In the Arms of a Marquess (23 page)

Perhaps
.

But before he sought out Styles, he must pay another call, days overdue. His heart ached harder than it had in seven years, his world again turned upside down overnight. Now, finally, from one person at least, he needed the truth.

Chapter 18

LIGHT. That principle or thing by which objects are made perceptible to our sense of seeing, or the sensation occasioned in the mind by the view of luminous objects.

—Falconer’s
Dictionary of the Marine

B
en did not call. Tavy bit back the tears, gnawed on every one of her fingertips, and cursed her weakness for a black-eyed lord. Then she cursed him. Then she cursed the practice of lying. Then she cursed him again.

Dragging herself out of her morass of maledictions, she went to the museum with Alethea and Constance. After oohing and ahhing appropriately, she and Constance parted company with Tavy’s sister and continued on to visit Lady Ashford. On the way they instructed the coachman to make a detour to Gunter’s. They ate biscuits and ices, and—in contrast to their highbrow pursuits in the museum—aggressively pursued remarkably silly conversation about complete frivolities.

By the time the carriage drew to a halt before the viscountess’s town house, Tavy had convinced herself that she felt nearly like a girl, with barely a care in the world, even as though she might not be required to flee back to India to escape the belly-deep pain of his presence in her life again. Her hands shook, even her lips quivered with the strain of pretense. But she was quite,
quite
proud of herself for not having succumbed to the desire to curl up in a miserable ball on the museum floor, or in her chair at the confectioner’s shop, so she must consider it a small sort of victory.

She was laughing aloud with forced exuberance at one of Constance’s witticisms when they entered the house and her gaze met Ben’s. He stood arrested upon the third step of the staircase leading down from the second story, his hand on the rail. He wore riding breeches and his boots were streaked with dirt. His color was high.

“I have just been to your house,” he said directly to her without preamble or any sort of greeting to either of them, and Tavy’s fragile commitment to thorough indifference simply dissolved.

“Well, good day to you too, my lord.” Constance made an exaggerated curtsy, brows tilted high.

He seemed to recall himself. “Good day, ladies.” He bowed and glanced at her, but his gaze returned immediately to Tavy. “I hope you are well.”

Tavy nodded and curtsied. She could manage no more. He looked perfect, and tired, and so handsome, and somewhat strange. Lines flanked his beautiful mouth, not of pleasure but tension.

“We have come to see Lady Ashford, as you will imagine,” Constance said, taking Tavy’s hand. “So if you will step aside we will be on our way up.”

“Of course.” He came down the stairs and Constance pulled her past him. “Will you return home after this visit?”

Her throat constricted. It should not be this difficult. But something in his eyes seemed odd. Constance drew to a halt halfway up the stairs, allowing her to respond.

“Yes.” Brilliant. What a wit. What a composed, clever society ingenue.

He nodded, the brightness flickering into his gaze once more. Taking his hat and coat from the butler, he departed. Tavy forced air through her lungs.

In the parlor, Valerie sat amidst a chaos of open books, maps, writing paper, pen and ink.

“How lovely,” she exclaimed, and drew them to a cluster of seats removed from the disarray. “I thought I would not see you until tonight at the ball.”

“Whatever was Ben doing here?” Constance plopped down onto a satin ottoman, casting a glance at Valerie’s abandoned project. “Are you insisting that handsome lords pay court to you while your own handsome lord is absent from town?”

Valerie chuckled, but her gentle gaze slipped to Tavy. “He was here seeking out Steven, of course.”

“Are they well acquainted?” Tavy asked. She knew so little about the Marquess of Doreé, so little of what he did in London, how he spent his time and with whom he associated other than Baron Styles. He was, for all intents and purposes, a stranger still. She’d told herself that countless times over the past four days, but it had not made a dent in her unhappiness.

Valerie studied her for a moment. “Yes, they are. Quite well acquainted.” She turned to Constance. “Now, Constance, I have it on excellent authority that your father is coming to town next month.”

“Really? He has not told me. But he never bothers with that.”

“Fathers can be trying, it’s true,” the viscountess agreed.

Tavy stared at the door. She had nothing to tell him, no new information to impart, not even that she was no longer betrothed. The day after Lady Fitzwarren’s party, Marcus sent her a note announcing that he was suddenly required to leave town to see to his property in the country. He had not contacted her since. Just like Ben.

“See? She is entirely unaware that we are speaking of her.” Constance’s voice came to her slowly.

Tavy righted her thoughts. “What are you saying, then?” She blinked. “Have I a smudge upon my face or some such thing?”

“No, you are lovely.” The viscountess’s eyes were kind. “Only a bit preoccupied, it seems.”

“You should go home.” Constance smiled, a light sweet look. “We have already had quite a day of it and I am perfectly fagged. You must be as well.”

“If you wish.” Tavy rose. Constance did not. “Well?”

“Oh, go along without me.” Constance bussed her upon the cheek. “Valerie was telling me the most diverting tale while you were daydreaming and I must hear the end of it. I will call a chair when I have need.”

“Well, I like that. It seems I am being dismissed.”

Valerie chuckled. “Never. Now, go before you worry a hole in your reticule.”

Tavy released the pressure of her fingers around her purse. “All right. Thank you, I think. But I was not daydreaming. I was merely—”

Constance’s gaze dipped, hiding the expression in her azure eyes.

“—thinking,” Tavy finished lamely.

“Go think at home.” Constance looked up, her gaze uncustomarily vague. When Tavy hesitated, she waved her fingers, gesturing her away. Tavy gave Valerie a crooked smile and hurried to her carriage.

