The Vanishing of Lord Vale

by Chasity Bowlin

  He let go of her abruptly and scrubbed his hands over his face and let his fingers comb through his golden hair, sending the locks into disarray. “I have told her, Elizabeth. Every time I have been in her presence, I have told her. Short of being unnecessarily cruel to a woman who is already beyond fragile, what would you have me do?”

  “Lie,” Elizabeth said. “Tell her you remember your true parents. Just tell her anything that will keep her from clinging to this false hope.”

  “And if it isn’t?” he retorted. “What bothers you the most, Elizabeth? That right now I’m the completely disreputable owner of a gaming hell you shouldn’t even speak to much less kiss? Or is that I might be the lost lord… and too far above your own lowly station?”

  It was both. She hadn’t allowed herself to actually put it into words, not even in her own mind, but there was no denying the truth once he uttered it. In his current position, to entertain any sort of romantic entanglement with him was to toss away any remaining vestige of respectability that she possessed. But if he was, in fact, the missing Lord Vale, she would never be anything to him other than a mistress, too far beneath his station for anything more concrete.

  Perhaps she wasn’t as hedonistic as she’d once believed herself to be. Even in her brief affair with Fredrick, she’d believed, somewhat naively, that she would one day be his wife. She no longer possessed the ability to lie to herself to that extent. There was no future with Benedict Mason, regardless of how attractive she found him or how much she was drawn to him. Not that he had expressed any interest in the future. Everything he appeared to want was in their very immediate present.

  “Is it wrong that I know my place in this world, Mr. Mason? That I understand the standards of behavior I must adhere to in order to maintain my position? I have no aspirations to climb any higher, but I refuse to fall any further than I have!” she snapped.

  *

  Benedict wasn’t entirely sure what it was that infuriated him so in her heated response. Perhaps it was simply that everything she said made perfect sense, and sense was not what he wanted in that moment. He wanted recklessness and heat—he wanted to feel her come undone beneath him and, for once, to have her look at him without suspicion and caution. She stirred something in him that was beyond simple attraction and desire. It maddened him. Crossing to the desk again, he refilled his glass and took a healthy swallow of the amber liquid.

  “To hell with your place in the world and to hell with mine! If I’d listened to everyone who told me where my place was, I’d still be stacking rocks in the north country, stooped over with an aching back and hands too rough to even touch you with,” he said. “Make your own place, Elizabeth. Decide what you want and then do whatever it takes to get it.”

  “Is that what you did?” she asked. The heat in her voice had subsided, leaving in its stead a wistfulness that pricked at his more tender feelings. The nightmarish visions that had plagued him had left him feeling raw and eager to lash out at anyone who might strike his ire. But those feelings faded in her presence, faded as they both carefully lowered their guards and met one another on even ground.

  “It’s what I mean to do now,” he vowed.

  Placing his glass once more on the wooden surface of the desk, he took two steps toward her until he could grasp her wrist. A simple tug was all it took as he pulled her to him, because there was no resistance in her. It was clear from the way she leaned into him, from the soft sigh that escaped her lips as their bodies touched, that it was what she wanted, as well.

  “Why do I crave you?” he asked. “It is glaringly apparent that no two people have ever been more ill-suited to one another… and yet, from the moment I first spied you in that square, all shy and proper, then later hissing and clawing like a feral cat in that alleyway, I could not get you out of my mind.”

  “I wish I knew the answer to that. We should not continue this,” she said. But even as she uttered that small token protest, she made no move to break free of his embrace. Instead, she pressed her face into his chest, resting her head against his shoulder.

  Dipping his head, Benedict inhaled the soft scent of lemon verbena that clung to her hair. It was a scent that would haunt him for the remainder of his days. “If I kiss you again, Elizabeth, it will not be enough.”

