For the Earl's Pleasure

by Anne Mallory

  Spirals of pure sensation radiated out and she clutched at his shoulders as he continued the pace, the driving need, almost out of control.

  “Abigail,” he whispered as he drove into her so deeply that she felt him embedded in her soul. She answered every question he was asking through her body, through her eyes, gazing up into his. His darkened and he thrust again, setting every nerve in her body aflame.

  “Yes,” he said.

  And she arched against him, clinging to love rediscovered and consummated.

  Chapter 19

  Valerian watched her sleep. Wretchedly complicated, life. Even if he woke to this all truly being the dream he had wished for it to be in the last couple weeks, he didn’t know if he could go back to being the same.

  No, he could. It was demanded of him.

  But what price to pay?

  She shifted, her rich brown hair spreading further on her pillow. So much more wild and free than the plait her maid usually dressed it in. He touched a strand and then withdrew his hand. She wasn’t for him. He knew it—had always known it since he’d become the heir. It was one of the things that he had railed against internally. One of the reasons that he had purged her from his life, the temptation too great otherwise.

  There had been many excuses, many reasons to live life without her. They all seemed so empty and pointless now. What standard was he living up to? What fear was he running from? What had he allowed himself to become over the last ten years?

  He knew that if the real list ever became public she would be ostracized. His grandmother would make sure of it to her dying breath.

  The tug strained and stretched. There was a part of him that wanted to follow the tug, that knew that he would end up in his physical body if he just let loose long enough to let it take him. But the other part, growing stronger by the day, whispered that he would lose everything he had gained should he follow the tug.

  He rubbed the silky strand between his fingers.

  His betrothal agreement was already drawn up—had been for a long time now, just waiting for him to stop dragging his feet. Celeste Malcolm would make the perfect society bride. All he needed to do was wake up, sign the document, and show up at St. George’s at the appointed hour.

  He could continue living his life the way he had for the past ten years. Continue to be on top of the ton, strengthening that tie even. Beating Thornton at his own game.

  Abigail rolled over, her cheek cradling on top of his hand.

  Such an easier thing, to pretend that this was his life instead. To contemplate alternatives.

  To live the life that he had denied himself. One full of love and laughter. One that demanded he splay himself forward, give her his heart, allow her the power over him that she had once had. That had cut so sharply when he thought she had betrayed him. Laughed at him. Turned against him.

  He never wanted to feel that again.

  He touched the strand once more. But could he go without feeling her next to him?

  What price then did love demand?

  Abigail woke to the early chirpers singing in the tree outside her window. Valerian was away, probably attempting to terrify a maid somewhere in the house. He always returned within a few minutes of her waking though, as if he knew the exact moment her eyelids parted.

  She stretched and pulled the cord for Telly before swinging her legs out from under the covers.

  Aunt Effie looked even worse than she had the day before. Crackling and blurred. Abigail opened her mouth to say something, but stopped when she heard footsteps ascending the stairs.

  There was a tentative knock on her door. “Come in, Telly.”

  Abigail rose and was in the process of walking to her dressing table when she saw her visitor was not her maid after all.

  “Mother.”

  Her mother softly closed the door behind her.

  Abigail watched her, suddenly wishing that Valerian was near and that he hadn’t gone to do whatever it was that he did in the house when she was abed.

  “Abigail.”

  “Good morning, Mother. I was expecting Telly so that we might get an early start on the day.”

  “I know. I heard the bell and told her to wait.”

  Abigail shifted. Any deviation in her mother’s routine was cause for concern.

  Her mother crossed to her dressing table and absently played with the implements on top, arranging them. Abigail stiffened when her fingers touched her ivory brush. Her mother had never asked her where she had gotten it, had simply stared at it those long years ago, then moved on to another topic.

  “How are you?”

  “I am fine.” She waited, wondering what her mother was up to.

  “I sent a note to Dr. Myers this morning.”

  Abigail stiffened. The man had contacted her mother straightaway after all. Followed through on his threat in the alley. She hadn’t thought he would be believed without proof—the natural optimism she had once possessed had been creeping like a vine into her thoughts and twisting them back to what they had once been. Dangerous to be optimistic.

  She contemplated exactly what she would pack and to where she would go first. Valerian’s flippant suggestion to dress like a boy and go to the continent, delivered so long ago now, was mad, but not as mad as staying.

  There was a sense of calm overlying the panic. The moment she had dreaded with her mother—the end—had finally arrived, and there was some sense of relief that the choice was now upon her.

  “I see.”

  “Do you?” She could see her mother’s eyes close through the looking glass, sad and weary.

  “No, you know that I do not,” Abigail said as calmly as she could manage. “I thought we had come to an understanding.”

  “We did,” her mother said softly. “I told him his services would no longer be needed. That they would never be needed again.”

  Abigail sat down abruptly on the bed and gripped the lace-covered cloth, unsure she had heard her right. “You, you are not going to try to get me to accept his treatment?”

  Her mother’s eyes opened, shining and sad. “No,” she said softly.

