Elisabeth Fairchild (26 page)

“Indeed, I must see to loosening them. They take your breath away, my dear.” He fingered free the fichu from her throat, with practiced hand gave one breast a squeeze.

She could not writhe free. Too tightly did he have her pressed to the pony.

She kicked at his shin.

It made no impression.

“Perhaps you will serve me better today than wagon ever would,” he said. “It has been too long, my dear, since I have kept my wife’s company.” His words chilled her to the bone as his pelvis thrust hers against the warm wall of the pony’s flank.

“You forget yourself, sir.” She shook away all impression of his past, his future, focused completely on the present, made every attempt to hide her terror, though her arms proved ineffectual in pushing away the size and strength of him.

Fast, too fast--his right hand fumbled to unbutton his breeches flap. His left sought to lift her coat, to lift the skirt beneath.

“Hands off!” she shouted, slapping his cheek, the strength of her anger rising.

The pony snorted, tried to bolt, his movements jostled their bodies together in far too provocative a fashion. Thistlewood’s eyes glowed with dark purpose. His breath  came fast. Her struggles, the pounding of her fists upon his chest, served only to bring a smile to his lips.

She twisted, stepped again on his instep, making no impression on his boiled leather boot, directed a kick his way, and served only to facilitate the better lifting of her skirt with her movements.

Thistlewood laughed, tried to kiss her, his unshaven cheek rough.

Desperate, she reached behind her, poked her thumb hard in the pony’s ribs. With a squeal the animal bolted again for the far end of the stable, flinging them apart.

Breathing hard, she faced Thistlewood, who fumbled to button his breeches lest they slide down about his boot tops. “Prefer a tumble in the hay, do you?” He jerked his head in the pony’s direction.

“I prefer to be left alone.”

“Ah, but we are back where we started, little milkmaid. You still owing me favors and the pony still to be fetched.” He laughed, the sound grating her nerves. “Shall we make a game of seeing who shall be mounted first, you or I?”

Bootheels clattered on the ladder.

Roger, boxy, black Garrick coat whirling about him like a storm cloud, jumped the last few rungs to the ground, his color high, a blaze of blue and gold to her rescue.

“What the devil are you doing here?” He was angry, as she had never seen him angry before.

“I come to bring you what you required.” She was angry as well, with herself, with Thistlewood, with the pull Roger had on her, that she would follow him into this lion’s den, that he should direct his ire at her rather than the man. It took little imagination to play the scorned lover. “Some nerve you have, George Edwards, asking me to make deliveries to riffraff like this, when I have not so much as clapped eyes on you for nigh onto two--” Months  she might have blurted, had he not finished the breathless race of the sentence.

“Weeks,” he snapped angrily, waving his hands, as if she were a fly and he a man harried. “I know. I know. I have heard it all before. Have you never known a man to be busy, woman?” His gaze darted uneasily to Thistlewood and back again.

She wondered if he had some sense of the scene he interrupted.

“Too long, Georgie boy,” Thistlewood said smoothly. “Too long unaccompanied, a girl’s head can be turned.”

“And is it you would do the turning, Thistlewood?”

“A favor, boy. It is only the loan of the lass’s milk wagon I am after. I shall leave it to your persuasive ways to convince her. She would have none of it from me.”

With an ironic lift of his brows Thistlewood bowed with a flourish of windblown coattails, and left them.

Her color high, red coat flapping in the wind, the ribbons of her bonnet whipping rosied lip and cheek--Dulcie Selwyn filled Roger’s eyes. She had never looked more beautiful and he had never been in less of a mood to see her.

He opened his arms to her--for Thistlewood’s benefit. They must play a part. She flung herself into them, words catching in her throat.

“Did I not tell you to stay away from me?” He murmured in her ear, furious. “What in God’s name do you do here?”

“I make a fool of myself,” she mumbled indistinctly against threadbare wool.

“Kiss me,” he murmured, still angry, his voice low and harsh. He knew Thistlewood paused, halfway up the ladder, to look back.

She obliged him, mouth soft, breath catching in a sob in her throat. He meant to keep it businesslike, meant to maintain his anger. He could not. Too long had he missed the taste and smell of her, the liquid promise of her mouth.

