by Nina Rowan
What was she plotting?
The question slithered with unpleasant implications into his mind. He hated the idea that his own wife hadn’t told him the full truth yesterday of her attempt to see her son. Had she thought he’d try to prevent her from doing so?
“What are your plans for the day?” he asked in a conciliatory tone.
“Oh.” She swept a ribbon of hair away from her neck. “A visit to Uncle Granville, perhaps. I’ve been remiss in my duties at the museum, though I don’t imagine Mrs. Fox laments my absence.”
She picked at a muffin, leaving her plate littered with crumbs, then took a delicate swallow of coffee. “Are you going out? Do you have time to leave me at the museum?”
Sebastian nodded. “Will you try to see Andrew again today?”
Clara fumbled again in the movement of setting her cup on the saucer. The cup tipped, spilling a few drops of coffee onto the pristine tablecloth. “Oh! I’m so sorry.”
“Never mind.”
Clara grabbed a napkin and began pressing on the stains. “Silly of me, wasn’t it?”
“Clara, leave it.” With a mutter of irritation, Sebastian pushed his chair back and went to her side. He grasped her wrist to stop her ineffectual wiping. Her skin was cold, her pulse beating rapidly against his fingers.
“Clara.”
She turned to him, a faint wildness darkening her eyes to purple. “I’ll just finish getting ready then.”
“Will you try to see Andrew again today?” Sebastian repeated.
Her throat rippled with a swallow. She lowered her gaze from his and shook her head. “It was foolish of me to go yesterday. I’m afraid Fairfax will learn of my presence, so it’s best if I stay away.”
Sebastian tucked his forefinger beneath her chin and lifted her face. He searched her eyes for signs of deception and found none. He found nothing. A transparent shield permitted the colors of her eyes to gleam as vividly as ever, but it concealed the emotions usually storming in their depths.
He stepped away from her. Irritation flared. “All right, then. I’ll leave you at the museum before my appointment at the bank.”
“Don’t do anything foolish.” A plea threaded her words. “We’ll think of another arrangement, come to different terms.”
And yet they both knew Fairfax would accept no other terms. Clara swallowed. For an instant, fear shone in her expression.
“I don’t know how much time we have left,” she whispered.
Sebastian cupped her face with his left hand and willed her to believe his next words. “I will fix this, Clara. You must trust me.”
“But if we don’t have the resources to contest my father…”
Her words faded as the doorbell chimed to announce his brother’s arrival. Clara stepped away from him and turned to hurry upstairs.
Sebastian watched her go. The resolve that had taken root when he’d first learned of Clara’s dilemma now flourished into something permanent and unyielding.
He strode to the foyer as Giles opened the door to admit Darius.
“I’ve made the arrangements for your meeting with Catherine Leskovna,” Darius said as they entered the drawing room. “The day after tomorrow at the dining room of the Albion Hotel.”
Sebastian sighed. “I should never have agreed to help you find those bloody plans.”
“If you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have met Clara,” Darius replied mildly.
Sebastian lifted his head to meet his brother’s keen gaze. It was an odd sentiment coming from a man ruled by his head rather than his heart.
“Neither would I have put the earldom in jeopardy,” he said. “Again.”
Darius shrugged, as if that matter were of no more consequence than a fly in the jam jar. “The earldom is locked tight and secure.”
“For now.”
“Bear in mind that Fairfax has his own sphere, which I’m certain he wishes to keep free of rumor,” Darius said. “A peer who cast his own daughter from his estate and is effectively holding his grandson hostage while battling back creditors and potential foreclosures…imagine what polite society might have to say about such circumstances.”
“I’d tell a reporter to print it in the Morning Post if I thought Andrew would emerge unscathed,” Sebastian said. “As long as Fairfax has the boy, he has the whiphand.”
“You don’t have to print it in the papers to use the threat as leverage,” Darius pointed out. “Who else knows about this?”
