Title Sinful Tales of Desirable Ladies

by Lucinda Nelson

  And yet, having found her, he had no idea what to say. After all this time searching, he’d never once considered how debilitating it would be to see her again. It was painful and wonderful. It stole his words from him.

  He expelled a shaky breath and closed his eyes.

  It was clear that she didn’t want to see him. That she was keen to pretend that she didn’t know him, but that wouldn’t stop Philip. He’d expected her to be reluctant to see him. What he hadn’t expected was to feel so out of his depth.

  Philip decided that he would wait in a café near the gallery until it closed. Then, when she left, he’d corner her and force her to speak to him. In the café, he tried to think of what he would say to her, but couldn’t make a concrete decision.

  He thought of a thousand different things he’d like to say, and another thousand different ways of saying them. When the sun was setting and the gallery closed, he still hadn’t made a decision.

  But it was too late to go back now. He was already walking towards her.

  ***

  Miss Loraine Beauchamp

  When she saw him, she thought her heart had given way. He looked different. So different that she hadn’t recognized him at first. He had lost weight, though he was by no means fragile. His body was still wide in the shoulders, tapering down into slim hips.

  He still looked like a Greek God. Albeit a sick one. Philip had always been incredibly well-kept, but now he just looked tired. He had deep purple rings around his eyes, and his face was more gaunt, which made his piercing eyes look even sharper.

  When she saw that it was him, her words caught in her throat. Why was he here? Had he been searching for her? If so, why did he look so surprised to see her?

  There was a tiny part of her that wanted to throw her arms around him the instant she saw him. Having felt so alone for so long, it was remarkable to see a familiar face. To see a face she loved so much.

  But as she looked into his eyes, she forced herself to remember that he wasn’t the man she’d thought him to be. He wasn’t the man she’d fallen in love with. That man didn’t exist. This was just a swindler and a cheat.

  So she lifted her chin higher, and pretended he meant nothing.

  Loraine expected this to be one of his games. For him to tease her, use double entendre, make mischief. But he didn’t even smile.

  He just continued to stare at her like she was a ghost. And then, when she went to speak to another customer, he just left.

  She wasn’t expecting it. Loraine stole a glimpse over her shoulder while the customer was looking at the painting, but Philip was gone. Just disappeared. As if he didn’t care.

  The moment the gallery was free of customers, she excused herself and went to the restroom. Once there, she leaned back against a wall and tried to gather her thoughts. She put her hand over her heart, to find that it was thumping wildly.

  She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself down, but it didn’t work. He was imprinted in her head. They were back in the cave, tangled and warm.

  “Oh God…” she whispered to herself, feeling strangely afraid.

  Unable to shake of thoughts of him, and unable to stay in the restroom all day, she went back out onto the gallery floor. She did her best to keep thoughts of him from interfering with her work, but knew that she didn’t have much success.

  She kept tripping up over information she knew by heart, which caused Alfie to frown at her.

  Before she left, Alfie even asked her if she was feeling well.

  She lied and said that she’d been feeling nauseous all day. He sympathized with her and told her to take it easy.

  Loraine had expected Philip to come back to the gallery, but he hadn’t. He was like a phantom. He’d just vanished, as if he’d never come in the first place.

  It unnerved her, because she felt that she needed to prepare for the possibility of seeing him again. She was stuck in a state of nervous anticipation, which she couldn’t shake off until she knew when and where he’d pop up again.

  As she left the gallery that evening, she bit the inside of her lip and walked briskly. She saw him coming from across the street, and could have easily evaded him if she chose to.

  Loraine considered it. If she ran before he got past the moving carriages, he’d lose track of her. But did she want to evade him?

  She’d started considering, just a few days earlier, that she might like some closure. She imagined confronting him and telling him that she thought he was a pig.

  The thought had satisfied her, but now that she had the opportunity to do so, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to.

  By the time she’d thought of all these things… Philip was standing in front of her. “Good evening, Loraine.”

  His voice was exactly the same as it had always been. Smooth and deep.

  “Hello, Philip.”

  “I was glad to have run into you earlier,” he said.

  “Were you?” Loraine replied, with a quirked brow. “You looked rather terrified.”

  “It was… unexpected.”

  She wasn’t sure she entirely believed this. “Then you just so happened to be in New York. And you just so happened to run into me. I didn’t even know you were a fan of art galleries.”

  “I wasn’t,” he admitted. “But given how many of them I’ve visited since you left England, I believe I can call myself a fan now.”

