He groaned and pulled her hard against him again. He could feel her all along him, fitting perfectly against him despite all the corseting, all the petticoats between them. He slid his hand down her back, knowing she was there somewhere under all those layers.
*
Yes…Yes…Yes… There was no thought at all. Just joy bubbling up in her. This was what she wanted, what she had been longing for. This. Being wrapped in his arms. Every inch of skin where his lips touched was burning, alive in a way she had never known before.
She pushed her hands under his coat, wanting to touch skin, but there were too many layers—the rough brocade of his waistcoat, the stiffly starched shirt. She made an impatient noise and returned to run her fingers over the skin of his face.
His lips were trailing down her throat, and she leaned back to give him easier access. When he reached the swell of her breast, she laughed aloud for the sheer joy of it.
*
“Tunbury, get your hands off my sister!”
Harry lifted his head to see a furious Pip glaring at him, hands fisted. He smiled happily. “No,” he said, “no, I don’t think I will.”
“No? What do you mean, no!”
Pip grabbed Harry’s shoulder to pull him away, but Harry was still holding Norrie so tightly that she came right along with him. She was still laughing up at him and he grinned back. “No, I don’t think I will,” he repeated. “I don’t think I will ever let go of her.” He was looking at her, not her brother. “I’m going to marry her.” He had a moment of hesitation. “You will marry me, won’t you?”
“Hmm?” she said dreamily. “Oh yes, of course I will. You can propose properly later.” She was smiling, looking as if she could see only him, so he laughed deep inside himself and began kissing her again, gentle kisses full of promise this time.
“Tunbury!” roared Pip. “There is a ball going on.”
“Why on earth are you bellowing, Pip? What is going on?” said Lady Penworth, coming in followed by her husband and Landi. “Oh, I see.” She smiled and turned to her husband.
Penworth’s plaintive sigh was not good enough to cover his smile. “I confess, I am not entirely certain what I am supposed to say at this point. You will excuse me, my dear, but am I supposed to be stern or welcoming?”
Landi stepped forward and struck a pose. “You need not fear for your daughter’s honor, my lord. I will marry her myself.”
The others looked at him blankly.
“Whatever are you talking about, Landi?” said Penworth, sounding quite bewildered.
It was the Italian’s turn to look confused. “The Lady Elinor, she is compromised, is she not? But even so I am willing to marry her.”
Harry growled and started toward him, but Elinor kept her arms around his neck. “Don’t be an ass, Cavaliere,” she said. “I’m marrying Harry.”
“Of course she is,” said her mother. “We all knew that.”
“We did?” Pip took his turn at confusion.
His mother looked at him pityingly. “Well, perhaps you didn’t realize it. Brothers often don’t.”
Landi looked around angrily. The hectic look was back in his eye. He clenched his jaw and flung out of the room.
Lady Penworth looked after him. “Curious.” She turned to her daughter. “Is there something I should know?”
Norrie was leaning happily on Harry’s chest, his arm around her. “No, I don’t think so.”
Harry loved the feel of her leaning on him. He loved having his arm around her, moving his fingers ever so gently over the silk of her gown. He leaned his head just enough to have her hair tickle his cheek while he breathed in the scent of her. She was his. She was…she was Lady Elinor Tremaine. She was Rycote’s sister. She was the Penworths’ daughter. And he was nobody. Nothing. A fraud.
He could feel the color draining from his face and he straightened up, pulling away from Norrie so he was no longer touching her. He forced his hands to his sides.
He had to tell them. He had to tell them right away, before this went any further.
The old horror and disgust twisted in his stomach. He licked his lips. “My lord, I must speak with you.” His voice sounded hoarse.
“Hmm?” Penworth smiled kindly. “It seems a bit late to be asking my permission. You two seem to have decided things for yourselves.”
“No, my lord. I must speak to you, in private if you will.” Penworth looked surprised, and Tunbury could see confusion on the faces of the others, but he stood his ground. He kept his face as expressionless as he could.
“If it’s that urgent, I suppose we can find a private spot someplace.” The marquess gestured for Tunbury to accompany him and they left the room.
After a few locked doors and an occupied room, Penworth opened the door on a sitting room, small but adorned with frescoes depicting a remarkably energetic collection of amorous mythological creatures. He raised his brows briefly at the sight, but then shrugged and entered. Tunbury followed, and grimaced in turn at the decor. The perfect setting, he thought.
“Well then, what seems to be the problem?” Penworth sat in one of the green velvet chairs facing the fireplace and gestured Tunbury to the other.
Tunbury shook his head and remained standing, hands clasped behind him. He supposed he looked rather like a schoolboy facing the headmaster. That was what he felt like. No, he felt like a man facing the firing squad. “I have to tell you about my family, my lord.” He looked at Penworth, who cocked his head and listened. Tunbury licked his lips. His mouth was so dry that his voice sounded hoarse. “You do not know them, I think.”
Penworth shrugged. “I have met your parents on occasion. I cannot say I know them well.”
“But you must know something of them by reputation.”
A hesitation, then a nod of acknowledgment.
“You must know, my lord, how much I admire and esteem you and your whole family. Lady Elinor is, she is… Well, no one could deserve her, but she deserves someone who can at least approach her level.”
