The Scottish Companion (25 page)

“No,” he said, and pulled her to him. “If I am the headmaster,” he said, “then I set the rules. No stu
dent is ever allowed in my private quarters unless she proves very, very adept.”

“I thought I had,” she said, her smile once more in place.

The fingers of one hand gently stroked the upper curve of her breast, while the other hand supported it, a thumb tenderly strumming across the nipple’s surface. For a moment he concentrated his attention on her left breast before moving to the right. His concentration was intent, his expression rapt as her nipple responded to his ministrations.

“I will always be able to feel the texture of your skin,” he said softly. “It seems something so intrinsically yours, Gillian. As if I could touch a thousand women and know them by the curve of their breasts, by the smoothness and suppleness of their skin.”

“Must you choose this moment to talk about your future conquests, Grant?” she asked with a smile.

He didn’t look up, almost as if she hadn’t spoken.

“Stay with me.”

Now he looked up, to find that she was looking directly at him, that expression back in her eyes.

“You aren’t asking for a week this time, are you?”

“Not a week, a day, or an hour,” he said.

“Forever?” she asked, and he simply nodded.

Suddenly all she wanted to do was to lose herself in pleasure. She didn’t want to think; she didn’t even want to really feel. Not the emotions of the heart, anyway. She wanted to be a sensate being, a creature that reveled in pleasure for the sake of it.

“Make love to me,” she said, leaning forward. She pressed both hands against his face and looked into
his eyes. “Make love to me all night,” she demanded. “And when the dawn comes, make love to me again. And perhaps I will say yes. If you’re good at it. If you give me enough pleasure.”

A mischievous smile appeared on his face. “Are you daring me, Gillian? I would be cautious if I were you. Never tempt a hungry man with a bite of food.”

“Is that what I am now? Only a bite?”

He bent forward and took a nipple into his mouth, drawing heavily on it. His cheeks hollowed as his fingers curved around her other breast.

A line of fire streaked through her, prompting her body’s response. She felt herself dampen for him as her blood beat heavily and pleasure mounted. He gently bit her nipple and then pulled back, his lips still wet from his kisses.

She kissed him hungrily, craving his mouth in a way she never had before. She was the one who deepened the kiss, and fisted her hands in his hair.

Maybe some of her need—her ferocity—communicated itself to him immediately. He moved between her legs, wrapping them around his waist, and then pulled her gently to the edge. She was dimly conscious of the fact that his hands were on her bottom beneath her dress and that he was making swift work of her undergarments. There was nothing circumspect about the way he removed her clothes. Nothing that would impede his possession was allowed to remain in place.

Suddenly, blessedly, he was inside her and she was gasping against his mouth.

More, please; more, please. More, please, until she was so filled she couldn’t breathe or think or feel
anything. More, until she could only experience pleasure and it became the beginning and the end of all that she was. She pulled him to her, whimpering in frustration.

She wanted so desperately to climax, and at the same time wanted to remain poised on the precipice where need and yearning and lust and pleasure mingled to become one unique sensation.

His fingers left her breasts and burrowed beneath her skirts, pushing them back.

He looked down to where they joined. “Look at us,” he commanded.

She bent her head to see him entering her slowly. As she watched, he pulled out almost completely, engorged and thick and slick with her juices.

Her hands clenched into claws and she scraped at his clothing. “Now,” she said softly, a yearning plea for him to return.

He did so, so slowly that she almost wept aloud. Her fingers flexed against his shoulder and then curved around his neck, bringing his head closer, that delicious smile closer to her mouth.

She wanted him to be faster and more intrusive, but he teased her by pulling back, and whispering in her ear.

“Is this enough pleasure, Gillian? Is it enough?”

There was no time for play, for pretense. There was too much urgency. She wanted passion and forgetfulness. She beat at his shoulders, but he only smiled, and then bent forward, kissing her very softly on the lips. It was a teasing kiss, an avuncular kiss, betraying none of the passion and the need she felt.

