Unlocked (8 page)

“Nonetheless,” the older gentleman was saying. “I have some correspondence from her.”

Diana folded her arms in disapproval. “Well, there’s no need to listen to the old crones exchange their regards,” she said. Not too loud; but then, not too quietly either.

It was her typical style—a cutting insult delivered with a smooth smile. But it was not met with the usual response. A murmur swept through the room. Those nearest her repeated her words, until the hall practically rumbled with displeasure.

“Crones?” The gentleman turned to Diana, his expression perplexed. “Ma’am, my aunt’s recommendation brought fifteen members of the Royal Astronomical Society to this event. The instant Lord Westfeld sent word of Lady Stockhurst’s presentation, I knew I would have to attend.”

Across the room, Elaine shot Evan a glance. He smiled at her.
There. I said it would all be well
.

“The…the Astronomical Society?” Diana blinked at the fellow, no doubt trying to place him. “Who are you? Who is your aunt?”

“I am Sir John Herschel,” the man replied. “And my aunt is Caroline Herschel—the only woman to have been presented with the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. She was unable to come from Hanover, where she currently resides, but she asked me to read a statement on her behalf.”

Across the room, Elaine was looking at him. Her eyes had gone wide and luminous. And in that instant, Evan knew precisely why he’d gone to so much trouble. Not only to make her smile. Not merely out of friendship. Not just because of his poorly-contained, ill-conceived lust. He’d done it because he was in love with her.

“When Lord Westfeld forwarded me Lady Stockhurst’s manuscript,” Sir John began, “I feared the worst. But it became clear to me after moments that I was reading the work of one of the finest minds in all of Europe.”

Elaine shook her head at him—not in reproof, but in uncontainable delight. The letter was half over Evan’s head—replete with mathematical references. In a way, it felt as if he’d come home—as if he’d righted a wrong that had long troubled him. It was worth all the trouble he’d endured to see Elaine smile without fear.

“I can safely say,” Sir John was concluding, “that Lady Stockhurst’s name should be linked with that of mine and Mrs. Mary Somerville for her keenness of understanding.”

Evan would have ridden through hell and back for the look on Elaine’s face—that brilliant, incandescent happiness, one that could not be smothered.

He felt the joy so keenly it almost hurt.

After the crowd began to disperse, Elaine sought him out. How could she not? He was on the far side of the room, and yet as soon as her eyes landed on him, he turned to her. She could feel herself light up as their gazes met, like an oil lamp screwed to full brightness. So why, as she drifted across the room to meet him, did her innards seem to tangle in knots? What
was
this excitement that collected on her skin?

He was just a friend.
Just
a friend. A good friend, yes, and one who had done her an extraordinary favor. He stood on the edge of the hall as the crowd flowed past him, standing with a group of her friends. There were the Duke and Duchess of Parford, a smattering of ladies…and the duke’s younger brother, Sir Mark Turner, which rather explained the ladies.

“Duchess,” Elaine said, and her friend turned, smiling, and extended her hand. The Duchess of Parford was one of Elaine’s dearest friends. She had known of Elaine’s worry, and had come to lend her support. “Your Grace. Sir Mark.” Elaine nodded to the other members of the party, and then swallowed before addressing the last man. “Westfeld. How very, very good to see you all.”

Westfeld met her eyes. “We were speaking on the nature of friendship, Lady Elaine.”

“
I
was saying,” the duchess interjected, “that Westfeld has been a very good friend to you.”

“Yes.” Elaine found herself unable to break away from his gaze. “I’m very grateful to him.”

But
grateful
was altogether the wrong word. She knew it looking into the dark brown of his eyes. She might have looked into them all evening and not noticed the passing of time. No; it wasn’t
gratitude
she felt. It was something rather more electric.

“Grateful,” he said, the syllables of the word clipped. And then he shook his head and smiled ruefully. “Of course you are. But there’s no need to be.”

“There is. Every need.”

“That is what friendship means.” His voice dropped and so did her stomach.

She felt almost weightless, ready to blow away.