  Abigail thought she would feel an overwhelming sense of relief, but instead she simply felt numb. “I don’t understand.”

  “I know you do not. And it is past time I explain myself.”

  Abigail would have eagerly sought the explanation two weeks ago. Too much had changed, however. “Very well.”

  Her mother hesitated, then turned from the mirror. She walked forward slowly, as if Abigail might bolt. When she didn’t, her mother tentatively perched at the edge of the bed.

  “A long time ago, I fell in love with a boy. The silly sort of young love when the body and mind are first blooming.”

  That wasn’t exactly what she had expected to hear, but she nodded for her mother to continue.

  “The boy seemed interested in me too. Oh, you know the type of interest. Ready for a quick tumble—his first, and willing to do most anything to get it.” Her mother seemed embarrassed for a second then raised her chin. “I allowed him to kiss me. It was magical.”

  She smiled briefly and Abigail’s curiosity peaked. Her mother had never talked about anyone other than her father in such terms.

  “And then…” Her hands curled into the coverlet. “And then I saw my first one.”

  Abigail froze—immediate understanding coming upon her as a direct mirror to her own past. She opened her mouth but was unable to say anything for a few moments. “You saw spirits?”

  “Yes,” her mother whispered.

  So many emotions whipped through her that Abigail had trouble identifying any of them. Relief, hope, confusion, rage. “You knew. You knew this whole time.”

  “Of course I did.” Her mother refused to look at her. “How could I not?”

  “But why didn’t you say anything?” Anguish rose within her. “I desperately needed someone to talk to.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “But I thought it easier if
you just got rid of the curse altogether—the sooner the better. Before you could be beguiled like I was.”

  “Beguiled?”

  “Yes.” She looked at Abigail. “The Smart family. Our family worked for theirs. They always had a kind word for me, even in death. Shared all their secrets. Shared everything that I needed.” She looked away. “I didn’t want you to fall into the same seductive trap. Getting too interested in a spirit, believing in things out of your control, losing some of yourself.”

  “But you married father.”

  “Yes, but all of my knowledge of the Smarts…It was always there at the edges, waiting. Tempting me. I lost them when I was cured, but I never lost the memories or the knowledge.”

  Their real name—Travers—lost to time and the diligent erasure that her mother had put their background through. Her mother had used all her skill to marry George Travers, a nice middle-class man with moderate income, who’d then been fortunate enough to fall into an inheritance and an even better business investment. It had made them rich—and after his death, those investments had financed their entire charade as the Smarts for nearly two decades.

  “Why Dr. Myers?”

  Her mother’s fist curled more tightly. “His father was a doctor too. Learned all his secrets from him. He rid me of the world of which I had become entirely too fond.”

  Abigail watched the tension in her mother’s body. The dawning horror was tempered with cold certainty. “He forced you to have relations with him.”

  “Now, Abigail.” Her mother’s smile was strained. “Not forced. He showed me that it was in my best interest. It only took a few times and he was correct. The visions disappeared completely. I was cured.”

  “He took advantage of you!”

  “Never.” Her mother shook her head, her hand still clutched tight. “Of course the actions were uncomfortable, but I bore them.”

  Abigail had a vision of her mother’s hand—unwillingly given, pulled into a room, a man with Myers’s smile mounting and grunting while the woman—she couldn’t picture her mother, her mind forced her to insert someone else in the vision—looked lost beneath.

  “He convinced me it was for the better good. I thought later that had to be true. When you became so fond of Lord Rainewood and then had your falling out. I thought it was due to the spirits. I thought you would be happier. Dr. Myers promised me that he had other methods of treatment.”

  “Not the better good, Mother. What Dr. Myers’s father did to you was wrong.”

  Her mother smoothed a hand along her perfectly upswept hair, rubbing the glossy strands. “I was a willing participant, Abigail. And it did cure the affliction.”

  Abigail wished she could find and kill the older Myers. She had seen the exact look her mother possessed on other women’s faces. Those who allowed themselves to be manipulated because they were too unwilling to say no, to say that they were uncomfortable. Grinning and bearing it. Giving in to something that they were never comfortable with.

  “You were going to let the same happen to me.”

  “I—” Her mother smoothed her hair again. “I—”

  Her mother couldn’t finish, and Abigail had sudden insight into her parent. Her mother had always refused that type of treatment for Abigail, even though she now claimed that it had worked for her from past experience. Her mother might say that she had been a willing participant, but somewhere deep inside that she didn’t acknowledge she wasn’t able to subject her daughter to the same.

  “No,” her mother finally said. “But he almost did, didn’t he? He promised me he wouldn’t.” She closed her eyes. “He said that if I didn’t want that treatment I would have to refrain from touching you until you were cured. I just wanted you to be happy.”

  Abigail put a hand out to her mother’s arm. A bare hand extended and placed upon the skin exposed between her mother’s dress and gloves. She expected her to pull away, even if just based purely on habit, but she stayed in place.

  “Abigail, I never wanted, I never, intended…”

  “I know, Mother,” she said quietly.

