by Sara Ramsey
“You shouldn’t have said many things,” she said, adding sugar to her cup and cream to his. But then she grinned, one of those quick, secret grins he’d missed so much over the past two months. “I’ll confess I like it when you are just a bit jealous, though.”
“Selfish,” he chided jokingly, stroking her hand before taking his coffee from it. “Have a care for your safety, Prue. A jealous man could do many things to you in the private room of a public house.”
She smiled down into her coffee cup. “I suppose I shall have to risk it, my lord.”
Why did he suddenly feel like he’d never loved her more? Her eyes crinkled as she smiled, and her mouth pursed as she blew, inelegantly, across the steaming liquid in her cup. She sipped and closed her eyes, enjoying her coffee for just a moment despite the thorny conversation they were in the midst of. The core of her was resilient, imperturbable, in a way that would have driven a lesser man off in search of a princess to rescue. But her strength only made him love her more.
He wanted that vision across from him at every meal for the rest of his life. He wanted her face to be the last image in his eyes, her voice the last sound in his ears, the soft touch of her skin the last sensation his fingers sought out.
Something in the vicinity of his heart cracked. He’d thought he wanted her more than anything before, but now, in the quiet, when they could be alone together with no one else to disturb them, he knew it. It wasn’t just a fantasy. And the knowledge staggered him, left him oddly dizzy, as though the foundation of his world had been ripped away and she was waiting there to catch him.
She looked up and caught him staring. “What is it?” she asked. “Do I have coffee on my nose?”
He almost told her everything he’d just thought. But he couldn’t. He kept saying he was going to let her go. Showing her his heart, again, when he couldn’t give it to her and she couldn’t take it was unfair, even if the weight of his unshared love would eventually crush him.
So he handed her his handkerchief. “Was there something you wished to tell me?” he asked.
She swiped at her nose, then gestured with the handkerchief. “Not if you aren’t finished with your monologue. Surely the coffee has fortified you again.”
“I have finished for the moment. Please, do continue.”
He leaned back in his chair, taking his cup with him and trying to catch his breath. She didn’t match his indolent pose; she leaned forward instead, her hands wrapped around her cup as though she’d spent every day of her life arguing arcane points in pubs like this one. “I think I know where we might find a cure for your curse. It took hours of searching through my correspondence, but I should have known it all along.”
He didn’t know what he had expected — castigation, confession, or something else — but it wasn’t this. “What?” he asked.
“Well, there were rather a lot of letters to sort through,” she said, as though it was the volume of her correspondence that confused him, not the fact that it existed. “Four years’ worth, and my organization is worse than I thought it was. But your reference to a useful dagger reminded me of something someone else had said, years ago. It was just a matter of finding the letter.”
“Who have you been writing letters to?”
“Have you not guessed yet?” she asked, tilting her head. Her brown eyes were mischievous, anticipatory, as though she awaited the imminent culmination of a grand prank.
“You are Chandlord, aren’t you.”
He didn’t state it as a question. It was so obvious, now that he thought about her interests and didn’t just assume that she had stolen one of his letters. She nodded, smiling wide enough to show her teeth. “At your service.”
“How?” he asked. “How did this come about?”
She shrugged. “I was always the scholar, not my brothers. While their books mouldered over summer breaks, I read them all straight through, dreaming of distant lands. And when they finally went to those distant lands and…”
She paused, her voice faltering. But she regained control almost immediately. “I had enough time during those months of mourning to read as much as I liked without Mother thinking I should be trying to win a husband.”
“But reading is different than corresponding,” he said. “Your mother couldn’t have been happy with you sending letters to strange men.”
“She didn’t know. But I spent nearly all my pin money on postage, although I suspect that Amelia subsidized the expense. The letters went through a pub in Soho Square, and she insisted on having one of your footmen retrieve them so that I wouldn’t go there myself. Mother never knew. But if she did, I think she would be more unhappy that I had wasted my money on paper instead of new hair ribbons with which to snare a husband.”
She said it lightly, but his heart twisted. “Why would you take the risk? If someone had caught you, it would have been a terrible scandal.”
“I couldn’t find answers to the questions my books raised without asking other men of learning. I couldn’t go to Cambridge as you did. I couldn’t darken the door of your bloody club.” A deep, yawning well of venom opened up beneath her voice, shocking him. “All I could do was write to those who might have answers, and take learning on paper as a substitute for discussing my opinions with someone who knew my interests.”
Chandlord’s letters to him had pleased him from the start, even though he hadn’t known it was her. Her writing was witty and well-educated, with a dry vein of humor running through it even when discussing the meaning of some shard of pottery or ancient sculpture. And it seemed that he had been receiving those letters for years, from the charming, reclusive historian who claimed to never be able to visit or entertain guests.
The question came out before he could think. “Was I your first?”
She tilted her head. He flushed as he realized how she had taken his question. “Your first correspondent,” he amended.
“First everything.” Her voice was wistful, more open than he deserved it to be. “I wish we could…try again, you know. I’ve dreamed of having you in some illicit public house. This room would be perfect for it.”