Penworth smiled slightly. “She is the daughter of a marquess, but you are the son of an earl, so that is not a great step down, if that sort of thing worries you.”
“Am I the son of an earl? I am his heir, but his son?” He looked the marquess in the eye. “On my twenty-first birthday, the earl told me that he has no idea whether or not he is my father. Nor can my mother say. And the same is true of my sisters. We none of us can say with any certainty who our father is, and can only regret what we know of our mother. My father—the earl—did not seem to think that it mattered, since I was, after all, still his heir. He even laughed about it, said that for all he knew, some of his own get might be inheriting other titles.”
He couldn’t face Penworth any longer. He had to turn away. His childhood had been lonely enough when he thought his parents were simply too busy with their social life to care about their children. That was common enough. But when the realization was forced upon him that their social life involved little more than careening from bed to bed in God only knew how many adulterous liaisons or, in his father’s case, careening from bottle to bottle…
He choked down the bile and forced himself to speak. “If you do not wish your daughter to wed a man of such uncertain and sordid parentage, I will understand. I had no right to even touch Norrie, much less ask her to marry me.”
Instead of looking horrified or disgusted, Penworth looked somehow sympathetic. “Ah, so that is what has had you in a ferment and sent you off on your travels. We were worried about you, you see.” Penworth looked kindly at him. “But that leaves the important question unanswered. Do you love my daughter?”
“Love her? Can you doubt it? I would die for her!”
“I suspect that she would prefer you to live.” There was a suspicious twist to Penworth’s lips as he waved the younger man to a chair once more. “That is enough histrionics. Do sit down.” This time Tunbury did so. He had to. His knees were refusing to hold him up any longer. Penwo
rth smiled again. “Can I assume that you have not yet told this to Elinor?”
“No, sir.”
Penworth stretched out his legs and steepled his fingers. “Then in exchange for your family secret, I will be the one to tell you ours. The Tremaines have not, in the past, been a family known for virtue. In my father’s and grandfather’s generations, they were known for little but vice. My father was the exception, but he was the fourth son and had been disinherited. When I unexpectedly came into the title, my grandmother informed me and my wife that I should not be the marquess at all because my father had in actuality been a bastard. His real father was a stable groom.” He was smiling when he raised his head to look at Harry. “Do you know what Anne said?”
Harry shook his head.
“She said it was a great relief. Now she would never have to worry that her children would take after the Tremaines.”
Harry sat there dumbfounded. He shook his head again, in disbelief. “You don’t mind…? It doesn’t bother you…?”
“I have known you since you were a boy, Harry. I know you for a good and honorable young man. I have no hesitation in entrusting my daughter’s happiness to you. Now I suggest that you go and tell her what you told me. I recommend that you arrange things so that no sharp objects are within her reach.”
*
Elinor was fuming at her mother as she paced back and forth in the small library, waving her arms about theatrically. “He keeps doing that! Everything is going well, I think he is finally going to speak, and then he freezes up and turns into an iceberg. He kisses me, tells me he loves me, and then he acts as if he can’t bear to touch me and leaves me. What on earth is the matter with the man?”
Lady Penworth tried to murmur consoling words, but in reality she was quite as confused by Tunbury’s behavior as her daughter was. Rycote had vanished, to no one’s surprise. He had never been one for emotional scenes.
Tunbury returned, looking both nervous and hopeful. There was no way he could fail to see that Norrie was upset. He offered a pitiable excuse for a smile. It did not suffice to placate her. She stood there, hands fisted at her waist, and glared at him. “Well? Are you planning to offer some explanation for your behavior?”
He darted a glance of appeal at Lady Penworth, who obviously had no intention of serving as protection for either one of them. Elinor’s mother had long expressed her conviction that couples—married or not—needed to solve their own problems, and that included her children. Gathering herself together, she departed with a few murmured words about going to find her husband. Elinor continued to glare, but she allowed Harry to lead her to the settee and seat her beside him. He held her hands, a gesture she thought tender when he began to speak.
By the time he finished his confession, she had snatched her hands away and was trying to suck in enough air to enable her to shriek. He grew even paler and looked at her with pleading eyes.
She snatched up the first object at hand—one of the china figurines cluttering the tabletops—and sent it sailing at his head. It missed him by a foot, a clear sign that she was seriously upset. Her aim was rarely off.
“You blockhead!”
Another figurine flew over his head.
“You dolt!”
“Please, Norrie, don’t hate me. I know I have no right—” He ducked and a third figurine almost nicked his ear.
“Cretin!” She was looking around but she seemed to have run out of throwable objects.
“I’ll go away. You’ll never have to see me again. Just please tell me you don’t hate me.”
She snatched up a pillow and began to beat him about the head. “You idiot!” Whack. “You fool!” Whack. “That is why you ran away?” Whack. “That is why you have been acting as if I am nothing but your sister, treating me like a child?” Whack. “You think that nonsense is important?” Whack. Whack. “I can’t believe you could be so stupid!”