He let her skirts drop over them. To the rest of
the world they might have been a startling sight, the Earl of Straithern engaged in a carnal dalliance with a companion. Her breasts were exposed, her lips swollen from his kisses. But none would see that he was sliding slowly in and out of her, tormenting her with a teasing, controlled possession.

“Well?”

She laid her head against his shoulder, surrendering.

“Is it enough?” he asked. The calmness of his voice was at odds with the ruddiness of his face and the grip he maintained on the edge of the table.

Her tears came without warning, surprising her. Once, perhaps, she might’ve tried to hide them, but she just flung her head back and stared up at the ceiling, a sound like a half gasp, half laugh escaping her.

He was giving her exactly what she had wanted. Every inch of her body was rife with sensation, and she could feel nothing but him. Everything centered on Grant, on his teasing smile, on the touch of fingers on her skin, and most of all on the feelings that he was giving her, slowly entering her and then pulling back, in control and command not only of his body but also of hers.

“Is it enough?” he whispered.

“Yes,” she said.

Remember this
, her mind urged, even as her body peaked.
Remember this
, a last refrain as he finally crushed his mouth on hers, and swallowed her sob.

Her hands opened the stopper of the cobalt blue bottle with practiced ease. She lowered a long-handled spoon down the neck of the bottle, scooping out a
portion of a grayish powdery substance. Powdered leaves of belladonna, a most favored plant, useful for nervous system disorders, diseases of the eye, and bladder dysfunction.

She’d once heard it said that poison was a woman’s weapon. How foolish. Although this could be construed as a poison, it was also a valuable medicine. She used medicines to cure. Yet if the soul were not clean, what did it matter that the body was healed?

That’s when the medicine became poison. A stronger dose became the means of ending a life. It was kind in its way, sparing the victim a lingering pain. While it was true the first few moments of ingesting the poison were difficult to endure, the agony was of short duration.

Too short a duration for evil to truly be eradicated.

There were some sins for which there was no reparation, just as there were some sinners who did not accept the need for atonement. In those cases, she simply did what she must, and ended their lives with less care for their eventual pain. If they screamed for release near the end, it was what they deserved.

She was well aware that there were some people who would look upon what she was doing as wrong. But these same individuals would deny the need for justice in all but the most egregious cases. Life was not necessarily kind, nor was it virtuous. It was for the brave to demand integrity and fairness.

The truth was that she was ridding the world of those who defiled innocence, who were evil. She would never be recognized as a savior, she was certain. Nor
would she ever be completely forgiven for what she was doing.

There were those, however, who might wonder in the quiet of the night whether she was to be applauded for her zeal and whether she was more saint than sinner.

She didn’t care either way.

Nor was she disappointed when she occasionally failed in her attempt to kill the wicked. She simply reevaluated what went wrong, what she needed to do next. If she failed, she tried again. She always succeeded eventually.

Look how long it had taken with James.

She turned and smiled at the skeleton arranged on the bed, the skull carefully placed on the pillow as if he slept. Dear Roderick—it was a pseudonym, of course, since no one would understand if she used his real name. But she’d engaged the ser vices of an enterprising young man—who was satisfied with a paltry sum and some medicines to ease symptoms of a personal nature—to disinter him. No one else knew that the skeleton belonged to the very first of her victims, an old man who beat his wife and nearly starved his children. The world thought him buried in the churchyard where he lay alone and without visitors. But he was her constant companion, a reminder of not only what she must accomplish but what she’d already done.

Lorenzo would have a great deal to tell his wife when he returned home to Florence, not the least of which was this improbable gathering in Grant’s library.

The evening was advanced, the day had been a long
one, and he would much rather have sought his own bed than be in the library, enduring the company of Dr. Fenton and his daughter.

What would Elise have to say about the two of them? He could only imagine his wife’s comments.

She is very forward for a female, Lorenzo. Has she no grace? For a beautiful girl, she seems almost to have a dislike of her appearance.

