When he was finished he did not climb back into bed, however, but instead pulled on his trousers and shirt. Leaving the latter unbuttoned, he picked her belongings and set them on the end of the mattress.
“Do you need help dressing yourself?” he asked, his cold, impersonal tone directly at odds with the tender way he had cared for her. “It is late, and you should be getting home.”
Temperance bit her lip as a pang of disappointment resounded deep inside of her chest. What had she expected? Poems and flowers? She had gotten exactly wanted: pure, unadulterated pleasure without any promises or commitments. Then why did she suddenly feel so empty?
“Thank you for your concern.” Her mind was so conflicted she was unable to come up with a single witty comeback as she pulled on her drawers and laced up her corset. When it came time for her dress to be fastened she gave Hugh her back, and as his fingers fumbled through securing the tiny buttons they were both silent.
“There,” he said once he’d finished. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just one single word…but a single word that spoke volumes.
Feigning a bright smile despite the dull ache in her heart, Temperance spun around and kissed his cheek. “It has been an absolute pleasure, love. I am looking forward to doing it again.”
He regarded her without expression as she walked to the door, any feelings he might or might not have had concealed behind his hooded gaze. “I should walk you home.”
“Do not be silly,” she said with a wave of her slender wrist as she used her other hand to pull the hood of her cloak into place. “I know the way well enough.” Then she yanked the door open, blew him one last kiss over her shoulder, and hurried out before he could see the fresh wave of tears glittering in her eyes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Hugh followed her. Moving like a shadow he stayed well out of sight, hugging the tree line while Temperance walked right down the middle of the road, her movements stiff and jerky. He could hear her crying and every little sniffle tugged painfully at his heart. He wanted to go to her. To give her comfort and wipe away her tears. But he knew once he did that there would be no going back to the way things were now, and so he kept his distance.
She was simply overwhelmed, and who could blame her? He had taken her innocence with all the force of a rutting beast. Had he known she was a virgin…
Had I known she was a virgin I never would have touched her.
Or so he liked to think.
There was a part of him that still wanted to be the hero. A part of him that wanted to gather Temperance in his arms and soothe her whimpering cries. Unfortunately, it was the same part that had betrayed him with Aileen and made him see love where it did not exist. He was not about to make the same mistake a second time. He would allow himself to feel for Temperance with his head, but not with his heart.
Never again with his heart.
And so instead of comfort he would give her his protection, even though she said she hadn’t wanted it. Walking in silence, he followed her down the dark, winding road all the way to a mansion sitting atop a hill.
It was a breathtaking estate with ivory pillars and balconies and too many windows to count. Massive trees lined the long drive, their leaves whispering in the wind. From somewhere behind the manor came the distant whinny of a horse, and from somewhere closer the rusty croak of a bullfrog. Stepping up beside an oak Hugh watched Temperance as she quickened her pace. Hiking up her skirts she broke into a run, the soles of her ankle boots slapping loudly against crushed stone. Her hood flew back, revealing pale cheeks still damp with tears. Seeing the evidence of her sorrow was like a hard punch to the gut. He had done this. Through his thoughtless, brutish actions he had caused her pain.
He hadn’t mean to, but did it really make a difference? This was why he hadn’t wanted to get entangled in an affair. Because no matter how careful he and Temperance were or how much they planned or how many promises they made, they were still only people. People with thoughts and feelings and emotions. People capable of feeling great pleasure…and enormous sadness.
If only she had told him the damn truth! And if only he had paid closer attention. She may not have said she was an innocent in so many words, but she had showed him with her shyness and the color in her cheeks. He’d simply been too eager and aroused to listen. Grinding his teeth together, he wondered if he should have apologized. Not that an apology would have restored her virginity. He knew he had brought her pleasure at the end. Her face had all but glowed with it. But a moment of pleasure did not make up for what she had lost.
And it did not make up for what he had taken.
Unable to watch her any longer, Hugh closed his eyes and turned blindly away.
Temperance dashed at her cheeks as she picked up a small stone from the drive and snuck around the side of the house to where Annabel’s bedroom was. Her window was closed, but a candle glowed from within, guiding Temperance’s aim as she let the stone fly through the air. The tiny pebble hit its intended target with a loud tap and a few seconds later the window opened to reveal Annabel in a high necked nightgown with her long blonde hair twisted into two braids.
“At last! I thought you were never going to come back. Go the kitchen door. I will be there in just a moment.”
Temperance was careful to avoid Lady Townsend’s flowerbeds as she hurried back to the front of the house and waited outside the kitchen in front of a narrow wooden door with a latch key handle. All around her everything was silent and eerily still. She wondered what time it was, and how long she had been gone.
Long enough to turn from a girl into a woman, she thought bitterly. How stupid of her, to think she could have shared her body and given her innocence and not felt an emotional connection to her partner! And how naïve to be hurt when that emotional connection was not shared in equal measure. She still cringed to think of the way Hugh had looked at her when it was all over. His face had been so cold. His eyes so dark and dispassionate. What did he think of her now that he knew the truth? Or was he not thinking of her at all?
