Liz Carlyle - [Lorimer Family & Clan Cameron 02] (29 page)

Elliot’s mouth, spicy and sweet, held the promise of pleasure. She was warm with the scent of him: smoke, soap, and man. Filled with the rumble of thunder, which was closer now, the air was thick and hot, redolent of summer flowers. Evangeline wanted him to take her. Now. In the soft, fragrant grass of the garden. Before she returned to reason. This was the very dream that had so disturbed her sleep of late. She wanted this and could not let it end.

“Now,” she begged. Her plea was no more than a whisper of breath against his mouth.

Elliot elevated simple seduction to a high art. Evangeline knew that she would never have the strength to resist him, to fight the unleashed urge to have him, or to ignore the way her body begged him for pleasure. And because she was a victim of her own uncontrollable need, God only knew what else she might be persuaded to do, by him, this man she had come to cherish beyond reason. She pressed away the thought, and as her hands opened against the warm wool of his coat, his fingers came up to tangle in her hair, forcing her head to still.

She felt his control slip suddenly. His tongue, hot and aggressive, plunged, drew back, then surged deeply into her again and again, the rhythm compelling her to want more. All. In the darkness, she felt his hand skim down and drag up her skirts in a smooth, forceful motion. A warm breeze of silk and lawn whispered up her thighs, and then his hand was sliding between them, touching her flesh intimately, in a way that felt both persuasive and treacherous. Warm and smooth, his fingers slipped into the folds of her womanhood, probing, coaxing, then stroking, until they were slick. Slick with her passion. It was all so new, yet Evangeline understood.

Through it all, Elliot’s mouth never ceased in ruthless invasion of her mouth. Evangeline clutched at him for balance, her legs melting beneath her. She wanted it, yes, wanted everything he had to offer. Whatever the price, no matter the complications. Abruptly, she pulled her mouth from his and tilted back her head to stare into his eyes, which seemed black and impenetrable in the darkness. “Please, Elliot,” she begged. Involuntarily, her body trembled against his hand, and she gasped for breath. “Please.” She felt like a wild thing caught in his snare, left at his mercy, and begging for release.

Elliot stared down into her eyes, held her gaze, and continued his torment until her body began to respond by arching against him, aching for more. Then, slowly, his mouth came down on hers again, even as his hand stilled. Evangeline wanted to scream in protest when the demanding pressure of his hands and mouth relented, then pulled slowly away, leaving her wanting and desperate.

Elliot loosened his grip and held her in his arms. Tenderly, he dipped his head to press hot kisses along her cheekbone. The light touch of his tongue against her earlobe sent fire coursing through her body to the emptiness between her thighs. She felt his breath against the dampness of her temple, and she realized that he had deliberately tormented her into near madness.

“Come to me tonight, then, Evangeline,” he whispered silkily into her ear. “If you want to take a lover—if you truly believe that is all you need—come to me, and I shall oblige you well. Then we shall see who does the begging. And for what.” With that, his arms dropped away, and he was gone, striding across the terrace and through the back door.

The clock struck ten as Elliot stormed across the hall to climb the central staircase that led to Chatham’s family bedchambers. On the landing, he paused to listen uncertainly. Despite the painful throbbing between his legs, his ears still worked sufficiently well for him to discern an indistinct noise in the corridor. He froze. In the distance, he heard the sound again, the faint hiss of silk, he guessed. Confusion shifted to rage when he saw Etienne LeNotre treading softly down the older tower stairs that entered the corridor further down its length. LeNotre paused to duck beneath the low stone beam before stepping out into the candlelight of a wall sconce. Fully expecting the comte to turn right toward Evangeline’s room, Elliot felt the blood rush to his head as he prepared to step into his path and threaten him.

Attired in a long dressing gown of dark silk, the comte instead turned left, then all but vanished in the dark beyond. Quietly, he drew up before the last door on the right and entered without pausing to knock.

Good Lord! So that was the way of things. The comte de Chalons was having an affair with Winnie Weyden! Little wonder, then, why Gus held the man in some suspicion. Despite his own libidinous frustrations, Elliot was forced to suppress a snort of amazement. Yet he had to admit that Winnie Weyden was a beauty, if a man preferred his women bold, voluptuous, and a dozen years older. Elliot, however, did not. Moreover, his relief at discovering the true direction of de Chalons’s desire did nothing to mitigate his own lust.

