by Cara Elliott
Trouble. Once again, his devil-may-care disregard for the consequences of his actions had reared its ugly head.
It was a damnable weakness of his, and he was not proud of it. His drinking had nearly cost Connor The Wolf’s Lair. His dalliances had nearly broken a lady friend’s marriage. But they, at least, had known of his foibles, his faults. Lady Brentford did not. His taking advantage of her hidden passion had been shameless. She didn’t know the unwritten rules of London games, so in a sense he had cheated by using his charm and humor to seduce her.
Oh yes, he knew the effect his smile had on women. And it had been unfair to use it on an unsuspecting lady, who was in many ways an innocent despite her widowhood.
Recklessness over responsibility—it was childish. Bloody hell, he was no better than Leete, a selfish, weak lout.
The curricle’s wheels jolted over the ruts, sending a stream of chilly water splashing from the brim of his hat down beneath the collar of his coat. The drops trickled down his spine, stirring a shiver of reproach.
Strangely enough, it hadn’t been just a game at the time. Both unusual encounters with Lady Brentford had been unique—and not simply because they involved acrobatics and branches of wood. She made him feel…
“Be damned with feelings,” he muttered, shifting his sodden boots to steady himself against the bounces of the road. “The interlude was a moment of inexplicable madness. Lady Brentford is a sensible, smart female—I am sure that she is just as anxious as I am to forget that it ever happened.”
The ancient carriage lurched to a halt. Stuffing her sketchbook into her valise, Eliza wrenched the door open and dropped down to the ground before the coachman could come around to assist her.
“Thank you, Johnson,” she called to her longtime servant. “You may come collect me on Thursday.”
“Aye, milady,” came the reedy answer. A flick of his frayed whip set the lone horse into a shambling walk. “Assuming we are all still in working order.”
She watched the wheels wobble, knowing it was a miracle that the vehicle was still in one piece. It was only through Johnson’s ingenuity—and a pot of his mysterious glue—that the worn metal and wood held together.
Yet last month, Harry had purchased a showy new hunter.
Sighing, she turned and unlatched the garden gate. Soon the only road they all would be galloping down was the Path to Perdition.
“Eliza!” A tiny figure dwarfed by her white apron and oversized mobcap emerged from a tangle of wisteria vines, setting off a shower of pale purple petals. “How lovely to see you!”
In spite of all her worries, Eliza couldn’t help but smile at the vision in white with pastel speckles. Her old governess looked like an elfin sugar confection dotted with candied violets.
“I hope you don’t mind that I am here a day early. I should have sent word, but it was an impulsive decision,” she replied. Like a number of other recent actions. “Harry has a houseful of idiots and, well…”
“Oh, pish. I’m always delighted to see you,” said her old governess.
“Thank you.” Eliza looked away quickly, horrified to feel tears prickling at the back of her lids. With exaggerated nonchalance, she bent over a clump of flowers. “How lovely your daisies are looking.”
There was a moment of silence. “Are you feeling ill?”
“No!” She carefully brushed a bee from one of the curling stems. “W-why do you ask?”
“Because you are admiring the purple coneflowers.”
“Oh. Right.” Eliza quickly shuffled a step to her right. “I suppose that I’m a little…fatigued.”
“I don’t doubt it. Harry’s friends would exhaust the patience of Job.” Miss Augustina Haverstick’s soft smile belied the sharpness of her gaze. She would put a hawk to blush with her perceptive powers. And right now, Eliza was feeling like a field mouse caught far from any protective cover.
“Come, why don’t we go inside and fix a cup of tea.”
“I don’t wish to interrupt you—I can put my things away and make myself at home.”
“Yes, but I’m feeling in need of a bit of sustenance myself. There are strawberry tarts, fresh from the oven. And walnut shortbread as well.”
Eliza’s stomach growled. She had fled home without a bite of breakfast. “I adore your shortbread.”
“I do know you rather well, my dear,” came the dry reply.
