Scandal (11 page)

“Still, it was a spot of good luck that the lady’s toy hit you in the head when you first arrived.”

“You saw that?”

“I did. And your trip to the market.”

Egads.

“I also know that you had a visitor to these rooms the other day.”

“How in the blazes did you find out about that?”

“One of your neighbors heard it from the grandfather.”

Good lord.

“Any idea who it might have been?” Stills asked.

“No. Though now that I think on it, perhaps you.”

The man’s red brows stretched almost to his hairline. “Me? Why the blazes would you think that?”

“There was a note. It warned me to leave St. Giles. Mayhap Mr. Lassiter thought to frighten me, through you.”

“I assure you, sir, he did no such thing. And if he had, I’d have told him no. I’m a Runner, I am. I have honor. You’re better off thinking of a family member or two who might have something to gain should you fail.”

“Ah, but that is the problem. There is no one behind me to inherit the dukedom. I have a cousin, to be sure, but he is on my mother’s side and in no way connected to the Montgomery family.”

“Has to be someone else, then.”

“Unfortunately, I am unable to investigate at present.”

“I can investigate.”

Rein felt his brows lift. “You’d do that?”

“I would.”

“Why?”

“Because if someone is trying to scare you into leaving St. Giles, it’s my business to find out. I’m charged with seeing to your safety—after all, the object isn’t to get you killed.”

“Then why the blazes was I dropped in St. Giles?”

The man shrugged. Rein found himself studying him, wondering if he might have found a new ally. “My thanks to you, sir.”

“Save your thanks for if I turn up something.”

Rein nodded. The two of them exchanged glances.

“In the interim, I’ll be keeping a closer eye on the place,” Mr. Stills said. “If you see anything suspicious, I’ll be keeping watch across the street. You can alert me there.”

Rein nodded.

“Good luck, gov. I’ll be in touch.”

“As will I, if I need you.”

The man nodded. Rein watched him turn, watched him slip back into Anna’s attic, but even when he was out of sight Rein didn’t move. Oh, he faced the London landscape again, but that was all. The colors of dawn had changed to a deeper purple near the horizon and a light blue above.

Could
he have an unknown cousin aware of the will and its provisions, one that hoped Rein would produce no heirs? But if so, why hinder his challenge if the title would pass to the cousin anyway? It made no sense.

Suddenly Rein found himself more muddled than he desired to be. It was all too confusing, Besides, he felt much better now that he knew he had a Bow Street Runner on his side. Indeed, so much better he found his thoughts returning immediately to Anna.

Ah, yes, Anna.

Rein almost smiled. She thought to call a halt to his seduction, did she? Although when, exactly, he’d decided to seduce her he couldn’t say. He’d started out last eve with every intention of behaving honorably. Only as he’d lain awake in her little room, smelling her scent, he’d realized there was no reason to deprive them both of plea-sure. She wanted him. He wanted her. They would have each other… starting the moment she returned from market.

For the first time in days, Rein smiled.

Chapter Thirteen

Anna stayed out late that evening, with Molly shooting her knowing looks as Anna took a meal with Molly and her family. But she couldn’t face Rein. Nor her grandfather. Not anybody. She needed to regroup, to gain the courage to face Rein and tell him he must leave.

He
had
to leave.

But on the way home—Molly’s residence was only a few blocks away—her mind churned out so many thoughts and longings and concerns that when she arrived, she was in something of a temper at herself.

Blowing hair out of her face, she turned the knob of her front door. Blackness greeted her, only the glow of the fire stopping it from being that dark, all-encompassing shade of night that signaled evening. Odd, how the thought of stepping inside filled her with trepidation. At least a thousand times she’d entered her rooms, yet this time she was afraid.

Where was he? The fire sent out a puddle of orange light that, unfortunately, didn’t reveal the whole room. Her heart began to tap in her chest as she made her way toward her ladder, refusing to look toward Rein’s chair. Indeed, she felt a certain measure of relief when she made it up the first two steps without anyone stirring behind her.

“You’re avoiding me, Anna.”

Anna’s foot came out from under her, only her arms saving her from falling. She dangled there a moment before her half boots found purchase beneath the brown skirts of her dress.

“Not that I blame you,” he added, “given the unfinished business between us.”

Anna turned.

He sat in the armchair, the grate to his right casting enough of a glow that she could see the burnt-umber reflection of his left cheekbone. She knew this for a fact, for she stared at that cheekbone, and only that cheekbone, not, heaven forbid, his eyes.

