When We Touch (28 page)

“I'm not surprised.”

“She came to the church without food, and decided to give out money. She and her friend were nearly trampled.”

So Maggie was an angel. She'd be living in heaven all right, if she didn't change her ways.

“Ah, but the people here love her!” Bartley said.

“The problem as I see it is that individuals do give, while the government itself has not determined on a way to deal with the overcrowding and starvation,” Jamie pointed out.

“Oh, people give money. But Maggie comes here, you see. No matter what her title, her station in life, she walks among the people. She ignores the stench. She risks disease. She talks with them, and can be seen, and touched. That makes her an angel.”

Bartley's awe was irritating, and Jamie, to his shame, knew why. His uncle was barely cold. And all he could do was dream about being with his beloved kinsman's widow himself. Being with her, alone. In shadow or light, alone together, tangled in the sheets.

He rose abruptly. “Have you seen her—about, being seen and touched today?”

“No, that I haven't.” Bartley gave a deep sigh. “Lord James, thank you for the respite. And rest assured, whatever I hear on the streets that you might not, I will bring to your attention with haste.”

* * *

“This is insane!” Mireau said.

“Isn't she beautiful?” Maggie countered. And the baby was beautiful. Dark curls crowned her head, marble-like eyes stared out at them. She was dressed in rags, and was a year old, perhaps a little less, or a little more. She had a single dimple. Her smile was captivating.

“She's beautiful, and this is insane.”

Maggie shook her head, smiling at him. They were clipping their way rather slowly through the streets of Whitechapel. People were everywhere, at the sides of the roads, in the middle, all nervous, all talking—and few paying much heed to the traffic.

“I have this strange feeling, Mireau, that saving her is rather part of my destiny.”

“Maggie, waiting a proper period of mourning, falling in love, marrying a man who is not standing with one foot in the grave already, bearing a child of your own. That would be destiny.”

“She's simply beautiful!” Maggie said again.

“You've a stepdaughter who is simply beautiful. Even more beautiful than you are, perhaps. And she is nothing but trouble. Mark my words—this little beauty is already trouble.”

Maggie glared at him and hugged the baby. The baby giggled, reaching for one of Maggie's golden locks. Maggie was in rapture, and started when the cab suddenly came to a halt.

“What . . . ?” she demanded.

Mireau looked out. And paled to ash.

“Jamie,” he said quickly.

“Jamie?”

“Lord James Langdon! Your
great nephew
, remember? Viscount Langdon—the new version?”

“The baby, take the baby!”

Maggie stuffed the child into his arms, thinking quickly to jump out of the cab and forestall Lord Langdon. For a moment, the wee girl looked up at Mireau as if she were about to let out a horrendous scream.

“No, no, please!” he whispered. And he started to hum, trying to think of some song from his youth, desperate to keep her quiet. “Please, baby, please, please, please!” he crooned, and amazingly, she looked up at him, almost as if she understood.

“Lord James!” he heard Maggie saying, and not with pleasure.
Oh, brilliant!
he thought.
Start right off being hostile, Maggie!

“What are you doing down here?” Jamie asked her, voice deep, resonating, and truly aggravated.

“Taking in the air?” Maggie suggested. “It's none of your business what I'm doing!”

“Oh, isn't it? Amazing, because I'm trying to protect your wretched life!”

“It's my life to do with what I please. Charles is gone; you have no rights over me.”

“I am head of the Langdon family.”

“I was born a Graham.”

“Whatever your intentions down here, Maggie, if you don't cease these visits, and immediately, I'll begin to make a few suggestions of my own. Such as that I believe you may well be responsible for the death of Lord Charles. You'll find that you're cooling your heels once I make such an accusation.”

“You wouldn't!” Maggie gasped, and yet, it seemed that she believed he well might, for there was a touch of fear along with indignation in her voice.

“Try me, my lady.”

Mireau couldn't see her, but he could well imagine Maggie. She must have been standing there, straight as a ramrod, furious, and yet, at a loss. Then she spoke again, quickly. “All right, Lord James, Viscount Langdon. I will get back in my cab, and return to the house, and stay there.”

“No. You'll come with me. I'll see that you're out of here.”

Apparently, she chose not to mention that Mireau remained in the cab. From his place deep against the seat, Mireau saw as she turned and stared at him, and now there was naked pleading in the depths of her cobalt eyes.
Get her safely away. Let no one know. For the love of God, help me in this, Mireau!

“Maggie, I mean it!” Jamie continued harshly. “I want you out of here, with me, now!”

“As you command, my lord!” she responded. “Go on, cabbie!” she cried to the hackney driver, and he saw that she was stepping forward, paying him.

She gazed in at Mireau, pleadingly, one last time.

Then she was gone.

“What in God's name do I do now?” Mireau said, staring at the baby as the carriage jolted back into action.

She waved a tiny hand below his nose, eyes staring gravely into his. And he sighed, because he would do something, rack his brain, come up with an idea . . . he had to. He had fallen a little bit in love.

* * *

Jamie was evidently furious with her, and she couldn't quite understand why. He knew that she came down here.

Maybe she wasn't properly mourning.

Or maybe he did blame her for Charles's death, despite his words to her to get over her self-pity.

He “helped” her into his carriage with such a firm hand she nearly collided with the door on the opposite side. When he crawled in, he didn't look at her, but out the windows. His jaw was set in such a lock she was surprised that it didn't snap. His hands, so large, capable . . . were knotted into fists in his lap.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” he demanded suddenly and harshly, staring at her, fire in the gray smoke of his gaze.

“What the hell is the matter with
you?
You know that I come down here!”

“Not now! There is a murderer on the loose.”

