Meet the Earl at Midnight (Midnight Meetings) (18 page)

“Miss Mayhew is a friend, like a sister to me, which is how things were growing up together. Thick as thieves, we were, but you won’t find her portrait on Greenwich walls.” His smooth, cultured voice vibrated above her head. “Do you understand?
I
was never more than a brother to her, and she was always a sister to me. Her affections developed elsewhere.”

Dawning recognition seeped into her mind. The man at her back, intense and intellectual, and the man in the portrait before her, commanding and entitled—both cut from the same familial cloth, but so very different in their appeal. Lydia viewed the late heir, and then craned her neck to see the man behind her.

His mouth hovered near her ear as he whispered, “Tell me what you see.”

Heat radiated from his chest to her back. She glanced at Lord Edward once more. So many emotions played across his face as he stared at the flat replica of his brother…love, awe, sadness. Her head swiveled back and forth between the two men: one dead and the other very much alive.

“
Not
you.
Miss Mayhew and…and…” She pointed at the portrait, her jaw dropping.

Questions, the pressing need to know, waited at the tip of her tongue. What of the necklace? The morning’s tearful outburst? What exactly happened? Lydia stretched her neck as she tried to read his face, deciding to temper herself. Lord Greenwich gave her a telling, rueful smile and nodded at the portrait.

“Miss Mayhew loved your brother,” she gushed the admission.

“With all her heart.”

The dashing, dark-haired Lord Jonathan could easily claim the heart of any woman who crossed his path; stunningly beautiful women would not be immune. Strength and masculine vitality radiated from him. Couple that with wealth and position, and troves of women were bound to lay their hearts at his feet. And from the stories told, they did.

Lord Greenwich’s body pressed closer, his hands eased their grip, and he moved to stand beside her with his arm brushing hers. “Now you see. I give Claire the same protection and care that I’d give my sister, Jane.”

With understanding came silent connection. Lydia waited. The rhythm of his breathing slowed, matching hers. Or did her body strive to match his? If he harbored any anger toward her for the unfounded accusations, she couldn’t feel them. Acute awareness of the earl, a man very much alive, flushed her back, her bottom, her limbs.

“She loved my brother, and for a time, I believe he loved her.” He inhaled deeply, and his tone went flat. “And then he hurt her. Badly. Like some coldhearted cad.”

“What happened?” she asked, her voice a wisp of sound in the cavernous room.

His gaze, a kaleidoscope of love, disappointment, and awe locked on the portrait. “We grew up.”

She watched traces of anger dissipate, replaced by fascination. There was no guile or arrogance in him.

He stared at the painting, a faint smile playing at his lips. “As children, we played together, whiling away our summers, fishing, making mischief.”

His dark blond queue hung loosely at the top of his back. His unscarred profile bore the Greenwich hallmarks: straight nose and classical features, like beautiful Greek statuary, above wide shoulders. Yet he was not the same kind of handsome as his brother.

Better than his visage, Lord Edward exuded depth and intelligence—too much for some, intriguing for her. He would never need people and social conventions as others did; privacy and solitude meant too much to him. And those he allowed close enough to matter would be held to very high standards. Lydia stored away that tidbit, a treasure piece of knowledge about this man, to savor and examine later. His face was a vision of jumbled memories behind stormy eyes. Loyalty was his gift to Claire. Would he shower that gift elsewhere? She wanted to draw him out of his reverie and draw him closer to her.

“What made things go badly?”

“Childhood affections turned into something more. I was more and more with my tutors,” he said, rolling his shoulder loosely. “My brother and Claire became very close—too close according to my mother. She confronted Jonathan and told him under no circumstances would a steward’s daughter be the next Countess of Greenwich.”

Lydia inhaled sharply. “But I am a steward’s daughter.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?” Lord Edward’s eyes slanted at her. He faced the portrait again. “My mother paraded anything in skirts, young widows to girls fresh from the schoolroom, all in an effort to sway him.”

“And?”

“Some he ignored, and with some, he dallied. He kept Claire hanging. She was always conveniently tucked away here at Greenwich Park.” He frowned at the portrait. “In his selfish, youthful way, he still loved her”—Lord Greenwich shook his head, his eyes narrowing as if he could divine something from the silent painting—“then came the proverbial carrot, something Jonathan always wanted but could never have.”