The dank smell of London closed in around Godfrey Moore, Baron Cranham, as he made his way through the dark streets between Fitzroy Square and St. Marylebone. The rain had now slowed to a steady drizzle, and his journey was not overlong. Despite the damp chill, a carriage, Cranham cautioned himself, would have been too indiscreet. Indeed, he had often made this surreptitious trek on foot, but tonight the distance seemed inordinately difficult. Weakened by his recent illness, Cranham could nonetheless summon breath enough to curse Elliot Armstrong deep into the bowels of hell.

A passing chaise rolled briskly through a deep puddle in the center of Portland Place, churning back a spray of filthy water which drenched Cranham’s long coat from hip to hem. Muttering a string of curses, he mentally renewed his vow of vengeance and leaned weakly into his cane. Cranham continued thus for a half mile, then turned down the alley which would eventually take him to the rear entrance of Antoinette Fontaine’s residence. Although the authorities had searched her rooms, it was entirely possible that they had missed something. Something that Cranham might now find useful in his quest for retribution.

It was fortunate indeed that in her increasingly desperate, drunken rages, Antoinette had so often been less than circumspect. Initially, he had believed her mad, but then her standard of living had abruptly and dramatically improved. No great exertion of logic had been required to surmise the means of her newfound wealth. She was blackmailing someone, and it could only be Rannoch. One could only imagine what ugly secrets the man’s lover had been privy to. It pleased him to know that the marquis would continue to pay for his sins. Antoinette’s little cache of sordid secrets, if he could but find it, would ensure it.

The rear steps loomed up in the dim light, and Cranham paused just long enough to allow the burning ache in his belly to subside, then gingerly made his way up to the second floor. Reaching deep into his pocket, Cranham withdrew a key and chuckled at his duplicity in having stolen it weeks earlier. As he touched the metal to the ancient lock, however, the soft sound of a man clearing his throat caused Cranham’s hand to still.

A low, rich chuckle arose from the darkened stairs below. “Well, they do say the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime,” drawled a languid voice. Smoothly, Viscount Linden slid from the shadows at the foot of the steps to stand in the feeble lamplight. Cranham dropped the key back into his pocket, his eyes darting up and down in desperate search for a means of escape.

“Oh, I shouldn’t bother to run, dear boy,” responded Linden silkily, propping one elegantly shod foot on the bottom step. “After all, you’re in a weakened state, and I rather think I could take you down without muddying my evening slippers.” Arrogantly, the man dipped his head to light a thin, dark cheroot. Drawing deeply, Linden clamped down on the cigar, then returned his gaze upward, a lazy, glittering smile working its way across his face. “Do come down, old sport, or my neck shall surely crick in this infernal damp.”

“Rot in hell, Linden,” hissed Cranham. “Don’t you think you and your cohort Rannoch have done me enough harm?”

“Ah! Well. As to that, Cranham, it begs pointing out that you are yet alive. And Miss Fontaine, regrettably, is not. I wonder how that happened?”

Cranham snorted in outrage. “Rannoch killed her, you imbecile. What’s more, everyone knows it.”

Linden merely shrugged and withdrew a pistol from deep within the folds of his greatcoat. In the shadows, Cranham watched as the viscount motioned him downward with the barrel. “I don’t think so, Cranham.” He chuckled softly. “Come down now, if you please, sir. I’ve a snug little barouche just around the corner. Let’s get out of this rain and trundle down to Brooks’s. We shall have a drink, just you and me, eh?”

“You must be mad, Linden. I shall go nowhere with you.”

Linden merely laughed again. “Ah, perhaps! But your life is in danger, Cranham. Mayhap you cannot be too selective in your choice of allies, hmm?” The glittering smile returned as Cranham walked slowly back down the stairway to join him.

For two hours, Elliot stormed back and forth across the floor of his bedchamber, waiting for Evangeline. Outside, another sort of storm raged, whipping rain across the window with a driving fury. She would come, damn it. Her body had answered his just as he had known it would. She would come to him, and then what? He wanted her, but what was worse, he needed her. He needed her a great deal more than she, apparently, needed him. And he had proposed marriage to her. The reality of it stunned him.