The idiot finally seemed to realize that it wasn’t what he’d told her about his parents that was upsetting her but the importance he had given it. She was still angry, but at least he wasn’t so dimwitted that he couldn’t eventually understand. He stumbled back and landed on the sofa, fending off the blows with his hands, trying to placate her until at last he started to laugh. “Norrie, you’re hitting me with a pillow.”
She gave him one last whack with the pillow before tossing it aside. “How could you ever have thought any of that would matter to me? Did you really think so poorly of me? You thought I was that superficial?” She felt tears begin to pool in her eyes and blinked to keep them back.
“No, Norrie, it wasn’t you.” He sat up abruptly. “Never think that. It was me. I was what was wrong. I didn’t want to contaminate you.”
The tears dried up and the anger returned. “Contaminate me? What sort of maggot do you have in your brain?”
“Look at me, Norrie.” He stood up and stepped away from her. “Do I look like a gentleman? There’s nothing elegant about me. I look like a bruiser. I could be a ploughman or a butcher or a blacksmith, and my father could be any one of those things. There is no reason to think that my mother limited her favors to members of society.”
“And any one of those things could be considered an improvement on many of the drunken wastrels filling out the ranks of society, you saphead.”
“But your family is so different, so wonderful, and mine is…” He shook his head.
She grabbed him by the shoulders, pushed him down so she could loom over him, and scowled. “You keep talking about my family. Harcourt de Vaux, do you want to marry me or my family?”
He looked at her, horrified. “Is that what you are thinking? No, oh no, Norrie. It’s you, always and only you. I just have so little to offer.”
She slowly began to smile. “You have yourself, you fool.”
Sixteen
Breakfast the next morning was late, but even so, it was a quiet meal. Savelli had not yet returned, though he was expected to arrive before evening. The contessa, of course, was sleeping the sleep of the exhausted hostess. Landi was nowhere in sight. This left the terrace and the morning sunshine to the English visitors.
They did not mind.
The two servants waiting on them managed to appear cheerful and energetic, even though they could have had little sleep themselves between ball and breakfast. They brought pots of coffee and pitchers of steaming milk, baskets of oranges and baskets of rolls, bowls of butter and bowls of jam. They were rewarded with smiles and thanks by Lord and Lady Penworth.
Lady Elinor and Lord Tunbury were oblivious to everything, including the food that was placed before them. Instead of being insulted, the servants were amused. Those who hadn’t observed the scene in the library had heard about it. They rather relished the discomfiture of Landi, whose connection to the princely Savelli family was of the flimsiest. The young lady would doubtless be far better off with her English suitor, even if he failed to make una bella figura, an elegant appearance.
About the other young Englishman, the handsome one, they were not quite certain. This morning he did not seem as happy as the others. In fact, he seemed quite disturbed about something. Not the betrothal of his sister, though. He could be roused to smile at the couple, but soon he relapsed into a brown study.
Eventually there was nothing left to place on the table or remove from it. There were no cups to fill, no crumbs to brush away, and there had still been no interesting remarks, no revelations about the events of the evening, not even a mention of the cavaliere. Disappointing. The two servants looked at each other, shrugged, and returned to the kitchen.
“What on earth is the matter with you, Pip? You look as if you have indigestion.” Lady Penworth’s mothering style had never veered toward sweetness.
Rycote flushed. “I was thinking that perhaps I should return to Rome. We have been away for more than two weeks, and I can’t help worrying about Lissandra.” The sudden silence at the table made him flush more deeply. “Donna Lissandra. And her family, of
course.”
“Of course.” Lady Penworth sipped her coffee.
“It’s that French fellow, Girard. I don’t like the way he keeps hanging around her.” Rycote wriggled uncomfortably.
“She is a lovely and charming young lady,” said Lord Penworth, looking at his son with some compassion. “It is hardly surprising that she should have suitors.”
“Not like him!” Rycote pushed to his feet, strode over to the balustrade, and leaned on it to stare out over the garden. The others watched him. Finally he turned back. “It’s not only that. It’s her brother.”
“I understood that he had fled with the other followers of Garibaldi some years ago.” Lord Penworth was looking cautious now.
“But he’s back.”
Lord Penworth looked actually alarmed now, but his son failed to notice this. Rycote kept his voice low and glanced about only to make sure none of the servants was within earshot. “Girard was following her one day, thinking she’d lead him to Pietro. She knows he’s watching her, so she’ll be careful. But I don’t like it.”
Penworth picked up his coffee, lifted it to his mouth, then decided against drinking it and put the cup back down. He took a deep breath and gave his son a level look. “I can understand your concern. However, you will remember that we are guests in this country. I may not be a member of the government, but I do hold my seat in the House of Lords, and it would ill become me—or a member of my family who is traveling with me—to become involved in what might be considered treasonous rebellion.”
“You would hardly expect me to leave an innocent lady exposed to danger,” said Rycote indignantly.
“Of course not,” said Lady Penworth, putting her napkin aside and standing up. “I agree. It is time we returned to Rome. After all, we have a wedding to plan.” She patted her son on the cheek. “Don’t worry, dear. It is all a matter of perception, and I am sure we can all see to it that things are perceived as we would like.”
Lady Elinor's Wicked Adventures Page 14