Lydia leaned forward for a better look at the present earl’s face; truthfully, she wanted his full attention and touched his arm. His eyes hooded, Lord Greenwich stayed oblivious, lost in family history. He tipped his head at a small frame high up on the wall. That portrait of his mother showed an older woman in the same vein as the beautiful, commanding presence over the mantel in the pink palace.

“She gave Jonathan his own ship.”

“Ahhh…I begin to see how things unfolded.”

He clamped his arms across his chest, stretching black broadcloth tight over his shoulders. “How often do you hear of an heir taking to the high seas? My mother was so desperate to get him away from Claire that she’d risk losing him to the seas rather than to an inferior woman, as she put it.” His mouth pressed into a hard line, anger etched the corners. “She feared they might run off to Gretna Green.”

“What about your father?”

“My father was not…unopposed…to Claire, but he didn’t rally to her side either. I think he saw two young people and decided to let things be.” One corner of his mouth curved up as he set a hand over his heart like a quixotic. “He was, deep down, a romantic.”

“But your brother, a ship’s captain? To go as far as providing him a ship?”

“True. He had misgivings, but he allowed it in part to keep the peace, and in part, I think…” He squinted at a smaller portrait, a younger version of his father. “I think he understood what a trap the title could be, and allowed Jon’s passion. The pleasant surprise was how lucrative that venture proved to be. Thus, Sanford Shipping was born.”

Another clue to the enigmatic earl and his family fell into place. Lydia scanned the wall. Each portrait became a puzzle piece setting neatly into another. Gone were blank stares, blank faces of the past; real men and women whispered their faint stories. Her gaze flitted from picture to picture, fathoming details, and unfolding secrets: Lord George Sanford, father of the current earl, moderately handsome, with a gentle soul’s face, and beside him a beauteous, haughty-eyed Lady E., as the servants called her. What did she hide behind those imperious eyes? What of the children caught beneath the weight of family duty, dreams, and desires?

“Because your father was never able to fully follow his passion, the same one you share. Your scientific work.” Lydia’s fingertips touched her lips to stem the tide of revelatory words. Then her hand dropped to her chest. Sudden knowledge tumbled from mind to mouth. “And you admire him greatly but refuse to let the same fate befall you. You’ll take your scientific work over all things Greenwich, thank you very much.”

The corners of his mouth quirked upward, but astonishment lit his eyes.

“Very good. I knew I’d chosen well.” He winked, and his shoulder bumped hers playfully. “We’re making progress.”

She returned his smile. “But this whole arrangement between us must put a crimp in your plans.”

“Hmmm…all will work, I’m sure, before time runs out.” He glanced once more at the portraits, appearing lost in thought.

Before
time
runs
out?
He’d spoken of time constraints before. What did he mean by that?

A twinge of a question wanted to follow that cryptic announcement, but Lord Greenwich didn’t make eye contact. She was about to probe, when he smiled, as one confidante to another, and offered his arm.

“Shall we?”

Lydia leaned close to him as they strolled across the gallery, the warmth of camaraderie and a shared confidence forging a new bond, an intimacy of trust. Her cheek grazed his sleeve, and she breathed his clean scent: plain soap and warmth, if one could capture the scent of warmth. She would never have thought an academic could be so masculine and arousing, but the Earl of Greenwich was pleasant, intriguing depth in a man.

As they exited the gallery, he broke from her to shut the doors and turned again to face her. Grand gilt-edged doors framed him, but his lips twitched with that brigand’s smile. His severe black jacket framed an open-necked shirt, buff breeches, and well-worn boots: Lord Greenwich was more country squire than high noble. His queue, a touch messy, contained as much hair as what came loose. He needed…fixing. What she did next seemed so natural.

“Your tie.” Lydia faced him and rose on tiptoe. Reaching past his shoulder, her fingers breezed his neck as she pulled slowly on the black velvet strip until it came loose in her hand. “I’ve untied you, but we’ll fix that.”

Her gaze went from the gallery doors back to him.