  “You kissed me twice and it hasn’t been enough,” she murmured.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Benedict placed his fingertips beneath her chin and tipped her face up until he could settle his lips on hers once more. From that moment in the corridor earlier, the need to taste her again had tormented him. He’d enjoyed women in his life—their softness, their often quixotic nature, the way they could, by turns, be shyly demure and wildly passionate. But he’d never known a woman that, for lack of a better description, crawled beneath his skin and invaded his being. He wanted her in the same way that he wanted his next breath—fierce, primal, willing to fight hook and claw for it.

  It was not as it had been before. During their first kiss, she had been hesitant, kissing him back reluctantly. This time, whether it was their verbal sparring or simply acknowledging the inevitability of all that lay between them, she welcomed his touch immediately and responded with the full force of her passion.

  It was both staggering and humbling to know that her desire equaled his own, to know that she longed for him just as he longed for her. He was not a man given to romantic notions or flights of fancy, but there seemed to be something between them that was simply fated. She called to parts of him that he’d thought long buried, inciting a swell of tenderness inside him that would have shocked her.

  Benedict pulled her closer, holding her tighter to him. The tie of her wrapper shifted and the garment parted, revealing the white lawn of her night rail beneath. The knowledge that she wore only that, without the restrictive stays or numerous petticoats beneath added another even greater intimacy to the encounter and greater temptation, as well. It was no longer simply a kiss, but a prelude to something far more carnal and earthy. Benedict slipped his hands beneath the heavy wool of her wrapper, bringing them to rest on her hips. She swayed slightly, leaning into him, resting the weight of her body fully against his.

  It was the sweetest of surrenders. It would have been sweeter were he able to simply lift her in his arms, bear her to the small settee and bring her to pleasure again and again. But he wasn’t foolish enough to think himself fully up to the task. Instead, he walked them backward, keeping her in his embrace, kissing her senseless the whole time. When the backs of his knees bumped the settee, he eased himself down and pulled her with him.

  Sprawled on his lap, her body pressed to him and her tongue tangling delicately with his own, there was no question that was knew what was about to occur.

  He broke the kiss for a one moment, met her heavy-lidded gaze, and said, “You have to be certain.”

  “There are no certainties in life, Benedict… only moments. And whether it comes with a lifetime of regret or not, I mean to seize this one.”

  There was no need to ask for further elaboration on the point. She lifted her hands from his shoulders and dropped them to the simply tied sash of her wrapper. Her fingers worked the knot until it slipped free and fabric parted to reveal the simple night rail beneath. Even in the dim light of the fireplace, he could see the shadows of her body beneath it, dips and curves that hinted at the glory of her figure.

  Benedict placed one hand on her thigh, let it slide upward and beneath the hem of her night rail. Gliding over silken skin until he found the curve of her waist, he used it to guide her, to move her until she was straddling his thighs. Unable to resist the sweet allure of her breasts beneath the crisp lawn, he kissed first one and then the other before parting the fabric and revealing the darker circles of her perfect nipples.

  “You are so beautiful,” he whispered.

  “I’m not. Passably pretty, at best, and even then not when I tie my hair back so tightly and wear hideous, brown dresses,” she admitted shyly. />
  He smiled at her sudden reticence. “Well, you aren’t wearing a hideous brown dress now,” he said. Reaching up, he tugged at the ribbon that fastened her braid. It slipped free and the used his fingers to loosen the plait of her hair until the rich brown tresses cascaded over her shoulders. “And never deny your beauty… if you could see yourself as I do in this moment—”

  “Kiss me again,” she urged. “Before I lose my nerve or we start to argue over how pretty I am or am not.”

  He might have laughed at that, both because it was true and because of her slightly petulant expression as she uttered it. But she rose onto her knees, planted her lips on his and took charge of the kiss. It was the kiss of a woman who knew what she wanted and was not afraid to ask for it, of a woman who understood passion and pleasure. There might have been some part of him that was jealous of the fact that another man, an unworthy man, had introduced her to such things. But there was another part of him that was grateful. He did not have to curb his desires. He did not have to worry that she would be shocked or frightened.

