The Rebel Heir (18 page)

“And what of Lord Winfield?” The question was out of his mouth before he could stop it. Damn. Years of training in such things, and within an hour of her company, he was voicing every thought in his head.

“I've only ever given him his allotment of smiles.”

“Ah, the numbered smiles. How many smiles do you allot him?”

“Five.”

“I wonder how many smiles you have served me today,” he mused. “I can't say that I've been counting this afternoon.”

“Neither have I.” She smiled at him brightly enough to light her eyes and remove the memory of her earlier strain. This smile was pure, unnumbered, and his.

The joy in her clear blue eyes pierced his heart. Everything with Evie was fresh and new. Even eating ices was an experience like no other—simply because she was here. And because he was with Evie, he was living this moment as if he'd never tasted chocolate ice before. What other experiences would she make new? Perhaps in all of his travels he had been missing the truly extraordinary moments that often went unnoticed.

“Evangeline?” A female voice carved through their sugar-induced euphoria. Evie's mother loomed over them, staring in outrage at the table covered with bowls of ice. “What
are
you doing?”

“Lord Crosby insisted that I try—”

“Saffron? Ambergris? Laaaavender?” her mother exclaimed, looking down at the table between them, one hand clutching her heart. “And I thought you above the antics of your foolish sister!”

“I was hungry,” Ash attempted, but her mother was too busy lecturing Evie to hear him.

“Thank you for a lovely afternoon,” Evie said as she stood from the table.

He rose to watch her leave. “The pleasure was mine, believe me.”

Evangeline turned to walk away, rounding their table to follow after her mother. But only a step away from him, she paused and turned back. Leaning toward him, she whispered, “The maple is my favorite. Thank you.”

He could hear her mother's words as they crossed the grass. “Did you take more than three bites? You know you are not allowed such an excess of sweets. And when I already had the waists of your gowns taken in! The maid will no doubt need more time adjusting your stays. We have tonight's ball to think of.”

Tonight's ball—one Ash hadn't planned on attending. He would be meeting with a few gentlemen over a hand of cards. Meanwhile, Lord Winfield would be wooing Evangeline. Even though she would be bound into a dress that hid her true beauty from the world, there was something unsettling about the thought of her dancing with another man. Was he jealous?

Damn, he was.

In an instant, his earlier suspicions were confirmed. He was jealous of the honest lord who never traveled and who would have the good luck of dancing with Lady Evangeline Green. Ash shook his head and sank back into his seat, surrounded by melting ice. He'd definitely consumed too much sugar.

Oliver Dean had never given up on a project. On the other hand, he considered all of his projects works in progress and thus never quite complete. He settled back on his heels, listening to the ticking of twenty different clocks—none of which offered the proper time. He'd looked at the portable steam contraption from every angle imaginable. It simply wouldn't function.

St. James, who'd commissioned the work, didn't care either way. The head of his club in London, the Spare Heirs, had only asked for a prototype that appeared to function, but Ollie needed it to work. For once in his life, he knew he was close to creating something world-changing. He was so terribly close, if only the blasted thing would function. He hit it with the wrench in his hand, frowning when it didn't sputter to life.

“I've brought you something to eat,” a voice called from the door, making him smile. “Your grandmother is concerned you might waste away in here if not fed regularly.”

“I have tea,” Ollie said, rising to his feet and moving toward his desk near the door where his new wife stood. “Surely that will keep me alive until this evening.”

Mable set a tray on top of a pile of diagrams and touched the teacup with one elegant finger. “Ollie, this tea is stone cold and untouched. I don't believe the thought of tea is enough to keep your grandmother's concerns at bay.”

“Really?” He grinned, watching her pick up one of his drawings and study it, her face screwed up in concentration. Even if every one of his inventions failed, he would continue to try, just so Mable would make that adorable face while she attempted to work out what he was building. He prowled closer to her. “I find thoughts of you rather filling.”

“Flattering, but not helpful at the moment.” She tossed the plans aside and shoved a biscuit at him when he neared.

“A biscuit? How am I to eat when you have me so distracted?” he asked, wrapping his hands around her and pulling her close.

“You need some distraction. You've been in here for weeks.”

“Ten days,” he corrected. “If I could only determine the proper alignment of the gears in this assembly… Let me show you.” He tugged her hand and pulled her across the room, weaving between stacks of abandoned instrumentation and broken bits of clockwork of various sizes. Finally, he stopped before the blasted steam contraption he couldn't get to work.

“What does it do?” she asked, reaching out to poke at it with a finger.

He scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck as he considered the function of the machine again. “At the moment? It spews water across the floor in a most wondrous display.”

Mable reached out and turned one of the gears with a finger. “It seems complicated.”

“I had to cross belts and gears in more directions than you can imagine to get it to this point.”

She giggled. “It reminds me of my attempts at knitting, yarn darting in every direction. My sister used to say I could make a larger mess of a ball of yarn than anyone she knew. It would take hours weaving the yarn back and forth between our hands to make sense of it. I'm sure you'll get it sorted.”

He pulled her to him and buried his face in her hair, still studying the pile of metal in his workroom. “I hope so. This could change everything. It would be revolutionary if I could only work out how to make it function.”

“You don't need to change the world for me to love you, Ollie. The amount of pressure you're placing on yourself is hardly good for you.”

“Pressure…pressure! That's it! Pressure!” He pulled his gaze from the machine to look at his beautiful wife. “You're brilliant!”

“I am?”

“You are!” He lifted her from the ground and spun her in the air before setting her back down in front of him. “I've gone about this all wrong. I can see it now.”

Mable smiled up at him. “That is because you, sir, are so very intelligent.”

“The smartest thing I ever did was marry you. What did I do before you dropped into my life, a charming English girl claiming to be a French heiress?”

“You certainly didn't eat, I'm certain of that much,” she said, prodding him in the stomach.

“For you, I'll stop work to eat a feast. In fact, let's go now.”

“Ollie, we don't eat for another three hours. Cook will have fits.”

“Three hours before we can dine together.” He curled his hand around the back of her neck and drew her into his kiss. “How will we pass the time?”

“I have a few notions, but since you're the expert on clockwork, I'll let you decide.” She turned and sauntered from his office, tossing a wink over her shoulder that promised three hours wouldn't be enough time together.

Most wouldn't view steam, pressure, or the closeness of grinding gears as aphrodisiacs, but with Mable around, they were. Abandoning his work until tomorrow, Ollie followed her from his workshop.

Evangeline nodded good night to her maid—who gave her a sympathetic smile in return—and waited for the door to close, then removed the binding ribbon and ran her fingers through the tight braid in her hair. Shaking loose the plaited strands, she pulled her fingers through them a few more times before climbing onto her bed. Who could sleep with their hair bound up in such a manner? She'd been forced to do so until now, just as Jane had been forced to braid it as instructed, but Evangeline refused to endure it any longer. Every night Jane pulled Evangeline's hair into the braid that almost kept her eyes from closing. Every night she suffered for the sake of her hair.

But not tonight.

It was a small rebellion. Only Jane would know. If Evangeline laid the ribbon on her pillow, even if her mother woke her in the morning, she would think it had come loose in the night. Yesterday Evangeline had tasted a table full of ices, and tonight she would sleep with unbound hair. Truly, she was a hoyden. She chuckled as she carefully placed the ribbon Jane had used on the edge of her pillow.

She was fortunate that tightly bound hair was her current problem, really. When she'd been to visit her cousins, she'd had to work to keep the shock from her face at Victoria's new short length hair. Apparently the ends of her hair had been singed in the flames. She was still beautiful, and the style seemed to suit her temperament, but Evangeline quite preferred the longer length of her own hair.

The repercussions of that blasted fire on her cousins' lives were unending. Shorter hair was the least of their worries now with the news of their father promising Victoria to Mr. Brice for his bravery. Or should he be called Lord Hardaway now? How quickly things had changed for everyone involved. Brice had tried to refuse the courtesy title, according to Evangeline's mother, until his own father forced his hand.

Evangeline shook her head and drew her fingers over her sore scalp. There was nothing to be done for any of it. She'd attempted to speak with Isabelle on the subject, although that had done little good. Isabelle wasn't speaking to her sister, and Evangeline couldn't blame either of them. Sisterly love was a delicate thing. She would know.

Just then, a scraping sound on the other side of the room drew her attention. Her window slid open. An intruder! Her heart pounded in her chest. She'd heard stories of the dangers of London, but she'd always thought their home was safe. What should she do? She had to do something.

Evangeline picked up the nearest weapon she could find to defend herself against the threat climbing into her bedchamber—her silver-backed hairbrush. She shifted to her knees on the edge of the bed, holding the hairbrush up in preparation to beat the thief senseless. The only sound was her heart pounding in her ears. Time seemed to slow as she watched one Hessian boot drop over the windowsill, followed by the large form of a man. Rather nice boots for a common thief, weren't they?

“Your home is surprisingly easy to break into,” he said. “You should have that seen to.”

