Leona snuck another look at the brothers. Their conversation did not appear contentious, but it did not look convivial either.
“Enough about Easterbrook,” Lady Phaedra said. “I would much prefer to talk about you. I find it interesting that you journeyed here to act as an agent for your brother.”
Leona briefly told her story. She sensed that Lady Phaedra's mind was as unconventional as her appearance, and that the tale was received differently than it was by other women.
“What adventures you must have had,” Lady Phaedra said. “Just your journey here is remarkable, but your description of visiting India and the Far Eastern islands to secure trade while your brother was a minor is astonishing.”
“There was no choice except to do it.”
“There is always a choice, and most women would have made a different one.”
The only different one would have been total dependency on her mother's family. However, she understood what Lady Phaedra meant. She had embraced the fate given her, and not sought too hard to alter it.
She was proud that she had succeeded more often than not. Necessity had forced her to conquer any fears, and be bolder than even her father would have expected. Nor had her duties truly ended when Gaspar reached his majority. Her father had taught her much of his business without really planning to, but Gaspar had been too young to absorb such lessons before their father's death. Her brother would probably manage this year while she was away, but he could not yet run that business on his own forever.
Lady Phaedra brought them up short in a patch of sunlight. “Do you have any talent with the pen?”
“An average amount. I do not write poetry, if that is what you mean.”
“I would guess that you probably write a good letter, though. I ask for a reason. I have a small publishing house that I inherited from my father. I have decided to publish a lady's journal. I intend to have it be more literate than the others. It occurs to me that you might describe these distant lands as you saw them, and educate my readers in the customs and important matters of these places.”
It was a novel notion, and one that captivated Leona's interest. “Would you only want descriptions of clothing and food and such?”
“It could be about anything you choose. Events that you witnessed. Problems that you perceived. Of course you should not ignore fashion and society totally. That will always be of interest to most women.”
Not so much to the woman who would publish that journal, Leona thought. Lady Phaedra was lovely, but unusual in the simplicity of her pale green dress and her unbound hair. No other woman in Hyde Park looked like that.
“Say that you will consider it,” Lady Phaedra urged. “Your letters will make the first issues of this journal distinctive.”
“I will see if I can write one that you find acceptable. If you like it, we can talk further.”
Easterbrook approached with his brother by his side. “It appears that you have formed an alliance, Miss Montgomery.”
“One that promises to be beneficial to us both, I hope,” Lady Phaedra said. “Please call on me soon, Miss Montgomery.”
Easterbrook watched Lady Phaedra stroll away with her husband. “She is not the wife I would have chosen for him, and the story surrounding their marriage caused a scandal, but he is more than content.” He spoke as if Leona had invited his opinion.
“I found her very amiable and interesting. Why would you not have chosen her?”
He began escorting her back to the carriage. “Amiable to be sure. And interesting. But also willfully peculiar and deliberately unconventional. That did not recommend her initially.” He looked over at her. “I have said something that amuses you.”
“Not at all, Lord Easterbrook. It was generous that you reconciled yourself to her willful peculiarity. What an open mind you have.”
Upon returning to her house, Easterbrook accompanied her and Isabella to the door. Then he entered it behind them.
“Leave us,” he said.
Isabella bowed and scurried away.
Leona refused to invite him into one of the other chambers. Whatever he had to say could be communicated in this reception hall.
He regarded her a long while, as if he expected her to speak first. It unnerved her, to suffer his gaze like this. The chamber seemed to shrink, bringing him closer even though neither of them moved.
“This plan, to make introductions and such,” he said. “It will be much more effective if you move to Grosvenor Square.”
She had not expected such a blunt overture so soon. “I am content here, and I would never impose on your aunt.”
“She would not consider it an imposition, I guar antee.”
“All the same, joining your household would be too much intimacy with a woman I barely know.”
“There would be no intimacies that you did not agree to. It is a very big house.”
“I must decline your generous offer.”
He took it well enough. He paced aimlessly around the shrinking chamber. “The introduction to my brother Hayden will have to be delayed a week or so. His first child will be born any day now.”
“I am sorry that you even raised the matter with him under that circumstance.”
“He did not mind. In the meantime, invitations will begin arriving for you tomorrow—more than you can accept. If you have any questions regarding which should take precedence, I will gladly help you with that.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you have the necessary wardrobe? If not, I will—”
“I cannot allow that, so please do not offer.”
He took the second rejection very well too. Leona stood her ground and tried to ignore how he managed to dominate what had become a tiny space now, one where she stood in the center and his casual stroll arched around her.
“You are nervous, being alone with me,” he observed. “There is no reason to be afraid.”
“No? You declared your intentions explicitly when we met in your house, and they are not honorable. Now you are proposing things that are intended to lure me.”
