by Anna Bradley
“I confess I’m surprised to see you so looking so well,” Miss Thurston said. “Why, it’s difficult to believe you were so very ill mere days ago.”
Lady Eleanor sipped her tea. “Boar’s milk.”
Miss Thurston gave her a blank look, then glanced at Miss Darlington, who shrugged. “I beg your pardon?”
“Boar’s milk. Haven’t you heard, Miss Thurston? The latest cure. My sister has been drinking it all week, and as you can see, she’s in the pink of health.”
“I—boar’s milk? Well, I had no idea.”
“No. I didn’t suppose you had. It does wonders for the complexion, too. You should try it.”
Boar’s milk? Was there even such a thing as boar’s milk? Cam imagined Miss Thurston scouring every apothecary’s shop in London for boar’s milk, and stifled a laugh.
“Did you hear about Miss Abbott?” asked Miss Darlington, who seemed to think a change of topic was in order.
“I don’t believe I know Miss Abbot,” Charlotte said.
Miss Thurston tittered. “She’s no one special, and not likely to attract the notice of the ton.”
“Well, what of her, then?” Lady Eleanor asked, with barely concealed impatience.
“She and her sponsor, Mrs. Bridewell, have appealed to the patronesses of Almack’s for a voucher.”
Both Miss Thurston and Miss Darlington burst into malicious laugher at this announcement, but none of the three Sutherland ladies seemed to find the information amusing. They sipped their tea, their expressions unreadable.
“Can you imagine?” Miss Thurston continued. “The effrontery of them both, to think Miss Abbott, of all people, should have a voucher.”
“Shocking,” Lady Eleanor said after a moment.
Did she think it was shocking? Cam studied her, but her face revealed little. He thought he saw a faint look of disgust twist her lips, but he couldn’t determine if the look was for Miss Darlington and Miss Thurston, or for Miss Abbott.
It stood to reason it was for Miss Abbott, who’d dared to get so far above herself. Lady Eleanor was clever, even kind, but she was ton, too. She might not be quite the despicable snob Miss Thurston and Miss Darlington were, but would she side with the common Miss Abbott?
What were the chances she’d side with Amelia? His sister was bright and funny, but that wouldn’t matter to people like Miss Thurston and Miss Darlington, who would always see her as beneath them.
What of Eleanor Sutherland? Something she’d said the other day came back to him then, something about marrying beneath herself . . .
He gripped the handle of his teacup until the fine porcelain threatened to turn to powder between his fingers. If he could judge by the trail of disappointed suitors she left in her wake, every gentleman in London was beneath her—
“. . . thank you for your visit,” Lady Catherine was saying.
Cam looked up to find Miss Darlington and Miss Thurston taking their leave. He rose to his feet, bowed politely to one loathsome female, then the other, and privately wished them both to the devil.
As soon as the drawing room door closed behind them, Cam bowed to Lady Catherine. “Thank you for the tea. I must take my leave, as well.”
“Oh, Mr. West,” Lady Catherine said. “I want to invite you for supper tonight, as a thank you for your donation to the Society, and also for being so kind to Eleanor and Charlotte at the Foster’s ball. I know this is last minute, but do say you’ll come. My sons and their families will dine with us, and I know they’d enjoy meeting you.”
Cam tried to hide his surprise. He hadn’t expected such gracious attention from Lady Catherine, and he was tempted to accept. Mention of her sons made him hesitate, however. Lord Carlisle and Robert Sutherland were reputed to be protective of their sisters, and Cam didn’t want to deal with any rabid watchdogs just yet.
He glanced over at Lady Eleanor, who looked as if she’d like to slap a hand over her mother’s mouth to silence her. Did the lady hope he’d decline? Ah, well. He’d have to come, then, watchdog be damned. She couldn’t have her own way every time. It wasn’t good for her.
He grinned at her, then turned back to Lady Catherine. “I’d be delighted, my lady. Thank you.”
“Wonderful.” Lady Catherine smiled. “Seven o’clock?”