“I am not avoiding you. I merely took a meal with Molly and her family this eve.”

“Really?” he questioned, and she knew if she’d been looking into his eyes she’d have seen his black brows lift above them signaling the sarcasm she heard in his voice. And his mouth would be tipped up on one side as he smirked.

“Anna, you will not turn to a pillar of salt if you look me in the eyes.”

Her gaze snapped to his, her chin lifting, even though, clinging to the ladder as she was, she had to tip her gaze down to keep eye contact.

“If by that you infer that I am afraid to look at you, nothing could be further from the truth.”

He stared at her for a moment, his eyes nearly as black as the air around him. “Did you know your vowels even out when you’re vexed? Indeed, you sound almost to the manor born.”

“Do I?” she said in her mother’s voice. Her mother
was
to the manor born, little did he know.

He rose, and as odd as it seemed, even from her perch on the ladder, that made her nervous. She could go up. She could go down. She could run for the door. And yet the sight of him rising from his chair made her feel like a mouse startled from a pantry.

“Don’t, Rein,” she said, her hands tightening on the rungs they held, her nails digging into the ancient wood.

“Don’t what?” he asked, coming toward her, the smell of mint filling the air.

“Don’t come near me.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Only of myself,” she said with a flash of brutal honesty.

“Don’t be,” he said softly, by now near enough that she could see the details of his face. His chin looked shaven, the smell of the lye soap he’d used crossing the distance between them, the scent seeming to be tinged with mint. He wore no jacket, his white shirt loose from his breeches, his boots oddly on his feet—still—as if he’d slept in them. “You want me, Anna. Want me in a way that leaves you aching for my touch. I know, for ’tis the way I feel about you.”

God help her, his words made her hands tighten, made her blood thrust boldly through her veins, leaving heat behind.

“No,” she denied.

And then his hand reached out and slipped under the hem of her dress, finding the bare skin above her petticoat, slipping his fingers up her leg.

Oh, god.

“Rein, no.”

“Would you rather my tongue replace my hand?”

What?
“No,” she said, ignoring the reaction just the mere image of what he suggested did to her insides.

Gads, Anna, turn and go back up the ladder, escape through your room.
Only. She. Couldn’t. Move. Because it was true. God help her, it was true. She wanted to become his lover. Damn the consequences.

And then his finger found the indent of her woman’s lips and she lost her grip on the ladder as she all but fell into his arms.

“There are things we can do, Anna,” he said as he clutched her to him, his finger propping between the fold.

Oh, god.

His finger found a spot within that fold, a spot that he dragged his finger across, her head falling back as she relaxed her legs and allowed him to touch her there… right there. Yes.

“Do you begin to see how wonderful it would be? How marvelous it will feel when we come together? But not right now, Anna,” he whispered in her ear. “Not right now. Now I want to kiss you… here, where my finger is. Will you let me?”

Kiss her there? No. She couldn’t.

He touched her again and she realized she would let him do anything to her, anything he wanted as long as he stirred that feeling inside of her, the one that she knew would only intensify with each masculine touch.

He picked her up, and Anna’s whole body went limp.

No,
her mind cried as he laid her down on the cotton mat before the fire.

Yeeees,
a voice inside her head hissed as he slowly lifted the hem of her dress.

“You must touch me, too, Anna,” he said softly, his body shifting so that he lay alongside of her, and then he undid the front of his breeches, his manhood a solid shape that thrust out, the tip swollen with his desire for her.

Touch him? Yes, she wanted that, too. Indeed, the thought of caressing him excited her all the more.

His hand found the bare part of her thighs again. She reached for him just as he gently turned her so that they faced each other.

“Touch me, Anna, as I shall touch you.”

And then, oh, lord, he was kissing her. Anna’s thighs fell open.

“Touch me,” he ordered again.

She hesitated, and yet the long, hard stalk of him beckoned for her touch. Slowly, tentatively, she reached for him. Soft as kidskin, he was. She gently clasped him, afraid her work-worn fingers might hurt. She needn’t have worried, for he groaned in pleasure. They were perfectly on level with each other, so perfectly that she had only to bend forward a bit, to reach out and lightly touch him with her lips, something she’d caught glimpses of before—in dark alleys, in the room across the street. She did it to him now, touched him with her lips… and heard him gasp.

Feather-light kisses rewarded him for the pleasure he gave her. He dragged his tongue across her moistness. She gasped this time.

“Take me in your mouth, Anna.”

Her mouth? She wasn’t sure how to do that. She opened her lips, touched him with her tongue, the coolness of his shaft a startling contrast to her warm tongue.

