The Dark Lady (31 page)

Ian focused on the pleasure transforming her face as his cock stroked her tight heat. When she rippled around him, he couldn’t hold back any longer. The power of it shook him to his core. “Eva,” he moaned, his voice harsh with his passion.

Their breathing slowed almost simultaneously as he lowered himself against her. He couldn’t separate himself yet. He needed this feeling of being a part of her. She fit perfectly against him, her slight body curving into his.

It was damn alarming. And he felt more alive than he had in years.

As he tucked her against him, he stroked her back.

She remained silent for several moments. Then she placed her hand against his chest and said gently, “I love you, Ian.”

E
va held herself perfectly still. If she moved she would shatter this moment. All would be lost. She would be alone again in the darkness. As she waited longer and longer for him to respond, the darkness encroached a little more into the happiness she’d been so sure she’d finally found.

“Eva,” he said softly, his voice full of doubt.

She drew in a shuddering breath, knowing he was not going to say the words she so hoped to hear. “Please don’t.”

“Wait,” he urged.

Eva drew away from him. Coldness clawed itself through her chest. She reached for her robe. “I understand.” And she did. God, how foolish of her. How foolish to believe he might love her, too. Who could love her as she was? No matter that she had begun to put the pieces of herself back together. No matter what Dr. Jenner had said, at her core still resided the fact that she had put her son at such risk it had ended in his death.

She swallowed back the sudden foul taste permeating her mouth.

He reached for her, forcing her to stay against him. His skin still slightly damp with their lovemaking. “You don’t understand.”

“I know I don’t deserve—”

“I will not hear that from you,” he snapped. “You deserve everything this world has to offer you. But I—” His voice broke.

Eva stared at him, trying to make sense of what he was saying. Shadows played over his face, adding to the mask that had slipped over his features. “Go on,” she urged softly.

“Hamilton died.”

She tensed, not truly wanting to discuss her late husband in the arms of the man she’d loved since childhood. But hadn’t Dr. Jenner told her that talking was precisely what had to be done? Perhaps it was the same for Ian. “I know. But that was neither your nor my fault.”

That she knew more than anything.

“It was.” His deep voice penetrated the darkness, laden with emotion.

She shook her head against his warm skin, dread pooling in her belly. There was something he wished to say that she did not wish to hear and she was not yet brave enough to bear. So she would do the only thing she could think of to stop him. She would take the blame herself. “Ian, Hamilton went to war out of his father’s volition. You know I urged him to stay. Perhaps I should have begged harder.”

He laughed, a twisted sound, full of pain and fury. “Sweetheart, it is not you who should have fought harder for Hamilton’s life.” He rolled over, turning his face and his body toward the fire. “It was I.”

She propped herself up onto her elbow, looking down on him. “I don’t understand.”

His shoulders, those proud, strong shoulders, slumped. “I should have fought harder for him. Don’t you see, if I had rescued him as his father wished he would still be alive and Thomas wouldn’t have been able to send you to that place.”

Eva swallowed, her heart aching at this side of Ian that he had never allowed her to see. “And you would be dead?” she whispered.

“Yes!” he roared. “No. I don’t know. But we lost something out there.” His voice tore in broken starts. “We lost our friendship and I let him die. Don’t you see, if I had fought harder for him or died in his place, he would still be alive. Your son would still be alive. You would never have been sent to that hellhole.”

Eva sat in the firelight, his words hitting her with the force of his guilt. For the last year he had been living in this black filth. He’d hidden it so well, her strong Ian. But in the end he was no different than she, racked with guilt at what they had done.

Did she sound as he did when she claimed Adam’s death?

There was no doubt in her mind, despite his determined claims: Ian wasn’t responsible for Hamilton.

Her eyes blurred and she blinked rapidly. If he did indeed feel the way she did, there was nothing she could say to change his mind. Still, she had to try. Slowly, she lay down beside him, placing her arms around his tense frame. The words she was about to utter were no doubt the hardest she had ever contemplated. They had to be said, though. To bring him back, as he had done everything he could to bring her back. “Do you believe I could have saved Adam?”

“Eva—”

“No. I want to know.”

He twisted in her arms, facing her. “You know I don’t. It was a dreadful . . . accident.” There was a hitch in his voice.

