The Sins of Lord Easterbrook (4 page)

“You must have been disappointed.”

“Saving the business from total failure occupied me. I was able to preserve it for my brother. After he reached his majority and was allowed into Canton, it improved significantly.”

He smiled. For that brief moment he looked much like Edmund, whose rare smiles made her heart rise with both joy and relief. “I think, Leona, that the trading house improved under your own hand. Your father relied on you, and I suspect that your brother does too.”

“My brother has proven most capable. I do help him when I can, of course. In fact, that is why I am in
London. I intend to meet with shippers and traders based here, and convince them to forge associations with Montgomery and Tavares for their intracoastal trade in the East.”

He assessed her again, with a gaze both curious and admiring. She clung to her pose of friendly but casual interest.

His dark, deep-set eyes showed humor and warmth and disconcerting familiarity. His countenance subtly shifted from handsome to beautiful as his thoughts allowed the softening elegance to have its way.

Her instincts reacted the same way that they had when he watched her in Macao. She sensed something emanating from him, something both dark and dangerously alluring. His aura became possessively invasive. His attention tried to compel her to explore a mystery that would be her undoing.

Her inexperience had sent her running seven years ago, whenever that power sought to absorb her. Now here she was, a grown woman who had seen the world, who had bargained with Muslims and faced down pirates, and she still wanted to hide.

Instead she retreated within herself. She pulled walls around her soul so that it would be safe.

Immediately his softness disappeared. His gaze turned searching, as if he tried to see through that barrier.

“So you traveled all the way to England to serve as your brother's agent? You came for no other reason?”

He was very close to her. Too close. She had to look up to see his face. “There was no other reason to come.”

“Wasn't there?”

“None at all.”

“I think that there was.”

“Goodness—Do you think I journeyed all this way to fi
nd you
?” She feigned astonishment. “Of course, if I had known your true identity I would have. I daresay you can arrange introductions in a day that it will take me weeks to obtain. If I had known that Edmund was really Easterbrook, I would have sought you out immediately upon arriving in London.”

He responded with a lazy smile. She could feel his aura sliding around her in a curious caress, seeking any gaps in her defenses. “You would have done no such thing. Whether I was Edmund or Easterbrook, you would have run away and hidden from me, no matter what benefit I might bring to your missions here.”

“Hidden from you? Why would I do that?”

“Because I frighten you. I terrified the girl, and I still alarm the woman.”

He guessed her reaction so confidently that it irritated her. She squared her shoulders. “You are a little peculiar, and you are somewhat rude, and you have been insulting today, and you were too brooding then, but you have never been frightening.”

He abruptly stepped closer. She almost jumped out of her skin.

He laughed quietly. “See?”

She stood her ground, facing him down almost nose to nose. “Startled is not the same as frightened, Lord Easterbrook.”

“You were relieved that I had to leave Macao. You could not get me on that ship fast enough.”

“There was no choice but to get you on that ship, or have you forgotten that?”

“There was unfinished business between us and you were not sorry to escape the reckoning. You were too innocent and unawake to understand that you wanted me as much as I wanted you.”

“You are wrong, but that is all in the past anyway. I am no longer an ignorant girl and you are no longer Edmund. Those two differences change everything.”

“Actually, Leona, I have learned since entering this chamber that time, place, and names change some things not at all.”

No, they did not. Damn it. Damn
him.

He loomed over her, close enough to subtly dominate her. Near enough that he might hear the stunning way her heart beat.

The hard curve of his mouth matched the arrogant confidence in his eyes. He could tell that she was too much affected by him. He knew that he could still turn her into the nineteen-year-old girl promised to a fiancé who did not excite her nearly as much as the handsome stranger taking hospitality in her father's home.

However, one thing
had
changed. As a woman she understood his appeal in ways the girl had not. She recognized her response to his mysterious allure for the sexual arousal that it was. She worried that he knew that too.

She tried to move away. He caught her arm, stopping her. He pulled her toward him. His boldness stunned her.

His hand touched her face, commanding her to be still. His gaze demanded obedience. Her thoughts spun
into incoherent objections when he tilted her head back.

His warm, dry lips touched hers and lingered, then began proving that he could still mesmerize her.

Warmth. Intimacy so immediate and deep that it seemed unnatural. Sly, sensual shivers and expanding wonder and astonishment.

The years fell away and she was being kissed for the first time ever by a reckless young man with a dark, chaotic spirit—a dangerous man who offered adventures of the body and heart that she dared not accept.

The kiss banished suspicions while it lasted. Youth ful emotions refreshed her like a coastal breeze. Arousal tingled at her breasts and tightened her womb and teased one devilish spot very low in her body.

She restrained herself from showing how powerfully he stirred her. One sigh or gasp and they would probably end up on that apple green bed. She did not fight him, however. The sensations so stimulated her that she lacked the strength for that.

“You are an enigma, Leona,” he muttered. His hand remained on her cheek and his breath warmed her ear. “You always were. Perhaps that is the fascination.”

“We all are enigmas to each other, I suppose.”

“Very few people are to me.”

She gently lifted his hand off her arm. She stepped away and pulled her composure together.

“Lord Easterbrook, since you arranged this unexpected reunion, perhaps you will agree to aid me in my mission. Out of sentiment for our old friendship in Macao, that is.”

He scowled at the way she picked up the threads of
their conversation, as if nothing of note had just happened. “That depends on the kind of aid that you request, Leona.”