Cam couldn’t resist a triumphant glance at Eleanor. “Of course. Nothing would please me more. Now, I must be off, but may I beg Lady Eleanor’s indulgence for one moment on my way out?”
Lady Catherine waved her daughter toward the door. “Yes, go on, Eleanor. We shall see you tonight, Mr. West.”
Cam bowed again, then offered Eleanor his arm and led her from the room.
“You see, Lady Eleanor?” he murmured, as soon as they were alone. “No bad deed goes unpunished. You may have avoided me today, but now you’ll be cursed with my company for an entire evening.”
“Avoided you?” She looked down at the place where her hand rested on his arm. “I’m in your company even now, Mr. West.”
Cam tried not think about the warm pressure of her fingers on his coat. “We had an agreement. You will make yourself available to me, or I’ll make my cousin available to Lady Charlotte.”
“No. You won’t.”
He stopped in the deserted hallway between the drawing room and the entryway, anger rising at this casual dismissal. “We’re not discussing some nonsense about a voucher to Almack’s, my lady. I mean what I say.”
She glanced toward the entryway, then lowered her voice. “If Charlotte is seen too often in your cousin’s company, Mr. West, her fate will be sealed. The ton already believes her guilty. They seek only the flimsiest corroboration of it. I’m certain you don’t wish to provide them with it. However will you get me down the aisle if you do?”
As quickly as Cam’s anger had come upon him it drained away, replaced by a grudging admiration. “Ah. So clever, my lady. But if the worst should happen, and the ton does put Lady Charlotte on trial, only Julian and I can ensure she isn’t convicted.”
“Indispensable, are you?” She spoke defiantly, but she bit her lower lip as if worried.
Cam’s gaze darted to her lips and wet warmth filled his mouth, as if he’d tasted something succulent. Sweet.
Black currants.
He took in the flush of color high on her cheekbones, her expressive dark eyes. “Amelia is right about your eyes.” He tipped her face up to his with a finger under her chin. “So dark, but not flat. Far from it. Bottomless.”
He smiled a little as those lovely widened in astonishment. Whatever she’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that. If she knew what he was thinking . . .
Tell her.
“Your mouth makes me think of dark, ripe fruit.” He touched one fingertip to her luscious bottom lip and desire shot through him, so fierce it roughened his voice, stole his breath. “Do you taste sweet, my lady?”
He let his fingertips drift over the back of her hand, over the delicate blue veins and the fine bones of her knuckles, her skin so soft under his stroking fingers. She caught her breath as he turned her hand over and traced tiny circles in the center of her palm with the pad of his thumb.
His eyes met hers for a brief moment, then his gaze dropped back to their hands. He stared, mesmerized by the sight of his fingers caressing her. His hand looked too large, too rough, too dark, to touch such fine white skin.
He raised her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to her palm. “Shall I taste you?”
Not a kiss, only the suggestion of one, the touch so light, so fleeting, over before he could be sure it had begun, but enough, just enough of a taste . . .
“Yes,” he whispered. “Sweet.”
She gasped when he lowered his head again and the tip of his tongue grazed her palm. He opened his lips to nip at her there, and her gasp turned to a sigh, a moan.
Cam’s knees went weak at the sound. Need pounded through him, making his head swim. Madness, to kiss and touch her with her mother and sister just steps away,
but he couldn’t make it matter. Nothing mattered now but her taste, the sighs and moans he’d wrung from her.
“Ah, Ellie . . .” He dragged the sleeve of her gown away from her wrist and pressed his open mouth to that white, tender flesh. He sealed his lips over her pulse point, felt it surge and flutter against his darting tongue.
He jerked the sleeve higher so he could kiss her arm, devour the delicious skin at the inside of her elbow. In some foggy part of his brain he knew he’d lost control, but he couldn’t stop . . .
She gave a soft cry and trembled in his arms.
God, what was he doing? He’d gone mad.
He tore his mouth away from her. He waited for his ragged breathing to calm, then slowly, gently, he eased the sleeve of her gown back down her arm and smoothed it over her wrist.
He met her gaze. Her eyes were half-closed, her mouth soft, open.
“I believe I’ve shocked you speechless,” he murmured. “I didn’t think it was possible.”