His lashes hooded dark penetrating eyes. They stood so close, barely touching, but the charged current stopped her breath. Lydia saw each minute stitch on his coat collar. She glanced down, and mere inches of air separated her body from his. The earl’s frame visibly stiffened, like a stringed instrument taut and ready. She searched his face, the scars, white and dark lines, some puckering and some straight, against tan skin, and then a barely discernible lift of his eyebrow.

An invitation.

She swallowed and let headiness overtake her. Lydia followed his lure, drawn to him, closing one intoxicating inch after another until they touched. Waves of awareness swept her body: his warmth to hers, hard planes to soft curves, and they fit. Lord Greenwich’s hands slipped around her waist to the small of her back.

Her heart pounded, making breathing hard. Was there room for her lungs the way her heart was expanding? The sensory overload was too much. She shut her eyes, all the better to lose herself in his scent. Her forehead tipped into the exposed V of his shirt, and her face grazed the warm landscape of his chest. She breathed him in, the heat and scent of his skin, and let her lips skim fabric and flesh. Close as they were, the earl was an elixir, and she was drowning in him. Her fingers curled into fists, gripping his jacket for dear life.

His hands swept slow circles up and down her back, leaving a trail of warmth and comfort swirling across her back. He touched her the way a sculptor smoothed contours, patient strokes that brought a form to life. Her body tingled in response to the palpable pleasure. Calluses on his palms made snicking sounds on wool from a slow upward sweep to her shoulders, as if he would tactilely memorize her shape. His lips skimmed the crown of her head, and his voice came rough and thick.

“Lydia, I—”

“My lord, Mr. Bacon—Oh!” a female voice said from the hallway.

Lydia jerked from the embrace, scalded by another feminine voice dousing the moment’s closeness. A very surprised Miss Mayhew halted in the act of coming around the corner, her mouth agape but quickly shut. Lord Greenwich kept one hand splayed across the small of Lydia’s back.

“Jonas is here?”

The housekeeper’s features morphed to bland coolness, and she clasped her fingers loosely at her waist.

“Yes, he just came from London and waits for you in the study with two large crates.” She glanced at Lydia with blank eyes and at the velvet tie dangling from her fingers. “And, Miss Montgomery, your art supplies arrived as well. Where would you like them?”

Lydia, a riot of sensitized nerves, hid the incriminating velvet scrap in the folds of her skirt. Her mind raced, recalling the few rooms she’d explored on her way to dinner last night.

“The, the ballroom, if you please.”

“Of course.” And then she was gone, her starched skirts rustling from her exit.

Mortified, Lydia clamped her eyes shut and spoke under her breath. “Of all the people…”

Lord Greenwich removed his hand from her back, and the absence of it was noticeable.

“Tell me you’re not still holding that misconception about her.”

Lydia opened her eyes to find Lord Edward, arms crossed and mildly peeved.

“No.” She exhaled the breath she must’ve been holding. But of all the people to intrude and witness that intimate moment.

Her brain had just begun to change the picture of Miss Mayhew from beautiful, mysterious housekeeper to a woman wronged and due some empathy. But this was not new information for Lord Greenwich to assimilate. He turned around and pointed to his untied hair.

“Would you?”

Of course, he expected her to take everything in stride in the same manner he did. Everything was old history for him, but for her there was so much to digest. And there was the matter of that embrace and near kiss.

“Oh, yes.” Lead-like fingers went mechanically about gathering his hair: one part the drugging effect of their embrace and another a vague, unnamed emotion.

“I have one redeeming quality—loyalty—to those I count as friend, few and far as they are. I could never turn my back on them. Now you understand why I’d never send Claire packing.”

Lydia stared straight ahead and gave him a noncommittal, “Mmmm.”

The velvet moved through her fingers and began to form the required knot. That vague emotion took shape as she slowly completed her tender task. She noticed lighter skin rimming his hairline at his nape. Lydia stroked the black velvet, and her knuckles skimmed his flesh. Layers had been peeled back between them, uncovering raw vulnerability. Loyalty was not something the earl gave to many, but to those he did, it was unshakable.

She should
never
do anything to harm that loyalty once given to her—if he ever would.