  “Oh, Abigail. I thought perhaps if you received no touch that you would be less susceptible. That you wouldn’t need the full treatment.” Her mother reached out a hand and tentatively touched her in return. “That is what he told me. I—” She looked down. “Was it just another lie?”

  Her mother suddenly pulled her forward into an embrace. Abigail leaned into her arms, eyes closed, waiting for the quick hug and subsequent rejection. A flood of embarrassing relief and a tangle of emotions rushed through her as her mother clutched her back as strongly as she was being clutched.

  “Oh, Abigail, I am so sorry. I should never have had us embark upon this path. Never thought to claim the knowledge I had of the Smarts. I—I just wanted something better for you than what I had before I met your father. An attempt at a better life.”

  Abigail remembered those first few years of intensive schooling. Of training to be something for which she had not been born. Manners and knowledge gained not from the casual negligence with which true members of the ton acquired it—in school, in the house, being around the people involved—but with a steadied determination to prove something to someone she had no idea truly existed.

  And then they had moved to the country. Near a young boy just a few years older with already rakishly handsome features. A boy who ran wild, not having enough attention of his family, a devil-may-care attitude surrounding him.

  She hadn’t wanted to lose him. She had embraced the schooling with a relish she had never before possessed. Wanted those beautiful, spirited brown eyes to always look upon her with favor.

  She clutched her mother more firmly and looked over her shoulder. Her eyes clashed with deep brown—eyes that had grown more intriguing but darker, more shadowed. And now…looked furious beyond belief.

  She stiffened. It didn’t matter how long he had been standing there listening. One second was too long, and from the expression on his face he had been there much longer than one second.

  Her mother hugged her more tightly, then pulled back. “Abigail, it hasn’t been particularly awful, has it? You have many suitors. You can choose one and retire to the country if you wish. Be truly part of this world.” Her mother stroked her hair, but Abigail couldn’t keep her eyes from the apparition in the corner, the one with the narrowed eyes and closed expression.

  “The Smarts were a good family. They wouldn’t have minded. I know they wouldn’t have.” Her mother touched her own hair briefly again. “And I covered things too well. No one will ever find out.”

  Abigail couldn’t speak. Couldn’t open her throat enough to choke out a response. Valerian continued to stare darkly as each newly revealed secret, each worse than the previous, spilled from her mother’s lips.

  “We will find a way for your children not to be cursed.” Her mother hastily held out a hand. “In a different way, of course. I’m sure that you will find a way.”

  Tainted stock. That was what she was. Not only was she not even a proper or real member of society, but any children she had were likely to be cursed as well. Passed down through her doubly tainted blood. She could see the condemnation in the eyes piercing hers.

  She willed the tears away. Her mother touched her again and Abigail resisted the urge to lurch forward and bury her head in her mother’s shoulder and never look up again.

  “I will see you in an hour for the first visit, yes?”

  Abigail nodded, unable to speak. Her mother said something else and slipped from the room, looking lighter than she had. Abigail felt the weight of a thousand suns upon her.

  She looked away, unwilling to continue to see mercurial brown eyes that had been so passionate the night before looking on her with the renewed hatred of a night so long past.

  Abigail remembered that day as if it were as fresh as the morning’s dew clinging to the bottom of her windowpane.

  She sat on the stump of a fallen oak in the cozy wood copse,
their standard meeting spot, and stared as Thornton Danforth, Earl Rainewood, stepped inside instead. “My lord.” She rose.

  He stopped and watched her, his sharp, cruel eyes taking her in. “I felt the pull here. It must be because of you, since you can see me. A little nobody, how perturbing.”

  She raised her chin. She disliked the heir intensely, more for how he treated Valerian than in how he treated her, but he was still an extremely atrocious person to be near.

  His eyes narrowed further. “How extremely interesting though that it should be Valerian’s pet that brings me here.”

  She blinked and shifted on her feet, suddenly wanting to put some space between them without showing the need to do so.

  “You will help me.” He continued to move toward her, stalking her.

  A strange laugh bubbled from her stomach up to her chest. Hysterical in nature. Valerian’s brother was speaking in a maddened way. “I see. Perhaps you might find a servant better able to offer help.” She waved a hand toward the Palmbury estate.

  “Abby?”

  She breathed a sigh of relief as Valerian’s dark head appeared through the trees.

  He appeared, a broken look upon his attractive boyish face—a face that had just started sharpening into something even more appealing. She felt the urge to go to him—an urge that was growing stronger each day she saw him.

  Something in his eyes lightened, though he still looked strained. “Thank goodness. You are the only one who won’t hate me. I have to tell you something.”

  She cast a nervous glance at Thornton. “Perhaps we should go for a walk.”

  “No, I have to get it off my chest now. No one comes here.”

  “Your brother,” she blurted, pointing.

  His brows drew together, pain filing his eyes. “How did you know?”

  She stared at him, then motioned toward Thornton. Valerian followed her movement, then turned confused eyes back on her.