“Take me,” he said.

She grew more bold, taking more of him in her mouth. “Anna,” she heard him moan as he began to move his hips, helping her to give him pleasure. And the more he moved, the more of him she took, the forbidden thing they did causing her not shame, not embarrassment, but a pleasure so sensual she wanted more of him, and to give him more of herself. Her hips writhed as she moved beneath his tongue, her own mouth working the tip of his masculinity in an effort to bring him equal gratification.

“Anna,” he gasped, stopping for a moment. “I am going to…”

Yes, she was going to, too.

“I need to… Something will happen.” He moved from her thighs just as she felt ready to crest.

“Forgive me, Anna,” he said, moving away from her so that he lay on his back. She watched it happen then, watched as he clasped himself, something erupting from his tip as he stroked his hand down his length and, god help her, the sight of his seed spilling made the pulse between her legs beat harder.

And then he was moving, moving between her thighs, his hands parting her all the way. And she held herself open for him, told him wordlessly that it was her turn now. His tongue thrust into her.

She cried out.

He thrust into her again. She bit back the cry this time. She had to contain her cries, her grandfather—

“Rein,” she moaned, lifting her hips to his mouth.

Once again he thrust into her, sucking at her this time.

She fragmented apart.
Oh, oh, oh,
how she fragmented, her hips lifting off the ground as she melted into his mouth, his tongue lapping at her as her body pulsed.

The room turned oddly quiet. An ember popped and then shifted in the grate. The clock her grandfather had invented tick-tick-ticked in the background.

Rein moved up her body so they were face-to-face.

“I want to bury myself inside of you, Anna,” he said softly, his breath, with her scent tinting it, wafting across her face. “But not here, on a hard mat. I want you in a bed.”

She wanted to reach up and touch that face, to memorize every aristocratic feature.

“One day we shall come together,” he promised. “One day very soon, my love. And when it happens, I promise you, you shall never look back. I can take care of you. Give you things, things you’ve only ever dreamed of. You shall want for nothing.”

Her hand froze.

“But not now,” he said. “Not now.”

With those words, he left her.

Chapter Fourteen

Where he went, Anna didn’t know, she only knew she needed to escape, too, to regroup to her attic so she could regain what little sanity she had left.

Dear God, what they’d done…

Her body tingled and warmed as she threw herself on her bed, the straw crinkling beneath her weight. She’d known a woman could take a man in her mouth. She’d caught glimpses of enough tarts working their charms on their patrons that she knew most of what occurred between a man and a woman.

But she hadn’t known this.

She hadn’t known a woman and a man could pleasure each other at the same time.

You shall want for nothing.

What had he meant? He’d left her so quickly she hadn’t realized what it was he was saying until he’d gone.

Had he truly meant what she thought? Had he asked her to be his mistress? Could he be wealthy enough to set her up in such a way? And if so, what in the bloody blazes was he doing in St. Giles engaged in a bloody wager?

Sleep didn’t come easily that night. When she awoke the next morning, she ended up losing courage and crossing to the rooftop next door to exit.

“You’ve not been yourself, Annacries,” Molly said from her position in the market next to her later that morning.

“Been thinking,” Anna said, looking away from the faces in the crowd.

Looking for Rein.

She wondered if he would track her down, if he’d want to see her, speak to her…

“’Bout Mr. Hemplewilt?”

Yes. “No. I’ve been thinking about my sails.”

Silence. Anna chanced a glance in Molly’s direction.

“Ach,” her friend said. “Go on with you. I knows you better than that. Quiet all day, you’ve been. Too quiet. Can’t get a word outta you. Driving me batty.”

Anna shook her head. “Molly, I don’t wish to talk about it. Not now.”

“No? Then I suppose you’ll be pleased to know Charlie the fish trader is coming this way. Gives you as good an excuse as any to ignore me some more.”

Anna looked up, and indeed, here came Charlie, his long face looking more fishlike than normal as he ran between the permanent stalls, baskets of fruits and vegetables and those buying wares. His gray hair looked mussed, the white apron he wore stained with fish guts. With hurried glances at the faces he passed, he navigated his way toward them.

“Charlie. What is it?” Anna asked as came to a stop before her, his brown half boots skidding on an orange rind one of Molly’s customers had dropped on the stone that paved the square.

The man swallowed, the knob on his long neck bobbing up and down. Someone jostled him, for the market was crowded this time of day. “Anna, I’ve got bad news, I have.”