And him? Why are his spectacles always dirty? You are never so unkempt, my darling.

He smiled and held up his glass, bowing slightly from the waist. “It is excellent wine,” he said to Dr. Fenton. The older man simply nodded.

It was Arabella who corrected him. “It isn’t my father’s wine cellar, sir.”

Of course it wasn’t, and his remark was merely meant to be gracious in a fashion, not to be interpreted in the way she had.

Having witnessed her behavior at various occasions at Rosemoor, Lorenzo decided that Miss Fenton was not comfortable in social gatherings. She seemed to hold herself apart, almost as if she were viewing other people from afar. Yet perhaps he was judging her too harshly. He and Elise had the same reaction to society. As long as their little ones were around and they had each other, they were complete. They required no other entertainments.

Yet he couldn’t help but wonder if Arabella would ever warm to Grant, especially after his interlude with the companion. What woman would still marry Grant, having been spurned publicly in such a way? A greedy one, perhaps. A vengeful one?

”I’m very surprised, sir, that you never mentioned you were a physician. Was there some reason that you hid your occupation from me?”

Lorenzo bent forward and pulled the silver tray a few inches closer. He poured himself some more wine from the decanted bottle. When he offered to refill Dr. Fenton’s glass, the older man shook his head.

“I was doing so at a request from my friend, sir,” he said. More than that, he would not reveal. Grant’s conclusion as to his own health was a private matter, and he would not reveal it to the doctor, or in Arabella’s company.

He wished, fervently, that Miss Fenton would disappear, that she would go somewhere women congregated at Rosemoor. Where was that, exactly? To the library? Not a bad decision in Miss Fenton’s regard, but since they were sitting in the middle of the library, that was hardly a solution. To one of the many parlors in this very large house? No doubt she would meet the countess, and from what he’d witnessed at dinner, he doubted the two women wanted anything to do with each other.

He took a sip of his wine, tasting the bitterness for the first time. He wouldn’t make the remark to Dr. Fenton, but he would tease Grant about the fact that his cellar was turning to vinegar.

What would Elise say about Grant’s improbable liaison with Gillian Cameron? For the first time, his friend was behaving with little thought to his customary rigid standards of behavior, and Lorenzo wanted to applaud the change, at the same time warning Grant that there would be repercussions for his actions.

Grant looked happy. In fact, he couldn’t remember Grant ever looking quite so happy, even in all those years of living in Florence.

Gone was the man who would never escort a woman of dubious reputation to a public gathering for fear word would reach the community of English émigrés. Nor did Grant seem concerned as to the wagging tongues in the neighborhood—not like he’d been when people speculated as to his bachelorhood in Italy. He’d always been so inordinately careful not to sully the Roberson name. But he’d acquired a reputation all the same, one that would have horrified him had Lorenzo ever bothered to reveal it—Grant was known to the shopkeepers and Italian neighbors as
L’Inglese Rigido
: the Stiff Englishman.

He really should toast Miss Cameron. She’d accomplished what five years of Grant’s living in Italy had not: made him a happy man.

“We could have conferred on a great many cases,” the doctor said, evidently feeling a necessity to be affable.

Lorenzo had nothing against the doctor, and admired him for a great many attributes; however, his treatment of Miss Cameron was not one of them. He had been openly critical of her actions, and condemnatory to the point of prudishness, a reaction that Lorenzo did not quite understand.

Loneliness was a terrible malady, and when it struck, there seemed to be no true remedy. Medicine might work temporarily, but it could cause more problems if a dependency was begun. Alcohol was the same. The only true therapy for loneliness was the company of another person, the laughter of a convivial soul, the
presence of a caring and compassionate individual, the solace of passion.

The world looked askance at such arrangements, temporary or otherwise, unless they were sanctioned by religion or societal approval. The world would forever condemn Grant and Gillian’s liaison, which was a great pity. Loving each other might heal both of them.

“I would have enjoyed the discussion,” Lorenzo said. “Unfortunately, I have plans to return to Italy soon.”