She froze, the brush still held high in her hand, blinking into the shadowed side of the room. It lay too far beyond the reach of her candle for her to see the intruder properly.

“A hairbrush?” he asked. “This is how you defend yourself? Really, Evie.”

“It was all I could find.” She tried to shake some sense into her addled mind. Ash was standing in her bedchamber. “What are you doing here?”

“There wasn't any entertainment tonight,” he replied as he shook his coat back into place on his shoulders.

“If you came here to be entertained, I may yet have to beat you with this hairbrush.”

He chuckled and dropped into a chair. “No need to brush me to death. I was passing by, and I wanted to inform you of my plans.”

“Your plans,” she repeated. “You scaled the side of my home to inform me of plans?”

“I was passing by.”

“You mentioned that part.” She was staring at him with the faint notion that everything about this would make sense if she only looked a bit closer. It didn't work.

“Haven't you ever had a thought to go somewhere you shouldn't?”

“I suppose.”

“I wanted to come here—to see you.” He lounged back in the chair as if it was made for him and surveyed his surroundings. “You have an interesting decorating style, Evie. One would think you were quite concerned with fashion by the fashion plates and…do you have
three
wardrobes?”

“Everything was delivered here for my use.” She shifted from her knees and moved off the bed to stand. “You wanted to see me?”

“I did break into your home,” Ash conceded with a small nod.

“So you did,” she prompted, and said no more in hope that he would explain what he was about.

“You look better than I'd imagined,” he said after a moment's silence.

“You imagined me?”

He grinned as he watched her. “Not exactly like this, but…”

She looked down, realizing only then that she was dressed for bed in just her night rail, not even a robe. Of course, she hadn't been expecting a man to crawl through her window. She crossed her arms over her breasts in an attempt at decency. “If I had known you would visit me, I would have remained dressed.”

“If you find this discomforting, I'm glad you don't know how I imagined you,” he mused.

Heat rushed through her body as her heart began to race. She took a step away from him, but bumped into the edge of her bed.

“Evie,” he said, standing from the chair. “I didn't climb in your window to take advantage of you. There's no need to be fearful.” Closing the gap between them in only a few paces, he placed his hands on her shoulders and slowly moved them down her arms. “You don't have to hide from me.”

“I'm not afraid of you. I'm afraid of me.” She was known in her family for making terrible decisions. She couldn't be trusted, especially when he was looking at her like that and making her limbs turn to noodles.

“You have my word that I won't touch you,” he reassured her as he looked down into her upturned face.

“Ash?”

“Hmm?”

“You're touching me now.”

“That would appear to be true,” he said as if noticing his own grasp on her shoulders for the first time. “Well, I am a swindler by trade, but I'm also a gentleman.”

“That's unfortunate.” Her hand flew to cover her mouth as her eyes went wide with horror. She never spoke the thoughts that ran through her mind. What would he think of her?

He chuckled and pulled her hand from her lips, wrapping her fingers within his. She couldn't look away. There was no judgment in his gaze, only something dark and hungry that matched the emotions swirling through her body. He bent his head and placed a kiss on her hand.

“See? Quite the gentleman.”

“Quite,” she whispered. He was standing close enough to unbalance her if he hadn't been holding her hand within his. The heat of his body warmed the air around her as she looked up into his eyes. “I could be wrong, because I don't have vast amounts of experience on the subject, but I don't think an
honorable
gentleman would be standing in my bedchamber in the middle of the night.”

“Do you want me to leave?” he asked with a raised brow as he lowered her hand to her side with a gentle touch.

A moment passed before she spoke. No, she didn't want him to leave. She didn't ever want him to leave. “You said you wished to tell me of your plans.”

“I did. Of course when I had that thought in my carriage, I didn't know how difficult it would be to talk of plans and other mundane minutiae with you standing here looking as you do.” He lifted a hand to her hair and let it fall through his fingers.

Her eyes drifted closed. After a lifetime of elaborate styles tugging at her scalp, his gentle touch had her leaning in to him for more.

“And this certainly isn't helping my concentration.”

She opened her eyes to look at him. “Do you want me to stand across the room?”

“No.” He continued to trail his hand through her hair.

“I could move away if it would help…”

“Could you?” he asked.

“No. I should. But somehow…”

“I like you like this, with your hair hanging in every direction and no adornment. Do you like it?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she murmured in reply as he continued to slide his fingers through her hair.

“That lady you portray in every ballroom isn't you. This is you. This is the true Evangeline—thoughtful, delicate, and quietly bold.”

She'd never considered herself to be bold. “Do you think so?”