“Does that matter so much? Whether they are honorable or not?”
“Of course it matters. A marquess may sin with frequency and impunity, but I am not so privileged.”
“As a woman of the world you know that these arrangements are so normal and so accepted in every society that calling it a sin is a joke. If I am luring you, it is to more than a casual seduction, in case you do not understand that.”
“I have lived in China. I know what a concubine is. An English mistress does not have even that security. I was not born or raised for what you offer, no matter how comfortable and lucrative the situation may temporarily prove to be.”
She spoke with more determination than she felt, and not only because he made her stupid heart jump the way he always had. As Easterbrook's mistress she might accomplish all that she had come to do here in London, and in very little time.
Even if he tried to thwart her, even if her worst suspicions about him were correct, she would be better placed to learn it all if she were in his house and his bed. She might even find that notebook if she could move freely in his home.
Her own ruthless calculations shocked her. But the insidious arousal that he inspired urged her to grab the excuse.
She trusted that he had heard the finality in her voice. She assumed that he would take his leave.
He did not. Instead he contemplated her with that direct examination, much as he had during their last meeting.
“Why did you not marry? I do not believe Pedro ended the engagement as you said.”
“Oh, he ended it. Thoroughly.” The sudden turn in topic vexed her. He had a talent for throwing her off balance.
“But you did not mind so much. Just as you do not mind my lures so much now.”
Her temper cracked like a whip. “How dare you presume to know my mind? Now or then? I was a young woman alone, orphaned, with no fortune and no security, and I was not so stu
pid as to ignore that Pedro offered both.”
“That is not the same thing as wanting to marry him. It may have frightened you to be left to your own devices, but you were not heartbroken to be free of him.”
“You are an insufferably arrogant, conceited man. You think that your birth gives you the power to read the hearts of others like a god. My father taught me the value of pride, but my mother taught me about the sins it breeds, and your presumption of omniscience is close to blasphemous.”
“I do not claim to know your mind. Your story does not ring true, that is all. Pedro might have ended the engagement because of your father's failing business. However, he could not use that excuse because that would not be enough reason to end it with honor.”
She could barely maintain her composure, and she proved incapable of holding her polite stance. She paced out her growing anger, back and forth, in strides too long and fast.
He had no right to pick and probe at this. He had no right to interfere with the past as well as the present, and demand answers from her as if he had a divine right to hear them.
“How wasteful that you have turned your brilliant mind to my story, Lord Easterbrook. Surely there are more pressing matters to occupy you. Of course, you are correct. Pedro did not admit the true reason. He found a better one to give the world. If you must know, that reason was you. He accused me of more than a silly flirtation, and he was believed.”
Christian watched her furious words pour out. He cocked his head and made a small frown. “Pedro had no proof, however. There was none to have.”
“Do you think anyone cared, after they heard his tale? Do you think he was so stupid that he could not tell that something had happened between us? Do you think Branca could stand against him when he browbeat her to learn what he needed? You sought me out alone again and again, and were careless with my reputation. There was evidence enough for his purpose, and with my father dead there was no one to defend my honor.”
He caught her arm as she strode by, stopping her. She did not fight his hold, but she refused to look at him.
“If you were held up to scorn, I apologize, Leona. If you wanted that marriage, I am sorry.” His fingers cupped her chin and turned her face to his own. “Did you want it?”
Saints, but the man was impossible. “And if I say no, not really, does that mean your guilt is gone?”
“First sin, now guilt. I do not think that way. Nor do you.”
“You have no idea how I think. Now, please, the day has tired me and this conversation has me too vexed to be hospitable. Show some kindness and leave me to compose myself.”
He did not release her at once. She sensed that invasive attention sliding around her, as if he sought to truly know her mind. She protected herself as she always had. His expression hardened in response, as though a wordless battle had just been fought to a draw. Finally he let her go and stepped away.
Severe now, he strode to the door. He faced her again before he crossed the threshold.
“I may not know your mind, but I know enough and I'll be damned if I will pretend that I do not. I know that you also sought me out. I know that desire binds us so powerfully it affects every word and every motion and even the air we breathe. I know that I'm glad that pompous ass did not get you. And I know that the only sin I committed with you in Macao was not taking you when I could have.”
CHAPTER
SIX
Silence. Calm. His breaths matching a larger rhythm kJ in the darkness. No turmoil. No cravings. A state of suspended self trying to form and grow.…
The center would not hold. Instead a memory intruded more vivid than was natural. Images moved in the darkness of his mind. Suddenly he was back in Macao on a perfect night.…
Colors shimmering with silver moonlight. Scents of lotus from the nearby pond. Lamps glimmering in homes beyond the stucco wall. Silent noise finding him, mixing with the sounds of night.
