“Mrs Edson.” Edwina entered the kitchen to find the housekeeper sitting at the table reading her so appreciated gossip rags. The dear woman used to take a break after clearing the breakfast and before undertaking the cleaning chores. “Could you please bring tea to the drawing room?”
In this rainy weather, a pot of tea would go splendidly with work. The housekeeper looked up startled from being absorbed in her reading. “I’m sorry, Miss Whitman. The gossip rags are abuzz today,” she explained herself.
“I’m sure people are always ready to figure in it.” She’d never been interested in such readings, preferring to use her time on books.
“Oh, miss,” Mrs Edson acquired a conspiratorial tone. “But today everyone is talking about the huge party that Shipping Company owner, Mr Darroch, gave at the scandalous Madame Lafond’s establishment.” The housekeeper was not one to censor herself in the presence of a lady.
Something blew up inside Edwina and spread through her like a cannonball dropping on a cauldron of boiling oil. The blood drained from the surface of her body and churned her stomach to a point she nearly retched.
For all Mrs Edson knew, Edwina had spent a few days in Wiltshire with her sister and grandmother. Edwina hadn’t explained her absence in detail, merely letting the housekeeper draw her own conclusions.
But the other woman might think her reaction strange otherwise. Edwina swallowed the nausea hard and took a deep breath as her hand leaned on the kitchen table for support.
“You don’t say.” Edwina managed to imprint a casual note to her voice.
“It says here,” the other woman continued, “that he invited every nobleman in town and spared no expense to make it the most lavish bawdy party in the history of London.”
The more the housekeeper talked, the more that boiling oil spread through her. That reprobate had not wasted any time, had he? Ran to his hedonistic pastime faster than it took for her to loop her hook through the thread. The mere thought of him in that place made her feel soiled. Cheap.
Edwina was so livid she feared she might choke.
Nausea rose again, and she swallowed the bile one more time. “At least, London will have something to show for it,” she answered absently. “If you’ll excuse me, I must go back to work.” She climbed up the stairs before the other woman sprouted more salacious details about the cad.
Edwina spent the rest of the morning working furiously while her mind weaved images of Harris in every possible lecherous situation with the faceless women of the brothel. Until she could take it no more. If she sat here a minute longer, she’d explode.
The rain had given a reprieve. Quickly wrapping her cloak and putting on her bonnet, she told Mrs Edson she would be stepping out. She decided to breathe some fresh air and walk to the arcade for supplies she’d need shortly. Researching new haberdashery for her laces always calmed her.
At Harding, Howell & Co, she wandered to the haberdashery department, observing the patrons coming and going. By the time she reached her destination, she was already in a better mood. The twenty-minute walk had been a good choice.
“Miss Whitman, what a surprise,” a silky voice called behind her.
She froze. It couldn’t be possible she came here to ease the pressure the news about him had erupted in her and met the very scapegrace. Here of all places.
With a thundering heart, she contemplated pretending she’d not heard him and continue on her way. But the imprinting of courteous behaviour by her governesses got the better of her.
Her lungs filled to top capacity to keep the veritable ire spreading inside her in check. Turning to him, she schooled her expression to neutral.
“Mr Darroch,” her voice came mild, but she wasn’t sure her eyes weren’t casting daggers at him. “This must be the last place I’d think of meeting you.” Her sweet smile bellied the venom distilling itself inside.
The memory of touching and being touched by this man caused her stomach to churn and roil.
Yet, as her eyes lifted to him, the churning and roiling acquired a whole new dimension. Why did he have to look like a dark angel out to break women’s hearts? The view of him triggered the memories stored in her body of all the ways he’d induced the most sinful reactions in her.
He bowed, suffusing her with the view of his wavy locks. Her fingers itched to merge in them one more time. Just one more time for them to remember the feeling, the texture, the way it slid through her knuckles so smoothly.
“A few associates are connected with the arcade as you may remember,” he said as he straightened. Those dark eyes clasped on her, raking her figure as though he had all the right. They sowed heat wherever they sauntered.
People passed them by, and both stood there eyeing each other as though it would be the last time. She wished it would, wished she never lay eyes on him again. More than that, she didn’t want the avalanche of memories invading her and making her yearn for him. Correction, yearn for him even more than she had over the past few days. Waking alone in her narrow bed had been pure purgatory. In the dead of night, she could almost sense him enveloping her, smoothing his hands over her skin, blowing her up in flames yet once more. She’d never felt lonely before; her quiet life, her family, had always been enough. How disheartening that just a few weeks in the company of this despicable libertine turned her into a slave of her desires. A slave to his perdition. It had been difficult not to think of him, not to have an urge to send everything to the blazes and knock on his house, surrender, beg for more, for everything. Even after what he did, after showing he was a lost cause, that he’d not become a decent man, her body couldn’t let go.
Edwina gave herself a mental shake to stop acting like a ninny. Tearing her gaze from his, she groped for strength. “Have a nice—”
“Walk with me,” he interrupted, offering his arm.
Her eyes snapped down to his strong limb suspended in her direction and back to his. The dark irises burned on her. She didn’t want to touch him, register the warmth of his skin beneath the coat sleeve. Did not want to put her hand on a man that had been consorting with other women only the previous night.