“Findlay. Some of it, at any rate. I’ve an appointment at the bank later this morning.”
“I’ll come along,” Darius said. “Fairfax’s weakness is your advantage. He needs money. You have money now. And if you dangle it before him, he might very well stumble over his own feet in his haste to seize it.”
One could hope, Sebastian thought.
Chapter Sixteen
If it weren’t for the gauze of clouds veiling the afternoon sun, the scene would be a repeat of the previous day’s. Pedestrians strolled into Belgrave Square Garden, birds splashed in a puddle, a boy rolled a hoop along one of the pathways. The meat-pie vendor was stationed at his stand, casting glances at Clara in between doling out his fragrant pies. Andrew and his tutor rounded the corner at half past three, taking the same path they’d walked yesterday.
Concealed within the cab’s interior, Clara again watched her son until he had vanished from her sights.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would take him and run.
She instructed the driver to return to Mount Street. After leaving her at Blake’s Museum that morning, Sebastian and his brother had gone to an appointment with the expectation that they would return before tea.
Well enough. Time for her to pack a few remaining articles while spooling her torment into a tight, unyielding ball.
Practical. Ruthless. Determined.
She could not afford sentiments of love and regret. She could not think about never seeing Sebastian again. She could not envision how this whole plan might ricochet to hurt him. All she could do was move forward and pray Sebastian didn’t shatter her brittle façade.
Clara spent the next hour readying herself for tea, shaping her appearance with care in order to conceal any trace of distress. She dressed in an emerald-green gown that fell in sweeping folds around her legs and summoned a maid to fix her hair into a smooth chignon laced with green ribbons. She pinched her cheeks in the hopes that the extra color would conceal the tension darkening her eyes.
Male voices rumbled from the foyer. Clara smoothed her skirts and turned, pressing a hand to her belly to try to quell the riot of anxiety. She forced expression to slide from her features like water washing over a rock as she descended the stairs to greet the brothers.
A tiny curl of softness eased past her defenses when she saw them, deep in conversation as they removed their greatcoats and hats. Like two sides of the same coin with their black hair and snapping dark eyes, those Slavic cheekbones arching down to hard-edged jaws. But Darius was a foil to his elder brother, striking in the precision of his appearance, the crisp dark morning coat and waistcoat deterring wrinkles rather than attracting them the way Sebastian’s did.
And Darius lacked Sebastian’s vital energy, the restless impulses that vibrated from his very bones, his essential compulsion, impervious to rumor or scandal, to live and do and be.
Only Sebastian possessed those qualities. Only Sebastian had a mouth curved at that beautiful angle. Only he had that single lock of hair determined to flop over his forehead no matter how often he pushed it back. Only his eyes contained that beguiling mixture of warmth and wickedness that made Clara’s blood run like hot, thick honey.
“You’re just in time for tea,” she said, descending the remainder of the stairs. “It’s an unusually warm afternoon out, isn’t it? Is autumn in St. Petersburg quite this lovely, Darius?”
“Often, yes, we too are blessed with a colorful autumn, though I consider St. Petersburg lovely any time of the year.”
“I should
like to hear more about it, then.”
Clara didn’t know how much Sebastian had told his brother about the snarled mess of their circumstances, so she kept the conversation centered on Darius as they took tea and cake in the parlor. She quite liked the pragmatic young man, at once so different and yet so similar to Sebastian. His presence made Clara wish she could become acquainted with the rest of the Hall family.
And yet, God willing, that would never happen.
Suppressing pain at the thought, Clara made her excuses and left the brothers alone as she returned to her bedchamber. She occupied herself with useless tasks—repacking her belongings, unsnarling her ribbons from their tangle, considering and then dismissing the idea of writing Sebastian a letter of explanation. The less he knew, the better.
She then took supper in her room, sending down a claim of fatigue that she knew would not prevent Sebastian from coming to her later that night.
And so he did, a fire crackling in his gaze as he entered her room. “You’re not unwell?” he asked.