  Benedict let his hands roam her body, testing every curve, learning each contour as the kiss grew. It consumed them, left them both breathless and aching. They would pause long enough to draw a breath and return as if ravenous for one another. When his hands closed over her breasts, his fingers circling the pebbled peaks, her gasp and cry was lost in that kiss.

  When she reached between them, her fingers tugging at the fall of his breeches, he didn’t caution her to slow down. He was at war within himself, alternately wanting to savor each second and to simply sink into the heat of her and lose himself in it. Delving one hand between her thighs, finding her wet and eager for him, need won out.

  After managing to free the buttons of his breeches, her hand closed over him as he nipped at her bottom lip. She rose onto her knees again and he closed his hand over hers, gripping his shaft, and guided himself to her entrance as she sank down once more.

  That moment of contact, when he was fully inside her, their bodies joined, was perfection. They both stilled, their breaths coming in sharp pants as their gazes locked. His hands settled on her hips, urging her on, guiding her as they began to move together. Neither made a sound, each one aware of the cost of discovery. But as her head fell back, her lips parted on a silent cry, he leaned forward and kissed the arched column of her throat, scraping his teeth lightly over that sensitive flesh.

  She bit her lips as a muffled cry escaped between them. He lifted his hips, driving deeper into her as he felt her shudder about him. And when she clamped tightly around him, lost in the violence of her own passion, he followed her over that precipice, pouring himself into her.

  In all, it was over quickly. So quickly he might have been ashamed had she not still been trembling from her own release. He could feel the quivering of her thighs against him, the spasms that still rocked her core as he softened within her.

  “I won’t say it was a mistake,” she whispered, resting her head against his uninjured shoulder.

  “But you will think it. Over and over again,” he surmised with a sad smile.

  “No. I don’t think I will. But I will remind myself daily why it would be foolish to repeat it. Neither of us wants the consequences that may arise from it,” she stated firmly.

  “A child, you mean? Would it be so terrible then?”

  She raised her head. “I suppose that would depend on whether you are simply a man who owns a gaming hell or the lost heir to the Vale Viscountcy. There are too many things unknown at this juncture for us to even think about what our future might hold… much less to consider bringing an innocent child into it.”

  That was not a statement he could refute. The wisdom of it was undeniable. Before he could formulate a reply, the sound of breaking glass echoed through the lower floor. Their brief interlude ended immediately. Elizabeth freed herself from their entangled embrace and rose to her feet. She stepped back, eyes wide with fear as she righted her clothes. “Did you hear that?”

  “I did,” he said grimly, getting to his feet and repairing his own garments. “Wait here!”

  “No! I’m going with you,” she insisted.

  “If it’s a housebreaker—”

  “Then leaving me alone to fend them off by myself is certainly not the best course of action!” she stated firmly.

  He grimaced. “Fine, but stay behind me.”

  Together, they left the library and followed the sound. It had come from the front of the house. Opening the heavy pocket doors of the drawing room, Benedict felt the cool night air from the broken window and cursed.

  The room was obviously empty. Stepping deeper into it, he saw the heavy stone lying on the carpet. There was no note attached to it. It was not a warning sign or a threat, as such things often were.

  “Benedict!” Elizabeth screamed.

  He looked up just in time to see the flaming bottle sail through the now empty frame of the destroyed window. Ducking to one side, he rolled away from the collision point, even as it burst into flames. The curtains caught and flames immediately leapt up them, going nearly to the ceiling.

  “Go upstairs! Wake everyone and get the women outside. We need all the men down here to fight the blaze!” he shouted, even as he grabbed the fireplace poker and began tearing down the curtains and forcing the flaming mass into the dampness of the night beyond.

  He turned back to see Elizabeth standing there, eyes wide with terror, watching the flames as if in a trance. Closing the space between them, he grasped her arms and forced her to face him. “Elizabeth!” There was no response. “Elizabeth!” he shouted again. Finally, she blinked at him.

