Through the Smoke (12 page)

He struck a match and, for a moment, his face glowed orange as he lit a pipe. “Not everyone is afraid of me, Miss McTavish.” The smell of expensive tobacco wafted across the room. “Take you, for instance.”

Her every nerve seemed taut and attuned to the man who’d made passionate, then incredibly tender, love to her less than twenty-four hours ago. Somehow the memory of their time together didn’t seem congruous with the person who stood before her now. This was the old Earl of Druridge. The imperious mine owner. The peer of the realm. The privileged man her parents had hated. “I’m not sure what I think of you, my lord. My opinion doesn’t matter anyway. I have enough to worry about with the shop and Geordie. What brings you here?”

“I want to know why,” he said.

Rachel pulled her tattered cloak tighter around her shoulders. “Why what?”

“Why you agreed to come to me last night.”

“Why I
agreed
to come to you?” Rachel tried to inject her voice with sufficient disdain. “You flatter yourself, my lord.”

As he smoked his pipe, she felt his eyes cutting the darkness between them. “Perhaps, but for all your maidenly airs, I know a willing woman when I’ve got one beneath me.”

Heat suffused Rachel’s cheeks. She was glad he couldn’t see her plainly. “Don’t. I don’t want to talk about it. I would rather we forget last night ever happened. It was all a big… misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding? I find a naked woman in my bed, and she is warm and willing and more responsive than I could ever have dreamed she would be, and you tell me—”

“Please, stop!”

He chuckled softly. “Does it bother you so badly to admit that you wanted what I wanted? Are you above the appetites of the flesh, Miss McTavish?”

“That is hardly a fair question when you know I have little experience with such things—”

“Which is exactly why I am confused. Pray, enlighten me. Last night you
leave ten pounds on my bureau, money I fear you can scarce live without. But when I try to return it, along with a significant amount for your… shall we say, discomfort, you send my servant away with every pound.”

“Because I am not what you think. You wish to excuse yourself by tossing me a few pounds, to consider me better off for having given myself to you. But I won’t have it. Live with yourself if you can. I want nothing from you. I was merely trying to return the money you gave Mrs. Tate when your cousin came upon me on the road.”

She sensed the earl shifting, no longer leaning on the bookshelves. “Wythe said he merely extended you the invitation.” His voice was soft on the outside but hard underneath, velvet over steel.

“He did a lot more than that.”

“Such as… ?”

She waved a hand. “He said some nonsensical things about you taking him up on his idea after hitting him for making the suggestion. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about and tried to get away on his horse, but the silly beast threw me. The next thing I knew I found myself beneath your coverlet and you were there.…”

“Touching you.” He stepped into the moonlight streaming through the front windows. “And you were telling me in ways as old as time that you wanted me to.”

Yes. Even his scarred hand had not put her off. The thought of it brought her no revulsion now, as much as she wished otherwise. “No,” she started but he cut her off.

“Then why didn’t you say something? Let me know there had been a mistake?”

“Because I had just hit my head!” She almost mentioned that she might’ve been drugged, too. But that was a serious accusation and she had no proof of it. It wasn’t necessary, anyway. The bump was enough. “I was too befuddled to think. I didn’t even know who you were,” she lied.

His laugh this time was bitter. “Of course not. You would never willingly give yourself to
me
, not for money, not for anything. I almost forgot. I am your nemesis. God forbid you might actually find yourself attracted to me.” While he spoke, he moved closer, stopping only inches away. Towering over
her the way he was, limed in silver, his cloak swirling around his knees, he looked darkly mysterious. “But you know who is touching you now, don’t you, Rachel?” he asked, removing the glove on his good hand so he could run a finger down her cheek.

Rachel’s brain screamed for her to move away, but her legs wouldn’t carry her. She stood staring up into eyes that glittered with challenge and desire.

He lowered his head until his breath fanned her cheek and his lips hovered a hairbreadth above hers. What she felt in that moment reminded Rachel of a line from one of Tennyson’s poems: “Once he drew with one long kiss my whole soul thro’ my lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.”

Closing her eyes, she swayed expectantly toward him, but he didn’t kiss her. “I think you knew it was me all along,” he said, and when Rachel opened her eyes again, he was gone.

Chapter 7

“Very interesting.” Chuckling softly, a figure stood in the shadow of the building, watching as the earl rode away from the McTavish Bookshop. Unless the glimmering moonlight had been playing tricks, Druridge was upset. There was no accounting for that, but there was also no dismissing the confident way he’d let himself into the shop. It had almost been as if he had a right to be there. As though the McTavish wench would welcome him.

And after all her airs and self-righteous rhetoric about helping the poor working class! Evidently she’d found a way to improve her own lot and had jumped at the chance.

The earl’s whore. Not a pretty title, but depending upon Druridge’s devotion, Rachel could change everything. An unexpected but bold move.