Eva forced herself to remain calm. She sucked in a slow breath, readying herself with false confidence. “There you see.”

“See what exactly?” he said tightly. “If you finally see that it was not your fault, then I am happy.”

She stared at him for a moment, then dropped her head back. Tired. So tired. “You are not happy. I do not make you happy.”

“That’s not true—you are everything to me,” he whispered.

She bit her lower lip, feeling the truth of the situation. Two lost souls could somehow find their way, could they not? Or would they simply wander, lost in their own separate hells, keeping the other chained in loss? She turned her head back toward him. “Then, if you truly believe me innocent, you cannot claim responsibility for Hamilton.”

A muscle clenched in his cheek. “I can.” His green eyes turned to two flat rocks, glimmering but almost dead with acceptance. Gently he took her hand and stroked her fingers over the scattered scars along his chest.

“He was responsible for his own actions, Ian.”

“Yes, but—”

Her insides tightened at his strange contradiction. “There is no ‘but’ about it. He—”

“I was there. I watched him die. And I did nothing.”

She held her breath, caught up in his sudden intensity.

“He bled to death at my feet. And I didn’t stop the man who killed him. In fact, I told him where he might find Hamilton.”

She frowned. “That makes no sense. He died in battle.”

“That was the report. But it’s not what happened. He died in an alley. Most believed it was self-destruction, though his officers did not bring such a thing to light. Some believed it was something more, but Hamilton had made enough enemies that they kept their opinions quiet and they kept his gruesome death quiet, too.”

His eyes darted from hers, his face whitening with pain. “But he—” Ian’s voice broke. His hand began to shake, the one holding hers, shaking hers right along with it. “It never should have happened. None of it. I never thought to see him change the way he did.” His eyes closed. Even with his lids pressed tight, the muscles fluttered as if he were envisioning the nightmare.

There were a thousand things she wanted to say. Anything, really, to break this moment of damnation. At last, there was only one thing: “I know you, and whatever you did, it was the right thing.”

He laughed a bitter laugh, then pressed his palms to his eyes.

She’d never seen a man cry. She wished he would. If he did, he might feel some relief. But he wouldn’t. Men like Ian didn’t allow themselves the luxury.

“You’re right.” He opened his eyes. No longer dead, they were full of resolve. “He did choose.” Without looking back at her, he rolled away. Fastening his trousers, he stared into the fire. “But I chose also. I chose to reveal Hamilton’s whereabouts. I chose to stand by while he was killed.”

What could Hamilton have done to induce such a thing from Ian? For she knew Ian’s heart was too noble to act thusly without reason, even if he might wish her to believe otherwise.

The longer she sat away from him in silence, the more the cold air stung her naked skin. Eva shivered. Her robe was in a pool of white silk about her. Quickly she slipped it on. Wishing it didn’t feel as though she were donning armor against the coming moments. “You came back. Alive.”

“Too late. Because of what I did, Adam is dead and you . . .”

Eva remained behind him, unable to speak. Whatever
ease had come to Ian in the last days drifted away before her. Replaced by that fatal resolve that had so frightened and assured her. “And?”

“I will not take Hamilton’s place. Even if he—No. I can’t. Not when I betrayed him. Not when I betrayed you. My heart is not to be trusted with love. I betray those I love.”

“I see.” Oh, God, did she see. It whipped at her. Worse than the blows Matthew had pummeled her with. Now she would welcome the fiery stripe of the stick lashing down upon her back compared to this hell.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

And though it broke her heart, she curled into his arms, quiet. Praying, praying with all her heart that he would forgive himself. She loved him so much and it took all her strength not to try to make him see the foolishness of his words. If she waited, he would see on his own. Surely, if she waited just a little longer, he would finally be able to embrace love.

“B
loody success, don’t you think?” boomed Wyndham.

“A coup,” Ian said, half stunned by the sheer immensity of Eva’s victory. “A veritable coup.”

Elizabeth had outdone herself in the decorations. Every member of the ton who was anyone—and a few who weren’t—graced the ball. Elizabeth had made sure of that. Between himself, Wyndham, and Elizabeth, they had bullied and ordered like generals to turn the room into a starlit wonderland.