She sat back, staring out the window. “There's often a murderer on the loose in Whitechapel. People have just noticed for a change.”

“All right, Maggie, let me rephrase. There's an exceptionally heinous madman on the loose down here, and if a recent letter is to be accepted as from the real fellow, he's calling himself Jack the Ripper. And he claims that he's ready to strike again, eager to strike again!”

“I'm not a prostitute,” Maggie said, and winced inwardly, thinking that, like these women, in actuality, she had been sold. Her price had simply been much higher.

“And do you think that if you wind up in this madman's path, it will be any different?”

She sighed. “Jamie, I'm not your concern.”

“But you are.”

“How is that?”

“You were charged with looking after Arianna. I was charged with looking after you.”

“Charles is gone. Sadly, we are left with the truth of our lives. I will probably never have any influence over Arianna. And you have none with me.”

“Then you'll listen to me because I'm threatening you.”

She felt her fingers curl into fists.
He was taking her back to Moorhaven, she was certain. And he would remain, trying to make sure that she didn't leave the house. Well and fine. She could play that game—he couldn't stay forever.

“I stand duly threatened,” she said. Then she leaned forward, ready to plead. “Listen, Jamie, I'll stay out of Whitechapel for a while, I promise. But I can't abide being at Moorhaven.”

“You have to abide it. You're there to watch over Arianna.”

She sat back, her jaw twisting into a rigid lock.

The carriage moved on.

The ride seemed interminable. And still, at last, they came to Moorhaven. She tried to jump out of the carriage before he could assist her. He was faster. They crashed into one another, trying to vacate the conveyance. She forced herself to allow him to go first, to reach for her, help her out.

“Thank you, Randolph!” she called cheerily to the coachman. “Good day, Viscount,” she said coldly to Jamie.

She marched into the house and raced up the stairs, swearing to herself as she realized that he was following her.

The ever annoying Mrs. Whitley must have arrived in the foyer after she had headed up the stairs. She could hear the woman talking to Jamie.

“Lord Langdon! What a pleasure. Will you be having supper? The house is in such a state of . . . confusion, these days!”

She didn't know what Jamie replied. She reached her room, entered, slammed the door, and began to pace. Where was Mireau? How on earth would he hide the baby? What would he do with her?

She was so deeply entrenched in her worry and thoughts that she was stunned when her door burst open. Jamie had followed her up.

He stared at her, his fury evident.

“What?” she cried. “I'm in the house! In my room, going nowhere!”

“Why are you so astonished that I don't care to see you killed—and ripped to pieces?”

“I will not be killed and ripped to pieces!” she protested.

He strode across the room, tension evident in the set of his shoulders, the length of his stride. And she found that she didn't move, that she longed for him to accost her, couldn't wait to fight back, pound her fists against his chest.

He stopped before her. She expected some violence. She was ready to return it with a vengeance.

He reached out. His fingers settled upon her shoulder with such a power that she nearly cried out. But then she was crushed against him. And when his thumb lifted her chin and his lips settled upon hers, she gave up the concept of a fight in less than a second.

Longing swept through her with lightning speed, with shameful fervor. She parted her lips to the deep wet depths of his assault, and returned the volatile force of the kiss. She felt his hands, molding her against him, touching her. Beneath his trousers she felt the force of his arousal, and it only caused her to feel a weakening in her knees, a drastic need to shed any of the barriers between them. It was ungodly to want someone so badly. To not care in the least about propriety, to not even realize the manner of the sin to be committed. And yet . . .

She felt the length of his fingers against her. Amazingly quick, and adept. She was breathless, gasping, reaching for his cravat, his waistcoat . . . scarcely aware that her clothing was being strewn as well, bit by bit, falling in a trail across the floor as they broke to discard some other piece of cloth, met and dueled with lips and teeth and tongue again, moved . . . discarded, and at a last, hit the bed with all flesh bared to one another, lips locked once again in a kiss that held both fury and need, defiance and argument, and sheer wild sensuality.

What happened then was quick.

And desperate.

And still . . . so complete.

She felt him all over her. His hands . . . those long fingers . . . trailing, sweeping, brushing the length of her. Cradling her breasts, teasing the nipples, until she felt the very hardness of them herself, taut, craving ever more attention. The caress of his tongue obliged, until passing farther—and always, against flesh that seemed to scream and screech, so sensitized that the slightest breath was an erotic seduction—against the terrain of her body, savoring for seconds the terrain of her belly and hips. His touch, a step ahead, a brush . . . an intimate probe, sensation that nearly tore cries from her lips, stopped only by the renewed assault of his mouth against hers, until it departed down the length of her flesh again, inundating her with a liquid blaze, centering upon the very center of her arousal, drawing, evoking . . .

She nearly screamed again, but he was above her, and within her, and again, it was the fever of his mouth that swallowed her cries, while the volatile power of his length moved within her, and then it seemed that there was nothing, nothing on the earth except for him, and the intoxicating realm in which they reached and surged, swathed in the swirling rise of sensation, seeking, needing . . .

And skyrocketing.

The world became ablaze with light; sweetness saturated the length of her, touching every finger, toe, soaking through to her mind. Her hair was a tangled damp mess, curled between them. His body was hard and vibrant still, even as he remained within her, the aftermath creating little tremors within them both as passion and their climax took due course. Body against body, the force and weight of him remained. And for long moments, she wavered between reality and dream, wishing that she could curl against him, rest her head, rest her
soul
, and let sleep creep over her now, there, where she was sheltered, in his arms.

But he withdrew. She closed her eyes, not wanting to meet his. But she sensed that he wasn't seeking her out, but rather, that he had thrown his legs over the side of the bed, and was running his fingers through his hair.