Cutberth definitely needed to hear about this.

Truman slammed his fist into the stable wall, scaring the horses. They nickered and whinnied in surprise, but he didn’t care if he woke the stable master, the stable master’s dogs and all the lads sleeping above.

She was still with him, damn it. After five miles of slow travel, he couldn’t escape his desire for Rachel McTavish. He had left her standing in that humble bookshop, her eyes closed and her mouth slightly parted, waiting for his kiss, and he had managed to walk away. But he had regretted it the moment he climbed astride his horse—more with each passing mile. She did something to him, something he couldn’t quite combat. He’d chosen to ignore her
and move on. But that wasn’t as easy as he’d expected it to be. Deep down, he believed that maybe, just maybe, a woman like Rachel would be the perfect antidote to his cynicism and doubt.

Shaking away the pain in his hand and willing away the ache in his loins, Truman wished he’d never met Rachel. He’d been caught in her spell ever since he’d seen her on that ladder—a bit of revenge for Jack, were he alive to enjoy it. After last night, Truman was more enchanted than ever. He remembered the feel of her arms around his neck, the way she’d gasped as he moved inside her.…

Ah, sweet torture
. But she was just one more thing to steal his focus from where it needed to be: solving the mystery of Katherine’s murder. Considering all that had transpired, Rachel would never have a kind thought for him.

It was better to forget her. Certainly he’d be able to, eventually.

The sound of hooves beating the damp earth and then clattering over the gravel of the drive echoed above the settling noises of the stable he’d just left. Truman stepped closer to the stone wall that separated the slaughtering house and chicken coop from the kitchens and waited for his cousin to shelter his horse. What kind of shape would Wythe be in tonight? Rough living and alcohol were taking a toll on his work at the mine, but he refused to believe he had a problem.

Because Truman expected Wythe to be drunk, again, he was surprised to watch his cousin make his way toward the house on sure feet.

“Another late night?” he asked, stepping into his path.

Wythe didn’t seem startled. “Not as late as most,” he said, barely breaking stride.

Truman fell in step beside him. “Did Elspeth close early?”

“Elspeth never closes,” he said with a grin. “That’s what I love about her. But you wouldn’t know. You take your pleasure right here, eh, cousin?”

Truman refused to let Wythe bait him, especially when he believed that Wythe was to blame for last night. “Actually, I’m glad you mentioned that. Rachel claims your horse threw her. You wouldn’t have any idea how that could have happened, would you?”

Wythe slanted a glance his way. “She must’ve been dreaming. I told you this morning I merely made her an offer—one she apparently couldn’t refuse.”

“That’s what I thought.” Truman smiled and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I knew you wouldn’t lie to me. Just like I know you will stay away from her in future… because we wouldn’t want any trouble between cousins. Am I right?”

Wythe stopped and gaped at him, shocked by the veiled threat. But Truman wasn’t about to back down. He wanted to make his point perfectly clear. Rachel might hate him, and he might want to keep his distance from her. But he would not allow anyone connected to him to hurt her ever again.

“Right,” Wythe said, then strode quickly to the house, leaving Truman outside to have another smoke.

Unwilling to open her eyes until she absolutely couldn’t hide from the day any longer, Rachel woke late. The financial picture she’d created after going through the books last night had not been encouraging. Her mother owed a traveling vendor almost twenty pounds, which might’ve been two hundred for all of Rachel’s ability to pay. Rents for the cottage and the shop were overdue. And their cupboards were nearly bare. In order to satisfy her creditors and garner enough to survive, she would have to sell off a portion of her inventory, perhaps to a shop in London, which was probably the only place she’d find someone with sufficient funds. But even if she did that, she would be faced with the same situation next month, and the month after. The bookshop wasn’t meeting its overhead. The place would be dismantled bit by bit and she’d soon be left with nothing. Or almost nothing. She’d have her teaching, of course, but the miners paid her in foodstuffs and handmade items. Such bartering provided a more comfortable existence, but would never be enough to support her and young Geordie.

How had her mother managed?

That was a question Rachel feared to ask, even herself. Jillian had started the shop with the backing of her rich father. Although she was illegitimate, he had eventually accepted her, paid for her schooling, even set her up in business. But the money had stopped when he died. From there, Jillian had kept the shop afloat by using the money Jack had received for supposedly setting
the fire at Blackmoor Hall, which was long gone. What had she been doing since?

According to what Rachel had figured out last night, one mysterious payment came in each month that was not categorized as to its source. Without that, they would have lost the shop long ago.

With a groan, she pulled her quilts up over her head. For a moment she remembered the money she’d turned away, just yesterday, and wished she could lower her pride and her ideals enough to accept it. She could go to Blackmoor Hall this morning and apologize to the earl for her high-handed rejection.…

But how would she ever be able to live with herself?