Hung from a hundred golden wires, paper lanterns in the shape of stars swung from the ceiling, and gardenias sprawled everywhere.

Eva was the queen of it all. Despite the gnawing feeling that he was stealing happiness, Ian couldn’t stop his own delight. This was all he’d ever wanted for her: to conquer society so that she might be free. But there was one aspect of all this that detracted from the relief he should have experienced.

He’d barely seen her in the last few days. He’d tried to convince himself it was because he was busy. But the truth was he couldn’t bear to be around her hope. Expectation fairly shone from her eyes, that at any moment he would utter the words she so longed to hear. But he couldn’t.

So he’d swept himself up in the tasks of launching her into society. In all their days together since her return, he’d never felt more adrift. More lost. And with each day that passed, he felt her slipping away. Which was of course foolish. They would never be parted. She needed him.

He studied her, a sweet pain.

Eva stood surrounded by a horde of gentlemen and ladies. Her dark hair had been wound with gold rope and diamond stars. That skin, which had seemed too white for so long, now shone perfect porcelain. The hue that women of the ton virtually poisoned themselves to obtain.

He and Wyndham stood high above, watching near a balustrade, overseeing that nothing should go amiss. Nothing would, of course. Somehow in the midst of all their endeavors, she had grown far out of his reach. He was still trapped in his sorrow. She? Eva was a butterfly born out of her dark cocoon, aflight with glorious color.

Indeed, she turned and laughed at a young fop’s sly comment, her green velvet gown, a creation by that atrociously expensive fop, Worth, swishing.

“It’s your fault, you know.”

Ian continued to keep Eva within his gaze as he said, “Indubitably.”

Wyndham threw his head back and let out one of his barrel laughs. “My, don’t we feel sorry for ourselves.”

Ian tore his gaze form Eva. “I do not feel sorry—”

“Do forgive me. Of course you don’t.” Wyndham tossed back half his champagne, then inclined his head toward Eva. “She is a goddess.”

“I know.”

Wyndham lifted his glass and tsked. “Ah. But she is not your goddess.”

“She will be,” Ian said calmly. They were so close now.
It didn’t matter that he couldn’t find it in his heart to move past that day in India or his failure of Hamilton. She’d be with him. Even if he couldn’t give her the perfect love that all young women desired.

Eva understood. They couldn’t betray the past. Honoring it was the only way to atone for how utterly he’d failed Hamilton and the old lord.

“Are you certain? So many worship and adore her. Perhaps she will choose someone less melancholic.”

Jealousy, white and hot, instantly tore through him in an unexpected rampage. “And do you worship and adore her?”

Wyndham smirked. “Of course. Who would not?”

Ian stepped forward, grabbing Wyndham’s lapel with his gloved hand in a sudden surge of possessiveness. “Whether those buggers down there know it or not, she is mine.”

“Here, now.” Wyndham brushed at him as if he were an irritating fly. “Don’t wrinkle it.”

Ian tightened his grip, controlled by some force he’d never felt before, and added a good dose of warning to his stare.

“Please.” Wyndham snorted, rolling his eyes rather like a droll stallion. “All right, fine. Fine. She is yours.” Wyndham grinned, then said, “For now.”

“Do you want to keep your balls?”

“I have no fears. My balls are made of iron. I doubt even you could rip them off. Now stop behaving like a lovesick idiot and detach yourself.”

“Oh, I’m sure your balls are impervious to wind and weather, but where there is a will there is a way.” He forced a nonchalant expression to his brow and let go of Wyndham’s coat before snatching a glass of champagne. “And I am not lovesick. One must experience love to be sick from it.”

Wyndham rolled his eyes again so hard it appeared the irises might pop back in his head. “Ah, the lies we tell. You look like a dog irked by someone not paying attention to your piss-marked territory, old boy.”

The very thought was disgusting . . . yet accurate. That was exactly how he felt. She was supposed to be his. Under his domain. Under his protection. She’d shared his bed these last several days, but there was something missing. Ian took a long swallow of the bubbling French wine. Sweet and ever so slightly sticky, it tasted of heaven. Of joy. In the last years, the closest he had come to unadulterated joy had been in Eva’s arms.