It wasn’t what he meant to say, but he didn’t know how to tell her it was he who was shocked, he who was speechless.
She didn’t answer, but stared at him with wide eyes.
Cam bowed. “Until tonight, my lady.”
He left her alone in the hallway, staring after him.
Chapter Twelve
“What’s the matter, my lady?” Camden West studied her over the edge of his wineglass. “Don’t you care for trifle?”
Eleanor lowered her spoon and placed it next to her untasted dish of trifle. The pudding wasn’t the problem. No, the problem sat across the table from her, eating strawberries and cream with every appearance of enjoyment, as if the incident this afternoon had never happened.
The afternoon hadn’t gone at all how she’d planned, and she’d begun to despair of the evening, as well. For one, Mr. West should be buried at the other end of the table, far away from her, but her family didn’t bother with proper dining etiquette among friends, and this evening they’d paired off and wandered into dinner with their usual disregard for rank.
And she’d ended up across the table from him.
She couldn’t imagine what had possessed her mother to invite him, but short of tackling Lady Catherine to the drawing room floor, there’d been no way for Eleanor to stop it.
“You hardly ate any dinner.”
Eleanor brought her attention back to her dinner companion, who nodded at her overflowing dish. “I fear for your health, my lady. Even the sweets can’t tempt you?”
Hadn’t she been tempted enough for one day?
She scowled at him as he scooped up another bite of trifle with his spoon. “I find my appetite has quite deserted me this evening, and I don’t care for trifle, in any case.”
“Too sweet?” He gave her a diabolical smile. “But that’s what makes it so irresistible—the sweet, thick cream with the ripe, red fruit. You should have some. It’ll sweeten your temper.” He brought a spoonful of strawberries awash in cream to his mouth.
Under cover of the table, Eleanor crushed her napkin between her fingers. He kept using the word sweet, and she was certain it wasn’t a coincidence.
Do you taste sweet, my lady?
“You’ll need all the strength you can muster over the next week or so,” he added.
Eleanor frowned. For the battle ahead, she supposed he meant. The battle with him. The battle she was, by every measure in which a battle could be judged, losing.
“It’s delicious, you know.” He closed his lips around the spoon and his eyelids dropped shut as he savored the sweet.
Don’t watch his mouth.
It was the fourth time since the soup course she’d had to remind herself not to stare at his lips. Confound the man. Did he have to look as if he experienced sensual delight with every bite? He even made the glazed carrots look enticing.
Eleanor dropped her gaze to her plate and tried not to think about cream and strawberries, sweet and slippery on his tongue. Tried not to think about his tongue at all, or anything else to do with his mouth. How unfair it that was such a detestable man should have such intriguing lips.
And such a ravenous appetite.
She poked at a strawberry with the tip of her spoon. It slid off the mountain of cream and landed on her plate with a wet plop. Not that she found his lips in any way distracting, of course. No, certainly not. Other ladies might sigh over those full lips. Other ladies might admire those sleepy green eyes, broad shoulders, and that long lock of wavy chestnut hair that fell across his forehead. They might think he was boyishly charming, but she knew better. She knew what a perfidious fiend lurked beneath all that smooth, tawny skin.
Still, in the purely objective sense of the word, Mr. West was handsome.
Damn him.
Alec touched his napkin to his lips, and placed the cloth next to his plate. “So. West. My sister tells me you’re in shipping.”
Eleanor looked up from her plate with renewed hope. This was a bit better, at least. Alec could be rather terrifying when he chose, especially if he thought a gentleman might be courting his sister. Perhaps he’d scare Mr. West away. At the very least, it would amuse Eleanor to watch her brother squeeze Camden West until trifle came out of his handsome ears.
Mr. West gave Alec a cool look. “Yes. That’s right.” He said no more, but fixed an oddly defiant gaze on Alec.
How curious. Did he think Alec would look down on him because he was in trade?
Eleanor shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Camden West, vulnerable? No, she didn’t care for that idea. It made him too human. She’d rather imagine his body covered in impenetrable scales or hard plates—then she needn’t worry about flinging barbs at him.
