The Pleasure Trap (24 page)

She touched Ash’s hand briefly. “I blame myself for putting Nell in danger. She comes out at night to collect the food I’ve left out for her. I think the night Lydia was stabbed, Nell was coming to the cellar door. The second time, she was on her way to the herb garden. That’s what brings her to the Manor—food. It never occurred to me that that villain would return after he tried to kill Lydia. And Nell saw him both times. He knows that.”

“
Can
she identify him? Did she see his face?”

“No. She said it was too dark, but he doesn’t know this. That’s why he wants to kill her.” She looked steadily into his eyes. “She’s not a good witness. She could never give evidence in a court of law. They would send her back to Bedlam, and she would rather die than go back there.”

“She’ll never go back to Bedlam,” he said, “not if I have to tear it down brick by brick.”

His stern avowal brought a fleeting smile to her lips. “I worry about her,” she went on. “She can’t stay here, not as long as that devil is free to come and go as he pleases. But short of capturing her and abducting her, I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll increase the number of groundsmen on night patrol and put them on shifts. Angelo won’t get past them. And I’ll tell them not to go chasing after tinkers or gypsies.”

“I wish I had shot him when I had the chance! I won’t make that mistake again.”

Her fierce words made him smile, but he was disturbed all the same. “Any other episodes, Eve?” he asked easily. “Were there other voices?”

She picked up her glass and studied the ruby-red wine. Her voice was clipped. “Two more,” she said. “One you know about. I didn’t hear Lady Sophie’s voice, but the pictures that came into my mind were very entertaining.”

He winced and quickly moved on. “And the other?”

“Martha’s voice, after you told her that my father was lacing his tobacco with laudanum.” She took a sip of wine before continuing. “It’s not true and she knows it.”

“What?”

“Oh, I’m not saying that he doesn’t take the occasional dose of laudanum for a headache, but that’s as far as it goes. It’s Martha who has been lacing his tobacco, and now that he knows—and who else could it be?—there will be the devil to pay.”

He was appalled. “Why would she do such a thing?”

“Not to harm him. She doesn’t want him to accept any commissions, because she doesn’t want to be left alone. She has no friends to keep her company, only my father. The laudanum dulls his senses and makes him dependent on her.”

“That woman is…” He couldn’t find words strong enough to describe Martha.

“Yes. Isn’t she?” She looked at him with a question in her eyes. “How did you know that my father was taking opium? It never occurred to me.”

A brooding look came into his eyes. Finally, he sighed. “You once asked me about my mother,” he said. “Angelo was right. She was a fragile flower in a wasteland. She had only one use to my father, and that was to breed sons. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the stamina. After the last child was stillborn, she retreated into opium. It was the only way she could cope.”

Stricken, she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

His voice was flat. “Why should you? No one was supposed to know. My father was a proud man. He pretended that my mother suffered from nerves as a result of losing so many infants. In a sense he was right. She slipped into melancholy, then turned to opium.”

He brought his glass to his lips and took a long swallow.

“I…How old were you when she died?” she asked softly.

“Fourteen. She died in my arms. I can’t remember where my father was. I came home from school for the holidays. Like Harry, she was left to the care of a nurse. My grandmother would have nursed her, but there had been a falling out with my father and she was forbidden to enter our house.”

He dipped his head so that she was forced to look into his eyes. “It happened a long time ago. I don’t often think of those bad times now.”

She saw how it must have been in that desolate wasteland that was Ash’s home. He was the buttress that supported both his mother and brother. Who else could they turn to? That was too big a burden for a young boy’s shoulders, yet not once had he cursed his misfortunes or complained about the hardships he’d willingly embraced. He met life’s vagaries with a smile and a shrug. He wasn’t shallow, as she’d once thought. He was as solid as a rock.

“That’s why,” he said, “I got so fired up when I read Angelo’s story. He seemed to know my family well.”

The waiter removed their soup plates and soon after, their dinner arrived, steak pie, boiled potatoes and Brussels sprouts. There was no menu to choose from. This was a small inn and all the diners were served the same meal. Ash brought a hearty appetite to his, Eve picked at hers.

“Why Angelo? That’s what I don’t understand. Why is it his voice you hear?”

“I don’t really know but I think, and I’m only guessing, that we’re connected in some way. He sets his stories in gardens. Maybe that’s the connection.”

“But you didn’t recognize the settings in his stories?”

“No. But when you’ve visited as many stately gardens as I have, they all begin to look alike.”

He thought for a moment. “No other voices, Eve?”