Anna came around the back of her cart, resisting the urge to bunch her hands in her white apron as she did so.

“What news?”

He swallowed again, nodded at a black-hatted gentleman who nodded at them as he passed. Anna’s heart took on the winged beat of panicked sparrow’s.

“Well, now, Anna lass, I suppose there’s nothing for it but to tell you honest.” He paused before speaking, and when he looked at her again, her heart took flight.

“Me brother’s ship set sail for Spain this morn.”

She stiffened, not at first understanding his words.

Ship set sail? What ship?

His brother’s ship.

She stiffened in horror. The ship that she needed to hoist her sails on the day of the competition. For that matter, the one that she needed to use for testing those sails—though if the ship couldn’t be there the day of the competition, what point was there in testing?

“No,” she said in disbelief, shaking her head because it just couldn’t be true.

“Left port this morn, Anna. I just got his bloody note. Seems he got an offer from a gent what paid him triple the rate to carry cargo to Spain. He couldn’t pass that up. He’s always short on cash, what with a wife and seven bairns to feed.”

Then he shouldn’t reproduce like a bloody rabbit,
Anna wanted to yell. No, she wanted to go find that bloody captain and yell at
him
. Only she couldn’t because he was on his way to bloody Spain.

This couldn’t be happening, she thought. It just could not have happened, not after everything she’d gone through, not after all that she’d done to earn the coin for more canvas.

She almost sat down. If Molly hadn’t been looking on, she just might have.

“Anna, you all right?” Molly asked. “Do you want me to take over your barrow for a bit?”

No, she was not all right. The ship she was supposed to hoist her sails on was gone.

Anna looked up, meeting Charlie’s gaze, the horrified look in his eyes prompting her to say, “’Tis all right, Charlie. Ain’t your fault. Your brother had to do what was best for his family.”

The old fish trader nodded. “I’m glad you understand, Anna. I were truly worried that you’d be upset.”

Upset? Upset didn’t begin to explain how she felt. Disillusioned. Disappointed. Devastated. That was how she felt, for without a ship to fly her sails, she couldn’t enter the competition. The rules were very specific. Competitors must have their inventions present the day of the competition and in working order… and for her that meant hoisted.

“I am sorry, Anna,” the man said, obviously reading her disappointment. “I truly am.”

She nodded, turning away.

“Anna,” Molly said when Charlie left. “You can still enter the competition, can you not?”

No. This meant her disqualification.

“Perhaps you can find someone else—”

“Find someone else?” Anna asked, turning on her friend. Though a part of her knew it wasn’t Molly’s fault, though she knew it was wrong and unfair to raise her voice to her longtime friend, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “I’m tired of this, Molly. Tired of being upended. Tired of working my fingers to a nub only to have all my hard work pulled out from under me at a moment’s notice. There are days when I wonder what it is I’ve done to deserve such a fate. If maybe I should live my life differently. Be mean. Evil. Sell myself for blunt. I coulda become like those cats we’ve always scoffed at. But I’ve kept my legs together, kept myself out of trouble, kept my grandfather and me in food even though it’s near impossible for a woman to find honest work. I’ve worked hard, I have, and yet here I am again, knocked out of the water.”

“You don’t know that for certain.”

“Do you think it will be easy to convince a ship’s captain to give my sails a try and then be present for the whole morning of the competition? Not only will I have to find a man willing to do that without expecting any favors in return, but I’ll have to convince him to trust in my design. Impossible. I know. I tried for weeks afore Charlie agreed to help me.”

Molly’s expression turned to one of sympathy.

Anna shook her head, instantly contrite. Lord, what was wrong with her? “Molls, I’m sorry for yelling.”

Molly’s face softened. “Don’t give up, Annacries. You can do it.”

No, she couldn’t. Lord help her, she was bright enough to know she fought a losing battle.

“Where are you going?”

“Leaving,” Anna said, beginning to pack her wares.

“But it’s not even noon.”

Anna shrugged as she threw her instruments into her barrow, the metal clinking in an almost rhythmic way as she did. “’Tis a slow day.”

Molly looked horrified.

Anna ignored the look, smiling bravely as she pushed off, even though she knew her smile was a lie.

Rein had hoped Anna might return for a midday meal, but he’d scarcely believed that she might. Thus when he saw her pushing her barrow down St. Giles High Street from his position on the roof, the feeling he got could only be described as euphoric. At last he’d be able to talk to her and resolve the issues between them—
ask her to be his mistress.

