by Addison Cain
“Listen, Arabella. If you will not allow me to kill him, standing up to Dalton may buy a few years, but nothing is guaranteed. You are admired now. With Mr. Griggs’s help, an advantageous marriage could be arranged to keep you safe. A strong family would protect your reputation out of their own interest. Edmund Jenkins...”
“Never!” Narrowing her eyes, Arabella barked, “How could you even suggest such a thing?”
“Not all men are monsters, Arabella.”
“No,” she agreed, pushing tangled hair off her face. “But a good one should not be cursed with me.”
“You are speaking nonsense.”
Gentle, despite her agitation, Arabella said, “You are blind to my faults because you love me.”
“And you love me.” He rarely smiled, but as he spoke, Payne’s satisfaction with her words was obvious.
Teasing, she admonished, “Should I marry you?”
“I will not have you.”
She laughed, trying to ignore her churning stomach. “The Romani can help us in a way Griggs cannot. Ion can go places, listen in on servants. He may uncover something of use to us.”
“Or this Ion may take the money and run. Just because he headed toward London does not mean he kept his word.”
“True...” Arabella agreed, and had worked to assure that might not be the outcome. “But I offered more gold. I can sell my gowns, the horses, the carriage, my hair.”
“Enough.” Payne silenced her. Offering her his candle, he ordered that she go to bed. “Take care should you choose to wander the house tonight. Mr. Harrow is sleeping upstairs.”
With a rush of anxiety her words jumbled. “Was he unwell? Hurt? Why is he here?”
She could hide nothing from him, but neither could she meet his eyes when Payne said, “He arrived again today to see you and refused to leave until you returned.”
“I see...”
Taking the candle, Arabella climbed the stairs and walked right past the man in question—unaware he was pressed back in the shadows, having heard every word of the devoted pair’s conversation.
* * *
Behind the screen in Arabella’s room, Magdala had left her a hip tub filled for her use. Setting her candle aside, the baroness ignored the almost spent fire and began tugging at the laces on the front of her bodice.
When the door opened behind her, she sent her servant away. “It’s late. Go back to bed, Magdala. I will tend to myself.”
While she struggled with a knot, Gregory put his hands on her shoulders, his fingers curling around the bones. She went stiff as a corpse as he turned her about.
There was no conversation. Batting aside her hands, he tore the knot, unlacing the homespun roughness of her dress until the filthy thing fell to the floor.
His gaze unabashedly surveyed her exposed figure until furious pitch eyes found hers, the look in them frightening.
He motioned for her to go to the tub.
She obeyed.
Watching her, his elbows on his knees, Gregory took a seat on the edge of her bed while Arabella scrubbed away days’ worth of dirt. As the water was no longer warm, and she was nervous, she did not linger. Reaching for the nearby linen, she dried herself and reached for the night rail laid out upon the bed.
The glaring male’s weight was upon it, Gregory making no move to set it free.
Exposed, Arabella hung her head and gripped the trapped fabric. “I’m cold.”
He took her wrist, pulling her hand away from the gown. “Look at me.”
After several painful heartbeats, she raised her head. The way he was looking at her, Arabella wanted to hide. Not from what he was doing, but from knowing he must have overheard the shameful things she’d spoken of with Payne. Knowing he would see her as foul.
Harrow’s voice was hard, his expression harder. “Who were the other men?”
His tone cut. Silent tears fell. All she could do was shake her head and confess. “His friends... anyone Benjamin wanted something from or owed something to. I can’t tell you how many, I don’t know.”
Releasing her wrist, Gregory placed a solid hand to her waist and pulled her to stand between his spread thighs. He looked murderous. “Get into bed.”
She took a guarded step back before scrambling under the covers. When he crawled in behind her, she had not expected such a thing. Nor had she anticipated the heat of the arm that pulled her beneath a body as naked as her own.
A possessive caress followed a guttural proclamation. “It changes nothing.”
Trying to read the man’s face lit only by the light of one small candle, she whispered, “I don’t understand.”