Angered afresh by her control over him, he pulled back. “I want you to leave now, quickly and without argument.”

She nodded, head bent, fumbling to tie the ribbons beneath her chin.

“The pony.” Her voice thinned. The brim of her bonnet bobbed in the direction of the back of the stable. “He ran,” she said unevenly, fingers shaking, unable to tie the bow.

“Here, let me.” He took the ribbons, straightened them.

When she lifted her chin for the tying, her tear-starred lashes shocked him.

“Misbehaving, was he?”

Her gaze strayed, toward the stairwell. She pressed her lips together, nodded, dashing away tears with mittened hand.

“I'll fetch him for you.”

She followed when he had expected her to stand waiting.

The pony came, without trouble, reins dangling, head high.

“You’re all right now,” she crooned to him, rubbing his neck, a bit of a warble to her voice.

“He seems docile enough,” he said.

Her lips pursed. “It is the company you keep he does not care for. Nor do I.”

He lowered his voice. “What did Thistlewood want?”

She set her jaw. The words came out angry--too loud. “A milk wagon.”

He pressed a finger to his lips, warned her to silence with a jerk of his thumb to the rafters above.

She whispered. “For delivering gifts, he said. Gifts that explode, perhaps?”

“Yes.” He regretted the truth of it. “I suppose we will have to see he gets the wagon.”

Blue eyes blazed with anger. She leaned close that she might spit words at his ear. “Why help them build bombs? I do not understand. Quinn tried to explain . . .”

The pieces clicked into place. The untied ribbons of her bonnet. Thistlewood’s demeanor.

 “Did he force himself upon you?” He forgot to lower his voice.

The contraction of her mouth, the sudden skitter of her gaze gave her away.

“Damn the man,” he murmured. “Damn Quinn for allowing you to come. He should have brought the package himself.”

“I have missed you too,” she said, voice low.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Cato Street

He framed her shoulders with threadbare, mittened hands, breath misting the air between them. His face was dirty, unshaven, eyes red-rimmed. Blue shadows smudged the skin beneath. His clothes had not seen soap for a sennight.

A cold, work roughened finger traced the line of her cheek. Gaze drawn to the black holed entrance to the second floor at the top of the ladder, he asked, whisper thin, “He did not hurt you? Did not . . .?”

She understood the implication, shook her head, shook free of his touch, could not look him in the eyes without throwing herself at him.

“You will hold the pony’s head?” she murmured, as concerned as he that they might be overheard. “I will not put myself in harm’s way--in your way--again.”

He caught her hand when she would shoulder past, swung her around to look him in the eye, leaned close to ask, voice low,  “Do you think I do not miss you, too?”

She darted a glance at the wooden floor above, wondered how much might be heard through it. She did not know what to believe anymore when it came to this man. She had once believed they were meant for one another--still had some sense of it, and yet the years passed. She was, as Lydia made a point of reminding her, now twenty-four, no longer an unseasoned young miss, no longer certain. His touch still spoke of bared flesh and heated kisses, but she knew better than to assume this meant marriage or commitment.

“Every night I think of you,” he whispered, his message intensified by its very lack of volume, “and I am glad you have no part in this.” He gestured to the beams above. “An ugly business.” He leaned closer. “A dangerous business.”

Danger lurked in his lips. She knew he meant to kiss her, could read it in the way his gaze went from her eyes to her mouth and back again. She knew she meant to let him kiss her.

“Your father hates me, does he not?” He surprised her with the question.

She stepped back. Her ardor ought to have been cooled by mention of her father, but the provocative intimacy of this whispered conversation, heightened the tension. They took risk conducting a private exchange while dangerous men gathered just above their heads.

“I hear he threatened you,” she whispered, strangely breathless as she backed away.

He followed her retreat, a look in his eyes that reminded her too much of Manchester, their every move a hushed rustle of straw, as if the stable would whisper too. She backed into the slats of a stall divider, pulse racing. He followed, leaning into the gnawed wood.

“It does not matter what he thinks. Do you hate me?”

How could he ask such a question? Did he not sense it was love backed her out of the draft and into the shadows?

“I do not hate you,” she said, the words lost in the folds of wool at her throat.