Which was, fretted Eliza, a mixed blessing. The elderly lady was more like real family to her than any flesh-and-blood relative. If Gussie were to find her behavior beyond the pale, then she might have to crawl down a rabbit hole.
And hope that it burrowed all the way down to the pleasure palaces of Xanadu.
The comfortable clatter of making tea—the bubbling kettle on the hob, the chink, chink of the chipped Staffordshire pottery—helped ease the knot in her chest. For years now, this snug little cottage on the outskirts of town had been a safe haven from all the pressing doubts and fears that had encircled her life since leaving the schoolroom. Gussie had been a sage counselor, a patient confidante, a loyal friend.
But even the closest friend might shy away from the awful secret that she carried inside her.
As Eliza rummaged through the cupboard, gathering the trays and linens, she was sure that she could still feel the imprint of Haddan’s body on hers. No amount of scrubbing or scouring would remove the trace from her skin. Like a brand from a red-hot poker, it would mark her forever.
“Oh, stop being so melodramatic,” she whispered to herself. On second thought, perhaps she could take up novel writing, and illustrate the perilous Path to Perdition with drawings of fallen flowers. Geraniums for stupidity…
“Did you say something, my dear?”
“No, nothing,” mumbled Eliza, quickly moving to put out the forks and spoons on the kitchen table.
Augustina set the tea tray down, and performed the soothing ritual of pouring the fragrant brew. A plume of steam wafted up from the spout, its warmth punctuated by the cheerful rattle of the sugar and cream pots.
“Here you are.” Her friend passed over a double helping of shortbread along with a cup. “You look as though you need an extra bit of food to fortify your strength.”
Eliza was sure that she could not eat, but broke off a piece to hide her confusion. To her surprise, the buttery crumbs were ambrosial on her tongue. The woodsy tang of the nuts and spices reminded her of Haddan—
Stop mooning like a silly schoolgirl. Hadn’t she sinned enough without seeing the Hellhound’s seductive presence in everything around her?
“Oh, what would I do without your delicious sweets?” murmured Eliza. She reached meditatively for the second piece, but this one remained pinched between her fingers.
“Something truly must be amiss, if you have lost your appetite for my shortbread,” remarked Augustina.
Eliza swallowed hard and essayed a wan smile. “Is it that obvious?”
Her friend eyed the small pyramid of crumbs on the plate and merely lifted a brow.
“Right.” A tremulous sigh. “I—I am unsure of how to start.”
“At the beginning, of course,” said Augustina in her best schoolmistress manner.
And where was that? In a brothel? In a tree?
“Come, come, it can’t be that bad.” A frail hand covered hers, the pale skin looking as delicate as old parchment. “If you’ve murdered Harry, the local squire might hold a fête in your honor.”
Eliza’s laugh was a little rough around the edges. “The only thing I’ve slain is my own reputation.” Her mouth quivered. “You see, I did something Exceedingly Stupid.”
“Ah,” murmured Augustina. She took a moment to add another small spoonful of sugar to her tea. “I take it you did not do this Exceedingly Stupid thing alone.”
She shook her head. “No, the Exceedingly Stupid thing to which I refer definitely requires two people.”
A marmalade kitten climbed up on the table and began nosing around the cream pitcher
. Her friend tactfully refrained from making the obvious analogy. Instead she merely said, “My dear Eliza…” Her knife sliced off a tiny morsel of tart. “You have been obliged to exist for many years on a diet of bread and water, so to speak. If at this point in your life you crave a taste of sweets—say, a rich, decadent confection oozing with toffee and cream—that is only natural.”
Eliza stared at her spinster friend and felt her jaw drop a fraction.
“We females are not cut from pasteboard, much as some men would like to make us believe. So forget what you have been told. It is not wrong to have…carnal desires.”
“It isn’t?”
Augustina thumped her spoon on the scarred wood. “Most definitely not!”
The kitten gave an indignant squeak and jumped down to the floor.
“Oh.” Eliza reached for a fresh piece of shortbread and swallowed it in one bite. “That is a great relief to hear.”