She shook her head. “Don’t you think I’ve racked my brains trying to think of how I could possibly know a murderer and how he could pass his thoughts onto me?” She set down her knife and fork. “I’ve been in the Old Bailey as a spectator at a murder trial and no stray thoughts penetrated my mind.”

“What does Miss Claverley say about these voices you hear?”

“Only one voice. I haven’t told my aunt because I don’t want her to worry about me.” She exhaled a long breath. “To be perfectly honest, I’m confused. The Angelo who pushed his way into my mind is afraid of exposure. He is heartless, Ash, a cold-blooded killer who will do anything to conceal his identity. The stories in the
Herald
? They’re about him, and he wants to silence whoever wrote them before more stories are published. He knows he’ll end up on the scaffold if he’s found out, and he’ll kill anyone in his way to prevent that from happening.”

Ash leaned back in his chair as he considered her words. Finally, he said, “I can see why you’re confused. Why would Angelo publish the stories if he were afraid of exposure?”

“That’s what has me puzzled.”

He leaned toward her. “Did he kill Harry?” His voice was harsh.

Hers was gentle. “I think so. And not only Harry. I saw more than three victims.”

“What was his motive?”

She was beginning to feel harried. “I don’t know. Revenge, I think, for making him feel small.”

“You
think
? That doesn’t help.” His brows snapped together and he stared absently at a small spot on the tablecloth.

“Maybe,” she said, testing him, “it’s all a figment of my imagination. Maybe my visions are only dreams and I’ve read too much into them. Maybe my voice comes from my own thoughts.”

He was still thinking of his brother and missed the intense look in her eyes. Suddenly she pushed back her chair and got up.

“We’re done here, aren’t we?” Her voice was clipped. “I’ve told you everything I know and I’m quite worn out. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go to bed.”

He was startled by the change in her. One moment she seemed relaxed and the next she seemed as brittle as crystal.

“Stay and finish your dinner,” he said. “There’s a lot more I have to say to you.”

“Say it tomorrow. I’m not hungry, and I’ve had all I can take for one day.”

She turned and left him before he could think of one thing to say to keep her with him.

Chapter Twenty

She couldn’t be still. In that small room she felt like a caged animal, pacing back and forth, with no means of escape. Though the embers in the grate were still glowing, she felt shivery and, after rising from her bed, had donned her robe to stave off the chill. Knowing that she could not sleep, she’d lit the candle on the mantelpiece with some idea of reading the book she’d brought with her, but she could not settle to read. Her thoughts were chaotic, except that they involved Ash Denison and the conversation they’d had over dinner.

She was calling herself all kinds of a fool for letting down her guard and sharing her deepest and darkest secret with the world’s most confirmed skeptic. But it seemed as though he was already half convinced. So she’d taken a chance on him. She should have known better. His silence had proved how wrong she was.

Maybe it’s all a figment of my imagination. Maybe my visions are only dreams and I’ve read too much into them. Maybe my voice comes from my own thoughts.

That was the moment for him to make some grand gesture to demonstrate his faith in her. All she’d got was silence.

She threw herself into a chair and after a moment got up again. Her throat hurt. Her head ached. She knew why she was in such a state. She’d wanted him to be the same kind of buttress for her as he’d been for his mother and brother. That was the kind of love she wanted and was willing to give. If she couldn’t have that kind of love, she didn’t want anything.

She was debating whether she should give in to a bout of weeping when someone knocked sharply on her door. “Open the door, Eve. I know you’re awake. There’s a light coming from under your door.”

Ash’s voice.

“Go away! I was just going to bed.”

“If you don’t open the door, I’ll kick it in.”

“What,” she said, mocking him, “and take the shine off your immaculate boots? What would your valet—”

She fell back with a cry when the door burst open and Ash swept into the room. He was wearing a dark cloak and brought the fresh scent of the rain and the wind with him. His black hair was windblown; raindrops beaded his lashes, but it was his eyes that trapped hers in their fierce stare.

“I’ve been out walking,” he said, “trying to figure out why you and I always come to a stalemate. Do you know what conclusion I’ve reached?”

Something in that hard stare warned her to be cautious. “N-no.”

“We talk too much.”

With that, he seized her by the shoulders, jerked her forward, and crushed her mouth beneath his. She was too stunned to struggle, then too overwhelmed by the instant leap of all her senses to do more than cling to him for support. When she did struggle, finally, it was only to free her arms so that she could twine them around his neck.

He kept her locked in that embrace as he maneuvered her to the bed. Raising his lips an inch from hers, he said harshly, “I don’t want to talk about your relations or my relations. I don’t even want to talk about us. Understood?”