She was blushing slightly. His skin heated as he pictured what she had dreamed of, but he shook his head gently. “I cannot sleep with you again. Much as I would like to. You’re in enough danger already.”
Prudence was wanton enough to look crushed. “I was afraid you would say that.”
He tried to steer the conversation back to safer waters. “So, you wrote to me as Chandlord. Did you ever think to tell me who you were?”
She nodded. “I used to dream of telling you that I was Chandlord, and that you would sponsor me with the Society. You seemed to enjoy my letters enough.”
“I would sponsor you if I could.”
They both knew he couldn’t. While there had been women in some of the artistic societies in London, the Society of Antiquaries was too hidebound to allow her. And even if they did, she would never live down the scandal. An interest in history might be appropriate for some sad, shabby bluestocking, but not for an unmarried lady who had any desire for a more conventional life.
She sipped her coffee and leaned back, deflating just a bit. “I knew I’d never have the opportunity.”
He didn’t like to see her deflated. “It’s come to something good, though, if you think you’ve found a clue.”
“You sound like you’re humoring me,” she said, examining him over the rim of her cup.
“Do I?” he asked.
He was humoring her. There was no cure. She scowled, knowing him too well to allow him to get away with his subterfuge. “You are. I vow, I should stab you with that dagger.”
Alex laughed despite himself. “On another day I might have welcomed it. But tell me what you found.”
She looked down into her cup. “You aren’t going to like this, I’m afraid.”
“You can trust me,” he said, trying to sound encouraging. “What did you find?”
She set her cup do
wn on the table and took a breath. Then, at the last minute, she seemed to change her mind.
“Do you think your curse allows you to study how to find the cure for it?” she asked.
He shrugged. “It’s never stopped me before. Probably finds some humor in it.”
Her slow smile gave him the briefest warning before she asked her next question. “Does it allow you to pay for knowledge?”
“Prudence…” he said.
She held up her reticule. “I have information that would greatly further your studies along. Are you willing to pay me what it’s worth?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
She felt wanton, daring…alive. As vibrant and carefree as she’d ever wanted to be, even though her life was so close to crashing around her ears. But Alex was here, and they were alone, and the maid she’d brought with her from Ellie’s was too discreet to care what Prudence was doing.
If she had to run away to Europe, she might never have this chance again. And she wanted Alex too much to think about behaving herself.
“How do you want me to pay you?” he asked.
She could tell from the curve of his lips and the tightening of his fists that he had a guess. “It’s too crass for a woman to take money. Perhaps…something else?”
He grinned, just for a moment, but his caution overruled him. “I can’t, Prue. You know I can’t.”
“You just said you could pay for knowledge. I have knowledge. I have a payment in mind. And then we can both have what we want.”
He tossed his hat on the table and shoved his hand through his hair. “Choose something else.”
“This is what I want,” she insisted. “You should know I have no intention of marrying Thorington. I’ll steal something and get transported to Australia before I let it happen. But if we don’t break your curse, I may never have the chance to…to have you again.”
She hadn’t slept well the previous night, thinking about how he’d taken her, how their lovemaking had felt. She didn’t want to lose the opportunity to make love again.
He had other ideas. “Wait until we see whether we can break the curse. If we do, there’s time enough after for everything I want to do to you.”
“No.” Her hands clenched each other tightly in her lap, avoiding the temptation to do more violence to her cup. “If I jilt Thorington — which I will — my reputation will be shredded. After that kiss he forced on me, everyone will assume that he has completely and utterly compromised me.”
Alex interrupted her before she finished the thought. “The ton knows you better than that.”
She laughed, for once feeling like she had the experience and he was the naive one. “When has the ton ever been logical?” She took a breath, then said what she felt honor-bound to say. “If we break the curse and you choose to marry me, can you live with the whispers?”
“That is a stupid question, Prudence.”
His voice was so mild as he said it that she laughed. “It isn’t. It is easy to talk ruin when one hasn’t been ruined yet…”
He interrupted her, his eyes suddenly dark and intense. “I will love you no matter what anyone thinks of you. Even if it’s all true.”
It was an unconditional statement, an offering that was everything her heart had ever wanted to hear.
And she knew then that she had been in love with an image before. She had been in love with him from afar, the way a pagan might love a volcano, worshipping it while fearing the moment when it would awaken and destroy her.
Alex was real now, older than he had been when her dreams had started. He was more scarred than she had ever realized. And even though there was love in his voice, a complete conviction that made her heart sing, there was sadness beneath it.
It was as though this was a battle he had seen coming for years, a battle he had never found a way to win. She remembered how he had felt in her bed the other night, the determination in his eyes as he made her feel like the most beautiful, desirable woman in the world. It had been a gift for her, she suddenly realized. A gift that he wouldn’t want her to repay. A gift he thought she shouldn’t repay, for fear it would mean so much to him that it would put her in danger.
She stood up. He rose as she did, temporarily remembering propriety. But she surprised him by coming around the table and pulling him toward her. “Tell your curse that you’re paying me for information, nothing more,” she said.