“I would like to be introduced to your brother, Lord Hayden Rothwell.”

“What do you want with Hayden?”

“I have been told that he is likely to know the traders and investors whom I came to London to meet.”

He appeared bored by such a simple petition. “I will arrange for you to meet him if you wish.”

“That is kind of you. I am very grateful. Now, while seeing old friends is always pleasant, this unexpected visit has delayed my day's plans. Am I allowed to leave? Are we done?”

His attention sharpened on her. He did not care for the way she dismissed the meeting, and him. “We are nowhere near done, Leona.”

“To my mind we are entirely done, Lord Easterbrook. Please accept my decision about that.”

A tense silence passed, no more than ten seconds she guessed. In that brief span he appeared to be making a decision. Their intimate surroundings, the bed and pillows and sensual fabrics, ceased being mere background and turned into visual arguments for why it would be pleasant not to be entirely done after all.

She wished that she could summon anger or outrage or pride to shore up her defenses. She wished she could claim that kiss had not tempted her. In truth a little whirlwind spun in her heart now, and her body ached from the intense desire pulling between them with tantalizing tugs.

“You were always allowed to leave,” he said. “There is no guard outside the door.”

“I will continue with my afternoon's excursion, then. Good day to you, Lord Easterbrook.”

She grabbed her bonnet and strode to the door on legs that barely allowed her to walk.

“Leona.”

His quiet address stopped her after she had opened the door. The resonance of his tone sent a treacherous thrill down the center of her body.

“Leona, it appears that you are no longer so innocent and unawake.”

She looked back at him. He appeared far too dashing in his shirtsleeves and open collar and high boots. Stronger than she remembered. More arrogant too. There had been poignant moments when Edmund was vulnerable in ways that she suspected Easterbrook never was.

“That is a peculiar farewell, Lord Easterbrook. Maybe I will run and hide just as you predicted.”

“I am not worried about that. Your missions will keep you nearby. And this time, Leona, before any ship takes one of us away, I will have you.”

P
lease explain what you require, Lord Easterbrook. Describe it while we examine your reflection in the looking glass together.”

Christian looked into the glass. A round face peered back from atop his shoulder.

“I require you to cut it. That is what you do, is it not?”

The moon face smiled with feigned modesty. “I do not merely cut, Lord Easterbrook. Your manservant could do that. I dress. I style. I am an artist. Much as a sculptor does not merely carve, I—”

“Yes, yes. Well, be an artist. Do not overdo it, though.”

The face disappeared. Two pudgy hands lifted hair, weighed it, debated it, judged it.

Shears appeared. “We will let your hair have its way with these restless waves, just do a bit of taming and bring the length to here.” The shears touched Christian's shoulder.

Christian closed his eyes, not to avoid seeing the
locks fall but to block the peculiar intensity that the artist exuded while he sculpted.

The center would not form now, but his own thoughts could provide a misty retreat that diffused his sensibility. He had been practicing the last few days at finding that respite more easily. He would need it in the weeks ahead.

He pictured Leona's departure from their reunion while he watched her from his bedchamber's window.

She had paused before entering the coach. She had glanced up the façade of the house, toward the window where he stood. She had not seen him, he was certain. She would never allow her face to show so much if she knew that he watched.

Her anger had been obvious. And her indignation. Other than that, what had he seen? Embarrassment? Probably so. Something else showed in her eyes too. Worry? Suspicion? Sorrow?

He was never really sure with Leona. She possessed a remarkable ability to deflect his odd perceptions of other people's emotions. Very few people in his life had demonstrated an immunity, but with Leona he was as ignorant as anyone regarding what she truly felt.

Except when it came to desire. A man needed no special gift to sense that in a woman, or to feel her response when he kissed her.

Nothing had changed there, for all of her attempts to pretend otherwise. As soon as he entered that room the attraction had pulled between them, as intensely as ever. The reality had been far more powerful than the memory, and the memory had dimmed very little. After
seven years, it was a wonder he had not ravished her on sight.

It would be preferable if she just accepted the way it was between them, and what that meant. How it had to be. It appeared that instead she was going to make him pursue her, which meant altering his habits for a while.

So be it.

Hands moved around his face like big, irritating insects. Snipping intruded on his memories of that revealing kiss. Suddenly all sounds stopped. Christian opened his eyes. A round face again beamed atop his shoulder in the looking glass.

“Do you like it, Lord Easterbrook? I believe it came out well. Very well indeed.”

His hair looked much like it had an hour ago, just somewhat shorter and less unruly. If the artist considered it fashionable enough, it probably was.

He pulled off the cloth that protected his garments. “It will do.”

The hairdresser retreated, carrying his case of shears and pomades. Christian called for his valet.

“My lord?”

“Send for the tailor.”

Confusion. Worry.
Poor Phippen. The morning's parade of messengers, tradesmen, and other visitors distressed him. The abrupt, uncharacteristic activity suggested that the worst rumors about his new master's sanity were true. “May I inquire, my lord—which tailor? Weston? Stulze?”

“Send for Davidson,” a voice commanded.

Phippen startled and glanced at the man who had
just entered the dressing room. “Should I indeed send for Mr. Davidson as Lord Hayden recommends?”

“Our family has used Davidson for years. If Lord Easterbrook speaks of the tailor, that is the one he means,” Hayden said. “Christian, since when do you actually meet with him before the first fitting? He has your measure, and you normally order and let him decide the cut and fabric. Since you rarely leave this house, there is little reason to fuss with either.”