“Be quiet,” she muttered, and going on tiptoe, she fastened her lips to his.

She wanted him.
The thought didn’t surprise him. He’d known it for a long time, but he’d never expected her to surrender with such instant abandon. Or was it he who was surrendering? He didn’t care. Eve, pliant, passionate, wanting him as much as he wanted her, made his head spin. He was dazed by her response.

The ache inside her didn’t give her a chance to debate or argue or have second thoughts. She was made for this, made for him. There was no turning back. Her heart was racing, her body was melting, her skin was on fire. Every nerve, all her senses recognized this one man and welcomed him without reserve. Ash, only Ash.

When they broke apart, they were both breathing hard, both out of breath, out of words, and out of patience.

“Eve?” he murmured.

He didn’t have to ask twice. She began to undo her robe. He threw off his jacket and began to undo the buttons of his waistcoat. Laughing now, they disrobed in a tangle of limbs and shed clothes. When they were down to bare skin, they sprawled on the bed.

She was wild to have him, and he was wild to give her whatever she wanted. She reared over him and showered him with open-mouthed kisses on his face, his throat, his shoulders. His body fascinated her, the way his muscles clenched when she brushed them with her fingertips, the lean waist, the powerful thighs, the jut of his sex. Her fascination carried her too far. On a pent-up groan, he toppled her to the mattress and surged over her.

“It works both ways,” he muttered, and took the same liberties with her as she’d taken with him.

Stroking, nibbling, kissing, he exploited every sensitive spot on her body. Helpless with wanting, she dragged him over her and arched against him, showing him what she wanted.

He tried to prolong the moment. He wanted to capture the image of her as she was now and impress it forever on his mind: the candlelight gilding her skin; cheeks flushed with desire; her dark hair spread in wild abandon across the pillow; her eyes dazed with all the sensations he and only he had ever aroused.

His heart suddenly clenched, and he gathered a fistful of her hair and rubbed it against his cheek. The scent that was uniquely Eve’s filled his nostrils, his lungs, his head. He was dizzy with wanting her. He couldn’t tell her what he was feeling or what she had come to mean to him, because he couldn’t explain it to himself. All he knew was that he had never wanted like this or ached like this. She was his mate, and he would do whatever was necessary to convince her of that truth.

She sensed that he was on the point of speaking, and she couldn’t allow it. She wanted nothing to shatter the bubble of happiness that beat frantically in her heart. She didn’t want to be sensible or think of consequences. There was no past and no future. All they had, all she wanted, was the present moment. She was going to make it last her a lifetime.

Her whimpered plea tore at the remnants of his control. “Wait!” he murmured, but she wouldn’t listen. With her hands on his shoulders, she urged him to cover her. Gritting his teeth, he parted her thighs. When he drove into her, her back arched from the mattress, then she wrapped her arms and legs around him and locked his body to hers.

She was past wanting gentleness, and he didn’t give it to her. Her little cries of arousal made him rougher than he meant to be, but she didn’t mind. Deliberately, wantonly, she set the pace. At the end, there was only sensation and the sweet, shattering release.

They lay there for long minutes, trying to catch their breath. His face was buried in the crook of her shoulder. She was so boneless that she didn’t have the strength to push him away, though his weight was crushing. Sensing her distress, he slipped from her body and lay stretched out beside her, propped on one elbow so that he could see her face.

She lifted her lashes slowly and smiled into his eyes. The look in her eyes told him everything he wanted to know.

“How do you feel?”

“Mmm,” she breathed out. “If this is a dream, I don’t want to waken.”

It had happened so fast, she thought, without time to consider whether she was doing the right thing. Now that reality was beginning to intrude, she felt a ripple of unease, a small ripple that she instantly quashed. He knew what she was and he accepted it, or he would not have made love to her.

Would he? She had to know.

She said carefully, “This surpasses all my dreams about you.”

He laughed and dropped a kiss on her brow. “When we are married, we won’t need dreams. We’ll be in each other’s arms every night.”

She smiled and let an interval of silence go by. “You know, my father never wanted to hear about my mother’s dreams. He could never accept that she was different, gifted—you know what I mean. It made him very uncomfortable.”

He kissed her throat. “I can see why it would. Men don’t have the same sensibilities as females. They don’t rely on intuition, only on their animal instincts and what their brains tell them.”

“My mother did not lack intelligence!”

He realized, belatedly, that this was no idle conversation, the sweet nothings lovers exchange when sated with love. This was a trap to ensnare him. “That’s not what I said and that’s not what I mean. I’m well aware that your mother was gifted.”