The thought of what he’d been doing last night ripped her out of his spell. “I must decline.” Cold, her voice followed the notching up of her chin. “I don’t keep company with such as…” She looked him up and down with contempt, “you.” And moved to give him her back.
“What?” His side-smirk stretched those calamitous lips. “Are you afraid of not being able to control yourself?”
Her head pivoted back, the contained fury not contained any longer. “Yes,” she hissed. “Of retching all over you.”
His brows arched, eyes funnelling on her as his smirk remained in place. “You’re not telling me you’re jealous.”
She gave a little scoff, narrowing her eyes to a murderous slit. “No, I’m nauseous.” Which was only a half-truth, unfortunately.
At that, his rugged features became a sculpture in ice. “Walk with me,” this time it was a command.
Her head notched even higher. “No.”
“You do it, or I throw you over my shoulder.”
He meant it; she had no doubt. She so wanted to defy the cad and put distance between them. She’d be the one to lose, though, with the scene he’d perpetrate.
In hindsight, she should have stayed home fermenting in her ire. She’d be safely tucked away from the storm he stirred in her.
Her lips huffed a vexed sigh before she put her hand on his sleeve.
For a long while, they strolled in silence. People milled around them, and Edwina struggled to concentrate on what she intended to purchase. She fretted about being seen with him. London wasn’t so big that it made it impossible. The arcades received mostly revellers from her circle. Being seen with Harris would cause her problems on any day. On the afternoon after the gossip rags published his exploits, it meant social suicide.
Suddenly, she looked around and saw nobody. He
’d directed her into an empty niche away from prying eyes. It seemed like a storage place as a few crates lay around them. And very cramped at that, seven by seven feet perhaps. When she looked up at him, he stood less than three feet from her, arms crossed, glaring down at her. This close, she registered the scent of pine and man her nostrils revelled in, together with the bristles already sprouting on his jaw. The danger of not resisting loomed very real.
“What have you heard?” he asked.
“The gossip rags were vividly specific.” The mere recollection of Mrs Edson’s account nearly made her become aggressive.
“You walked away,” he accused.
A little grin came to her lips, and he glared at them. “Of course, I did. Look at who you are.”
“You knew it all along.”
“You proposed a deal, remember?” Her fists flew to her waist.
“That’s how it started.”
“And that’s how it ended,” she threw back.
His dark eyes raked her from her worn bonnet to her demure dress and creased boots. “You should have taken the clothes I gave you.”
She scoffed at that. “But that’s the thing. You give nothing, do you, Harris?” Being so close to him tangled a myriad of feelings. A sliver of regret she didn’t allow this…this tryst to run its course pressed its way into her consciousness. And she had to tamp it down with all her might.
“I said they were a gift.” The gruffness in his voice bathed her with unconfessed reactions.
She looked up at him, her nerves pushing her to go to him, touch him, register those bristles on his sculpted jaw. The intensity of the feeling alerted her she must avoid him at any cost. “I don’t want them. I just want you to stay away from me.” Her turmoil must have shown in her eyes because he studied her every feature.
“Talk to me, Edwina.” Low and coarse, his voice was a caress.
The disappointment of his actions, though unfounded given he’d never hidden his nature, choked her, and she realised she wouldn’t be able to keep it to herself.
“You make me feel cheap!” she vented.
The look he cast her was irate. “Don’t you ever say that again!”
“But it’s true.”
At that, he paced the cramped space as his large hand raked his wavy locks. And how she did envy that hand, for pity’s sake.
He turned back to her, his gaze boring into hers. “You felt cheap? Here’s what, I did, too.” Fists on his tapered waist, his eyes acquired a tempestuous shade. “You know why?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “Because I couldn’t—” He glanced down to his waistline and back to her. “It didn’t…rise up to the task.” Air escaped him in a gust.
She stared up at him, her jaw dropped, brows pleated. What did he mean it didn’t rise—? He must be lying because he never—blast!—the man was tireless. He used to seek her at least thrice in the night. One night, he made it four times. Just the memory of it made her ready for him. And remembering flushed her cheeks.
“Stop looking at me like that.” There was a note of anguish in his rasped order.
But she couldn’t. She merely stood there like a statue of salt staring back at the source of perdition he represented. She tried to combine what he said with what she knew for a fact, incapable of adding them up.
“Christ!” she heard him exclaim.
His arms laced her, his mouth slanted over hers, and in a second, she was pressed between the cold wall and his scorching tall frame.
“Hm,” she moaned in her throat. His tongue had slid between her agape lips, bathing her in complete surrender.
Without even a token resistance, her arms surrounded his shoulders as her fingers happily merged in his ebony hair.
The kiss induced her to forget he was a shameless libertine, that he had thrown a sensual banquet mere days after their parting at the most disreputable establishment in town. She only remembered he was a sensual banquet himself on which she wanted to feast until the end of time; a feast on which she’d not tire of soon, if ever.