“I know.” And gentle lips brushed hers, searing, and nothing like the aggression he’d unleashed on her body in the moors.
* * *
When the first stir of waking came upon him, Gregory reached for the woman at his side, eager to possess her again before the household was up. Searching fingers found only cold linen, not a cool, soft body.
She was not there.
Leaning up on an elbow, he scanned the dawn shadows and found the filthy garments had vanished and his clothing, even the items he had left in his room, were folded neatly nearby.
Once dressed, Mr. Harrow walked silently down the passageway in search of the missing Imp. Near the stairway, sounds of soft murmured speech between women floated up from below stairs.
“Drink your tea, my lady, before it grows colder.”
Mr. Harrow found Arabella sitting in the large leather chair, her chin in her hand as she looked toward the fire.
Magdala hovered nearby, watching her mistress brood. “Drink.”
“Your foul tea is the least of my concerns at this moment, Magdala.”
The older woman cocked her head. “I cannot advise you if you do not explain.”
Slowly, pools of shining green looked up at the woman. “No, you cannot.”
Magdala tried to speak gently and failed. “Shall I fetch Payne?”
Throwing up her hands, Arabella barked, “Fetch more tea. Fetch something. Just leave me in peace! It is too early in the day for so many questions.”
Magdala paused, scowling at the tight-lipped woman before leaving the room.
Seeking distraction, Arabella came to her feet and stepped nearer the hearth, her gaze turning to the portrait of the woman. Their expressions were a match at that moment, both a little lost. Both trapped.
From the shadowy stairs, Gregory spoke. “Her name was Emily.”
Arabella turned her head and did her best to hide what she was feeling. “A beautiful name.”
Closing the distance between them, he stared hard into her eyes. “You could not have slept more than a few hours.”
“I seldom do.” She frowned a little and looked back toward the fire.
His voice dropped lower as he tugged a loose curl by her temple. “You slept the night full on the moors with me.”
She seemed to be considering the memory, a little line forming between her brows. “Please don’t be unpleasant.”
Lowering his chin to his chest, black eyes smoldered. “If you would have remained in bed like a good girl, I would have made it very pleasant for you.”
“Yet it would have scandalized my Magdala,” Arabella said quietly, aware the housekeeper was near enough to hear every word. “Unless, of course, that was your intention.”
“I told her yesterday that I was going to put you over my knee... she seemed to approve.” Backing her into her chair, Mr. Harrow made it clear she better stay put before claiming the seat across. “I believe she would also approve of what I did to you last night. Why don’t you ask her?”
Her face went pink and her voice unsteady. “Payne would trounce you. I suggest you keep your mouth shut.”
He had the nerve to chuckle. “It is fortunate you enjoy haunting a house I know intimately. Think of how easily I can slip in and out.”
Though Arabella had dressed herself in one of her new gowns, she’d mussed t
he laces and layering. Even her hair was little more than a coiled braid pinned quickly and loose. She felt as rumpled as she looked. “Is that a threat?”
She wondered if it was possible for a man to look upon a living creature in such a way as Gregory looked at her. Had she a soul, she was sure he was trying to devour it. “A promise.”
“I’d turn the lock on my door.”
Gregory countered quickly. “I would employ the window... I also possess the master key.”
Their bickering was starting to get absurd, Arabella struggling to keep the smirk ticking at her mouth restrained. “A knife under my pillow then.”
“And how would you explain the body?”
A red brow arched. “I could just run away. No one has caught me yet.”
Smug as the devil, Mr. Harrow crooned, “Face facts, my love. There is nowhere left for you to run. Otherwise you would not be playing the noble lady and I would not have you so beautifully cornered.” A smile grew across the lounging male’s beauty. “You like it here and so here is where you will stay.”
“We shall see.” She took a moment and looked him over, unsure of herself. “How did you,” it seemed for a moment she was going to ask something else, yet ended up muttering, “...make your fortune?”
The answer was simple. “I killed people and was paid for it.”