His words mollified her, but only slightly. “Do you believe in my gift, Ash—I mean that I heard Angelo’s voice and have dreams and visions?”

He said helplessly, “What is it you want me to say, Eve? That I have no doubts? That wouldn’t be true. All this is new to me. Of course I find it hard to accept. I’d like to explain it away, but I can’t.”

When she pulled herself to a sitting position, so did he. “Eve,” he said quietly, “what difference does it make? You take it seriously, so I’m prepared to take it seriously, too. All I care about is us. Don’t you know that I’m willing to take you on any terms?”

She felt a pain in her chest and used the heel of her hand to massage it away. Her voice was so low, it was almost inaudible. “I’m sure my father said much the same thing to my mother when he married her. It didn’t work out that way. When you can’t tell the person who is closest to you what you are truly thinking and feeling, something precious is lost.”

He clasped her shoulders. “I am not your father. I’m willing to be convinced. More than that, I’m willing to act as though I
am
convinced.”

“That’s not my point,” she said. “You say that now, but I’ve experienced firsthand how it works. Do you know why my aunt has never married, and not only my aunt but many of my Claverley cousins? It’s because they’ve been disappointed in love. No man or woman wants to marry a freak.” Her voice trembled and turned bitter. “We learn the hard way to keep our secret locked tightly away. My mother took a chance on my father and, oh, how she paid for it.”

She looked at him and shook her head. “I can’t marry you, Ash. For both our sakes.”

He kissed her then, with a violence that left her shaken. When he pulled back, that same violence was in his eyes. “You think it’s that easy? Don’t you know anything? We have only to be in the same room and the atmosphere becomes charged. I have only to touch you and you begin to tremble. Hell and damnation, I begin to tremble, too. Even when we’re apart, you’re with me. I can’t get you out of my mind. Isn’t that how you feel about me?”

She wanted to say no, but she couldn’t get the lie past her lips.

He nodded. “I think you’re beginning to see reason. Here’s another reason, if you still need to be convinced.”

He pushed her back against the pillows and his hands began a slow sweep, from her shoulders, lingering at her breast, trailing to her waist and to the heat between her thighs. He smiled when she gasped and her fingers dug into his shoulders, but he would not be hurried. Slowly, deliberately, he kissed his way up to her lips again.

The brush of his lips had her shifting sinuously beside him. Eyes on his, she said on a thread of sound, “You can’t…I can’t…Can we?”

He rested his brow on hers. “I wouldn’t have thought so, but it seems I can’t get enough of you.”

Her instant response to his touch went a long way to diffusing his temper, and now that the first rush of passion had burned itself out, he intended to take her slowly, carefully, exploiting his lover’s knowledge of what gave her pleasure, bringing her to the peak of fever and leaving her thoroughly sated. He would be unrelenting in his devotions, and she would know that she belonged to him and he to her.

It didn’t work out that way. Needs that he had suppressed too long for her sake suddenly overwhelmed him. At the first questing touch of her hands, he became insatiable.

Desire, she learned, fed on desire. One moment she was spent, as boneless as a length of rope, the next she was straining against him, her mouth eager, her touches wanton. While he was gasping for air, she rolled on top of him.

Her hair formed a curtain of silk around him as their mouths met and clung. The fragrance in her hair and on her skin intoxicated him. He couldn’t wait. At the first thrust, they both gasped, shocked at how greedy and how impatient they were. Then they began to move.

He wanted to tell her that he had never felt this way before. She wanted to tell him that he made her feel gloriously liberated. The words wouldn’t form. Passion stole their breath away. Those little trilling cries she made were driving him frantic. His shuddering gasps of pleasure made her pulse leap. Their movements became wilder, rougher, faster. She gave a little cry as her body convulsed. He groaned her name over and over as he spilled his seed inside her.

On a long sighing breath, she collapsed against him, then rolled to her side.

“I feel…” she began.

“Me, too.”

“Good.”

They smiled and kissed and nestled closer.

After a while he said softly, “This has gone too far to turn back now. We must marry, Eve. Surely you see that?”

No response.

He pulled back to get a better look at her. At least she had fallen asleep with a smile on her face. He reached for the bed quilt and dragged it over them, then lay there thinking, thinking, thinking. Gradually, his breathing slowed. He closed his eyes.

He wakened when her elbow dug into him as she turned onto her side. He got up and reached for his shirt.

“Don’t leave me.” She snagged his wrist and held on.

They studied each other, amazed at the feelings that one look could ignite.

“If I come back to bed,” he said, “it won’t be to sleep.”

“I know.”

That was all he needed to hear.

They fell into an exhausted sleep long after the candles sputtered and went out.