“I am glad that I may still teach you a few lessons.” The spoon began drumming an expectant tap, tap, tap on the tabletop. “Now, far be it for me to pry, but if you wish to elaborate on this Exceedingly Stupid thing you have done, I am happy to listen.”
“It’s like one of those ridiculous, horrid novels—you know, the ones with dark, creepy dungeons, and manacles, and whips.” Eliza knew that she was babbling, but decided it didn’t matter. The story defied coherence. “Only it didn’t happen in a dungeon, but in the Burgundy Suite, which is only used to entertain important visitors to the Abbey.”
“Whips?” said Augustina faintly.
“Well, no—no whips. Just manacles.”
“He put manacles on you?”
“No, I put them on myself. It was…a mistake.”
Augustina’s silvery brows shot up. “Have you perchance been nibbling some of the mushrooms you collect for your paintings? Because you are beginning to sound as if you are hallucinating.”
“I know, I know.” Eliza hung her head. “There is an old adage about truth being stranger than fiction. If you remember, we once read Scheherazade’s exotic Arabian tales—”
“If you are about to tell me that a handsome genie popped out from one of Harry’s brandy bottles and ravished you on the spot, I am going to summon the apothecary.”
Eliza bit her lip to keep from laughing. “The he in question wasn’t a puff of scented smoke. He was definitely a flesh-and-blood Englishman.”
Propping her elbows on the table, Augustina leaned in a little closer. “Well, go on. Is he handsome?”
“As sin,” she confessed. “Tall, with divine muscles and the most beautiful eyes in Creation.” A sigh slipped of its own volition from her lips. “And he has a large dragon—”
“Is that what you young people call it these days?” interrupted Augustina. “In my time, some gentlemen referred to their privy part as Abraham’s Rod.”
Eliza’s eyes widened. “How perfectly dreadful. That does not bode well for him believing a female should enjoy the act, does it?”
An unladylike chortle. Which was one of the reasons she loved her friend.
“It was also called a pizzle, a prick, a potato finger,” confided Augustina. “And a pump handle.”
Oh, she liked that. Haddan had quite a lovely pump handle. One that made her wish that she were a wanton tavern maid, whose duties included frequent trips to the trough in order to fill her bucket…
“You know, I hadn’t really thought of it before, but it is interesting how all those euphemisms for penis begin with the letter ‘P,’” mused her former governess.
“Very interesting,” agreed Eliza. She cleared her throat. “Um, speaking of which, you seem to be, er, quite conversant in the subject.”
Chuckling, Augustina gave an airy wave. “Prinny did not invent sexual dalliances, my dear.”
Eliza joined in her friend’s laughter, but as the mirth died away, she suddenly felt a stab of guilt that she had never thought to ask a certain question before.
“Were you ever in love, Gussie?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Augustina softly. “Deeply. Madly. But my family had no money for a dowry, and his family demanded that he marry wealth. We were going to defy them, once James had saved enough from his parish earnings to afford a wife on his own.” She looked down at her plate and carefully rearranged the three remaining slivers of strawberry tart in a neat row. “However, an epidemic of influenza swept through the village, and he refused to stay away from his sick parishioners.” The ivy leaves twining around the window casement fluttered in the breeze, sending patterns of light and dark skittering across the glass.
“So that, my dear, is why I say there is nothing wrong in seizing the moment when you have a chance. I am at an age where I can say with some authority that one rarely regrets the things one has done. But as for the things one hasn’t done…”
A silence—comfortable as only one between two longtime friends can be—filled the time it took for Augustina to add hot water to the pot and refill their cups. Eliza stared pensively at the bits of tea leaves settling in the depths of the sherry-colored liquid. Was the future written there, or in the riddles of a Gypsy fortuneteller, or in the runes of some ancient Druid spell book? And if it were, would she want to know it?
