For the Earl's Pleasure (15 page)

Her mouth dropped. “Pardon me?”

Gregory laughed darkly. “I suppose if you are dancing with Campbell and dancing on Danforth, then perhaps I am mistaken.”

It wasn’t a surprise that Gregory would be irritated by her outing with Basil or dance with Campbell, but she was still taken aback by his acidic tone.

She narrowed her eyes on him. “I challenge you to live as a woman in this society. To see how well you deal with turning down such invitations,” she said as calmly as she could manage.

Even Valerian’s eyes looked at her in an assessing manner, unreadable.

Gregory’s eyes pinched, the look in them flat and unsympathetic.

She squared her shoulders and prepared for war, recalling an earlier conversation with Valerian. “Why do you require a doctor, Mr. Penshard?”

“Mother is looking for you, Ed.” Gregory firmly took Edwina’s arm and gave her a push. “Hurry.”

Edwina gave him a questioning glance before dutifully shuffling off.

Gregory turned back to her. “Watch yourself, Miss Smart.” He strode off in the direction he had pushed Edwina.

Unnerved, Abigail looked at Phillip, whose besotted gaze focused on Edwina’s retreating back. “Mr. Brockwell?”

Phillip looked like he might throw up in the potted ferns at any moment from anxiety. “Yes?”

“Do you agree with Mr. Penshard about my new association with the members of Rainewood’s group?”

Phillip twitched. “I, I don’t know, Miss Smart. They have hardly been kind to us. But, you must do as you wish. Pardon me, but I must go.”

He quickly walked away leaving her standing on the sidelines, a bit lost.

Campbell and Mr. Stagen suddenly appeared next to her before she could say anything to Valerian. “That is hardly an expression I wish to see upon your lovely face, Miss Smart,” Campbell said. “Let us cheer you up.”

Valerian’s hands fisted at his sides.

Phillip, Edwina, and Gregory had left her and Rainewood’s crowd had taken up residence. Her world had tilted, and she didn’t know which side was up.

Valerian was a bear for the rest of the party and through the ride home—irritated that Campbell seemed to be extraordinarily attentive all of a sudden.

“Perhaps Campbell is simply interested in me.” She threw her wrap on the bed. “There is nothing so horrid about me, I’ll have you know.” Other than the slightly crazy bit, of course. “And Campbell can offer social security and companionship,” she couldn’t resist adding.

“There’s nothing you can get from Campbell that you wouldn’t get a thousand times better from me.”

Her lips parted, but before she could form a response, his lips descended hard upon hers.

T
he actual feel of her lips shocked him even as he knew that he’d be able to kiss her. But thinking about touching his lips to hers and actually doing it were two entirely separate things. They had shared one kiss in the past, one mistaken glorious moment before all had crashed down.

This kiss was nothing like that. Except for the fact that everything in him seemed to shatter as her breath caught, her lips parted, and she kissed him back with just as much force as he was kissing her.

Her lips felt like the softest blanket, but the strength beneath them, her vibrant personality, was even more intoxicating, drugging. Somehow his fingers found their way into the back of her hair, curling at the top of her nape, bringing her closer still. She made a little noise and his body responded, wanting to press against hers as hard as he could, to push her back toward the bed and complete the pieces that begged to be interlocked.

He drew his hand down her neck instead, around the curve of her collarbone to the cloth at her shoulder, the satin rippling beneath his fingers as they sought for the sweeter feel of more deliciously bared skin.

He could spend hours running his fingers down the back of her arm, soft as velvet, smooth as silk, her skin composed of the finest materials found on earth. It was one of the reasons he always indulged in taunting her, but now, open to him, starved from touching her for the days, weeks, that he’d been disallowed physical contact, touching her was what it had to be like to touch the moon when it was low slung and full, glowing and silky.

She broke the kiss, her cheek level with his as she panted in his ear. “Valerian, I’m not sure that—”

“That this is a good idea?” he said into her ear.

She nodded jerkily.

“You are right.” Her neck was so near, the scent of her mild, breezy soap tingling every sense he had feared lost to him. “It is a great idea.”

His lips sought the spot of her neck just beneath the side of her chin where the skin curved and her pulse beat a mad tempo. Her breath caught and her head arched back allowing him greater access. The hand around her nape moved down her back, down her spine, down the edges of her hips to curl around her rear and hike her against him. Her body responded automatically and one leg bent and lifted to fit them together.

God, she drove him mad. Even in this, something with which she should have no experience, she fired his blood, tempting him to take more and more until she conceded.

He continued to stroke the lovely skin of her arm with his other hand, pulling downward to her gloved fingers. He gripped the edge of the glove in one hand, determined to remove the barrier, to remove each barrier between them. To rid himself of whatever demon had resided within him since he’d turned old enough to know the difference between the girl he had romped with as friends and the woman she had started to become.