“A soldier? You were in the war?”
The man simpered and shook his head no. “And then I returned to Harding and destroyed my uncle, reduced him to poverty as I bought up his lands. When there was nothing left, like his sister, he leapt from the top floor. They found his brains splattered all over the courtyard.”
Arabella muttered, “You pushed him?”
The diabolical look in the man’s eye told another tale. “Ahhh, but I was in Liverpool, and the servants saw nothing.”
What he hinted to did not bother her as it should have. “Was he more terrible than you are now?”
As if amused by the question, Mr. Harrow cocked his head. The prior night he’d heard Payne mention murder as if it were nothing and understood the reason why. “Do you find Payne terrible for what he did to Baron Iliffe?”
“Mamioro killed Baron Iliffe...” Feeling as if she had been plunged into icy water, Arabella asked, “The men you killed, were they bad men?”
“Of course they were.”
Her brows drew together, Arabella’s voice pensive, “You’re lying. You don’t know what they were. You never asked, nor did you care.”
Pitch eyes rested on her face, Mr. Harrow languid. “Just as you never answered my question.”
Thinking back on all they’d suffered, love colored her reply, “Many things were terrible, but never once was Payne.”
Gregory sneered. “How noble.”
Chapter 12
“I really cannot believe you did what you did!” Lizzy gushed, holding tight to Arabella’s gloved hand amidst the Assembly room’s crush. “Really, Edmund was quite scandalized.”
Surrounded by the Harding elites’ monthly party, fettered by a netted coquelicot red gown, Arabella braved her second formal gathering with little enthusiasm. She was tired of the topic of the seer’s tent and the fair, and less than happy it was coming up in such a public place. “He will recover.”
Unaware of her friend’s discomfort, glancing side to side to make sure none could overhear, Lizzy giggled. “Pestering Edmund, you should do it more often. I cannot even begin to tell you how hard I laughed each time he almost went in after you.”
Arching a brow, Arabella looked to the man in question, catching his eye even though he stood in another circle. “Went in after me?”
Lizzy, lovely in lavender, her hair in chestnut ringlets, confessed, “Three times he had his hand on the curtain.”
Arabella continued to stare at the man in question. Edmund did not look away.
What had he heard? Nervous, offering a sign of friendship to see how it might be received, she smiled. The fair man softly smiled back.
“See,” Arabella said to his youngest sister. “We are still friends.”
Once the music ended, Edmund proved it by approaching.
She spoke first, knowing he may have had more than one reason to be cross with her. “I have been practicing.” It was the damn minuet she referred to and her promise to dance with him. She’d never returned to Stonewall Grove for lessons, so Magdala had taught her.
Edmund’s eyes, far too blue, sparkled. “I thought you might be angry. The fair... my disapproving.” He was trying to joke, making his point badly as he fidgeted. “I should not have criticized what ladies... do at fairs.”
Arabella softened. “You are a protective older brother. It is admirable.”
Edmund lowered his voice, whispering conspiratorially, “I thought we agreed. You are not my sister.”
Too shy to meet his eye, Arabella took in those gathered around them. “The fair seems to have drawn more to the gathering.”
“It is you they’ve come to see.”
Nervous, Arabella disagreed, directing her gaze at Lilly—the shining star—in a gown of snowy lace. “Not I, Mr. Jenkins.” The pretty young lady was surrounded by suitors, flirting cautiously with her mama nearby. “It seems her love charm worked.”
Edmund forced a laugh, stepping in Arabella’s line of sight.
Lizzy thought to tease the pair of them. “What will you do, your ladyship, if another gentleman asks to stand up with you once the minuet is finished?”
Arabella had no intention of dancing with strangers. “I have no acquaintance in the neighborhood outside of your brother. It’s best I leave it at the minuet and remain a wallflower for the remainder of the evening.”
“You know Mr. Harrow.” Lizzy grinned, less than subtly prodding her brother.
Arabella frowned at Lizzy to stop such talk. “I know that man is nothing but trouble.”