By the time she reached the house dusk had begun to fall. Too late for callers. Alethea and St. John had already departed for a dinner engagement. A footman was lighting lamps throughout the house. Tavy went to the nursery and looked in on her nephew, tiny, sleeping so peacefully, as yet wholly unaware of the tumult of life beyond the cradle. Lal crept across the chamber’s threshold. Before he could make a noise, Tavy stole back into the corridor.

Restive, her skin oddly tight over her flesh, she descended to the parlor. A maid was lighting the fire. She bobbed a curtsy and went to the windows to draw the curtains against the falling night. When she left, Tavy moved to a table before the darkened window and touched the embossed leather cover of the book there. A thick volume, pages frayed from constant use, William Falconer’s
Dictionary of the Marine
had been Tavy’s bible for years. When her father first gave it to her, she was no more than fifteen, aching for adventure and travel, longing to follow her dreams.

She ran a palm over the book’s smooth surface. She hadn’t questioned why her father bought it for her, simply dove into it, learning and memorizing week after week. Finally he explained. Soon she would be making a lengthy journey by ship, he informed her, thumbs tucked in his waistcoat, chest puffed out with pride. He wished her to be ready for any eventuality she might meet with at sea over the course of this journey. She was—he finished with gravity suitable to the moment—going to the East Indies.

Of the few treasures Tavy took upon her voyage to remind her of home and the sister and father she missed especially dearly, the dictionary was her most beloved. She wrote in the margins, using it as a diary of sorts, commenting on the people she encountered, sights she saw, all of her marvelous experiences abroad.

Two years later, after Ben broke her heart, such childish fancies had abruptly seemed foolish. But she kept the dictionary. She’d no idea how it had ended up on the table in the parlor. It belonged on the shelf stacked with the other works of reference that St. John kept for his business.

Not, however, including its current contents.

Tavy opened the cover and turned back the pages. In the center crease, the yellowed journal clippings crackled softly as she touched her fingertips to them.

A footstep sounded behind her.

Her head came up as hands surrounded her upper arms, large and warm and achingly familiar. She drew in a quick breath, his scent tangling in her senses—linen and leather and that ineffable essence that was Ben alone.

He bent and touched his lips to her shoulder alongside the collar of her dress. Hot, wonderful shivers stole through her. She breathed in deep and his mouth lingered. He kissed the curve of her neck, then the hollow beneath her ear, stirring the tendrils of hair that had escaped pins. She stretched like a cat, arching to encourage the seduction of velvet caresses, and a sigh escaped her parted lips.

His hands slipped along her arms, then to her waist. His body almost touched hers, a tantalizing nearness that sought to unwind the knot of doubt and pain born of the past four days.

“Do you know who is kissing you?” His voice smiled, low and intimate, swelling a bubble of joy inside Tavy. He brushed his lips across her shoulder again.

“I daresay it does not matter,” she replied, her grin feeling honest and so very good, “as long as he is quite, quite handsome and enormously wealthy.”

He went still.

Cold passed along her skin where his mouth had been. She swiveled in his embrace and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“And you.” She drank in the reality of him so close again, his strong hands upon her, his chest pressed against her breasts. That night at Fellsbourne had not been a dream. He was holding her now, again. But his eyes were troubled.

“I’m sorry.” She twined her fingers in his cravat. “That was a poor jest. I told you a long time ago that I am not good at flirta—”

He caught her mouth with his and all thought halted, all regret, everything but the sublime joy of being in his arms again. Like water after a long thirst. He wanted her and she let herself drown in it, the pleasure and happiness tumbling through her now almost worth the pain of the previous four days.

Almost.

She retreated from the kiss reluctantly and he seemed just as unwilling to let her go.

“You did not come,” she said. “I thought you would not.”

“I was obliged to leave town. I did not intend to be gone over a day.” He seemed to search her features, especially her eyes, lines forming between his brows.

“What?” She slid her palm along the edge of his cravat to feel his skin. He was so warm, his jaw rough with whiskers, the slant of his cheek smooth. She wanted to touch all of him again, to be free with his body as she had been during that brief moment at Fellsbourne. “You want to ask me something, I can see. What is it you wish to know?”

He shook his head. “I know too much already.” He leaned in, brushing her lips then bringing their mouths together fully. It was a seeking caress, deeper with each stroke of his tongue along her lips and inside. He sought and Tavy offered, helpless against the pull within her that sought him in return, that burned to entwine everything of theirs together, mouths and bodies and hearts. He dragged her hips tight to him and covered her behind with his hand, fingers spread, owning her again so swiftly as she dreamed and feared. She tasted the desire in his mouth, his possessing hands. Nothing in his touch spoke of caution, only questing, questioning need.

She broke away abruptly this time, her breaths coming fast, fingers tangled in his hair.

“Ask me, Ben.” It was the worst sort of heedlessness, but she could not halt her unruly tongue. “I am through with lying. Ask me what you wish and I will tell you.”

His gaze retreated even as it swept across her face, and he did not speak.

Tavy’s throat closed.

She had been right to mistrust again. He wanted only that part of her he could use briefly. She was unutterably foolish.
Again
. He had told her that night at the folly that he would not give her what she was looking for.

She backed out of his hold, and—the worst pain yet—he let her go.

“Why are you here now? I have no information for you, nothing of value in my possession.”

He was silent a stretched moment. “I wished to see you.”

She dashed her hand across her lips dampened by his kiss. “ ‘See’ is a broad term for you, apparently. My family is not at home tonight, as you clearly know. How did you come in here without a footman announcing you? Did you pay my brother-in-law’s servants to assure privacy?”

“Your Indian manservant gave me your direction. I saw no others.” An odd light glinted in his eyes. “But I came here earlier. I told you that.”

“You wished to see me in the light of day?”

“There was a time when that did not surprise you.”

Madras. The bazaar, beneath the sun’s heat. The past that confused and contorted the present and would not seem to lay dormant.