If you prefer plump domesticity," she retorted without looking up, "perhaps you should invite Ellie to share your bed."

He popped a chocolate into his mouth. "Even a backward Irishman has the sense to leave pork in the barn."

"Sean?" Catherine looked up, blue eyes serious. "Have you ever heard of 'phlogiston'?"

"Good God, are you reading chemistry?" Wandering over to the bed, he glanced at the book's flyleaf. His eyebrows rose slightly, but he made no comment other than, "This book is out-of-date. Have Flynn review and annotate the sections before you study them. You'll ruin your eyes by squinting in candlelight."

"But that would be a bother to him. I can hardly ask him to take time . . ."

He scoffed. "Flynn has all the time in the world, barring natural calamity."

She regarded him thoughtfully. "He seems to be an excellent doctor. Why has he so few patients?"

Sean leaned against the bedpost, enjoying his view of her.

"Flynn is a good doctor. Too good. He had a flourishing practice until his wife died, then withdrew into books and became a fanatic about reforming rural medical practices; most of them still dispense a hash of midwifery and veterinary medicine. Unfortunately, fanatics are apt to lose their sense of humor. He alienated his colleagues and his patients. Other doctors began to decry his methods as heartless, dangerous experimentation. Gradually his patients left him, as did his three daughters." At Catherine's surprise, he grimaced. "I'm not surprised he didn't mention them; they're a vain, fleabrained lot. One is married to a doctor who defamed him, another to a nitpicking clerk. The youngest became a prostitute in Dublin; her sisters claim she has 'entered society.' " He grinned. "Actually, it's the other way around."

"How could they behave so shabbily?" she protested in indignation. "He's the kindest man in the world!"

He shrugged. "There was little love lost. Still, he gets by. I send him patients from Shelan. The Sisters of St. Therese in Donegal Town send him beggars and derelicts who flee as soon as they become either sober or well enough to realize where they are."

Catherine's blue eyes acquired an ominous glint and the Irishman quickly straightened. "Oh, no you don't minx! No more taking forlorn chicks under your wing. Flynn is entirely able to look after himself; he won't thank you for meddling."

She gave him an innocent look. "You overestimate my presumption."

"Ha!"

"And you still haven't answered my original question," she added sweetly. "Phlogiston?"

"Doesn't exist," he replied briefly. "Lavoisier disproved its theory some fifteen years ago." He proceeded to describe the successful experiment that isolated oxygen.

Her lips curved. "For a backward Irishman, you're informed on a surprising range of subjects. May I ask where you went to school?"

Wondering how much to tell her, he did not answer for a long moment. "Eton," he said finally.

Her eyes widened. "Good heavens, whatever for?"

He smiled faintly. "To teach myself restraint." He began to strip off his shirt. "After two years, my restraint gave way; I killed a man."

"In . . . self-defense?"

He folded his shirt with chilling precision. "It was more of an execution."

The book slipped from her fingers. She felt suddenly cold.

"What's wrong?" His green eyes bored into hers.

Forcing herself to meet them, she quietly replied, "I'm wondering when my turn comes."

"You're so certain I mean to kill you?"

"You killed Father's foresters without a second thought. I should imagine you're completely unemotional about executions."

Culhane's hands went to his hips as his handsome face darkened. "Those foresters are as hale and hearty as you and I, if unemployed. The poor beasties you fretted over are happily dining on one another all around Holden."

She stared at him. "But, why didn't you tell me? You let me think . . ."

He scowled. "Did you ask? You prefer to think me a murderer." He dropped into his desk chair and impatiently yanked at his boots. "Treating me as a man would be too complicated."

Moments later the Irishman looked up, wary, as Catherine slipped off the bed and snuffed all but the candles on the bedside table, dimming the room until the two of them were enclosed in a pool of light. Eyes uncertain, she fumbled at her shirt buttons.

Sean's heart began to thud painfully. He rose slowly to his feet as if drugged. "Kit . . ."

As the last button came undone, the shirt fell open and she slipped it from her shoulders. When the Irishman made no movement, she approached him, but so slowly she seemed to fear some terrible precipice would open under her bare feet. Her hair, falling in a dark cloud to her waist, drew his hungering gaze from softly curving breasts to the slow Swell of her hips. Then she was within his grasp, but still he remained immobile. Her breasts slid against his bare chest; her breathing quickened to match his own. When she shyly offered her lips, her eyes dark as starlit tropic seas, Sean lost his private war. He pulled her roughly against his hard-muscled length and his mouth came down on hers as if starved for its warmth, lips slanting across their softness. His fingers caught in the silk of her hair, dragging her head back. Unnerved by the brute force of his desire, she moaned like a trapped animal.

Hearing her defenseless whimper, he groaned and thrust her away so desperately she stumbled and barely caught herself against the bedpost. She shrank against the post as he stared tensely at her nakedness. "Don't," he said hoarsely. "Don't come to me like this."

"I thought you wanted me," she whispered, almost sobbing with humiliation and confusion.

"Christ," he cried. "Not like this! Not for a favor! For a price, I can have a slut from a gutter!" She flinched away as if he had struck her, and his voice lowered. "You try me sorely, girl." Then he went on more softly still. "Don't you think I realize you're still afraid? But if you'd suddenly fought me, I'd have raped you! I'm sick to my soul of taking you by force, but I'll be damned before I settle for a placebo! Moora be damned! Your father be damned! And damn you for the most tender cheat it's been my ill fortune to want." His shoulders sagged, then he jerked his head toward his armoire. "Take my robe and go out onto the terrace to cool your injured pride. Don't worry, the rain has let up."