Temptation & Twilight (19 page)

There was more to this fixation. The passion, yes, the desire would never wane. But there was a need to know her as he had never taken the time to know her before.

He wanted more than a physical connection with her. He BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012

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wanted a bond. A friendship. He wanted to know her soul as intimately as he had once known her body.

He had no idea where to begin, how to forge a meaningful relationship. He was essentially a loner. A man who kept his thoughts and feelings private. Who preferred to hide behind meaningless sex and empty passion, for fear he had nothing to offer anyone, least of all Elizabeth. He had his love, an inner voice reminded him, but what use was it when that love had caused her nothing but pain?

Strolling along Bond Street, lost in his thoughts, Iain absently nodded in acknowledgement to the familiar faces that seemed to swim before him. It was sunny, al-beit cold. There was a bitterness in the air, the kind that was common during harsh winters in the Scottish Highlands. A storm was brewing, he sensed as he tilted his head back and inched his hat higher onto his brow so he could see the slate-grey sky above him. The clouds were almost black, the blue skies of summer replaced with a grey backdrop that only made the clouds more ominous looking. It was the sort of morning that made one want to linger in bed, listening to the crackle of a fire in the hearth while making slow, lazy love to a woman. Not just any woman, he thought as he paused to look into a store window, but one who was a constant presence in his life.

A woman who would be found in his bed every night.

Who would live with him, share the ups and downs of life. The pain, the pleasure, the sorrows, the joy.

A slow, relaxed loving was only achieved with a partner whom you could turn your most intimate secrets and dreams over to. A woman you believed in, trusted. One you didn’t have to keep up your guard around, but who allowed you to sink into her with no other thought than pleasure, and connection, and the sharing of bodies and BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012

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whispers, and love. Love… Yes, he wanted it, and it scared the hell out of him, because he knew it might be too late for him to find love with the one woman who made him want to reach out and taste it. Who had made the surly Iain Sinclair wish he still possessed hers.

Beth’s innocent love.
He’d possessed it once, and he hadn’t cared enough to keep it safe, hadn’t thought for one second that he might bitterly regret its loss. But he did. His regret ran to unfathomable depths. He’d lost himself, his humanity, when he’d turned from that love, and now he wanted nothing more than to crawl from the depths and search for the love he knew had never died between them. It was there, tangled and entwined like the roots of an ancient oak, reaching deep. Anchoring to the ground. He was bound to Elizabeth in the most elemental of ways, just as she was to him.

He knew it, acknowledged it. Now he needed to find a way to make Elizabeth see it, to make her take that blind leap of faith into the world that awaited them, and forget the past.

Snorting in amusement, Iain shook his head. He’d become a blathering romantic without his Scotch. He didn’t like it, this exposure of his true feelings and dreams.

Gazing into the window, between the gold lettering, he stared, unseeing, wondering how long it had been since he had allowed himself to think of anything other than drowning his past in Scotch, and the willing body of any woman who would have him.

The memories numbed him. He no longer wanted that life. It was while facing down death that he’d realized he very much wanted to live. Wanted to love and be loved.

Now, Iain wondered what had brought him here to Waters and Whites on this cold morning. What had him pausing on his mindless walk through Bond Street to peer BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012

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into the window of the famous jewellers? He was not in the market, as it were, to buy, but something had made him stop. Something made him want to go in.

Reaching for the handle, he opened the door. The tin-kle of bells above him rang out clearly, causing the elderly man behind the counter to glance up.

“Good day, my lord.”

With a nod, Iain moved into the small shop and began to peruse the glass cases. It was warm inside, with the iron stove in the back pumping out heat. Gas lamps hung suspended from the ceiling, their flickering light radiating onto the glass, making the contents in each case sparkle —a dazzling array in an otherwise bleak, cold day.

It was several minutes before the shopkeeper came over to him. With a slight cough, he forced Iain’s attention away from the piece that had caught his eye from the window.

“I am Waters, proprietor of this store. Might I be of some help, my lord?”

Slowly, Iain’s gaze dropped back to the moonstone necklace that had kept him mesmerized for the better half of five minutes.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Waters murmured. “The finest specimen of adularescence from Ceylon.”

“Stunning,” Iain replied as the shimmer of the bluish stones reflected in the play of light from the window, and the black satin cloth it lay upon.

“Do you wish to see it out, my lord?”

“I do.”

Waters reached into the case and slowly lifted the necklace. It was large and outlandish, and made for only one type of woman—someone with an expanse of pure, BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012

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unblemished skin and a magnificent bosom to nestle the large cabochon between her breasts.

An image of that woman quickly flashed in Iain’s mind as he skimmed his fingers across the gems and the silver filigree that curled like lace around the stones.

“Adularescence, you called them,” he murmured. “I thought them moonstones.”

“Adularescence is what we call them in trade, my lord, but they are indeed known as moonstones. Ceylon is the finest place on earth to find them. See how they shimmer a pale blue? One only has to touch, and move, perhaps play with the gems to see the spectrum of glimmer and light and the scale of color, from very faint white to a mysterious blue. Very lovely on a woman’s neck, my lord.”

“Yes.” Iain swallowed hard. He could imagine Elizabeth in something like this. A dichotomy of ethereal elegance and feminine sensuality. The moonstone was a perfect gem for her.

“Are you familiar with this stone?”

“No.” He shook his head. “But it caught my eye from the window as I was passing by.”