“In fact, tonight happened because of another one of my friends—Fritz Meissner, an old partner from Chamonix who hails from Hanover. I sent him a courier, and he badgered his uncle to show the work to Miss Herschel. From there, I had only to make certain that Miss Herschel’s response was widely known. It was nothing.”

“I assure you,” Sir Mark put in, “few friends would think the same.”

“Oh?”

“Most friendships,” Sir Mark continued, “are nothing more than a similarity of temperament, or a smattering of common interests. Friendship is about jokes told and laughter shared.”

While Sir Mark spoke, Westfeld shook his head. “I used to think the same—that so long as we were laughing together, it was enough. That was before I took an interest in mountaineering.” Westfeld was talking to the entire group, but his gaze kept returning to Elaine. “My entire notion of friendship altered when I depended on someone for more than just the pleasant passing of time. Once you’ve trusted a person with your life, it changes everything. It’s no longer enough to call someone ‘friend’ simply because you visit the same haberdashery. Once someone has risked his life for yours, and you’ve risked yours for his—once you’ve yoked yourselves together, knowing that one misstep could kill the both of you—well.” He shook his head. “Everything after that seems very pallid in comparison.”

“Ah.” Sir Mark smiled. “We’re boring.”

“Not at all. Maybe that’s what I have been looking for. When storms and rockslides threaten, I am looking for someone who will hold on to me and not let go.”

He was talking about friendship, but the way he looked at her… She would crackle like fire if he touched her.

“Is that what you were doing?” she asked softly. “Not letting go?”

“We’re friends.” His smile twisted ruefully. “And what that means is this: I won’t let anyone hurt you. Not if I can stop it.”

She couldn’t stop the stupid grin, too large and too painful, from creeping out on her face. She could feel herself lighting up under his perusal. And his smile—that awkward quirking smile, just a twitch too bitter. He had said they were friends. But…

She’d managed to put all thought of his long-ago proposal out of her mind. He joked with her so often that she’d assumed that it had been offered out of a sense of duty and obligation—and perhaps a hint of the desire he’d felt a decade before. He’d wanted to make up for past wrongs. And he knew—he
knew
she couldn’t marry him. She’d thought he had accepted it, because until this moment, until tonight, she’d believed he felt nothing for her but friendship.

But no. There was a savagery to his smile, and a darkness in his eyes when he watched her.

He was in love with her. And it hurt him.

Evan had to get away.

The air in the hall had become overheated. As he’d spoken, Elaine had begun to look at him with something like dawning horror. Her conversation had dried up. And once again, she’d wrapped her arms around her waist, drawing in on herself until she was as closed to him as a locked room.

So. She’d figured it out. He strode down the steps of the hall and signaled to his footman waiting in the drizzle. But there was no way to escape easily; the line of carriages stretched into the distance, and the waiting throng had begun to spill out onto the steps of the hall. He wouldn’t be rescued from that crush for at least half an hour.

Instead, he darted across the street to wait. The weather was more fog than rain, but the mist clung to his coat wetly. In the relative haven of the small square, he could pretend to be alone. The crowds across the way were blocked by dense shrubbery; the first tentative spring leaves on trees overhead dampened the carrying conversation. If he could stop up his ears and shut out the persistent clop of horses’ hooves, he might imagine himself very private indeed.

He’d made himself give up all hope of Elaine. Most people would have taken such a surrender as an admission of failure—capitulation, by definition, was the very opposite of success. Then again, most people imagined that the successful mountaineer climbed Mont Blanc by persisting in the face of unimaginable peril and privation.

Not so. A mountaineer who kept going when a snowstorm arose was not
successful
. He was dead. Only an idiot wagered his life against the flip of Mother Nature’s coin.

That was the first part of climbing a mountain: deciding
not
to die. He’d had to learn that one.

A formal walkway crossed the square; beyond it, a less formal path skirted the bushes. He walked alone in darkness, breathing in air that choked him, and trying to exhale every last frustration.

There was a second part to mountaineering: determining when to make another go at it. Sometimes, the best time to launch an assault was right after a storm, before the snow turned to ice. Sometimes you had to wait until all danger had passed. Evan had always sensed that if he pushed Elaine too hard—if he insisted that she rethink how she truly felt about him—he would lose her.