  “Go upstairs. Now. Get everyone out of the house that isn’t able to help fight this fire!”

  She nodded and turned on her heel, heading up the stairs into the darkness. Facing the flames once more, he struggled simply to contain them. With his hands and arms singed from the flames, he did all in his power to keep the carpet from igniting further. He pulled furniture away from the origin point of the blaze. The stitches at his shoulder tore and blood seeped from the wound. Benedict ignored it.

  By the time a bevy of footmen entered the room, he was exhausted. Each carried buckets of sand and water. Directed by Calvert, the butler, they worked much like a well-oiled machine.

  It didn’t take long before the smaller offshoots of the original fire had begun to die down or were extinguish entirely. Coughing from inhaling so much smoke, it was Calvert who gave him his marching orders.

  “Mr. Mason, sir, you have breathed in too much of this foul air. You must go outside at once. We can manage the rest!” Calvert insisted.

  “Are all the women of the household accounted for?” he demanded.

  “Yes, Mr. Mason. They are all huddled together outside and you must go huddle with them. Now, please,” Calvert insisted again.

  Benedict didn’t argue the point. He was beyond tired. His shoulder ached like the bloody dickens and all he wanted was to fill his lungs completely with air.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Elizabeth was quaking with fear as she stood in a circle of women comprised primarily of kitchen maids. Lady Vale stood to the left, watching through the window. There was little doubt that her concern was more for the man fighting the fire than for anything in the house itself.

  Forcing herself to be calm, to ignore the rushing of her blood and trembling of her knees, Elizabeth left the gaggle of female servants and approached her mistress. “I’m certain he will be well, Lady Vale. Calvert undoubtedly has things well in hand.”

  Lady Vale cocked her head and arched one eyebrow imperiously. “I’m certain that he does… the question remains, Miss Masters, what were you doing alone, in the darkest hours of night, with my son?”

  “I went downstairs for a bit of brandy to help me sleep. Apparently, Mr. Mason was suffering insomnia, as well,” Elizabeth replied smoothly. There was no need to divulge anything else. It wasn’t a mistake, but it was not something sh
e intended to repeat either, therefore, she reasoned, there was nothing to divulge. Except that she had given up all pretense of being a well-bred and upstanding young woman and let him take her right there on the library furniture. And might have done again had the fire not been started. In that one regard, perhaps it was a blessing.

  “Do you think me foolish, Miss Masters? With all my mystics and soothsayers, undoubtedly I do give that impression to some,” Lady Vale mused.

  “I do not think you foolish, Lady Vale. Not in the least.”

  “Then mark me, Elizabeth Masters… my brother-in-law may be your employer, but if you are behaving inappropriately with my son—”

  “He may not be your son. I know you want him to be. I’ll even grant that there is enough of a resemblance to make one question it. But Lady Vale, what if he is not?” Elizabeth asked. It was a subject that needed to be addressed, but it was also a desperately needed change of topic that Elizabeth seized upon to save her own hide.

  “Then he is a man who runs a gaming hell… and while I find no fault with his manners, it cannot be ignored that it is not a respectable occupation. If he is my son, you are reaching far too high, and if he is not, then you are digging your way directly to the bottom, my girl!” Lady Vale snapped.

  Effectively put in her place, Elizabeth took a deep breath. “I am doing neither of those things, Lady Vale. While I was getting a drink, I heard breaking glass, as did Mr. Mason. We went to investigate it and someone threw a flaming bottle through the window! There are greater issues at stake right now, Lady Vale, than whether or not you would find me a suitable prospect for a man who may or may not be your son! Someone tried to commit murder this night… whether the intended victim was you, me, or Mr. Mason, remains unknown!”

  Benedict emerged from the house then. He was coughing furiously and his shirt was stained with soot and what appeared to be blood. His wound had reopened. They would need to have someone fetch the doctor.