“You’ve a very fine eye, my lord. This necklace is remarkable. It is said that the moonstone was created for a woman to entrap a man. There’s a good bit of mystique and magic that surrounds it. Many cultures the world over, especially in India, regard it as a holy gemstone with magical properties. They call it the dream stone, and the wearer is said to be gifted with beautiful visions the night through. In Arab countries women are known to wear moonstones sewn into their garments, because in their culture they’re a symbol of fertility.”

“And in the slightly less exotic English culture, Wa-BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012

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ters?” Iain asked, amused by the man’s enthusiasm for his profession.

The shopkeeper’s smile was catching as he glanced down at the necklace. “With its soft shimmer, and the way the light playfully, almost sensually changes with the movement of a woman’s neck, I think it the most decadent of stones. It’s a lover’s stone, made to entice a man to follow the tantalizing glimmer over the throat and bosom. Any Englishman worth his salt should be entranced by a woman in moonstones.”

“And if this Englishman doesn’t want every man to be entranced?” Iain said, with a lilt in his voice.

“Oh, I think said Englishman could manage to keep the others from his lady. Besides, I think it’s in a man to flaunt his possessions, as barbaric as it sounds. He wants to show off what he has, and what others may only wish to have.”

“Aye, how true that is.”

“Any woman can wear diamonds, but it takes the right sort of female to carry off moonstones to their full effect.

Have you such a lady in mind?”

He did, and it was insane to even think of purchas-ing something like this for her. Yet he couldn’t imagine another woman in London wearing it; certainly no one could carry it off the way Elizabeth could. With her pale skin, black hair and grey eyes she would be stunning in it, especially with the bodice of that low-cut, twilight-coloured gown she had been wearing at the Sumners’

musicale to frame it.

“I fancy this piece the most,” Waters murmured as he, too, was caught up in the display of light and luminescence. “You’ll think me a sentimental fool for saying this, but I’ve hoped it would someday find its way to the right woman—and man—who can appreciate the beauty of it.” BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012

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“I’m that man,” Iain muttered. And how he could appreciate not only the necklace, but Elizabeth wearing it.

“If it is a matter of cost—”

Iain waved aside the comment. “Cost is of no consequence.”

“I’ll leave you, then, shall I? To think about the necklace?”

“Yes.”

Would she wear it? Would she think it utterly ridiculous that he would buy her something like this? After everything that had happened between them Iain had no right to give her such a thing.
A peace offering,
his mind said in a hopeful whisper. It was rather elaborate for that.

But this was Elizabeth. She had always been different from the other women of his acquaintance. There had always been something about her that reached far down inside his soul and touched him where no other person ever had.

Waters moved silently away, and Iain saw from the corner of his eye how the man was making himself busy arranging a row of diamond and ruby rings in a case that was farthest away from him. Now alone, he was free to lift the necklace and allow it to dangle from his hand.

The sunlight hit it and he tilted his palm left to right so he could study the shimmering light projected from the stones.

Elizabeth would be utter temptation in the twilight while wearing this. Irresistible. In his mind, he could visualize the way his fingers would look outlining the stones as they rested against her neck, saw the path of his lips skimming across the necklace, and Elizabeth’s throat. Yes, how erotic it would be to play with her while she wore it.

“You know how much I adore diamonds,” said a BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012

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deeply feminine voice from behind him. “Moonstones are so… Well, let us just say that only
women
wear diamonds.”

Iain caught Waters watching him with curiosity as he lowered the necklace to the counter and confronted Georgiana.

“I hope I’m not ruining a surprise,” she murmured as she pressed close to him. “But I thought I might let you know that necklace wouldn’t do for me, darling.” He had to continue the charade, had to make her believe that he was totally besotted with her, when what he really wanted to do was wring her neck.

“I am dazzled by pretty things, and all things glit-tery, Georgiana. I merely got caught up in the fascina-tion of it, is all.”

Her smile made him feel as though snakes were slithering over his body. “And do you find me dazzling, my lord?”

He could not bring himself to say the words, so instead gave a discreet nod, which made her laugh.

“Come, you have to see the ring Larabie bought me—a forgiveness gift, you see.”

Larabie was a fool to part with even a pound of his money on this creature. And what the blazes was his lordship doing, providing her with a gift upon this occasion?

She had been the one caught in a scandalous embrace!

Poor Larabie, he was doomed—blinded by his wife and her manipulations.

Iain almost felt pity for the man, but then, if Larabie wanted to be blind to his young wife’s actions, so be it.

Iain could never respect a man who allowed his wife to rule him that way. But then, who was he to respect anything, when he lived the way he did? After all, it had BOUND GALLEY EDITION March 23, 2012

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been Iain Larabie had discovered in a shadowed alcove with his wife.

Well, not for much longer, he decided as he dutifully followed the lady’s swaying hips, which were encased in a dark purple satin-weave morning gown. Once he had what he desired from her, he would leave, and she would move on to someone else, and Larabie would be left to fight more duels and provide more tokens of his forgiveness.

“Mr. Waters, I trust my husband has been by today?” The man inclined his head politely, but Iain noticed how he glanced at him from the corner of his eye with a glint of distaste.

“Indeed he did, madam. Allow me to run to the back.” Iain noticed that Waters first replaced the moonstones in their nest of black silk before fishing in his waistcoat pocket for a ring of keys to lock the case. They shared an unspoken comment as they looked at one another across the room. Water’s expression, one of betrayal, said,
I
thought you someone of worth, and now I know you’re
not.
Iain’s was one of resignation.

He would not buy this creature anything, he thought as he watched Georgiana bend over the glass cases. She was excitedly showing him which ear bobs and necklace she wanted next—whether from him or her husband.