He pushed back the muffler, tipped up her chin.

“Perhaps you should.”

His kiss said otherwise, their mouths an oasis of warmth seeking greater warmth as his hands slid inside her cloak and around her waist, drawing her close.

She fit her body more closely to the hollows of his. Not a day went by when she did not think of Manchester.

Silence hummed between them. She wondered what it would be like to lie down in the straw. Beneath the cloak, the heat of one hand skimmed along the fabric covering her ribcage. The other rose to cup her breast. He nuzzled her cheek, the bristle of his beard a part of the roughness of their surroundings, “I want you. You want me too.” He breathed deep the skin of her neck. “I smell the wanting on you.”

She sighed.

He stepped back, laughing, studying his dirt-grimed hands. “God, you smell good, but I do not. Pray excuse me. I am in desperate need of a bathe.”

She chuckled, the tension between them easing. She ran a hand along his bristling jaw. “You do lack a certain fastidiousness of person to which I have grown accustomed.”

He sighed, his words, like hers, the lowest of murmurs. “I do not go home for fear of discovery. Thistlewood has eyes and ears everywhere.”

“No noses?” She smiled.

“That bad?”

She closed her eyes, and pulled the wide lapel of his flowing Garrick coat toward her. He stepped closer. She sniffed the fabric. “You smell of tar, sulfur, and hemp?”

“Your senses are keen.”

She loved the timbre of his voice, so close--held low--for her ears only. He made the mundane provocative.

“But you say nothing today of my colors.”

He surprised her with the question. “They are thin. You are not well rested.”

“And yet you would allow my arms to enfold you.”

Yes, she thought. Too many years had she played the fool to quit now.

“Shall we hie together to a bath house?” He laughed, the words not meant to be taken seriously.

“You are welcome to borrow mine.”

The words flew from her tongue, as if a stranger took possession of her powers of speech.

That stilled him. Eyes locked on hers, curiosity writ itself plain in every feature.

She must explain her way out of the mad offer. It sounded bad, sounded worse to explain it away with a whispered, “I bathe tonight. They always leave the water standing until morning.” She faltered. “You might get some sleep as well.”

“Sleep?” His brows rose mischievously. His lips twitched.  “Not at all what I have in mind when you are near.”

She would not smile, bade him hold the pony’s head, mounted the sidesaddle without incident, smoothed her skirts over the pommel, as much as she smoothed the wild rise of her own desire. “Be clear. I am not offering you a repeat of Manchester’s excess of passion.”

“What then? A modicum of passion?” He tipped his head, eyed her quizzically as he handed up the reins.

“No.” She frowned. “A safe place. A warm bath. Sleep, if you will. You are in need of it--desperate need. A man’s mind is muddled when he is not well rested. Would you risk the fate of the nation on lack of sleep?”

The pony tossed its head, switched tail.

He did not hesitate. “When?”

“After lights are out. I shall leave the window unlatched.”

“Your father . . .”

“Will kill you if he finds you. At the very least he will insist that you should marry me.” She clucked to her mount.

He called from the curb, “You do not know?”

“What?” She reined in the pony.

“He already asked it of me.”

Her head snapped in his direction. The pony shied sideways.

Roger stepped into the street to soothe the beast. “Upon our return from Manchester.”

She could not meet his eyes. “You refused?”

Silence gave answer. The pony tossed its head. Dulcie, her manner equally restive, asked, “Would I make such a poor wife?”

“No.” He clapped hand against the pony’s shaggy neck, stepped in close to her skirts, lay hand upon her left boot. “It is I would make a poor husband.”

“You underestimate yourself, sir.” She touched heel to the animal, the wind flirting with the hem of her cloak, the pony’s mane stinging her face.

“Do I?” he whispered as he watched her go.

His shadow stole moonlight from the floor. The chill climbed over the sill with him, teasing the draperies, fluttering the bed curtains. He closed the window against the wind’s whistle, slipped out of his boots, in stocking feet went to the fire, to warm his hands at a row of banked coals. Like a dark, faceless giant his shadow followed, clinging to the wall. How ill he fit the room. He blemished the smooth, orderly face of it--in stinking rags--here, in direct contradiction to the promise he had made her father.