Her sigh dissolved the curl of vapor. “You’re right. I am so sorry that I never asked you more about your life before you came to Leete Abbey,”
“Oh, pish. I wouldn’t have told you. The time wasn’t right until this moment,” replied Augustina frankly. “Speaking of which, we have somehow strayed from the subject at hand.” She edged forward in her chair and set her elbows on the table. “Do tell me more about the manacles.”
After gulping down several sips, Eliza gave a halting description of the room and finding the sex toy that Harry and his friends had hung over Gryff’s bed. “I was curious,” she explained. “In a theoretical way, that is. So I simply intended to have a closer look.”
“Quite right. It isn’t every day that one gets to examine such an interesting apparatus,” said Augustina gravely.
“And then…” Heat rose to the ridges of her cheekbones as Eliza recalled watching Gryff strip off his clothing and turn around, the candlelight gilding his masculine profile. “Um, and then…” She glossed over all but the bare facts in admitting her transgression. “Afterwards, I slipped away while he was sleeping, and left at first light to come visit you.” She pressed her palms over her eyes, feeling a flush of heat singe her cheeks. “I couldn’t face him in the light of day.”
“You have no reason to be ashamed,” said her friend stoutly.
“I suppose I am, just a little,” she admitted wryly. “But most of all, I’m confused. I find myself attracted to him, and I don’t want to be.”
“Ah. A friend of Harry…”
“He says that he is not a friend of Harry. I—I don’t know precisely what brought him to Leete Abbey, but he didn’t seem interested in spending time with the others.” Her brows pinched together. “There is the mill, of course, which might explain it.”
Augustina nodded sagely. “Yes, men do seem to take delight in watching brutes pummel the stuffing out of each other.”
“Would that some paragon of masculine muscle knock some sense into Harry,” mused Eliza. “But that would not be a mill—it would be a miracle.”
“Stranger things have happened.”
Like me making love to one of the most notorious blades in London.
Her expression must have given some hint as to her thoughts, for Augustina hid a grin behind her hand. “Did you like him? Not Harry, of course, but the Lord of the Manacles.”
Eliza tried to think. “He makes me feel rumpled.”
“Rumpled?”
“Delightfully disheveled. Like I looked better with everything slightly askew.” Her hand gave a vague wave before hooking an unruly curl behind her ear. “Like I didn’t have to have every stay laced tightly and every hair pinned in place. He looked at me as if I was Delectable.” She blew out a
sigh. “I know, I know, I’m not making any sense.”
“You are making perfect sense, my dear. The man makes you feel like you can be yourself.”
“He makes me laugh,” she added in a small voice, feeling her mouth crook up at the corners. “He’s funny, and doesn’t take himself so seriously.”
“He sounds utterly charming. Does this Paragon of Perfection have a name?”
“Haddan.”
“The Haddan. The Hedonist Hellhound?”
Eliza nodded.
“Oh, dear,” murmured Augustina. “That could be trouble.”
Trouble. As if I need any reminder.
“But then,” mused her friend. “Life can be awfully boring without the prospect of a little piss and vinegar.”
A snort of tea nearly went up her nose. “What would I do without you and your wise, witty teachings, Gussie?”
“You would manage just fine, my dear. Though neither of us would laugh quite as much. Which would, of course, be a great pity, as humor is what helps make the sun shine.”
“Right.” A flicker of light on the ivy outside the window reminded her of Gryff’s lazy, lidded gaze. “I have learned a lesson, at least. Men like the marquess have no place in my life.” She forced herself to look away from the glints of shadowed green. “You see, Haddan is not the only threat of trouble. Harry’s debts are getting worse, and I fear that things are truly getting out of control.”
Augustina’s look of amusement sobered to one of concern. “I take it he won’t listen to reason.”
“He turns a deaf ear on all my pleas, and…I don’t quite know what to do. I am powerless to control him. I was in Town last week, staying with Margaret while I met with Mr. Watkins about a commission, and…” She had to pause, in order to wash the taste of fear from her throat with a tiny sip of tea. “Lord Brighton stopped me in Bond Street.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“Not in so many words. But he hinted that Harry was…making promises about my future.”