“Oh, no. I wanted to give you time with your brother. I…I look forward to one day meeting the rest of your family.”
“They’ll feel the same when Darius tells them of our marriage.” Sebastian tugged at the bonds of his cravat, drawing Clara’s eyes to the flex and pull of his long fingers.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would leave this man whom she loved and pray her flight kept him safe.
Blinking away the glitter of tears, she rose and approached him. She eased his hands aside and loosened the knot, allowing the silk to glide through her fingers before pulling it free. Crumpling the silk into her palm, she went to her dressing table where her box of ribbons still sat. She dropped the cravat beside the box and returned to Sebastian. She wound her arms around him, put her hand on the back of his neck, and guided his head down.
His mouth descended on hers, his hands smoothing over her sides to her hips. Their bodies pressed together like the pages of a closed book, tight and sealed. Clara parted her lips, drank in Sebastian’s murmur of pleasure, stroked her tongue over his lower lip. He moved his left hand to her hair, unfastening the pins and dropping them to the floor while he deepened the kiss to the color of emeralds.
Her eyes drifted closed as he pulled the tangles from her hair with gentle strokes, then cupped her face between his palms and kissed her cheeks, her forehead, her eyelids, the tip of her nose. She grasped his arms and urged him to the bed, wanting his weight on top of her one last time before she broke their world apart.
Sebastian spanned her waist with his hands, preventing her from sinking against the coverlet, and turned her back to him. He unfastened the buttons of her dress with the growing dexterity of his left hand, then divested her of her corset and let it fall to the floor.
Clara inhaled, her body softening with the release of her clothes, as Sebastian continued undressing her until the fire-warmed air caressed her naked skin. His hot eyes slipped over her, tracing the contours of her breasts and hips before he gathered her in his arms again and guided her to the bed.
She thrust her hands into his thick hair, gasping as he kissed a path from her lips to her throat and down to the taut peaks of her breasts. Pleasure bolted through her, pooling into the core of her body. He closed his lips around her nipple, and she arched against him, winding her legs around his thighs. Her skin surged with heat. She wanted this forever, wanted him forever.
Rising to her elbows, she watched as he pressed his mouth to the curve of her belly, his whiskers deliciously abrading a path, his tongue swirling into her navel. She closed her fingers around his shoulders, urging him back up the length of her body so that she could unfasten his shirt and ease the linen from his muscular shoulders.
Such a beautiful man. Clara stroked her hands over his arms, down his chest to his trousers.
“Take them off,” she whispered, uncertain if she spoke an order or a plea.
He pushed the trousers to the floor. Arousal coiled into her at the sight of his smooth, hard shaft, the empty place at her core aching. She pressed him onto his back and mapped his body with her hands and mouth, kissing and touching every plane and sinew of his chest. His skin burned beneath her lips, his chest rising and falling with the sound of his breaths. Clara traveled a path that she would be forced to leave behind forever while simultaneously wishing, with desperation, that she could traverse it again and again.
She curled her hand around his erection, perspiration dotting her brow as she pressed her thighs together to quell the throbbing ache. Sebastian grasped one of her thighs and urged her legs over his hips so that she straddled his body. A trace of unease lanced into her—this was the posture of a whore, surely—but Sebastian’s eyes blazed with such a combination of desire and heat that Clara trembled with the urge to indulge in this blatantly provocative act.
“Sebastian, I…”
He stopped her words with a tightening of his fingers. One guiding hand on the curve of her hip, he took his shaft in the other hand and poised himself at the entrance of her body. Chestnut hair falling in skeins over her shoulders, Clara braced her hands on the wall of his chest and stared down at him.
“I can’t…” She gasped, words falling away at the drenching knowledge that with one shift of her hips, she could plunge downward and savor that hard, delicious thrust of pleasure. The exquisite memory of how it had felt the last time she straddled his lap spilled through her mind.
