Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 02] (21 page)

As much as she longed to see him, a part of her knew that when the mask came off, the dream would end. Then she must wake up and go back to being precise and proper Clara.

Somehow in the fray, her own clothing had gone the way of his, tangling together in the shadows while she and he tangled together in the moonlight. She was trembling in the attic air, but her shivers had nothing to do with the chill.

He backed her toward the pallet of draperies, kissing her fiercely all the while. She let herself fall, knowing that he would ease her gently down.

Once he lay above her with one hard thigh parting hers, she pressed him back for a moment. She needed her breath and her wits for just a moment more.

“I’ll not conceive,” she told him breathlessly. “’Tis not the time.”

Apparently the thought had never crossed his mind, for he only stared down at her for a long moment, his gaze unreadable behind the mask. Was he not much used to women? She herself had learned the trick of planned
conception from Bentley, who hadn’t been interested in immediate fatherhood.

Then Monty slowly lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her softly, his hard demand still present beneath the tenderness. “Were things only different, my flower, there’d be no finer thing than to make a child with you.”

Tears came from nowhere and she impatiently brushed them away. “If things were different, my darling, I’d never let you leave me through that window.”

She placed both palms on his jaw and urged him close for another kiss. “But we are who we are, love. This attic, this night, is all we’ll have. Don’t let us waste another moment of it.”

Dalton could feel the trace of tears that her hands left on his skin and it burned him. What he was doing was wrong. It was unfair and untrue—except that it was the most honest moment of his life. His throat ached from the bright lovely truth between them.

Slowly he lowered his hot hard body onto her chilled soft one. He levered his thighs between hers and she welcomed him with the embrace of her legs about his hips.

“Come into me,” she whispered. “I shall keep you there always.”

Dalton felt a burning behind his own eyes at her words. This was no fevered coupling such as he had imagined on the stairs. This was a sacred moment, a promise. If he took part in this woman, he would never be the same.

He kissed her long and slow, then submerged himself slowly in her. It was like coming home.

Clara ached at his thickness, her hips twisting as she slowly accepted him. This was not Bentley, this was not
some anonymous lover—this moment was as beautiful and unique as Monty himself.

Her struggle to take him eased and in answer he increased the pace of his movement until she was unable to think beyond his thick presence within her and his hard male beauty above her. She lost her mind, lost her every thought.

Every thrust was a revelation, every breath they traded a promise. Dizzily she ran her hands over him, memorizing every inch of him she could reach. Above her he rocked and drove into her with slow implacable lunges. His jaw muscles flexed in time with his thrusts, mesmerizing her even as it timed with her pleasure.

His sharp cheekbones glistened damp in the ghostly moonlight, a sculpted contrast to the shadow of his mask above. His eyes were mere glints in the blackness, mysterious and tantalizingly dangerous.

She should be appalled at herself, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She would
not
go on without this moment with him.

Then the drawing spreading pleasure captured her and she thought no more. Only sensation and pulsating connection existed.

Him. Inside. Above. His touch. His heat.

His love.

The peak approached and she stepped willingly over the edge, her gaze held by the glinting eyes within the mask. When she fell, it was with the knowledge that she loved him and always would.

She wrapped her arms about him, held him close and took him with her.

The room no longer spun about her, yet Clara’s mind still whirled. What she had done should have been unthinkable. To take a veritable stranger for a lover?

Why did she feel no shame at all?

In fact, she felt the opposite. Bliss, perhaps. Or possibly even… hope. As if her weary heart had finally bloomed in the warmth—the
heat
—of his desire for her.

Outlandish plans swam through her mind, the kind she’d not dared believe in since her girlhood. She could go, right now with Monty. Marry him and five in some tiny room and live on nothing but love.

That was being a bit dramatic, of course. She did have some funds tucked away, and she was sure that with a bit of encouragement Monty would see the sense in a more conventional career.

Of course, he hadn’t asked her to run away with him. But he’d said that if things were different…

You’ve never even seen his face.

Clara sighed. The tiresome little voice was right. Perhaps she was being premature. She rolled over into the
warmth of Monty’s body and rose onto her elbows next to him.