  “So you have been looking for me.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “How did you find me? How did you know where to look?”

  Again, he didn’t answer. But nor did he look uncomfortable with the silence. He was just staring at her, in a way that made her blood warm. “Mrs. Barrow,” she concluded, when it dawned on her. She expelled a breath of exasperation.

  “She meant well.”

  “How could she have possibly meant well?” She replied, stiffly.

  “I’ve missed you,” he breathed, suddenly, as if incapable of saying anything else.

  Loraine blinked at him, and her lips parted. How could so few words make her feel so much? At first, there was this onslaught of warmth and pain, born of how much she’d missed him.

  And then there was anger that he’d come all this way to play with her again. And that even though she knew the truth, he still had her heart fooled.

  “I’m not a toy, Philip. And I won’t be treated as one anymore.”

  Philip was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Can we walk?” He gestured to the path.

  “I came to America to be away from you, Philip. You must know that.”

  He dropped his hand when she showed no sign of intending to move. “I do.”

  “Then why have you come? I have nothing to say to you.”

  Loraine turned and started walking, but it was clear that she had no intention of him joining her. But that wouldn’t stop Philip. He was hot on her heels, matching her brisk pace.

  “But I have much to say to you.”

  “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”

  “I don’t care if you want to or not. You will hear it.” He caught her by the wrist, forcing her to halt.

  She spun on him, so that they were barely a hair’s width apart. “I know about the bet,” she said, in a voice like steel.

  She saw Philip’s throat bob as he swallowed, but he didn’t release her wrist. “I know. And I know about your little game too.”

  It took a moment for that to sink in. Loraine’s brow pulled together and she tried to take a step back again, but he held her wrist tight between them. “What?” She breathed, quietly.

  “Your aunt told me.”

  She felt like she’d swallowed a ton of rock. Like her stomach had sunk into her feet.

  “She told me everything,” he went on. “About what happened between her and my father. About how you feel about me.”

  How she felt about him. Loraine grit her teeth and yanked on his grip, forcing it to fall free. “Felt,” she bit out. “How I felt about you. Those feel
ings are long gone now.”

  It was a lie, but she’d thought it would feel good to snarl that in his face. But it didn’t. It just felt hollow and wrong.

  “You’re a liar,” he said, as she turned on her heel again and continued walking. She could hear him behind her. “And so am I.

  I wanted to make you hurt after what happened to Edgar, but I didn’t need to hear the truth of his demise from your aunt to realize that you didn’t deserve that. I changed my mind long before she told me.”

  She wouldn’t listen. She couldn’t. “Stop following me,” she said, loudly and unsteadily. “I won’t trust a word from your mouth ever again.”

  “Loraine-”

  Before he could continue and seize her wrist again, two gentleman stepped in front of Loraine, forcing her to stop. “Is this gentleman bothering you, miss?”

  They were burly chaps, possibly in their late thirties. One had silver hair, and a robust frame. The other was noticeably tall. They looked at Philip, and Loraine did too.

  She thought about it for a moment, with pursed lips.

  “We know each other,” Philip insisted, waving his hand at the men dismissively.

  “No,” Loraine interjected. “We don’t.”

  Philip blinked at her, astonished. “Pardon?”

  “And he is bothering me,” Loraine added.

  “Don’t be absurd,” Philip blurted. But before he could say anything more, the two men stepped between him and Loraine and blocked his path.

  Loraine thanked them and walked on, quickly. If Philip made any further attempt to follow her, she was certain they’d keep him from doing so.

  When she reached her little flat, she wondered if she should feel guilty for what she’d done. But she didn’t. She had so much rage in her that all she could think of was how much she would have liked to scream at him, then and there, in the middle of the street.

  But she had more class than that, and better control of her temper. Loraine threw her coat down and fell down onto her bed. She put her hands in her hair and closed her eyes tightly.

  He was there in her mind, even when she tried to banish him from it. And though she wanted to tell herself that she’d never see him again, she knew that wasn’t true.

  Philip Everton did not give up so easily.

  Chapter 39

  Lord Philip Everton, Marquess of Blackhill

  “Insufferable,” he snarled, as he reached the inn. He threw down his jacket and sat on the edge of the bed, barely containing his temper.

  Those two gentleman who’d blocked his path hadn’t listened to reason. And when Philip had tried to pass them, the tall fellow had pushed him.

  He’d kept his footing, barely, and had been in such a state of emotion that he’d almost fought them both, then and there. He just about kept himself from doing so, when he saw Loraine round a corner and disappeared.