“You can.” Cords tightened in his neck, his fingers flexing against the dip of her waist. “You will.”
She did. Tentative at first, she lowered her body until he glided halfway into her and then, with a moan, she sank farther until he was fully inside her. Hot. Hard. Pulsing.
Clara curled her fingers against his damp chest. Her heart pounded against her rib cage, her gasping breaths flowing down to mingle with his.
“Clara.” He shifted beneath her, pushing his hips upward to thrust into her with a force that wrung a cry from her throat. “You need to…”
Spurred by recently learned instincts, she lifted her body and lowered it again, soon meeting his upward thrusts with a rhythm that made her blood burn and her body sing. Her arousal spiraled tighter and tighter, winding into the center of her being. Sweat coursed down her spine, into the crevice between her breasts.
She gasped when Sebastian gripped her waist, this time preventing her downward glide. He twisted her onto her back, his body still locked with hers, and surged over her. Clara wound her arms around him, her panting moans hot against his bare shoulder as he pushed into her and drove them both into the sweet, churning storm of bliss.
Afterward, he clasped her in his arms and they lay still and silent as their breathing slowed. Clara pressed her lips to his chest and closed her eyes.
This was the end. With everything she was, she had to pray for the success of her escape. And while sorrow blackened the circumstances that had led her to such desperation, she could not regret a single moment she had spent with Sebastian. Indeed, a restive joy surged in Clara with the grace of a bird taking flight—and she believed she could live a lifetime of undiluted happiness and gratitude that she had known such a man.
She lifted herself to her elbow and looked at him. Heat kindled in Sebastian’s eyes along with something else, something more, an emotion that expanded the walls of Clara’s soul.
Her heart was still sealed. But with him inside. She had locked her heart well and truly—not to keep Sebastian Hall out but to ensure he remained within.
The only sounds in the morning room were the scrape of forks against plates and coffee cups clicking against saucers. Sebastian watched Clara, who sat with a rigid posture in utter contrast to her supple writhings of the previous night. Again that brittleness had encased her, a teacup lined with threadlike cracks.
“So.” She patted her lips with a napkin, although she hadn’t eaten a bite. “Where is your meeting taking place?”
“I’ve arranged for us to meet at the dining roo
m of the Albion Hotel,” Darius said. “What are your plans for the day, Clara?”
“I thought I’d visit Mudie’s Library, then pay a visit to Uncle Granville.” She set her napkin beside her plate. “In fact, I’m running a bit late already, so if you’ll both excuse me, I’ll finish getting ready.”
Both Sebastian and Darius stood and watched her leave, then exchanged glances. Sebastian was not surprised that his brother sensed the odd tension threading the air. He shoved his chair back and headed upstairs. He found Clara in her bedchamber, closing the wooden box that contained her beloved tangle of ribbons.
Sebastian stopped in the doorway. “What is going on?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You look as if you’re close to breaking.” He approached her, disliking the utter paleness of her skin and that impassive veil that had once again descended over her expression. “We will deal with Fairfax, Clara, I promise you.”
Her throat worked with a swallow, her gaze darting to the scarred box. Just before her lashes lowered, a flash of something—disbelief? guilt?—appeared in her eyes. Sebastian reached out to take the box from her.
Clara started. “What—”
He flipped the lid open. Nestled amid the cobweb of ribbons was the cravat he’d worn yesterday. With a frown, he pulled the blue silk from the box, ribbons spilling away from it, and shifted his gaze to Clara.
Guilt. What the hell did she have to be guilty about? What was she hiding from him?
“It’s…ah, you know I keep the ribbons because they’re precious to me,” she said. “I wanted one of your cravats for the same reason. I hope that’s all right.”
“Of course it’s all right.” Disquieted by her reaction, he dropped the cravat back into the box and snapped the lid closed. “All you need do is ask. You shall have anything you want.”
Not until the words hovered between them did Sebastian realize he had not yet given her her heart’s desire. An oath broke through his mind.