Then she came up on her toes to kiss him. It was long, intense, the first inhalation of an opium addict as the sweet drug overwhelmed the senses. His mouth didn’t need words to convince her of his need; it was obvious in how he devoured her, in the harsh, almost brutal need they shared as their lips fused together. She pressed her whole body against him, needing to be closer, needing his touch everywhere at once. She felt his erection, sudden and urgent, against her belly. His arms closed around her, ready to keep her there.
But he stopped, even though his body seemed inclined to ignore the ceasefire. “Prudence. I cannot.”
She leaned back against the arms he still held her with and removed her gloves, dropping them to the floor as he sucked in a breath. Then she unbuttoned his jacket. “Then you do not want me to do this?”
“No.”
“How industrious of you, to want to study instead of indulging yourself,” she said, pushing his jacket off his arms. “But you’ll accomplish far more today if you pay me like this.”
He helped her even as he denied her. “We cannot continue. I’ve already risked far more…”
She kissed him again. There was something heady about being the aggressor — something sweet about the way he let her take the lead, about the way he couldn’t stop himself from surrendering to her touch.
She pushed his braces off his shoulders. He started to loosen his cravat, but she pulled his wrist away. “You can’t retie a creased cravat later,” she said, sliding her hands down the planes of his torso. “Every servant at Salford House will realize someone ruined you.”
Alex laughed. “Let them gossip. If they knew who had stolen my virtue, they wouldn’t judge me.”
Her thumbs found the indentations of his pelvis. He grabbed her wrist, but he couldn’t seem to find the strength to pull her away. She unbuttoned the falls of his breeches, taking her time, sliding her fingers over the erection confined beneath them. He sucked in a breath, and his hand tightened on her wrist. But he made no attempt to stop her.
She sank to her knees. He shuddered. His fingers would bruise her if they pressed any harder against her. “Prudence…you can’t.”
She ignored him. She’d dreamed of doing this before, when he was just an object for every one of her fantasies. This particular dream had always seemed subservient before, a way to show him how much she worshipped him.
It was also the dream most likely to awaken her, leaving her aching with need.
But this wasn’t worship anymore. She wanted to give him something that he had never expected or asked for, to share this moment with him in a way that would give them both pleasure.
She finished the task at hand, sliding the last button out of its hole. The closure of his breeches fell open, and she tugged at his shirt. The tails were long, and he groaned just a bit from the friction as she untucked them.
Then he was free and in her hand. She’d felt him inside her, but she hadn’t touched him, explored him, the way she had wanted to. She ran a finger up his sensitive flesh, tracing the vein that ran from the base to the head, and he groaned again.
“You are going to be the death of me,” he said.
Her hand closed around his shaft, testing the feel of him, hard flesh covered in velvet. “You are larger than I expected,” she said, looking up at him and meeting his intense, need-filled gaze. “Your statue collection didn’t prepare me for this.”
He laughed, but it turned into a grimace as she stroked her fist up, then down again. “I should hope not,” he ground out as she stroked him again. “Most of them were mutilated by pious Crusaders.”
She shifted her hand to his testicles, learning their weight, and his words ended in a sharp exhale. “Christ, Prudence.”
She stopped. “Am I hurting you?”
This time, his laugh belonged on a gallows. “Not in the way you think. But I warned you about private rooms and jealous men. You are going to find yourself on your back if you don’t stop at once.”
She kissed the very tip of his shaft before she lost her nerve. “There are worse choices,” she whispered against his skin.
Then she took him into her mouth. She had seen enough engravings to know this was possible, and his exploration of her with his own mouth had given her some sense of how it might feel for him. But it was still a surprise when his hand fisted in her hair, when he groaned again.
She slid her tongue around the head, tasting something incontrovertibly male that she wasn’t ladylike enough to find unpleasant. She couldn’t take all of him, though, and so she wrapped her hand around the base again, holding him steady while she sucked his flesh. She wanted to tease him, stroke him, drive him mad…
She didn’t last for long. His warning hadn’t been an idle threat. He pulled back suddenly, then pushed her down to the floor. His hand was lightning fast, yanking her skirts up to her waist, plunging a finger into her slick passage. She hadn’t realized how wet she was for him, but when she gasped, he laughed.
“You cannot tell me you don’t want this,” he said, pulling back and circling a teasing finger around the point where all her need was suddenly, achingly focused.
There was no need to respond. She couldn’t respond anyway, not as he took his time tormenting her, driving her to the same need she’d forced upon him. When she was near to begging underneath him, he plunged into her, and she felt how tenuous his self-control was.
She arched up to meet him, wanting him deeper, wanting them both to come apart. He sensed what she wanted, hooking an arm around her thigh and pushing her leg back, changing the angle to something that only increased her need. Her hand clawed into his shoulder and he leaned down to kiss her, his tongue and his cock driving into her with the same desperate need. He swallowed her cry as she came apart, then gave it back to her as he spent himself inside her.