“What do you mean by saying such a thing about our friend?” Lilly had come up behind her, the girl’s angelic face screwed up at the insult.
Edmund interjected. “You mistake Lady Iliffe’s meaning, Lilly.”
“I must, for she does not know him at all.” Nose in the air, the beauty shared her own opinion. “Where he is genteel, she is admittedly unpolished.”
In a quickly spoken reprimand, Edmund whispered, “Lilly, you will apologize to her ladyship this instant!”
“There is no need for an apology.” Arabella had caused the row and she would forgive it. “But be cautious of him, Miss Jenkins. He is not always as he seems, and can be quite rough if provoked.”
It was such a pity so pretty a face could be ruined by so ugly a sneer, but the sour expression did not last. Eyes a glow, the beauty saw her suitor, mouth curving into a pretty smile to find the one she’d been waiting for had arrived.
Mr. Harrow.
Arabella did not need to turn to confirm it. She could feel the force of him before he came into view. Just as she’d felt the lack of it each night of the past week, while waiting for him to step out of the shadows within Crescent Barrows.
But he’d never come.
Otherworldly, he approached their party, the shine of obsidian eyes laid upon a woman that was not her. “Mrs. Jenkins, do not you and your two daughters look fine this evening.” A moment later Gregory darted a glance the baroness’s direction, casually remarking, “And Lady Iliffe, I see your train is pinned up. It could not be that you intend to dance.”
Feeling foolish for finding him beautiful, Arabella replied, “Only the first set, Mr. Harrow. Afterward, I shall go into hiding in the card room.”
“Mr. Jenkins must be the daring gentleman.” Gregory smiled tightly at the handsome landowner. “How unfortunate for you, sir. She will spoil the polish on your boots.”
The dark haired bully turned toward the blushing Lilly. “Miss Jenkins, would you do me the honor of standing up with me, for I wish to witness something so ridiculous as closely as possible?”
Giggling, Miss Jenkins offere
d her hand and walked away with her suitor, her head high, thoroughly satisfied to see the baroness ridiculed.
The first dance was called and Edmund escorted Arabella to the floor. Rich music began, all dancers moving in unison to bow or curtsy.
Her partner made it easy, his smile steady, and hand reassuring. They separated in the figure of the dance and it was Mr. Harrow who took her fingers for the short exchange.
“You have been practicing.” His voice was nothing but displeased.
Relieved to see he was not fool enough to wear the silver ring, Arabella replied, “And why should I not?”
There was an unsatisfied grunt from the devil, while nearby Edmund complimented her profusely.
“Yes, yes, she is quite good,” Gregory stated, smacking his lips and behaving like the entire thing were horribly boring. “It seems your company has improved her, Miss Jenkins, for I cannot imagine your brother could possibly handle the woman alone.”
Lilly laughed as loud as she dared. “I pity my brother if he believes he could domesticate Lady Iliffe.”
Mr. Harrow smirked, venomous and challenged, “Do you not prefer her with a little fire? I find the most interesting phrases pass her lips when she is provoked.”
“As do I.” Lilly glanced toward the baroness, the two women linking hands briefly in time to the music. “But do not let her low opinion of you color your regard for her new found skill in dancing.”
“Low opinion?” Gregory cocked a brow. He looked at the woman in question, meeting defiant emerald eyes.
“I simply spoke the truth of your character,” Arabella admitted, deeply sincere. “Shall I repeat it aloud?”
“No.” They came together in the figure again, parted, and he went to Lilly, purring , “I shall guess. Lady Iliffe described me as a villain.” Every syllable was pronounced with pride. Voice low and seductive, he continued, “And she was right. I am a soulless despot bent on the destruction of any who stand between me and what I want.”
No matter his words, it was the tone and beauty that excited Lilly, for the girl looked on the handsome demon with eyes full of longing each time they moved together in the dance. Wondering if this were all a show, a staged drama to bully or offend, Arabella decided the best thing to do would be simply to ignore Gregory’s bad behavior.