“I think you want much more than you allow of yourself or will even admit,” he said, watching her.

“You tempt me to want more,” she admitted. He'd already made her realize there was happiness to be found in knowing the flavor of ice she truly enjoyed, and how lovely it was to laugh aloud. “Do I tempt you to do the same?”

“You have no idea.” His voice was deep, gravelly, and more than a little suggestive.

She flicked her hand out and hit him on the chest. “That wasn't how I meant that at all.”

He caught her hand and held it close. “And yet it is no less true. You tempt me beyond reason. You tempt me to want something more.”

His heart beat beneath her hand.

“Ash, this is dangerous—whatever is happening here…”

“I know.” He grinned the wicked grin of a swindler about to steal the prize. “Say that you enjoy it as much as I do, Evie. Admit that you like breaking your rules with me.”

“They aren't my rules,” she said, suddenly fearful.

“Then why follow them?”

She swallowed and looked up at him. “I make poor decisions on my own.”

“I disagree,” he said, still holding her close. He toyed with the hair that fell over her shoulder. “You made the perfect choice yesterday.”

“I ate six bowls of syrupy sweetness to discover one small detail.”

“Did you enjoy them?” he asked.

She grimaced, hating to admit the truth. It was unladylike. “Unfortunately, I did.”

“Then you made the best decision available to you at the time.” His deep voice rumbled through her as he spoke, calming her and setting her nerves on edge at the same time.

“I haven't thrown you from my bedchamber. I'm quite certain that is a poor decision.”

“That's a matter of opinion,” he said with a grin. “What is your opinion? What do you want, Evie?”

You
, her heart screamed, but her mouth refused to form the word. Her gaze dropped from the depths of his eyes to his lips. He was so close, and yet he only touched her hair and held her hand to his chest. It would be so easy to rise to her toes and show him what she wanted. And yet it wasn't easy at all.

“Meet me tomorrow night at Vauxhall Gardens,” he said without preamble.

“What?” she asked, trying to follow the quick change of subject. “I couldn't possibly.”

“Your aunt and uncle are attending. I'll be among their party. Meet me there.”

“It would be scandalous. Surely Victoria isn't planning to be there. The fire. Perhaps Isabelle…” Her voice trailed off as she tried to put the pieces of the invitation together in her mind.

“Do you want to go, Evie?”

“It would be improper,” she responded, but even she could hear that her heart wasn't in it. “My mother would never approve,” she tried again and failed once more.

“Do you want to go?”

“I have heard it's lovely,” she mused.

“Do you want to see it for yourself? Experience it for yourself?”

Evangeline licked her lips and gave him a small nod.

His eyes lit up at her agreement. “Then I will see you at Vauxhall tomorrow night.”

“I shouldn't,” she said with a shake of her head.

“Yes, you should.” He tilted her chin up to meet her gaze. “Evie, you want to attend. You want to taste life. You want to see the fireworks. You don't have to hide—not from me.”

She nodded. Was that what she'd been doing—hiding?

“Perhaps I'll even kiss you again if I can make you ask for it. You think I haven't noticed that you've been staring at my mouth for the past ten minutes?”

“I have not…” She began to disagree, but it would have been a lie and he knew it.

“Say that you want me to kiss you, Evie.”

“I would never…” she began, but fell silent.

“Tell me you want me. Say the words and I'll kiss you.”

“I…”

“Say it,” he implored.

Evangeline's lips parted, but she said nothing.

“Say, ‘I want your lips on mine, Ash.' That's all you have to do. I could show you so many things, Evie. Do you want me to? Say the words.”

Her breathing came out harsh as her heart pounded in her chest. How was he making her so unsettled simply with words, and why couldn't she utter anything in return?

“I could bring you so much pleasure, Evie. Do you want me to touch you? To truly touch you? If you asked me, I would fit your breasts into the palms of my hands just like this.” His hand hung in the air over her breast, close enough that she could feel the heat of his skin through her night rail. “Then I would lower my mouth to take your nipple between my teeth, tugging at your polished exterior until the real Evie pulled me closer. I would take your breast into my mouth and with my tongue…” He sighed, dropping his hand away from her. “But you have to tell me you want it.”

“Ash,” she whispered, already missing the heat of him close to her skin.

“There's a world out there that you could experience. All you have to do is stop hiding and tell me what you want.”

It wasn't that simple, was it? She opened her mouth, unsure how to speak of her own desires. She never talked that way, not like Ash was able to do. But the truth was, she did want him to kiss her. She wanted everything about this man. That was also the trouble. She couldn't be trusted to speak—not just now. “I…”