He waited a full ten minutes before going to the trap that led to her attic. He expected she might bolt when she heard him, thus he was shocked when he found her sitting on the edge of her little bed, her hat tossed on the floor, her hands clasped in her lap, her apron and brown work dress still in place.

“Anna?” he called, thinking she might not have heard him.

She didn’t say a word, just sat there, her gaze firmly fixed upon the windows opposite her. Sunlight cast large squares of light on the floor, the pattern casting a glow up the walls of the room. A fly buzzed a loud and lazy circle until landing on Anna’s work-worn hand. She didn’t move, didn’t so much as swat it away, just stared unblinkingly at the windows.

“Anna, what is amiss?” he asked, knowing it could not be her grandfather. He’d just left the man moments before climbing to the roof. “What has happened?”

He thought she might not answer, thought she might continue staring at that damnable glass. To his surprise she said, “’Tis over,” trying to pull her hands away.

“What is over?” he asked.

She was silent a moment, Rein suspecting that she debated with herself whether or not she should tell him. At last their gazes met, the misery and anguish in her eyes doing something to Rein’s insides that he scarcely understood.

“I had a ship set to hoist my sails,” she said softly. “For the competition. It needed to be present at the competition so the naval board could inspect my sails, only the captain what gave his word to help me left port today.”

The mind he despised for being so slow worked hard to understand how this would affect her.

“He had an offer from a trader. Triple his usual fee to run cargo to Spain and back. It’ll be weeks before he returns.”

And at last he understood.

She would not be able to enter the competition.

Rein would have expected to feel a certain amount of distress over her unhappiness. What he didn’t expect was the swell of sympathy he felt, one so great, it robbed him of breath.

“Anna,” he said at last, “I am so sorry.”

She blinked at him, her beautiful and spirited amber eyes so devoid of their usual spark, he almost pulled her into his arms.

“Do you know I have tried for six years to come up with a way to escape this bloody rookery? That I’ve spent months—nay, years—devoting myself to the task? And do you know that I realized today that I would have been better served to simply do what all the other pretty girls in the market have done—find myself a protector rather than battle against a society determined to keep me in my place?”

He listened, troubled by her words.

“If I’d been born a man, there’d be no end to the ships’ captains lining up to help me. Wealth in exchange for a few hours of their time. What is there to balk at? Because I’m a woman, they won’t trust me. They believe me incapable of thinking beyond what to cook for supper. They refuse to admit that I could invent anything so revolutionary as a new staysail. I know. I tried for weeks to find a captain to hoist my sails. In the end, it was only Charlie the fish trader who got it done, and then only because he threatened to quit selling the fish his brother caught if he didn’t lend a hand.”

“Anna—”

“I’m tired, Rein. Tired of it all.”

She stood, the smell of her wafting toward him in a sudden current of air, his nostrils flaring at her scent, the memories that her smell evoked instantly arousing him.

“This morning you told me you’d take care of me.”

Rein tensed.

“Were you asking me to be your mistress?”

He had been asking, had intended to ask her yet again. Suddenly he wasn’t certain he should. “Anna, I—”

“Were you?”

He had to tell her half-truths about so many things, he wouldn’t tell her another one. “I was.”

She nodded, and to Rein’s absolute shock said, “Very well. If the offer is still open, I should like to accept. Assuming, of course, that you’re wealthy enough to take me away from all this.” She motioned at the room around her.

Did she jest? Could she be serious? “I am,” he replied.

He didn’t think she could assume a pose prouder than any he’d seen before, but somehow she did, the angle of her chin not changing, yet her pride seeming to be more pronounced as she squared her shoulders, her eyes darkening, her face firming into a look of determination.

“Then I accept. But only if you promise to provide for my grandfather as well.”

“I will.”

She seemed to lose some of her bluster then, her eyes darting away from his for a moment, but only a moment. “Will you tell me your real name?”

“No,” he answered honestly, surprised that she’d reasoned that Hemplewilt was not his given name. Then again, what should surprise him about it? Her intelligence was one thing he prized above all. “I cannot reveal that now.”

“Your wager?”

“My wager.”

She was back to looking proud again. “One day you shall have to tell me what’s so important that you agreed to come to St. Giles.”

“One day I shall,” he agreed. “Just not now.”

“When do we begin our bargain?”

And God help him, her words delivered such a stab of desire to his groin, he almost flinched from the force of it. “Tonight,” he found himself saying. Today. Now.

She nodded, stepping around him as she headed toward her ladder. “Tonight it is, then,” he heard her say without a backward glance.