Ever so softly, it drew her backwards. She let it. Each step was soft against the ground, her bare feet padding across the carpet soundlessly. She moved until her back was mere inches from Alexander’s front and she could hear his breathing behind her. His hand released her nightgown.
He leaned down toward her neck and placed a delicate kiss on the crook between her neck and shoulder. His breathing was so close to her; she could feel it brush her skin as though a mild breeze. She closed her eyes, engulfing her body in the warmth that came from his lips against her skin.
“Do not go,” he whispered in her ear.
Beside them, he dropped the dressing gown onto the nearest chair then placed a soft hand on her back and used it to turn her around to face him. She moved slowly, her body tense and nervous. Once she was looking up at him, he kissed her. It was gentle and intimate, holding the press of their lips together.
She lost herself in his kiss for a minute, considering all the different kisses they had shared. The first tenacious kiss in his chamber at the gaming hall that had startled her, the passionate caresses when she had dined with him at breakfast the following morning, their explorations and illicit kisses atop of the piano and the heated evening they had spent together on her bed.
This kiss was different from all that came before.
When he drew away, she longed for him to return to her.
“Stay with me tonight,” he continued to whisper, emphasizing how quiet the room in which they stood was. “Just to sleep. I give you my word I will not do anything else.” She smiled at him, earning the same smile in return.
“Just to sleep?”
“Just to sleep,” he repeated, staring at her with unblinking eyes as he waited for her response.
“No mischief?”
“No mischief,” he let out the smallest of laughs. “I give you my word.”
She nodded, willingly placing her hand in his when he offered it.
He drew her toward the bed and pulled back the blankets, urging her to follow him beneath the soft covers. When lying together in the silver moonlight, he pulled her into his side, so her head was resting on the curve of his shoulder, with his arms wrapped around her, cradling her against him. She softly wove her fingers in his shirt, holding him near as she closed her eyes.
Being this close to him, she felt her mind was finally able to rest. Her thoughts were absorbed by his scent. She immersed her senses in the aroma, noting the hint of musk. Sleep was not far away when she heard him speak.
“The idea of love frightens me,” he murmured, his tone betraying he clearly thought she was asleep. “Yet I cannot seem to be able to stop it. I think I am falling in love with you.” He moved his lips to her hair and kissed the top of her head. “Cleopatra.”
She stayed perfectly still, wishing to maintain the illusion that she truly was asleep. Her mind was now awake with new whirring thoughts, unable to settle.
Is this love?
Chapter Twenty-Two
Each minute of the next day’s search seemed to pass in agony for Cleopatra. They rose early with the sun, keen not to waste a single minute of daylight. As she and Alexander searched the streets, begging passersby if they had seen any sign of a lost boy, her hope began to dwindle, and her fears grew greater.
They had not found a single clue to the boy’s whereabouts and no one had seen any child matching John’s description. The confused faces of the strangers she stopped in the street only added to Cleopatra’s agitation.
John, where are you?
She took to the habit of returning to Alexander’s side every few minutes. She had not told him what she had heard him whisper as they were falling asleep the night before, as at that moment, she did not know what to say.
As the sun had grown through the curtains that morning in bed, she had laid by his side, tracing the outline of his profile in the orange dawn light. She had spent many a minute trying to understand what she felt for him, but then her mind would be drawn away by fears for John and she was trapped once again in a pit of despair.
That was why she kept moving to his side as they searched the roads. She found she needed the support, the silent comfort that he could give. Without words, she would take his hand, weaving their fingers together.
“I do not know what to do,” Cleopatra was holding back tears as they searched the street of her old home again. She had thought it was possible John could have made his way back there overnight, as it was just about the only other place in London he knew, but he had not. They had found no clue to the boy’s whereabouts there.
She could not shake the feeling that after this amount of time without a sign of John, it was a sign that something bad had happened. She feared the very worst.
Her throat was constricted with the effort to hold her crying at bay. She was determined to be strong, to be resilient, but the grief was overwhelming.
Alexander brought their entwined hands closer to his side, bringing her toward him. They were so close; she could feel him breathing beside her. Had they not been in public, she would have willingly rested her head against his chest and drawn his arms around her.
“Anything could have happened,” Cleopatra could barely stand still. “I cannot shake this feeling that the very worst has happened. It’s like an omen hanging over my head.”
“We will find him. Nothing will have happened to him, I promise. The staff are searching. My staff from the gaming hall too. Perhaps we may not find him today, but we will, Cleopatra. I will not give up.” His gray-blue eyes were wide, pleading with her to trust him. She nodded, feeling weak and tired. “You are exhausted. We have searched all day.”