He was dozing in the moonlight, mask and all. His beautiful body was covered only by the merest corner of the velvet draperies. She eyed that small modesty for a moment, then flicked it from him with a snap.

“Hey, there!” His eyes opened and he grinned at her. “And here I was worried you’d be all proper again.” He gave her own velvet covering a tug. “Sauce for the goose, now.”

Clara laughed and allowed him to slide the cover to her waist. Then she put one hand over his to stop him.

“‘Tisn’t gentlemanly, me being all naked when you’re not.”

He looked down at himself in surprise. Clara tapped her own cheekbone meaningfully. “What kind of woman does that make me, when I’ve never even seen your face?”

He raised one hand to his mask. When he hesitated, Clara’s heart began to twist. Then he gave her a sheepish grin.

“Forgot I had it on.”

“Oh, so you weren’t born with it, then?” She poked at him as she teased. He retorted by wrapping one big hand around the back of her neck and pulling her down for a kiss that made her knees go weak and her legs fall open involuntarily. When she opened her eyes, the mask was gone. There was only him in the moonlight, every plane of his face as familiar as her own.

The pain was fierce and immediate as her heart broke quite cleanly in two.

Dalton waited in silence for her reaction, but except for a widening of her eyes he could see no change in
her expression. He shifted slightly. Finally he had to break the silence. “You don’t like what you see?”

“You’re perfect,” she whispered. “Quite the most handsome man I’ve ever seen.”

Dalton raised his head to kiss her again. Her lips were cool for a moment, then warmed fiercely under his. He rolled her over, his erection rising instantly in response to the feel of her beneath him.

What this woman did to him…

Her arms rose to cling tightly to his neck and hold the kiss until they were both breathless. He pulled away, covering his astonishment with a small chuckle.

“If I’d known I’d get a buss like that I would’ve taken me mask off the first night,” he teased.

She didn’t smile, but only cupped his face in her hands. There were tears in her eyes that did not fall. He saw the glint in the last bit of moonlight left to them. A glance at the window proved that the sky had clouded. The light would be gone entirely soon. Darkness again for them, as always. He realized that he still had not seen her full in the moonlight as she had seen him.

Yet it was time for him to go.

“I’ll be back,” he promised as he reached for his clothes.

“No,” she said. She stood and turned to pull her plain gown over her head. “There was only ever to be this one moment of Rose and Monty in the moonlight.” Her voice sounded muffled in the fabric, almost as if she were crying. However, when she turned back to him, she seemed composed.

He moved to stand before her, wrapping his hands gently over her shoulders. “I can’t just walk away—”

She covered his lips with the tips of her fingers. “I can.”

It hurt to hear her say it. “You can?”

“You mustn’t mistake fantasy for reality, S—Monty.” She stepped back once, then again, letting his hands fall from her shoulders. “This attic was a dreamland, and you and I only a mirage.”

For a moment, Dalton wondered at the new formality in her tone. Then the ache overwhelmed every thought. “I won’t let it be!”

The last faint glow of moonlight died behind the clouds and she was lost to sight in the blackness that filled the attic. He heard a tiny creak, like that of old dry wood. Then nothing.

“Rose! Rose, we aren’t done here. We can’t be!”

His hoarse whisper echoed around the attic, bouncing back to him from a room that was as empty as his heart.

Dalton was stewing in his secret office in the attic of the Liar’s Club when Simon tapped on the hidden panel and entered without waiting for an invitation.

“Damn it, Simon! This isn’t your club anymore, remember? How am I supposed to handle Jackham with you running about, popping in and out of walls?”

“Jackham’s gone off to Scotland, remember? Choosing a new liquor supplier, since the last bloke got picked up for smuggling French brandy. He prefers to see to the whiskey personally.”

Dalton huffed. ‘To taste the whisky, you mean.”

Simon shrugged. “Jackham thinks only about profit for the club.”

“If I were Jackham, I’d be more concerned about club morale.”

“Ah, the bliss of ignorance,” Simon misquoted. “You forget that Jackham knows nothing more of the Liar’s
Club than that we cater to gentlemen on one side of the wall, and thieves on the other.”