Good God, what did the woman want from him? He had never known a more disturbing female. Would she have him beg for her love? He would not do so, for he had nothing true enough to give in return. For her hand? He would willingly continue to plead for that, if she would have him. Or did she indeed want nothing more than the pleasure and comfort his body could provide? What a vengeful twist of fate that would be.

In aggravation, Elliot ripped a cheroot from the case in his coat pocket, strode to the deep, mullioned window, and shoved open the casement. For the most part, the rain came straight down now, rushing through the gutters and only occasionally lashing back in an angry spatter against the stone walls. Elliot ignored it. He drew hard on the cigar, using the lamp from his side table as a light, then settled himself sideways into the deep windowsill. A split of lightning forked down from the heavens, illuminating the gardens below with a clean white light, only to be followed by a rolling crash of thunder that resonated off the tower.

The brilliance of the lightning seemed to reflect his unease, throwing it back at him like the quick flash of a mirror. The problem was not Evangeline, he realized, exhaling a harsh stream of smoke out into the turbulent Essex night. It was him, his anger and his fear and this damnable, inextricable mess he had created out of a foolish impulse. Moreover, his misery was heightened by the knowledge that, even with his sordid history safely hidden, he could tempt her to nothing more than a clandestine affair. And she, an inexperienced virgin! Had he suffered any doubt on that score, Evangeline had erased it with her sweet, breathless confession.

What did he want? To wed her, yes. The uncomfortable truth was driving him mad. What he had felt upon seeing LeNotre touch Evangeline had been a harsh realization, not a passing fancy. He wanted Evangeline Stone to be his marchioness, to give him children, and to do all those sweet, traditional things such as comfort him in sickness and in health. Moreover, Elliot wanted to give the very same to her, for without a doubt, she was deserving of his best. Nevertheless, it was well worth recollecting that this was not the first time he had allowed himself to yearn for, and to offer, such things. Elliot forced himself to remember that painful truth. The gardens sprang to life again as a bolt of lightning split the sky, but Elliot scarcely heard the resultant thunderclap.

Did he love Evangeline? No, he believed that he had lost that ability long ago. In youthful naïveté and ignorance, he had loved Cicely, and the ripping away of that love had torn out some essential part of his humanity. The last ten years of his life had clearly evidenced the loss in the ugliest of ways. He thought about Evangeline, recalled how she had felt in his arms, so soft and yet so strong, and he wondered how on earth they had come to this. Why, despite all his wickedness and dissolution, had he been inextricably drawn to this woman to the point that his judgment weakened?

What pathetic human fragility made him willing to ruthlessly deceive her, over and over, impelled by a fear that far exceeded any remorse he might ever have been capable of? Like the wicked Tarquin, tempted beyond his feeble resistance by the virtuous Lucrece, Elliot had used deceit and cunning in an attempt to have his way with an honorable woman. And now, did not his false heart bleed? Yes, it did, but like Tarquin, he had been unable to alter his path, to do the right thing.

Now, out of what felt like desperation, he would gladly take her innocence, knowing full well that it was all she was likely to give him. Such a willingness was not love; it was something worse. What he felt for Evangeline was wholly divergent from any feeling he had harbored for his long-dead fiancée.

Had that been love? That painful ache he had felt for Cicely?

Perhaps not. The doubt rose from his subconscious mind to rock the foundations of everything he had come to be. Without question, her calculated deception had stripped him of his youthful dreams and left him dead inside. Then, just as quickly, the residual agony had made him hunger for revenge, not only on her lover but on the
beau monde
that had first laughed at him, then whispered behind his back, and ultimately heaped him with scorn.

No one—not even Hugh, who should have seen what was coming—had bothered to explain that Cicely Forsythe was little better than a shameless coquette. She had courted ruin in a determined effort to snare a rich husband, until at last she was forced to settle her expectations on Lord Cranham’s bastard. Elliot now knew that by the time he had arrived in town, naïve and unenlightened, Cicely was barely tolerated in polite society. Only the
ton’s
respect for her plain but highborn aunt, whose ample dowry had shackled her to nothing more than a disreputable, debt-ridden baron, had allowed Cicely to cling to the edge of respectability. Moreover, it was obvious to many that Lady Howell had cared far less for her husband’s niece than did the
ton.