There was something so symbolic in removing her glove. As if it represented all that had become wedged between them. Children playing, little adults trying to fit their roles. Changing circumstances and bad choices that had irrevocably driven the division.

Removing the glove was a little like removing the wedge. Opening his heart back up to something that he had closed it to long ago, too hurt and confused to do otherwise, then too proud and stubborn to recognize any fault of his own.

He gripped the glove more firmly and just before he could make the final decision to remove it fully, his fingers slipped through. He paused for half a second. No, they must have slipped
from
the fabric instead. He pulled his suddenly free fingers back along her arm, lifting his head from her neck to look at her, eyes hazy and half closed, head tilted back.

His other hand moved along her backside, hiking her closer still, making her eyes flutter shut for a second before opening again to stare at him, challenge him, as always.

There was nothing he could do but kiss her again, maneuvering her against the back of the dressing chair, using the force to keep them pressed together below as his fingers once more sought her nape, bringing them closer, deepening the kiss, tasting every part of her mouth.

Everything in his body urged him to remove the layers between them. And the analytical portion of his mind was silent for once, not weighing the decision, too distracted by the wonderful feel of her. Feeling he had been denied since falling into this dream.

He moved his hand back down to her glove and gripped the edge. He gave a tug and his fingers fell through the fabric.

He pulled his lips from hers and looked down at her wrist, only the heavy breathing and constant tick of the mantel clock making sound. He traced a finger around the top of her glove, around the soft, strong skin, then dipped beneath the glove to trace the untouched flesh there. She unconsciously arched against him with a gasp.

He could feel the edge of her glove on the sensitive top of his finger, just behind the cuticle. It was a muted feeling of silk, not the vibrant edge that her skin possessed. He rubbed against the fabric to try and gather more feeling.

His finger pulled through.

His body went still.

“What? What is wrong?”

He could hear the uncertainty in her voice, could feel her body tense. The edge of battle always there, waiting for him. He was too long practiced at watching and reading her to know that there was a part of her waiting for him to finish the game. The game that she thought he still played. To do something irrevocable.

He stepped back, unnerved. Unnerved by more than the fact that he was completely able to touch her skin, but still unable to touch much else. Unnerved by his thoughts on what lay between them, wedged still.

What he had placed there. What she had built upon.

He opened his mouth, but the colder part of his brain came to his rescue. “I can’t touch your clothing. For very long, that is. I can’t remove it.”

Her cheeks, already bright, blushed a deep rose. A beautiful color next to her vibrant eyes and kiss-puffed lips.

“Oh.” She tugged self-consciously at her shoulder sleeve.

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” Her cheeks took on a brighter glow, one that made her look even more delectable.

Telly bustled inside. It would have been decidedly awkward had she entered just one minute earlier.

He watched Abigail run a hand down her hair in an attempt to calm herself. Sometimes he felt as if he knew her better than he knew himself.

Telly helped Abigail remove her clothing, which although a magnificent sight, left a bitter taste in his mouth. He could touch her, miraculously, but not enough. Not enough to forget what or where he was. Where was he? Would he be in this cursed state forever? Or once the men who had taken him finished doing whatever it was they were doing, would he disappear as Abigail had said that some spirits did?

Spirits like his brother’s.

The shoulder cuffs of her dress caught on her wrists as Telly tugged the gown from her. Straps of cloth tying her in. He rubbed his wrists. How was he going to discover where he was being held without putting Abigail in more danger? Abigail seemed determined to help him even considering what he had done to her for the last few years.

He watched her, absently rubbing his wrists. Shackles that bound him in life, death, and in between.

Abigail’s eyes met his and her gaze shifted to the wrists he irritably stroked, her emotions reflected in her eyes. Pity, determination. He dropped his hands and paced to the window, pressing into the drapes in order to look through the panes, his back to her. He ignored the low conversation behind him, instead absorbed in his own morbid thoughts.

He heard the door close and a light hand ran down his back. “Telly said that she identified more than a dozen places that start with M-A-L or have that letter sequence in the name. Mostly pubs and taverns. We can search tomorrow.”

He wondered if tomorrow would be too late, but he simply nodded, the innate concern for her that had never disappeared—instead overlaid with anger and bitterness these past years—blossomed fully again.

“She said that neither she nor the man who helped her read the signs were aware of any hospitals or asylums being near, but we can take the carriage around to check at some point when mother and Mrs. Browning aren’t aware. They would ask too many questions otherwise.”

“Why do you put up with her?”

“She’s my mother.”