He pressed her more against the wall, his rock-hard erection imprinting on her softness, contradicting everything he’d said, confirming everything she’d experienced with him. And she only let it be to revel in the onslaught he hurled at her.
Harris drank in her delicious mouth like someone who’d been lost in the Gobi Desert for years. Being apart from her in days felt like that. This wasn’t just a kiss; this was coming home as though he’d been away for decades. Coming home to missed food, missed scents, textures. Missed warmth.
That morning, he’d awoken on the Aubusson. As he’d lifted his pounding head and bloodshot eyes, he didn’t recognise the room. But then he spotted the armchair where she used to sit. In a drunken stupor, he’d fallen on his library’s carpet. A brief memory saw him staggering from his carriage into his house, drunk as a fish after leaving Madame Lafond’s in the height of the night. He’d stumbled to the library, his foggy mind hoping to find her there, predicting he wouldn’t. The emptiness of the library, of his house, him, had caused him to founder on the carpet in hopelessness.
Brunswick had been right. He should have been sorting the damned knots she’d tied him in instead of pretending nothing had happened. Harris preferred to pretend any day, however. Doing otherwise would plunge him into unknown waters. More than he already had that is.
One of his hands slid up to her cheek, his thumb diving into her mouth as he drove the kiss from erotic to lascivious. She sucked his tongue, then his finger and shot him into an inferno of need. The woman would be his downfall, and he wanted to fall. The deeper, the better. Hell, how he adored that fire under her prissy exterior. He adored even more the fact he was the only man in the universe to have learned of it.
“You spoiled me for other women, damn you!” he rumbled on her mouth before licking her lower lip and sweeping his tongue over hers, the thumb opening her more for him. As he dived deeper, thirstier, he became more urgent.
Edwina took him, took everything, gave everything as she was wont to do. She’d been the only woman to give herself so openly to him. The other experienced ones didn’t risk making fools of themselves with an incorrigible libertine. But she had, and he hungered for more still.
Harris registered the second she detached from the kiss. Her head lowered, separating their mouths, her hands sliding down to her sides. He had no choice but to let her go as he gave a step back.
Her hands brought her cloak tighter around her, head down. “It’s better if we don’t see each other again.” Though she avoided his gaze, her voice came resolutely.
He didn’t have time to argue because she’d already turned and left.
CHAPTER TEN
Next morning, Edwina sat in her drawing room, her hands working frantically on her lace as her memory whirled dizzyingly around that thunderous kiss. How the darn had she allowed that to happen? She had been an inch from begging him to drive her to his house. Then take her and take her some more.
After he said she’d spoiled him for other women, she’d nearly faltered. Only a herculean strength of will prevented her from begging for everything. At which time, she forced herself to surface from the haze of lust he invariably surrounded her with and leave before it’d be too late. She didn’t regret saying what she did or leaving in haste. It was that or succumb yet again to his brand of doom.
She had luncheon and forced herself to go back to work thinking about other things. The doorknocker echoed in the silence, and her heart sped as a rush of expectation swamped through her. The cad wouldn’t dare visit. Or would he?
Patiently, she waited for Mrs Edson to come and announce the visitor. “The Countess of Thornton to see you, miss.”
Cheerful enthusiasm invaded her if somewhat tainted by disappointment. “Please, send her in and bring a tray of tea.”
She stood when the Countess came in dressed as a lofty lady in the latest fashion. “Otilia, what a bright surprise!” she greete
d as both women held hands affectionately.
“Edwina, I’ve been missing you.” At Edwina’s invitation, they sat side by side.
“I’ve got an order to deliver,” she explained, wondering what her friend would say if she confided her latest…news. “It’s been quite busy.”
“You don’t say.” Tea came in, and Edwina served them. “Did you receive Viscount Carlton’s invitation for the ball?” Mrs Edson left, closing the door.
With a finger on her chin, Edwina rummaged her memory. “I think I did,” she answered. “But I haven’t thought about whether I’ll accept it.”
“I came to ask if you’d like to come with us,” Otilia invited.
Naturally, it’d be much more proper to go accompanied by her friend as a chaperone. “Since you invited, I’ll most definitely go.” She warmed to the invitation.
As far as she knew, the Carltons had no direct relationship with Darroch, which meant he’d probably not been invited. Edwina shunned the thought. She couldn’t live her life based on what the cad did. She should learn to resist him whatever the circumstances.
Otilia’s expression turned serious as she placed the cup elegantly on the tray and brought a hand to rest on Edwina’s forearm. “There’s another thing I must talk to you about.”
Her friend’s expression caused foreboding to dominate her. “Certainly. What is it?” She hoped the mask of casualness held.
“I heard Mr Brockton is spreading rumours,” the Countess began.
The mention of Baron Enfield’s uncle and rumours caused Edwina to blanch, her heart skipping a beat. “What rumours?” she asked limply.
“About you and Mr Darroch.” Her friend must have sensed her apprehension for she held her hands. “Forgive me for bringing the bad news, but I imagined you should be aware of them.”
“No, it’s all right,” she answered to put the other woman’s mind to rest. “As you must remember, my father had dealings with the shipping company.”
Her Wicked LibertineEDIT Page 13