The garden's beauty and peace mocked him. The tranquility made the storm inside him all the less bearable. Hungers and doubts and resentments rumbled in his head. He lifted his face to the salty breeze, so it might cool the anger burning from an unknown source.
He could not live like this. The anger would lead him to violence or madness. The storm would break someday and drench him with despair. He had come too close already. He had found solace in the worst ways.…
A sound. Not a silent one. A human noise of the normal kind. Footsteps and breathing and a low feminine hum.
She was there suddenly, on the path in front of him. She saw him and stopped. Her white nightdress glowed beneath the dark swath of her long silk shawl. Her dark hair veiled her. Her skin appeared radiant in the moon's light.
Desire ruled him at once, as it always did with her. Seeing her was all the spark needed to make his arousal flame wildly. She was innocent and erotic, shy and vivacious, girlish and worldly, all at the same time. He wanted her, constantly, and he did not dream of sweet, gentle love play either.
This was not the night to face this temptation.
“You should not be out here,” he said. “Branca will whip you if she learns of it.”
“Branca is asleep, and I am too old to whip. I am not a child, Edmund.”
No, she wasn't, despite her innocence and ignorance.
“Why did you leave the house, Leona?”
She shrugged. “I could not sleep. I was restless. The day bored me. I would walk on the quay, but it is too late.”
She bent to smell a flower on a nearby bush. Her hair fell forward while she leaned and her eyes closed as she inhaled the fragrance.
He had to go to her, of course. The storm had retreated, as it always did in her presence. The heat in him had a reason now.
She straightened as he neared. He plucked the flower and held it, beckoning her to sniff again.
She leaned toward it. Toward him. Her own perfume mixed with that of the bloom. She looked up at him, over the petals. She knew what was in him. She always had.
He stroked the soft petals down her cheek. “I think you were restless for a reason, Leona. I think that you came into this garden looking for something.” The flower fell away, and his fingertips replaced it on the path up and down her soft skin.
She trembled. She pulled her shawl tighter but it had not been the breeze. Her lids lowered and her lips parted from the sensation of his caress.
“You should go back to the house.” His words warned her but his touch lured her. He wanted her. Right now he wanted her desperately. He could have her tonight. He did not doubt that.
“Maybe you are the one who should go back to the house,” she said. “It is my garden.”
He had to smile. He did that a lot with her. He could not remember smiling much in his life before Macao.
“That would be rude. You came looking for me tonight, after all.”
“Why would I do that?”
He slid the caress down her neck. “For this.” He cupped her nape and eased her toward his kiss. “And this.”
Damnation.
Christian opened his eyes. Memories like this had intruded for three days now. This one left him as hard as that kiss had that night, and as agitated as the mood that had sent him into the garden in the first place.
He stood, to walk off both effects.
It was Leona's fault. All of it. The retreat into meditation was because of her, and the distractions that made it impossible were too.
Marry Pedro, hell. What a waste that would have been. If she did not like men who thought they were gods, she would have been miserable.
That bastard had accused her of an affair with Edmund. The coward. The liar. Edmund had been too damned noble to take advantage of Leona. He had let her run away that night, even though it had near killed him to do it.
Still, he had sought her out often enough, just as she had sought him. He had displayed an impulsive lack of discretion with her, and made her vulnerable to Pedro's accusation. That it had saved her from marriage to t
hat fool pleased him, but he did not like to imagine her under the cloud of scandal.
It had given her freedom, though. Freedom to now come to England. Freedom to sail the Eastern seas. Freedom, perhaps, to have love affairs if she chose to.
She had lived in a world of men ever since her father's death, a lovely young woman with dark eyes that revealed her passionate nature and lack of reserve. Sea captains, traders, even members of the Company and the naval service—she had sat at many dinners with men who would want her.
An aggressive, primitive heat entered his head, bringing a mood so black that he found himself glaring at nothing.
He calmed the storm before lightning flashed. How like Leona to inspire emotions so long unknown that he had lost the ability to sense them coming.
He needed to find distraction from these constant thoughts of her or he truly would turn half mad.
London never fell silent at night. Even in winter an invisible energy flowed through the dark, the echoes of the yearnings and fears, the hopes and joys pulsing in its buildings behind shutters and drapes.
In spring the forces of life spoke more clearly, especially on a clear, cool night such as the one that Christian traversed.
He found the nights peaceful. He even welcomed the life whispering around him. The worst part of his curse had always been the isolation it encouraged. Not only was it unhealthy to retreat totally from the world, but also he had long ago admitted that he did not want to. As long as the dark center waited with its respite and its peace, he could indulge in human congress a little.
Leona had given him that. She did not even know the value of the gift. When she asked Tong Wei to teach the young Englishman about meditation, the reason had been unrelated to Christian's ability to sense the emotions of others.
The Sins of Lord Easterbrook Page 6