  Defeated, he’d stepped away from them and returned to the inn, where his mind was haunted by what she’d said to him. It was everything he’d been expecting.

  After all, he knew Loraine. He knew that convincing her to trust him once that trust had been lost was next to impossible.

  But he had to try. And he wouldn’t stop until he’d given it his all.

  So he devised a plan to see her the following day.

  He went to the gallery first thing in the morning and went to the owner. “Excuse me, sir?”

  “Ahh, you were here yesterday! Welcome back, sir. Have you made a decision about the painting you were interested in?”

  “I’m afraid that I haven’t just yet. I was hoping to get some more information, from the lady who spoke to me yesterday. What was her name?”

  “Miss Beauchamp? I am afraid that she is with another customer at this time. But you could always speak to-”

  “I’ll wait,” Philip insisted. “In fact, would it be possible to have a private word with her, to discuss the price? I don’t like to discuss matters of money in public.”

  This did not seem to surprise the gentleman. “Of course, sir. We have a private room for just such matters.”

  “Splendid. I will wait there.”

  Alfie inclined his head and led Philip towards the back room. There was a desk with two plush armchairs either side of it. “Miss Beauchamp will be with you shortly, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  Philip looked around the room. It was nothing like the study at the Beauchamp estate, where Loraine and he had kissed.

  But it somehow felt like it, because he knew that at any moment Loraine would walk through that door and they’d be alone together. With a desk between them.

  He was almost shaky with nervousness.

  Philip took the seat opposite the door.

  When Loraine came in, her expression could not have been more sour. And when she saw him sitting at the desk, it soured even more so. “You’re the customer,” she reminded him. “You sit here.” He gestured to the seat by the door, but Philip didn’t move.

  He leaned back in his seat and canted his head to the side. “You look lovely,” he noted, which made her scowl at him. She did look lovely. Astounding really. “You’ve changed since you came to America.”

  Loraine didn’t sit, but stood opposite him with her hand on the back of the chair beside her. “I haven’t changed,” she said. “When I went to England, that’s when I changed. In America, this is who I am.”

  It suited her. The clothes. The brazenness. There was something about the Americans that balked in the face of etiquette. And Loraine had always swam against the flow. “You like it here,” he observed.

  He saw her lips tighten. “Yes.”

  He frowned. “You don’t sound convinced. Do you miss England?”

  Loraine sighed audibly. “You’re asking a lot questions.”

  “It has been a long time since I’ve seen you.”

  “I miss certain aspects of being in England,” she conceded.

  “Like?”

  “Will you ever stop pestering me?”

  “If you answer my questions, I might consider it,” he lied.

  Loraine finally sat down, and crossed her legs. She drummed her fingers on her knee impatiently as she spoke. “I miss Mrs. Barrow. And the countryside.”

  “And your aunt?”

  He saw a flicker of tension in her cheek. She was clenching her jaw.

  “You do not like that question,” he remarked.

  “I do not like any of your questions.”

  “You’re angry with your aunt.”

  “Do not pretend that you’ve observed that from my manner. You are not so insightful. If she told you what happened, truly, then you’ll have expected me to feel some anger towards her.”

  “Edgar.” Just saying his name made his heart hurt.

  “Yes,” she answered, more softly. “Edgar.”

  “Did his death upset you?”

  The look she gave him could have melted ice. “Don’t be cruel, Philip.”

  “I’m not being cruel. I want to know the truth.”

  “I liked Edgar. I didn’t want to see him hurt. And when I learnt that he had been-” Her words caught in her throat. She stopped and looked away, but she was hiding her sadness behind a curtain of tension. “I don’t appreciate you coming here, Philip,” she added, tersely.

  “But I had to come, Loraine.” Philip leaned forward and put his arms on the desk. “I had to see you.”

  “Why?”

  “When last we were together-”

  “Don’t say it. I don’t want to think of it.”

  He couldn’t imagine her saying a more cutting thing. He stood suddenly and reached across the desk, so that he could catch her hand in his.

  She tried to pull free, but he gave a yank so that she was forced to rise and press against the other side of the desk. “You’re trying to hurt me,” he whispered, when their faces were close, in an iron voice. “But you can’t. You can’t hurt me anymore than you already have.”

  “I’ve
done nothing to you,” she said, so close that he could feel her breath on his cheek.

  “You left,” he reminded her, in a hollow voice.

  “Did I not have good cause? Can you sincerely say that I did not have good cause?”

  “I’ll remind you that you played the same game, Loraine.”