The door abruptly opened to reveal Annabel standing in the threshold, one hand curled around the handle and the other perched high on her hip. “Hurry up,” she hissed, beckoning Temperance inside with a rapid wave of her arm. “It is freezing outside.”
Temperance slipped through the doorway and into the kitchen. Everything was cloaked in shadow. Annabel hadn’t even brought a candle with her, and Temperance had to stay right on her heels for fear of running into something as they snuck back up the stairs and into their respective bedrooms.
“I cannot wait to hear everything that happened,” Annabel whispered before she disappeared into her room and quietly closed the door, leaving Temperance alone in the dark hallway.
For a moment she considered going to Delilah’s room and curling up with her beneath the covers. Her sister would give her the comfort she desperately craved, but she would also be filled with unwanted questions.
Questions Temperance did not have the answers for.
In the end she went to her own room and crawled beneath her own covers. But it was long, long time before she fell asleep.
The next morning Temperance woke just as the first glimmer of daylight was spilling through the windows, but she did not get up. Instead, with a groan and a whimper, she pulled the covers over her head and disappeared beneath them. Her body was sore, her head ached, and her heart…her heart was filled with regret.
Regret for her impulsive actions.
Regret for giving up something she’d thought held no value.
Regret for setting off down a path from which there was no easy return.
“Go away,” she moaned when a soft knock sounded on the door. It was not often Temperance allowed herself to wallow in self-pity, but when she did she submerged herself fully like a fish diving down to the dark, weedy depths of a pond.
“It is me, Miss Temperance,” came the timid reply. “Delly. Would you like help getting dressed?”
“No. Not
right now.” She hesitated. “Would you be able to draw me a bath instead, Delly?”
“Of course, Miss Temperance. Right away.”
Footsteps echoed in the hallway as the maid hurried back downstairs. It was no small effort to draw a bath, and Temperance always felt guilty asking for one, but if there was ever a time she needed to soak in hot water it was this morning. She wasn’t in pain, not directly, but the space between her thighs was unbearably tender and when she lifted her nightgown and peered down at her legs she saw what little remained of her innocence: streaks of dried blood smeared across her pale skin.
Another knock rattled the door and she quickly tugged down her nightgown and pulled the covers back up to her waist. “Come in,” she said, thinking it to be Delly. When the door opened, however, it wasn’t her maid who entered her bedroom.
It was Delilah with Mr. Humphrey bouncing right behind.
“Are you up yet?” her sister chirped. “I thought I heard you talking.”
“Not to you. Please leave. I am no in mood for visitors.”
“I am not a visitor,” Delilah objected as she crossed the room and, ignoring Temperance’s glare, climbed in the bed beside her. “I am your sister.”
“I suppose you can stay here until my bath is drawn,” she said grudgingly. “As long as you do not steal all of the blankets like you used to.”
“I won’t.” Grabbing a pillow, Delilah slid it behind her back before leaning against the headrest. Her knees made a tiny hill under the covers as she drew them up to her chest. Looking rather serious, she rested her head on top of her knees and glanced sideways at her sister. “I feel as though we haven’t talked in ages.”
“We talk all the time.”
“Not lately. You know it’s true,” Delilah said before Temperance could open her mouth to protest. “Usually we tell each other everything but I do not know even know where you went last night.”
Every muscle in Temperance’s body stiffened with alarm. Having Annabel know about her affair was one thing, but Delilah was another story all together. Her sister would never tell Lynette. At least not on purpose. But somehow or someway she would blurt it out without meaning to, and all of Temperance’s secrecy would be for naught.
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“You do too,” Delilah accused. “Why are you lying? You told Annabel where you were going.”
Temperance bit back a sigh upon seeing the green spark of jealousy in her sister’s eyes. She understood where it came from, and why it had festered. Before they’d moved to Dunhill, she and Lynette had belonged exclusively to Delilah. Now Lynette spent most of her time with Nathaniel, where as she had been spending most of her time with Annabel, leaving poor Delilah alone with Mr. Humphrey. They had not been ignoring her own purpose, but she nevertheless felt a twinge of guilt for the confused hurt she saw on her sister’s face.
Delilah was the youngest of them, and the sweetest. She could also be incredibly annoying, but she deserved more than to be shuffled into the background with no one but a puppy for company.
“I cannot tell you where I went,” Temperance said after a moment of internal debate. “But yes, I did go somewhere last night. And Annabel knows, but only because I needed her help.”
“Why didn’t you ask me for help?”
“Because…because I did not want to involve you. Not because I do not trust you,” she said quickly. “I simply did not want to put you in a position where you would have to lie to Lynette if she were to ever ask where I had gone.”
Delilah’s lips pinched as she mulled it over. “I suppose that makes sense,” she said at last. “Are you going where you went again?”
It was the one question Temperance had not asked herself, because even she wasn’t sure of the answer. There was a part of her that wanted to see Hugh again. A very large, very needy part if truth be told. But there was also a part that recognized what they’d started, though temporarily satisfactory, would not end well. Now that they had become intimate, she couldn’t lie to herself anymore. She did like Hugh. Far more than she should have, given his surly disposition. And were he like the other men she’d flirted with, she’d have been confident in her ability to get him to like her in return. But he wasn’t like other men, which was why she had been drawn to him to begin with.