He turned to her. “No, not your mother, though she is unfortunate for you as well. I meant Mrs. Browning.”

She stepped back and returned to her dressing table, lifting a brush and running the tines along her palm. Something tickled at the edges of his mind. “She has provided us with entrance to society. I think most would ask why she puts up with us.”

“You could do better.”

A mocking little smile worked along her mouth before she turned her back fully to him, hiding her face. “No, we couldn’t. Mrs. Browning is far more than we could hope for.”

He frowned and she dropped the brush, meeting his eyes in the mirror.

“Do you seek to argue?” she asked.

Did he? Yes, he usually did when it came to her. Far better to argue and be angry than to give in to other, more insidious feelings.

“Don’t you tire of it?” She wiped a hand along the looking glass, and he could see her reflected face, lost and searching, sad. “Wish that things could be different?”

“Things are different,” he said automatically.

She laughed without humor. “Yes. But for how long?”

“What do you mean?” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Do you know something about what will happen to me?”

Perhaps she had been lying this whole time—this dream-like incarnation of Abigail—stringing him along, knowing exactly what would happen to him. Her tales of spirits echoing the real Abigail, merely hiding the fact that his body was already dying. That he would disappear to wherever it was that spirits disappeared.

He had never been fond of the notion of death, personally. It seemed like giving up, of failing. Of something he couldn’t control. Like his brother’s death. Unnecessary. A circumstance he should have been able to change.

Her eyes closed and she once more fingered the brush on the table. “I merely meant that nothing stays the same. Everything changes. Nothing can be counted upon.”

“Plenty can be counted on. Prestige, ancestry, that Parliament will always produce brilliant men and jackasses.”

“You are so caught up in lineage. You use it at every opportunity to degrade or to compliment.”

“It is a vital component in our world. That should hardly be a surprise to someone who walks within it.” He leveled a look at her through the shifting glass, the slight imperfections of the glass causing her reflection to ripple.

“Don’t be a boor, Valerian.” She looked down at the table.

The spike of pleasure from her use of his name caught him by surprise again. The spike turned sour as he pondered a response.

“What difference does it make?” He grit his teeth, lying. It had made all the difference in the world between them. “You should hardly be worried about your lineage. It is safe enough.”

Her head shot up sharply.

He pretended to ignore the reaction. “Or perhaps your mind is telling you to wait. Saying you are not ready for marriage. In which case”—he wiped a hand along his leg—“I think you should listen to that instinct and not get betrothed so spuriously.”

He thought that quite brilliant actually. He himself had been pushing away his betrothal for more than a year. He sometimes felt as if he could continue to do so indefinitely, though he knew his father might try to force him one of these days.

She laughed again, and once more her voice held no humor. Her eyes dropped to the brush so that he could not read them through the glass. “Mother would be supremely unsupportive of that plan, of course.”

“She can’t make you marry.” A silly response as he recognized that he would do his duty eventually as well. Every man of his circle must.

“No.” There was something about the hitch in the word, as if there were an unstated “but” attached.

“The last time I checked, the bride did need to consent.”

“Consent to marriage,” she said darkly.

He narrowed eyes at her. “Yes, what else?”

She waved a hand. “Marriage, of course.”

“What are you hiding, Abigail?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why do you continuously hint at something as if you want me to know.”

“Want you to know? That is rich. You are the last person with whom I’d care to share my secrets.”

“Why? I’ve kept them, have I not?”

She walked brusquely to the bed. “We will go searching tomorrow, see Basil the next day, and hopefully figure out what the devil this is all about—to borrow your phrase. Perhaps find your body, set you to rights once more, and allow you to continue your one-man terror campaign of the ton.”

“I don’t know if I should feel pleased by your compliment that I can terrorize the ton single-handedly or annoyed that you are ignoring my question.” The spike of anger that covered another emotion caused him to cross his arms.

She said nothing, didn’t turn around.

“Abigail—”

She turned tired eyes to him, cutting him off before he could formulate what he wanted to say. “No. We can argue tomorrow. Please. I can’t do this now. I need to sleep.”

Anger combined with the stranger, soft emotions she always provoked, and jumbled the words in his head.

“Very well.”

He watched her fall asleep, and when her breath evened, he moved next to her and curled around her heat, feeling her even breaths against his unmoving, deadened chest.

When Abigail woke, Valerian was gone. Skulking about the house, no doubt. She stretched and then stared pensively at the ceiling. He had kissed her last night. Actually kissed her.

The kiss had been much better last night than the first time he’d kissed her. Though the first time she’d only been thirteen, and he fifteen, so she didn’t think it quite a fair comparison. It was hard to countenance that the emotions evoked at thirteen had been less confusing than her emotions now. She had thought her world turned completely on end then.