Not that she imagined his body at all, of course.
“How did you get into that line?” Alec asked. “Given your success now, you can’t have been very old when you started.”
Mr. West shrugged. “No. I was just thirteen when a friend of my father’s took me on as an apprentice. He ran goods between India and England, and eventually became a shareholder in the East India Company.”
Delia, who sat to Alec’s right, exclaimed at this. “Thirteen! My goodness. You don’t mean to say you went to India at age thirteen?”
Thirteen? Eleanor sat up straighter in her chair, curious despite herself to hear Mr. West’s answer. Why, at thirteen he’d have been no more than a boy.
“No, not so young as that, Lady Carlisle, though I was as foolish and headstrong as a thirteen-year-old boy when I did make my first overseas voyage.”
“When was that?” Eleanor asked, then wanted to bite her tongue out. Now he’d think she was interested in his answer. Well, she wasn’t. Not at all. She focused her gaze on her trifle, just in case some trick of the light made it look as if she were.
He stared at her, as if surprised she’d asked.
He couldn’t be more surprised than she was. Why should she care how old he’d been? She didn’t want to hear the man’s life story, for pity’s sake. She wouldn’t know him long enough for it to make any difference to her.
“I sailed to India when I was seventeen,” he said. “My employer had a large family and didn’t care to be away from England for such a long time himself, so he sent me in his stead to secure his interests abroad and expand his shares in the Company.”
Eleanor looked around the table to see everyone leaning forward, their trifle forgotten, their attention fixed on Mr. West. She snatched up her spoon and began to dish trifle into her mouth, though each bite tasted like soggy bits of paper. Fine. She’d rather swallow tasteless mush than admit anything about Mr. West’s story interested her. She refused to allow him to be both handsome and entertaining.
“By God, that’s a lot of responsibility for such a young man.” There was no mistaking the awe in Robyn’s voice, or the look of admiration he gave Mr. West.
Oh, for God’s sake. Ellie rolled her eyes at the strawberry balanced on the end of her spoon. “Of course you would say so, Robyn, gi
ven what you were doing at age seventeen.”
There was an astonished silence as every head at the table swung in her direction, and Robyn’s wife Lily, who was seated next to her husband, placed her hand over his.
Ellie stared at her lap. What was wrong with her? She never made hurtful comments like that. She could feel her family’s curious eyes on her, and her cheeks began to burn with shame. She was about to beg Robyn’s pardon when help came from the most unexpected quarter.
“It was a great deal of responsibility, yes, but I had the most tempting inducement to succeed.”
Just like that, everyone’s attention returned to Mr. West.
Eleanor froze, her gaze on her lap still, afraid to look at him. Had he just . . . helped her? She darted a quick look at him under cover of her eyelashes and found him watching her with the oddest expression on his face, almost . . . gentle?
She lowered her gaze again, confused. Perhaps it wasn’t gentleness she saw in his eyes, but pity. He must be quite sure he’d triumph over her if he’d begun to pity her.
Whatever Mr. West’s motives were, they succeeded in distracting Robyn. “Indeed? What inducement was that?”
“I’d been in India for six years when my employer offered to sell me a part-share in one of his ships. He wanted me to remain abroad for five more years and help run the business from there so he could remain in England.”
“Is it not quite risky, Mr. West, to remain so long in India?” Lady Catherine asked. “What with the dreadful fevers, and cholera?”
“Yes. Risky enough, but like most twenty-three year old gentlemen, I thought myself invincible, and my arrogance paid off. By the time I returned to England, my employer wished to retire. He sold me his three best ships. One of these became the Amelia, and she’s now the crown jewel of the fleet.”
Robyn set his wineglass down with a sharp click. “The Amelia? The devil you say.”
“Robyn!” Lily glared at her husband, scandalized.
Robyn turned to her. “I beg your pardon, my dear, but surely you’ve heard of the Amelia? That ship’s a legend in London. The sailors say she can’t be sunk, that she sails with the hand of God on her mast. I hadn’t any idea you owned her, West. I’d love to get a look at her sometime.”