Alexander nodded toward the sun that was beginning to lower in the sky and turned them back toward the road where the carriage waited for them. The driver and footmen hurried to attend it; they, too, had been searching the street for any sign of John.
Cleopatra was grateful for their help. All of the staff had hurried to their aid when the call for assistance had been raised.
“You need to rest,” Alexander’s deep voice was drawing her toward the carriage again. He spoke just as softly as he had the night before when they were in bed together.
“I cannot, Alexander,” she said as he opened the carriage door.
“You must or you will make yourself ill.” He helped her into the carriage. She was tempted to argue, but she knew he was right. She had barely eaten anything that day, and it was taking its toll on her system. A headache was growing between her eyes from exhaustion.
Rather than climbing into the carriage with her, Alexander closed the door. Realizing they were parted, Cleopatra’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“What are you doing?” She moved to the window with animation, leaning through the gap toward him.
“I am going to the Wicked Souls.” His voice was calm and reassuring. “I will ask for their report, see if the staff there have found anything. Later, I will join you at home. Get some sleep while I am gone.”
Home–
It was strange, but she did think of the manor as home.
“I will,” she nodded, not really meaning her words. She doubted she could truly sleep deeply again with John missing.
“Trust me, Cleopatra,” he brought her hand through the window and to his lips. With the kiss to her hand, she felt her stomach tighten, remembering the words he had whispered in bed the night before when he thought she was sleeping. “I will not give up.”
“I trust you.” Her words brought a smile to his cheeks she had never seen the likes of before, but it was gone the next moment, the situation too worrying for such a smile to last for very long.
He stepped back, releasing her hand and nodding to the driver to move away. As the carriage started forward, she leaned further through the window, looking back at Alexander’s tall frame as he stood on the pavement, his short dark hair being tousled by the wind of the day.
I do trust him. When did that happen?
Alexander walked in
to the gaming hall, feeling as though his whole body was hollow. The exertion of the day was leaving him just as exhausted as Cleopatra, but his need to protect her had won out in the end. He would keep searching and drive himself ill in his search for John before he let any harm come to her.
“My Lord?” Pip welcomed him through the door, taking his jacket and hanging it on the nearest coat stand. “Any news?”
“None,” Alexander shook his head, clutching the bridge of his nose in dismay. “From your question, I am guessing that you have found nothing either.” He lifted his eyes to see the lad shake his head; sadness clung to his form.
“We will begin the search again tomorrow.” Pip turned away from the coat stand and collected an envelope off a sideboard. “This came for you this afternoon.”
Alexander took the envelope. As his eyes settled on the address, he grew wary. It bore only his name; no building address had been added.
“It was delivered by hand by the sender?” He gestured to Pip with raised eyebrows.
“I believe so, My Lord.” Pip shrugged helplessly. “I am afraid I did not see who the sender was though.”
Alexander turned the envelope over, breaking the wax seal quickly. Inside was a thin piece of parchment that bore merely one line of text.
‘This is the beginning of your end, Alexander.’
He turned the parchment over and checked the envelope again, but nothing else had been left.
What is the meaning of this?
He was too stunned for a minute to think of a possible answer to his own question. He showed it to Pip with a jerky movement. The lad took it in surprise, his face equally alarmed by it.
“What does it mean?”
“I do not know,” Alexander took it back, attempting to discern the handwriting as he paced up and down the hallway. The foreboding nature of the note was impossible to ignore. It had to mean something. “The beginning of what? Nothing has happened to me–”
His words petered off as he considered the idea. Nothing had happened to him personally, but the coincidence such a strange note would arrive at a time when he was searching for a lost child was too much to bear.
“The handwriting–” he murmured to himself. There was something familiar in it. The curve of the ‘g’s and the flamboyance of the ‘A’ at the beginning of his name was too distinctive.
“Do you know the handwriting?” Pip followed him in his pacing, just a step behind him.
“I may do.” His mind was cast back to his childhood. He had seen it before in the Seven Sins where he was learning how to do the books under Marcus’ tutelage. The boy beside him, Marcus’ son Demian, had such handwriting. He could see the same ‘g’s and ‘A’s across the account books in black ink in his memory.
“Whose is it?”
“This does not make sense.” He and Demian had not had any contact for many years. The sentiment of the letter made no sense either. The idea that the sender could be related to John’s disappearance vanished from his mind. If Demian were the sender, he could surely not know of John’s existence to orchestrate a kidnap. “It does not matter.”