Was she going to see him again? She didn’t know. Not for certain. But if she did, it would not be today.
“Perhaps,” she told Delilah with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. “And perhaps not. I haven’t made up my mind yet. What are you doing this afternoon?”
Delilah’s eyes widened. “I have nothing planned. Did you – did you want to do something? With me?”
The hesitant note of hope in her voice made Temperance feel like the witch Hugh kept calling her. How could she have allowed herself to be so consumed by a man she’d forgotten about her own sister? She and Delilah may not have constantly seen eye to eye, but there had always been a strong bond between them. One she feared had begun to fray at the edges like a spool of ribbon left untended.
“I do not have any plans either.” Reaching out, she grasped a long strand of Delilah’s tawny hair and tucked it behind her ear. “Why don’t we do something together? Just the two of us.”
“And Mr. Humphrey?”
“And Mr. Humphrey,” she sighed.
“Do you hear that, Mr. Humphrey?” Grinning ear to ear, Delilah peered over the side of the bed where her beloved pup had fallen asleep on his back, pudgy belly exposed and all four legs sticking straight up in the air. “You are going to have a grand day with me and your Aunt Temperance!”
Aunt Temperance? Since when did a pet dog count as a nephew?
“On second thought, maybe we should leave–”
But Delilah had already bounded off the bed and scooped Mr. Humphrey up in her arms. “I have to get dressed! I will see you downstairs for breakfast. Oh, I am very excited!” So excited she nearly bowled poor Delly over as the maid entered the room holding a bucket filled with steaming water.
“Sorry!” Delilah called back over her shoulder. “So sorry!”
Temperance let her head fall back against the headframe and closed her eyes. So much for a quiet, peaceful morning. She really should have known better than to expect she would be left alone to sulk in self-pity. If Delilah hadn’t come knocking on her door than Annabel would have, if not her then eventually Lady Townsend would have found her way upstairs. As the saying went, family was a burden. But it was a burden she would never take for granted. Not after everything she’d lost.
As Delly and another maid filled the claw foot tub in the corner of the room with hot water, Temperance slowly climbed out of bed and stretched in the sunshine. If the clear blue sky was any indication it was shaping up to be a very nice day, although the air outside looked brisk and a bit sharp. Autumn was nearly upon them, and winter would not be too far beyond. Changes were coming.
She only hoped they would be good ones.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Frederick Brownstone was not a tall man, but what he lacked in height he made up for in arrogance. There was an undeniable air of power about him; one that demanded attention wherever he went or whenever he spoke.
At first glance he was not handsome. At least not in the British sense. His features were too square. His build too stocky. His eyes too narrow. But he had a full head of wavy blonde hair, several shades darker than his sister Aileen’s had been. And his clothes were impeccably tailored. His smile – when he wanted it to be – was as charming as a politician’s.
And just as empty.
When he stepped off the Queen Mary, one of the largest and most opulent passenger ships to ever sail the Atlantic, Frederick’s smile was nowhere to be seen. In its place was a scowl. A scowl directed straight at his personal valet, a man who had been bought and paid for ten times over and was all the more miserable for it.
“They called that a room?” Frederick growled under his breath as he
strolled down the dock. Even in a fit of rage, Frederick never stormed or stomped or threw a tantrum. On the outside he was always calm and collected. Only those who knew him well knew to look for the hint of insanity glinting in his cold blue eyes. And run for their lives when they saw it.
Struggling beneath the weight of the trunk he was carrying, his valet wisely refrained from answering. After three years in Frederick’s employment he knew when a question was rhetorical and when it demanded a reply. In his mid-forties with a balding head and ears that protruded too far out from the side of his skull, Thomas Sanders had seen two wives dead and buried before he accepted a position in the Brownstone household. He’d lived a life marred by tragedy, and it showed no signs of improving. At least not while he remained on as Frederick’s valet.
Still, despite the daily mistreatment he suffered at the hands of his employer, there was no man more loyal to Frederick Brownstone than Thomas Sanders. After all, it had been Frederick who had picked him up off the streets and given him a bed to sleep in. Frederick who had cared enough to knock the bottle of gin out of his hand. Frederick who had given him a reason to go on living when all he’d wanted to do was pick up the nearest pistol and point it against his temple. For that reason alone, Thomas quite literally owed Frederick his life…and he was determined to spend the rest of his days repaying his debt.
“The Glenmoore Hotel is that way, sir.” Carefully setting the trunk down, Thomas tipped his hat back and pointed to a brick building several blocks away. Easy to distinguish because of its height, it was the grandest – and most expensive – hotel that London had to offer. At eight stories tall, it towered above everything else and boasted over two hundred rooms. Built from the ground up by an entrepreneur who was rumored to have made his money through the East India Trading Company, it was a modern day architectural marvel with a year long waiting list.
A year long waiting list Frederick had bypassed by renting out the entire seventh floor.
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