“Thieves on both sides, if you were to ask Sir Thorogood.”

Simon took the only other chair and stretched his legs out before him. “How is the Sir Thorogood case going?”

“Nowhere, quickly.”

“Really? I thought you put a lovely pincer trap about the man, what with taking two identities and keeping a close eye on Wadsworth.”

“Oh, I’ve discovered a good many juicy things about Wadsworth and passed them on to Liverpool, but I’ve found nothing to connect him to our cartoonist. Thorogood is more of a professional than I had anticipated. There’s been no reaction to the impostor lure… well, that’s not entirely true.”

Simon sat up. “What do you mean?”

Dalton rubbed his neck. “I’ve been attacked by footpads twice, once in an alleyway and once in Hyde Park.”

“You? Or Thorogood?”

“Thorogood.”

“Hmm. That could be chance, or possibly simple revenge for one of his cartoons.”

“Precisely. It seems the man may have good reason to keep his identity secret. I certainly wouldn’t want half of Parliament to be slavering for my hide.”

“Surely it isn’t that bad.”

“I don’t know. Someone’s been following me—er, Thorogood. A fair man, who tries to pretend he isn’t a gentleman.”

“Can you describe him?”

Dalton shrugged, frustrated. “Fair, tall, good-looking sort. Youngish, but not too young. Which fits threescore
members of Society. A description is no good. I’d have to spot him myself to apprehend him.”

“How often have you seen him?”

“Twice, on the occasion of the first attack and…”

“The other time?”

Dalton described the near miss with the coal wagon, and the fair rider whom he had barely seen.

Simon sat back. “That is a bit thin, as far as evidence goes. Still, if your instinct tells you that it was deliberate, it probably was. You’ve a fine understanding of human nature.”

Dalton covered his eyes with one hand. “After last night, I don’t know if I believe that. At least not of my own nature.”

“Last night?”

Dalton sighed. He didn’t want to reveal his unprofessional act to Simon, but he needed help to sort it out. “Remember the source inside Wadsworth’s that I told you about?”

“Yes, the housemaid Rose.”

Dalton shook his head. “I know I shouldn’t have done it. Even as I did it, I knew it was wrong—”

Simon recoiled. “You
didn’t?

Dalton rubbed the back of his neck. “I did. On the attic floor yet. I feel like such an ass.”

“You are an ass! What were you thinking, getting involved with a case in that way?”

Dalton snorted. “As if you haven’t done it yourself.”

Simon glowered but returned to his chair. “That’s different. I was in love with Agatha.”

That statement resonated within Dalton, but he shook off the feeling. “At any rate. Rose isn’t a suspect. She’s not involved with Sir Thorogood in any way.”

“True. What are you going to do about her now?”

“I need to get her out of there. I thought about setting her up—”

“I can’t believe it! You’d dishonor her by making her your mistress? She may only be a housemaid, but—”

“Shut it, Simon,” Dalton said wearily. “I was going to say ‘set her up with a new position,’ you dolt.”

“Oh. Sorry. That’s a bit of a fiery point for me.”

“I know. I must admit I thought about it, for I hate to give her up. There’s just something about her…”

Simon blinked. “Have you conceived a passion for a housemaid. Lord Etheridge?”

“I hardly think so.” Dalton steepled his hands. Looking down at them, he realized how much the gesture was saturated in Liverpool. He slowly flattened his palms on the desk instead.

“Regardless, I need to get her out of that house. It isn’t a good situation, and what’s more, I’ve put her in danger with my activities. If it ever came out that she helped a thief—”

“She’d be in the stocks,” Simon finished. “Or worse.”

“Can Agatha take her on? Find her something better?”

“A new job? Is that all you can offer her, Dalton?”

Dalton raised a brow. “What else is there?”

Clara threw the last of her sober half-mourning wardrobe into the carpetbag and knelt to reach under her bed for her secret chest. With a grunt, she tugged it out and lifted it to set on the bed.

Idiot
. What had she done? She shivered. More to the point, what hadn’t she done?

She hadn’t once pursued the topic of precisely who he was working for. She hadn’t once stopped to wonder why he never removed the mask in her presence.