They cannot be related.
Yet, it was not something he could ignore.
“My coat, Pip,” he gestured to the coat stand again with vigor.
“You are leaving again?” Pip rushed to fetch it.
“Yes,” he put the letter in his pocket as he hurried to put on the coat. “There is someone I must see.” He pulled open the front door and peered down the street toward the Seven Sins at the far end of the road, almost out of sight, when his agitated movements fell still.
He had to see Demian, had to find out if he really was the sender, but it could wait for a time. There was someone else who needed his help first.
Cleopatra.
First, he would go to a private investigator. One had managed to find him all those years ago when he ran away; they might be able to find John too.
He leaped from the door; aware Pip was calling after him, pleading to know where he was going. He did not answer, he was too distracted.
He would see the private investigator. Then he would go to the Seven Sins and ask Demian what the letter meant.
Cleopatra was restless as she drank the tea and nibbled at the sandwiches that had been prepared for her. The shadows of the early evening were beginning to fall beyond the windows. The darkness only made her more desperate.
John will have to spend another night outside.
Unable to sit still in the sitting room and do nothing, she dropped the sandwich back to her plate and hurried from the room. Her firm steps through the corridor clicked loudly, the buckle shoes striking the wood with vigor.
She could not stay in the Manor and do nothing. The omen that was hanging over her head was only growing worse – impending darkness of bad things to come.
I have to do something.
She flung open the door to the library and bustled inside to search for a newspaper. She moved to the desk, finding a stack of papers, she searched through the listings, hoping she could find advertisements for a private investigator.
Alexander’s story from the night before had shown it was possible such investigators could find lost children. As she searched the pages, one of the newspapers fell off the desk and onto the floor, it revealed beneath on the top of the desk a book that Alexander must have taken down from a shelf in the library.
Across the cover, the book read ‘Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Symbols.’ Her eyes glanced down to the wedding ring on her finger and the flickering of the diamonds in the candlelight. She reached for the book and flitted through the pages, searching for the symbol she wore.
The image of the sun greeted her in printed ink on one of the pages. Alexander had bookmarked it. She ran her fingers over the symbol – it was the perfect mirror of the sun on her ring.
Her gaze dropped down to the symbol’s meaning, her mind recalling how at the wedding Alexander had refused to tell her the meaning of it:
‘It is an Egyptian symbol. Its meaning is my secret to keep.’
The words stood out on the page.
According to Egyptian belief, the sun symbol offers protection to its wearer, keeping them safe from all threats of the world.
She dropped the book down in surprise on the desk. It seemed their exchange of secrets the night before had not instigated Alexander’s declaration that he may be falling in love with her.
No, he cared for me before we were even married.
A smile took hold of her cheeks that she could not stop.
She grabbed the nearest newspaper and tore from the room, determined to speak to him at once about hiring a private investigator. She also had to speak to him of other things now. She could not delay it anymore. She needed to speak of the ring, of what he had whispered as they were falling asleep.
She ordered the carriage, much to Mrs. Webb’s dismay as it was growing late, but she insisted. As she rode back into the center of town toward the gaming hall, she searched the advertisements in the newspaper for a private investigator, but her eyes kept drifting away, struggling to see them in the growing shadows.
As the carriage came to a stop near the gaming hall, she leaped down quickly, not waiting for the attendant to hold open the door for her. She scrambled onto the white steps before the gaming hall’s entrance when a cry came up from the driver.
“My Lady, stop! Look!”
Her gaze dashed up to the building. Beyond the windows were red and orange flames. From the roof, black smoke was beginning to seep.
Her eyes flicked back and forth as she stumbled back down the steps again. Flames could be seen through the windows climbing to the ceiling; a stench of acrid burning was hanging in the air and people were running out of the doors, covered in ash to escape the flames. They were coughing, struggling to breathe through the smoke.
The Wicked Souls was on fire.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“There’s someone still in there!” A cry
went up from the people who were trying to put the fire out.
Cleopatra watched with her hands shaking as the driver and footman tried to help the growing crowd outside the front of the gaming hall.
People were throwing buckets of water on doorways as people ran clear. Others called between each other, shouting that a horse-drawn fire cart was on its way.
Cleopatra searched the faces at the side of the road. She could see some of Alexander’s staff, their faces dappled with ash, coughing to try to breathe clearly.
In Temptation and Damnation with the Earl: A Steamy Historical Regency Romance Novel Page 18