He stopped walking when the small crushed rocks of the path gave way to springy turf. A fountain, dry and empty of everything but the last remnants of moldering leaves, stood before him. To his right, a statue of William Pitt stood on a stone base. Pitt’s cast-metal head brushed the limbs of the trees that ringed the park.

Alone with a politician on such a night. Diana would laugh, if he told her.

And then a stick cracked behind him, and before he could turn to see who had invaded his privacy, he heard a voice.
Her
voice.

“Westfeld?”

He could see her only from the periphery of his vision, but still all his thoughts, so sound and rational, were swallowed up by her presence. He was nothing but a deep abyss of want, and only she could fill him.

He didn’t want to turn at the sound of her voice. If he simply stared into the hydrangea for long enough…then he would be a coward. He turned to face the woman who could bring him to his knees.

She approached until she was close enough that they could speak without shouting. Still, he couldn’t make out her expression. The new leaves of an ash tree blocked most of the moonlight, save for a few variegated patches that wandered across her cheek.

“Elaine.” His voice sounded too gruff, like a tiger’s rumble.

“
Evan
,” she whispered. It was the first time she’d used his Christian name, and he felt a little thrill run through him at the intimacy.

“What are you doing here?” He narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing here
alone
?”

“My parents are waiting for the coach. Papa is discussing politics with Lord Blakely, and Mama…” She shrugged. “In any event, I told them I wanted to speak with a friend.” She took a step closer. “And I do.”

She was within arm’s reach. He exhaled. “Do not trifle with me.”

“Is it trifling for me to say that I enjoy your company?”

“I’ll be your friend in daylight. I’ll treat you as a comrade in every gas-lit ballroom. But alone, under moonlight, I’ll not pretend that I want you for anything but mine.”

She didn’t say anything. She simply looked up into his eyes.

He reached out and laid one finger against her cloak in warning. “If you don’t want to be kissed, you’d better leave.”

She’d stolen all the oxygen from the air, and with it, every ounce of his rationality. She was going to run away.

But she didn’t. She stayed. He slid his finger up her arm to the crook of her elbow. With the moonlight dappling her face, painting her skin in cream and ivory, she looked like an illusion—a fairy-story princess conjured to life by the sheer strength of his want.

He pulled her to him. They were shielded by shrubbery and trees and the shadow of William Pitt, and even though he could still hear the clop of horse hooves, nobody could see them. There was only so much temptation a man could resist.

He lowered his mouth to hers.

She was most definitely real. She opened to him, warm and irrefutably solid. When he slid his tongue across her lips, she gave a small gasp of sincere pleasure. His arms went around her and he pulled her close. And then he was kissing her in truth, tasting her, unable to stop himself from plumbing her depths. He had the oddest sensation that if he let her go, she would float away. And yet she kissed him back. Her hands slid down his coat. Her tongue found his. Their lips met again and again, melding together until her breath was his, her kiss was his, her soul…

Even in the moonlight, even with her pressed against him, he knew better. Her soul was not his. Reality was the illusion. She’d been maddened by moonlight and taken by surprise. At any moment, she would come to her senses. But until then…

Until then, he was going to kiss her, for no reason except that he loved her and she would let him. He wouldn’t let any note of bitterness destroy the sweet taste of her.

He could sense when she began to withdraw. Her hands stopped clutching him closer. Her kiss grew less fevered. Finally, she pulled away from him. Only a few inches, but it was far enough that he could no longer smell her sweet scent. She wasn’t a part of him—not any longer.

“Westfeld,” she whispered, and with that word—his title, instead of his Christian name—the barriers between them returned in full force. “I—I don’t—I didn’t know what I was doing.”

He couldn’t help himself. He molded his hand to her face. “Elaine.”

She bowed her head and leaned against him, and he brushed his lips to her forehead.

“It happened,” he said. “I understand. I shouldn’t—” But he couldn’t bring himself to apologize for kissing her. He
should
have kissed her, damn it. He would hold that memory inside him forever—a moonlit kiss, half dream, half solid truth. And so he ran his gloved thumb along her lips, reluctant to relinquish his hold on her.